This page contains SPOILERS for the whole series.
This is why it takes 3 yeerks to create offspring. With three parents, there would be a greater genetic pool to draw from to ensure fewer harmful genetic mutations get passed on to the offspring.Most earth creatures rely on harmful genetic mutations being bred out through survival of the fittest or through dominant traits overpowering recessive traits. With three parents though, there would be less worry of negative dominant genetic mutations being passed on, the mutation possessed by the odd yeerk out would simply be overpowered by the 2 other parents who most likely don't have the exact same genetic mutation.This could also explain the yeerk's evolutionary reason to infest gedds, they need to have a way to travel to other pools to ensure genetic variation which can get corrupted more quickly when there is greater risk of genetic mutations.We already know our sun produces radiation that can cause skin cancers, why not the kandrona as well?
- Doubtful. The reason being that Cassie was grounded to what SHE thought was the correct timeline. Loren's meddling came years before Cassie was born, so Cassie would have no connection to it. It may be the technically true timeline, but Cassie wouldn't see it that way.
- All they say in the book is that Cassie is "temporally grounded." They don't specify that it has anything to do with when she was born.
- They say that Cassie was in one timeline but "was of another" and that she had sensed that things weren't right and where she belonged even without her fully realizing it. If all these changes were made before Cassie's birth, however, she never would have been a part of the 'true' timeline and thus wouldn't have been even remotely aware of a shift that happened before her time or that she wasn't in a timeline she had no experience with.
- One interpretation is that Elfangor and Loren created the Ellimist — Elfangor believed him to be real because he heard Andalite folk tales about him, which exist because he really existed — because Elfangor believed he existed. And then there's that maybe-not-a-crack-theory that the Ellimist is actually Tobias Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence and sent billions of years into the past. It would explain why he takes such an interest in both Elfangor and his son.
Is deconstructing about five-hundred billion idealist tropes in a way that does not make us hate her not genius?
While it's well-known that Animorphs deconstructs a lot of the tropes used in Power Rangers, there are enough parallels between the two series to make one suspicious...
First off, the obvious: Alien mentor recruits five teenagers to fight off alien invasion, teenagers use animal-based powers to fight, transforming into alternate forms via "morphing". Both series take place in California.
The characters have some pretty strong parallels, and their fates compared to those of their Ranger counterparts are used to show why something like Power Rangers wouldn't work in reality.
- Jake = Jason. Both are stoic leaders who agonize over decisions. Jake turns into a Shell-Shocked Veteran as a result of the horrible decisions he's had to make though.
- Marco = Zack. They are the wisecracking, "cool" sidekicks and the leader's Ethnic Best Friend. While Marco maintains his upbeat attitude in the end, it's clear that he's using it more as a shield to avoid going insane.
- Rachel = Kimberley. One of the closest parallels, and the one that changed the most. Initially, like Kimberley, Rachel was a bubbly, fun-loving "valley girl" complete with the whole shopping thing. Her entire personality changed to that of a ruthless Blood Knight not long after becoming an Animorph.
- Tobias and Ax both share Billy's role. Tobias is the nerdy guy befriended by the leader while Ax is the socially awkward genius kid. Two roles are necessary in Animorphs because in reality there's no way a teenager would be able to use half the technology Billy could. And while being a Power Ranger made Billy more self-confident and outgoing, Tobias just became even more socially withdrawn.
- As neither Trini nor Aisha were all that well developed, Cassie is pretty much an original character, but shares the Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic the Pink and Yellow Rangers have.
Tommy and David fill the same role as Sixth Ranger Traitors, but aren't exactly counterparts as Green With Evil required the Sixth Ranger to be mind-controlled by the villains. While this could have been done by making David a Controller, Applegate probably disliked using the "he wasn't himself, so his evildoing doesn't matter" excuse.
I suspect Applegate may have based the storyline with David on the original Green Ranger saga from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Like Burai, David had a really traumatic introduction to the overall plot, becoming a superhero mostly out of wanting revenge for the loss of his family. Both of them undergo Sanity Slippage during their character arcs. And both of them hate the heroes and villains equally by the end. Both characters manage to overpower the rest of the team put together. The difference? The Sixth Ranger Traitor gets no redemption in Real Life. Unlike either the Power Rangers or the Zyurangers, the rest of the team does not give him the opportunity to join them in the end, and willfully traps him in a Fate Worse than Death.
Finally, the villains. Visser Three, like Rita and Zedd, is extremely quick to anger whenever a plan fails and frequently blames his own failures on his unfortunate minions. However, the Yeerks as a whole are nothing like the bumbling cartoonish villains the Power Rangers have to deal with. And instead of using their technology and superscience to openly cause destruction (which would quickly provoke the combined militaries of every Earth nation into defeating them), the entire invasion is as subtle as possible.
- This troper is clearly uninformed when it comes to the Yellow Rangers. Trini is clearly a Soapbox Sadie much like Cassie and Aisha is an animal lover, again, much like Cassie.
- Cassie hangs a tragic lampshade on this in her first book as narrator. "And Tobias is never happy, period. He thinks if he's ever happy, someone will come along and take his happiness away." Hint: She's right. It's the author.
- As mass guesses go, this isn't very wild. It's pretty much ambiguous on purpose. It's possible even Tobias himself doesn't know. He wonders a lot about it when he's getting tortured.
- Apparently, a leaked draft of #50 The Ultimate would have officially confirmed that Tobias did in fact become a nothlit on purpose. Applegate later decided to leave it ambiguous instead.
- That is an incredibly cynical Literary Agent Hypothesis. Also, poor Tobias.
- The ending was changed so that, in the book, they didn't destroy the Yeerk Pool. Perhaps Tobias requested that he be allowed to keep his privacy and not have to deal with the fame, and so he became 'trapped.' No one would realize that the still-human Tobias helped save the world and should be famous; whatever other similarities they have, he's not a bird.
- This makes sense. They were said to be an advanced, space-faring race since before the Ellimist even attained some semblance of godhood.
- Or Skrit Na are immune to Time Matrix effects because they are temporally grounded like Cassie is. Why would this be? Let's say that Cassie became/becomes/is temporally grounded because of the morphing "reset" in Book 19 (the butterfly incident, which somehow got around the usual rules of the morph limit — some sort of z-space shenanigans involving the link between consciousness and body, presumably). Skrit Na are a species that undergo that sort of metamorphosis naturally. Thus, Skrit Na are all temporally grounded, "anomolous" like Cassie. Much as the Matrix reality in that Megamorphs book fell apart due to Cassie's presence, so any meddling with Skrit Na timelines is just fixed naturally.
- Making it so none of the Yeerks would notice that they never encountered Erek's Yeerk in the Yeerk Pool.
- Why would they notice? It's a big pool with thousands of Yeerks in it. The fact that an individual Yeerk never encountered Erek's wouldn't be surprising and they would have no reason to poll people on whether they've ever encountered that particular Yeerk since it infested Erek.
- Putting the Animorphs' excess mass in a location where it would be hit by the Ascalin.
- Preventing Tobias's injuries from healing during In the Time of the Dinosaurs.
- If you read behind the scenes stuff, that was because KAA forgot about it
- "Hiding" the Morphing Cube where David would find it.
- "Telling" the former Visser Four where the Time Matrix was hidden.
- One issue of note: there's no evidence to indicate the entity from The Familiar was part of a collective. Unlike the Ellimist, it does not refer to itself in the plural, Indeed, it does not refer to itself at all. So there's no way to know if it is a singular being or a group of beings.
- Elfangor brought the Time Matrix to Earth when he came with Loren during The Andalite Chronicles.
- Yes, but they only got their hands on the Time Matrix AFTER the Skrit Na took it out from under the pyramid. The whole reason Elfangor, Arbron and Alloran went chasing after the Yeerks and Skrit Na was to get the Time Matrix back. Their original mission was just to drop Loren and Chapman off on Earth and erase their memories.
- Although, since it was literally millions of years in the past, this would probably hold true for a huge chunk of the Andalite population. Hm, that's probably how they developed thought-speak.
- It was mentioned that they had thoughtspeak before he got there, but thoughtspeak was rudimentary in much the same way as the speech of early humans likely was. The Ellimist breeding with the Andalites gave their offspring a boost in inteligence. All living Andalites are his descendants.
This might be part of an agreement with the Ellimist - conveniently, Rachel only dies once the war is won. Crayak and the Ellimist had struck a deal where the Ellimist could keep her as one of his pawns for the duration of the war against the Yeerks, and then Crayak could get her. (Her choice in #7 should have removed her from the front lines of the war.)
- As an extension, the Ellimist told her his backstory because he knew he'd be sending pawns against her. He was hoping that she'd remember at some level and switch sides back to him several millennia into the future.
- Alternatively: When Rachel first meets the Drode and he makes the offer for her to join Crayak, his specific phrasing is that her cousin's life is her ticket into Crayak's good graces. Right before her death, she *does* kill her cousin — Tom. That would probably be good enough for Crayak to count as accepting the offer, and it matches the wording so Ellimist can't really contest it.
- Elaborate on this one a little further. Are you suggesting the Drode is some sort of psychokinetic construct that is independent from Crayak and only manipulated by him? That's a little hard to swallow. A lot of the 'explanations' cited also feel flimsy. Since when is Rachel the wildcard, for example? If anything, David is the wildcard of the group, unless you're referring to Jake and Rachel being the two 'wildcards' in the Ellimist's plan. And if that were the case, wouldn't Jake also have some kind of PK phenomenon-based construct for Crayak to manipulate?
It's likely that, when she died, Ellimist would take her into their higher dimension and make her one of his ambassadors. This would mean that she still exists. Therefore, since the war is threatening to erupt anew, she may have reason to assist the remaining Animorphs.
- Agreed. As much as Crayak wanted her, he probably made an agreement with The Ellimist about who would get her if she died. It went along the lines of Crayak getting her if she died in battle or in a moment of anger (in his opinion, the most likely scenario), and The Ellimist getting her if she died at peace or in a moment of clarity. During her Heroic Sacrifice, one of her last words was "I love you" — a moment of clarity! The Ellimist then swoops in and brings her up to speed so she can understand what she's going to do from now on.
- Related: Starfish!Rachel is how he can pull this off. She's dead, but as long as she's serving the Ellimist, it can be arranged that only half of her persona is dead.
- But which half? The Ax-Crazy half or the Shrinking Violet half? Neither seem very useful.
- Wimpy Rachel. Confidence and directness can be taught, and the Ellimist has all the time in the world (and then some) to do it in.
- Or maybe the Ellimist just assimilated her consciousness.
- Although, the book does mention Ellimist watching as the line of her existence fizzles out into nothing. Even if he wanted her, it sounded like she was gone beyond even his reach.
- Sounds logical. It's a convenient handwave because they are a pair of "gods" in this universe playing galactic chess with the space-time continuum. In fact, there are quite a few moments like that, where it seemed someone was intervening. Good theory.
- Visser Three is incompetent because the Ellimist put a stupid, murder-happy Yeerk who fights with a sledgehammer and kills anyone with the brains and gut to make useful suggestions like how the 'Andalite bandits' may be human in charge of the important invasion of Earth. Seriously, Chapman and co. mentioned the possibility in #4 The Message but nooo the Visser will eat them for breakfast. In the Andalite Chronicles the Ellimist put Elfangor back to 'fix' the timeline but left things that would benefit him, like Tobias' existence, as they were. Visser Three's promotion from the capture of Alloran, "the greatest intelligence victory in Yeerk history," could have been one of them. That's how that idiot of a Yeerk ended up in charge of Earth.
- He seems smart enough in the Hork-Bajir and Andalite Chronicles but I guess on the other hand, he did completely forget about his original host when trying to infest Aldrea and completely forgets how useful he finds the idea of a stealthy infestation by the time the main series comes around. He did also manage to infest Alloran but his plan for that seemed mostly to rely on other people being stupid and/or unobservant. If Elfangor hadn't seen Chapman capture Loren there would have been no reason to think the Yeerks ever got ahold of them but he didn't seem to have a real plan for capturing Alloran. Had Elfangor not refused once again to kill those Yeerks and Alloran not refused to let it go and had Elfangor not panicked and knocked Alloran out and then immediately left the humans alone with him, it wouldn't have happened so it might very well have been more blind luck than skill.
