Castle In The Air 1-30-14 0-383 FINISHED *Spoilers*

Summary  
      Castle in The Air is "a companion to Howl's Moving Castle" which is only really apparent in the end when the characters Howl, Sophie, Wizard Solomon, the four year old Princes Victoria, and Sophie's sister Lettie come into play in what leads to the main climax. (Well Howl showed up pretty early but we didn't know it was him so it doesn't count, which I'll get to later.)

     Castle in The Air is a story about Abdullah who is a carpet Merchant in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, far south of the Kingdom of Ingary, where Howl's Moving Castle takes place. One day Abdullah is approached by a man who sells him a magical flying carpet, which takes him to the night gardens of a princess named Flower-in-the-Night when he sleeps on it that coming nightfall. The two of them hit it off pretty well. However, Flower-in-the-Night at first mistakes him for a woman because other than her own father, she has not seen any men due to a prophecy from when she was born saying that (aside from him) she would marry the first man she meets. Abdullah promises to come again the next night with 189 pictures (drawn, they don't have cameras) of men of all likenesses. Due to this and a prophecy made on his birth his family in law from his father's first wife (Men can have as many wives as they want in his culture, women can only have one husband. I agree with Flower-in-the-Night. "The frown came back to Flower-in-the-Night's face. "How many husbands are women allowed?" she asked. "Only one!" Abdullah said, rather shocked. "That is extremely unfair." Flower-in-the-Night observed musingly.")  it has been said that Abdullah will not carry out the family business after his father has died. Since he is dead and he is suddenly buying paintings, the pushy in-laws decide to try to make him marry two of his second cousins' nieces or something. I don't quite remember the relation. He refuses the two girls (who come into play later) and makes a hasty retreat.

    The next night he falls asleep on the carpet again with all of the paintings of men and ends up traveling to Flower-in-the-Night's garden once more as promised. When she looks at all of the pictures she agrees that Abdullah is indeed male and prefers him to all 189 of the other men. After this they try to figure out how to work the magic carpet which needs a command word (more like snore....) when he tells it to go back to his booth to see if it works. It does, and he accidentally leaves her behind. The night after that they try to escape the garden, only to have Flower-in-the-Night captured by an evil (but not really) Djinn. It is then that he is seen by the guards of the palace (Flower-in-the-Night's dad is a Sultan of sorts) but he gets away. The next morning however being that the palace is only about five miles away he is captured and is to be sent to death after marrying Flower-in-the-Night once they find her as to get past the prophecy. Flower-in-the-Night's dad of course won't believe that a Djinn stole away his daughter and they search around the city for her instead. While he is in his cell in a high tower the dog of the stall keeper next to him fly's asleep on the carpet to him, apparently dreaming of when he gave him a bunch of food he didn't want to eat but took to be polite. Then he is able to escape, drop off the dog to where it needs to be, and fly's off into the desert where he comes across bandits and a genie.

     He is captured by the bandits, he get away while they sleep with the genie bottle, and the carpet was slept on so it's out of the picture for now. The genie can only grant one wish a day so he wished for his chains to be removed. Then when the bandits or the Sultan's guards or someone is about to catch up to him he uses the wish for the next  day to get sent to someone who will help him on his journey who is an old retired warrior who is traveling Ingary for fun. On their travels they come across Midnight and Whippersnapper, a black cat and her kitten. Midnight can turn into a jaguar for reasons explained soon which helps them escape guards again because at this point they are pretty much just fugitives. Once they get to Wizard Suliman's house (since the Moving Castle has been stollen by the Djinn and everyone in it has disappeared) Letty who is now Suliman's wife recognizes Midnight as Sophie and they turn her back, simultaneously turning back Whippersnapper into her and Howl's son Morgan back at the inn the with the soldier. She then explains that Howl had done a scrying spell to see why princesses were disappearing, and if Violate was in any danger when he saw that the Djinn was going to try and capture the house. Soon during a quarrel between him and Sophie about what to do the Djinn comes and Howl turns his pregnant wife into a cat and transport her somewhere near Kingsbury so she can be safe. They then hurry to the inn to find the bottle of genie, Morgan, and the soldier gone, but the carpet left behind. (Oh yeah they had gotten that back.) So Abdullah and Sophie order the carpet to go to where morgan and the Soldier are and it takes them into a castle in the sky, which is really just the moving castle blown up to absurd proportions, which disgusts Sophie.  They sneak in and find about thirty princesses and a tantrum throwing Violet who had been captured when they were in the inn. The two Djinns, the bad one, and the good one who is the bad one's brother are there as well, but they don't notice. The good Djinn had his life taken away by his brother, so he pretty much has to do everything he's told to or die. the brother can't do this himself because he was made by a good Djinn, and a bad Djinn, so he's week and no female wants to marry him. This is why he's kidnapping Princesses to be his wives. Even the four year old. Eventually they get the Good one's life back, they all get sent back down to Kingsbury, Flower-in-the-Night sets the genie free and it's apparently Howl, Calcifer is called out and he turns out to be the flying carpet, and so on. Then Flower-in-the-Night and Abdullah get married and everything is back in order. Except for the princesses. They have to be taken back to their kingdoms. but that's okay, because new trade routes! Now for the Djinns. The bad one was offered the two sisters that Abdullah almost had to marry and accepted, making his exile on an island in who knows where better off. The brother however, sent himself into exile as well because he enjoyed doing the horrible things and did not see himself worthy of going back with the others of his kind.

