Series Re-Read #33 The Illusion

[buffyangellvr23.livejournal.com]

The anti-morphing ray is still in development, and still has to be stopped. So the group comes up with a plan. Tobias will morph Ax and get himself captured. When he demorphs to hawk, the Yeerks will hit him with the ray and think it doesn't work.

I have a hard time re-reading this one because of all the angst.

Do you think they did adequate follow-up with this book, handled Tobias's aftermath well enough? I'm not sure what I think.

Taylor's an interesting character, the whole Yeerk/host merging thingy that we find out about her. And of course she comes back in The Test.

Also interesting that Tobias didn't want to kill her in the end...I suppose he didn't want Rachel to kill her if she wasn't a direct threat anymore...if they weren't defending themselves or something like that.

Comments

[cxrdevil.livejournal.com]

"Your time is up. Do you understand that? You can never escape your
morph. You will be a bird till you die."
Who said that? Rachel? Taylor, the sub-visser?
Me?


this book...god the tobias-loving mini me got such a mindfuck from this book in elementary school ;_;
This is just a sick book. Awesome sick, but also scary Animorphs dark sick. Taylor, all messed up, not sure whether she's the yeerk or the kid, talking to Tobias while she tortures him. Tobias freaking out and dealing with his usual hawk/boy routine.
Longevity in the wild...A generous estimate: eighteen years.
THIS IS SCARY


I think Tobias didn't want to be evil :( I think he didn't see Rachel's strength and suddenly feel pity for Taylor, I think he saw that terrifying ruthless Rachel and didn't want to kill vicariously through her. Especially because he felt that confusing Girl/Yeerk Boy/Hawk connection. I mean, if he let her bash Taylor's head in, he'd feel like a murderer. "Be Rachel, not her"...well if I shipped Rachel/Tobias it would fill my heart with that tingly feeling, but aside from that, i think rachel's capacity for causing pain might've scared him a little then idk it's like two a.m.

RACHEL/TOBIAS KISS AND HUG AND AWWW AND THEN THEY FLY AWAY INTO THE SUNSET~

I think his "aftermath" could've been done more, but I don't think it needed to be. The Animorphs are all kind of fucked up but they're fucked up together and they never really get a "recovering from trauma" break and they don't get the chance to really deal with their demons, sometimes. Sooo if Rachel is enough for Tobias, it is enough for me too

Jake's my age. But there are times when his eyes are the
eyes of a tired old man.
lol old man Jake ilu

in short:

-SOOO MUCH RACHEL/TOBIAS
-SOOO MUCH PAAIIINNNN

favorite quotes that are not angsty
"We do not think the Yeerks built this community center out of concern for the community."
"Use a strawberry. Ax! Use a strawberry!"
"Shut up, Chapman," the girl said calmly. "You sound like some pun-spouting villain from a Batman movie."
"I'm glad you made it Tobias. You're our eyes. Our ears. Our air force. If
we lost you we'd be nothing Like Joan of Arc without her sword. Patton without his pearl-handled pistols .. ."
"Because cigarettes can kill you," I answered. "That is, if a golden
eagle or a case of coccidiosis doesn't get you first."

[rayerai.livejournal.com]

I love that Tobias just rattles off coccidiosis. You can just see him sitting down with Cassie and being like, "okay, teach me what's out to kill me and how not to get killed by it." And she goes rattling off a bunch of common injuries/diseases/natural predators.

[cxrdevil.livejournal.com]

Or maybe when she's giving him his monthly de-worming pills and lice check and rabies shots, she makes sure he's being careful hahaha

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

I think this is probably the last really good book in the series.

I like other ones, and to be honest, I don't like this one, but it is very, very good. How much of its quality is deliberate or accidental will be discussed in the following comment!

Okay, so first of all, I want to talk about one of my favorite chapters in the entire series:

<I mean, we are related, are we not? You are not Andalite, exactly, but you carry the Andalite heritage. I am glad you will have that DNA in you from now on. It is a very unique genetic mixture...I do hold the Andalites in very high regard. It is true. But it isn't an unthinking allegiance. I honestly admire my culture. There are things I would like to teach you, to share with you if you are interested.> 33

"My tail! Unexpected. Yet an extension so natural I'd almost failed to notice how I carried it, erect and steadied at about shoulder level." 34

"And then I recognized the Andalite mind. Yes, it was all the things I'd imagined it would be. Confident. Alert. Poised for combat. But there was another element that took me off guard. Something bubbling up happily away beneath the rationality. Nothing giddy like a dolphin's playfulness. Something less simple. Optimism. That was it. Intense optimism." 35

<Keep in mind that you are experiencing instinct. The Andalite mind in its untrained state. Our culture teaches us to temper and control our optimism, to give equal value to realism. We have become, regrettably, a race of warriors. But that is in response to necessity. Down deeper, beneath that, I believe we are a peaceful species, in love with learning, not combat. But to learn--and to fight--you must be joyful.< 35

<Tail blade carvings. Made by early Andalites. Mostly in the rocky outcroppings on the shores of the Elupera. We toured them once when I was much younger...In fact, it was on shormitors of the Elupera that I learned the early tail-fighting masters spent a lifetime trying to cultivate and listen to instinct. Trying to forget what culture had taught them. Let the innate defense mechanism kick in, as you humans say.> 35

<A move I rely on frequently. The torf. You begin a common strike and then, millimeters from impact, twist your blade to the side so that only the flat of the blade connects with the target. It won't do much to a Hork-Bajir, but it will knock a human unconscious.> 36

<From the rising of the sun to the setting, to its rising again, we place what is hard to endure with what is sweet to remember, and we find peace.> 38

I immediately love any chapter that goes into any detail about Andalite culture.

