Character Discussion: Cassie

[buffyangellvr23.livejournal.com]

Here goes...the character who often seems to get the most negativity, and sometimes it's for good reason. I know my LJ folder is gonna be swamped this week, but I'll turn you loose anyway LOL

I do like the animal loving part myself...but there are things that some of you say about her that I can see as well...both positive and negative.

Comments

[sylverlining.livejournal.com]

Frankly I've never gotten why she gets the brunt of so much negativity - largely I blame ghostwriters oversimplifying or misinterpreting her.

Specifically I find the assertion that she's a "weak" character incredibly inaccurate and only seeing a very, very small part of the picture. Morality =/= weakness. I honestly respect her for always at least trying to keep that moral compass pointing north, especially in situations with so very much grey.

... Could totally be biased, though, as I kind of wanted to be her when I was a kid. With the morphing talent/art form and everything, ha.

[blue_rampion]

Yeah, Cassie suffered the most at the hands of the ghostwriters. She's got a lot of subtle depths to her, and sadly it's the subtle depths that went out of the window when the Ghostwriters came in.

Really, I don't think you could argue that any of them are weak. And when Cassie chose the moral option, she didn't do it because she was afraid of because she didn't have the strength to do otherwise. She did it because she believed it was right - and regardless of whether you think she was right, it takes an amazing amount of conviction to be able to do that.

[cxrdevil.livejournal.com]

I agree that she's not a weak person - far from it - but I think what people mean when they say she's a weak character is that her development doesn't hold water. I do love her to an extent, but there's legitimate reasons for being disappointed in her part of the story - anijen21 summed up the main issues logically as usual.

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

I blame ghostwriters oversimplifying or misinterpreting her.

Word. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATED where Cassie's character was/did/acted when not written by KAA for the most part.

Replied with the other comment too soon

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

Morality =/= weakness

Also correct. I've never though Cassie was weak, per say... I just think (to relate back to the rest of what you are saying) maybe she was so focused on "North" she was missing part of the bigger picture? Which no one else may agree with since Cassie is totally End-Game-Big-Picture-Yeerk-Peace-Movement Girl.

Off all of them, I think Cassie was "meant" for After The War, Ellimist/whatever...But that didn't necessarily help her through the war as it happened.

hmm how much sense am I making tonight?

[sunshinenorcas.livejournal.com]

I don't think her problem is that shes the 'heart' of the group- it's that the others have already cast her in that role and thats what they expect her to be, so when she acts not like the heart (which she's not)- they all go 'wtf', like in the polar book when they are debating killing the baby seal, and they all look at her, and she basically says 'what the hell guys, I'd rather kill it then starve/freeze'. (Holy run on sentence batman)
I think also is that she knows what they expect her to be, and she tries to fulfill that- but again, while it has components of her personality, it's not exactly who she is, and she gets stuck between what Cassie SHOULD do... and what Cassie WOULD do. And if you keep in mind, below the battles, she's still a teenager- and that sort of conflict sounds very real.
I don't think she's a perfect character, but I don't think any of them are perfect either- I mean, I love Jake but he has plenty of moments where I was like 'JAKE WHAT WERE YOU THINKING YOU TOOL' :P They are all flawed teenagers, and Cassie is no exception, she's not the best or the worse of any of them.


...and I'll quote some passages later when it's not 2:08am and I have school tomorrow D: [first day. omgomgiamsonotready] and it could be I'm pulling a load of this out of my butt, and if that's the case I'm sorry D:

[lisacharly.livejournal.com]

God I love Cassie. I just love the fact that she even exists. Her being in the books ratchets them up another level of the "wow, I was reading this as a kid? Moral relativity? Kantianism? Cool!" scale.

I'll come back with more later.

[sylverlining.livejournal.com]

SERIOUSLY. <3 Man, they all add so much, but I think the ones who stick out in my mind for adding the most dimension are Cassie, the Chee, and the Arn as the creators of the Hork-Bajir. That and the very nature of the Hork-Bajir as being so sweet and childlike - I LOVE those facets that just blur the line of good and evil and right and wrong right down the middle -

Hell, no. It erases it. That's what these books are, they don't just mix the shades of grey and blur the line, you can argue that there IS NO LINE.

