Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: ViciousVisser on December 27, 2016, 08:53:27 PM
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So I am currently re-reading Animorphs and whenever I read the "David" arc, it always reminds me that this was one of my favorite parts of the series. I consider it to be a highpoint in the overall arc. However, I am wondering if there is anybody out there who agrees or disagrees with me.
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I'm a little torn when it comes to the David trilogy. On one hand, the three books serve as great bases for character development, especially for Rachel, and they're generally well-written books. Though, I feel that David's development in particular was very rushed, and he maybe needed another book or two to get from where his character started to where he was at the end. I feel like one minute, he was a semi-normal if a little misguided kid, then bam, total psychopath, with very little in between
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I'm with gh on this. One thing that might've improved it is if he were in a couple more books, starting out normal and then getting slowly drunk with power/revenge. Make the monster underneath reveal itself in subtler ways at first.
I do like those books. They're a highlight in the series for me, just slightly flawed.
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I think those are really good points. They are excellent books, although it does appear that his overall character was rushed. For some reason, this specific arc really sticks out to me among the series. I just really enjoy the character development and the overall feel of the arc. My favorite one is probably The Solution. Man, was it dark, especially for the age demographic! Do any of you have a particular book you like in this arc?
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I love, love, love the trilogy. Though nothing is flawless, these books are some of the best in the series.
This probably as high as the stakes get before the final arc: Keeping the blue box out of enemy hands, finally enlisting other humans to the fight, and having to keep a number of world leaders safe; no where else do so many things of such importance have to be balanced. (Let's face it, even before the filler stretch, a lot of the books where spy out on person/new tech and escape alive).
This, and the novel threat that was David, that there was someone using there powers against them, so damn effectively, is spectacular, and brings out a lot of the best, and worst, in all the characters.
But for the bad: I don't really mind David's lack of development. He's 14, course he's crazy, but I like that it isn't some drawn out descent into madness. That really he's always kind of sociopathic, plotting his own ends and quickly excepting that in his new world he can pull different strings in new ways. He didn't develop because, that's always who he was, he such had new tools to work with to let it out, I think that's brilliant.
What did bother me is how quickly he switched focus, because it was a function of the series structure, not his character. In 20 he and Marco but heads, in 21 that tension's largely forgotten so he and Jake can build up to a head, and then finally moving it all to Rachel in 22. It works the way it was written, but it was written that way because it'd be weird for a book told by Rachel to center on the conflict between David and Marco. It would have been nice if those match ups could have been resolved, or left to one.
The other problem was the world leader issue. It's classic Animorphs nothing gained, nothing lost, but that kinda sucked when everything else was so grandiose. We know one of them is a controller, but that's of no consequence ever again, no allies are made, V3 isn't even properly punished for failing on that scale. That plus some sloppiness of 5 vs 6 at the meeting, that element was always something of a let down.
But on the whole, great set, laughs, tears, gasps, everything that makes the series great is on full display in the trilogy. Love it love it do
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This probably as high as the stakes get before the final arc: Keeping the blue box out of enemy hands, finally enlisting other humans to the fight, and having to keep a number of world leaders safe; no where else do so many things of such importance have to be balanced. (Let's face it, even before the filler stretch, a lot of the books where spy out on person/new tech and escape alive).
This, and the novel threat that was David, that there was someone using there powers against them, so damn effectively, is spectacular, and brings out a lot of the best, and worst, in all the characters.
[...]
But on the whole, great set, laughs, tears, gasps, everything that makes the series great is on full display in the trilogy. Love it love it do
This, so much.
But for the bad: I don't really mind David's lack of development. He's 14, course he's crazy, but I like that it isn't some drawn out descent into madness. That really he's always kind of sociopathic, plotting his own ends and quickly excepting that in his new world he can pull different strings in new ways. He didn't develop because, that's always who he was, he such had new tools to work with to let it out, I think that's brilliant.