I mean, reading these quotes again, I do have a couple of "really?" reactions. Like the optimism thing makes total sense based on how Andalites are characterized--optimism is about 2 degrees of pride away from out-and-out hubris--but at the same time, I think it contradicts the prehistoric development Andalites got in TEC. Dolphins are happy and care-free because they're at the top of the food chain. Same with humans. At least, that's what gave us all the time to fuck around with wheels and telescopes and nuclear bombs. Prey animals are generally skittish, paranoid, always on the lookout. Maybe this is more a complaint about TEC than this book, but I don't feel like the overall quantity of information we get about Andalites jibes together, even though I love all of it.

So, idk, if we ever do a poll of "favorite chapter in the series," I definitely nominate Chapter 6 from #33. And the chapter at the end of TAC when the Ellimist came and took Elfangor away :( I think that one would win.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

Onto my main point:

I think this book is probably the most disturbing, in terms of violence, in the series. I said MM3 was the most bloody, and I stand by that. I think a couple of others are really gross, like there was a scene in the last book that Mean Rachel just drove through a bunch of Hork-Bajir and some detail about steaming, slippery piles of entrails on the concrete floor, but this book somehow makes the violence punch you even harder in the gut.

And I think I've figured out why.

"And leveled her artificial arm. Straight at me...From her hand exploded a spray of white, blinding particulates." 73

"The cube hung in the center of a much larger room." 78

"One of them stumbled, running over to a large object that looked remarkably like the kind of telescope an amateur astronomer might own." 84

"The corresponding black circle in my glass cube glowed with an eerie light." 85

"A hatch opened in the floor...From it issued the snorts and sloshings of hungry Taxxons." 87

"You sere, I have direct, unhindered access to the parts of your brain that control emotion and physical sensation." 91

If you were going to make #33 into a movie, who would you hire to direct it? And who would your actors be? And what aesthetic would you give it?

Because, according to those details up there, I am thinking Ed Wood, Vincent Price, 1950s schlocky B-horror movie. Taylor would have one of those huge, exposed brains that villains always had, Tobias would be dressed in white polyester with a ray gun, like in Logan's Run, and at some point Taylor would clutch her face in horror and scream like only damsels in distress could do in old timey movies.

The author does a very specific job of setting up our expectations. This is one of the shlockiest books in the series, in terms of sci-fi. The only worse one I can think of is #41 with its goddamn moon ray, but everything here--the open Taxxon pit, the AMR itself, the whole set-up of the whole torture scene kind of sets you up to be...I don't know, placated. With this setting, with these genre expectations, you're all ready for everything to turn out just super duper A-OK fine in the world.

"My bowels failed and I fouled myself." 92

This line disturbed the hell out of me the first time I read this book. At first I thought I was being kind of immature, like "ooh the Animorphs do go pee pee and poopy," so I kind of ignored it, but when I read it again, this line STILL disturbed me.

And now I know why.

This line completely shatters your expectations. This would be like if Indiana Jones got castrated in the middle of act three, if Gandalf got possessed by the Balrog and started raping Frodo, if Luke Skywalker sold Leia into white slavery instead of rescuing her from it.

Once you set up your tone, you're not supposed to betray it. But this book does.

And it totally messes with your brain.

That line, to me at least, encapsulates this phenomenon, but it certainly doesn't stop there. The detail about Tobias hitting his beak so hard against the glass that it splintered, the whole utzum thing at the end, the entire process of Taylor's torture of him does this egregious, unexpected, completely unfair 180 tone shift that pulls the safety net out beneath you. You're not reading children's fiction anymore. You're not in a safe world where bad guys always lose, but they never die, where the good guys may get hurt but they're always better by the end. And because this book was so potent, I think it represented a tonal shift on the scale of the entire series. After this book, all bets were off. You could no longer expect everyone to survive by the end of the series. You could no longer expect that everything would go back to normal after the war. This was it.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

This is a very important book.

That fouling himself line isn't the only thing, either. That destroyed our expectations about tone. And this line destroyed our expectations about character: <I'll tell you...Yes, I'll tell you! Ax...in the woods. Cassie. Jake. Marco. All just human kids. Anything...anything to make it end!...I'll tell you! No! I'll tell you!> 126

We couldn't even count on our goddamn heroes after this book.