(...except maybe with Crayak. And David. xD That little bastard even I have a hard time forgiving.)

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

I actually really liked Cassie, both as a kid annd on my reread this summer. I didn't realise that she's so widely disliked until I had a poke round the fandom, and let my (male if that's significant) bff borrow the series. He hated Cassie.
I feel like in some ways Cassie is what I should be, in that I consider myself to be compassionate but she actually acts on that. Then again, she attracts enough controversy that perhaps I should reconsider her as a role model.
One of the things I admire most about her is her ability to make intuitive leaps - I can't think of examples atm, except for when Ax is trying to tell them all about Seerow's Kindness and she works it out before anyone. I think people call her manipulative? I'm not sure I unreservedly agree with that, but I think it's interesting how much power she can have over people through that, despite being seen as "weak".
Also #19 is probably where I started going WAIT WHOA WHAT, I was reading about this level of complicated morality at the age of what, nine?!

[cxrdevil.livejournal.com]

I feel like in some ways Cassie is what I should be, in that I consider myself to be compassionate but she actually acts on that.

I felt this way when I was younger, just like I totally felt like I was Tobias (meanwhile everyone nods in agreement) and I think that's a good point. She's kind of the most ideal of the Animorphs. Not that the others aren't all important or admirable, but, because she's the character that gets pointed at by the Morals Finger, we're meant to take her as a role model, somebody we should emulate. That might be why a LOT of people either madly adore her or reallllly dislike her.
In the most basic sense...
(a) If you identify with her morals - caring for animals, making the necessary choices for survival like in the seal scene, wanting to not kill even yeerks, etc - you don't like thinking of her negatively, because that means that your moral values aren't right by association, and that's always uncomfortable.


But on the flipside of that, (b) is if you find her to be unrealistic because she does act upon those moral impulses we all have and sometimes we kind of wish we did, but you know real people don't do that, or that in the real world she'd have to concede her standards far more often, it's harder to enjoy her and you start noticing her shortcomings more glaringly

IDK what I mean exactly but you're exactly right in saying that she's the standard we're supposed to be and aren't imho

[blue_rampion]

You can't discuss Cassie without discussion her moral compass - Cassie, for good of for ill, gets cast in the role of 'moral compass'. You've got a bunch of kids thrown into a freaking war, with all of the moral complexity that comes with that - and then there's Cassie, already the kind of person who has strong morals and acts on them. So they go to her for the moral guidance, because to them it seems like she's got a better handle on things.

But she doesn't - there's cases where you can most definitely argue that Cassie is in the wrong. Letting Tom escape with the Blue Box is often the example people argue the most. But I think this is part of what makes Cassie interesting as a character. She doesn't have all the answers. She gets things wrong. She'd been saddled with this enormous responsibility of thinking about what's right and wrong, and we often see her having to struggle with what she believes in and what she actually has to do.

The other defining characteristic of Cassie, to me, is her skill and ability to read and influence people. She's got a lot of emotional intelligence - she understands how people work, what makes them tic, and as a result she's able to use this to predict what others will do, and yes, manipulate them. And she's so good at manipulating because she genuinely cares for people. I think she genuinely cared about David, was genuinely concerned for him - even though she disagreed with his actions. She was able to manipulate him so well because she cared. However, this clearly has a cost - Cassie did not like having to do that to David. Cassie doesn't like manipulating people to hurt them. I don't think that she has the same problem with manipulating people to help them (or at least, what she perceives as helping them).

...aaaaand I'm sure there heaps more to ramble on about, but I can't think of anything else right now. So uh. THAT'S IT FOR NOW

[lisacharly.livejournal.com]

But she doesn't - there's cases where you can most definitely argue that Cassie is in the wrong. Letting Tom escape with the Blue Box is often the example people argue the most. But I think this is part of what makes Cassie interesting as a character. She doesn't have all the answers. She gets things wrong. She'd been saddled with this enormous responsibility of thinking about what's right and wrong, and we often see her having to struggle with what she believes in and what she actually has to do.

THIS THIS THIS. I could not agree with this more.