- He seems to have risen to power mostly by being the first, and probably for a long while the only, Yeerk to study the Andalites. He was the only person to know the best way to defeat Andalites, so he won more and got promoted. It was mentioned in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles that he was obsessed with powerful Andalites. When he infested Aldrea, he couldn't wait to open her memories and feel what it was to be an Andalite. Having an Andalite host became his ultimate goal; once he got what he wanted, he became giddy and a little unmotivated.
Elfangor suddenly realized that he could give morphing to the humans because the Ellimist just zapped his head with that knowledge, in the same way Tobias suddenly knew about the would-be Hork-Bajir valley in The Change. Let's face it, the guy usually operates via Dei Ex Machina.
- That leaves the question of how he even knew it was there. Did the Ellimist inform Elfangor of this fact after he crashed, did he just spot it in the ship, what?
- Probably the same way the Ellimist "showed" the Kandrona location to the Animorphs.
Think about it: It's been revealed that the series takes place in California somewhere. Both The Gardens and Marine World combine elements of a theme park, a water park, a zoo, and an oceanarium. No other park in California (or the West Coast) is like that.
- Jossed by reality, as Marine World didn't become a part-theme park until 1997, when the series (which launched in 1996) implied the Gardens had been that way at least since the Animorphs were young children.
- K.A. Applegate started writing the series in Florida, so it's probable that the Gardens is simply Busch Gardens, Florida. The description of the Animorph's home means it has to be placed in either Florida or California - but the wildlife and mountains are clearly Californian, so it had to be placed there. In other words, the Animorph's hometown is a Composite Character of Florida and California.
That time the animorphs got stuck in z-space had nothing to do with the size they tried morphing. It was because of the lack of a proper mental link.
Time spent in morph counts toward how hungry the original body is, but not vice versa, because the original body is kept intact while the morphs are made from and returned to the nothing in z-space.
- Makes sense. There aren't enough neurons in some of the smaller morphs' brains (such as the insect morphs) to support the mental processes of a fully functional human mind.
- Jossed by Word of God here
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One must note that while Yeerks themselves are good usually no more bastardly than the average human, there can be genuinely evil Yeerks.
Now, let's review the evidence:
- Initially, Yeerks are in a pitiful position - they are blind, they are deaf, and their existence essentially is swimming around a pool until they die. But they can live and learn if they take the bodies of other creatures. They initially do this with Gedds, who form a symbiotic relationship with them.
- A symbiotic relationship with the Gedds? This troper seems to recall that the Gedds were enslaved just as surely as the Hork-Bajir or Humans or Leerans or any of the other species that the Yeerks infested. Just because they lived on the same planet and are apparently fairly stupid doesn't mean that they are not aware enough not to have a sense of what is happening to them, etc.
- It is described as a symbiotic relationship within the series. The Gedd had short lifespans under their own control, being controlled by the more intelligent Yeerks meant they survived much longer
- A symbiotic relationship with the Gedds? This troper seems to recall that the Gedds were enslaved just as surely as the Hork-Bajir or Humans or Leerans or any of the other species that the Yeerks infested. Just because they lived on the same planet and are apparently fairly stupid doesn't mean that they are not aware enough not to have a sense of what is happening to them, etc.
- The Andalites arrive and share technology with them but do not permit them to leave their home planet, thereby making the technology useless. Andalites also are the first to introduce the concept of parasitism to Yeerks. Until then, they did not know that what they were doing was parasitism (Dumb Is Good) — and as long as the host was willing, it really wasn't. There is a difference between being a symbiote and being a parasite. Furthermore, Andalites degrade Yeerks whenever the opportunity arises:
- "Orders are to prevent incidents. Don't you know these parasites are our brothers?"
- "I'm not letting these filthy slugs touch my ship."
- The Andalites essentially subjugated the Yeerks, making them second-class citizens on their own planet just because they followed their natural function back when that was simply symbiosis.
- Also note that the Andalites freely walk around and form complex societies while prohibiting Yeerks to do the same, just because Yeerks need hosts to have a society.
- The Yeerks rebel and take an Andalite ship, which causes the war. Andalites now freely kill Yeerks for things that they themselves do, which is why Yeerks often call Andalites hypocrites.
- Informing the Yeerks about space travel without sharing it was very much a jerkass move on the part of the Andalites, but it’s a stretch to call it subjugation. They had Gedd hosts. There was nothing stopping them forming complex societies and living fulfilling lives on their home world. Humans have managed alright without faster than light travel so far. Refusing to share space technology with the Yeerks certainly isn’t equivalent to enslaving them. Especially not to the absolute slavery that unwilling hosts are subjected to.
- The Andalites couldn't even start to explain their existence to the Yeerks without mentioning space travel. And they probably realized how hard did they screwed the Universe when they gave the Yeerks the knowledge that there's tons of worlds out there full of potential hosts.
- The Yeerks now need hosts and are now willing to resort to true parasitism. They successfully take Hork-Bajir hosts and beat back the Andalites, who try to stop them.
- The entire war could have been averted if the Andalites had offered to allow the Yeerks to morph and become nothlits in a body of their choice. Hell if the Andalites hadn't been such collosal assholes, they could have offered themselves up for aquiring on the yeerk homeworld and suddenly, instead of a planet full of yeerks, you have a planet full of nothlit andalites.
- No, the war could have possibly be ENDED by doing this but we don't know if the technology even existed at the time that the Yeerks escaped their planet and it was really new when Aldrea got ahold of it because her friend's mother worked on it. Morphing was still so new when the Hork-Bajir fell that Aldrea was able to walzt right in as Alloran when the Andalites actually recognized Dak standing next to her.
- The entire war could have been averted if the Andalites had offered to allow the Yeerks to morph and become nothlits in a body of their choice. Hell if the Andalites hadn't been such collosal assholes, they could have offered themselves up for aquiring on the yeerk homeworld and suddenly, instead of a planet full of yeerks, you have a planet full of nothlit andalites.
- When the Yeerks arrive on Earth, they attempt to mix with human society, albeit with a goal in mind. The Animorphs start a violent guerilla war, attacking Yeerks wherever they're discovered. They are joined by a ruthless Andalite soldier-in-the-making. Over the course of the series, the Animorphs kill hundreds of Yeerks in surprise attacks, rarely giving the Yeerks a chance to defend themselves.
- Their attempt to mix with human society is just because Visser One believed (and she was right) that taking the planet with violence would be impossible, and even if they suceeded, they would have lost a lot of human hosts. There's no pacifism behind their decision, just convenience. The Animorphs are just killing the invaders of their own planet.
- Note Jake's extreme ruthlessness in the final battle, where he slaughters seventeen thousand defenseless Yeerks. When he hears this news, Visser One suffers psychological defeat. He seems genuinely hurt by what Jake has done:
- <I noticed that,> said Visser One dryly. <And all our brothers in the pool murdered by these humans...>
- This entire war starts with the Yeerks doing what they have to do to survive as a sentient race. It's akin to someone murdering you and calling you evil because you need protein to live.
- Several quotes, such as Cassie's conversations with Karen, hint that the Yeerks may be victims in all of this. Brought home when the kids discuss bombing the Yeerk pool, which is dangerously similar to a terrorist attack:"They can't help being what they are!"
- How is bombing the Yeerk pool akin to a terrorist attack? They're targeting a military facility installed by a hostile faction in their own land.
- Because the bombing took place in a civilian center. They took out thousands of innocents along with their intended target. It's not so different from a suicide bomber running up to a convoy of humvees and blowing himself up in the middle of a crowded marketplace in his own country. It's the instilling of terror, the idea of sending a message that you are not safe anywhere, that makes it terrorism. That was at least half their goal in detonating the bombs.
- How is bombing the Yeerk pool akin to a terrorist attack? They're targeting a military facility installed by a hostile faction in their own land.
- Also, several hints are dropped that Andalites in general are bad guys (though Ax probably isn't). Andalites only look out for number one. They fuck around for the entire series instead of saving Earth; when they do arrive, they're more than willing to blow up the entire planet to stop the Yeerks, despite the millions of innocent humans that would have died. Also, Andalites hate the disabled because they are "incomplete" and therefore useless. A quote from Dak Hamee sums it up:"We have fought side by side with your people and you Andalites still treat us like inferiors! Like errand-runners or servants or like idiot clowns to amuse you! ... You Andalites have more respect for the vicious Yeerks or the cowardly Am than you have for the Hork-Bajir who fight and die at your sides. All that matters to your people is intelligence. Well, I've learned enough about Yeerk and Andalite and Arn intelligence to make me sick ... Let me tell you something: We may be simple people. But we don't use biology to invent monsters. And we don't unleash a plague of parasites on the galaxy, endangering every other free species, and then go swaggering around like the lords of the universe. No, we're too simple for all that. We're too stupid to lie and manipulate. We're too stupid to be ruthless. We're too stupid to know how to build powerful weapons designed to annihilate our enemies. Until you came, Andalite, we were too stupid to know how to kill..
- Granted, he was talking about Hork-Bajir, not Yeerks; but every attack he makes on Andalite character is dead on the mark.
- In conclusion, Yeerks are victims who take hosts because there is no better alternative for them. Andalites are hypocritical, arrogant, irresponsible douchebags.
- Granted, the Andalites are arrogant jerks at times. But the Yeerks ENSLAVE species against their will. I'll concede, humans do eat cows and if cows were ever to fight back against us, I wouldn't blame them. But when you say that the yeerks had no other choice but to enslave other species, I have to disagree. To survive, Yeerks have only to swim around in their icky little pools and soak up kandrona rays. Just because they were introduced to bodies that are way cooler than theirs doesn't mean they HAVE to have them. It's not the Andalite's fault that they evolved on the longer end of the stick. Can you really blame them for not wanting to wanting to relinquish control of their bodies? The yeerks did NOT need hosts to survive. Therefore, their entire conquest is unnecessary and morally wrong. Not to say the Andalites or even the Animorphs are right all the time; but the yeerks are right like almost never. Those are the bodies they were born with and they should stick with them just like humans and Andalites have to stick with ours. Now I don't see anything wrong with them being given access to the morphing cube as long as they're not actively holding someone hostage. But the Andalites didn't have a duty to share that technology. It's kind of buttholeish not to but it's their prerogative..
- Which is why the Yeerks have to enslave humanity. And the Hork-Bajir. AND the Leerans...
- So, is it okay for humanity to fight back against the Yeerk invaders like the Yeerks fight against the Andalites, or are the Animorphs somehow guilty for doing what the Yeerks do?
- The Yeerks got a REALLY unfair lot. They're a sentient organism trapped in And I Must Scream body, and the only way to end that is to inflict it on something else. Even if they didn't target sentients, the mere threat of such is enough to make any sentient race hostile to them out of fear of being made pod-people, which will force the Yeerks to fight back and do just that, which is indeed EXACTLY what happened.
- Yes, but Elfangor wasn't lying when he said the Yeerks were trying to turn humans into slaves, and the Yeerks we meet tend to agree with Elfangor. So, either it is morally wrong to impress your will on another species, like the Andalites did to the Yeerks and the Yeerks are doing to us, and the proper response is to fight back. Or there are no moral considerations, and every species should, first and foremost, do what they can to ensure their own survival. In this case, the Andalites are not wrong for fighting the body-stealing Yeerks, Yeerks are not wrong for enslaving various species like the Taxxons and Humans for their own benefit, and Humans are not wrong for accepting Andalite help in dealing with alien slavers.
- The entire notion that the Yeerks are living in these sad, deprived bodies in their natural state (as explained primarily by Aftran) never made much sense to me. Living as a slug would seem that way to humans because we are used to our senses, but why would you crave sensations that are not inherent to your species? Do humans feel deprived and incomplete that they can't use echolocation as the Yeerks can? Do Andalites become nothlits with mouths in order to experience taste? Well, Ax might disprove that last one...
