The Marco/Tobias relationship in the books

[nostalgichild.livejournal.com]

Recently I've been thinking about those two.
Their relationship was a bit underdevelopled, wasn't it? They did have some funny scenes together, but did they have serious moments together too? I can't quite figure out what to make of their relationship. Did they see each other merely as comrade-in-arms or would you say they did become real friends over time?

And do you have any favourite Marco/Tobias moments?

One of my favs is in The Absolute when they steal the tank together. That was hilarious. So, yeah, that was funny, but not really deep. Why can't I remember any deep and serious moments between those two?

Comments

[kleenexcow.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the Marco-Tobias relationship. Of course there's the Team Finesse toward the end, but especially why I like that is because of their strong dislike of each other at the beginning of the series, Marco's fear of being trapped in morph translated into dickishness to Tobias. I'm also fond of the parallels between them, with parents both revealed to be players in the war--and I wrote a fic once where it pissed Marco the fuck off that Tobias would abandon Loren after the war, something that would be unfathomable to Marco.

[blue_rampion]

Theirs is one of the relationships that I really like, but it is one where everything is more implied rather than given specific attention. Which does always bring the potential that we are all misreading things, but screw that. This is fandom! Headcanon ahoooooy!

Anyhow, the way I tend to view it is that at first they were merely comrade-in-arms. In the earlier books I think Tobias disliked a lot of the more cutting remarks that Marco could give (understandable of course, given how much Tobias has been bullied all his life). There's also some tension around the fact that Tobias is trapped in morph, but Marco is clearly terrified of getting trapped himself - there's that one scene early on where they all nearly get trapped in wolf morph, and Marco's staring at Tobias while they're drying to demorph. Marco does not want to become like Tobias, and Tobias knows it.

But I think this definitely changes throughout the series, and I think by the end of it they are friends. I can't quite recall if this is the turning point, but for me one of the important moments is in 33, when Tobias is stuck in the cube and the others are trying to get him out. Mostly the prominent stuff is a lot of what Rachel's doing, but you've also got Marco seriously busting his ass trying to get Tobias out of there. Marco's literally getting attacked by Hork-Bajir, but he still focuses on saving Tobias first. (Also, he's the only one to notice Taylor taking Tobias away when the others are all too distracted by the fighting. I kind of headcanon that Marco then told Rachel what had happened). And I think it'd be a big deal for Tobias seeing Marco work so hard to save him - before he probably saw Marco as the guy that makes fun of him, but now he's seen with his own eyes that Marco will actually risk his own life for Tobias. If I'm remembering correctly, after this point I do think the two of them start getting along better.

...Oh yes, and this does count as one of my favourite moments. Along with the tank. The tank will always be a favourite :P

[acts_of_tekla]

Oh god, the tank! The tank! You know he talked about that on the Daily Show or something while promoting his book. (The really sad thing is it's totally not the worst thing that ever happened to Melissa Chapman courtesy of the Animorphs.)

Actually, "Marco's Daily Show interview" would be an awesome fanfic...

I feel like Marco and Tobias' relationship would've been weird after the war anyway, just because Ax left, and I feel like each was closer to Ax than to each other, and that they were used to functioning as a trio.