Fans of the Animorphs

1. #31 The Conspiracy, page 115
"You're still such a kid. You think everything is so simple, don't you? That it's all either right or wrong, black or white. A good guy, a bad guy, and nothing in between."

No, Yeerk, I don't. Not anymore. I used to. But I've been across the line; I've done things I can't let myself think about. I know all about the shades of gray.

I said, "Sometimes even the good guys do bad things. Doesn't mean there's no difference between good and evil."

2. TAC, page 54
<Even those who return from war may never really come home.>

3. TAC, page 154
<Aren't lost causes sometimes the best causes, Elfangor?>

From:

blue_rampion

I have to second your second quote there. That just hits home so much with the ultimate fates of the Animorphs (and of many secondary characters), and I've often felt that the horrifying effects of war is what the series is at core really about.

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Yup that's definitely what I felt what the series was ultimately about and, based on that response letter about the last book, is what Applegrant felt is was too.

Edited Date: 2012-06-09 01:30 pm (UTC)

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Thirding this. At it's heart, the Animorphs was a war story, and--ironically, for a story about shapeshifting and aliens--the most psychologically honest fictional war story that I know of. I really Applegrant for not shying away from what might really happen if you had teenagers fighting and running a bloody war.

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Fourthing this.

From:

swankivy.livejournal.com

Tobias: "There's only one way to deal with fear: Be afraid. Be afraid, and then go ahead and do what you have to do, anyway." (Megamorphs #1)

Ax: "'Give me liberty or give me death.' A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into." (#8)

Marco: "Rage is addictive, you know. I guess it's sorta like a drug. Anger and hatred get you high. They get you high, but like any addiction, they hollow you out and tear you down and eat you alive." (#10)

Rachel: "Brave isn't about not being afraid. It's about being scared to death and still not giving in." (#12)

Jake: "You never really get past the fear. Fear eats a little hole in you, like rust in the fender of a car. You fill the hole up with putty and sand it smooth and paint it over so no one else can see it. But it's never really as good as new." (#16)

Ax: "It's a terrible thing, living when so many others have died. It's terrible because no matter what you do, a single thought keeps popping up in your head: I'm glad it wasn't me." (#18)

Tobias: "There's always a choice. I can't get mad at someone not wanting to take a life. I can't get mad at someone for thinking life is sacred. I just can't." (#19)

Ax: "Let us agree, then, that all civilized species must share a hatred of war." (#34)

Cassie: "Sometimes, in war, even the 'good guys' do awful things." (#34)

Ax: "We are the resistance. We fight the Yeerk invasion until help from my home planet arrives. Or until we die. The latter possibility seems ever more likely." (#38)

Cassie: "So you can see why I need to work with wounded animals. To help heal them. In some way, I think they help heal me, too." (#39)

Rachel: "While you do the right thing, I do the necessary thing." (#39)

Tobias: "Victory without self-sacrifice? You know better than that." (#41)

Tobias: "I didn't realize that torture doesn't end when you're freed." (#43)

Marco: "This was the end of smart. And the beginning of right." (#45)

Marco: "The saddest thing is that this is our greatest victory. And I've never felt more depressed in my entire life." (#52)

Cassie: "I guess this is as close as we'll get to defeating the Yeerks without being the Yeerks." (#52)

Jake: "You don't get a lot of straight-up good or evil choices. You get shades of gray." (#53)

From:

yunie1281.livejournal.com

Tobias: "There's always a choice. I can't get mad at someone not wanting to take a life. I can't get mad at someone for thinking life is sacred. I just can't." (#19)

I want to like that quote because, taken on its own, I think it would be pretty powerful. Unfortunately, I cannot divorce it from the context of Cassie knowingly selling them all and the entire planet out to a Yeerk who has openly stated that she planned to destroy the Animorphs and get them infested because she thinks all life is sacred (not that that ever stopped her anywhere else in the series...), Marco thinking this was a bad idea, and everyone judging him for not appreciating the beauty of Cassie's betrayal.

From:

I take your point about Marco vs. the others. And I was never sure why Cassie wasn't called out on that later in the series. Or why Jake forgave her so readily over the morphing cube.

(I'm not Cassie-bashing here, by the way: I love her, and #19 is actually one of my favourite books precisely because Cassie took the gamble she did.)

Edited Date: 2012-06-12 01:43 am (UTC)

From:

yunie1281.livejournal.com

I want to like that book and I do like some aspects of it. I love that we learn more about Yeerks as a whole and get to see another bit of what it's like to be infested. And Jake's speech at the end and everyone walking away from Aftran...very, very stupid but it paid off and I couldn't blame them. I'm usually pretty critical of stupidity so when I can't blame people for acting like idiots then it really says something.

