How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
[The King] was quite alone, like an ordinary person. True, he sat with one leg thrust out in a kingly sort of manner, and he was handsome in a plump, slightly vague way, but to Sophie he seemed quite youthful and just a touch too proud of being a king. She felt he ought, with that face, to have been more unsure of himself. He said, "Well, what does the Wizard Howl's mother want to see me about?" And Sophie was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that she was standing talking to the King. It was, she thought dizzily, as if the man sitting there and the huge important thing which was the kingship were two separate things that just happened to occupy the same chair. (13.4-6)
In these days of tabloids and celebrity gossip, it's hard to imagine the kind of power that Kings once commanded over their subjects. And yet Sophie is confronting the fact of that kind of power in this very scene. The King looks really ordinary to her: he's "handsome in a plump, slightly vague way." But when he actually speaks to her, she suddenly realizes that this average-looking man is actually the King of Ingary.
His office almost seems separate from his actual physical appearance. He gives an impression of power not because of how he looks, but because Sophie knows what he represents: the head of Ingary's kingdom.
Quote #8
Then, as Sophie had her mouth open to yell to Howl, the creature put out what was obviously an enormous effort and surged upward into the shape of a man in a crumpled brown suit. He had gingerish hair and a pale, unhappy face.
"Came from Upper Folding!" panted this dog-man. "Love Lettie—Lettie sent me—Lettie crying and very unhappy—sent me to you—told me to stay—" He began to double up and shrink before he had finished speaking. He gave a dog howl of despair and annoyance. "Don't tell Wizard!" he whined and dwindled away inside reddish curly hair into a dog again. A different dog. (14.64-5)
Nearly every character in this book is eventually enchanted to look like something they are not in this novel. Not only does Sophie look old, but Martha looks like Lettie, Lettie looks like Martha (until Mrs. Fairfax tells her to stop), and both Howl and Michael go out in disguise to dodge the Witch of the Waste.
Here we have this poor dog-man struggling against his enchantment, which he can only throw off temporarily. With all of these enchantments and disguises floating around, we think it's fair to say that Howl's Moving Castle is obsessed with the issue of seeing through false appearances to what's really underneath. Jones uses the fairytale setting of the novel to make these false appearances a bit more literal than you might find a more realistic book, but it's the same idea.
Quote #9
[Howl] came forth two hours later, out of a steam of verbena-scented spells. He was all in black. His suit was black, his boots were black, and his hair was black too, the same blue-raven black as Miss Angorian's. His earring was a long jet pendant. Sophie wondered if the black hair was in honor of Mrs. Pentstemmon. She agreed with Mrs. Pentstemmon that black hair suited Howl. His green-glass eyes went better with it. But she wondered very much which suit the black one really was. (15.63)
Two things strike us about this scene: first, as much as Howl clearly loves and respects Mrs. Pentstemmon, we can't help but notice that he builds his grief over her death right into his usual obsessive, vain self-care routines. Howl doesn't forget about his deep concern with his personal appearance even when he is about to go to his beloved mentor's funeral disguised as a dog.
Second, while we keep saying that this book often focuses on the falseness of appearance, there is something about Howl that contradicts that analysis: his "green-glass eyes." Howl's glassy eyes are a further sign that there is something missing about him. Later, when Sophie has broken Howl's contract with Calcifer, his eyes seem "a deeper color—more like eyes and less like glass marbles" (21.103). Appearances are not completely deceptive in this book—only mostly.