Series Re-Read: The Andalite Chronicles
Sep. 20th, 2009 11:35 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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animorphsljOk now we're up to TAC, instead of last week like i originally thought lol.
I don't have time to transcribe the back cover blurb, but it's the story of what came before the Animorphs. The story of Elfangor's Hirac Delest, his final statement. It also tells us about Alloran's background to a point, and a little more about Visser Three.
What were the things people were discussing about the timeline in this one in relation to other books?
Are we still debating whether we're dealing with the same Chapman here?
I'm anxious to hear everyone's thoughts on this one in general.
Next week is The Unknown
I don't have time to transcribe the back cover blurb, but it's the story of what came before the Animorphs. The story of Elfangor's Hirac Delest, his final statement. It also tells us about Alloran's background to a point, and a little more about Visser Three.
What were the things people were discussing about the timeline in this one in relation to other books?
Are we still debating whether we're dealing with the same Chapman here?
I'm anxious to hear everyone's thoughts on this one in general.
Next week is The Unknown
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 04:44 pm (UTC)But my thoughts are disorganized right now so I'll come back later.
At least let me get my gushing out of the way:
Animorphs was a great series, no one is arguing that. But somehow I think that without the Chronicles books, it would have just been like every other children's book series we may have read and don't remember. Like Goosebumps, Babysitter's Club, whatever. I think the Chronicles books are what set it apart, at least for me. The Chronicles books are why after 10 years this Godforsaken series is still burrowed into the depths of my brain and heart. I loved the Chronicles books. In some perfect universe where things are just a little bit different, there would have been 54 books about aliens and their interbreeding and very human problems, and 4 books about 5 kids who could turn into animals to fight them. You guys might disagree with me, and that's fine. I looked forward to the Chronicles books like nobody's business. And when I was in 8th grade and so *beyond* Animorphs that I scoffed when I passed the new one in the bookstore, I STILL shelled for the Ellimist Chronicles.
I think this is the best one. The single best book in the series. And even now, having graduated college with a degree in English lit, it's still one of my top 10 favorite books of all time.
Okay that's done now when I get back from work I can sit down and get into the specifics :) I just wanted to say that.
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Date: 2009-09-22 04:06 am (UTC)CHUNK THE FIRST: Why The Andalite Chronicles is better than The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
I'm fully aware that a lot of people like that book better than this book. I am by no means not okay with that. Meaning to say I'm fine with that, lol, um...what was I saying?
Oh. Right. I mean, I like that book a lot too. It's definitely a lot more action, a lot more exposition about how the war started, a lot of information we wouldn't have had otherwise. Better worldbuilding. It set up Toby, which works for it, but it also set up #34, which works against it.
Anyway, they're different books that focus on different themes. But as I've grudgingly come to accept, the best stories always have the best character development.
For a while, I wasn't really sure why, or even if, Elfangor was a better developed character than Dak, Aldrea, and proto-Visser Three. I mean, that in itself is pretty compelling evidence: Elfangor himself got to narrate almost four hundred pages and Dak, Aldrea, and Esplin all had to split like what, 200? But as I read both of these books, I had to accept that Elfangor and Dak and Aldrea (especially those two, since they're technically our "heroes." Who is the real centerpiece of that book would also be interesting to talk about in that reread--my vote's for Aldrea.) were all given the same amount of set-up. We got physical descriptions, aspirations, fears, family life, etc. Ten pages in, we're all still neck and neck.
But the difference is very clear by the end of the respective books.
So what happened in the meantime?
My opinion is pretty much, I mean, everything.
Let's look at character progressions. Aldrea wants to be a warrior at the beginning of THBC. She gets that want. By the end, she gets conked on the head and stuck in Hork-Bajir morph and realizes that she loves Dak. Or actually, he realizes he loves her but we don't really get her proclamation. I mean, it's implied, but I'm just saying.
Dak, on the other hand, is "different." We find out what that means, and what he has to do with it. He has to fight. He doesn't like that. He wants to learn from the Andalites. He does it anyway. He loses. He runs away with Aldrea.
Now we get Elfangor.
At the beginning of TAC, Elfangor wants to be a hero. He's a pretentious, arrogant little snit with traces of humility and honor lodged in there. He goes on lots of adventures. He makes friends with a human girl. He fucks up. A LOT.
