OOC
GAME: Canonish
DESCRIPTION: Literary multi-fandom game.
DATE: May 2008
PB: Ben Barnes
JOURNAL: moving castles
IC
CHARACTER'S FULL NAME: Howell Jenkins. Now known as several variations on "Howl": The Wizard Howl, Heartless Howl, and Horrible Howl, amongst other pseudonyms, including Wizard Pendragon (in Kingsbury), Sorcerer Jenkin (in Porthaven), and Sylvester Oak.
CHARACTER'S AGE: 27-28. Somewhere around there.
BOOKVERSE: Howl's Moving Castle
AUTHOR: Diana Wynne Jones
CHARACTER HISTORY: Howell Jenkins' story is the story of a man who worked himself up to greatness from very, very little. He was a normal enough young man in Wales, growing up under the thumb of a bossy older sister, and practicing and honing his ability to weasel his way out from her influence. The family was rather shabby and poor, and he rarely did anything to help — no, quite the contrary, he brought down Megan Jenkins' wrath more often than not for being a lazy layabout and a useless liar. He went to university, played rugby, earned a great deal of friends through it, squandered money on tuition, but the entire time, Howell never felt quite right. Rainy Wales was not good for him. He was not happy.
All of that changed, however, after he discovered magic. He wrote his doctoral thesis on charms and spells, and what started off as an innocent socio-cultural examination of old folklore and beliefs turned into something else entirely. Howell managed to open a door into a magical, fantastic world named Ingary, stumbling into a small town named Porthaven.
Howell — or Howl, as he soon became known — was not the first man to cross over from the dreary 'real world', and both he and Ben Sullivan shared a strong talent for magic. Sullivan's old tutor, Mrs. Pentstemmon, soon picked up Howl as an even more powerful and promising magical candidate, and Howl spent the next few years in tutelage under the old enchantress. Magic became his outlet, his way to freedom; despite loving Wales and his family, the man now had an opportunity to be rich, handsome, talented, and reknowned in an entirely new world. He used spells to enhance his physical appearance, and became helplessly vain and self-centred; absolute power corrupts absolutely, and as a result, Howl pandered to his own ego a bit more often than an honest man should. At the bottom of it, however, he's still a good man. Most of the time. He possesses a surprising soft spot for the people who fall under his care, from the poor folk of Porthaven, to his fire-demon Calcifer, to his young assistant named Michael Fisher, and to his nosy cleaning-lady named Sophie Hatter, who would later turn out to be the love of his life.
Most of his talent with magic comes naturally, but when he was younger, he caught a falling star (that being Calcifer) and bound the dying fire-demon into a contract. Howl's heart became lodged in Calcifer's fire, and the two were irrevocably tied. It was a good enough bargain, but doomed for failure, particularly when Howl ended up in a scrape with the Witch of the Waste as a result of his romantic philandering. Following that, the Witch dedicated herself to destroying Howl and stealing his heart in order to prolong her own life.
The final climactic mess with the Witch occurred when he turned twenty-seven years old. After the battle (which was aided and infuriated in turns by Sophie Hatter), Howl tried to settle down to as much of a normal life as possible: with him doing magic for clients, Sophie running the flower-shop, Michael managing the finances, and Calcifer grumbling in the grate, despite having been freed. And it worked, for a while, until the literary verses rumbled.
His moving castle possesses four doors, all of which open onto different locations. The black-handled exit has now turned into a wild card, which means it opens up to, well, someplace completely random. After Sophie accidentally fell out into god knows what universe, Howl has been cursing up a storm and travelling around trying to locate his errant hatter.
CHARACTER APPEARANCE: Back in Wales, Howell was a rather plain-looking man, with unremarkable features and mud-coloured hair — the only striking thing about him was his eyes, which are an unnervingly clear green. After messing a bit with spells, however, the wizard Howl is a charmer and heartbreaker and very, very handsome: he has sharp and angular features, longish hair (the colour of which changes depending on his mood), and dresses in expensive, lavish clothing, favouring long and trailing sleeves which border on the severely impractical. In his days of pursuing young women's hearts, he would spend two hours or more in the bathroom, tending carefully to his looks before emerging in a cloud of perfume. He was, needless to say, extremely vain. Living with Sophie has tempered him a bit, however — nowadays he might only spend a little less than an hour in the bathroom. Maybe.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY: Howl is sly and avoidant, and has been ever since he was a child. He comes across as dreamy and selfish, often entirely distracted by his own self-absorption, prone to thinking highly of himself and indulging in temper tantrums when things didn't go his way. Having far too much power and being feared by too many people made him attempt to live up to his fearsome reputation — he attempts to reinforce his wicked persona, and makes a passable show of not caring about people. This is, however, a terrible lie; only a few seconds of seeing the man named Howell in Wales shows that he loves his family fiercely, and only boredom and ambition have driven him from his home world.
Howl dislikes being forced to answer questions, and above all, hates being pinned down. He'll writhe his way out of any situation if possible, and dragging a straight answer out of him is a difficult task indeed — Sophie is one of few people who can browbeat him into direct honesty. His assistant knew him as a feckless spendthrift, as Howl would wantonly spend whatever money came into his hands. In his darker moods, he can be extremely melodramatic and prone to guilt tripping others. Just a year or so ago, he was also fickle and easily distracted, falling in love over and over again, before rapidly losing interest in the girls once they finally returned the attention.
He strongly fears danger and rarely pursues it (he's just a poor sod from Wales, after all) — Howl is very much a coward, and has to go to great lengths to avoid running headlong from a terrifying situation. Despite all this, however, he is a loyal man, and to his merit, does try extremely hard to conquer his own cowardice. Howl even indulges in his own form of economic justice: he overcharges the royal forces in Kingsbury, and vastly undercharges people in Porthaven.
For all of his redeeming qualities, they rarely come out upon the first few meetings — Howl's kindness is a subtle and fickle thing, and largely only noticeable after prolonged exposure to the wizard.
CHARACTER RELATIONS
MICHAEL FISHER: His fifteen-year-old assistant, financial advisor, cook, and apprentice.
SOPHIE HATTER: "I've been wondering all along if you would turn out to be that lovely girl I met on May Day. Why were you so scared then?"
CALCIFER: His fire-demon. Until recently, their hearts and lives were bound as one, and they shared their magic. But Calcifer has since been freed (by Sophie's efforts, no less), and the man and demon now live independently of each other. Calcifer still sticks around, though. Howl's grateful.
FAMILY:
Sister: Megan Parry.
Brother-in-law: Gareth Parry.
Nephew and niece: Neil and Mari.
THE CASTLE DOORS:
Red: Kingsbury.
Blue: Previously Porthaven, now a pleasant manor in the north.
Green: The travelling castle.
Black: Who knows?
