Animorphs 2020 reread.

I will be putting the post I put on my tumblr up over here too.

Before the Re-read The Animorphs 1 and 2

I did two before the Re-read Post with my thoughts on some characters I will reproduce both in this one.

First One The Animorphs:

Okay before I begin my re-read this is my thoughts on the main cast based on my memory of the last times I read the books (which varies between a few months ago for some and several years for others)


Let’s get the hard one out of the way first. I’ll start with my thoughts on Cassie. I make no secret that Cassie is the only Animorph I actively dislike. In a way it is tragic because as I’ve said before Cassie had potential as a character. A character with a very black and white viewpoint and a strong desire to stick to their point of view no matter the cost being confronted with the messy nature or war could have been a gold mine for interesting story lines. Instead Cassie is cast as the voice of morality and the conscience of the group which is a role she is absolutely terrible at. Because in the end she’s no more moral than the rest of them (arguably actively even less moral) and her being right is more a function of being creators pet than any real logical story progression. Things work out for her because the creators say even when it breaks the story or contradicts established facts.


In Essence everything wrong with Cassie is everything wrong with the books as a whole which makes her a pretty big example of what not to do in writing. However, even if you ignore all that and focus only her personality she is still lacking. When first introduced Cassie is your typical childish self centered idealist. She puts great value on the things she cares about and tries not to thinka bout things that contradict that view point. Then she doens’t really change she’s a static character.


There is one redeeming factor about Cassie that is interesting but since it was unintentional I can’t give complete credit to the creators for it. Cassie is a perfect example of everything wrong with Empathy as a stand in for goodness. Cassie is actually a very empathic character but she is also a very selfish character. Once she empathises with someone they become “Good” in her mind and she’ll bend over backwards to justify making decisions that would negatively effect folks she isn’t empathising with. It also informs how she is determined to stay in others good graces and only fights them when she can play the martyr. Which reminds me of my wish that David had stuck around longer and been a foil to Cassie for a while because they really are starkly similar characters in most regards except Cassie has an almost over developed sense of Empathy (to the point she can be okay with horrendous shit if she empathizes with the ones doing it) and David has almost none outside of the things he cares out. They are both also able to manipulate people to get what they want. And they read people very well to keep in their good graces or really hurt them if they piss them off enough.


But that isn’t what this post is about so to sum up my view on Cassie is that she had potential but what we got was a horrendous character and the biggest disappointment of the books.


Now let’s move onto another hard one to talk about and that is Tobias. When I first read the books oh so long ago I way over identified with Tobias but then I was a messed up lonely kid so it’s not that surprising. Looking back on them as an adult it flew over my head back then how utterly fucked up Tobias is. This is not a healthy kid even before he got stuck as a hawk. Tobias was clearly already borderline suicidal even before the hawk thing and afterwards it and everything else in many ways turned into a much slower long and detailed decline into an early death. Tobias hated himself so he chose to give up all humanity forever. Which brings us to the problem with Tobias and that is the narrative never acknowledges how fucked up his situation is. Sure some of the other characters come close but they never fully grasp it.Tobias is in many ways one of the other great disappointments of the books because early on they clearly drop hints that he has a major role to play in things to the point where the freaking Ellimist preserves his existence by bending space time twice once to keep him around and then to ensure the animorphs happened and then the plot line is abandoned in favor of creators pet Cassie being the most important and special.


Now I love stories where the chosen one isn’t that chosen after all but that needs to be intended from the beginning when you heavily lay on the foreshadowing that this is going to be an important element you need to address it. Instead the potential story line just peters out in a way that doesn’t amount to anything not even a subversion. Tobias then sticks around to be a general misery magnet and to have the most unhealthy relationship possible with Rachel.


I mean I know stories change direction in production and over time and some times that leads to better stories and some times it leads to obvious dropped plot lines and a general degrading of quality. Animorphs sadly is in the second category. Part of it of course was the real world rush to churn out the books for Schoolastic but parts of it were clearly the writers getting a bit too enamored of their pets and how they wanted things to end.


