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"You have an instinct, Sophie. Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of an ocean, sooner or later - probably sooner - I'd look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick."
(Howl's Moving Castle, p. 93)


If you ask the old woman they call Mrs. Witch about herself, she'll tell you that she's ninety years old, that she's either Howl Pendragon's old mother or Jenkins the flower-seller's ancient aunt, and that she's the best and cleanest witch in Ingary.


Mrs. Witch's real name is Sophie Hatter, and in point of fact she's a fairly ordinary eighteen-year-old girl who's spent most of her life in her family's hat shop.

Unfortunately, due to a vengeful witch and a case of mistaken identity, Sophie was hit by a spell that turned her instantly into an old woman, complete with aches and pains, constant grumbling, and a habit of referring to any person under the age of seventy as "young man" or "young lady". She's currently holding a position as the cleaning lady of the notoriously heartless Wizard Howl - after all, while everyone knows he's a dangerous wizard, that doesn't alter the fact that his castle is the dirtiest place she's ever seen.

Sophie can usually be seen wearing a sensible gray dress and a shawl; she currently looks like a withered and brownish old woman, with white hair and watery eyes, and carries around a hideous and battered walking stick. (In her natural state her hair is either ginger or red gold, depending on who you ask, and she's also rather less withered.)

Like many old ladies, Sophie tends to talk to herself and whatever other inanimate objects happen to be around at the time. However, Sophie also has an unsuspected talent of getting those inanimate objects to listen. Her more mundane skills include a flair for trimming hats, a certain deftness with a needle, a passion for cleaning out cobwebs, and of course a strong gift for harassing Wizard Howl.

ETA: As of May 2007, the spell on Sophie has been lifted, and she now appears in her natural state as an eighteen-year-old girl with ginger hair (though she would say red-gold). She still wears long sensible dresses, but they tend to have somewhat more flair to them.

[Sophie Hatter comes from the novel Howl's Moving Castle and is the property of Diana Wynne Jones. I make no profit from this portrayal of her. Screencaps from the film version of Howl's Moving Castle have been taken from http://howelljenkins.blogspot.com.] (http://howelljenkins.blogspot.com.])