#anyway i love jealousy and refusal to accept it. sophie i love you

[shebsart]

howl's moving castle book but it gets faster every time sophie gets jealous over the black knob and the black suit

bonus brutal sophie:

oh my god and sophie doesn't even know she's affiliated with the Witch . miss angorian's just a random woman to her 😭

[contradictionaddiction]

We talk a lot about the women in the Castles series, particularly how individual and independent each of them are. This is especially true of the Hatter family, with each of the sisters taking control of their own fate in rejection of expected norms, but, rereading Howl’s Moving Castle again the other day made me realise... there is another sister whose story is very different.

Megan Parry is generally seen as another antagonist in the story - from the constant nagging of Howl that we see in HMC to Sophie saying that she doesn't get on with her later on in CitA. She's presented as controlling, judgemental, disapproving and, ultimately, disappointed in the choices her brother has made, and this manifests as anger and frustration and an incessant criticism that causes Howl to slither away so hard he ends up in another world.

A throwaway line from a sick, half-asleep Howl got me thinking, however... "Megan's full of envy because she's respectable and I'm not."

Now, that's odd. If Megan was so disapproving and frustrated, why would she be full of envy? Howl seems to suggest that actually, this frustration lies not in disappointment, but in jealousy. What if the reason Megan is so upset by her younger brother's lifestyle is not because she disapproves, but because she resents it - because she was unable to do the same.

When we look more closely at Megan's criticisms of Howl when they go to Wales, this becomes a lot clearer.

"You're a disgrace to me and Gareth" This is how her tirade starts, and it’s the theme that she returns to at the end. As Howl highlights later, Megan is very focused on respectability and how her family is perceived by others. It's very much about keeping up appearances, showing to their neighbours that they are proper contributing members of society. Which means that the problem here isn't actually Howl and his lifestyle - it's how he impacts on the way she is perceived by others. 

"Lounging about in those clothes instead of buying a proper suit..." This is interesting, because this is Megan's perception of Howl - a perception that the reader - and Sophie and Michael - know to be untrue. Howl is notoriously fixated on his appearance and clothes, and is actually a very hard worker when it comes down to it. In fact, we frequently see Howl working exceedingly hard whilst dressed up in finery - tying back his sleeves, kneeling in mud, and then getting frustrated when a sleeve gets snagged on a nail, despite being able to fix it easily. So which is the true Howl, the lazy slob or the dedicated dandy? He's consciously chosen to present himself in Wales one way, and Ingary the complete opposite. Why? "...and looking respectable for once" Howl is Obsessed with how appearances affect outcome - the fancy clothes he buys for Sophie and Michael for their visit to Mrs. Pentsetemmon and the King, and his instance that they wear them later in the flower shop as it will be good for business. His refusal to do the same in Wales suggests to me that the baggy trousers and rugby jacket are a conscious decision to reject this notion of propriety in appearances improving status, and is an act of rebellion against... who? "Taking up with riff-raff and layabouts, bringing them to this house!" 'This House' - a respectable house, one I assume Megan has worked hard for and works hard to maintain. I say she - the unseen but ever-mentioned Gareth is the one who is out at work currently. How big is his role in Megan's characterisation? Remember how she greeted Howl with a pointed comment that he wasn't home yet, to which Howl quickly responds with "What a pity! We can't stay," and a fake smile. Howl and Gareth clearly Do Not get on, and Gareth's influence is unavoidable in the house he shares with his wife. "Are you trying to bring me down to your level?" As we've now established, Megan, like her brother, is obsessed with how people perceive her and, unlike her brother, she's very worried about losing the status she now has. Keeping it depends on making sure it is authentic - or at least, that it appears that way. Any blip of inconsistency or deviation from the norm - such as an unpredictable and unkempt younger brother - could bring it all crashing down. Megan knows that this lifestyle is a shallow one. "You've had all that education, and you don't even get a decent job," Now this is where I think it gets interesting, because it's now that Megan brings up Howl's known intelligence and the higher education that DWJ spoke about. Megan, at least, views this education as a route to getting a good job, the implication of which is upwards social mobility - something she clearly places high importance on in line with how the family is perceived. "Wasting all that time at college, wasting all those sacrifices other people made, wasting your money..." It's at this point I think Megan begins to get a bit... stuck, and I think it's to do with the central line here. "Sacrifices other people made" - which other people? It has to be someone close to them else she wouldn't be so emotional about it. It could be their family or parents, however neither of them are mentioned, so what if the person who made the sacrifices was... Megan. She also talks about college - or wasting time at it, at least. She doesn't necessarily think that college itself is a waste of time - but simply what Howl does there. She has an idea of what college should be used for - and it's getting that education to get a job and... improving your situation. "Never doing an honest day's work, never getting a job I can be proud of" I mentioned that I think Megan gets stuck - because now she's back to repeating earlier criticisms, simpler ones. The important one, the one she's really hung up about has been said. Again, there's the theme of Howl's shining dishonesty that is approached and disproved elsewhere in the book, but that’s not the bit that attracts me here. Notice, it's not a job Howl can be proud of - it's one that Megan can be proud of. It's almost as if her relationship with her brother is based in pride of his skills and achievements, something she can show off to her Proper Members of Society friends. "Look at Howell, look at what our family can do." "Shame on me and Gareth" All the time Howl is failing to be something she can show off, he is bringing shame on her and her husband. At this point, she's failing to see her brother as very little more than a status-asset, and he's not bringing in the revenue that was expected. "Coming here and spoiling Mari rotten," And then finally, this is how we end before Sophie manages to interrupt. Because Howl loves his family, his sister and his nephew and niece. They're the weak flank that he knew would spur him into action if the need arose - and he's prepared to rugby-tackle the witch and chase her over garden fences when it does. The door to Wales has to stay when the Castle moves house, because despite slithering out Howl doesn't actually want to leave forever. Megan knows he loves them, and he shows that love through his treatment of the children - but this isn't what Megan feels he should be providing for them.