And I know all you Tobachel fangirls will disagree with me and that's FINE, but I hate that he gives everyone but Rachel away. After all that awesome Tobias/Ax bromance CD in this book, Ax is the only one who actually gets an address attributed to him. Fuck you, Tobias, you stupid little punk.

That's my main stuff, I really don't want to inundate you guys with all my little quibbled for this book because on the grand scale...okay wait there's one:

"<You want me to open the hatch?> Taylor asked." 133

Dear Animorphs Editor,

If you ever want to completely throw your reader out of one of the most tonally important books in the series, please do it right during the climax of said book so they can't even focus on what's happening for a couple of paragraphs.

Sincerely,

anijen21

[rayerai.livejournal.com]

I wonder why he left out Rachel. It could have been the writer being all shippy. It could have been deliberate, like for all that they made the attempt and they do have that 'shorm' thing going, they weren't that close. Maybe Tobias held back after Ax's constant back-and-forths regarding loyalty. Ax sure holds back, even though he's making an effort to reach out here (although would he have made that effort if an Andalite morph wasn't required for the mission? Would he have said anything about it if Tobias had just randomly asked?). I think Rachel was the only one Tobias didn't feel like he had to hold back with. Jake's the boss, Cassie's too emotional, Marco doesn't do emotions. Maybe that's why she got the slip. She's like the perfect combination of them. She accepts that he's a big ball of fucked up, but she doesn't dwell on them and she's Rachel, she's Action Girl, she's let's-go-do-something even if it's just chill out in the woods and eat McDonalds or something.

But I agree that we can't even count on them anymore--and remember, David was the absolute shit for just wanting to sell them out--and for the record, I am not a Tobachel fangirl at aaalll.

[daphne-23.livejournal.com]

I think this is probably the last really good book in the series.

Fully agree. And thanks for going into detail as to why, as I'm still unable to discuss this book in an intelligent manner - as with books 3, 13 and 23, my brain is still stuck in 12-year-old fangirl mode and just wants to discuss how much I heart Tobias...

(I forgot this is the book that has the 'Repeat. Do not eat the strawberry' line in it though!! It's almost unfair that it's so good and angsty and yet has a comedy gold moment in it like that as well. Who ghostwrote this? Major respect.)

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

idk the way I understood it, Rachel was supposed to hang onto him as a fly or flea or whatever, and then once they got where they were going, she was going to fly back to Jake and tell everyone where he was being kept. The reason the torture went on so long was that Rachel and Tobias got separated and they couldn't find him--I was never under the impression that he thought she was dead.

Because if he did, I sure would have expected a lot more "OH MY GOD MY ONLY LINK TO HUMANITY" etc angst from him.

[jedifreac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there would have been a lot more OMGRachel emoting. I mean, look at how he reacted when she actually died.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

He meant to get captured, though. He gave himself over. He wanted to prove the AMR didn't work. At no point was getting captured itself unexpected. Rachel disappearing as a fly was unexpected, and no, she couldn't demorph or else they would have realized she was on him the whole time. The only reason he got so despondent by the end was because the torturing worked.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

I think that's a good argument, and I agree with it for the most part, but I thought we were talking about why he didn't give her away at the end of the torture. You said that it was because he thought she was already dead, when he didn't.

idk I think we both agree but we're still arguing anyway kind of thing

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

all right. I don't agree. Even if you're right, I don't know if Tobias would have the cognitive capacity to exclude her from his confession just because there was an abstract chance she would be dead. I still think that was a very deliberate act to protect her.

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

that is such a good point, about that moment where the book completely 100% subverts your expectations. it's kind of like the opposite of the entire harry potter series. like even if harry had died, it wouldn't have been as fucked up and disturbing as this. it would have been a pat tragedy. but it wouldn't have been genuinely disturbing, the way this series absolutely is.

You're not reading children's fiction anymore. You're not in a safe world where bad guys always lose, but they never die, where the good guys may get hurt but they're always better by the end. And because this book was so potent, I think it represented a tonal shift on the scale of the entire series. After this book, all bets were off. You could no longer expect everyone to survive by the end of the series. You could no longer expect that everything would go back to normal after the war. This was it.
so, so true.

(lol i have such kneejerk defensiveness about how animorphs is, on the one hand, more frequently really bad than harry potter, but ultimately far superior in the most important aspects, like characters who are three-dimensional and emotional honesty, because one time a friend of mine who is a pretty big harry potter fan made some comment about how she didn't get how i could differentiate between animorphs and baby-sitters club and i was like BITCH HELL NO YOU DID NOT. though fraaaaaankly there are even things to appreciate about BSC that do not exist in harry potter, like the acknowledgement that SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET DIVORCED.)

i think the fact that he didn't give rachel away is evidence of their (deliciously) fucked up codependency. the extent to which he and rachel almost become like parts of each other. it's like the least healthy thing in the world, and also kind of dick of him. AND I LOVE IT.

