PLOT POINT 1:

Sophie Hatter Hook

 

WARNING: Spoilers Below

Sophie Hatter

Character Arc Avatars-09.png
 

Opening Scene(s) Refresher: Howl’s Moving Castle has a decent amount of exposition before we get into the action that introduces us to Sophie. However, we know that Sophie is the eldest of three sisters, that her father recently died, and that her stepmother sent her younger two sisters away to be apprentices and asked Sophie to stay and help her run their family hat shop.

But how does her introduction accomplish the 8 important elements? Click on each of them below to find out!

Want

Sophie wants an interesting life.

Normal World

Sophie's Normal World has her working in the family hat shop.

  • What makes this unique to Sophie? The setting (hat shop in a fictional land), work (making hats), and attitude introduced are all unique to Sophie. Sophie longs for a more interesting life, but as the eldest of three it is widely known she has all the bad luck and will have to settle for whatever comes her way.

Ghost

Sophie's Ghost is the bad luck of being born the eldest of three sisters.

Internal Conflict

Sophie deals with a lot of emotions from the very beginning. She wants more, but has resigned herself to a dull life. She loves her sisters, but envies their adventures. But ultimately, she wants her family (her stepmother and sisters) to be okay, even if that means compromising her own desires.

External Conflict

Again, quite a bit of conflict happens rather quickly. In our introduction to Sophie her father dies, her stepmother takes the three girls out of school due to lack of money, her younger sisters are sent away, and Sophie herself is placed in a job she has no passion for.

  • How does this introduce the Ghost? All of this happens as a result of Sophie's Ghost - her bad luck as the eldest and destined life of dullness begins with the opening External Conflict.

Character Traits

  1. Loving - RELATABLE - Sophie cares about her sisters and her stepmother. We all have people we care about and want to see happy.

  2. Hard-Working/Responsible - ADMIRABLE - We admire people willing to put in the hard work, especially when they are doing it for others.

  3. Humble - LIKABLE - Pride and arrogance are off-putting, we like people who have humility.

Theme

Theme is a tricky thing.

Ask 10 different people what the theme is in a given book, and you may get 10 different answers. I tend to lean toward the Character Arc. In other words, the journey that the protagonist is taking is in my opinion most closely related to the Theme of a story.

That being said, I would say that the Theme for Howl's Moving Castle is developing belief in yourself. This is a journey that both Sophie and Howl have to take in order to defeat the antagonist (the Witch of the Waste).

One thing that this story does well is keeping us focused on the Character Arc. On the very first page we are well aware of Sophie's Lie (more on this to come) and the thing she needs to complete her Character Arc. And yes, it does have to do with the Theme of developing belief in oneself.

Stakes

Sophie wants adventure. The opening scene threatens this because she settles into work in the hat shop.