I could never forgive Cassie for her infestation, though, and maybe it's because I'm not fourteen like Cassie was but she acted like Aftran was making all of these impossibly to counter points and I always found them to be pretty easy to argue against.

I think you could argue that Jake never actually forgave her for the morphing cube. He's says he forgives her when Cassie finally admits it to everyone and he says Cassie blowing up the Yeerk Pool is almost as good as him doing it but then in 53 he excludes her from the meeting and Rachel assumes he's still upset and that's why he doesn't want her telling Cassie about the plan. Like, he still cares about her and so he tried to forgive her but when it comes right down to it he never quite could.

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I agree that Jake never really forgave Cassie. I wonder if part of him thought that if he had killed Tom, Rachel would still be alive and only one of them would have been destroyed*.

*Of course, this is not necessarily the case--c.f., that awesome fanfic where the author shows what may have happened had each of the other Anis been the one to die, as shown through Rachel's eyes. There are no happy endings in that fic, as in the series.

Edited Date: 2012-06-14 12:31 am (UTC)

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I wonder if part of him thought that if he had killed Tom, Rachel would still be alive and only one of them would have been destroyed.

That's actually a good point.
Ooh, what fic is this? I read this fic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/326075/1/Animorphs_The_Beginning_the_conclusion), but that's not the one you're referring to.

From:

http://animorphs.livejournal.com/645255.html

It is awesome. You may cry.

From:

It's not quite as simple as “life is sacred, do the right thing”, which is what I think Tobias and the others didn’t quite grasp. They didn’t realise (quite rightly, because they weren’t in Cassie’s head) that the whole Aftran thing was also about making connections with individual Yeerks, like she says in #19. “You and me” not “You against me”, making connections at a grassroots level. She was wrong to want no bloodshed whatsoever, which is lampshaded by Aftran, but it’s a profound insight for a fourteen-year-old, especially in a war. But I completely understand why you dislike the infestation thing. It was a stupid thing to do, although it paid off.

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Maybe it's just me, but I've always been a little surprised that people are surprised Jake forgave Cassie so easily. He's still in love with her, after all, and at that point in the war he doesn't really have anyone else. He needed Cassie. He couldn't stay angry at her.

Ax, on the other hand, has a very hard time coming to terms with what Cassie did. If she hadn't almost died, making him realize how much he'd miss her despite her betrayal, I think it's likely he would have held on to that anger. I think people are quick to forget that when they complain about Cassie being easily forgiven. (Though I do agree that subplot was wrapped up very quickly.)

I also feel like I'm in the minority for not completely hating Cassie over the morphing cube. It was a horrible choice to make in the middle of the war, sure, but if the Andalites had shared that technology sooner... maybe there wouldn't have been a war. Her timing is terrible but I get her motivation.

Edited Date: 2012-06-13 04:01 pm (UTC)

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Good points, and I hadn't considered that Jake had no one else in the war (his family had just been taken, and he probably wasn't feeling he could spend as much time with Marco, since even Marco had his whole family back. I suppose he was more isolated and pressured than ever in the valley, having lost his parents and still needing to make the decisions.

I agree with Yunie that he excludes her from the mission, but he seems to put more trust in her than strictly necessary even after the revelation (“I trust Cassie’s instincts more than mine,” and all that). I mean, why Cassie and not, say, Marco, who has no reason *not* to do the expedient thing? Even Marco isn’t as annoyed at her as he ought to be in #52 – it’s only Ax who comments on how she shouldn’t even be allowed to make decisions. I’m not saying they should’ve kicked Cassie out of the Animorphs or anything, just that it seemed like they were a little too lenient on her. That said, it was close to the end of the series, and I'm nitpicking, and this is very much YMMV.

I still feel cheated that she didn't even consider morphing wolf and helping Jake. Of course they were outnumbered and in a battle and there was no time for long philosophical inner monologues, but KAA could've taken a sentence or two to even consider the possible options. Yes, saving Jake from the emotional turmoil of killing his own brother was a valid reason for her to give up the cube. But I don't like her spur-of-the-moment reaction because "it felt right", with not even a possibility that Cassie was going to swing either way. It felt like a cop-out on Applegrant's part that her decision was so immediate. It's a disappointment compared to #29, where she makes a decision to rescue Aftran having weighed up two equally urgent courses of action.
I do agree that giving the Yeerks the morphing cube hastened the end of the war. In #53 Jake says something to that effect: "Cassie, you guessed that letting Tom take the morphing cube might weaken rather than strengthen the Yeerks." So, really, it's partly the execution of that scene which rubs me the wrong way, because we get no hint that Cassie was thinking these things at all until later, which makes it seem like she acted purely on emotion (valid emotion, but it was *not* the right time for it) and impulse, and justified it later, when things worked out. On the other hand, this was lampshaded by Jake, and not letting us into Cassie’s head might’ve been a clever move by Applegrant to increase the moral ambiguity of the situation, and make it seem more as if she acted on impulse.
I hope that whole rant made sense. This is what I love about Animorphs, especially the last few books, how there’s no right answer to any of these quandaries.