True, he was rotten from the beginning, but I think it was exacerbated in kind of a rushed and artificial way due to it being a pre-planned trilogy. In all honesty, the Animorphs were kinda dicks to him, even in light of the circumstances. I haven't read it in a while, but I remember their treatment of him feeling borderline OOC and kinda dumb. "Here are some birds to acquire, BUT YOU CAN ONLY CHOOSE ONE. ...Oh, you're picking that one? Don't mind us all silently judging you over here. HOW DARE YOU JOKINGLY CALL TOBIAS BIRD-RACIST." David should've been the one instigating stuff and causing the rift, not the Animorphs. That's my main issue.
I just would've liked to see him in a book or two where he isn't the main focus, but you start getting the sense that something's wrong. They actually properly try to get along with him and make him part of the team, and then he ends up screwing them over. Small things at first, like randomly killing the seagull, fixating on the more violent and dangerous aspects of his spy-dad worship, lashing out excessively over small stuff, etc. Have those things steadily alienate him from the group, which then leads to him turning on them. More of a slow burn kinda thing.
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This is my absolute favorite arc of the series. I was planning a re-read next week before I even saw this thread because it's been so long!
Agreed with RYTX he was always a bad, troubled kid it wasn't so much a development as the Animorphs slowly seeing more of that side of him. I also like that they were a cause of the rift just as much as he was. They were a clique that wasn't as welcoming to him as they could have been because they were suspicious and because they were split on the decision to invite him in the first place.
That being said, I would have taken another 10 books with David and let it be a slow burn towards full insanity and then another few books of all out conflict. But, that's a tall order and a big risk for a monthly series of kid's books. They wrote the entire trilogy before any of it was released so even devoting three books to a storyline people might not have responded to is risky.
ViciousVisser you're right about it being really dark for the age demographic. Whenever someone calls it a kid's book I always refer to the David Trilogy and the final arc as evidence that it had some seriously mature storylines.
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This is my absolute favorite arc of the series. I was planning a re-read next week before I even saw this thread because it's been so long!
Agreed with RYTX he was always a bad, troubled kid it wasn't so much a development as the Animorphs slowly seeing more of that side of him. I also like that they were a cause of the rift just as much as he was. They were a clique that wasn't as welcoming to him as they could have been because they were suspicious and because they were split on the decision to invite him in the first place.
That being said, I would have taken another 10 books with David and let it be a slow burn towards full insanity and then another few books of all out conflict. But, that's a tall order and a big risk for a monthly series of kid's books. They wrote the entire trilogy before any of it was released so even devoting three books to a storyline people might not have responded to is risky.
ViciousVisser you're right about it being really dark for the age demographic. Whenever someone calls it a kid's book I always refer to the David Trilogy and the final arc as evidence that it had some seriously mature storylines.
I know, right! I'm tired of people saying its a kid's book when clearly it has a lot of dark themes that aren't found in kids books. Glad I'm not the only one who believes that...
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My only issue with 'em is that Megadeth/Spawn "bad music and good comic books" line. :P
Megadeth disapproval, K.A./Michael? :P How daaaare yoouuu?
And Spawn blows.
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My only issue with 'em is that Megadeth/Spawn "bad music and good comic books" line. :P
Megadeth disapproval, K.A./Michael? :P How daaaare yoouuu?
And Spawn blows.
Hahaha! Megadeath! It's so cool how it brings 90's pop culture in the series! I love it!
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I feel like the books tried a little too hard to make David basically Sid from Toy Story. And Sid himself turns out, in a later film, to be just a normal below-average person. I never really believed in David's privileged-white-male kind of evilness to any extent...And that might be because I actually met him. Many times. That's what happens when you're surrounded by kids with bad parents and learning disabilities.
The most extensive relations I ever had with a "David-esque" kid were with two people: One of which could have become David and instead became a very close friend (Roleplaying heals all wounds! :P) and the other of which went rather bad. I can tell you that most kids who act like David feel powerless, and they've bought into a kind of exaggerated masculinity that they see perfected on TV. They want to be heroes, but they don't want to be generic paladin white bread heroes because this kind aren't "cool." When their skills and talents are acknowledged, they can become some of the most intelligent and practical people you'll ever meet, and great contributors of ideas. That's what happened with my close friend. : ]
The kid who did "go wrong" was annoying as all get-out and I basically invited him over because he was in my elementary school class. One time, he showed up at my house with a girlfriend out of nowhere and told me he'd run away from a psychiatric RTC. He also told me that those times at my house were fun. He seemed very frightened, and like a lot of really terrible stuff had happened that he wasn't willing to share. We talked up old childhood memories, and then he left. I never found out what happened.
