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

[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.