Fans of the Animorphs

I don't think it Jake flushing the Yeerks was the reason - even before that, we got the sense that Cassie at least knew that things wouldn't work out. And if you look at them near the end of the series, you can see how that would happen even if Tom and Rachel and the flushed Yeerks hadn't died. Cassie giving the blue box to Tom was a major wedge between them, and Jake had already become so defined by the war and his role in it. And in addition to Jake retreating...I think on a certain level, Cassie wanted to break away. She left the ball entirely in Jake's court, when she already knew that he wasn't going to pick it up. Cassie could have chosen to seek out Jake herself post-war, but she didn't.

As for their relationship during the way, I always find it interesting to compare their relationship to Rachel and Tobias's. Rachel and Tobias were always very demonstrative in their feelings - they never really spoke of them much, but their actions telegraphed how they felt. Jake and Cassie, however, were always much more hesitant. They tended to talk more to other people about how they felt about each other, and generally avoid actually doing anything with their relationship. Which kinda leads into how they ended, actually. Since it died when neither of them choose to actually do anything about it.

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rena-librarian.livejournal.com

I kind of feel like the ball was left in Jake's court, and they wouldn't have needed to fall apart if he had gotten off his butt and not been so emo. I think Cassie would have been patient enough to help him work through things if he would have just reached out to her.

Or maybe I'm just projecting. =/

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I don't think she completely wanted things to end? Like, I think she was kinda in that half-place, where on one level you want it and on another level you don't. She wanted Jake, but only if he was willing to go after her.

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rena-librarian.livejournal.com

I can relate.

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I agree that the ball was in Jake's court and that Cassie didn't want things to end with him (I mean look at that line where she laments that a year had passed and they weren't together), but I can't really be mad at Jake, the poor guy had PTSD/trauma and so much guilt, he couldn't help closing off like that, sadly. They are a pairing that is an example of two people who in the right time and place would be together, but whom outside tragic circumstances (the war, what Jake had to do in it) forced apart.

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But Jake had already forgiven Cassie for the blue box incident, had already realized that it was the right thing to do and helped them achieve their final victory, from getting the alliance of the Taxxons, etc. Hell he proposed to her AFTER that. So I don't think that was really a factor or wedge between them at all--it was really just Jake's guilt and PTSD/trauma, which made him unable to have a relationship with anyone, really, as much as he might have liked to. Once the war was over and Jake had to deal with all that had happened, all he had done, he was too damaged/hollow for something like romance. In short, it was an outside factor (ie the war, and Jake's guilt over what he had done to win) that really ended things for them, more than either of them personally, if everything had been normal...

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Well, if everything had been normal neither of them would have been changed by the events of the war. And the war is also what brought them together in the first place - so who knows what would have happened without it? For all we know, they'd have never gotten together at all.

Jake might have decided to forgive Cassie for the blue box thing...but hell, there's no way something like that wouldn't put a strain on a relationship. And I always read Jake's proposal as more of an attempt to grab at some kind of normalcy in the midst of all that chaos. Things just weren't all peachy keen even before the events of the last book - they both made choices that hurt each other. Might that have stayed together without Jake's PTSD? Sure, it's possible. But they'd still have had those issues that they needed to get through to make it work.

Now, if you were talking about Jake and Cassie before the final arc of the series, that's a different story. If the war had somehow magically ended then, I could definitely have seen them keeping the relationship afterwards without any trouble.

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Well they already had crushes on one another, and she was friends with his cousin, so I can see it happening despite the war potentially, though receiving the power to morph certainly did push them together (but then the end of the war ruined them). And we'll have to agree to disagree about the cube, after they made up their manner was no longer strained but more or less back to normal, aside from Cassie's fears/response to his proposal (which was in part a grasp at normalcy I agree, but also him just clinging to Cassie more so--I mean as he admits, asking your 16-year-old semi-girlfriend to marry you isn't exactly normal)--it was only after the thing with Tom and Rachel goes down that the huge distance between them really springs up, even in the immediate aftermath (though at least she was perceptive enough to react as Jake needed and not do the wrong thing there in that scene). *shrug*

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Oh, there was still potential for them without the war, certainly - it's just not really possible to know for sure.

Whether the box was an influencing factor or not, my main point was that Jake killing the Yeerks wasn't the one and only reason - there were multiple reasons, from Jake's depression to Cassie's decision to not go after him herself to a bunch of other little things.

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Including killing Rachel. Some fans speculate the proposal was to throw her off so that she wouldn't notice he was sending Rachel to her death. I wonder if Cassie ever wondered the same thing.

