#howl's moving castle and adaptation

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 322

Every once in a while, I adapt my own writing, or someone else’s writing for a visual medium. Primarily comics, it was something I got into thanks to @wereah back when I was in university. The act of adapting something I’m familiar with into another medium often informs my views on adaptations.

That and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Both the book and the movie.

For those not familiar with the book (and I strongly recommend you read it, if you haven’t), Howl’s Moving Castle is a fantasy young adult book by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s actually part of a series, though I never got around to reading the rest of the books.

In all honesty, I didn’t even know this was originally a book. I had originally seen the movie and then was given as a gift by my sister as an adult. Which I treasure greatly because it’s such a bitch to buy books for me. Anyways, I loved the book, and loving the book never diminished my love for the movie. Both are excellent for very different reasons.

But the book made me appreciate the difficulty of adaptations from one media to the next. 

Without spoilers, the thing you have to understand about the world of Howl’s Moving Castle is that it is a world where the tropes of fairy tales are the way of the world. Sophie, who is the eldest, and as a result of fairy tale tropes, does not seek anything for herself beyond being a hatmaker at her father’s shop because the eldest always fails, while it is the youngest who goes on to have many magical and amazing adventures. 

From a story writing perspective, this book is wonderful in its storytelling and world building, because it describes the world and uses it to inform the reader what drives Sophie’s decisions. From an adaptation perspective, if you want to remain true to the book, it’s a goddamn nightmare.

One of the issues people do not talk about enough about adaptation is the unique ability that written narrative has over a visual medium like television and movies. Most writers write in third person omniscient, which is a narrative style that allows the reader to have a view of the character(s) thoughts and the world that the characters themselves may not have. 

This is also known as exposition.

There is a lot of exposition you can put into a narrative that would be clunky, awkward and create terrible pacing in another medium. In the case of Howl’s Moving Castle, as a movie, there’s no way you can let the audience know Sophie’s thought process about why she chose to be simply a hatter without adding an additional scene somehow, preferably not by having Sophie herself monologue her thought process. 

And that doesn’t even cover the fact movies are never enough run time to squeeze in all the ideas a full novel may have. I’m sure there are people who criticize the fact the movie had cut out Howl’s background and at least two story threads (turning two characters into one), but frankly you would not be able to fit this whole adventure into one hour and a half movie otherwise. The movie took the characters, a concept and the general plot and just ran with it, and that’s fine.

It was a very good movie after all.

But I think about Howl’s Moving Castle when I think about what it takes to adapt one work for another, and I appreciate the difficulty in doing so.

[nadiajustbe]

I think the whole issue I have with Howl's character in HMC movie can be outlined in one brief sentence:

"You can't write Howl Pendragon without writing Howell Jenkins"

[myclutteredbookshelf]

Please reblog for a larger sample size.

[chillinglikeashilling]

At some point when it is not 1 am on a work night I'm going to make a proper post about why I think people who are really enjoying the storytelling of Misfits and Magic 2 should give The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko a shot but the most concise pitch I can give you is that TMTC is also a story about a magical world undergoing a revolution, that explores themes about systems of power and the ways those systems work to exploit certain people to the benefit of others.

The main character Sade is literally disabled by these systems and her love interest/deuteragonist is an obnoxiously beautiful man who has literally cursed himself in pursuit of justice against these systems.

Also for everyone who liked the shadow possession thing- they have a magical bond that let's him feel her emotions, which is absolutely necessary because Sade would rather die than admit to being uncomfortable. In fact Sade's willingness to accept discomfort (and the willingness of the powerful to ask her and others like her to shoulder discomfort so they don't have to) plays a pretty big part in the story.

Lastly, and this is actually an appeal to all my fellow Bob stans from PoL, there are a lot of songs involved in the magic in this book and the audiobook narrator sings all of them. Not in a very polished, instrumental backed way but just in a way that feels true to someone making up a song on the spot.

It's a standalone story in the universe of author's main duology so there's more to explore if you want but it's not necessary to understand this book.