[daphne-23.livejournal.com]

i have such kneejerk defensiveness about how animorphs is, on the one hand, more frequently really bad than harry potter, but ultimately far superior in the most important aspects, like characters who are three-dimensional and emotional honesty

Completely completely agree (sorry for adding nothing much more intelligent than that to the discussion of this book so far...) Yep, the quality of writing in Animorphs is pretty haphazard, but it's so far above HP in its characterisation and morality... HP *is* much better-written, but to me, the values it promotes are simultaneously awful, illogical, and far too neatly-wrapped up.

And I also agree very much with the discussion above on the long-term impact of Tobias's torture on him.

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

GOD SERIOUSLY like for one animorphs isn't really grossly sexist, which is a zillion points right there, for another it acknowledges that sometimes there are no easy answers and sometimes good people do bad things and I COULD GO ON BASICALLY FOREVER.

i also would generally agree i guess that HP is better-written, but i also think that writers who write in a very conversational first-person style, especially in children's/YA lit, don't get enough credit for what they do. it's a lot harder than it looks to write books that simultaneously feel like an adolescent is talking to you (and i've definitely read YA books where it feels more like an adult TRYING to sound like an adolescent) and also manage to be intelligent and convey really powerful emotions. it's hard to do that in really simple language. it definitely goes up and down a lot, and some of the ghostwritten books are just awful, but i also feel like there are some really great moments, writing-wise, that most people wouldn't think to consider "good writing" because they don't take into account how hard it is to achieve that effect.

also i mean nothing but nothing in HP hits me as hard as this book does, or as 22 does, or the ending of 10 when erek goes back to his original programming, or even the very first book when it turns out tom is a controller, and tobias gets stuck in morph. or hell, 30, i mean no one in HP spends 100 pages trying to kill their own mother.

haha AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE SOME VERY STRONG FEELINGS ON THE SUBJECT.

[acts_of_tekla]

Oh, so much word -- especially on the HP stuff. (Post-Book 7, I'm kind of a bitter ex-fan who only remains in fandom to hang out at Death to CapsLock and read the really good fanfic, i.e. Maya.)

But Animorphs makes me happy! I honestly think that reading good sci-fi/fantasy in general, and Animorphs in particular, pushed me towards a bioethics major. And one of the things that, upon reread, really impresses me about KAA is that she can write with such fantastic character voices. As was pointed out in the Opinionated Reviews, you could delete all of the names from the book and still figure out who's narrating based on the style. Cassie is more poetic, Marco jokes, etc. The ability to imitate that is one of the hallmarks of really good fanfic. (The Bounty is incredible in this respect.) And because we get all of these voices, we understand their points of view more.

[acts_of_tekla]

It was really effective in Everworld too -- Senna's book both is chilling *and* makes her somewhat sympathetic.

[acts_of_tekla]

When I first read your post, the thesis really clicked with me, and I couldn't figure out why. A couple of hours ago, I figured it out -- Kishimoto uses the same technique in Naruto in the Valley of the End fight. It's kind of complicated, but I'll sum up as best I can.

Sasuke, the main character's best friend-slash-rival, has left the village to train with a powerful exiled criminal, so that he can become strong enough to defeat his brother. Naruto manages to catch Sasuke and tries to convince him to return. When that doesn't work, he declares that he'll defeat Sasuke and drag him back to the village. In a heartwarming scene, Sasuke finally admits that Naruto is his best friend...and then declares his intention to kill him, and nearly manages to do so. In the end, Naruto fails to stop Sasuke in just about the most heartbreaking manner possible.

The reason this is similar to Animorphs is that previously, Naruto has managed to not only defeat pretty much every opponent he's come up against, but also to change their minds about the way they've been acting and make them happier, better people. The way the narrative is set up, the reader expects him to do the same here -- to convince Sasuke that it's okay to open himself up again, that true strength comes from caring about other people, and other such heartwarming themes.

The reason it doesn't work is that previously, Naruto never actually changed people's minds -- he just gave them permission to do what they wanted to do all along. Sasuke, however, is already doing exactly what he wants. When it comes to the traditional mid-fight flashback, he doesn't come to any great realization. Rather, the audience is finally shown exactly why he's so screwed up and why he's doing what he is -- and why Naruto will fail to bring him back.

It's an incredibly powerful narrative technique, when you think about it. Not to mention that such a complete subversion of audience expectation is pretty hard to pull off. In both Animorphs and Naruto, it is the point where the series kicks off a new level in terms of depth and maturity (and character fucked-up-ness -- Sasuke is probably a contender for the worst fictional childhood trauma of all time award.)

It's interesting that the only real examples of this I can think of are from series written for 9-12 kids. Does anyone else have any examples?

[rayerai.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely a total mindfuck, and beyond being a mindfuck it's really hard to read just on the empathic level. There are just so many gritty details that you can't just brush it off as another bloody war wound you'll heal with a demorph. It's like looking at pictures of the Dresden bombing victims all stacked 15 feet high as you read the mind-numbing statistics. Any desensitization acquired throughout the series just got shattered here, just in time for the main impact of the series to start winding back for the big punch.

I could not have written this. Props to the writer.

[rayerai.livejournal.com]

What about the last Cassie book? 47 or whatever it was? (I don't feel like looking it up right now. The one where they get the auxiliary Animorphs.) When I did my Cassie-book-thing, I remember most people agreeing that it was pretty damn good?

