David Trilogy book one the Discovery...

I was going to wait until I'd reread all three of these books to do a post but I've decieded instead to do three posts one for each book.

The first book is probably one of my favorite Marco books. The whole trilogy really feels like the moment most of the animorphs start to lose their innocence while at the same time it clearly demonstrates the flaws of the immature childish morality they are all operating at to different levels (most of them start to grow out of it after this book excluding Cassie)

This book really plays to Marco's strengths the fact he's very good at tactics and willing to do what is necessary to win. The fact the others are not in a place to agree to that makes the tragedy of the whole trilogy even more heart wrenching. I mean when they are deciding rather to leave David to the yerks or make him an animorph why everyone votes the way they does makes sense even as its tragic. Tobias wants his little family to grow convinced they can make room and get to know someone, Jake and Rachel vote yes because they are predisposed to siding with Cassie. This is one of the few things Cassie's in favor of that actually blows up in their faces.

But both Marco and Ax are right that it's too big a risk and from the get go David shows signs of what he'd become. I know it's a popular discussion as to if they could have handled David better or not.

Personally I think the idea was doomed to failure and the worst thing is that because it failed so terribly the Animorphs never considered expanding again(until they had no choice) even though the proper method was suggested during their debate about David. The idea of choosing someone they knew and knew they could trust in advance but sadly they are immature enough to decide to take a leap of faith that backfired horribly.

The thing is I am not someone who believes that David was inevitably going to become a monster. Oh I think he had the potential to be dangerous and horribly unsuited to the life he got thrust into but that was something they weren't able to figure out in their rushed decision making. Even Marco who saw the signs didn't really get it.

Based on what little we saw of pre-everything in his life being taken away David showed signs IMO of being a privileged kid who was used to blaming others for his problems. His dad obviously very busy with his job wasn't home very often and instead gave him whatever he wanted to make up for it. That's clear from the illegal pet cobra and other things. He's also got an idealized view of what his dad does a big hero spy. He also makes claims that others don't like him cause he's new and he can always tell. Like so many other bitter angry individuals he blames everyone who dislikes him on them being unfair to him.

We've seen plenty of real life cases of socially privileged folks turning violent when their lives are inconvenienced so David's transformation doesn't surprise me. Nor his fixation on getting things that's probably how he dealt with issues before trouble with a move get something new and so fourth. He lost basically everything and gained the morphing power so he wants to gain back as much as he can and the morphing power is his method. That's why he fixates on the cube plus he sees it as rightfully his cause he found it.

I mean the others make their share of mistakes dealing with him and certainly helped him speed along to what he became much faster but I think it was inevitable that he would have gotten there even if they'd all treated him his definition of well because sooner or later they were going to disappoint him and he was going to blame them for how his life turned out.

Anyway that's all until I reread the next book.

animorphs 21 the threat part two of the david trilogy.

The threat is the part of the trilogy I'm mot conflicted about. It works very well as a Jake book but it also brings home how much Jake was following the others on the David thing. It brings up a flaw in his early leadership that even he acknowledges in this book his dependence on how well he knows them.

Now as I said last time I think David jumping off the slippery slope was inevitable but the situation wasn't helped by Jake coasting along and dragging a kid in who should have been kept back. It wouldn't have killed them to leave him out of the mission they were on at the time. Reading this book honestly makes me think the David arc should have been longer with more character POV's. I actually think we really missed out by not getting a Cassie book because she was clearly the most in favor of David as an Animorph and after that she sort of drops back and is just undecided untils he comes up with their horrible solution. (more on that next time)

This book does set up a fatal flaw of Jake's that the narrative glosses over alot. He's constantly putting Cassie as an authority on people or morality and it really bites him toward the end of the series. The fact Jake gives different weight to different folks opinions based on his personal feelings is the type of flaw that I would have loved to see exploredl in depth in the series.

I do like that we begin to see Jake's alienation from his family that only grows worse as the series goes on.

I'll reread the third book some time tomorrow got things to do tonight.