in response to all the points about how he was exhausted: many of the animorphs have been on the brink of death and survived by demorphing, such as marco as an ant in the predator and jake as a fly in the warning. with the animorphs, it seems that they always seem to summon up some will to demorph, even if it isn't a conscious desire. i don't remember who it was, or in which book, but i believe it was marco as a dolphin in #15 who was almost killed by hammerhead sharks and demorphed while he was unconscious, and (i think) cassie morphed into a whale and carried him back to shore. elfangor was strong enough to describe everything about the yeerks, give them the morphing power via the escafil device, and on p.37 of the invasion, it notes how the great elfangor "fought the pain of his wound and climbed to his feet" and actually fought visser three with his tail blade before he died. (i know there are a lot of ambiguous antecedents in there, sorry, but you know what i mean.) if he had enough strength to do all that, and with the later evidence of unconscious morphing, elfangor should have been able to morph.
if elfangor were afraid of scaring the kids with morphing, he could have morphed and demorphed inside his fighter before he came out to approach them. then, he would have been healed before he even talked to them.
and about visser three searching like crazy to find a missing elfangor, he would not necessarily know what elfangor morphed, or even what had happened. elfangor could have used his fighter's weapons to self destruct the fighter (the way the yeerks' escape pods in #5 self-destructed), so it would appear that elfangor died upon impact. since it was night, and since hork-bajir can't see very well in the dark, it would be hard to find a kafit bird or any other animal he could have morphed. controllers knew that there were people at the construction site besides elfangor, and they believed they were andalite bandits. it can be argued that visser three tried pretty hard to find the animorphs too, if visser three couldn't find the animorphs until much later, i'm sure the great mythical elfangor could have done better.
i thought about approaching this matter from the andalite custom angle. as demonstrated in #40, even if an andalite could morph to escape fatal disease, it was frowned upon by andalite culture and laws. this could apply to elfangor's situation -- perhaps he wanted to abide by andalite customs and bravely face death, instead of cowardly morphing to save his life. but then again, elfangor broke the law of seerow's kindness, so he didn't blindly obey andalite customs and laws. he would have morphed and saved himself despite this possibility of andalite cowardice because it would have given earth a greater chance of survival, just like giving humans the morphing power gave earth a greater chance of survival.
i guess i'm just going to chalk it all up to kaa's indecision or canon errors, up there with the book that said the group contained two eagles and one osprey instead of the reverse and the whole you-can-thought-speak-without-being-in-morph thing. but it's so unsatisfying to have that be the answer.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-07-24 10:53 pm (UTC)in response to all the points about how he was exhausted: many of the animorphs have been on the brink of death and survived by demorphing, such as marco as an ant in the predator and jake as a fly in the warning. with the animorphs, it seems that they always seem to summon up some will to demorph, even if it isn't a conscious desire. i don't remember who it was, or in which book, but i believe it was marco as a dolphin in #15 who was almost killed by hammerhead sharks and demorphed while he was unconscious, and (i think) cassie morphed into a whale and carried him back to shore. elfangor was strong enough to describe everything about the yeerks, give them the morphing power via the escafil device, and on p.37 of the invasion, it notes how the great elfangor "fought the pain of his wound and climbed to his feet" and actually fought visser three with his tail blade before he died. (i know there are a lot of ambiguous antecedents in there, sorry, but you know what i mean.) if he had enough strength to do all that, and with the later evidence of unconscious morphing, elfangor should have been able to morph.
if elfangor were afraid of scaring the kids with morphing, he could have morphed and demorphed inside his fighter before he came out to approach them. then, he would have been healed before he even talked to them.
and about visser three searching like crazy to find a missing elfangor, he would not necessarily know what elfangor morphed, or even what had happened. elfangor could have used his fighter's weapons to self destruct the fighter (the way the yeerks' escape pods in #5 self-destructed), so it would appear that elfangor died upon impact. since it was night, and since hork-bajir can't see very well in the dark, it would be hard to find a kafit bird or any other animal he could have morphed. controllers knew that there were people at the construction site besides elfangor, and they believed they were andalite bandits. it can be argued that visser three tried pretty hard to find the animorphs too, if visser three couldn't find the animorphs until much later, i'm sure the great mythical elfangor could have done better.
i thought about approaching this matter from the andalite custom angle. as demonstrated in #40, even if an andalite could morph to escape fatal disease, it was frowned upon by andalite culture and laws. this could apply to elfangor's situation -- perhaps he wanted to abide by andalite customs and bravely face death, instead of cowardly morphing to save his life. but then again, elfangor broke the law of seerow's kindness, so he didn't blindly obey andalite customs and laws. he would have morphed and saved himself despite this possibility of andalite cowardice because it would have given earth a greater chance of survival, just like giving humans the morphing power gave earth a greater chance of survival.
i guess i'm just going to chalk it all up to kaa's indecision or canon errors, up there with the book that said the group contained two eagles and one osprey instead of the reverse and the whole you-can-thought-speak-without-being-in-morph thing. but it's so unsatisfying to have that be the answer.