- Point being, this troper has a hard time believing that the Yeerks were SO hard up before infestation because they wouldn't have known any different. If a Gedd on the Yeerk home world hadn't fallen face first into the pool and one of the Yeerks hadn't decided to burrow into its ear canal (erm... however it happened...) they would probably have been content in their natural state. And anyway, they are not really true parasites because they use their hosts for recreation, essentially, not survival. In fact, to get the one thing that is imperative for their biological survival, Kandrona rays, they have to abandon their "parasitic" role.
- It's mentioned in the books that living without, say, eyes isn't too bad until you actually get eyes - then you want them all the time. Visser Three was happy enough swimming around in the pool, but when he infests a Gedd for the first time he reflects on how dreary and limited his life actually was.
- Parasitism is defined as "a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host." It says nothing about whether the parasite needs its host to survive. Also, that was one of the points Aftran made. Before the Yeerks infested someone, they were perfectly content. We know from the Hork-Bajir chronicles that all Yeerks infest at least a Gedd for a short period in order to figure out how to control a host. Once this is done, those that liked the experience and had their previous existence ruined by the new sensations they could have if they infested someone are the ones that go around infesting people. Since the flight from the Yeerk homeworld, ALL Yeerks understand what else is out there so it doesn't matter that theoretically they could live their lives never knowing the difference if they hadn't infested anyone.
- It's also outright stated at one point that the only Yeerks that escaped their home planet were a small militant faction obsessed with taking hosts and all the Yeerks seen in the series are their descendants.
- Point being, this troper has a hard time believing that the Yeerks were SO hard up before infestation because they wouldn't have known any different. If a Gedd on the Yeerk home world hadn't fallen face first into the pool and one of the Yeerks hadn't decided to burrow into its ear canal (erm... however it happened...) they would probably have been content in their natural state. And anyway, they are not really true parasites because they use their hosts for recreation, essentially, not survival. In fact, to get the one thing that is imperative for their biological survival, Kandrona rays, they have to abandon their "parasitic" role.
- One of the main themes of the series is that there is no black and white that you can apply to such a complex situation. Yeerks are not all evil and Andalites are not all good, but the reverse isn't true either. One more thing that needs to be remembered when making comparisons of the Andalites is that we see a very limited number of them in the series, and those we do see are almost completely exclusively military. IIRC, Book 54 says that civilian Andalites are somewhat different.
- Dude, humans ARE horrible to eat meat. We don't have to. We have the technology not to.We're barely missing out on anything, but hey, we enslave and take lives in gruesome fashion because it tastes good! Trust me, if I had the power or technology to forcefully stop humans from eating meat, I would. On the other hand, Yeerks are deprived of much more than humans are without their hosts. But say a tiger hunts its prey. Does the prey go: "Oh, well, I understand your position and deem you morally correct in your actions," and go ahead and let itself get eaten? No! Of course not. The tiger does what is most beneficial to it. The prey to it. Or, at least beneficial in a way that doesn't leave room for it to think about universal happiness. Unlike people.
- Not so much. Humans actually DO have to rely on animals if they lack other sources of protein and iron - babies DIE when in a purely vegetarian diet deprived of animal fat (e.g. from milk) and iron. In our ancestral history, our brains were able to grow this energy-hungry because roasting animals were better and faster sources of protein, fat, and iron needed for fuelling and oxygenating our brains' rapid development, rather than having a comparatively sluggish fermentation complex as ruminants do. Starving oneself intentionally only became conceivable in the modern age of junk food. Moreover, if one subscribes to an evolutionary viewpoint, had meat been an unnecessary and inefficient food source, animals would have never developed the weapons to hunt and consume it. We would all be unintelligent but peaceful ruminants doing nothing but graze and have sex. Furthermore, as a previous poster mentioned, the Yeerks really are not being deprived of anything; they only become deprived when they leave their natural state, enter a host body and experience new sensations. If they do not take on a host body, they'll never know what they're missing. Also, extending human morality to animals is hypocritical. Saying animals should have rights is one step closer to saying tigers are legally murderers; hence why intelligence (as in, humans, chimps and cetaceans) is the most fundamental criterion to be given individual rights.
- You know what? Humans are horrible to eat meat. If, some day, cows gain sentience and decide to take revenge against our species, could we really call them evil? No, no human could deny that we had it coming. But we would want to defend against them anyway.
- Why is eating meat so horrible? Animals do it all the time in nature. It's certainly not the Black-and-White Morality you make it out to be. We may not need to, but people like to eat meat, it's very tasty and it is healthy to one's diet. What do you suggest instead? Letting livestock go? What do you think would happen if we suddenly released all those millions, perhaps tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of livestock? Their populations would shoot through the roof, which is already an issue we are facing among our own species, never mind adding other animals to compete with us. Consuming animals is a means of population control, because we do it more effectively than any other species on the planet. This is a system we have, and it's been around for our entire existence. It's not an issue of cruelty, it is a matter of necessity and survival. And we are not killing them plainly For the Evulz or just because Humans Are Bastards, but for sustenance. Their deaths actually have a use. To argue that because we can choose not to eat meat doesn't mean we should. There is nothing wrong or unnatural with eating meat or choosing not to, it all comes down to a matter of personal belief. This is a point the series itself subscribes to that you blithely ignore. We shouldn't prohibit eating meat, but we should try and make the animals as comfortable as possible and ensure they don't die painful deaths, like boiling lobsters alive, which I adamantly and vehemently oppose. You, sir, are a moral fundamentalist, and like all moral fundamentalists, you appeal to blind emotion. Where will this belief of yours end? Stopping laboratory experiments I can understand, but do we put a ban on owning pets? You can believe what you want, but don't judge us for how we live our lives, and we'll try to the same for you.
- We will never eat cows if they gain sentience in the first place anyway.
- We would still have to hide the fact that we ate them for generations and, depending on how intelligent they turned out to be, they would eventually grow suspicious seeing how we treat pigs or chicken.
- This makes the big assumption that more highly evolved descendants of cows would even mind us eating their ancestors. Why should they, when said ancestors were non-sentient? If tigers one day became sentient, would we hold it against them that their ancestors ate our ancestors? There are cultures where people eat monkeys, not caring that they are close relatives to humans.
- I would like to weigh in and note that vegan diets do not kill babies. Also, the cruelty we inflict on animals via factory farming is horrifyingly excessive, and terrible for the environment. And even a stupid animal still feels pain - their stupidity relative to us is not a moral justification for what we do to them. And pigs are pretty smart.
- That's what I liked from Animorphs, there's not really a side that could be called evil. It's not a battle of right and wrong, it's a battle of species. The mere existence of Yeerks is a douchebag move from Mother Nature against the Universe, since they are practically forced by their own nature to confront other sentient species. It's nature's cruelty at it's finest.
- It is quite dismaying to see how so many tropers above exonerate the Yeerks. However sympathetic their motives, however pitiful and helpless they are in their natural state, it does not excuse their actions, not by a long shot. They could just go from planet to planet asking for willing hosts. They do not. They take them against their will. And then there are the truly
Unfortunate Implications the series never explored, that Yeerk spouses who have to maintain their cover actively engage in the most total date rape torture ever conceived of in human history. And then we have how they treat conquered planets, strip mining them and turning them into barren wastelands. And don't forget that alternate timeline, where they kidnap women off the street and rape them, then brainwash children to never feel emotion. I tend to think of the Yeerks in opposite terms, the majority are bad while there are a few decent ones here and there. - Once you start holding Yeerks, Andalites and everyone else to a moral standard calling some good and some bad, then turn around saying that Yeerk infestation is not good, but natural, you undermine your own argument. Andalites are naturally destroying a threat to themselves (and consequentially, a threat to the galaxy), humans are naturally fighting for their own free will, Yeerks are naturally trying to enslave others. I see no way that you can call them "victims," unless you consider them victims of the chaotic, uncaring nature of the universe and Nature. The fact that there are some that realize enslaving others is wrong and that even many of the ones that do become guilty from the constant begging, hate, bargaining etc. of the hosts, that fact shows that they have enough of the moral maturity to realize that is wrong, that they can realize an inherent instinct isn't good, just like all the people around you aren't raping and pillaging because it's natural. That does not exonerate the actions others species take, but as with all things in life it is all gray. Another thing is that we're trying to justify actions using a human construct, namely human morality and ethics, which weirdly enough all the major species subscribe to or actively ignore. They try to establish Blue and Orange Morality but it ultimately fails simply because we can empathize with all the major players in the game. If a species truly naturally infested other species as part of it's natural life cycle, then the question of whether it was moral or not simply would not come up, sentience or no. Some want to and some don't, just like some humans eat meat and some don't (you can argue vegetarianism on the trope page, not here, just an example). They use human morality, written by humans. They aren't victims. The Andalite brass are probably still douchebags though.
- Did the Yeerks have other options? Yes. But the Yeerks seen in the series are entirely descended from (and, IIRC, indoctrinated by) a group that was jealous and sought to even the playing field. It's entirely plausible that the Yeerks on their homeworld (or most of them, anyway) would welcome a means to living an existence that gives them a quality of life. You only realize you're missing something when someone gives you a taste of it and then takes it away. A number of Yeerks went along with the infestation option because that was the only one ever spoken of. Nobody gave these Yeerks who wanted a better quality of life another option. If it had occurred to the Andalites to look beyond the fact that, yeah, a few Yeerks went and killed and fought to get freedom, despite only being a small, non-representative sample, they may have thought to offer them another method. The Andalites, though, were suffering from a desire for revenge against the Yeerks who hauled off and punched them in the face, much as humans are prone to doing in wars. Someone punches you, you get angry, you want to punch them back and make them pay. The Andalite military let that mindset infect them all, let themselves get carried away. Going back to my original point, though,the simple fact is, both sides were driven by emotionally-fueled leaders who fell into the trap of thinking "my way is the only way."
- The Yeerks don't even need Earth. I'm serious: the Yeerks have bio-engineering technology. They've altered hammerhead sharks to have larger brains, and they've resurrected an extinct species in "The Exreme." And I don't think it's a matter of resources; they've been fighting a multi-front war across the galaxy, against both the Andalites and whatever species they're trying to enslave at the moment. The Yeerks could kidnap a few hundred humans, leave Earth and begin cranking out clones (possibly lobotomized for easy use), and the human species would never know what happened. That Yeerks feel the need to build an actual empire with slaves does not speak well for them.
All of this, combined with the millenia he spent wandering alone, drove him crazy. And then the Crayak shows up, an opponent who is always strong enough to challenge him and to drive him to greater achievements, but never quite good enough to defeat him.
The Crayak is a split personality the Ellimist unknowingly created to give himself purpose in what would otherwise have been a long, lonely life.
- So then, the Ellimist and Crayak are the Sentry and the Void respectably?
- "Never quite good enough to defeat him"? When he first showed up, it was the other way around. They played games across the galaxy and Crayak always won (or won disproportionately often). Sure, he didn't kill Ellimist outright, but that's because he was toying with him and probably appreciated having a near equal as much as Ellimist did. It was only after Ellimist ran away and Took a Level in Badass that they actually turned their considerable power against each other.
- This actually makes a lot of sense. Remember, in The Ellimist Chronicles, he was notorious for losing because of his idealism, to the point of one of his acquaintances recommending him for that spaceship crew because he was a "brilliant loser." It's entirely possible that a mentally broken Ellimist would invent an opponent who would exploit his idealism much as his friends back on Ket would during their games. The Ellimist isn't comfortable with constantly winning; he has to lose, because that's his strong suit: losing in such a way that the idealism remains. Heck, if you want to get really insane, you could say that everything after his encounter with Father could have been a hallucination, including the main series, which would explain literally everything in it.
- That wouldn't invalidate the theory. So the Ellimist's crazy side was stronger than him. It's happened before.
- So part of an ascended being's subconscious decided "You Needed Worthy Opponents"? That makes a lot of sense. And besides, Crayak winning some of the time is just the Worf Effect.
