Howl Jenkins Pendragon

Howl Jenkins Pendragon is a powerful wizard living in the land of Ingary. Originally Howell Jenkins of Wales, he was part of a loose fraternity of wizards on Earth. He made his way through a magical portal to Ingary, where he became known and respected as one of the most powerful wizards there was. He owns a moving castle, and spreads rumors about himself to retain his privacy, opting to be alone and hiding from all conflict

Before Sophie
Howell Jenkins was born to an ordinary family in modern-day Wales. However, he himself was anything but ordinary. Gifted with a natural talent for magic, he began studying it. Even in college, he wrote his thesis on magic, and joined a group of other gifted magicians on Earth. Somehow, he managed to create or find a portal to Ingary, where he moved mostly permanently. Still young, he took up tutelage under Mrs. Pentstemmon (or Madame Suliman in the movie). He became her last pupil, and one of her favorites. His natural gift for magic showed, and he was quite powerful. Howl is a wizard in the land of Ingary and he has several names, he is known as Wizard Howl in Market Chipping, "Wizard Pendragon" in the capital Kingsbury, and "Jenkin the Sorcerer" in lower-class Porthaven.

One night on the Porthaven Marshes, he caught a Falling Star named Calcifer and made a contract with him. He gave his heart to the creature, binding them together, and allowing Calcifer to live for he felt sorry for him, while boosting his own magical power. After doing so, Howl quit his apprenticeship and became a hermit. He dyed his hair and spent all his money on make-up and clothing, and spent his days wooing young ladies until they fell in love with him, then dismissing them. During this time, Howl finds Michael Fisher sleeping on his doorstep, and invites him in. Howl was impressed by Calcifer's reaction to Michael. Though he never explicitly tells Michael he can stay, Howl allows him to live in the castle, eventually making him his apprentice. Also during this time, Howl courts and then dumps the Witch of the Waste, who puts a curse on him. Howl occasionally does work for the King's army, but avoids contact with them as much as possible. It is during one of his outings to find a young woman that he first meets Sophie. He first meets Sophie on May Day before the Witch of The Waste casts an aging spell on her. Days later he gets back to the Castle and is surprised to find an old lady cooking on Calcifer. Despite Michael and Calcifer's complaints he lets Sophie clean the castle. Although he has been gathering clues about Suliman's disappearance, Howl is concerned the King wants him to find Prince Justin. He gets Sophie to pretend to be his mother but the king is more impressed than annoyed, and hires him as the Royal Wizard.

Howl battles with the Witch of the Waste after Mrs Penstemmon's funeral. Now that the Witch knows he lives in Porthaven, he decides to move the castle to escape. Taking Michael and Sophie's wishes into consideration, he takes the hat shop in Market Chipping so Michael stays close to Martha, ordering Calcifer to find a nice house with lots of flowers for Sophie. Howl helps in the shop and discovers the dog is a bespelled human. He restores him to his human form and suspects he is made of Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin's body parts. He uses Sophie to get information out of him. As the curse is about to be fulfilled, Howl gets drunk, but he also arranges for Sophie's family to visit. When Sophie falls in the Witch's trap, he raises a wind to bring her back and explains his motives. His honesty seals his fate and the Witch's fire demon, in the shape of Howl's nephew's English teacher, gets hold of Calcifer and squeezes the heart Howl had given Calcifer to keep him alive. Howl collapses but Sophie saves him by giving him his heart back. By breaking Howl's and Calcifer's contract, Sophie returns to her true age. Howl gets rid of the fire demon, restores Suliman and Prince Justin to their true forms and asks Sophie to marry him.

Howl's Moving Castle (Movie)
The movie adaptation by Hayao Miyazaki has significant differences to the novel, the first being that the story takes place during a war which heavily influences the plot direction, even though the main focus is Sophie and her adventure. Sophie meets Howl for the first time when he rescues her from soldiers who are harassing her by calling her 'Sweetheart' and apologizing for being late and saying he was looking 'everywhere' for her. He further casts a spell on them which forces them to march off. Howl then escorts Sophie to her younger sister Lettie's bakery, being followed by The Witch of the Waste's henchmen, he flies into the air, landing on the roof of the bakery.