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boring tbh

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I kinda have a theory that being being boring was actually on purpose - I don't think Grapplegate ever wanted to have romance as a serious focus for the series. So...avoid the focus on Who Will Get With Who by pairing most of the kids up early, and then avoid having those relationships being too full of drama by matching up the kids that wouldn't really have that much relationship conflict and drama. And voila! Romance becomes a pretty minor part of the books.

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I think that theory works for Jake and Cassie, and I agree that there probably was a conscious decision not to give them much to do (which makes that #53 proposal that much more baffling to me, tbh--a desperate snatch for something normal and permanent and normal, but idk the way it was written made it feel so weirdly sincere...), but Rachel and Tobias are defined by their conflict and drama. Tobias could have very well been asexual, and I really have no problem seeing Rachel casually date and dump a bunch of guys at school. They were PURELY about romantic angst.

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lol normal and permanent and normal

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They had their conflict, but it tended to be...less 'relationshippy' kind of conflict, if that made sense? Like, it was always more about things like Rachel wanting Tobias to be human, which fit in with Tobias's arc of the human/hawk conflict. And their relationship always tended to be more in the background - there, but only occasionally put in the spotlight.

It certainly wasn't the giant mess of drama that would have been inevitable with say, Marco and Rachel.

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I kind of ship Rachel/Marco negl

idk, I get what you're saying, but then again, I don't think their hawk/human conflict would have had the same flavor if they hadn't been in a relationship. I mean, would it really have happened if they weren't? It would have probably been more a Cassie/Tobias thing then, because Rachel really only seemed to let herself be vulnerable/nurturing in that context. I mean, they could have been like kindred spirits or something, but what is that like half an inch from dating?

I don't really know what I'm arguing right now. I guess that Rachel and Tobias were really just a couple so they could angst about shit.

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Fff, you have to admit though. Rachel and Marco actually dating couldn't help but be anything other than drama XD (beautiful, glorious drama...but drama nonetheless.)

Oh yeah, the romance did definitely add something to that arc. Obviously Grapplegate didn't want NO ROMANCE EVAR, or...there'd have been no romance ever. Mostly I just think that they didn't want what romance they did have to be a major focus. So it's there, but it's not like we have any books where half of the story is spent going on about someone's relationship issues.

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If she hadn't died, I get the feeling she would have eventually left Tobias for Marco. Tobias would not have left hawk for her, and I think he knew it. After the war he wouldn't have as many excuses, and Rachel does not strike me as someone with infinite patience.

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Idk if she would have gone for Marco - their relationship was by no means smooth sailing by the end of the way either - but there definitely would have been some issues with her and Tobias.

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caitieness.livejournal.com

when i first read the series i was all about rachel/tobias starcrossed lovers blah blah blah but now i love jake/cassie more than anything and it's so gd heartbreaking for me that they don't work out. but i think i love them BECAUSE they don't work out. like, everyone knows r/t isn't going to happen but jake and cassie have a chance. they grew up together in so many ways but as the series ends, their views on the war are so drastically difference that they can't reconcile.

i felt like at the beginning of the series, they were the two most normal characters. nothing terribly bad had ever happened and they were young and had crushes on each other and didn't know what to do about it. and then they spent so much time together and had so much to worry about that they couldn't just sit down and figure out their feelings, they couldn't date or anything, because of what was going on. and then they just grew apart, grew in separate directions. they never even got the chance to be in love and be normal and i just feel so bad for them and i love them.

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Oh how I love to hear someone say this--I feel like J/C is so underrated in fandom, where everyone always seems to only be about the Rachel/Tobias love (which while I liked it, for whatever reason I never was as interested in that relationship as I was J/C, perhaps because Jake and Cassie were my favorite characters as well). And YES, as I've reread and revisited the series as a full-fledged doomed!shipper, I have come to accept and appreciate their tragic ending more, and love them all the more for it (it provided good fodder for an angsty fanmix, lol).

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Oh yay, a subject after my own heart! :D (And where my sole Ani icon is 100% relevant, lol). J/C were my first OTP, before I even really knew the concept. All I knew was that they were the pairing that most interested me, in which I was most invested (while I liked R/T as well, it wasn't as interesting for me, I never got the big fuss over it). I was devastated when they didn't end up together (esp when they were BOTH alive at the end!), but now as I look back on the series from an older POV, I can understand it and appreciate its tragedy--I suppose it was an early sign of my being d00med to ship d00med!ships, lol.

As others have said, I don't think the Yeerk flushing was the reason, so much as just Jake's general PTSD/trauma and guilt in the aftermath that made him unable to pursue any relationships, let alone a romantic one with Cassie. Cassie could already sense it, I think, with her wisdom and ability to see things clearly, which is why she gave him the year requirement--and she was right about what would happen, though it's clear that she is sad to see it come to pass. I don't think it was really either of their faults, more just tragic outside circumstances/war coming between them.