- Which logically leads to…
- Whoever wrote this theory is also a Controller, taking advantage of the fact that TV Tropes generally dismisses every WMG concerning reality as "not real, just for a laugh/making some odd sense." Therefore, you, writer, are trying to make us think your theory is too wacky to be true. And it almost worked...Tom.
- TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life, after all. Glory to the Empire.
- Except for you, of course.
- For which one?
I am convinced this song had something to do with his character development somewhere along the line.- If Book 23, The Pretender, is ever (seriously) adapted into something, this song should play over the credits.
- Then what happened to Visser Two? Err, pre-Big Promotion Visser Two? Well, he or she could've been offed by the Council, either for supporting Visser One somehow or for unrelated incompetence (perhaps Two finally cost the Yeerks the Anati system somehow?). But, since this is Wild Mass Guessing, maybe Two got promoted - to the Council. After all, even Yeerks die of old age eventually.
- Promoted to the Council? Oh my god, Visser Two is Garoff (the Council spokesman in Visser)
- The Council is elected, not appointed.
- Says who? That doesn't sound very Yeerkish, and it doesn't mesh with the Council's stated purpose in Visser (to basically be twelve decoys in case anyone tries to assassinate the Emperor).
- But the reason that the former Visser Four infested John Berryman in the first place was because he was demoted following the loss on Leera. Why would the Animorphs making it so the former Visser Four had to infest somebody else get him promoted back up to Visser Two so quickly? He was hardly going to be in a position to do anything spectacular to regain his rank after Leera.
- He called in a favour from his "very good friend" Visser Three. Probably the same way he might have ended up on Earth to find the Time Matrix in another reality, come to think of it. If that's what happened, it would further explain his unflinching loyalty to Visser One (formerly Three) once he becomes Visser Two.
- That does make sense. Had Visser Four not discovered the Time Matrix when he was controlling Berryman, he would have still ended up being Visser Two because Visser One wanted to have someone powerful on his side for once.
- But Yeerks are smarter than most of the people leading our world, and they would need the environment to stay decent so they can keep their hosts alive and actually enjoy having good host bodies.
- Ax states outright that they'll wipe out whatever they don't see as strictly necessary for producing and making hosts. Most of Earth's biodiversity can go fuck itself as far as they're concerned. Just look at what they did to the Hork-Bajir homeworld.
- Yeah, but Ax was spoonfed Andalite propaganda. He's not exactly a reliable source on Yeerk plans.
- Define "decent." Hosts can live in much less than ideal conditions. And even if the Andalites are completely lying about what the Yeerks do to planets, we saw the Hork-Bajir Home World and the Taxxon Home World as well as two nightmare futures of Earth where it indicated that Ax was totally right. And Temrash seemed convinced thath if nothing else the Yeerks would go about wiping out thousands of species just for convenience.
- Yeah, but Ax was spoonfed Andalite propaganda. He's not exactly a reliable source on Yeerk plans.
Then again, if the world leaders cared, then they would just start a nuclear war.
- This leads to the idea that perhaps...
This was all brought about by John Berryman's yeerk realizing a new point in history he could exploit. The Black Mesa incident interfered with the Time Matrix and opened up hundreds of new worlds to invade. He set off and built his own new empire, and then came back to start the Seven Hour War.
- Entirely possible and likely, though given the Elimist and the Rules, its more likely that if Crayak made them simply engineered them from something already existing. Like the Iskoort. Elimist created the Pemalites and Chee, and by The Rules, this allowed Crayak to make the Howlers, who were set against and defeated the Pemalites. Elimist modified the Andalites by giving them Thought-Speak and Uplifting them a bit, so its only fitting that in response, Crayak isolated a group of proto-Iskoort and the gave the proto-Yoort the ability to pull a Grand Theft Me and set things up to set his engineered creatures against the Elimist's, just like he did their wholly original creations.
- The Pemalites (and possibly the Howlers) were created before The Rules. If Crayak did create the Yeerks, he would probably have done so around the same time (I say probably. The timeline's a little hazy for The Ellimist Chronicles, what with all the dinosaurs and proto-Andalites). The Yeerks would have had to have been around for some time, assuming the Iskoort really are related (which really must be the case, considering)
- Or Crayak took a group of Isk and separated them from the majority of their species. That's how the Ellimist got away with some of his "free moves", including "stacking the deck" during the war: Crayak had already made a big move by separating Yeerks and making them more parasitic.
- This point is moot. Sorry, but trying to pinpoint a good guy or bad guy in Animorphs is like...something else that can't easily be done. That's the whole point of the series. That, and (much like another series) don't Recruit Teenagers with Attitude because War Is Hell, so the premise shouldn't work in the real world.
- Per The Ellimist Chronicles, Crayak is a straight-up Omnicidal Maniac. Animorphs may be grey-shaded, but he's the closest thing to pure evil that exists in the series no matter how you slice it.
Anytime the species produces hundreds of offspring for every three parents, it has to be the case that only a few individuals are the lucky ones who get to have distant descendants. It's also the case that only a small minority of Yeerks get to control a host species, and most of them don't.
Now, the thing to keep clear is that the drive to infest a host and climb the status hierarchy wouldn't be there if it weren't helpful in a strategy to be one of the Yeerks who does reproduce (possibly an unconscious strategy rather than one deliberately pursued). The desire to have a powerful position and a strong host seems obvious to humans and also to Yeerks, but the Yeerks would only evolve to be motivated this way if it helps them reproduce. If the best way to reproduce were to just be hanging around the Yeerk pool at the right time, then evolution would favor the Yeerks who spent all their time in the Yeerk pool, and not exploring the world in a Gedd body. And this is so even though it's presumably beneficial to the group to have plenty of Yeerks with host bodies, who can do far more things in the world than a mere unhosted Yeerk.
From here it's obvious that the Yeerks in hosts must be the same ones who reproduce. It's most likely that the actual process of reproduction uses nutrients that are only available to the Yeerks who have a Gedd host. And in fact, if the Yeerks with hosts have these fierce competitions with each other, it's likely that it even matters which Gedd they live in, that a Yeerk may need to be living in one of the best Gedds before it has a chance of reproducing properly.
So that's the ancestral environment that Yeerks evolved for: a world with Gedd hosts that are needed for reproduction, and apparently no other useful hosts. On the other hand, things are different today, with all the other host species. And it certainly doesn't seem that the highest-status Yeerks today, the Council of Thirteen and the Vissers, are the ones who reproduce. They also have their choice of host bodies, and they choose to inhabit one of their strong host races rather than a Gedd. Just as some men would rather pursue status and become Pope, even though they will have no descendants that way; so most Yeerks would rather pursue status and become a Visser, live in a powerful Hork-Bajir (or human, or Andalite) host body, and still leave no descendants. Their status-seeking instincts tell them that the stronger host bodies are the best ones to live in, and the Gedds are much weaker than most other host bodies. But in terms of reproductive activity, the Yeerks who live in an actual Gedd are the ones who reproduce, and so in the Yeerk Empire today, there is no longer a correlation between very high status and reproductive success. (But the Yeerks who live in a Gedd are still higher-status than the unhosted Yeerks, and probably higher than certain other low-status species in the Empire. Also, it's likely that high respect is attached to reproduction itself even though it obliterates the individual identity of the Yeerks who participate in it.)
So that's the situation with the Yeerks: The life story of an evolutionarily successful Yeerk would be to infest a Gedd, reproduce, and probably take only five or six years at most to do so. But the successful Yeerks today, like all of the Yeerks who the Animorphs meet, are the ones who win the competition for a powerful host like a Hork-Bajir or human; and their life doesn't end after five or six years since they're not reproducing, it's the Yeerks who were inhabiting a Gedd. It kind of explains a lot about the perverse cultural values we see in Visser, where the Yeerk Empire is fanatically focused on power and Visser One is on a trial in which her worst offense was being a loving mother. This is also why Aftran explains the Yeerk reproductive cycle as if even she finds it paradoxical and embarrassing, and she didn't address the question of which Yeerks it is who reproduce—although from an evolutionary standpoint, this is a very important question. It's also rather surprising that the Yeerks the Animorphs never actually meet any Gedds and hardly ever even have to think about them, until you consider how the Gedds must occupy an unusual position in any species that naturally evolved to have a close relationship with the Gedds, but is exploring the artificial possibilities of infesting all kinds of other species.
- Just a minor point to start with, where is it implied that Esplin 9466 is one of the oldest Yeerks alive, because it seems to me that The Hork-Bajir Chronicles implies just the opposite! To be specific, it (and subsequent books) implies that the Andalites blockaded the the Yeerk homeworld and never left (The Andalite Chronicles be damned) so all the Yeerks on Earth are descended from those who left in that original group. But most Yeerks featured in the series give their home pool as part of their name, the most common of which is Sulp Niar which we know from The Hork-Bajir Chronicles is on the Yeerk homeworld! This seems to me fair, if circumstantial evidence that Esplin is in fact one of the youngest Yeerks featured, and where exactly is this contradicted?
- While we're on genetics, Yeerk chromosomes are in triads, not pairs. Why else would three individuals be needed for mating?
- There doesn't necessarily have to be a direct link between taking hosts and reproducing in order for the Yeerks' evolution to make sense. Yeerks are social animals. So even individuals who don't reproduce themselves can indirectly pass on their genes by helping their relatives. A few Yeerks with hosts to guard against predators would greatly contribute to the survival of their entire pool. If those controllers have plenty of siblings in the pool, then they’re increasing the chances of DNA very similar to their own getting passed on, regardless of if they reproduce themselves are not.
- A simpler explanation for requiring host bodies is that inbreeding is genetically disadvantageous, so it would be advantageous for Yeerks to travel beyond their own pools when searching for the two other Yeerks with whom they would mate (combined with the "protect the pool" school of thought above). Furthermore, there are parasites on Earth that invade their hosts' brains and control them, so it's not hard to imagine that Yeerks could evolve a more advanced form of that. This especially could hold true if Gedds needed to drink from the pools in which the Yeerks live; if Gedds have orifices that would grant Yeerks access to their brains on the parts of their bodies they use to drink from the pools, then it would be a simple matter for Yeerks to evolve to invade said orifice (imagine if we had our ears on our cheeks). No regular-falling-head-first-into-pools issue there.
- This was exactly my thought, as well! There's more, though: maybe this could explain why the higher ranking yeerks seem to be so prone to insanity (vissers three, four, one, Taylor...)? They live so much longer than a yeerk is naturally supposed to that their brains start crumbling - they're basically going senile!
It would be an understatement to say that the taxxons kinda suck. While they are immensely intelligent and evidently very good pilots, the simple fact is, they're giant fluid-filled condoms that will break into a feeding frenzy at the sight of blood. In other words, you have a creature whose fragility is virtually a running gag, and who'll completely wig out and cannibalize one another, or even themselves given the slightest suggestion of a chance.At a lesser scale, this wouldn't be so bad. We're physically unimpressive, but good with technology, even though our brains can make us do silly things. But consider a human controller, like Tom. He sees his family constantly, knowing the yeerks are going to get them, but his yeerk maintains perfect control of him at all times.A taxxon controller, aboard the Blade Ship with Visser Three no less, sees the animorphs and gets cut in half for his trouble. Rather than say something, it immediately sees its blood-soaked ass sitting in front of it, and starts chowing down.
So we have a species of bulbous, fluid-filled condoms that could probably be busted open by harsh language, who have a feeding instinct apparently greater than self preservation, or the preservation of one's loved ones, and is triggered by blood.Imagine what taxxon controllers go through. Imagine one of their coworkers getting a papercut. For the love of Crayak, they're water balloons perched atop dozens of little needles!
I cannot see natural selection favoring these guys under any circumstances. And we've already established that the Ellimist and Crayak have both created life forms that they like(Ellimist has the pemalites, Crayak has the Howlers). Is it a stretch to say that Crayak created the taxxons for the sheer audacity of it?