Cassie pretty much ends up as the moral compass the same way Jake ends up as the leader - early on, everyone sort of decides that that's their role in the group, and they never really contest it. Personally, I'd be more ticked off if she was always justified in her morality. Some people here will argue she is, but I'd like to present counterexamples.

-David. Her belief that killing him would be immoral ends up sentencing him to a fate worse than death. We even see in #48 that this was a really bad move on her part.

-#46. Pretty much the ultimate "Cassie, your morals go on the backburner today OR WW3 STARTS".

-#28. Marco's curse-out to her in the middle of the book is so epic.

-The final arc. Yes, she does kind of Karma Houdini her way out of taking any blame for elevating the stakes. But did any of the readers seriously believe her "alternative to infestation" excuse? Hell no. She totally did it because she had the hots for Jake. And you know, I think I like her more because of that. She did the dangerous, selfish, stupid thing because she was a teenage girl in love who didn't want to see her boyfriend get hurt. Ultimately it's no different than Marco doing the dangerous, selfish, stupid thing of saving his dad/revealing himself to his mom. The only difference is that the stupid "a tiger, hunting! Every sentence is a line long! No third option!" section is worse written and the reader has to suspend disbelief that there was no other option.

-Buffahuman. Cassie wants to save Buffahuman? TOO BAD SHE LETS IT EXPLODE ANYWAY. And even Cassie recognizes that it's stupid to keep Buffahuman alive.

-The beginning of #19. Marco and Rachel just RIP INTO HER in the beginning. And you know, they're right. They're in too deep to quit. And she does decide to come back. And she loses her friendship with Rachel anyway. God, I love #19.

-#52. Nine books ago she was all "we can't blow up the mall!". Now she's so humiliated by the morph cube incident that she doesn't even argue with the others. She just rides the train on in.

But I think the main point is that Cassie is fallible, and I don't think the books shy away from that. Yes, she's lucky, but so is Marco (blew their cover TWICE with minimal repercussions). Yes, she's whiney, but so is Tobias. Yes, she's a self-righteous hypocrite, BUT SO IS EVERYONE ON THE WHOLE TEAM. I think the interesting moral arguments that Cassie brings up, and the softer perspective she brings to Jake, and the humanizing of the enemy, make her a fantastic addition to the cast, and without her the series would have descended into a shell-shocking bloodbath way quicker.

I know a lot of people wish Cassie had just given up her morals and realized that the ends always justify the means, but I think the idea is...maybe they don't. Maybe if we're arguing that she's stupid because she doesn't believe in "by any means necessary", we need to re-evaluate where our moral lines are. Sometimes my brother argues that the Holocaust was actually a good thing because it reduced poverty and starvation death counts by more than it killed. Are those appropriate means? Most people would say of course not. What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Gray area there. Blowing up a shopping mall full of people? Where is the line and why is it so easy to say that none exists? The fact that Cassie brings up these questions in a kids' series is just one of the many things that makes Animorphs a cut above most grade 3-5 books.

[skirtsandtea.livejournal.com]

This pretty much sums up whatever I would have said, especially the bit about her being manipulative. There's nothing inherently wrong with being able to manipulate people - it's all in if/when/how you use that ability. And frankly, most of the time she does something questionable in that regard, the others agree with her even if they don't like it (such as the David situation).

David babble? Yes please

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

And she's so good at manipulating because she genuinely cares for people. I think she genuinely cared about David, was genuinely concerned for him - even though she disagreed with his actions. She was able to manipulate him so well because she cared. However, this clearly has a cost - Cassie did not like having to do that to David. Cassie doesn't like manipulating people to hurt them. I don't think that she has the same problem with manipulating people to help them (or at least, what she perceives as helping them).

This is an interesting point, and I'm sure there's a psycho-babble name for people that do this because IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. (Dumbledor-ish, in a way.)

That and there's the added guilt that she is obviously the only Animorph David trusts and is ergo the last one he would suspect to pull something like this on him. (He buys the 'Rachel did it!' side of that hook, line, and sinker, right?)