By the end of TAC, Elfangor is a different person from when he started out. He has been *truly* humbled. He's gotten the chance to reevaluate his ambitions and desires. He grows up a little.
He changes.
I really don't think Dak and Aldrea changed all that much during the course of THBC. Aldrea was nice to Dak at the beginning. She was a little arrogant at the beginning. She was a little arrogant by the end. Dak was grudgingly compliant with her at the beginning. He was grudgingly compliant with her at the end. They ended up together, which was trademark delicious Applegate weirdness/cuteness, but I honestly really never doubted that.
Dak and Aldrea are pretty static characters. Not necessarily flat, but not really dynamic, either.
Elfangor is. We get to really see how his experiences have effected him. How the machine that is his character has processed his triumphs and failures, like real people do. Dak and Aldrea seem archetypically immune to the things that happen to them, almost. Not entirely. But just, moreso than Elfangor.
Elfangor changes, I believe, for the better.
And that's why the last 30 pages of this book are among the most devastating I have ever read.
But that's a whole different chunk.
I think I'll write about Alloran next.
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Date: 2009-09-22 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 04:33 am (UTC)it...UGH it contradicts so much, it's poorly written, it changes genre and tone and everything willy nilly, and...I really don't want to say too much now, that reread will be a good proper venting
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Date: 2009-09-23 12:35 am (UTC)whatever imma keep going. I kind of already wrote about this on RAF, so if you read it there, my apologies.
CHUNK THE SECOND: Why Alloran is Innocent
All right, so considering the entire second part of TAC is called "Alloran's Choice," I figure this needs to be addressed here.
Alloran is my favorite secondary character. I like him a lot, mainly because I think he's a lot more complex than the shallow villain he's sort of painted as. He's very tragic. He and Arbron I think really get the worst punishments of anyone throughout the series. Eesh, a Taxxon nothlit? Is there any animal worse to be trapped as? And slave to the single most deranged, insane, reckless Yeerk in existence? Imagine the guilt that goes into that! Just really creative and really, really icky.
I guess to start, I do have to delve into THBC a little bit. But let's backtrack a little.
So Alloran's great crime, the reason he's disgraced and sent off on a thankless errand with two inexperienced arisths is because he released a Quantum Virus during the Hork-Bajir conflict.
But the craziest thing that I got from this reread of THBC is that he didn't actually release the virus. So, naturally, that inspired the first fic I wrote lol
ALDREA AND DAK RELEASED THE VIRUS.
This is another reason why I like TAC more than all the Chronicles that followed. At the end of each of those, all of the main characters end up doing something (or not doing something, or saying something) really really stupid, and all Elfangor does is humbly throw in the the towel. But yeah. Rather than bomb the lab that the virus is in, rather than calling Andalite Command and tattling, Dak and Aldrea remove the virus from the room in a container and then lose track of it
srsly dummbbb anyway.
So the fact of the matter is, we really don't know what Alloran's intentions with it were. He didn't release it, so we can't blame him for that, but why was he making it in the first place?
We get some Monday morning QB-ing in this book about his thoughts:
<The most important thing in war is to destroy your enemies, Aristh Elfangor. Nothing is more important than destroying your enemies. Do you understand?> p. 169
<They are the enemy. Hypocrites! You're all hypocrites! We lost the Hork-Bajir war because of weak, moralizing fools like you! Because of fools like you, I am disgraced and shunned and sent off on trivial errands with nothing but arisths under my command...What is the difference how you destroy the enemy?...What does it matter if you kill them with a tail blade or shredder or quantum virus?> p. 174-175
As far as I'm concerned, most of this is meaningless because he's had five years of shame and disgrace to brood over his decision. I mean, two guesses who those "moralizing fools" were, but other than that, this is all kind of crazed jabber to me. The human mind...well, Andalite, but you get my point...can rationalize and justify itself into some pretty deep and delusional corners.
The only thing we get LIVE, IN THE ACTION, AT THE MOMENT in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles is this:
"<It's over Alloran,> Aldrea cried. <You are not going to destroy the Hork-Bajir!>
<I'm trying to save this planet, you fool!> Alloran said." p. 185 HBC
So what does that mean?