But yeah, I love their shy relationship, how after the beginning (when I think their relationship is more overstated and obvious actually) their love is more understated and quiet, just like the two of them are...I love how they understand one another like nobody else does, how deeply they care for one another.

TBH, until getting into fandom and rereading again, I didn't even remember they had kissed...it was the other moments that stuck with me, with my favorite being Jake choosing to save Cassie over the world in "The Famiiar" AU-verse--HE CHOSE HER OVER THE WORLD--to me that tops as far as romantic moments! ;). (And yes, while they don't directly state that this was the decision, it's so heavily implied they might as well have done so, it's hardly ambiguous).

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keyyag.livejournal.com

I love them. Just - everything about them. Their adorable crushes on each other in the beginning (From the first time they try out fly morphs: "I guess it's no big secret that I kind of like Cassie. I think she's really pretty." look at that, is it even physically possible for a more precious couple of sentences to exist). How they progress to hand-holding in this secret way where they're like, "It's the middle of the night and we're in the Amazon rainforest, TIME TO HOLD HANDS!" and totally sure no one notices. The respect they have for each other: in the first (roughly) twenty or so books, it's Cassie who comes up with a lot of the plans, and Jake actively seeks her approval. Their Leadership conversation after Jake almost dies in fly morph in #16 to me shows how the gravity of the situation they're in - and the fact that maybe it's changing them - is finally starting to sink in for real, and that is pretty scary stuff, but they almost make a point of seeking each other out to talk it through whenever things get a bit too heavy. They actively try to support each other throughout the majority of the war and it is lovely.

Okay, and there's another thing: Jake isn't nearly as pragmatic and ruthless as Marco, but compared to Cassie? And Cassie has a lot of trouble with that - off the top of my head there are at least two instances of her basically telling him stop talking, she doesn't want to know: in 16, in the confrontation with Fenestre, Jake is about to pretty much say "He's killing humans, yeah, but he's killing Yeerks, too, so maybe it's good; maybe it's not worth it to kill him." and Cassie cuts him off with "No! Don't say it, Jake. If you say that I won't be able to deal with you anymore. So don't say it." and again in 54, after they kidnap Jake and throw him in the ocean, they talk about the flushing of the Yeerks, and when Jake is about to say "I wasn't thinking I was justified because we're the victims; I was thinking die, filthy Yeerks," Cassie pulls away from him and basically can't even look at him. It's almost like she's got these two, separate, compartmentalised versions of Jake: the Jake she loves, the Jake who is good and honourable and all that, and the Jake who is the leader of the resistance, the Jake who does what has to be done. And if he explicitly makes those two versions of himself overlap in her head, if he destroys the illusion, she can't deal with him anymore.

I feel like one thing sort of gets overshadowed by the (glorious) R/T angst at the end: Jake sent Cassie's best friend to her death. How do you come back from that? That alone would be... difficult, to say the least. But there's the whole war, all the trauma and hard decisions and disagreements and it all just piles up into this amorphous, ravenous blob of awfulness and I have a really hard time seeing how they could move past all that. It's clear to me that they still care about each other. But just caring isn't enough. They've done and experienced too much to be able to come back from it, you know? They could have been great. They were great. But it isn't enough.

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skirtsandtea.livejournal.com

This this this, a million times. I was fond of Jake/Cassie when I read the books as a kid, but ~ToBiAs WaS mY fAvOrItE~, so they took the back seat. Rereading now in my twenties, Jake and Cassie move me so much. (Not more than R/T, I don't think - they break my heart too - just in a different way.) This summed it all up beautifully.

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rayerai.livejournal.com

Honestly, I rolled my eyes at just about every C/J moment in the series. It felt contrived to me at the beginning and then there wasn't any chemistry. Part of this was how Cassie just irritated the stew out of me half the time and I have always, always adored Jake. But I think most of it was just that they screamed Token Couple to me.

Jake is way too much of a badass for Cassie. There. I said it.

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In the end he became way too ruthless for her and she couldn't idealize him as heroic anymore.

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keyyag.livejournal.com

Yes! This, a thousand times. What I took like three paragraphs to say, you condense into one perfect sentence.

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Just speculating what the guy she ended up with was like, Ronnie (can you imagine an adult Jake going by Jakey?)I bet was similarly idealistic and heroic in his Hork Bajir saving but I'm sure eventually the veneer would have worn off, too. Despite what she would like to believe, Cassie's hands aren't that clean either. Perhaps she felt like her peace work was a form of atonement, but I doubt Ronnie would necessarily understand her, either.

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rayerai.livejournal.com

It's true. Which is a shame, because that was when he needed the support the most. (Cue more Cassie-dislike.)

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