And then she goes and condemns him to a fate (depending on who you ask, and he certainly seems to think so) worse than death... For his own good. That's COLD IMO.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

lol well I guess the pendulum is swinging the other way, which is fine, you guys are allowed to like her but I still don't.

And you know, reading through all of your comments, there's not really any one part I disagree with. I agree that she's not a perfect character, and that her flaws I think are some of the most subtle and realistic of anyone in the group. I agree that she's not totally responsible for being such an insufferable figure of morality since that's the role she was assigned to and the one she felt she had to fulfill, and I even agree that she had a couple of moments of REALLY AWESOME.

There's two reasons I still don't like her, which I'll outline here:

First, I still believe Cassie's position on the team was redundant. Yes, she may have been assigned to the role of "moral compass" and she may have worn that title proudly, but I still don't see her as the practical moral compass of the team. Tobias still is to me. Sure, Cassie may be able to parse through all the theoretical mumbo jumbo, and she certainly never shied away from telling the team outright "NO WE'RE NOT DOING THAT," but like I've explained before, I really don't think that's what a moral compass should do. Marco was the strategist because no one else could really SEE things that way. I don't believe anyone, except sociopaths I guess, is born without a conscious. And assigning Cassie to the role of team's conscious, when everyone else has a perfectly good working one, made her practically redundant and really insufferable to me. Anyway, like I've explained before, it is an important role but one she didn't fill correctly--since everyone already has a compass and knows the difference between right and wrong, someone who plays that role in the group shouldn't have veto power. Their job isn't to say "this is too wrong for ME so thus it's too wrong for all of us," it's to outline the consequences of their actions in an objective way and make sure they're making a perfectly informed decision. Tobias did this way more than Cassie did, I think #30 is a great example when they were talking to Marco's mom for the first time and he was all "dude are you sure about this? This is going to fuck you up if you do it." No judgment, no self-righteousness, just an objective, impartial observer making intuitive, deep predictions.

You guys are free to disagree with me. I still believe even morality can be a practical thing, and for some reason it was the only thing in the books that was allowed to get really theoretical and abstract. I guess the authors thought it was a theme or whatever.

The second reason I still don't like Cassie is that she's never wrong.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

Now I've read through your comments and you guys cite a lot of examples where Cassie makes mistakes. She does. She knows she does. The Animorphs know she does. She does things for stupid reasons, she lets her gut and heart rule when her brain should (which are all qualities I hate in real life, but even that's irrelevant to why I don't like her as a character), and she causes a lot of conflict for and within the group. The problem is that none of these actions ever seems to be anything in the long-run except a secret solution to a big problem. Obviously, the biggest example is the morphing cube. Yes, she justified it later by insinuating she "hoped" or whatever that the Yeerks would self-destruct because of it, but yeah, she totally just did something really stupid in the heat of the moment. Same thing with Aftran. Really stupid decision that turned into something that, probably in concert with the morphing cube, ended the war. Cassie routinely makes objectively bad decisions that, through narrative magic, turn out to be right.

Now, some of you may think this is an accurate representation of unpredictability and irony of real life. I disagree. Fiction is not reality. Fiction is a carefully contrived fabrication of reality. Real life does not have Chekov's guns, rising action, climaxes, and conclusions. Real life is cruel and arbitrary. The structure and "reality" of the books never treated Cassie that way.

And yeah, it didn't really treat any of them that way until the end (and yes--I'm still a little mad that Cassie got off scot-free both externally and internally), but Cassie always just seemed to get extra-special treatment to me. I'm still pissed about the Ellimist calling her "wise" in Megamorphs 4 when I STILL THINK SHE WAS TOTALLY WRONG ABOUT HOW TOBIAS WOULD RESPOND TO HIS OWN INFESTATION (then again, as I think of it, maybe the Ellimist was just saying that to reinforce her own recklessness because he knew...you know what, no, it was still stupid), I'm pissed that the morphing cube worked out so perfectly, I'm pissed that Aftran worked out so perfectly, I'm even pissed that little stupid stuff worked out so perfectly, like Cassie sitting out of #43 JUST SO SHE COULD COME BACK AND SAVE THE DAY (with a moral crisis of course) or Cassie being the embodiment of Jake's idealized future in #41. Cassie was cast as the angel way too many times. If you want me to believe she is a balanced character with more than surface-level flaws, tell me more times she fucked up or was cast in a negative light that didn't last more than two pages.