It's not really specific enough, I think, to extrapolate actual intentions. But the way he phrased that...I really don't think he intended for the virus to get released at all. I think he was going to use it as a threat, blackmail, a Damoclean sword...there's a better term that I can't think of right now, but you know what I mean. He was going to carry the bigger stick and fight the Yeerks off the planet without even taking a swing.
Now I think, in the grand scheme of things, my theory is disproven. Or at least REALLY REALLY weakened by the last book when he's all "20 YEARS WAS A LONG TYME TO THINK AND NOW I HAVE LURNED MY LESSUN! ;)" But that's just one reason I don't like the last book. Among others.
And I think the fact that he names his ship after his wife is one of the most tragic details in the entire series. Even more than the end of THBC.
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Date: 2009-09-24 03:36 am (UTC)Or not idk
CHUNK THE THIRD: The Last 30 Pages
So this, like I said, is what makes this book. I mean if you're going to be a real pedantic biblio-phile, this is actually a pretty blatant deus ex-machina coming and saving the day to make all right with the world.
So why does this work so goddamned well?
I don't know, but I'm going to try to find out.
I'm going to start with this: "I met a lot of humans in the computer field. My human friend Bill used to come over to my room and we would exchange ideas. It was hard for me to simplify my knowledge enough for him to follow. Everything had to be explained in simple human terms, using words like 'window' to explain a childishly simple concept. And my human friend Steve thought it was a huge breakthrough to use symbolic icons and a simple pointer rather than a lot of complex language." p. 302
Erek gets a few historical in-jokes throughout the series, but I think this is the best. I only got half of it when I was 13 or w/e (before Steve Jobs became as ubiquitous as Gates, I guess) but even then...I don't know, I find it hilarious that Elfangor has such a huge impact on Earth and doesn't even know it or think it's a big deal. Maybe another reason the Ellimist let him stay as long as he did? Maybe the only reason? Who's to say?
I like the summary of his time on Earth--that he finished undergrad + grad school in under three years, and that was with tempered effort, that he drove around in a yellow Mustang, everything. I love all the emotional stuff that gets included:
"I buried the Time Matrix in a patch of woods. I performed a Frolis Manuever: the mixing of different DNA to form a single morph. I found ways to come in contact with humans and absorb bits of several DNA patterns. And when I had enough, I morphed human for the first time. And the last time." 300
I mean, as lol-tastic as it is trying to imagine just how a big fatty Andalite acquired humans without them realizing it, just little reversals and parallelisms like that last sentence are like emotional punches in the face for me. And they're really good at them. idk.
"But the most important thing I did as a human was to marry Loren." 302
As questionably believable as I find their romance, I can't help but "baww" at this.
"And I only thought of my own people, and my own family, and my own world some of the time. Not every minute. Not every minute." 303
idk :/
Then our favorite Deus Ex-Machina comes, and idk, just Elfangor's reactions are really poignant and understated. If I'd've written this, I would have gone OVER THE TOP with the emotions but they do really reel it in, and I think it makes it work even better.
Hmm let's see...
"I looked out the window, expecting to see Loren's car pull up at any moment. But then I realized what a fool I was being. If the Ellimist didn't want us to be interrupted, we wouldn't be." 307
I love this detail and idk why. It's like, idk, exactly what I would do. You always look for an out.
"The human girl Loren was meant to marry a human." 309
This is exceptionally depressing because as the series goes on you really find out the Ellimist ESSENTIALLY LIED
"'I have a brother? He was born? I knew my family was preparing--' 'In this broken timeline, no. But you should. He has a job to do. And so does another person who you do not even know exists." 309
So again, wtf are you talking about Ellimist, but at the same time omg I'm tearing up
"I felt warm liquid run down my cheeks. Tears. A human thing." 310
I JUST WANT TO CRADLE HIS HEAD IN MY LAP OMG
"I tried to smile, but it twisted cruelly on my lips" 311
UGH KEEP THE PUNCHES ROLLING GOD
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 03:37 am (UTC)YOU HAVE A SON, ELFANGOR
<No! You can't take me away! I have a son!...That changes everything! Don't take me away!>
Maybe it's because Andalites are normally so zen and blah that seeing them beg or cry or plead is just so unsettling...and I mean, it's not like this situation is one you should be zen or blah about. It's an out-of-character touch that works perfectly, I guess. It just breaks my heart, not only knowing that Tobias' life is shit because he didn't have a dad, but that his dad wanted him and they were like two objects attracted by mutual desire but unable to ever meet. Except for one terrible night in a nasty construction site where one is murdered and the other has about 72 hours left as human. Yikes.