- Humans may be a similar-but-upgraded version, where either the taxxons' creator or the taxxons' creator's opponent took the original build, but took points from Metabolism, # of Legs, and Multitasking Dexterity, and put them in Endurance, # of Digits, and Creativity. While the taxxons are a poorly-balanced Navigator Munchkin species of gluttonous goo wrapped in an overfull water-balloon, humans are a slightly-better balanced Gadgeteer Genius Plus Infantry Munchkin species of gluttonous goo wrapped in a t-shirt (with the Horror Hunger, the taxxons couldn't effectively act as tech-savvy zerglings until the yeerks started simply using them as biomech). ...which makes sense, considering Crayak and the Ellimist are basically playing do-it-yourself
- It would have to be Crayak considering that they are in constant pain from hunger. We know the Ellimist tries to be nice to his team and Crayok...
Naturally, we can also conclude that the series ends with Ultraman swooping in to save the day.
- This troper came to a similar conclusion when a friend explained the plot of The Host to her.
- This troper read The Host specifically because of this similarity.
- Shit! It just occurred to me that the Yeerks, the Souls, and the Goa'uld are all one and the same!
- Actually, those three races have absolutely nothing in common beyond being Puppeteer Parasites. They'll probably just wipe themselves out fighting over the human hosts. The Goa'uld and the Yeerks will first destroy the peace-loving Souls and then the Yeerks will be destroyed by the Goa'uld, who actually are Always Chaotic Evil. Except by then, the Goa'uld will have been greatly weakened after taking on such a powerful enemy as the Yeerks and SG-1 will have teamed up with the Animorphs and Epic Awesomeness will ensue.
- There MUST be fanfiction for this.
No ideas about the sparkly vampires, though.
- Jossed by Word of God. KAA herself said The One was a future villain-type thing unrelated to anything else in the series. And Crayak existed long before the Animorphs' time, as explained in The Ellimist Chronicles. Rachel might've been assimilated by The One, but it doesn't show them her face, only Ax's. And there's no evidence that she turns into The One, especially considering her last words to Tobias are "I love you": hardly evil.
- "Kind of implied"? Rachel says "Then he killed me with a single blow." And Cassie, who was right there watching it, said "Rachel dead? How could that be? How could that be real?" They all watched her die. Even if she became something else post-death, she still died first.
- Jossed by Word of God. KAA herself said The One was a future villain-type thing unrelated to anything else in the series. And Crayak existed long before the Animorphs' time, as explained in The Ellimist Chronicles. Rachel might've been assimilated by The One, but it doesn't show them her face, only Ax's. And there's no evidence that she turns into The One, especially considering her last words to Tobias are "I love you": hardly evil.
- More likely Aftran simply asked a member of the Yeerk Peace Movement to carry her to the Yeerk pool in a Ziploc bag filled with water, and let Karen be on her way, safely above ground. We know for a fact that Aftran had to have touched base with the YPM at some point prior to releasing Karen, which is how Tidwell/Illim knows the Animorphs identities in #29: The Sickness.
hypothesis. And we know that the Ellimist is a Mind Hive so we're like him/them, except without the god-like powers. Certainly explains why he gives the Animorphs such special treatment.- Definite possibility. More likely, what he said was true (about him being unable to at the time until... people cleared out, I think?) however he DIDN'T CARE one way or another. His attitude towards it was likely 'If it happens, it happens. I won't complain. Not like I have anything to lose.'
- Also notable is that, in a franchise full of strange and diverse alien cultures, Applegate decided Ketrans would randomly be culturally similar to humans. It could have been done to show why he gives humans special treatment - we remind him of home.
"Intermittent Explosive Disorder (abbreviated IED) is a behavioral disorder characterized by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand." Nuff said.
I'm also fairly sure Rachel has some sort of psychiatric issue but I don't know of a medical term for a disorder characterized by a psychological addiction to stress and adrenaline.
- It would be remiss not to note that antisocial personality disorder (better known as sociopathy) cannot be diagnosed in an individual until they are eighteen years of age. David is around the same age as the Animorphs are (so, around fourteen or fifteen) so it is impossible for him to be a sociopath. He might be a budding sociopath (which would probably merit a conduct disorder or oppositional-defiant disorder diagnosis), but his circumstances should also be taken into account. Labeling him a sociopath is jumping to conclusions.
- I'd also debate the validity of diagnosing an alien with a human personality disorder. Yeerks have drastically different psychology than humans do, as we see in Visser. Both of these 'theories' should be taken with a grain of salt (or perhaps the whole shaker).
- Finally, Rachel is also too young to be diagnosed with a personality disorder more severe than conduct disorder with violent features, but the books sum it better than the DSM ever could - she's a violence junkie.
- I thought it was pretty clear that David was supposed to be Not Right somehow. Sure, a lot of horrible stuff happened to him, but that doesn't excuse the sadistic tendencies, the weird rationalizations for what he thought was murder, the seeming lack of morals or guilt, the ego, or owning a cobra and naming his cat "Megadeth". While he might not be textbook ASPD, he probably would've ended up as a juvenile delinquent, had things gone differently (or possibly already was).
- There's a huge gap between a juvenile delinquent and a sociopath, and even comparing the two is baffling. It's been scientifically proven that teenagers tend towards a distinct lack of empathy - Jake and the team are the exception, not the rule. In many ways, the David arc was about showing what would happen if an ordinary kid were recruited to the war, and clearly the results aren't pretty.
- Clearly, the David arc was a preemptive Deconstruction of Animorphs self-insert fanfiction.
- There's a huge gap between a juvenile delinquent and a sociopath, and even comparing the two is baffling. It's been scientifically proven
- The Yeerks, Humans, and Andalites are unique in their intelligence and humanity then? Because it really seems like things would have gone a lot smoother if one of the three species involved hadn't had the ability to steal the brains of the others because that's just asking for trouble. Not to mention that no Yeerk is supposed to meet an Iskoort for centuries and the Yeerks seem to be going the nothlit route or the 'stuck on the Yeerk homeworld never to be allowed out of their Pools' route. After what happened last time they had a chance, it would take a lot for anyone to give them a chance, particularly given how complicated and ethically tricky creating a whole new species for Yeerks to infest is. I mean, the Hork-Bajir are an artificially-created race and that didn't make what the Yeerks did to them okay.
- Non-living host bodies. And hey, maybe Yeerks are Crayak's brainchild and Ellimist just figured he could use them. Forgot that the Yeerks on Earth are going nothlit though
- Is that possible? They have to be living because otherwise the Yeerks wouldn't die when their hosts do and it's canon that they do. I think it's strongly implied that the hosts have to be sentient as we have no evidence of non-sentient beings being able to be used as hosts. When the Yeerks want to take sharks, they have to artificially make them sentient as shown in #15 before they can control them. If the Yeerks made a non-sentient race artificially sentient that wouldn't make enslaving them okay and if they did what the Yoort did and made it so that they would die without the other that would be even worse because if it hadn't been for the Yeerks' meddling then the new hosts could live out their lives non-enslaved and the Yeerks don't really lose anything since they wanted hosts all along.
- Horses. As I recall, the sharks had something about their brains which meant they had to be fiddled with, not their level of sentience. Unless you're saying the horses were sentient... which is a point you could debate, I guess, but there really isn't any evidence on that front.
- We don't know if those were regular horses are specially engineered sentient horses. The Yeerks probably made non-sentient species sentient before the shark program since they seemed so sure that it would work (and it was working). And if they were just regular horses then why did the horse-controller who got bitten by a snake need to be destroyed? That destruction was a lot more public and suspicious than just finding a dying horse and a small slug that wouldn't have been around for very long anyway so it only makes sense to do if they were trying to hide something...such as the horse being altered to be fit for infestation.
- In #41 The Familiar, Cassie/Niss says that one of the goals of the Evolutionist Front is the use of nonliving, artificial host bodies instead of living ones. This, however, is at least ten years in the future, so who knows where Yeerk technology is at that point.
- It may be a goal of theirs do to that but have they actually made any progress on that or is that just the 'you know, this would solve all our problems' solution? Plus, you have to consider that that wasn't actually real so the things that happened and are mentioned in it may not necessarily be true either.
- Guess this is why it's wild mass guessing.
- That doesn't mean you can't debate a guess.
- The Yeerks, Humans, and Andalites are unique in their intelligence and humanity then? Because it really seems like things would have gone a lot smoother if one of the three species involved hadn't had the ability to steal the brains of the others because that's just asking for trouble. Not to mention that no Yeerk is supposed to meet an Iskoort for centuries and the Yeerks seem to be going the nothlit route or the 'stuck on the Yeerk homeworld never to be allowed out of their Pools' route. After what happened last time they had a chance, it would take a lot for anyone to give them a chance, particularly given how complicated and ethically tricky creating a whole new species for Yeerks to infest is. I mean, the Hork-Bajir are an artificially-created race and that didn't make what the Yeerks did to them okay.
- The Hork-Bajir would have followed Toby Hamee's example, and Toby herself showed pretty solid leanings towards being a Proud Warrior Race Girl. I'd say this one is pretty likely.
- But then how would the Animorphs have gotten home in order to save the planet (and possibly the universe if #41 is to be believed) from the Yeerks?
- Jossed by Book 37, The Weakness. The tv station has the call letters WTVK. The fact that the first letter is W means that the Animorphs live east of the Mississippi River, since all tv stations have W at the first call letter east of the Mississippi, and all tv stations west of the Mississippi have K as the first call letter.
- The station must have been a mistake (or, as the books were apparently written down during the war, a deliberate lie to throw people off). It outright says that they live in California in one of the later books.
- There are some exceptions in Real Life for stations which were licensed early on and allowed to keep their call sign. Most of them are radio stations, but the Fox affiliate in Kansas City (which is west of the Mississippi) is WDAF. The TV station in the novels could have been licensed before call signs became standardized (or affiliated with a radio station that was, as WDAF is.)
- It's been suggested that the Hork-Bajir captured by the Yeerks in #47 also led to the big revelation of #49, which is perhaps plausible, but two direct eyewitnesses would hammer it home even further. I like this one.
- It's also possible that Yeerks who had suspected that they were human after some of the former Visser One's pleas while being Kandrona-starved to death, and decided that, by the time of #49, it was no longer too soon to suggest the theory.
- Highly unlikely, for this simple reason: what motive would either of them have to do that? The Ellimist has already shown the Animorphs a Bad Future once and subtlety just isn't Crayak's style. Applegate jossed the theory about this entity being The One, leading to two conclusions: either it's the 'greater power' the Ellimist referenced in The Attack or it's an entirely new being.
- Or it was simply a dream with no being behind it.
- Given that Crayak himself was introduced via a dream and dreams usually have deeper meaning in the Animorphs verse (see #06, #48 and Megamorphs 04, among others), this is fairly unlikely.
- There's also speculation that it could have been the Skrit-Na. They're implied to have extremely technology and tend to do weird stuff like abducting people for no reason.
- Or it was simply a dream with no being behind it.
- I'm afraid I don't follow this one. What does Borg-style assimilation have to do with Satan? Part of what makes Animorphs great is that it avoids getting bogged down in issues of religion, so it'd be a huge step backwards, for this troper at least, if the series ended with the introduction of a disguised Judeo-Christian villain (though this would enable crossovers with Supernatural, which is perhaps the theory's sole redeeming point).
- Besides, if anyone is Satan in this series, it's Crayak, right down to them sharing the common backstory of having been driven from their original home by the one power in the universe greater than themself. I wouldn't rule out that one or more groups of primative humans were approached by Crayak or his agents, and various legends of dark gods and demons can trace their roots back to that.
- It's worth noting that Crayak's similarities with Satan are no accident - K.A. cited the Satan character from John Milton's Paradise Lost as an inspiration for Crayak, along with Sauron from The Lord of the Rings.
But the thing is, David goes out of his way to avoid conflict with Cassie. She's the only Animorph he doesn't go after when he betrays the team. When he backs off from Visser Three in the book before, it's because she's in trouble. Even when he threatens to go to the Yeerks with what he knows, he pointedly threatens Jake and Rachel only. Now, giving up one Animorph would give them all up, but there's a good chance that David, with his lack of experience, simply didn't realize that.
Is it too much to suppose that the reason why David retreated was because he didn't want to harm Cassie, rather than out of fear as Rachel suggests? Cassie identifies herself to him right before he retreats. If it had been any other Animorph in that humpback whale morph, would David have stuck around and fought it out?
