Several days later than intented by Animorphs The Solution

So much later than I intended I finally got back to my animorphs reread and read Book 22 the Solution.

This is the best book of the David Trilogy and serves as the pivot point in Rachel and Jake's arcs. This is the book where Rachel begins to fear what the conflict is doing to her and both she and Jake are shown to be changing in ways that disturb both of them.

David completes his transition into a real monster and my earlier comparison to an overly privileged person who snaps at imagined slights and goes on a rampage still applies more neatly than ever. David's goal post shifts constantly to whatever makes him feel the like he's winning.

Which means now we have to talk about the ending of this book. It is a point of debate among fans if it was more merciful than killing him. Before I get to that I have to say it makes perfect sense why they all made the choice. Jake and Rachel are both afraid of crossing the line and killing someone. Their discussion in the hospital makes that clear, Ax goes along with Jake and while Marco and Tobias may see it as necessary as soon as an option is presented that keeps them from doing it. They jump at it. Cassie is the one most naturally opposed to killing him so of course she comes up with what in her mind is a better idea.

Now I've said before that at this point in the series all of them not just Cassie are operating on a childish morality and this is the book that shows the real horror such a view can create. Because let's be honest they did kill David. Rachel even thinks about it in those terms once but doesn't seem to follow it through. This is no different than poisoning someone with a slow acting toxin and telling yourself that sure you shortened their life considerably but it was the poison who killed them not me.

David was condemned to a short hellish life by them because they had the childish view that they weren't actually killing him. An adult morality would accept all the options and the reality that they were still hastening his death just adding a lot of torture and horror to it. An adult would then weigh which option they could live with better and make the call.

It is perfectly natural that they would make the decision they did and it fits all the characters at this point. It just wonderfully illustrates the cruelty inherit in more childish moral attitudes that define things with no shades of grey.

Now lets discuss the haunting ending where Rachel she never saw David again and how the rock they left him on got a reputation for being haunted. We don't know when these books were supposedly narrated but it does seem odd that we get never saw again when we do see David again. But we can just chalk that up to the issues caused by real world factors.

I won't bring up the risk of a controller going near the rock and hearing thought speak many have.

Now for the negative. This book is where the what will happen to Rachel after the war starts and the thing is it's a compelling question. The problem however is that it is being used by the author(s) to set up Rachel having to die. I have never cared for the implication given in various statements that Rachel was too messed up to live after the war. It is frankly insulting and ableist.

This book also has elements of shilling Cassie that are obvious in hindsight. Cassie sees the solution because she gets people the problem is Cassie getting people is something that comes and goes. It all goes back to the fundemental lack of arc for Cassie.

The really sad thing is that David and Cassie are very much potential foils to each other and if she'd been able to have a decent arc it could have been neat. Cassie is just as manipulative as David and just as willing to twist facts to support her view that she's done the right thing. The difference is David's morality is very much different if we had gotten a book of those two at war with each other well that would have been a fun read.