And here, "I saw pain and hardship and loneliness for him. But then, like a distant nova, I saw a flash of light, far at the edge of a still uncertain future. Across the galaxy, my brother's line reached to join with my son's. And four other bright, shining time lines formed togetjer with those two...And I knew the union of six time lines, one Andalite and five human, was the entire point of the Ellimist's 'noninterference.'" 314
It's just like so solemn and grandly significant, in a way. I don't know. I still don't really get why this works so well but I've srsly got a lump in my throat just from writing this. Ah well. Thesis failed.
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Date: 2009-09-24 07:49 am (UTC)one of these days we should like have a discussion post about the parent-child bond in the animorphs books and the way it affects different characters, because now that i think about it this whole thing - marrying loren, living as a human, having a son that's not really his - is sort of darkly paralleled in visser. i mean think about the way the book lets that line just hang, so simply, confident in its own significance - you have a son - and then later when marco asks eva how she's so sure visser one isn't going to just destroy the whole planet, eva says "because. she has children." idk, i think the two moments taken together are interesting - almost like photo negatives of each other.
aaand the last two pages, with tobias being all sad and elfangor dying on a note of hope... i'm done. it's perfect. i'm tearing up too.
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Date: 2009-09-24 05:31 pm (UTC)That line and imagery makes me tear up.
I need to re-read both THBC and TAC before I can comment about this book.
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Date: 2009-09-25 03:22 am (UTC)CHUNK THE FOURTH: Last one I promise
Okay now I'm just going through my notes...yes I take notes djmp...lol there are SO MANY INCONSISTENCIES here I will just name a few:
All right so the Dome connects to a shaft that is the main part of the ship, right? And they can detach, like the saucer section can detach from the battle bridge of the Enterprise D. It would make the most sense for the Dome to connect at the center, right? BUT THERE'S A FUCKING LAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DOME. So how do they get from the Dome to the ship?
...is this too pedantic? Hold on let me find something else.
I just don't buy this: "We would have defeated the Pool Ship and its fighters. But there was a Blade Ship in orbit as well." xii
Okay, let me remind you of the scale we're dealing with here. I drew this from the description in #5:
Now, the tentacles on the Pool Ship are a quarter mile, so there's our scale. Dome Ships are between 1/3 of a mile and 1/2 mile across. So a Blade Ship making a difference in that fight is like half a David versus two Goliaths to me. I don't know that I buy it.
Ooh here's one: "We had shoved the Taxxons and the badly wounded Hork-Bajir into the cargo hold of the ship." 77
Wow, there's some fresh, live Hork-Bajir DNA you could have acquired and avoided getting anyone stuck in Taxxon morph.
Idk just stuff like this too: "I felt sick down to my bones" 98
He says this while in Taxxon morph. It is my understanding that Taxxons have no bones. Especially since, four pages later, he says "I heard bones growing inside of me." 102
lol
LOL IK I'M BEING VERY PEDANTIC but you have to be critical to find this good stuff too :')
Okay I have a project in mind now: The lifetime of the Time Matrix.
"It had been hidden on the planet called Earth. It had been buried deep in the ground in a desolate-looking area of blowing sand. And a huge stone pyramid had been raised over it." 57
So it sits there for a while.
Shit I can't find when (or if) the Ellimist makes it in the Ellimist Chronicles...but I think he...no...I really should look harder...I really don't think he does. I read the part where he makes the Pemalites and he doesn't mention giving it to them...whatever let's just start our timelines from the pyramids
I think it's safe to assume that the Chee put it there. I have no idea what book it is but I'm about 80% sure Erek says at one point that he worked on the pyramids.
So Elfangor and co. take it out, use it, and then he buries it at the future site of his death...
...The Animorphs chase Visser Four around and then undo his timeline, so it ends up back at the construction site because technically it was never used, and that's where it died, right? I mean not DIED but that's where it was at the end of the series, right? That issue doesn't get any closure, does it?
that was a lot less cool than I thought it would be. Whatever. Let me just flip through the rest of my notes real quick...