You know, what strikes me is the amount of alien species that are so fundamentally optimistic/happy/naive. Pemalites. Andalites. Hork-Bajir. Mercora (?). The freaking Howlers. Weren't even the Gedds something along those lines? This is an interesting theme I would like to chew on when I'm home and have access to my books again.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

eh idk, I feel like that Cassie book is the level of quality that all of the ghostwritten books should have achieved. Like it was good, but it still had its problems. And though it did a really good job of introducing/developing the auxiliary animorphs, it's very possible to blame the reaction to the fact that they were nothing more than red shirts/cannon fodder to that book.

And that's a really good point about the optimism/happy/naivete. I don't know if it's a theme or just because, you know, they were the bad guys.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

I meant good guys

all of those aliens were the good guys

with shades of gray

[embergryphon.livejournal.com]

Re: Optimism.
Humans have really only been on the top of the food chain for this most recent little sliver of our evolution. Our ancestors were the gawky, geeky, socially awkward kids in the table by themselves in the great evolutionary cafeteria of life, and it took us a long, long, long time to drag ourselves to the point where we were hiring the popular kids, like lions and leopards and wolves, to do the grunt work in our vast techonological companies.

I think a specie's social structure is as important as its position in the food chain as to determining its instinctual attitudes towards life. A tiger isn't likely to be happy or carefree because it has no one to help it if it breaks a leg or misses one too many kills or loses its territory to another tiger. Apex predator, but missing the security of strong, individualized social ties.
Critters with complex social ties, whose group will protect it, feed it and care for it (ala dolphins, humans, elephants, vampire bats, wolves, hyenas and Andalites) are more likely to come across as less skittish, and more... well, happy, even compared to the sharks/leopards/hawks/cougars that may prey on them. (Granted, there's a gulf between complex social groups and horse herds/flocks of ducks/schools of fish. If a goose is injured, the flock flies on. If a vampire bat is injured, it's brothers/sisters care for it until it's good to go. As someone who's vollunteered with wildlife rehabilitation, allow me to broadly point out that one of these critters is a lot more likely to be chill and easy to deal with than the other.)
...Ahem.
Rambling.

What I'm trying to say is that Andalites could have started off skittish and flighty and easily panicked, but as their bodies developed (stalk eyes, tail blades, ect) to allow them to have individual security, and their social group developed to give them interpersonal security, so did their most base and instinctual emotional states, over however many milinea it took for Andalites to become the big blue dorks we know and love today.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

lol I've been thinking about this comment kind of subconsciously all day and now I finally remembered to reply:

You're right.

It's weird to think how young humans are as a species, how much of our DNA is shared with every other species on the planet, what actual percentage of us is actually unique as "human." Because we're not all that different from, I mean, not just primates, but all mammals, all vertebrates, even all animals. And even so, we're totally different. For some weird reason I hold the Andalites to the standards of their evolution when there's no evidence I have the right to do that at all. Especially considering humans, as they are, are no older than a couple hundred thousand years old, and Andalites still LOOKED like Andalites millions of years BEFORE there were dinosaurs on our planet. They had a lot more time to shed all of that prey-like fear and worry and pessimism, become the dominant species on their planet, and get really really arrogant.

idk. you're totally right, I'm a moron, what else is new :/

[acts_of_tekla]

I <3 your metaphor.

I'd also like to point out that dolphins are *not* at the top of the food chain -- they can be prey to sharks and killer whales.

[rayerai.livejournal.com]

I don't have my book (out of town, boo), so I'm going off memory: doesn't Taylor say she has control over his pleasure/pain and therefore reward centers? If she doesn't, ignore me.

I was just doing some arbitrary research on dopamine and reward centers awhile back, so I CAN HAZ MOAR SCIENCE PLZ. I'm curious.

However, a note:
Part of that idly Internet research involved an article on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/200911/supersize-orgasms) (note: article title NSFW--it's about women's Viagra) about hammering the reward centers and how it's made some people just go nuts and engage in risky behaviors they otherwise wouldn't have thought of. When the dopamine abuse stopped (meaning they went off the drug), the risky behavior ended.

Risky like... going hawk completely? Selling out everyone minus Rachel?

Just a thought.

[elektra30.livejournal.com]

About the follow-up with the book on Tobias' aftermath, I think all that happened were a few episodes where Cassie briefly mentions Tobias had gone through some dark period, or something along those lines... (and only Cassie mentioned it... not sure if Rachel did) and of course, #43. But I think there wasn't sufficient development on the part of Tobias' character, like it didn't come across as being such an ordeal in #43, and it didn't seem to show a lot how it impacted the way he did things, other than him becoming more subdued.

Totally agree about the angst and violence that made twelve-year-old me freak out a little. Liked the character insight when Tobias' memories come pouring back.

And of course. T/R MOMENTS! I thought the dance bit was a bit awkward, like how Rachel tried to put on an act and stall Tobias. It felt totally out of place imo. But the last chapter was lovely (:

[karma-fucked.livejournal.com]

I hate when people preface their comments with some excuse, but I'm high as a kite so please excuse it if this makes no sense.

