With iconic animated stories such as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Grave Of The Fireflies, Studio Ghibli dismisses presentations. Counting on strong protagonists who fight against their demons while teaching us to fight against our own, Hayo Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle spreads a powerful message behind Sophie’s curse, who starts a journey full of magic, surprises, and revelations.
Scary characters and even those who started as foes can change and even become part of a newly-embraced family, and Sophie’s journey ends up with a lot of important messages, with a specially powerful one behind her curse.
Sophie's Curse Reflects How She Feels About Life
Sophie is the protagonist of this movie, which is Studio Ghibli’s anime adaptation of the fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle. She is a young hatter that, being the oldest of two sisters, has no great expectations in her life, then she decides to work and take care of the monotonous hat shop inherited from her dad, while her sister works in a bakery in the city, enthralling a lot of men on account of her beauty, and her mother is traveling around the world with her new husband. Sophie believes she is inferior to her mother and sister, both regarding intellect and beauty, and it makes her want to lead a quiet life, without ever stepping or wishing to step into the spotlight. On account of her perceived idea of fate, she believes she is doomed to fail in life since she is the oldest sister.
Her life is about to change when she is stopped and harassed by two guards, and a handsome blond man, with pale blue eyes, and a charming smile pretends to be her companion to help her and dismisses the guards using his magic. She did not know, however, that the young man himself was using their encounter as a decoy for spirits that had been summoned by a powerful witch. They manage to escape, and the young man leaves Sophie in safety at the bakery where her sister, Lettie, worked. Of course, Sophie had heard rumors about the handsome wizard, Howl, who was told to steal and devour the hearts of beautiful young ladies, but she did not have reasons to believe that the young man who had saved her was Howl, nor that she would face this destiny since she believed she would never be beautiful.
Afterward, when she returned to the hat shop, Sophie received an unwelcome visit from the Witch of the Waste. The spiteful witch casts a powerful spell on Sophie, which leaves the shy girl trapped in an old woman’s body. She also makes the girl unable to tell anyone about the spell, saying that is a message for the wizard Howl. When she looks at herself in the mirror, Sophie realizes that she became an old woman and there is nothing she can do about that but leave everything she used to know behind and look for a “fresh” start.
What is more curious about this situation is how fast Sophie conforms to being an old lady instead of showing the logical surprise that people express when they are bewitched, but it stems from the distorted self-image she used to have before that event. Since Sophie is insecure and lacks self-love, she ends up hiding behind her new face and body, even embracing a grumpy old lady personality. At first, it seems that old age makes her stronger and more confident, because, having been turned into an old woman, she does not need to worry about the things that had always been a torment to her, such as her alleged lack of beauty, which is not true and is the result of her low self-esteem, as well as her alleged lack of talent. Having old age as a kind of ally, Sophie now has the opportunity of letting herself be loved and, after this journey toward finding love while discovering self-love, taking care of those who have become her family, such as Howl, Calcifer, and Markl.
Sophie's Curse Is A Blessing In Disguise
Even if her initial idea was that of isolation, later on she wants to break the curse (as well as Howl's), and thanks to the mysterious help of a scarecrow, she met Howl and started to live in his Moving Castle as his servant, it seemed conforming to Sophie to be able to assume this form to paradoxically show her true colors to the world without being undertaken by the fears or insecurities that used to torment and hinder her actions in life before.
Some people are plagued many times by thoughts about how would life turn out to be if they had the chance to run away and start fresh in a place where nobody knows them and everything is new. It has to do with starting a new life, and would it be possible to wear a new personality, as though it were new clothes, and finally defeat our inner demons? Because, in the end, people cannot run away from themselves.
With the spell cast by the Witch of the Waste, Sophie is given this otherwise impossible opportunity of running away from herself only to end up finding her true self at the end of the journey. As time goes by and the story unfolds, she notices and realizes that her insecurities are still there. As her confidence returns, Sophie starts to become younger, but, when she depreciates herself and embraces old age as her ally, she becomes even older.
Howl, on the other hand, is a spoiled young man, who does not accept that things are not the way he wants them to be and prefers to run away, something he has in common with Sophie, instead of having to prove his points. As his relationship with Sophie progresses, he starts to change too, and he realizes he loves her. He knows that Sophie is a key element in his history and lets her free to make her own choices. Despite his immense power, Howl accepts Sophie as the heroine that she is, and anxiously waits for her to find out her strength and break not only her curse but also Howl’s and Calcifer’s.
It is hard to take confidence, self-love, and care and translate them into actions, but they are what makes the love between Howl and Sophie and the end of the war possible. Even if Sophie sees herself as being unimportant, trusting Howl’s feelings for her, as well as trusting all the ones that love her is the big point about learning how to deal with her demons and breaking the curse. Of course, we always hear a lot about loving ourselves, learning how to deal with our flaws, and taking care of ourselves, but it is impossible to do that by oneself. All of us need support and people that let us free to get to know our real identities and break free from the prisons we created, which, a lot of times, are not even real.
There is nothing wrong with starting over and looking for fresh air. However, it is wrong to try and escape from who we are, from what we have learned, and from the ones who love us. And at first, Sophie uses her curse as a shield. Dealing with our feelings and the view we have on who we are will always be a hard task, even more so when we depreciate ourselves a lot. It is only through accepting who we are and offering ourselves the opportunity to change that we shall be able to get free from this imaginary prison, just like Sophie.