maybe this has bothered you too...

[captaincommiex.livejournal.com]

i'm home for the summer, and i just started to reread the invasion. this must be the tenth time rereading this particular book, but it just occurred to me: why didn't elfangor morph into another form to save himself from dying, and then demorph to heal his andalite body of the wounds? from what i've gathered, ax (or estrid, or maybe it was aldrea, i don't remember which of the andalites) had a kafit bird morph from the andalite home world, which he had to acquire to practice morphing. he said that young andalites often acquire a kafit bird and had to pass a morphing test or something. it stands to reason that elfangor, even before his convoluted trip as described in the andalite chronicles, had at least acquired a kafit bird, if not any other animal. why didn't elfangor give the animorphs the morphing power first, then morph into a kafit bird to heal his andalite body, then in his kafit bird morph, lead the animorphs to safety away from the approaching yeerks?

Comments

[janinedog]

I was going to suggest something like this. I've always believed that he could have escaped if he wanted to, but he died because he wanted to give the Animorphs a fighting chance. If he had escaped, Visser Three would have looked for him--and probably have found and killed the Animorphs as well. I figure that Elfangor knew that if he let Visser Three kill him, then Visser Three wouldn't think to look for other enemies, and the Animorphs would have the advantage of surprise.

I think Elfangor knew he was going to die at some point, and he figured he might as well die in a way that helped the kids that he just gave the morphing power to. I don't think he expected to be able to defeat the Yeerks on Earth by himself, and he knew that him being alive would just make the Yeerks more nervous and on-edge--making it more difficult for the Animorphs to fight.