Once we've looked at it more closely, we can see that Megan's problem with Howl isn't his lifestyle or choices - it's how they impact on her lifestyle and choices as a Respectable member of Society. More than that, her perceptions of Howl differ greatly from the knowledge the reader has of his lifestyle in Ingary. Howl's decision to reject the expectations of Wales and his sister is then overshadowed by his undeniable love for them and inability to completely walk away.

Once the gang leave Megan's house, the only acknowledgement we get of her rant is that... we're going to ignore it. "Howl said nothing about Megan" tells us that he is apparently immune to anything that she may say about him - or at least wants it to appear that way. He knows what she thinks and has heard it all before, and her (wrong, constructed) perception of him is not going to impact on his True lifestyle and choices.

But why would Howl - obsessed with image Howl - go out of his way to construct this fake image and make his sister angry?

We already know the answer to this, because he does the same in Ingary - destroying his reputation and blackening his name in order to try and slither out of proper society and expectation. However, in Wales he's not slithering out of becoming Royal Wizard, he's simply refusing to do what was expected of him by not getting a good job and settling down with a nice partner in a nice house with 2.5 children and a front gate... just like Megan has done.

Megan, who is full of envy for Howl because she's done this, and he didn't.

The very short description we get of Megan when they first arrive in Wales describes her as clearly Howl's older sister, disapproving in manner but with eyes "full of anxieties". Simply, anxiousness and jealousy do not make for a happy housewife. Furthermore, the only time we do see Megan expressing any vaguely positive form of emotion is when she talks about the missing homework, where she appears (to me anyway) to sound interested in the found spell. This suggests that she doesn't actually disapprove of Howl, and is actually quite interested in the work that he's done. Perhaps, in another life, she too could have pursued this curiosity, gone to college, researched spells...

Megan Jenkins is a mirror of Sophie. As elder sister, she dutifully accepted the role of inheritor of the family, fulfilling the expectations placed on her while allowing her younger brother to go and seek his fortune. Sadly, Megan didn't have a witch put a spell on her, indirectly allowing her to reject those expectations and forge her own fate. Her anxieties and disapproval match Sophie's helplessness and jealousy at the start of the book. Her anger and criticisms match Sophie's crankiness as an old woman, as expression of frustration at a situation out of your control.

Megan was the one who made the sacrifices. Megan wanted to go to college, get all that education, buy nice professional clothes and get a decent job. Instead, as traditionally expected of a young woman, she got married and had her 2.5 children, and has to work extremely hard to maintain that image. Meanwhile, she watched her brother throw away the chances that to her represented freedom, as he rejected what is traditionally expected of a young man.

Howl knows this, which is why he let's her yell - why he refuses to abandon her, rugby tackles witches, and spoils her children. I'd even maybe guess that it's why he leaves her with all his books - it's a subtle invitation to read them and be able to join him. Megan, of course, with her jealousy-distorted perception, only sees this as arrogance and selfishness.

I'm going to briefly move away from explicit textual evidence slightly now, and bring in some personal headcanon. I've written before about how I think Howl's interest in magic can be traced back to media we all have access too - and that he's really a Lord of the Rings, Led Zeppelin Fanboy at heart (lol) - but then I realised. Megan's house is called Rivendell. As in, the beautiful realm of the elves, manifestation of idyllic fantasy and a haven for reflection and knowledge. She and Howl had the same upbringing, and I'd guess read the same books - there's absolutely no reason that she wouldn't have had the same response as her brother. She was just unable to act on it.

Megan is an antagonist, but she's not a bad person and it's not her fault. HMC is a book about perception, and Megan is by no means outside of that theme. From her perception of her brother, to Sophie and Michael's perception of her, this face value should never be trusted. Howl - as with Sophie's curse - is the only one to see through his sister's facade.