Oh I really like this line: <Aren't lost causes sometimes the best causes, Elfangor?> 154
ILU ARBRON
idk I think I really picked everything out of this book.
I'll shut up now. I think I'll need a week off. 14 is pretty innocuous anyway.
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Date: 2009-09-26 06:21 am (UTC)(not that i'm projectin or anything)
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Date: 2009-09-26 12:33 pm (UTC)but only a little
I mean it's about HORSE CONTROLLERS and a THEME PARK FIGHT how much is there really to say about that idk
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Date: 2009-10-05 06:52 pm (UTC)I have to disagree here. The Blade ship may be smaller, but it'd be far more maneuverable than the Dome Ship and much more heavily armed than the fighters and the Pool Ship, and Ax points out in the prologue of The Alien that it could easily evade Dome Ship armaments. So a Blade Ship would make a huge difference in a battle like this.
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Date: 2009-09-26 07:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 12:37 pm (UTC)"That's when I knew there was still hope for my adopted people, the humans. And sure, they would be saved. But when I look at the people that I directly influenced, I can't help but notice that they pretty much all lived lives of despair. Alloran spent 20 years murdering people against his will. Loren ended up blind, amnesiac, and in poverty. Tobias lost pretty much everyone he cared about and only came out of retirement as a member of one of Earth's foul, untamed beast species to save my brother, who got assimilated by the Borg or something.
"And Lord knows how my parents feel about all of this.
"In fact, now that I think about it, I failed as a Taxxon. I failed as a human being. My deeds as an Andalite are measured as success, but I really just hurt all of the people closest to me.
"My hirac delest is done. I go...in peace?...to my death. And I leave as my last legacy a single word for all the free peoples of the galaxy...
<Nope...>"
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Date: 2009-09-27 08:40 am (UTC)but.
:C
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Date: 2009-10-07 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 02:33 pm (UTC)a second :)
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Date: 2009-09-23 09:05 pm (UTC)I haven't read this book since the last re-read, but, I do remember that there was a lot of parts that I thought were boring or uninteresting. Once KA brings in the Time Matrix I always roll my eyes a little. I guess what I really wanted to see and what I never got was MORE ANDALITE CULTURE. You and I have areed about this in the past, but I definitely would have liked to learn way a lot about Andalites and what their deal is.
As much as I enjoyed reading about a young Elangor, I felt like KA glossed over the parts I really wanted to read about, like, when Fangy gets sucked back to the real world by the Ellimist and then all of a sudden he's thrust into the middle of a fight... what was that about? How did that magically happen? KA just kind of glossed over the years of Elfangor's Glory, which I would hae kind of liked to read about a little. We spent sooooo many pages reading Elfangor angst, I think a couple of pages spent on Elfangor's Win wouln't have been so bad...
Eh well. ;(
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Date: 2009-09-23 10:00 pm (UTC)There are BITS of Andalite culture in this book. This is where we're introduced to wish flowers, and population controls that make no sense (if each Andalite couple was only allowed one child then the Andalite population would decrease by half each generation...I mean China does that, but China is totally overcrowded, though maybe an Andalite's definition of "overcrowded" is a little bit different from ours. All the same, Visser made it clear that BILLIONS of specimens on one planet was totally unheard of, so either this doesn't work or the Andalite homeworld is the size of Pluto), and we do get a tiny glimpse into their economy:
<Long ago we had cities...But we were free-roaming herd animals to begin with. I mean, that's how we evolved. Millions of years ago Andalites moved in vast herds, which would split off into smaller herds at different times of the year. Then, gradually, we got used to forming into smaller herds. Families, really. Each family made its scoop, and we each held our own grazing lands. All this Andalite environment you see is part of my family's grazing lands...Once we evolved to form families, we began to study science and nature. And again, over millions of years, we learned to build things. You know--weapons and vehicles that let us fly over the land. And communications for extending the reach of thought-speak. Scoops became larger. Families joined with other families. Buildings grew. Soon we had thousands of Andalites all crammed together without enough grazing space. But we were learning space travel at the same time. Still, we weren't happy. We knew something was wrong. We broke down our cities, divided the land, and went back to life in simple family scoops. We kept building spaceships, but did it in little bits and pieces, here and there, spread out through tens of thousands of scoops. My own family does some of that. We design heat transfer components for fighters. Another family builds the pieces from our designs. Another family transports the pieces to the spaceport. I guess the three spaceports are about as close to what you would call a city now.> 281
Phew. But, in reality, that's all we get about the Andalite Homeworld. I mean, it's kind of unfair, if you think about it. 95% of the series takes place on Earth. A third of this book takes place on the Taxxon Homeworld. An entire book (actually 2 books, now that I think of it) takes place on the Hork-Bajir homeworld. HALF A FRIGGING BOOK TAKES PLACE ON LEERA AND WHO GIVES A GODDAMN ABOUT THE LEERANS?? But do we actually get ANY scenes that TAKE PLACE on the Andalite homeworld, besides the swirly bits of this universe THAT DOESN'T HAVE ANY PEOPLE IN IT??