I'm reading over the first few chapters and they are amazing. Rachel and Tobias...he can't trust that she isn't trying to trap him in morph. And being chased by one of his old teachers? I can feel for that teacher...maybe helping Tobias out before, being worried about the kid. And then Tobias vanishes and he forgets to find out, but it still bothers him. Then he sees Tobias and he realizes that this is is chance to redeem himself or something.

THEN, the scene where a girl says hi to jake (flirt) and Jake can't remember her name at first. Beautiful.

THEN, Tobias notes that he can't trust Jake's motives or anything he says. Jake used to be open but now he's sometimes saying things to use people.

In the barn, Tobias notices that something's up with Jake's reactions but Jake won't suggest Tobias go himself...so he waits until Tobias does it. I'm sure if Tobias refused to say anything, Jake would have adorned the meeting and told everyone to sleep on it.

Small things:

I saw the confirmation in Jake's eyes. And in the hologram that gave
Erek eyes.

Marco clicked about a second later.[...]

Cassie nodded, reluctant. Rachel kept her eyes down. She was biting her
lip. Angry, sad: the two emotions are very close together in Rachel.


This entire scene characterizes so perfectly. I can just see how this worked in my head. Tobias has really character-penetrating thoughts on his friends; he probably understands them just as well as Jake.

more later?

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

I hate when people preface their comments with some excuse, but I'm high as a kite so please excuse it if this makes no sense.
lol this is the best comment-preface ever.

i also love the "um... brittany!" moment. and actually everything you mention about those opening chapters is so true. there's so much in there about personality and relationship dynamics in just a few chapters where not much actually happens.

[karma-fucked.livejournal.com]

I love how this ghostwriter seems to nail down small moments of characterization.

After Tobias announces he'll go:

Cassie first, with that look of tender knowing she reserves for moments
of significance. I could tell she was proud of me. And worried.
This image is very motherly. It's interesting because I think this was how Cassie should have been portrayed all the time. She feels for her friends in a very emotional mother-love kind of way and she's proud of them for what they're doing. She knows it has to be done, but she's grieving too. But there's something queen-like about her.

Rachel's eyes were different. Dark, almost stricken.

Marco sent an ironic bow in my direction. "You're right, Tobias. Don't
you wish you weren't?"
Jake made a face I see too often. It's a look of disgust. Disgust with
himself. He hadn't wanted to single me out, make me go on what might be
a suicidal mission. He'd waited till I could volunteer.

< Tobias is correct, > Ax said. < But the mission could last longer than
two hours. To play the part convincingly - to make the Yeerks think
you're an Andalite in morph - you will have to "demorph" to Andalite. >

GREAT reactions.

[karma-fucked.livejournal.com]

Honestly? If we had to take votes for the best Animorphs scene, I would vote for this:

"Such filthy insects. Allow me to . . ." He swung at Jake. Jake's hand
shot up. He grabbed the Visser's wrist in his fist.

For a long few seconds the two of them glared at each other. Visser
Three, leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth. And Jake, his unrecognized foe.
[..]

Jake released the Visser's hand. Jake smiled. The Visser smiled. Or at
least they formed their mouths into smiles.

[...]

< Yeah. I think I'm in Jake's shirt pocket. > Then she laughed. < The
Visser just told Jake he hoped he didn't scare him. Jake said, "I don't
scare easy." >

I adore this so much.

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THIS THIS WEEK THIS IS LIKE MY FAVORITEST BOOK OF ALL

BRB WRITING GIANT-ASS COMMENT ABOUT WHY IT IS SO AWESOME

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

lol ilu

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

♥
lol on the other side of the coin i am looking forward to your comments next week SO MUCH you have no idea

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

oh man

so am I

you have no idea

[karma-fucked.livejournal.com]

Does the Erek smoking part make sense to *anyone*? Erek isn't smoking; his yeerk is. When Chapman "busts" him, he'll be wondering why Erek's Yeerk wants to make the Sharing look bad. The reason these kids don't rebel is because they're controllers and they can't. Unless their Yeerk was looking for a fix.

Are there Yeerk nicotine addicts?

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

that's a good question

I mean, if nothing else, it buys the Animorphs some time...even though they didn't have a mission that night, idk. Diverts Chapman's attention to something ultimately irrelevant, that can't be a bad thing.

and tbh I kind of think that Controllers are a the whims of their hosts' addictions. I mean, they've got to eat and poop for their hosts, so they answer to the same urges we do, but *real life* has already been characterized as such a beautiful, disgusting things by Yeerks I don't think physiological addiction is a switch they can just flip.

It would be much less interesting if they could, at the very least.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember that in Visser, one of Edriss's hosts was a drug addict. Edriss said that she kept using the drugs, because it made her host much more submissive. So...that doesn't really answer the question, does it?

