So I went in knowing that this was important and that might have made it easier for me to calibrate my theme brain: the book that the main character's mom bought for him, "How Do You Live?", is like load bearing for the themes of the movie. There was a mini controversy because the Japanese title is just the book's title, people thought the title change was an adaptation choice but it turns out it was a Ghibli creative choice. I haven't read the English translation of the book, though my understanding it's barely a novel, basically a lecture, and is about the importance of liberal arts and finding understanding of the world around you in the cosmos. Lots of passing on education between generations stuff.

So yeah, there's this big hole in the understanding of the movie that basically everyone who hasn't grown up with the book is going to have. I do think even without that there's a few keys to understanding things that can help:

• The protagonist is very clearly just Miyazaki this time. Other than the specific dead mom stuff, the dad is really just Miyazaki's dad, the childhood is just his childhood, and that's about the time he read "How Do You Live?".

• It's really really funny to me that he's making it really clear in that all of the stock Miyazaki female characters who show up here are just reflections of his mother. Freud is right again.

• All of the stuff with the building blocks is both metaphor for creating art and creating political systems. The movie itself is deliberately an assemblage of references, and it is itself a tower like the one the uncle builds.

• I think it's probably important that while the characters are debating how to make better art, and better structures, and admitting that they'll never create a paradise without human malice, the fascists come in and destroy everything.

Hope this helps a bit, Lol