Animorphs - The Entire Series

Chapter 23


Poor Hork-Bajr and Hork-Bajr controller with bad aim. We hardly knew thee.


So that's not good. That's not good at all.

I believe they have better depth perception but weaker colour distinction. I don't know why my brain holds onto this information, but there you go.

I have to concentrate to remember the names of the friends I had when I was ten, but 25 years later I still know what a z-space transponder is, and how large it is. Why. Why.

I just cracked open this book and some of my others for the first time in probably decades. Jesus, how did I stand the terrible sans-serif body text? And that typeface was used in every book, even the later hardbacks?

But it's futuristic!

The Encounter-Chapter 24


Damn.


So this turned into a suicide mission really fast, didn't it?

Another underestimated aspect of the series: I feel like any other elementary-school-audience author would have given the kids one successful plan in the first three books. Here, nope, this is a helplessly fucked situation and the best they can do is still well short of success.

Well, there's a reason the military doesn't hire 13 year olds to do tactical planning.

If you look at it from the Visser's perspective, his otherwise pretty successful invasion is getting stinging pinpricks. No serious blows, but for a third time he's been unable to pin down the culprits.

And he thinks they're Andalites, which makes him substantially more nervous than he would if he knew they were human kids.

Oh, yeah, and this one ends up hurting way worse than the first two, to everyone's surprise. It's just unusual for a kids' book to aggressively avoid even pretending the teenage superheroes have any advantages at all.

Did they even consider what would happen if they got sucked up the tube and had nowhere to go after that? It's totally realistic for 13 year olds but it's still funny how they only plan for the best case scenario instead of the most likely one. I hope they get better later on.

Forget that, I want to talk to whoever manufactures the vacuum pumps for the Yeerks because goddamn that thing works

Getting more proficient at fighting their way out counts as better, right?

Wait

Hang on

Tobias mentions only a few feet between the ship and the water's surface

Vacuum alone (which it has to be since they don't get mulched by pumps) can only lift through 9m

Fucking A+ Applegate

Yeah I was gonna say the most likely end here would have been them getting trapped by filters or pumps, they got extremely lucky.

It's gonna take a while.

Nah, I just finished the series and they totally dumb luck their way through everything.

I mean, holy shit.

Really, what they should have been doing is begin picking off known controllers. Go tiger next time Tom and his buddies have one of those beach parties, jump mr and mrs Chapman on their way to work etc.

Part of the problem with that, as far as they're concerned is, sure, that would kill the Yeerks, but that would also kill Tom, the Chapmans, etc. They still are trying to find a way to get rid of the Yeerks without getting rid of the people who are infested. (They kill Hork-Bajr and Taxxon controllers, but one's a 7 foot tall spikey dinosaur chicken and the other is a giant centipede that spits acid, and it's a lot easier to see them as not "people".)

I think they've discussed this plan already so it's not really a spoiler to talk about their reasons for not doing it:

1) They value the lives of the human hosts, who are essentially hostages. Jake doesn't want to kill his brother Tom but he also doesn't want to kill a random stranger who happens to have a Yeerk in his head. Unless that stranger is a Hork-Bajir or Taxxon.

2) If they managed to just take out the slug inside a Controller and spare the host, then the aliens will want to re-acquire their asset with a new Yeerk. The teens can't provide witness protection.

3) If they decide to save people in a public way that prevents the Yeerks from silently taking them back, then they switch from a cold war to a hot one which they are not prepared to fight.

So they're stuck with sabotage and nonlethal interference. It would really help if they could recruit some experienced strategists or freedom fighters who could help them execute a guerrilla war. But they're in suburban California and don't know any insurgents, and on top of that they have no idea who to trust. Their best hope lies in teaming up with a stranded Andalite teen, a traitorous human edgelord, and a group of disabled kids who get used as pawns. And also an underground civilization of pacifist robot dogs.

I don't think they've even outright killed any Hork-Bajr at this point in the story. And the Taxxons, as far as they know at this point, are all willing allies of the Yeerks.

On the subject of the value of Hork-Bajir life versus human, Andalite, etc:

I think some might have died in the assault on the Yeerk pool? Cassie DID kill that human-Controller policeman, though.

That's going to really fuck new readers up later on because we find out all of the Hork-Bajir and Taxxon slaves later on are fully sentient creatures with their own cultures and reasons they want out from under the Yeerk thumb and Jake has Rachel kill Tom anyway.

Yup, they want to preserve the host's life if at all possible, but when the choices are "kill a host" or "all of us are infested," well...

let's just say "the kid's selective willingness to kill controllers depending on the host species does come up in the books" and leave it at that

I still have this saved on my phone, I'm not entirely sure when I got it

google image searching the meme i previously quoted took me to a tumblr blog about animorphs which then in turn led me to the following delightful image:






e: vvvvv

This reminded me of the extremely web 1.0 website dedicated to debunking Andalite torsos.

ANDALITE TRUTH DOT ORG

We posting Animemes now?

This thread just went from good to great

Elfangor picked up Americana pretty quick, homeboy rolled around in his mustang listening to the stones and chugging doctor pepper

Yeah this moment, unsurprisingly, has a bunch of fan art for it



EDIT: If I recall correctly, not only does Elfangor drive around the Taxxon homeworld blasting tunes and drinking a pie plate full of Dr Pepper, he also drives his 'Stang into the midst of a Taxxon civil war like a knight on his noble steed

holy fuck that's amazing

Elfangor is the best character to die immediately in the first book as a tragic mentor

what song would be most appropriate (or inappropriate) to be blasting out of the stereo while that's happening

I specifically recall it being honky tonk blues

Every time someone mentions Elfangor's heroic sacrifice I remember Boba Fett smashing into a wall and then falling into the sarlaac pit and it's basically just as dignified a death.