Well there is a chapter in the Ellimist Chronicles. BUT THAT DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE IT'S LIKE ANDALITE CAVEMEN OR W/E!
Yeah I still wanted more Andalite development. Up there, that is not enough.
And I kind of disagree about the "Elfangor win" part...I mean, I guess that's why I find the ending so sad. We know he was wildly successful in the war, from Yeerk testimonies, from Tobias' death-throes hallucinations in #33, etc. But what the last 30 pages seemed to do was show us that Elfangor really didn't care about any of it. He'd found his happiness, he'd claimed his "happily ever after." And the universe wasn't okay with that. So even if Elfangor got women and glory and praise and monetary reward, it was all kind of shallow and not really what he wanted. idk.
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Date: 2009-09-24 05:39 pm (UTC)It was kind of the same for Tobias, really. In fact, I think it was the same for all of the Animorphs. At some point in the series, they have an idea of their happily ever after, and none of them are able to achieve it. Tobias is the most pressing example: he found a family with the Animorphs and hope for a future with Rachel. And the universe looked at him and said, "Well, Tobias, you can either be happy or save the world." And of course, by saving the world, each Animorph lost what would have made them truly happy.
Elfangor gave up the war and attempted to get what he wanted out of life, but the Ellimist wasn't going to allow it. The fight for the greater good was more important than the happiness of these characters, and so they ended up sacrificing everything for it.
It's beautifully tragic, now that I think about it. Jake got into the war to fight for his brother and lost his brother. Cassie lost her...innocence? Idk, it's just the idea that the battle wasn't what anyone really wanted, they were fighting for something else and in the midst of the battle to protect it, they lost it. So winning was almost irrelevant.
That makes me consider the ending in a different light.
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Date: 2009-09-26 06:35 am (UTC)i dunno it's late and i should go to bed cuz i'm not making sense. but while the ending upsets me to the extent that, more than with any other series, i pretend in my head it never happened, and i take certain fic as canon, the reason it upsets me so much is because (aside from the "one" thing, cuz that was just bullshit) it's not a stupid ending. it's a totally appropriate ending for a series that started out as a scrappy-gang-of-five series and evolved into a detailed and heartbreaking portrait of a devastating war - because really, what other kind of war can there be?
if you look at the beginning, each of the first five books has a moment where the animorph in question is like, ok, this is it, i actually do feel the need to fight and stay in the fight. and those initial reasons just get farther and farther from them by the end - jake's brother dies, marco does eventually get his mom back but not before trying to kill her, cassie loses, like you said, her innocence, tobias [as has been covered extensively in this & last week's posts] loses the closest thing he ever had to a family, and rachel... if you look at book 2, the moment she commits to the fight is the one where she sees melissa crying because she thinks her parents don't love her anymore; she fights to protect these bonds of love that the yeerks are destroying... yet by the end of the series she can barely speak to anyone but tobias - i think in a way she withdraws even more than he does, because he was always an outsider but she and cassie kind of fall apart.
the ending is brutal, because it had to be.
...but i still pretend it all worked out.