- Except that in each of the cases you've just described, David is in the better morph. If a lion and a tiger fight, the lion wins. A golden eagle is larger and stronger then a great horned owl. The incident with Cassie is the first time that David's been confronted by an opponent who is bigger and stronger then him, and despite what the narration says about the whale having no weapons, a humpbacked whale with Cassie's brain in it, is a legitimate threat to David's orca (all she has to do is ram him once). Had Jake morphed rhino rather then tiger, or Rachel been in bald eagle rather then owl morph, we might well have seen David back off then as well.
- Except this is strongly implied to be canon, from David's own words, that "Cassie was the only one who ever treated him kindly" among the Animorphs. Sure, the size was intimidating, but they confirmed in universe that David could have taken Cassie if he wanted.
An andalite's "genitals" are located in their tail, the blade having evolved as a protective sheath. To reproduce, a male and a female andalite perform a courtship ritual involving a combative dance that culminates in wrapping and rubbing their tails together to stimulate orgasm, at which point they ejaculate on a therant tree chosen to incubate the embryo. A given tree can only incubate one fetus at a time and conception is less successful than human reproduction, involving repeated attempts to impregnate the tree. Is is a traditional custom for a flower (called a "wish flower") to be taken from the tree and prayed to for good luck in conceiving. The flower, if tended to, can eventually grow into a tree itself. The tree that gave birth to a particular andalite is known as their Garibah, or "guide tree," to which they sometimes retreat to seek advice and comfort. So all andalites would have three parents: their mother, father, and garibah.
Why exactly would Andalites evolve such a relationship with therant trees? Considering that therant trees have a partial animal nature, they may actually be a stage in the andalite's lifecycle rather than a separate species. "First generation" therant trees might be born from spores released by (perhaps dying and decomposing) andalites, and subsequently the trees will reproduce themselves like other plants through pollination and parthenogenesis. Less frequently, the trees might give birth to andalites without needing to be fertilized by an andalite couple, completing the lifecycle and ensuring redundancy.
- Seeing Ax's human morph, it would probably be more along the lines of a Biological Mashup, as it seem to take separate elements from each acquired individual.
- The major evidence against this is that, in spite of our tendencies, in the Great Game we're all but explicitly the Ellimist's pieces on the board along with the Andalites, while Crayak's pieces were set against us in the form of the Yeerks and The One from the last page of the last book or so. If he did create us, we turned against our master despite ourselves.
- It's a legitimate point, but think about it for a second: the only humans we've seen act at all helpful to the Ellimist were the Animorphs (and their families), and they were under the direct influence of andalites (namely, Elfangor and Ax). Other than that, humans have done nothing to help either the Ellimist or the Crayak, directly or indirectly, and we have a lot more potential to fight for the Crayak's side.
- Seems unlikely. In The Elimmist Chronicles, when he is looking at Earth in the time of Dinosaurs and the Crayak is about to destroy it, he sees the potential of the planet and decides to save it.
- Not every aggressive species in the universe is the Crayak's doing. There's no indication at all that he created the Yeerks, but he was more than happy to play them against the Andalites. And speaking of... the Andalites are living evidence that Crayak and/or the Ellimist can influence a species without actually creating them. Who's to say one or the other hasn't given human history the occasional nudge over the centuries?
- Crayak's ultimate goal is to be the last thing left alive in the universe, and the only time we've seen him create life rather than destroy it is the Howlers, which are directly useful for that goal. It's unlikely he'd take a gamble on creating a species he couldn't control.
Humans have some unique traits. There are billions of us on one planet, which is unheard of (the Yeerk command originally thought there'd been a counting error). The second is that we advance quickly. We went from powered flight to the moon landing three times faster than the Andalites, and begin to discover the secrets of Faster-Than-Light Travel on our own, before the alien presence is revealed and the Andalites ally with us. The third is that our brains work differently- apparently, we can argue with ourselves, which is something Visser One never saw before. This makes us attractive to both sides.
Crayak's original plan was for the Yeerks to devour all six billion of us and turn us into a huge army. His second plan is to use our natural aggression and general bastardry and turn the human race into the next conquering force, replacing the Yeerks. Perhaps he'll engineer several unpleasant incidents with the Andalites, or the Kelbrid war is a feint to get us on the warpath, or maybe Crayak will come to us directly, but his endgame is to turn us into galactic conquerors until we're replaced by his new favorites.
The Ellimist's plan was to make Earth and the humans the turning point of the Yeerk war. He succeeded- the Yeerks' defeat here, combined with the Leeran victory and other successful campaigns, caused the Yeerks to negotiate a cease-fire. It wasn't his only plan- the Iskoort were another turning point- but the Yeerk threat is ended. Now, the Ellimist is trying to get us to embrace our better nature and join the galactic scene. First, we learned that we weren't alone in the universe, so we really should unite and quit killing each other. And second, we've met aliens who weren't trying to kill us and want to ally with us, like the Andalites, Hork-Bajir, and even the Taxxon resistance. The Ellimist's end goal is make us see that we don't need to be hostile, while making sure that we have the numbers and technology to defend ourselves and others when the next galactic menace shows up.
- The only problem with your theory is that a Cassie that didn't care about moralizing would bring the entire Yeerk Empire to it's knees. And then do the rest with Earth and the Andalites.
- Not necessarily. Of all the Animorphs, Cassie has by far the weakest morphs. She'd probably be able to take down a few Hork-Bajir, but somewhere along the line, they'd manage to kill her. Meanwhile, the other Cassie would've avoided insane-Cassie at all costs, which would explain why moralizing-Cassie would be the survivor.
- So, rolling with this theory, what happened to the other Cassie? You know, regular model Cassie? Did she just go Screw This, I'm Outta Here?
- Per the DSM-V, this diagnosis is now called "dissociative identity disorder". And in any case, literally being split into two separate people (as she was in #32) and then being force-fused back together is a better explanation for her mood swings post that book than any real-world condition.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer starts showing the year Animorphs starts, and Rachel comes home occasionally slightly scratched up, but always very tired. Jordan, who's older and more skeptical occasionally presses Rachel on what she's doing out, but Sarah probably completely believes that her sister is the Vampire Slayer.
- The Elimist wouldn't have to have abandoned them. The Leerans could have been a backup in case the game for Earth was lost.
CRAB PEOPLE, CRAB PEOPLE...
- Glib and superficial charm: David is pretty nice and friendly when he wants to be, this is what keeps Rachel at all bearable, and Cassie uses it to get people to do what she wants
- Grandoise self-worth: David's is obvious. Rachel's is more subtle, but when reading The Weakness, it's shown that she thinks she's better than everyone else - until everything crashes down, that is. Cassie always feels that she is the "voice of morality" for the group, and without her they would delve into immoral tactics.
- Need for stimulation and proneness to boredom: David couldn't sit still in a barn for two minutes without crashing through a hotel window, and Rachel is shown to always be the first to go on any sort of mission, rushing everyone with minimal planning. Cassie doesn't show this as much, but it does show in her constantly working in the barn, to the point where her parents don't find it odd when she's out there late at night.
- Pathological lying: This one's a lot more justified in the others, at least in Rachel's sense - she has to lie to her parents in order to survive. David, however, lies all the time, and not for much of a reason. Cassie lies when she feel that it is "justified": see her letting Tom take the morphing cube, among other things.
- Conning and manipulativeness: David's plans often involve manipulating others, such as when he pretended to be Saddler. Rachel doesn't do this nearly as much, but she does sometimes use others, particularly Tobias. Cassie doesn't use it as often, but when she does, it's devastating (remember who came up with the plan to deal with David?).
- Lack of remorse or guilt: David feels no guilt for anything whatsoever, and Rachel only feels guilty when her actions seriously harm humans - never when the mildly harm them or when the victim isn't a human.
- Shallow effect: David has this in spades, constantly pretending to feel emotions that he doesn't have. Rachel is also shown to have no middle ground between extremes of feelings - either (very occasionally) feeling strongly about something, or feeling nothing at all. Cassie feels guilt at harming anything; until she convinces herself it's justified and then doesn't get concerned again until the evidence is staring her in the face (see #19, bit of Hork-Bajir in her teeth).
- Callousness and lack of empathy: David's is quite obvious, and Rachel is shown to frequently kill or hurt others and only occasionally feel guilt. For Cassie, see above.
- Parasitic lifestyle: David would be hopeless if he couldn't force others to notice him. He constantly needs things from others - the morphing cube, a place to stay, Saddler's body... all without contributing anything to the people he steals from. Even his ultimate plan involves this - he wanted to give the morphing power to other humans who would support him and help him do crime. Rachel also needs things from others, if only someone to kill, someone to kill for, and someone to love. Cassie needs others acting in morally ambiguous ways, and needs to be morally superior to anyone else, up to being willing to be a caterpillar forever rather than let Aftran have the moral high ground.
- Poor behavioral controls: Oh, lord. Rachel has no behavior control at all - she is frequently shown to be completely out of control of her violent emotions, threatening (inside her head) to kill people and seriously hurt them constantly (particularly in The Return). David is a bit better, but he still couldn't help do things that were stupid (such as break into that hotel room) for no reason at all. While this isn't as violence-centered for Cassie, she does generally act on emotional impulse, even more so than Rachel, from temporarily quitting the team in #19, to endangering herself for the Buffa-human in #39, and generally putting herself in danger for no good reason.
- Promiscuous sexual behavior: Irrelevant - this being a kids series, there were no opportunities for sex.
- Early behavioral problems: Also irrelevant - we have little information on either of their early childhoods. On the flip side, there is no basis of comparison from teenagers onward.
- Lack of realistic, long-term goals: David's long-term goals make no sense - who does he think will get on board with him to do pointless and destructive crime, even if he does give them morphing power? Not to mention that this would attract massive attention from the yeerks and would probably end with everybody dying. Rachel's and Cassie's is completely justified in that none of the Animorphs have long term goals, other than to stay alive. However, Cassie does have long-term ideals, just no clear plan of how to achieve them.
- Impulsivity: We saw when Rachel took over in The Weakness that Rachel has no natural ability to plan anything - she's just more likely to charge into battle and kill anything that moves. David's a bit better, but he was still destructive with no real purpose or long term goal behind it - it was more like, "Ooh! Animorphs! I hate those guys! Let's kill!" Cassie, on the other hand, will say "Let's follow directions from this whale," or "Sure, I'll be possessed by the spirit of a long-dead guerrilla fighter,".
- Irresponsibility: Rachel is shown in the later books to almost never be able to do what the Animorphs ask of her unless it involves killing - same goes for David. Cassie also does not take responsibility for her own actions, often saying that she acts on feelings, or whims, or hopes, but with little forethought and serious retrospective rationalization.
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions: Rachel only very occasionally accepts responsibility for anything, and it generally only happens when it would be absolutely necessary for her to be at all human. David is even worse, never wanting to solve any of the problems he causes for the Animorphs. Cassie give up the morphing cube and refuses to take the blame for the problems caused by morph-capable Controllers.
- Many short-term marital relationships: Another irrelevant factor - both are too young to marry.
- Juvenile delinquency: It can be argued that the Animorphs are forced to break laws, but both Rachel and David do it more consistently and more pointlessly than anyone else.
- Revocation of conditional release: David is told off for his counterproductive actions in the first two books of the David trilogy, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to do these things. This brings about his ultimate fate. Rachel is never punished for anything that she does, but even on the rare occasion that she feels guilt over killing someone, she still remains to be enormously violent and dangerous.
- Criminal versatility: Both Rachel and David take part in breaking tons and tons of different laws - they can basically do anything they want.
