In an ideal world, everyone has read Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and I’m just preaching to the choir.
But if by any chance this post reaches anyone who hasn’t read this marvelous, delightful book, let me tell you what you’re sleeping on:
A perfect example of how to write the most oblivious protagonist while still making things clear to the reader what’s going on
A competent protagonist who still has relatable self-esteem issues
Oblivious p I n I n g she wants Howl so bad and is in SUCH jealous denial
Misunderstandings related to that obliviousness
The most ridiculous Drama King to ever slime his own house
But who also is head over heels for that adorably oblivious protagonist
Like he dotes on her and she just thinks the whole time he doesn’t like her
Okay it’s not exactly enemies to lovers, but like, Sophie has such an impression of Howl’s reputation due to his own efforts to blacken his own name that Howl has a lot of work to do to correct her impression of him
and besides which, he really is a slitherer-outer so you can hardly blame Sophie’s frustration with him
and besides which Sophie does meddle an awful lot so you can hardly blame his own frustrations with her
I mean she basically just barges into his home and insists on staying an indeterminate time, like just tonight or you know, forever?
On that note, it’s not fake dating but these two are essentially living in a domestic relationship before they even kiss
File under: how to write a romance without needing the protagonists to kiss!
When Sophie insists on cleaning all the time Howl is just like “??? why??? do you want to clean when you are so awesome and powerful and could do so much better??? i keep telling you there’s a spell for that and you do not have to clean???? but if it’s what you want to do I guess?????”
like for real he’s just disappointed that she seems to only think she’s good for serving and doing chores and wants her to want more for herself
you can reread the book and try to pinpoint when Howl starts loving Sophie but then you cannot and for sure it just must be a case of ‘he was already in the middle before he knew he begun’
like he cures her aches and pains and he buys her nice clothes clearly trying to cater to her taste and
when he has to redo his whole HOME he asks her what kind of shop she wants to run and he buys her old home like as if they’re already married and they’re building a new home together
and Howl tries multiple times to break her curse, but in the end only SHE can really break it bc like I said this story is brilliant
and the WHOLE TIME, the whole time ALL OF THIS doting and pining is going on, Sophie looks like a 90-year-old woman and Howl is just head over heels for her
I mean with tropes like these???? what are you waiting for?
PS WAIT TRAVESTY I FORGOT – awesome sisters caring for each other!!
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