I’m getting off topic again. My view on Tobias is that he’s an interesting character and one that you can pity but man is that boy fucked up.


Now let’s move onto Ax the Andalite Animorph and the other one besides Cassie and Tobias who ends up kind of one note. Ax plays an interesting role since hes alien and the books do a good job of showing an alien viewpoint. Far better in his case than many of the other aliens. It helps that he’s basically a slacker alien who was a poor student and probably only got brung along on the ship because his big brother pulled some strings.


Ax is also a prime example of another time when the potential of the story gets left by the way side. Ax’s torn loyalties should have come up more than they did and should have had more lasting repercussions. Way too often he’ll get reduced to joke one note status when he should be figuring into things more. I don’t have much more to say about him since I really remember as liking him but thinking he was wasted several times.


And now we’ll move onto Marco a character who when I first read the books annoyed the crap out of me but as I grew older grew on me a great deal. Marco is a wonderful example of a character who can be obnoxious to protect themselves and despite being the other creators pet he is allowed to actually change in ways that are both good and bad so he’s not another Cassie. The fact he’s even allowed to disagree with her at least temporarily and call her on her BS very rarely also helps. Marco is also very realistic in that he reacts like many people would and for a lot of folks it would take somethign that affected them personally to make them fight as hard as the kids had to end up fighting.


Of course there is still one irritating thing about Marco and that’s how he’s often forced into the role of the complainer is wrong some times for the others (esp Cassie) to be right. It’s a role he shares wtih Rachel she’ll suggest the violent solution so it can be rejected and he’ll suggested the better strategic solution but it’ll be rejected for being wrong.


So final thoughts on Marco slightly annoying at times but very realistic and really grows on you.


Now let’s talk about Rachel and this is the character whose fate pisses me off the most. I have no problem with character death in a story but Rachel’s death is treated by the creators as necessary and it bleeds into the narrative abit and that really pisses me off. She’s also unfortunately the one who gets the most chaotic characterization as depending on teh writer how aggressive she is varies. Not to mention the books that paint her as a control freak. Of course you can hand wave it as the stress getting to her in different less pretty ways but that raises it’s own problems with with how the narrative treats her. She’s often also used as a foil to shill for Cassie and that bugs me. She and her cousin get the most discussion of Cassie’s moral superiority though everyone gets a turn on it.


And what is really sad is that she only gets to really call out Cassie and the others very rarely even though they are some of the most satisfying moments in the entire series. She’s right when she calls out that the others need her to be the blood thirsty one. She’s actually someone clearly sacrificing for the greater good but the narrative treats her as a blood knight. It really pisses me off and while her relationship with Tobias isn’t even remotely healthy it makes a lot of sense because the others treat her as damaged and thanks to his neediness he’ll never look at her as a monster like the others tend to do to make themselves feel better.


I’ll make one final observation and that’s that poor Rachel may have died twice in the series the first time being the starfish incident. Cause the Rachel that was split in half would never exist again. The two Rachels may have been re-merged but they had each had time to begin to diverge so what was formed out of them would be a new Rachel. Hell a lot of her issues later in the series could have been a direct result of that and it would make perfect sense.


Final thoughts on Rachel she deserved so much better and was probably one of the more selfless animorphs but gets written off by the narrative as just a blood knight too damaged to live.


Now let’s move onto Jake who is actually my favorite character. I know a lot of folks find him boring and generic at first but that’s exactly why he’s the character that interest me the most because even more than the others he was just a kid when this mess started. You can see the seeds of who everyone else turned out to be in who they were at the start but Jake was just a kid who was slightly more mature and better able to mediate. That got him forced into the leadership Role and from there for good or ill that’s the role he got stuck with. Like Rachel he became exactly what the others needed him to be and at times it wasn’t pretty.