From:

probablywont.livejournal.com

If I had to pick just one quote that really sums up the spirit of Animorphs, it would have to be Marco in The Reunion:

"People don't understand the word ruthless. They think it means "mean."

It's not about being mean. It's about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end.

It's about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it."

From:

ferahgo.livejournal.com

I love that quote too. I think at the time I just found it to be a perfect Marco quote, that summed up his character in elegant simplicity, but after the end of the series it seemed to be a bitter anthem for all of them, especially Jake.

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Seconding this. Jake has his "bright, clear line" moment in #53, and it's downright chilling.

From:

Another one of those quotes that I think might stick with me forever.

It's a perfect summation of Marco's character but

ferahgo is right too: ultimately, it sums up the entire war itself.

From:

rattyjol.livejournal.com

"Without life there is no despair, but without life there can also never be hope." (Elfangor, TAC)

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Love this one.

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Oh, those Elfangor quotes in TAC... And I leave as my last legacy a single word for all the free peoples of the galaxy. < Hope... >

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odette-river.livejournal.com

Do you see the sunlight? Do you see the birds flying? You hate me for wanting that? You hate me because I won’t spend my life blind? You hate me because I won’t spend my life swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge, while humans like you live in a world of indescribable beauty?
—Aftran, #19

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I agree with that one: it captures the question of "are the Yeerks right to do this?"

From:

odette-river.livejournal.com

Yeah, even as a kid this quotation hit me pretty hard.

From:

yunie1281.livejournal.com

I don't think it was ever a question of whether the Yeerks were right to do it. I mean, maybe Cassie asked that question becuase she's Cassie but enslaving people is never going to be *right*.

To me, it was much more a case of "It's easy for you to judge us for what we do when you have everything and we have nothing. Would you really live like this?"

From:

"It's easy for you to judge us for what we do when you have everything and we have nothing. Would you really live like this?"

Yup, you're right. I meant it more like, "Do the Yeerks actually have a legitimate reason to do this?" but I didn't express myself very clearly.

Edited Date: 2012-06-12 12:53 am (UTC)

From:

Agreed. What I love the most is that you can feel Aftran's bitterness and resentment here; it makes her point hurt that much more.

Edited Date: 2012-06-13 03:55 pm (UTC)

From:

mattiris.livejournal.com

"Out of a respect for life, you have to endure." - Elfangor, #33

"And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. I tried to smile. For him." - Rachel, #54

From:

We are thought twins, apparently. Well-played. :)

From:

natural-blue-26.livejournal.com

Thirding! ♥

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I feel like that second quote will always stick with me. Great choice.

From:

"You were strong. You were brave. You were good. You mattered.”

"But down deep he knew, and I knew, and
we both hid the truth from the others because
Cassie couldn't let Jake make that decision, and
Tobias couldn't let me, and those two, by loving
us, would have screwed everything up.
It was a war, after all. A war we had to win.”

"And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning.

I tried to smile. For him."

That first chapter of 54 is just... everything. Love, loss, sacrifice, grief.

From:

natural-blue-26.livejournal.com

OMG SO MUCH THESE. *tears*

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G-d, that entire chapter is just through the heart. Probably the best writing in the series, IMO.

"those two, by loving us, would have screwed everything up. It was a war, after all. A war we had to win.”

So devastating. Love would screw up the war. Gah, Applegrant. D:

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"Humans, as a species, are mad."

From:

What book was that quote from?

From:

ingriam.livejournal.com

Visser; Edriss said that.

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Thank you. I never noticed that quote before, but I like it.

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It's grabs me because it's such a sparse, simple summation of an entire species but yet with a ring of truth to it as well.

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Good one! Edriss' perception of humanity may have been a little warped, but it was accurate.

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Thanks! :)

Edriss was a fascinating character, and I thought the prose in Visser sounded very authentic to someone of her mindset, intelligence, experience, etc. Very not Animorph-y, if that makes sense (not that I didn't love the main series books, mind you!)

Edited Date: 2012-06-14 12:07 am (UTC)

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PS. Breakfast Club icon, by chance?

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