In the carefully contrived fabrication of reality that is Animorphs, Cassie was the representation of how the world should be--and so, that world more often than not was that way. I still think Cassie could have been a good, balanced, interesting character if she wasn't favored so goddamned much.

[acts_of_tekla]

I dislike the way Cassie is written a lot more now than when I was reading the books as a kid. That is probably because in the meantime, I've earned a degree in Peace and Justice Studies, focusing on bioethics (a subject in which I attribute my interest at least partially to Animorphs). So I've basically spent four years learning how to form concrete arguments regarding ethics, and the way that Cassie's arguments tend to be written flat out sucks. "It just feels wrong" does not qualify as an argument.

It didn't *really* bother me until I was rereading #43. Admittedly, the book has kind of an Idiot Plot, but Cassie just walking out on the mission was a real head-desk moment -- not because I dislike that she went against the group or stood up for what she believed in ('cause that's always awesome), but because she didn't say that they needed to talk to Taylor sans Yeerk, like she had in #19. A six-year-old deserves to voice her own opinion, but an eighteen-year-old doesn't -- even when the stakes are even higher in many respects? That just makes no sense.

I think that had the post-David arc books not been largely ghost written, we would have seen a much more complex Cassie. IIRC #20 is the first book where her ability to manipulate people is remarked upon, and I really would have liked to see more of that -- especially because it comes *after* Cassie's big "What have I become and what will I become if I keep doing this?" freak out in #19. I really would have liked to see her deal with the internal fallout of acknowledging or realizing that she was being manipulative at some point.

I think the problem may have been that the ghost writers thought that "moral compass" meant "character who is a saint" rather than "character who can see the possible consequences of the group's actions and points them out". "Moral compass" in that sense *is* necessary to this sort of story and cast archetype.

[lisacharly.livejournal.com]

Except Tobias didn't have enough respect from the group until like, the late 20's early 30's to have his opinion really matter. Jake and Cassie pitied him and Marco thought he was a wuss. That's half the team who doesn't take him seriously. And I think a huge reason that the group sort of elected Cassie as the morality spokesperson was the group psychology of children. It's a very kid/teenager response to go "well, _____ says it's wrong so I know not to do it", and since they couldn't talk to any adult figures about the war, they decided on Cassie because she seemed the most emotionally mature (she's the least emotionally mature, but the qualities she possesses look, to children, like maturity). And then, as the war escalated and as they grew up, they started listening to her less. Even before the final arc, pretty much none of them are giving a crap about her morality. Everyone's lending more credence to Tobias.

I don't recall how the Yeerk Peace Movement was integral to the war ending, actually. I may need to go back and reread the last books. I pretty much remember the YPF doing jack and occasionally ending up in trouble and needing rescuing, except for that one time one YPF member stops Visser Three from killing Jake, but that's like two lines of the whole book. I don't agree that the morphing cube did anything but escalate the war - maybe post-war it offered a solution, but they really didn't accomplish anything during the war with the cube besides more violent battles. So IDK, a lot of people say that the morph cube decision turned out to work for Cassie, but I don't buy it. It led to her BFF and Tom's death indirectly.

More in a minute computer making explodo noises.

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

Anyway, like I've explained before, it is an important role but one she didn't fill correctly--since everyone already has a compass and knows the difference between right and wrong, someone who plays that role in the group shouldn't have veto power.

This is totally true- never thought about it that way before but YES.

The second reason I still don't like Cassie is that she's never wrong.

