Brilliant thread. Have been person A before and had no choice but to walk away from the whole thing as soon as I realized what was happening. Still love person X with all my heart. Sometimes trauma causes the sweetest people to do harm trying to please everyone. https://twitter.com/sigridellis/status/1276672118093221889

I know my timeline has been very Howl-focused lately, but that's what happens when you watch a movie a dozen times in 4 days (and read the book twice). In the book, Howl does all kinds of this crap, but he is presented sympathetically.

I admit I got stuck on the movie because so much of Howl reminds me of myself, and I think I've been trying to process why he remains a beloved character despite being so much like less-beloved drama queens and cowards the world over. It's not -only- because he's hot.

But one flaw he has that I definitely don't is this "wishful lying" thing. I'm direct, almost to my detriment. I avoid conflicts in ways other than dishonesty. But Howl is described by Sophie in the book as a "slitherer-outer." He is an absolute coward re: conflict.

Note: this entire thread is about Howl, and is not meant as a subtweet about any real people living or dead. I'm just back on my Howl bullshit for the moment, and applying this awesome RL concept of "wishful lying" to pick apart a favorite fictional character.

Book-Howl has left a string of broken hearts behind him. He keeps trying to love people, but literally has no heart, and so when they start to love him back he immediately loses interest (this part I identified with. It's my most damning personal pattern).

But unlike me, his response to these women who have suddenly gone all googly-eyed over him is to hide, make up elaborate excuses, refuse to face them. It's shame, I think. And cowardice.

But it's not -meanness.- Howl is a fundamentally nice and caring person, and what makes that obvious is not that he has a horde of bewitched people defending him as amazing (he does, Sophie included). It's apparent in his actions.

The movie and book show this in slightly different ways. In the movie, you see how obsessively and courageously, to the point of self-harm, he is trying to undermine a brutal war that he is fundamentally safe from due to his magic. It's the civilian deaths that tear him up.

In the book, some of the supposed courting of helpless women he's doing are flat out lies he tells Sophie so that she'll be annoyed at him instead of scared for him. Because for whatever reason, almost from the beginning, he loves her for real.

This is... honestly a bit confusing, as he still has no heart. In the book it may have something to do with Sophie's own magic. In the movie, I'm not sure why Sophie is the one to win his (absent from his chest??) heart? It's a bit too much Love of a Good Woman trope for me.

At any rate, in both book and movie, Howl is a person who is SECRETLY off doing good and fairly dangerous things, letting his reputation be that of a good-for-nothing weasel at best, serial predator at worst because that reputation actually makes it EASIER for him to save people.

In fact the very reason he HAS no heart, you find, is that he caught a falling star that was afraid to die, and so he said, "Here, take my heart, it will keep you alive." Sure, he got fabulous powers in the bargain, but that wasn't the initial impulse.

He's a person who is literally debilitated by the very idea of anyone else's unhappiness. Honestly I think that's even what the vanity is about. "What's the point in living if I can't be beautiful?" If he can't please others, I honestly think he means.

Also, in both book and movie, the hair-tantrum turns out to be something else entirely. In both cases, he's actually terrified of something much larger.

It's more explicit in the book. But I adore the movie line in the dubbed version when he says, "I can't stand how scared I am." The way he turns his face away from Sophie, that moment of absolute self-loathing. I GET YOU, HOWL.

He's self aware, and he is trying, desperately, to the point of hurting himself in both versions of the story, to continue to be good despite having given away his own heart. That's what makes him more sympathetic than your average serial heartbreaker or wishful liar.

But the reason this "wishful lying" thread brought him to mind so much is that in the book, it matches the pattern perfectly. I think Diana Wynne Jones was an incredible observer of real people (as is Miyazaki) and that's what gives this book/movie its power.

In the book, we see that his sister, though she has a right to be angry, is too constantly AT him, berating him, belittling him. He slithers out of those conversations with the heartbreakingly good-natured evasiveness of a lifelong expert.

Often the "Person X" who lies and prevents very necessary confrontations, does it because they grew up in an environment where the only way to end a tirade was to either magically become someone different that the angry person approved of, die, or smilingly slither out.

You learn patterns as you grow up, and it's hard to believe that not everyone is like your vicious parents, or envious siblings, or that terrifying next door neighbor. You use the tricks that saved you (and others) from their wrath, because you don't believe wrath is temporary.

I never went quite that way. I am evasive in a more honest way. I just say, "I'm getting out of this," and I leave. But I can understand why someone who is naturally clever and hates to upset anyone might learn to lie this way.

And the quoted thread points out so compassionately, and so accurately, that sometimes these people truly believe what they're saying. The sweetest and most optimistic people think, "It can't really be that bad, so here's what I think they actually meant."

And letting A and B actually talk to each other is too terrifying, because if the truth leads to lasting anger and hurt, Person X feels as though they may Actually Die. Feelings can be so powerful. This much I get.

Anyway, this is just a reminder that some of the best fictional characters out there are beloved because they remind us of real people, real patterns, and in our gut we know people who mean harm from those who have just been behaving colossally weakly and stupidly.

We don't always know the difference, of course, and sometimes it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to the people that Howl irrevocably hurt. She isn't obligated to forgive him, nor is anyone who cares about her.

(sorry, mixed up my pronouns again, guess the anesthetic is still doing its thing). I feel for the people I did this to in my twenties (Howl is 27). I was about his age when I finally started to figure it out, but that doesn't help the people who crossed my path before that.

So this thread's about Howl, and it's about me, and it's about everyone whose trauma or mental health have caused them to behave reprehensibly. Some of those people are also assholes. Some of them are not. Sometimes the call is hard to make.

We call 'em like we see 'em. Some people probably DESPISE Howl and find him unforgivable. That's okay. We are none of us the arbiters of someone's goodness. I like to err on the side of hope, myself.

But hoping that someone will change for the better, even supporting that change, does not always have to mean disbelieving past victims, nor denying their right to remain angry and never forgive.

One of the hardest bits of dialectical thinking anyone will ever have to juggle is, "There is no excuse that justifies what this person did in the past, but in the present I continue to believe in their potential and would prefer to help them become better than abandon them."

No one can tell you whether you should stand by someone and continue to hope. You have to weigh their potential against the people you will lose because it's too painful for them to watch you love and be kind to someone who devastated them. It's a mess.