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh I forgot about Jenny Lines (lol the weirdly appropriate naming of fourth-tier characters), but yeah, I totally read that as "I was completely addicted but I've got to cover for it now that I'm on trial" or whatever

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

i love the entire opening scene so much, the way tobias is so awkward and uncomfortable, and rachel wants to be having fun but is mostly just kind of pissed off. and for the record, i use marco's "hah. hah. and also, a bonus hah" line all the time.

"You're saying you'd rather be sitting up in your tree, watching owls eat nocturnal rodents, than be with me?" she asked. Her tone was somewhere between challenging and coy. Dangerous in either direction.
they're so tragically fucked up ;_; i actually think their relationship is one of the most consistently written things in the series (unlike rachel's characterization ahem ahem). they always care deeply about each other, tobias is always afraid to give in too far to something he loves, rachel always wants him to be happy but refuses to see that he is, in fact, happier this way because she can't deal with that being true. they both on the one hand want to make the other happy more than almost anything, and on the other hand know on some level they can't give the other what they want.

We'd been through this before. I didn't know how to answer. And I didn't know why she was pushing it.
another example of the above. they're stuck.

Why was Rachel ignoring reality? She knew as well as anyone that I'd be out of the fight if I stayed more than two hours in human form.
this sheds some light, for me, on their whole conflict about whether or not tobias should go human. i think while rachel wouldn't admit this to herself, the fact that he'd be out of the fight is part of the appeal for her of tobias going human. like she says later (in a bit of dialogue i really love):

She paused to consider her next words. She was embarrassed by what she was about to say. Fighting to get past her embarrassment. "But you've got to realize that there's more. I'm not just a warrior," she said, her blue eyes glittering so close to mine. "I'm a girl. I'm trying not to let myself be dragged off the cliff, away from all normalcy, into this insane life we live. I don't like what it does to me, Tobias, and I need to be a girl again. I need a little bit of normalcy, okay? Not a lot, but some."
i don't think it's just that rachel wants a boyfriend who can do dinner and a movie with her. i'm not even sure it's entirely about her desire for herself to do normal things. she is trying to climb back off that cliff, it's true. but i think a part of her knows that might not be possible anymore, and she wants tobias to fare better than she has. all the animorphs, pretty much, prefer to take on a burden themselves rather than foist it on one of the others. i think rachel feels, subconsciously, that going off the deep end wouldn't be as bad if she could feel sure that tobias were safely on shore. which is also typical of their relationship, that they seek in each other what they don't find in themselves; tobias, who's always hated himself for being weak, admires rachel's strength, and rachel, who's so harsh, responds to tobias's gentle nature.

that longevity in the wild thing, i can't deal. moving on.

"I'm glad you made it Tobias You're our eyes. Our ears. Our air force If we lost you we'd be nothing Like Joan of Arc without her sword. Patton without his pearl-handled pistols . . ."
/Saddam without the twenty-eight palaces, the special Republican Guard, and a jar of anthrax? Stop the flattery, man. You're making me blush./ We both laughed. It felt good to hear Jake say I was indispensable, but with Jake you could never be sure anymore what was sincere. And what was just expedient.
heh, the saddam line makes me laugh. and in this and his subsequent observations about jake, i like that tobias is basically okay with the fact that jake has become kind of ruthless when it comes to his own people (until, of course, the very end).

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

I felt a sudden, overwhelming rush of anticipation. Mixed with anxiety. I chose not to share it.
/Yeah, I might have to./ I let it go at that.
tobias, always trying to keep it cool because [insert what i say every tobias book about how he is a classic child of abuse and archetypical nerd and knows & hates this about himself and is always trying to fight his nerd tendencies here]. this is the weird animorph version of responding to your crush asking if you'll be at a party with "oh, i might show up. yeah, maybe i'll see you there."

"We do not think the Yeerks built this community center out of concern for the community."
hee, i love erek.

If I was interested! I wanted so much to stay cool. To make it seem like I could take it or leave it. But this was something, finally, that I really did have a right to. I was part Andalite, even if not genetically. God knew how. Or at least The Ellimist knew how. But I was. And it excited me.
so many heartbreaking things in this paragraph! again with the emotions-make-you-prey thing (maybe another reason bottom-of-the-social-ladder tobias was drawn to the hawk morph is that for once he wasn't the lowest rung on the food chain). that "finally" in there is so well-placed (this ghostwriter is kind of amazing) - it's like all his life tobias has been waiting for something he could call his own, somewhere he wasn't just an unwanted guest, and finally he's got it. just to be allowed to belong to something, to be given permission to care, basically, is revolutionary for him.

/From the rising of the sun to the setting, to its rising again,/ Ax said, /we place what is hard to endure with what is sweet to remember, and find peace./
as rituals go, this is a pretty great one. nice work, andalites.

I looked back at Jake. He was shaking his head slightly, like an exasperated, but amused, parent.
dad!jake is so adorable. & lol @ marco wanting to see if fondue tasted good as a fly, rachel's "let him get eaten," jake's "why me" expression, and the entire hilarious fondue sequence. badass points for jake's "i don't scare easily."