I mean it’s so easy to picture how the others would have turned out, Cassie would have ended up one of those activist who says a lot of good things but is very much a walking illustration of perfect is the enemy of good with her probably doing more harm than help to her causes by turning folks off with her my way or the highway stance. Rachel would have excelled at whatever chosen path she took with incredible zeal and bending herself to be what folks in her life needed. Ax would have lived in the shadow of his brother as a semi competent warrior at best, Tobias would have remained very fucked up and Marco would have done what it took to not be poor and mask all his hurts with laughter and entertaining folks. Jake on the other hand is the one that just sort of was. He could end up really generic or find something he’s good at and make it his life.


Instead he was given the role of responsibility and for the most part he carried the burden though his putting Cassie on a pedestal constantly was one part character flaw and one part character shilling by the creators. It was a realistic flaw he liked her and wanted her to like him. That was very human and relatable but his constant support for some of her more stupid moments crossing the line into plot induced stupidity.


One part that is really sad is that he’s often compared with Elfangor and the narrative takes the appraoch that he falls short but honestly to me Jake comes off as more of a success than Elfangor and I wish the narrative acknowledged it. Of course I’ll share my thoughts on Elfangor in another post.


There is more I could go into but this post has gotten long enough for now so final Thoughts on Jake generic kid forced to grow up even faster than others. Has an irritating blind spot when it comes to Cassie but over all my favorite of the kids.

Now the Second Post I did on a few others.


Before the re-read more characters

This is my second and last before the re-read post. I was going to do more but the local libraries have closed so family members who also read are going to reread the books after I do so I’ll just cover a few more of the big characters here.


Let’s start with Elfangor who is often hailed as along with Ax the only reason the Andalites aren’t seen as even bigger dicks. I have to admit I have mixed feelings about Elfangor and that’s because even after the shall we say tarnishing of the Andalites shining image the writers were afraid to tarnish his too much. I actually feel it’s to the books detriment and The andalite chronicles bug me a lot. However, that’s a discussion for when I get to that book. I will say I’ve always found the moment where Jake vents the tank being negatively contrasted with Elfangor not venting it to really bug me but again that’s a discussion for the actual book. There’s a strong argument for it being necessary for their victory when Jake did it and it just being petty when Elfangor stopped it.


Now let’s talka bout his rival Visser Three. I absolutely love that Visser Three is completely incompetant as a leader. He’s a perfect illustration of someone who had one advantageos moment that helped him rise to prominence and then proved to be incompetent but thanks to a combination of privilege (his host) and the corruption in the ranks of the Yerks he was never held accountable. One only has to look at idiots in charge on our current world stage who can’t handle situations but are still unfortunately sitting in massive positions of power to see how easily it happens even in the real world.


Now let’s discuss the Ellimist who is less of a character and more of a plot device. Frankly I always thought it was mistake to try to demystify the Ellimist because his origin doesn’t make him any more relatable and actually makes him even more clearly into the lesser of two evils.


Now let’s speak about the greater evil Crayak and the Drode. The fact the Drode always speaks for Crayak is the more interest thing about them. You can easily read it as Crayak has lost it’s direction in it’s ascension to a higher plane and that the drode is the real intelligence behind their game. Or you could until the Ellimist chronicles.



I think I’ll stop here and begin my re-read. First post should go up in a few days because I’m going to hopefully take a bit of time on them.

Animorphs Re-read 2020 The Invasion

Animorphs 2020 re-read Book One: The Invasion


So I’ve finished the first book in my 2020 re-read and well it reminds me why I originally fell in love with this series and why at times I’m incredibly frustrated by it. Since Jake is the first narrator we get his view of the others and a brief glimpse of their pre-animorphs lives. It is very apparent that most of their initial relationships were family and school yard friends based on proximity. They weren’t old enough yet to really drift away from the friendships they’d formed in earlier years and start basing them on things other than proximity and initial meeting. Jake and Marco were clearly childhood friends and so where Cassie and Rachel. Family ties then had Rachel and Jake hanging around each other enough that Jake had time to form a crush on Cassie and Rachel most likely had one on Marco.


