Character · Howl's Moving Castle
Markl
The apprentice answers the door in a false beard, because customers will not take magical advice from a child.
In Otakana the clue reads: Apprentice who answers the castle door
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Letters
- 5 · Normal
Markl runs the shopfront of a wizard who cannot be bothered to. When somebody knocks, he pulls on a heavy cloak and a grey beard, drops his voice by an octave, and dispenses magical services as an ancient master. The disguise fools nobody over the age of six and everybody in the film, which is roughly the level of scrutiny people in this world apply to wizards.
He is also the one who accepts Sophie fastest. A strange old woman moves into the castle, starts scrubbing, and within a day Markl has decided this is a clear improvement and that she should stay. Ghibli hands him the household's small domestic scenes, and the film is much better for having one character whose main concern is whether there will be dinner.
In Diana Wynne Jones' novel he is Michael, a teenager, and something closer to Howl's colleague than his ward. Miyazaki aged him down to a small boy for the 2004 film and renamed him, a change that turns the castle from a workplace into a household. That is the change the whole adaptation is making, and Markl is where you can see it happening.
Spelling MARKL
MARKL is five letters ending on a consonant cluster English almost never uses. RKL with no vowel to break it up means your mouth wants to insert one, and Japanese does exactly that: the name reads Marukuru over there, two extra U's, three tidy syllables. The English spelling keeps neither. Five tiles, one vowel, and the vowel is the A near the front.