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Date: 2009-09-23 06:38 am (UTC)and also, this is really not relevant to this post and i'll have to remember to bring this up for the next time it's relevant... maybe THBC? but i'm taking a class on nazi cinema and just read this whole book about hitler and nazi germany and this:
And slave to the single most deranged, insane, reckless Yeerk in existence?
made me think that visser three is so much like hitler i kind of wonder if it was done on purpose. apologies if this is really old news and i'm just slow. but the next time we get to a point where it's like "ok visser 3 is just being a fucking dumbass here because applegate needs the animorphs to live" i'm totally gonna be like "dude hitler got to be like insanely powerful despite some pretty shocking levels of incompetence at things, this is maybe not as unbelievable as you'd think."
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Date: 2009-09-23 11:59 pm (UTC)The whatshisface-taxxon-nothlit guy scene waqs one of the most powerful in the series. Now that I think about it, my favorite books where when the anis go off earth (excluding #34, which in my opinion just doesn't exist) Applegate's rawrsome alien worlds MAKE this series for me.
I also wish we'd seen more Andalite culture. They're such a large part of the series, so why do we see so little of how and why they act the way they do?
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Date: 2009-09-24 12:51 am (UTC)I gotta agree with you there. Why were there the creepy mouth-sucker creatures from the Yeerk homeworld and the eyeless guy that Loren knew from McDonald's (which the description still gives me shivers... eeeeewww) and yet no one's around in the Andalite parts? Idk.
This book is my favorite chronicles, I remember reading it over and over as a kid, especially the last chapter or so (which I believe I mentioned in another comments section somewhere)... but I've said it before; the part where the Ellimist shows Elfangor how everyone's time lines are all connected was just really powerful for me. I think that's why I like this book the most, it just seemed to have a lot of emotion in it, whether it be Elfangor's arrogance, right down to his despair at leaving his old life. It's also awesome to know what happened before the Animorphs' story, and I think KA wrapped it up pretty neatly.
But there are two things that I don't buy now, upon further re-read.
1. Chapman & his role in this whole thing - I agree, he is a different person, and the memory wipe did that. But it's still strange to me (and correct me if I'm wrong) that no mention of his role in this whole thing is made previously, or since. If Elfangor recorded his memories, wouldn't there be evidence, and someone would find it/mention it? And if Alloran mysteriously escaped the alternate universe, did he still remember Chapman? Is that why he gave him special consideration (aside from the whole, "my host will go berserk" thing).
2. I know it's reallllly petty, but I don't know if I buy that Elfangor and Loren would fall in love in the span of a week. Perhaps that's the cynic in me talking. Or maybe it was all a part of the Ellimist's plan? Though he always says he doesn't interfere. feel free to hit me with "love at first sight" and stuff like that.. lol.
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Date: 2009-09-24 02:35 am (UTC)And yeah, the romance was sweet, but a tad unbelievable. I guess I like to think that him moving to Earth with Loren was an act of desperation, and they spent a little longer getting to know each other. So falling in love in a week may be unrealistic, but meeting, marrying, and conceiving in three years? ehh, doable, even if you bf is an alien.
And honestly, though I realize the hirac delest was just a framing device, I was honestly DISAPPOINTED in #23 that Tobias found out through some boring will and testament rather than some fantastic battle over the rights to play Elfangor's found hirac delest or something. And that could have given us a scene of Ax and Rachel and Tobias and hell, EVERYONE finding out TOGETHER. Which would have been heartbreaking and angst-worthy and everything.
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Date: 2009-09-24 02:47 am (UTC)also i just realized my comment above was supposed to reply to you and didn't, OOPS.
also i read 23 before TAC cuz i got into the series i think in the late teens and then spent some time catching up, so i never thought of it that way, but now that you mention it that scene would have pretty much killed me.
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Date: 2009-09-24 02:50 am (UTC)Kind of like LOST. But that show is just one big clusterfuck at this point.
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Date: 2009-09-26 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-27 02:36 am (UTC)it's a re-write of the last two books, and you have to download them as PDFs in installments of like 3 chapters, but i would honestly say it's worth it. it's the ending i totally wanted animorphs to have, lol.
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Date: 2009-09-24 05:43 pm (UTC)after i read 23, i used the animorphs transformer things (yeah, I bought them all) and acted out that scene pretending they were barbies.
