Character Analysis Of Howl Pendragon

Howl Pendragon (or Howell Jenkins depending on his location) is from the Moving Castle trilogy by Diana Wynne Jones and the Howl’s Moving Castle movie by Studio Ghibli. Howl is a mysterious wizard who is rumored to be beautiful but terrible and was often accused of eating the hearts of lovely girls due to his habit of leading women on only to dump them. When he was twenty one he gave his heart away to a falling star out of pity for it which seems to have made him lose some of his humanity. Due to his personality in the book, he is shown to have a relatively balanced grading of the five personalities. He has high openness and extraversion, very low conscientiousness, and is near the middle grounds on agreeableness and neuroticism. (Jones, 1986)
He has a high openness trait due to his extravagance and broad knowledge. He is one of the greatest wizards that studied under Mrs. Penstemmon and his knowledge on magic runs from warfare to cosmetics. He is shown making a transportation spell for the king, making charms to make himself more handsome, covering the room in slime during a tantrum, turns himself into a red setter and had a magic battle with a witch. This shows that he had studied and invented a wide range of magic. He has also studied in potion making and he hails from Wales, Earth it is assumed he finished school before coming through the portal to Ingary. (Jones, 1986)
He has very low conscientiousness due to his undependability and his messy nature. Before Sophie comes to live in his castle and becomes his nanny, the entire house is a mess. Dust is everywhere, the fireplace is filled with enough soot to suggest that it hasn’t been cleaned in a while, the bathroom takes Sophie days to clean and cobwebs are everywhere. His...

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...atious and so most of his shows of extraversion are with him as he is courting women. The only time he seems to become reclusive is when something he dislikes is pressed upon him. He generally tries to avoid hard work and will hide if necessary. (Jones, 1986)
To summarize, according to the Five-Factor Model of Personality Howl is open to different things, intelligent, he can be undependable, is very disorganized and messy, is kind, forgiving, yet cruel, calm, rarely ill-tempered, and is an overall sociable person. He ranks a high percentage in openness and extraversion, very low in conscientiousness, and is near the higher- middle on agreeableness and neuroticism traits. The Five-Factor Model seems to be relatively good for deciphering the personality of characters and likewise, deciphering a characters personality shows how effective the Five-factor Model can be.