     That is Castle In The Air by Diana Wynne Jones, the follow up to Howl's Moving Castle, and before A House of Many Ways.

Divergent week 1-22-14 Finished *Spoilers*

• What are the two most important ideas from what you’ve been reading?

Probably that if you split people into categories based on how they think in order to keep peace, it won't work. Pretty much just don't even try. Utopias will never exist, there will always be conflict of some sort. I mean seriously, if there are such things as faction less, then it's not really much of a utopia now is it? Their pretty much homeless. If it was really a utopia that wouldn't happen.
"I see a faction less man standing on the corner up ahead.e wears ragged brown clothing and skin hangs from his jaw. He stares at me, and I stare back, unable to look away."

The second important idea that I got from Divergent was that peace never lasts, no matter how much you try to secure it. There will always be people trying to get their way, there will always be someone who messes up the system. Like Tris, she's Divergent. That messes up the system because she doesn't think the same way everyone else does, so she doesn't have complete loyalty.
"Beatrice," she says, "under no circumstances should you share this information with anyone. This is very important."

So pretty much peace never lasts, and splitting people up based on how they think doesn't work as a structure to base a civilization. However, if it did, there wouldn't be much of a story, now would there?

Divergent- week 1-14-14 - Pages 1-311 Possible Spoilers

What emotions do you feel about your reading? Describe what is going on in

the reading that makes you feel that way.

This will not be in any order, I'm just going by what I remember strongest.

"Edward lies on the floor next to his bed, clutching at his face. Surrounding his head is a halo of blood, and jutting between his fingers is a silver knife handle." 
    To be completely honest I was really not expecting that. I mean, I knew Peter was a jerk (to put it in a school appropriate way) but really man? Your seriously that desperate!?  At this point I'm not sure who I'm supposed to hate more, him or Erik!  I mean seriously, if you want to make a character the readers aren't supposed to like, by all means make them, but you don't need more than one Octavian here....

"My father's eyes burn into mine with a look of accusation."
    Oh yeah, accuse her of not staying with you even though it's obvious Abnegation doesn't come to her naturally. So what if your kids don't stay! Be happy they found where they should go, and actually had the guts to go there. She's gonna be happier where she's going and you should know that. Don't glare at her like it's her fault she doesn't fit into your faction, be grateful she's going where she wants to and not staying with you because she thinks she has to; where she'd always feel awkward and out of place. Also, your not supposed to be selfish, and wanting your kids to have stayed with you in your faction is extremely selfish indeed mister.

'"You look good Tris."'
*Main love interest has been detected*
Now as long as they don't fall off a cliff like my other book OTP, everything will be fine....

"'I don't think tea is the solution.'"
Tris you have obviously not had enough tea. Tea solves everything. So does chocolate. Tea and chocolate can solve pretty much any emotional problem eventually. 

