rhymingteelookatme:

thatfoolsophie:

another lovely thing in howl’s moving castle (and sequels) is the way it uses transformed-appearances to say “the solution to your problems isn’t becoming someone else” without simplifying it to “changing your superficial appearance is bad"

#it would’ve been easy to be like ‘howl needs to stop focusing on his experience bc they’re in love with each others True Beauty TM’ #but that’s not it! sophie likes howl’s perfumes and thinks he looks good and she also loves him when he’s hungover unshaven and frantic #he’s delighted to see her young but was already in love with her when she was cursed to be old!! #it’s not ‘the pursuit of beauty is bad’ it’s ‘beauty does not define your worth or loveability’ #which i really really like