[theriu]

Great Movies So Significantly Different from Their Books That Fans Treat the Books and Movies as Separate Stories:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Mary Poppins

Howl’s Moving Castle

(Help me add other ones, guys! Also try to stick with movies people actually LIKE; you’ll notice Eragon and The Last Airbender are not on here 😂)

[emojisarestatussymbols]

Acceptable book-to-movie adaptations:

Howl's Moving Castle

Silence of the Lambs

Muppet Treasure Island

[bittersweetstargazer]

ppl who've seen howl's moving castle and not read the book would be stunned to know that

A. The real world exists in that universe and Howl is from Wales- his real name is Howell Jenkins

B. Sophie is a witch; she speaks life into things like hats, sticks, scarecrows, etc.

C. The scarecrow wasn't just some prince who got cursed and left on the side of the road, he's a prince who was taken apart by the Witch, who used pieces of his body to create the perfect man. He's wondering around looking for the missing pieces of his body

D. Howl has a human skull in his castle that belonged to the prince. When the scarecrow puts it on it can speak

E. In the book, it doesn't show howl & Sophie's relationship change like in the movie. They hold hands at the end of the book while ignoring everyone talking to them

F. Markl's name is Michael, and he's dating Sophie's youngest sister Martha, who runs the bakery that Lettie ran in the movie

G. Sophie has two younger sisters, Martha & Lettie, who switched places because Martha wanted to work at a bakery and Lettie wanted to learn magic, so they used a spell to disguise themselves

H. Howl courted Lettie for a period of time

I. Howl has a sister, Megan, who doesn't think too highly of him

J. Howl went to college

K. The black section leads to the real world, not the war scene you saw in the movie. There's no color for that in the book

L. There are more than 4 colors on the door selection

M. Heen is supposed to be a human cursed to be a dog, and he doesn't work for madame suliman

N. The person who taught howl was actually Mrs. Pentstemmon, who is killed by the Witch of the Waste

O. Madame suliman isn't a character in the book. She (might) be based off of wizard suliman, also named Ben sullivan (who is from wales), who went off to go kill the Witch and ended getting killed himself, and whose body parts were also used by the witch to make the perfect man

P. The witch of the waste was killed very quickly. Her demon, a woman from the human world named Mrs. Angorian, set out to find Howl and kill him.

Q. In the book, Howl spends a very long time in the bathroom preparing himself to go out and get another girl to fall in love him with him :/

R. Howl gets a cold and he basically convinces Michael that he's gonna die and gets him to do everything for him

S. Sophie's not allowed to mess with the spiders :/

T. Sophie doesn't get Calcifer to like her by telling him she likes his spark. She just bullies him into listening to her.

U. Sophie and Calcifer still have the deal, but Calcifer is trying to give her hints throughout the story so she can figure out what's up w Howl & Calcifer

V. Howl gets drunk. Very drunk. He says he is "cone sold stober" when he is, in fact not

W. Sophie gets mad at him and cuts up one of his suits.

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[blorbo-apologist]

I am of the camp where i watched the Ghibli movie of Howl's Moving Castle (mainly in Japanese but I've watched the English dub too) lots but I'm only just getting around to reading/listening to the book right now.

This experience is confirming my MO of always watching the movie before reading the book because this is hilarious. I saw someone on here call howl a "sopping wet drama queen of a cat" and every page i read basically confirms this lol

For a person who grew up both English and Japanese, it's also hilarious to see how the book (with its very realistic portrayal of sniveling complaining Brits but somehow placed in a compelling story and the world is full of magical versions of people that i knew growing up. all very nostalgia inducing to me) was transformed into a romanticised Ghibli-ized lovely cosy story with less snot and whinging(our national pastime you know). Because in my experience this is how much of Europe (remember the Japanese tourists despairing in Paris?) and definitely how the UK is romanticised by Japanese people.

[estellaestella]

whitewashing a Japanese film bc yiu want to see your white boy in every role. Wonderful. Loving the racism and disrespect towards Miyazaki and Ghibli, keep it up.

My sweet summer child, I suppose you dont know that Miyazaki's movie is based on Diana Wynne Jones' novel Howl's Moving Castle and that Howl is from Wales. So a live action adaptation of the story would start there. Besides which, the Ghibli movie (with its Western outfits, buildings, carraiges etc) is clearly NOT Asian-coded so I have no idea where you got the idea that Ghibli-Howl Jenkins and Ghibli-Sophie Hatter are Japanese.

Also, it's important to remember two things (1) just as fanfic can depict whatever the hell the fanfic writer wants to, fanart can also take liberties with canon, which I am not doing btw (2) objections to race-bending and gender-bending casting should always be well thought through, which yours wasnt.

