The Sword and Laser discussion

I'm just over half way through, and so far it's an absolutely charming book, but nothing I had seen in the book blurbs gave me reason to expect (view spoiler)[a side trip into modern day (or 1980's I suppose) Wales! That certainly adds an extra dimension to things. (hide spoiler)]

I don't remember that from the movie. Doctor Who again.

Yeah, I found that plot point weird. (view spoiler)[It made the book as if the whole thing was a D&D game for Howl. Made me wonder as to whether or not any of the characters actually had agency or if they were the magic world equivalent of NPCs. (hide spoiler)]

Tamahome wrote: "I don't remember that from the movie."

It isn't in the movie.

The book and the movie deviate a lot. Characters are changed, merged or just removed. Howl being from Wales is gone. I like the book and I like the movie but I do regard them as two separate entities.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Yeah, I found that plot point weird. [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[Actually, now that you say that, there are a lot of parallels. Howell doesn't amount to much, he's smart but only motivated to work hard on the narrow subject of running down information on spells. That projects an image of a pretty unkempt dude who knows a lot about some old book, but still sponges a room off of a well-adjusted family member.

Howl is that dude's dream: extremely powerful, has a lot of luck chasing very young women, and doesn't let anyone ever tell him that he needs to clean his room. (hide spoiler)] I think it's the tone of the book that saves it from these sort of unpleasant comparisons. The overall effect is enchanting enough that Howl's faults are more funny than they are creepy.