,House of Many Ways
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Appearance and Personality
In the movie adaption, Howl has shoulder-length straight light blonde hair, light blue eyes, and a pale complexion. He is tall and slender, and also looks slightly androgynous. Later on in the movie, Sophie Hatter cleans his bathroom and switches some hair potions, leaving Howl's formerly blonde hair a ginger color, which later turns a raven black colour. Howl is not very happy with this, and reacts by calling the shadows of darkness and covering himself with a see-through green slime in a particularly humorous scene.

In the book of Howl's Moving Castle, Howl is "very vain, for a plain looking man with mud-colored hair." He uses charms and make up to make himself more attractive, as well as having a naturally engaging personality. Michael and Calcifer insist that the day Howl spends less than an hour in the bathroom is the day he is truly in love, a prediction which later turns out to be true. Howl wears flamboyant and fancy suits, claiming to Michael that "No one's going to employ a wizard if he looks like he can't make money at the trade" (although Sophie voices suspicions that really, he just likes clothes). The suit he wears most often is grey and scarlet, later disguised as a black suit, when Howl goes into mourning for his tutor. Originally, it was just flashy, until Sophie accidentally darned magic into the seams by talking life into it, saying "[the suit is] built to pull in the girls." Howl's hair is dyed occasionally, as he doesn't see why "people put so much value in things being natural". At the beginning of the book it is blonde, then a pinkish red color (this happened by accident, Sophie moved around his potions in the bathroom) and finally bluish-black, a color most people agree looks best on him, as it goes with his "glass green eyes". When Howl gets his heart back, his eyes become much less glassy and more real looking.

Howl has a kind, generous personality. He allowed Michael and Sophie to live with him, and is very forgiving of their mistakes. He also gave Calcifer his heart when Calcifer was a dying falling star. His good traits, however, are masked by his more negative traits, as well as deliberate "blackening of his name", so very few people know of them. He hates to quarrel, and will "slither out" of situations he doesn't want to be in. He hates to be pinned down to anything, and is a quite cowardly.

The only way he can make himself do something brave is to tell himself he is running away. He also lies a lot, and likes to teases Sophie, though subtly. A good example of this is when he is pretending to be in love with Lettie to get information on Sophie, and he constantly goes on about her to make Sophie jealous. Howl's worst, or at least most troublesome trait, is his courting. He cannot rest until he has made a girl love him and becomes quite insensible, but once she loves him he swiftly forgets her.

This practice is where Howl got his reputation for eating hearts, as that is what rejected girls' angry aunts call it when they come looking for Howl. This practice also is why the Witch of the Waste cursed Howl, as she was dumped by him as well. Howl is very insensible with money, overcharging the rich and undercharging the poor, as well as spending too much too often. It is suspected that, when Howl gave Calcifer his heart, he lost some of his humanity. This is suggested by the progression of the Witch of the Waste, who had her fire demon for much longer than Howl. It is also suggested by Madam Pentstemmon, when she tells Sophie that Howl is "Going to the bad."

Abilities
Howl is a very talented wizard, and is also quite good at slithering out of things he does not wish to do. In the movies, he is able to transform in to a large beast with black feathers and seemly various stages of transformation. He uses this power to fly to the battlefield and fight as well as to escape from enemies.

At one point in the movie, he 'zooms in', on a battleship when him and Sophie are in his garden, he passes walkways, slips past several henchmen, and goes to the heart of the airship where he unplugs several cables that stop all but one wing from working. But this magic seems to transform him into the beast:

Sophie: What did you do?

Howl: Just messed with it, it won't crash though.

Sophie sees that his fingers nails have elongated into claws and his forearm is starting to grow black feathers on the arm that he used to work the magic.