I likewise found that... I guess annoying is the right word. I strongly dislike Holier Than Thou-ness. :P

[cxrdevil.livejournal.com]

Like: She stands by her beliefs, she fights for what's right

Dislike: Her beliefs and opinions are most valid, her fights are more significant in the grand scheme of things


EDIT
ACTUALLY I HAVE A CASSIE-RELATED CONFESSION TO MAKE

I don't think I knew Cassie was black until I was in middle school
maybe I just didn't look at her covers or never read that MM4? or SOMETHING but honestly in like eighth grade Tobias is like "and then my friend cassie, who is great with animals, black, and wears overalls" and i'm like DOUBLETAKE
That instinctive defaulting of all characters to white unless stated otherwise (apparently even when stated otherwise and when there are pictures?) ahhh I was so guilty of it

[iapetusneume.livejournal.com]

Most of what has been said about Cassie that I'd want to say has already been said, but I will say one thing:

All the Cassie hate made me reluctant to even start taking part in the fandom. This is because I relate most to Cassie, even if she isn't my favorite character*, so all the negativity made me feel uncomfortable. I don't have a problem with people not liking a certain character, but never before had I been in a fandom where the character I related to best was hated so much.

I realize now that some of that hate comes from the ghostwritten books, which I didn't read until later. So, the Cassie in my mind for years and years was mostly how K.A. had written her. I'm not saying she's perfect and I *know* she's not, but yeah. That's what shocked me most about this fandom.

* It's actually really hard for me to pick a favorite in this series. I kinda like everyone on an almost equal level for a variety of different reasons, but Marco and Elfangor are my favorites. So saying Cassie isn't a favorite isn't a knock on her at all.

[lisacharly.livejournal.com]

I agree. I actually left an Ani board over the incessant Cassie hate (though mostly the "replace Cassie with Melissa!" bull because really why does fandom have such a hard-on for Melissa?). I think it's one thing to dislike Cassie as a literary character, think that you'd hate her if she was a real person, even think she brought the books down though I disagree. But starting whole threads on "why Cassie should die", "who should replace Cassie?", "the books would have been so much better if Cassie died" and the crazy amount of "Rachel didn't die it was Cassie in Rachel morph" is just really, really uncomfortable sometimes. No wonder Cassie fans get scared off.

And now the cycle repeats, since Avatar fandom is scaring me off with its Katara hate...

While I do think there are plenty of legit reasons to dislike Cassie, I do have to wonder if the general fandom hate would be QUITE as fervent if Cassie were a male character. Plenty of the Ani guys do a lot of the same stuff Cassie does and never get called on it.

[embergryphon.livejournal.com]

I like Cassie. Especially early Cassie. 'Cause y'know, early Cassie follows the pattern of characterization- strong positive trait with corresponding character flaw. Rachel: brave but reckless. Marco: strategist but detached. Cassie: strong beliefs that she stands up for, but doesn't deal well with war. And she doesn't! She's all, "No, guys, we totes should fight!" in #1, and then in #4 she's given her Reason to Fight ("They'll destroy the environment?! D=") and then by #9 she realizes that the Animorphs are going to do morally questionable things. She starts to see things from the Yeerk's perspective and doubts whether humans are really any better. She complicates things; in being able to see deeper and further than her compatriots, she sees too much, and it bothers her. She has a termite-related breakdown.

And you think, wow! Like Tobias having to learn to stand up for himself now that he's a legit predator, like Jake having to learn to have confidence in his decisions and stand by his mistakes, like Marco and Rachel having to learn to separate the darker parts of their personalities from the rest of them in order to preserve their sanity/humanity, Cassie, too, will have to change! She will have to learn to be hard, to be rational, to juggle morality with practicality and come to some happy medium. She'll have to learn to focus, to rationalize, to grit her teeth and save her tears for later.

Does this start to happen? Yes! Look at #16- she wants to kill Jim Bob Jones or whoever, but she can't bring herself to do it; she wants Jake to do it, but he won't, so in the end, she(?) just makes it so someone else will do it, someday, for her. Is Cassie changing as a character?
This could have been the beautiful part of #19- if Cassie had really had any internal debate at all. Instead, it was pretty much, "Oh hey I like you let's eat mushrooms!" The only character development, really, happened in Aftran. I liked that book because of Aftran. =/ And I think Cassie's actions could have worked (one stupid decision after another) if the repercussions had been real. But of course they weren't. And the outcome would have been beautiful if Cassie had struggled, if we had been given some evidence that she would do the hard thing, she would grow in complexity as a character, if there hadn't been some compelling reason. But there is really no reason given- it all just works out.