- I'm glad you agree Cassie is at the very least debatable. Cassie, for all her faults, did not brush off guilt as you easily as you claim she did. The only example I can think of is #54. The Beginning, and many fans agreed that it was very rushed, with so much cut and left out. That said, I do think she is a misguided idiot who thinks more with her emotions than her head, which leads to some truly horrific acts. Plus, she commits perhaps the most horrendous rime in the ENTIRE series, which is quite a feat - she erases a man from existence, when there was absolutely no need and a far better alternative, and if you believe in the concept of souls, then this becomes true Fridge Horror when you realized she destroyed an innocent man's soul, and he no longer exists, because he was never around to be born, die, and head to an afterlife, which effectively makes Cassie worse than some of the worst dictators in human history, but like I said, I think this stemmed more from misguided stupidity than outright malevolence.
- As mentioned in another WMG entry, the DSM specifically states that a person must be 18 years of age or older to be classified with any personality disorder, as any younger and a person's brain literally hasn't matured enough. Certain emotional and behavioral disorders can be applied to children, but none of them quite impart the Complete Monster edge this WMG was shooting for.
- We do get to see most of the Animorphs as adults in the last book, and the person who comes closest is actually Marco. Even leaving aside anything in the last 40-or-so books we get "glib and superficial charm," "grandiose self-worth," "shallow affect," "irresponsible behavior," "conning and manipulativeness," and "promiscuous sexual behavior" (like the time he outright sexually harasses Jeanne).
- When one of the Arn was talking to Dak Hamee, he mentioned that try as they might, they couldn't eliminate the genes that led to a seer being born. This means that they had an actual genetic test for intelligence, and didn't just rely on interviews or something.
- The seers have different genetics, whether it makes them smarter or dumber. So the Arn would recognize that the genes existed, but they wouldn't know if it was the genes for intelligence or stupidity. They assumed it was the genes for intelligence, because well, what else would they think?
- Unfortunately this theory doesn't work with the fact that Yeerks can read minds, and they would know if Hork Bajir are really intelligent or not. Also, it seems a bit far-fetched to assume that everyone Dak Hamee met in his childhood actually understood all the intelligent things he said but just pretended not to. It's not like the Arn were watching all the time.
- Oh, yeah. Didn't think of the Yeerks factoring into that.
- It makes more sense that the Hork-Bajir simply have a different kind of intelligence from Arn, humans, or Andalites (and who's to say those three have the same intelligence as each other either?). Their biology and culture are perfectly suited to their natural habitat, and they never had a need to develop advanced technology before aliens showed up.
- It is worth noting that, technically, Ax is Tobias's uncle. That familial relation might have had something to do with it too.
- This would jibe with Elfangor similarly being described as having a calming presence, but if this is a trait of Andalites, why do we only see it in those two? You can't wave it away with Early-Installment Weirdness because Visser Three's malevolent presence remains a constant, but no other Andalite in the series is described as emitting any significant emotional presence. It's just him and Elfangor. Maybe...
- It may be a trick all Andalites can do, but only use away from other Andalites. It's viewed as narcissistic and obnoxious to promote yourself like that. Elfangor did it because he's trying to calm the humans, and Visser Three does it because he's a dick.
- It's a nice thought, but we're explicitly shown several scenes of Yeerks entering through the ear canal. Applegate just didn't grok enough biology to understand that a nasal invasion would be easier on the human body than an aural one.
- A lot of these psych WMGs reach heavily, but I rather like this one. Just about every Yeerk character we see takes on traits from their host to some degree and the above doesn't even mention Taylor, who is perhaps the strongest argument for the "crazy hosts can drive their Yeerks crazy" theory. What is interesting about the cases of Taylor and Alloran in particular is that the infestation seems to make their Yeerks take on their worst traits while the hosts themselves seem to stabilize mentally (there's a scene in #43 where human Taylor tries to warn Tobias about what her Yeerk is up to, and Alloran at the end has clearly become a different Andalite entirely from the begrudgingly Retired Monster we see in the Andalite Chronicles).
which immediately rang out as matching Tobias' life story to a T. Now get your mind out of the gutter.He started off with guardians who had no love for him whatsoever. His first impressions of the world were therefore extremely hostile ones. All he had were his dinosaurs to play with, so he invested himself in that little world of predators and prey, learning all he could about them. Any attempts to extract interest or attention from his uncle using his fantasies/interests as a bridge were immediately shot down (like the flashback in #33 with his drawing), causing him to draw further into the world he'd constructed in his head. Presumably the same thing happened with his aunt. This lead to the development of his schizoid tendencies, which I'll get to.
His world view was basically built around his interest in dinosaurs. The predators especially appealed to him, representing in his mind the control over the environment that he lacked, as well as various other positive traits: strength and confidence (T. Rex), family cohesion and cunning (Deinonychus), freedom and grace (Pteranadon), and so on. Predatory nature was his idealized solution to all the problems in the world. He'd developed his idealized self, so naturally, when the opportunity to fully realize it in a physical form arose, you bet he freaking jumped on it without even thinking. He kept pushing his luck with the time limit in the first book, and immediately after getting stuck, he was remarkably calm about it. Realizing that getting trapped might have been a mistake only occurred to him later.
When that regret hit in book 3, it was because of his aunt and uncle. They'd taught him from the cradle that being dependent on someone is the surest way to get hurt. To him, dependency only meant letting a person stomp all over your emotions while not giving a damn whether you were still even alive or not. He'd never killed a living thing before, so naturally he was squeamish. At the same time, relying on the guy he hero-worshiped (who was one of the last humans left that he could even hope to relate to) to feed and house him was opening the door to a soul-crushing betrayal and heartbreak. Toss in the new hawk instincts he couldn't get a single break from, and you have a recipe for a complete meltdown. Squeamishness proved easier to get over than a decade of neglect, thus kicking off his powerful drive for complete independence. Even staying at a friend's house now meant weakness in his mind. He accepted his fantasy self completely, and began holding himself to the standards of the free, independent predator he'd always idolized. It became a point of pride, and he would act defensively whenever anyone questioned his decision to live in the woods and risk starvation to the point of eating roadkill. There was no self-esteem underlying that pride, and that made it a vulnerable point for him. On some level, he knew he was acting irrationally, and even started questioning it occasionally (like thinking about how if Marco were the nothlit hawk, he would have no problem letting Rachel pamper him).
Things happened in the war, and he maintained his anxiety-driven compulsive behavior throughout. As he matured, the “solution” to his insecurities and conflicts became further withdrawal. The episode with Taylor certainly didn’t help here. After #33, every character commented on Tobias being more quiet and introverted. Taylor had managed to open him up, make him identify with her, and then hurt him like no one ever had before. At this point, he basically saw no choice but to hide himself deeper within his hawk shell. Just seek shelter in his now reinforced schizoid personality disorder.
Now, SPD is typified by a number of traits:
- Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect: He certainly comes off this way at times. There are numerous mentions of his piercing, unreadable hawk stare as he just watches the others discuss a topic. He probably says the least in group conversation out of all the animorphs, and when he does talk, it’s in a concise speech pattern. Going back to his neurosis, he prefers to keep people at a distance as a sort of defense mechanism (which really makes a bird of prey the most ideal morph for him in that way).
- Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others: He certainly never had a problem yelling at people who annoyed him. He does get some sweet moments with Rachel too. Everything else is kind of a middle ground.
- Consistent preference for solitary activities: He spent three years in the woods to avoid all human contact. Yeah. That aside, he did spend most of his down time during the war just getting to know the city and spying on yeerks.
- Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such: Granted, he can’t really go shopping for new friends with a war of secrecy going on, but still. It's mentioned that at first he followed Jake around only because Jake saved him from bullies. In Megamorphs #4, trying to fit him in the group without superpowers to bond over just led to him feeling excluded, and leaving.
- Indifference to either praise or criticism: Maybe not so much here. With his neurosis, his constructed pride lets him take praise in stride, but any criticism regarding his choice to live as a hawk is a very sore spot.
- Little interest in having sexual experiences with another person (taking into account age): He felt fairly confused about Rachel while watching her morph eagle. He liked (was fascinated, mesmerized by) seeing her morph a bird of prey, perhaps even in THAT way, but cites her species and morphed gender as a turnoff.
- Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities: He likes flying and the thrill of the hunt. Not much else.
- Indifference to social norms and conventions: He got pretty casual about his new mouse diet fairly quickly, in spite of what the others might have thought. He was self-conscious when Rachel caught him eating roadkill, but that was mostly his neurotic dependence issue, as he didn’t want her worrying about him.
- Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection: This is what set off his whole mindset in the first place. And boy howdy, is he introspective or what.
Growing up with a war to fight gave him one thing, at least. Comrades in arms. He developed friendships as best he was able, through a mutual “I’ve got your back,” type deal. Sadly, it just wasn’t enough to make a stable set of friendships. I feel like this is why he was so quick to dissolve all ties with everyone at the end. There was no more threat to necessitate the relationship, and they clearly didn’t have his back anymore, what with all the girlfriend-killing and such. His friendships were never based on actual love for the people, apart from Rachel.
Rachel was the one who could get past all his barriers and make him feel wanted. With just the right amount of assertiveness and forwardness, she was able to temporarily humble his pride and make him accept what she had to offer. For those brief moments, he was dependent, vulnerable, and not having his heart ripped out and stomped on. It was good for him. Given time, he might have built enough self-esteem for a relationship with someone else, because keeping him with Rachel wouldn’t be very healthy in the long term. Rachel was ultimately an unstable sociopath, and their relationship could turn abusive very easily without a war to redirect her frustration. That assertive forwardness she opened him up with also made him vulnerable to her. If she ever lashed out at him, that could have been devastating.
I’m not saying Rachel/Tobias was a necessarily bad thing, it was one of my favorite parts in the series. For the time it lasted, it was what they both desparately needed. Tobias, for the happiness and Rachel, for the humanity. And man, they had some great moments together.
Now here’s always what bugged me about the ending. I can handle a depressing-as-all-hell Bolivian Army Ending that leaves characters as broken emotional wrecks, but this one just left too many character threads lying open (including his alleged importance as Elfangor’s son, which never comes fully into play, but that’s a separate issue). With Rachel dead and Jake responsible, suddenly his group of friends is no better than his aunt and uncle. Nothing is ever said about how Tobias handles being cramped into a ship with the person he probably despises more than anything else in the world. Not much room to fly on a small cruiser. No getting away there. He could spend his time perched in some part of the cargo hold or something, watching… What? Imaginary mice? Yeah, no hunting either. Just rationed protein pellets.
He’d be reaching the breaking point by the time The One showed up. If they didn’t find Ax, one way or another, something would snap. God only knows what.
And Aguella was a manifestation of the Tardis.
Think about it...
No?
Okay.
In Megamorphs #4, we learn that Cassie has the ability to see how the timeline is supposed to be, and can disrupt any alterations just by thinking about it. So maybe, whenever she gets an inexplicable feeling about how something should be (I should cripple Jake so that he can't catch Tom and get the cube back), or just knows something she really has no clue about (you can't mess with free will, mmkay?), or takes some idiotic risk (no way this yeerk's gonna betray me if I let her infest me), she's unconsciously working to keep the timeline on a beneficial path. This is basically the reason she has no character development. No one can possibly prove her irrational gut feelings wrong, because they never will be.
This does make her seem like a bit of a Sue at first glance. No plot element can really stand up to her ideals, so there's little room for growth. But, consider the implications. Is she aware of the course of the timeline? Is she making it up as she goes? If it's all being fed to her, then what or who is giving it to her?
My theory: Cassie is Aguella. The Ellimist planted her here in an unstable little spot in the timeline as part of his setup. Coincidentally, what happened around the time Cassie was conceived/born? Loren and Elfangor accidentally create their own warped mini-universe with Visser 3, bring their time-shifted selves back to Earth with the Time Matrix, and then the Ellimist alters the timeline in order to get Elfangor back in the right spot. All that screwing around caused glitches, some of which the Ellimist realized he could exploit. So, he reached into his collective mind, pulled out Aguella, and inserted her consciousness into a convenient local spot, right in a gap in the timeline where she can "see beyond the walls" and act as a safeguard. Being a part of the Ellimist's hivemind consciousness, she instinctively knows what he would want her to do, and can act on it without it actually counting as direct interference from him. Of course, he keeps it a closely guarded secret from absolutely everyone because it would make Crayak pissed (he'd almost definitely see it as cheating) and Cassie a prime target, but that's just what he does anyway.
