| “ | It looks like your true love is in love with someone else! | „ |
| ~ The Witch of the Waste |
| “ | The best part of that spell is you can't tell anyone about it. My regards to Howl. | „ |
| ~ The Witch of the Waste to Sophie after placing an aging curse on her.. |
The Witch of the Waste is the secondary antagonist of Studio Ghibli's 14th full-length animated feature film, Howl's Moving Castle.
She was voiced by Akihiro Miwa in the Japanese version, and by the late Lauren Bacall in the English dubbed version, who also voiced Madame LaCroque in Madelne: Lost in Paris.
History[]
She was originally an apprentice to Sulliman until she fell to a demon of greed. She was banished by Sulliman and went to live in the waste. Howl once thought she was beautiful and pursued her, but after learning she merely used magic to make herself look young, he ran off. However, the Witch of the Waste became obsessed with him and tried to obtain his heart, hoping it would make him love her, and she is the person responsible for turning Sophie into an old lady.
As she leaves The Hatter (the name of the shop), she tells Sophie that she can't tell anyone about the curse. The Witch of the Waste gets a letter to the castle, and she comes back after 50 years. She sees Sophie saying, "If it isn't the tacky girl from the tacky hat shop." However, she gets forced to walk up the stairs after the two blob men couldn't carry the carriage anymore, and the potion that makes her young is sweated out of her system, aging her by the the time she makes it up the stairs. As she sits down on a chair, a device consisting of two very large lightbulbs shine on her.
She gets her power removed, but Sophie takes her with her to the castle when she escapes from Madame Sulima's castle, where she stares at the fire, knows that Sophie is in love, and gives Calcifer a peeping bug that she found in a bag. While at this point, she largely drops her initial antagonism, later on, when they are looking for Howl, she finds out Calcifer has Howl's heart and tries to take it due to her lingering obsession to have it for herself. However, this causes her to catch fire, forcing Sophie to pour a bucket of water on her to save her, after which she bemans that his heart is ruined. Because of the circumstances, Sophie then gets separated from her and the rest of the group, but she finds Howl and the two of the later return to the others. While she's reluctant at first, Sophie convinces her to give Howl his heart back so that he can be revived, and Calcifer can be free. Thankfully, they also find out that Turnip Head, who had been their companion for the last little while, was really the neighboring kingdom's missing prince who had been under a curse, and upon being restored to his human form, vows to return home to end the war between the kingdoms that had been occurring over his absence. At the end of the movie, she is shown staying on Howl's moving castle with the others and living peacefully as it flies away instead of walking as it was in the beginning of the movie.
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