And if David's merely "a sociopath," he still doesn't come across as quite believable. I've met three of those, too. :P With that said, if you throw out the idea of David himself the Animorphs got a lot of juicy character development in those books. I honestly like the fact that they were dicks to David--- That actually was believable. If you've ever had a group of friends large enough, you will start to think of it as an exclusive club, and you will treat newly entering members a bit dickishly.
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David should've been the one instigating stuff and causing the rift, not the Animorphs. That's my main issue.
As a group character development exercise, it works in the long run because when they recruit the Auxiliary Animorphs, they remember the mistakes they made with David and tried not to make them with the new group. Before David came along, they didn't even know the morphing cube was still in existence, much less had they ever considered the possibility of having to recruit and train a new Animorph.
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22 is one of my all time favorites in the series imo
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A proper TV or film adaptation of David's story would allow for more character development of David. What would you add to a screen adaptation of the David Trilogy to improve it?
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Just switch the "bad" to Spawn comics and the "good" to Megadeth music. :P
I mean, come on, Marco knows better.
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XD It was the 90s. They blamed everything on the metal. Such a shame. T___T ? XD
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Marco & Jake both seem like metal type guys anyway. :P Neither jocks nor nerds, they like playing DOOM, all signs point in that direction. Haha.
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Jake was kind of a jock, but with a nerdy side when it came to war and military history, which could account for his interest in DOOM. But yeah, I could see him being into metal. Marco too.
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Well, we already know they were into Offspring and Nice is Neat. Not really metal, but definitely hard rock, especially in the case of the latter
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I'm a little torn when it comes to the David trilogy. On one hand, the three books serve as great bases for character development, especially for Rachel
I think the David Trilogy is what prevented me from making an Animorphs OC or Animorphs Mary Sue.
After seeing what the Animorphs went through, I knew they wouldn't be welcoming of a new member ever again, and if they did they would be very suspicious.
The David Triology was the last book I read before I started losing interest, then I came back to the series later. I'm not sure, but I think after the David Trilogy, more stuff was ghost written, and I began to lose interest. The tone felt different.
There was good character development with Rachel. She really began to think and wonder about herself. Why did Jake choose her to hunt down David and not someone else? This was the part where she was starting to realize how dark and ruthless she was and how much she actually enjoyed the war and how good she was as it.
David started out sympathetic, but then he did some horrible stuff that lead to the point of no return. They made the decision to leave him trapped as a rat forever instead of killing him. It did feel rushed, but they had to cram it into three books.
My favorite part was when Jake thinks, he's beginning to see why Visser Three hates them so much. Jake begins to feel paranoid as he realizes David could be anything, anywhere, a flea spying on them, a tiger that could attack any minute. I think KA Applegate wanted to experiment with having one of their own using the morphing power for evil, instead of just adding a new member.
I guessed David might not be a permanent character when he didn't appear on the cover. Hey, a fanfic narrated by him might be interesting.
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I never imagined them as metal lmao, Jake was much more jock and I saw Marco as kinda a cool nerd.
I love all four David books. I know that 48 is kind of controversial but I love it a lot
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I never imagined them as metal lmao, Jake was much more jock and I saw Marco as kinda a cool nerd.
I love a four David books. I know that 48 is kind of controversial but I love it a lot
I like 48 too! Sure, it was one of the weirder, darker ones, but I still thought it was interesting!
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I like 48 too! Sure, it was one of the weirder, darker ones, but I still thought it was interesting!
Heh, that seems like a funny statement to me, because the weirdness and darkness of it were probably the primary reasons why I liked that book. Basically, my brain heard, "Sure it was one of the better ones, but I still thought it was good!" Lol.