The stock joke with Ax throughout the series (apart from Cinnabon) is that he doesn't understand human interaction because he's an alien. He doesn't really pick up on social cues, and this is somewhat understandable as Andalites do have their own set of body language. Even just nodding or shaking his head is said to be a learned behavior from spending so much time with humans. However, it goes deeper than that. He's capable of speaking with the others, and he's a highly intelligent guy. Basic communication shouldn't really be as much of an obstacle as it is most of the time with him. I think Ax has Aspergers, or at least whatever the Andalite equivalent would be.
He doesn't get humor, just writing it off as a strange human thing. Thing is, other Andalites throughout the series do seem to have a sense of humor. Just look at Arbron with Elfangor. Ax just doesn't know how to read between the lines when other people are talking. Sarcasm and subtle implications go right over his head most of the time because he's so darn literal. He tends to push the Spock Speak more than other Andalites typically do, sometimes to the point of making his speech inefficiently circumstantial. He has a pretty narrow set of interests, and the human sense of taste takes up a good chunk of it. When he's in his human morph, he gets so fixated on his speech that he doesn't even realize how awkward he's making any given situation. Whenever the other Animorphs give him any advice on how to interact properly with other people, he immediately takes it to heart and rigidly applies it in some hilariously awkward way (the dance scene with Allison in #29 The Sickness felt extremely familiar for those of us with well-meaning Aspie friends in high school).
Also, Ax-perger's is really fun to say. Ax-pur-gur-zuh.
- This troper agrees and would like to add that Paulo Costanzo's acting in Ani TV shows Ax moving with some relatable autistic mannerisms.
- Ax's obsession with food could also be read as an autistic trait, as many autistic people, this troper included, have weird relationships with food. Having samefoods and only liking spicy or bland foods is common, as well as eating disorders like pica. Even though Ax shows little sensory seeking behavior as an Andalite, his autistic-like experience with a mouth should be noted.
- Also, Asperger was a nazi who killed a lot of disabled people so in 2013 the DSM 5 removed it as a diagnosis and now most (but not all) people who were diagnosed with aspergers just consider themselves autistic.
Kay, here’s a wild speculation on the origins of The One. We know that there’s a big star ready to go supernova at any moment in Kelbrid space. Fact: supernovas are frakking huge. If it’s in the right spot, it could sterilize every planet in Kelbrid space of all life with a monstrous wave of radiation. There’s really nothing you could possibly do to stop this, short of being on the level of Crayak or the Ellimist.
The Kelbrid see this, and know they have to do something. They’re said to be a warlike people, so it’s not very likely that they’d be willing to become refugees in alien territory. That basically leaves them with taking shelter as their only option. Problem with that is, you can’t really shield yourself from an entire star’s worth of radiation. Even if they could, every ecosystem of every planet they control is going to be erased from existence. Conventional shelters won’t cut it. They don’t need bunkers. They need an ark.
They get the idea to create a massive artificially intelligent starship in order to digitally store and preserve their species, along with who knows how many others. When the star finally dies, their physical bodies won’t even be there to be affected by the radiation. The ship can float along until things become livable again, at which point it reconstructs everyone aboard, and they can continue their civilization. The fact that the ship is powered by ion engines supports this, as ion engines are an extremely low-thrust, high-efficiency propulsion system. Definitely something you’d see on an exploration probe, or maybe a colony ship where everyone’s in long-term stasis, but not any sort of warship. It only has such an absolute beast of a weapon because the Kelbrid are a warlike people. It’s the most pragmatic way they can see to protect their assets.
They build the ship, but as they’re creating the AI to run the deconstruction/reconstruction system, Crayak takes interest in the project. He begins communicating with the developing intelligence. He teaches it about ambition, and the will to act in its own interest. The reason he goes after this AI is more than the fact that its dominating and conquering capabilities fit his MO. It’s because this thing resembles Father, and the irony was just irresistible. Crayak wants to create his own little Ellimist, and have it destroy everything the real Ellimist loves.
Launch day comes. They get the ship operating at full capacity, and activate the AI. It immediately turns on them. It selects what it feels are the most intelligent and the genetically superior out of the Kelbrid population, archives them, and then begins bombarding the Kelbrid from orbit with its insanely huge beam cannon, blowing them back into the stone age. The survivors start worshiping it as a deity, ensuring loyalty through fear, so it doesn’t even have to incorporate them all. It becomes known to all as The One. It goes around from planet to planet, doing the same thing until the Kelbrid empire is on on its knees. Andalite explorers show up. Crayak doesn’t want his pawn to reveal his hand just yet, so they never make direct contact, not even just ship-to-ship. The treaty is signed remotely, and it provides the perfect excuse for a war as soon as The One is ready to make a move.
Far away and much later, the Yeerk invasion of Earth comes to an end. Crayak’s chances at crippling or wiping out the Andalites, Humanity, Leerans, Chee, and countless others under the Yeerk Empire are now basically nil. And that’s all thanks to the leadership of his most favoritest human ever. Crayak is absolutely pissed at the Animorphs by this point. The One becomes his new tool for this personal vendetta. Crayak has The One intercept and capture the blade ship, the events of book #54 follow, and Jake is brought into the picture with most of the remaining Animorphs. It’s just bait for some easy revenge on Crayak’s part. What happens after is something we may never know, outside of whatever fanfiction we write or choose to accept as canon. Wow, that sentence made me feel kinda sad.
Another tangential thought: Ax described the mysterious ship as being a starburst shape, but what if it actually looked like a spiderweb, and Ax just wasn’t familiar enough with spiders to recognize that? It would fit thematically, The One does seem to like laying traps and ambush hunting.
- It is worth noting that, if Valhalla exists in both the Everworld and Animorphs universes, that Rachel would be spending eternity with the likes of Elfangor, Visser One, all the auxilary Animorphs, and the very cousin she killed in battle. Also notable: Loony Fan Richard Carpenter from #47 would get in on a technicality (dying in battle even though he was only there because it was too late to escape), while both David and Grandpa G would be denied the warrior afterlife due to dying outside of battle even though they both lived as soldiers.
- The full Animorphs Valhalla list: Isaiah Fitzhenry (Jake and Rachel's Civil War ancestor), Dak Hamee (and maybe Aldrea too, depending on how the whole ixcilia thing works), Elfangor, Aloth, Arbat (maybe), Taylor (also maybe), Visser One (the Yeerk, not Eva), Richard Carpenter, Jara Hamee, all the Auxilary Animorphs, Tom (both human Tom and Yeerk Tom) and finally Rachel. Also, depending on how that Bolivian Army Ending went, possibly Jake, Tobias, Marco, Santorelli, Jeanne Gerard and Menderash.
- Well, The X-Files was at the height of its popularity around that time, and the whole book reads like a low-budget ripoff of the X-Files, so... maybe Cassie watched it before going to bed and have a weird fever dream? If only The Hidden could be handwaved away so easily...
- This makes even more sense for why Taylor is the way she is, i.e. an Ax-Crazy Torture Technician.
- As Poparena said in his review, a nuclear bomb blowing up just off the coast of a major city should have been a huge event. likely comparable to 9/11 or the like. Yet it's never brought up again. This could be explained by the saying that when the Animorphs closed the Sario Rip with another nuke and finally got back to the present, it made the whole thing never have happened, particularily considering they appear in the same place where the first nuke went off and it's not a giant radioactive crater, plus they can't use their dinosaur morphs in the present, which leads even more credence to this theory.
- We know that Andalites inherit their middle name from their parents, from the names of Ax and Elfangor's parents. Both Alloran-Semitur-Corass and Asculan-Semitur-Langor are (when they're introduced) haughty and dismissive of other sapient species, and are willing to destroy those species (Hork-Bajir/Humans) to keep the Yeerks from getting them. We know that Alloran had two children back on the homeworld, and he's been enslaved for long enough that they'd both be adults by the end of the series. It adds an extra layer of significance for Alloran to not only stand up for the humans against his own species, but against his own son, who seems to have become Alloran 2.0.
- In The Andalite Chronicles the Ellimist saves Chapman from being crushed to death in a black hole, and when asked why only cryptically remarks that Chapman's death was "an error in the space-time continuum" and that he still had a part to play in things to come. However, Chapman had already 'accomplished' his most important act from a historical perspective (betraying humanity to the Yeerks) and while he does have a further part to play in history as an enemy to the Animorphs, he's strictly a Middle-Management Mook who never does anything that would justify bending space and time to ensure his survival. Therefore, it stands to reason that it's not him who is truly so vital, but instead his only child, Melissa Chapman. While Melissa is also a very minor character in the series itself, if the Ellimist acted to make sure she was born, it stands to reason that she is just as important to the 'great game' he plays as the Animorphs, either from a historical perspective (perhaps as a future leader?) or because of something she is destined to do.
- Or Melissa's future kid, or the kid's kid, or so on perhaps to the point where it's a million generations in the future with some evolutionary descendant species that somehow becomes key.
Think about it - they take over organisms' brains in much the same way viruses take over organisms' cells. Much like viruses can survive in a Petrii dish but not really do much until they take over another organism, Yeerks can survive in the Kandrona pools on their home world but can't really do much until they take over another organism. They likely evolved from simple viruses in tandem with the evolutionary ancestors of Gedds for millions if not billions of years until each reached their present form (perhaps with Crayak guiding the evolution.) And there are viruses such as rabies which are known to change the behavior of their hosts - the Yeerks' ability to control their hosts is a much-refined version of that. And sure, most scientists would argue viruses aren't really "alive" in the same way Yeerks clearly are, but that's based on some arbitrary definition of "life" and even in this world there is a significant minority of scientists who disagree on that. Showing the Yeerks descended from their world's equivalent of viruses and are very much alive would settle that debate once and for all probably.
If the Yeerks somehow tried to infest Deadpool they'd find him completely immune to their control. With his insanity and ability to break the fourth wall, any Yeerk who manages to infest him would likely die of immediate brain death, similar to what happens to Professor Xavier in Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe.
Or at least ever since he joined Weapon X, which infested him as part of an experimental program sponsored by the Yeerks. The Yeerk that infested him did not die of brain death, but was made insane itself (is Deadpool's brain really very different from oatmeal? Didn't think so). When Deadpool talks to "himself", it is actually his Yeerk he is talking to.... his Yeerkpool, if you will.
- The Capture won't mention that Tom is suicidal.
- All the Chronicles books will be split into multiple volumes.
- The Change will have a scene where the free Hork-Bajir symbolically rip off their shoulder-shields.
Tom was infested only a short time before the series began, based on Jake's comment in The Invasion that Tom's been distant from him recently. He's also Jake's motivation for joining the war, and Jake was one of the two Animorphs who weren't chosen to "stack the deck". Not to mention that Tom is even more of a Cosmic Plaything than the Animorphs; he has no agency, yet is critical to the endgame.
- This would explain why he didn't just morph to escape after he crashed and gave the Animorphs their powers. He claims he's "too weak to morph", but maybe he was just too embarrassed to admit the truth or something. As for why he couldn't just use the morphing cube with him to get new morphing powers: he's still technically a nothlit.
- If an Animorph other than Rachel got split in The Separation...
- Marco: As All Assorted Animorphs AUs proposed, it would be Shallow Marco and Robot Marco. The former would take his sense of humor, flirtatious nature, and strong emotions, and the latter would be a ruthless, emotionless tactician.
- Jake: Would be Friendly Jake and Drill Sergeant Jake. The former would take his charisma and ability to negotiate, the latter would take his pragmatic, no-nonsense leader side.
- Cassie: Would be Sweet Cassie and Savage Cassie. The former would take her moralizing, compasionate nature and her role as The Heart, the later would take her more cynical and animalistic side.
In The Discovery, Marco says that some Hork-Bajir-Controllers will be completely fine after falling several feet into a swimming pool because they're raised in trees. However, due to the Square-Cube Law, it would be highly unlikely for something seven feet tall to fall that distance under Earth's gravity without breaking a few bones, unless they're a lot less dense than you'd expect.