The only one who didn’t fit into that mold of family or school yard friends was Tobias and he was quiet clearly the bullied kid who gravitated to the kid who stood up for him. Though the first book still shows how utterly broken he is since it very heavily implied he got himself stuck as a Hawk on purpose. Now it’s possible he didn’t mean to do it but on some level he wanted to be a Hawk forever but didn’t really think it through.


I said in my before the re-read post that Jake ended up the leader because he was slightly more mature than the others and I still feel that way. The most telling about that is his interactions with Marco in this book because while Marco is far more world wise and aware of how bad things can go he’s still immature enough to think he can ignore the problem. He is the only one that really gets what they are risking not just for themselves and their families but he refuses to grasp that the Invasion is on going and ignoring it won’t make it go away. For all his if Tom is a controller you might have to kill him gotcha was meant to make Jake back off. Jake was mature enough to eventually accept it and agree with Marco. He like the others was very much a kid but he was the only one actually weighing the risks in any capacity outside of just emotional response. So it isn’t that surprising that the others pretty much made him the leader by default.


Moving onto to the girls Rachel often gets pigeon holed as gung ho eager for combat but I suspect it was more that Rachel has a need to be needed. You don’t see it as clearly in this book but in the next few it is obvious that Rachel is very popular but tends to be very loyal and tries to be what her friends need. I imagine it had a lot to do with her parents being divorced so she had to be the good girl picking up the slack as her parents were fighting. She got into the habit of being what folks needed her to be and unfortunately the other Animorphs need someone to be the aggressive one, the gung ho one, the violent one.


Cassie in the first book shows a lot of her major issues as a character. She decides she knows better and follows Jake to the Sharing Members only meeting and gets herself noticed. There was no reason for her to do that it wasn’t like he was gone long enough for it to be worth the risk and I doubt she told the others were she was going. She acted unilaterally. She also most likely killed the Controller who targeted her or at the very least set back while he died. The fact it’s never brought up again is a major disappointment. She also very clearly romanticizes their struggle as if they are fighting for Mother Earth. Cassie being naturally gifted at morphing at first seems like just a way to avoid the naked kids/teenagers problem but in hindsight feels more like an early warning sign of her creator’s pet status. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just her starting out with a higher natural aptitude and the others get better in time but instead it was a rare and special talent even among the race that created morphing.


You also very clearly see the conflicts that each of them should have had to face moving forward start to form. Some of them will face moving forward. Rachel and Cassie should have had to come to grips with the reality of war. Rachel does and Cassie most assuredly does not but the narrative rewards Cassie and punishes Rachel. Marco had to find a reason to fight and eventually does. Jake had to deal with being the leader and dealing with the very real fear of never getting Tom back and lastly Tobias had to deal with being no longer physically human and finding his new place in the world. Jake does and even makes the hard choice to end his brother’s life. However, Tobias never really does and it’s sad but thematically appropriate unlike what happened with Cassie and Rachel.


My absolute favorite sequence in the book is Elfangor’s arrival and the aftermath in the unfinished construction site. It works absurdly well for establishing things in a way that makes sense to the reader while also bringing an actual sense of urgency. It does a very good job of establishing the mood of the series and the nature of the enemy. The fact it’s followed up on with the cop and Tom bits works very well.


The biggest disappointment of the book well it has to circle back to the cop. It’s partially hindsight talking but it’s pretty clear that Cassie had something to do with his death. However, it never comes up again and Cassie will later care more about a freaking termite queen then she did this human being enslaved against his will. It does fit the pattern I mentioned in my before the re-read post about how Cassie places value on others by how much she empathizes with them. She felt for the bug because she’d been a bug and pictured herself in it’s role. The cop was just a threat to deal with. Which if she’d had an actual arc could have been great but it’s just the earlist example of her hypocrisy and knowing where it leads in later books bugs me.


I suppose I could talk about the errors but I’ve long sense learned to ignore the errors in mid grade books churned out by scholastic. I can either fan wank it or just ignore it. So I mostly ignore the little errors and fan wank the others away to my satisfaction.


All in all I still really enjoy the book.