[amillionquack]

Just reread the book so I feel like I need to say it. The Studio Ghibli howls moving castle sucks! Sure it’s pretty and enjoyable to watch but they took a fun incredible nontraditional love story and made it into the most cookie cutter magical romance. Howls character is still fun but almost all his flaws are taken away so that he’s just a gorgeous wizard who loves the protagonist and wants to help people. Where’s all the drama? Where’s the fights? The whole point of Howl is that he’s just an ordinary annoying guy who likes to play at being a dramatic wizard. He has to trick himself into doing anything brave. He demands attention and complains he’s dying when he gets a cold. He carries around a guitar he can’t play! I also hate that their romance is implied to be predestined and something Howl was searching for for years. I think it takes away the magic of Howl and Sophie falling in love with someone who challenges them and turns it into wouldnt you love it if you were the love of a wizards life!

But I feel what Ghibli did to Sophie’s character was even worse. Where is the fight! They take the scene at the beginning where she’s overworked and scared and compared to a mouse and make that her personality for most of the movie. Old Sophie did have some of her fire but I felt like it went away when she became younger again. I felt like Sophie didn’t really have a strong character in the film and could easily be replaced by some other pretty and timid woman and still have the plot exactly identical. Without the arguments a lot of the humour is also missing making everything so much more boring! They need to be allowed to make fun of how ridiculous they both are!

Also one thing I love about Howls moving castle is that Sophie saves herself nearly every time. Howl races to save her from the witch and she’s already freed herself and is cleaning up. I think it was a huge mistake to get rid Sophie’s magic as it’s a crucial part of her character and growing confidence. Also the way that Sophie does magic is one of the highlights of the book which could have been so interesting to see! She has the power to talk life into objects and command them to do/be whatever she likes which is such a fun take on magic. She’s also inadvertently responsible for almost every bad thing that happens to her which is very funny to read

Like I agree if I’d watched it first I would have enjoyed the film, but as an adaption its awful. If they wanted to make a completely different story they should have made one.

[moonlight--magician]

Howls moving castle, a rant

the Ghibli adaptation of howls moving castle is a disgrace to the original source material by ridding it of many plot points and characters and inserting anti war propaganda that was not present within the original story that was presented. With also taking out characters with plot relevance or condensing two characters into one the adaptation also wrote out the only specifically stated to be dark skinned character and made him into a Japanese boy that very much white in his design, changing a dark skinned aspiring wizard who was a teen with dreams and love to a white boy with a fake beard that barely showed up Michael was such a great character but here he was rewritten to be Markl who didn't exist in the original source. Also making Howell seem like a better person than he was in the original source. Even in modern depictions of the story the covers show the design for Sophie used in the movie when in actuality that was not the case of how she transformed. And she canonically looking nothing like the Ghibli art style of old ladies at a least keep the movie and book separate from each other as they bled so much together I feel the original story that was planned to be told was buried under a bad adaptation.

[nadiajustbe]

My favourite Howl moments is the ones where he decides that he DOESN'T NEED THIS STUPID WIZARDY STUFF like he's WELSH and PLAYS RUGBY that's what it is‼️‼️‼️

Him literally running to WoTW instead of using any of his spells. Him randomly reminding Sophie that he was playing for his university like he knows what to hell it's even means. Him using half of the cosmetics from our world because it basically better. Him refusing tolearn how to write with a qull and just bringing ballpoint pens with him for God's sake. Him acting like his fights with WoTW is in general some kind of hand-to-hand combat. Him acting like Sophie and Michael should absolutely love the car ride cause pfff what's unusual there I've been doing this for my whole life. Him referencing to Shakespeare, John Dohn, Sleeping Beauty AND Alice in the Wonderland either expecting or not expecting everyone around him to understand the joke. Him just randomly reminding that he's Welsh and then starting being upset about his music talent. All of this as it's the most natural wizard-like thing in the world imaginable.

Love him.

[myclutteredbookshelf]

Please reblog for a larger sample size.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

There's this like

Really funny phenomenon where I'll watch people do redraws/aus for popular relationships with every ship under the sun. Like redraws of people's ships as sophie/howl, or disney princesses and their prince, or hades and persephone, or sasuke/naruto, etc

And then randomly I'll find there's an entire sprawling au out there where someone took one of these popular/mainstream romantic pairings, pasted Sonic and Tails onto the characters, and then insisted to hell and back that they're brothers and that people would be weirdos to assume in any way they're depicting the two as romantic. Despite pasting them onto a well known ship or canonically romantic pairing, and not really changing the relationship moments from the source material much if at all.

[caffeinated-bibliophile]

I've read the book (loved 🖤) and seen maybe 2/3 of the film. (Which I did not love, but I think it's only because I tried to watch it like a day after finishing the book, so I'll watch it soon, now that the memory of the book isn't too fresh.)

But...

Someone I know hasn't read or seen it, and asked which way they should go about things, and I realized that I am not the person to ask lol. So, I'm outsourcing.