I was touched. He was worried about me.
awww. i love that tobias catches on to the fact that even though ax would never SAY he was worried about him, that is indeed what's going on.

i love the yeerk guards complaining about the visser, who really is kind of a terrible leader.

Marco said, /You know, Rachel, when you're in fly morph, talking ruthlessly about guerrilla warfare, and force and surprise and all, I just find it so exciting, and yet disturbing. You know? Like a Britney Spears video with tanks./
aw, remember early britney? i bet marco would LOVE the video for toxic.

/No, of course not. It's not that./ She paused. /Listen. Um. You take care of yourself. I mean ... be careful. Okay? Whatever happens? If it comes down to it, save yourself and forget the stupid mission./
I smiled inwardly. She was concerned about me. If I had been human . . . looking into Rachel's eyes, feeling her next to me, I might have . . . But she was a fly on my hawk body. Which was good. I could keep my cool. A hawk's feelings aren't exactly visible to others.
ahh this entire quote - rachel not wanting to get all mushy, tobias being touched by her concern, thinking about wanting her, glad to have the hawk's protection against feelings... yeah, this ghostwriter knew what was up.

Inside, she and Rachel were like night and day. Or at least night and twilight.
a haunting and kind of disturbing admission. a good indication of how fucked up everything has gotten by now.

aaand now the real part of the book starts. no quotes, because i would literally just quote the whole thing. so, thoughts.
-i love the character of taylor/sub-visser whatevernumber. like it was explored with rachel in the last book, and with tobias all the time but especially in this book, she's a dual character, half girl half monster. the moments of girlishness make the moments of evil SO much creepier, in my opinion. and her backstory is really quite sad. i think part of the reason tobias manages to find some compassion for her, other than the fact that tobias is the least judgmental animorph, is that he understands what it is to want to be loved, want to fit in.

[sporadicfungian.livejournal.com]

-the memory with his uncle, and the drawing, KILLS me. absolutely kills me. it's such smart writing not to make this about his uncle beating him or anything like that - instead it's the kind of thing that is so incredibly hurtful as a kid, especially if it's part of a pattern, and is also the kind of thing a kid will feel stupid about being so upset about, again, especially if it's part of a pattern. you can see here tobias in the process of learning that hope is both useless and dangerous. the way he feels like he should just be used to it by now, the way he can't even give himself permission to want the incredibly human want of just being cared about, the way he compares his life to the life of normal kids because he's internalized that this is about him personally... god it's so fucking hard to read. even in this series, with so many brutal things, this moment gets me so hard, because it's maybe the only time we get a really explicit look at exactly why tobias is the way he is today.

-...and what a sad horrible irony that what does him in is basically exactly that - the fact that you can't ever completely close yourself off to feelings of happiness. this thing he has been trying to escape his whole life, the fact that it's impossible to escape from because it is a part of being human, that's his undoing in the end.

-to get meta for a second: the way taylor tortures him is sort of a micro version of part of what, in my opinion, makes the series so effective. i've said before that the punch of book 22, and the psychological tragedy that the series slowly evolves into after that, wouldn't be as powerful if it hadn't been for the comparatively lighthearted nature of the first 21 books. that contrast as much as the actual darkness of the later books is what brings home the horror of war - you need to see what it is they were losing, bit by bit. and even within individual books, this contrast is at play. this book is a great example - the fondue etc. scene is hilarious, very old-school animorphs, which makes this part, i think, even more brutal because you don't get to build up to it. you're not prepared for it.

Out of a respect for life, you have to endure - the animorphs' mission in a nutshell.

i am a sucker for any time the animorphs risk their lives for each other, so marco refusing to give up on tobias even when tobias tells him to, i love that.

Rachel. Be Rachel, not her.
this entire sequence, where he manages to find compassion for taylor, is one of my favorite moments in the series, and one of the reasons i love tobias so very very much.

She kissed me.
BRB SQUEEING. but for serious, i think the whole last chapter is really lovely. and i think it's a testament to this book's strength that after such a brutal book, it manages to end more or less on an up note and not feel cheap or unearned.

i really love this book. it touches on a lot of things about tobias's character and the series as a whole - the ongoing theme of dual identity, of being torn between two worlds, is honestly explored better here than in the last one. and that moment of pity for taylor, i think helps me identify that part of what i love about the series is how humane it is, that it's a brutal series still ultimately filled with compassion, i guess. i want to say with love, which sounds weird, but it's like - that's what makes it sad, you know?

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

that thing about the drawing is a really good observation--I was actually thinking about how strong a book MM4 is, but there is this one line where it's like "my uncle got drunk and passed out on my bed" that just made me laugh so hard and I felt so bad about it, but it was kind of a stupid line. That drawing thing is such a good detail, and you're exactly right about the reason why. The really heartbreaking things about abuse aren't just getting smacked around or yelled at but the more subtle, little things that should just be implicit in the parent/child relationship but just aren't there. And bringing that to light can be a lot sadder.

[vanouria.livejournal.com]

man your comments sum up everthing i LOVE about this book. the bits about r/t even made me tear up a bit because that's how big of a loser i am LOL