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Date: 2009-09-24 08:02 am (UTC)He was surprised. Troubled. "She... disappeared. When I was just little. I don't know what happened. I guess she died. People say she just left because she was messed up. They said she never got over my father. I don't know. But I know she has to be dead because she'd never have just left me. No matter what. But maybe that's just what I told myself. I don't exactly have a family."
It was a fresh stab of pain in my hearts. And yet, I knew now that all was not lost.
[Go to your friends, Tobias. They are your family now].
i mean HOW FUCKING HEARTBREAKING is it that a 13-year-old kid is torn between on the one hand wanting to cling to the little-kid-like faith that his mom loved him and on the other hand has pretty much given up hope on the idea of anyone giving a fuck about him? BRB CRYING. i wonder if it was on purpose that this book came out so close to 13, because this little moment i think sheds a lot of light on tobias's non-decision to stay in the fight. someone in last week's re-read, i think maybe
(this is even sadder to me now that i'm older and see 13-year-olds as children instead of my peers or older kids)
and how even more heartbreaking is it knowing that tobias never gets that, the same way elfangor never really got that - they both get glimpses of happiness and love that are ultimately taken from them by the necessities of war.
ugh i wish i had more time to go through this book now and look for more parallels to the rest of the series - i mentioned up-page that elfangor's human-son-that's-not-really-his is weirdly mirrored in visser, and the end of this book is of course a direct echo of the first megamorphs book - "hope" - so beautiful... but also really sad given the, i'd say latter half of the series where i don't think it's really hope they're fighting with anymore... but maybe more on that later.
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Date: 2009-09-24 03:21 pm (UTC)actually I was going to bring up that "Go to your friends, Tobias. They are your family now" quote last week but it was too late by the time I remembered.
There is one more thing I have to mention about it, though.
I'm sort of pissed at Elfangor for what he says right before that.
<Your mother...tell me about your mother, Tobias. Your family.> 325
This pissed me off a little, on this reread. We know Tobias was the one who had a weird connection to Elfangor, and he learned a lot of the exposition necessary to fight the Yeerks. We don't get their whole conversation, but it's pretty contextually clear that this is the only personal question Elfangor asks Tobias.
So, twist of fate, manipulation of timelines, however you want to look at it, the Ellimist has GIVEN you a little bit (by no means enough to make up for what he took away, but yeah, a little bit) of what he took back. And it's up to you to make this moment count.
And the only thing you can think to ask is about your stupid girlfriend?
You're ruining this opportunity, Elfangor! You got to meet your son, and you can't even manage a "tell me about yourself" or even some vaguely retaliatory "Even though you may not have felt it, there were people in the universe that cared about you"? I mean, it works because it's another fucking punch in Elfangor's already mangled head, but GODDAMNIT I'm just pissed that that's what he chose to go back to, instead of what he had. idk.
I really like the parallel you drew between Visser and this book, too. I kind of like how the authors handled children and becoming parents in the weird sci-fi way that the respective main characters did. It's messed up by all that shit, but everything is implicit anyway. Like "she had children" carries the same weight that it does for a human, even though she was enslaving a woman who happened to give birth. Or however you want to look at it. IDK, I like that it's sort of indiscriminate.
But it also made me think, for some reason, about Visser Three and these main characters.
I already said Arbron and Alloran face the sickest punishment in the entire series, and I stand by that. Alloran goes free (whatever that means), but after 20 years as a Taxxon, Arbron gets fucking poached. Getting eaten alive isn't too shabby, either, for Elfangor. And look what happens to the Animorphs! Ax is assimilated by the Borg, Rachel dies, Tobias gets kidnapped and tortured for a while, and all but one of the rest of them die in a kamikaze attempt to destroy some new evil.
And these are our heroes.
What happens to the villain?
Life imprisonment in a cushy UN box.
This is really kind of a sick look at the good/evil dynamic. It almost seems like they believe evil gets off easy, because it's the stronger force, and good has to suffer for it. I don't like it. It works on a very visceral level, I mean I'm getting sort of sick just thinking about it, but for some reason it doesn't feel right. I really stand by the fact that Visser Three got off too easy. There were untied strands with that whole thing that should have been tied in a very gruesome way that I am not creative enough (and apparently neither are the authors) to come up with.
I'm pissed that Visser Three survived.
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Date: 2009-10-05 07:08 pm (UTC)