"Somthing terrible has happened. I feel it with every thump of my heart. It's Al."
Well you did pretty much say that you'd never forgive him (not as if he deserves forgiving, because I agree with you Tris, he doesn't, but still....), he doesn't want to fight any more kids to get to the top of the ranking, and somethings been up with him since the second task started. He honestly didn't have much of a fighting chance to get in. Also, he liked you, so you were probably the reason he stayed. Other than his relationship with you, which he just sort of screwed over by helping Peter, he probably didn't see much of a point. And once you said that it dominated over everything else. He probably decided that it would be less painful than to see you everyday and have you act like he's not there. 

An Unexpected Adventure of Which Results Were Quite Splendid- By Sophie. ((As seen in Howl's Moving Castle))

“This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 

     Oh dear me has it been a while! I have such good news! We killed the Witch of the Waste, found Prince Justin and Wizard Suliman, and got Calcifer out of his contract! When the witch died, the curse she had on Howl and the spell she had on me disappeared, so we don’t have anything to worry about anymore. Calcifer is still around, though he is no longer stuck confined by the fireplace and just floats around of his own free will. My sisters Martha and Lettie successfully switched places, having wanted the others job. Martha, going from a witch’s apprentice to working in the bakery, and Lettie going from working at the bakery to being a witch’s apprentice! Fanny’s got a new suitor and house, I run a flower shop in Market Chipping thats part of Howl’s castle, and everything is positively splendid. I’m going to stay here with Howl and Michael from now on. Howl and I make quite the pair, and I’ve proved myself rather good with magic. I have a feeling that things will be going rather well for me from now on, and though Howl will make things hectic, everything will work out in the end. I have finally found my place.

     Well hasn’t it been a while since I wrote in this. A lot has happened lately. The Wizard Howl is quite a sorry excuse for a wizard if I’ve ever met one. Apparently he doesn’t eat the hearts of young girls. He had just asked Michael to blacken his name in Market Chipping and thats what he had come up with. He even wants me to blacken his name to The King so he won’t have to try and find his brother Justin! They had a quarrel and Prince Justin stormed off, then disappeared. The Wizard Suliman went to the Waste to search for him because he thought the Witch may have caught him, but he never came back. Since Howl’s been cursed by The Witch, he wants nothing to do with this, or it’ll catch up with him. I would feel sorry for him, but it’s his own fault he’s in such a bind! He’s having me pretend I’m his Mother, not that I don’t seem old enough, but he should know better than to have other people solve his problems, and do it him self. Or, better yet, not get into trouble like this in the first place!

     Luckily for me that evil wizard Howl had set his castle relatively close to Market Chipping. I figured since he only eats the hearts of young girls, which I am no longer, and it was getting dark rather quickly, that I could make an attempt to let myself in. I told it to stop, upon which it was rather obedient, but was rather stubborn about letting me in. All three main doors had barriers keeping me from them, and I had to chase the small back door down because it kept trying to move away from me. Eventually I got in. I met Howl’s apprentice named Michael, who couldn’t be much older than my sister Martha. He let me stay without any objection, kind boy. I also met Calcifer, the fireplace. Apparently he makes the castle move and scares people off if he needs too. He told me that if I stayed he could try and figure out how to break the spell if I in turn tried to break the contract he had with The Wizard Howl. In order to do that, I am making it my duty to clean up this mess of a place. Honestly, you would think that a Wizard would know to keep a tidier home. It’s utterly shameful.

     So this has been a rather eventful day, not really something to be expected. Well, not for someone who is the eldest of their siblings anyway. They’re always supposed to be the least successful, though I do suppose this does count as not successful. Cursed to be a dastardly looking old woman on May Day by the Witch of the Waste, and for what? I have no idea!  She simply walked into the hat shop and asked to see them. Surely she must have known that none of them wouldn’t be fitting for a woman of her class, I make hats for the common women of Market Chipping! However, I showed her all of the hats. I took my Step Mother Fanny’s advice, showing her the worst ones first, then the nicer ones; though I knew they would not suite her. Indeed she did not like any of them. Then she told me I was wasting her time, though she’s the one who came in in the first place! Not only that though, she said something about not liking my “Competition or attitude” and that I tried to set myself up against her. Do I have any idea what she was talking about? No. I haven’t the slightest clue. I do know however, that I am now an old woman and no one will know me. She even made it so I can’t tell anyone I’m under a spell! Have decided that I cannot stay here. Fanny will have to do her own work with this place for now until I can find someway to break this dastardly spell.