Laputa: Castle in the Sky

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Laputa is an island castle which floats in the sky. These days it’s most commonly thought of as the castle from the movie Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki, but originally the story of Laputa was told as a minor part of the classic novel Gulliver’s Travels in which a similarly floating island carries the same name. There are similarities and differences between the two, both of which I’ll look at to try to give a complete picture of what Laputa really means.

Laputa from Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

So what is Gulliver’s Travels? It’s a fictional novel by Jonathan Swift from 1726, told in a narrative as if it were a retelling of real events from the travels of one Lemuel Gulliver. This story has been told time and time again, the most iconic image from it being that of a seemingly giant Gulliver being surrounded by the tiny people of Lilliput. Among the many places that Gulliver travels to in the book is the floating city of Laputa.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

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