There are moments where this development seems to have happened, as though on its own, magically. Cassie tearing at her parents in defense of recruiting the Auxiliaries, for instance. Cassie dealing with David. (David did so much for this series, shizzle) Cassie doing what needed to be done in #41 and then somehow surviving without a shoulder to cry on afterward. But for the most part? I wanted to see conflict, I wanted to see her struggle with herself, like everyone else had to do. But instead, her flaws (her inability to cope with the war) just grew into virtues in and of themselves, and suddenly she's also the paperweight of the universe and keeps it from being distorted, and she can see the future and she knows when people are lying and she never needs to change.

Except the one time where she kills a Taxxon while in freefall with a Dracon beam. That's pretty sweet, actually. But I don't think any of them care as much about Taxxons as about Humans, Hork Bajir, or baby skunks.

All in all? I like Cassie. I don't like that she seemed to get more and more saintly, more unsullied, as everyone else was developing into the screwed up soldier versions of themselves towards the end of the war. I miss Cassie with flaws, Cassie with breakdowns; uncertain, nervous Cassie that can pill a opossum (not easy! D=) but can't forget killing a termite. Instead, she becomes, by the end, this holier-than-thou character that could fix everything with her powers of love and hope. It's a little disappointing.

And I'm also always bothered by the moral questions that DON'T come up, because for some reason Cassie can't look bad. (BuffaHuman = good, AntCassie = OHGODKILLITWITHFIRE. Marco saving his dad = admittedly stupid but necessary for his own emotional state; Cassie stopping Jake from killing Tom = she had a plan, guys, don't worry!)

[blue_rampion]

I like to hope that the kind of change you describe is what should have happened in the later books. Because you are right, you do see glimpses of her heading in that direction before the ghostwriters take over. I guess we can only assume that the ghostwriters weren't able to get a handle on her, that they forgot that her flaws were flaws. She was at her best when she had to war with the darker sides of herself, and we just didn't see enough of it in later books.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

This... kind of turned into a ramble, sorry.
I agree that Cassie makes huge mistakes. Especially the "giving the morphing cube to Tom" - because, yes, she should've gotten a hell of a lot more criticism/ostracism/hostility, especially from Marco, Rachel and Jake.

Having said that, she goes nothlit-caterpillar for Karen. Yes, she makes some stupid decisions (eg. deciding to let Aftran infest her), but actually morphing caterpillar? That's amazing.
Yes, it could be argued that she's giving up her gift from Elfangor/her chance to save the human race. But that's the whole point - it's Cassie's decision to make. She's going solo, she's decided to quit- and yeah, she's "abandoning" the Anis & her larger responsibilities, but my view on it is that she was the only who had enough guts to admit that and to actually go her own way. Okay, yes, it's cowardly, and yes, it *does* raise questions about her ability to take one for the team.
And Cassie has no connection to the war, as someone pointed out on another thread. She's free to leave, and I feel like all the people who say "OH BUT SHE WAS SUCH A COWARD OMG!" are sort of missing the point.
The kids never realised what they were getting into, and Cassie alone of all the Anis had no personal reason to keep fighting, but she still came back after #19. As poparena said in his video, no matter how noble it is to save the world, you tend to care more about your friends and family than Joe Bloggs half a hemisphere away.

Point 2:

I actually like 19 because it raises some very interesting points about her character - "thinking on a micro-level", as I think anijen put it. The same thing happens again with the morphing cube incident, and I feel like both those books are at two ends of the spectrum. The first time it turned out beautifully (against all odds!) and she made the decision to nothlit for herself, in a way that wouldn't affect all the other Animorphs (this is not counting the "letting Aftran infest her" thing, because I agree that was really risky & stupid). The second one (morphing cube), she screwed up badly and she should've suffered for it, dammit.

Probably what people are going to say to all this is, "Yes, that's all fine, but she didn't just go solo, she put all the Animorphs in danger by letting a Yeerk into her head". YES, I agree that was moronic, and people who don't like her because of it are right. But it doesn't invalidate my point: she trusted and she took a gamble. She could've lost, yeah, but she won. THIS is what I like about #19, that it's not about "the team" or "the war" - sometimes it's just about making a connection on an individual level.