That, and the deliciously ambiguous ending. Favorite closure of any Animorphs book, by a mile.
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The "David Trilogy" is pretty much what made me want to come here and discuss them, I just recently read them for the first time. I really love/hate them, its a hard read emotionally.
I will say that the parts about the Summit and the World Leaders is lacking, and feels like it only exists to give David a mission to go on, nothing really came of it.
The books have changed how I view the Animorphs, and especially Cassie. This is the first time they have made some big mistakes and done something morally repugnant out of necessity, I am not much further in the series (only at 24 as of this post) but I know from other discussions I have seen that it goes in a darker path after these books.
David as a character is not the best, I think we are supposed to see him as crazy if not evil, and he changes from being a scared kid to that way too quickly. I know he is hated by a lot of readers and see it as he got what he deserved. I can't help but pity him though, I think if the Animorphs had handled him better and not been so cold to him it would not have turned out the same way, Marco especially pushed him away from the group. Maybe I feel so bad for him because I identify with David a lot, when I was around 14 I was a problem child (granted I never tried to murder anyone) but I know what its like to be a loner and have emotional issues, and violent tendencies. I was lucky enough to get into a new home environment and turn my life around. And I cant help but think David was not beyond saving either, and there were other solutions besides the brutal one the Animorphs used. (If David is supposed to be a sociopath, someone who genuinely cannot improve as a person, I do not think Applegate displayed it very well, and all teenagers at that think like psychos, theres a reason it cant be diagnosed until 18)
I think the Animorphs choice to turn him into a Rat, was overly cruel and a selfish act. They are kids and they want to be the good guys, they dont want to have the blood of someone else on their hands. But I genuinely think it would have been better to just kill David instead of condemning him to live as flea ridden rat alone on an island going insane from loneliness. Its something I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy, let alone a child. (I know he comes back at some point from spoilers but I have not read that yet) Yes he tried to kill them, and possibly killed Saddler, again I would even be fine if they just ended up having to kill him in a fight, but the rat plan was way too far. My views on Cassie changed a lot from this, she is the soft hearted one who wont kill and came up with this plan. I see her less as someone who was empathic to manipulative, and she was already my least favorite Animorph.
I guess they did what they thought was right, but I think this is the first time I cant look at them as heroes anymore.
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The rat thing worked for me, it sort of seemed like the type of thing a kid would do. Deep down they knew it'd probably kill him, but it was their "out" from actually committing the act, an out-of-sight-out-of-mind type of thing. Having no idea of how he'd come back of course, a far as they were concerned it was something they could live with, but were old enough to know he'd probably only live a few weeks/months or whatever there.
Sort of cool layered but believable teen mentality, doing something awful but in a way they could justify to themselves.
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Yeah, agreed on that. Cassie's creepy decision there can best be described as an artifact of the teenage inability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. You're more egocentric then even than you were as a child, and I don't just mean that in the moral sense--- I mean it in the biological or neurological sense. The same mechanism comes into play when a little teenage girl becomes interested in something she definitely shouldn't--- She can't take the perspective of someone else looking at her actions from the eyes of an adult. Similarly, a teenager who does reckless things doesn't *realize* who their death might hurt, or that they are at risk of death. They cannot yet imagine themselves dead. And they cannot yet comprehend that leaving someone for dead as a rat is much, much worse than death.
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I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "creepy". It's about the best they could do under the circumstances, at that point David's way too dangerous (literally to the entire planet, if he managed to take out the Animorphs one by one the whole world's doomed), he can't just be left alive with morphing power. It's trap him or kill him at that point. Yeah, killing him's probably the merciful way to go as an adult would see it, but I get that the group at that point weren't in grim do-what-you've-dotta-do mode like the finale just yet. For them, it was the best option, nothing creepy about it.
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The problem comes from the fact that it seems completely avoidable
If Marco and Rachel wherent such ****s to him, and Jake was more understanding and patient with him the rift between him and the Animorphs probably wouldnt have happened.
They should not have taken him on the mission either, leave him in the barn or somewhere. He was a liability even if he wasnt crazy, just because he was new to all this and they take him on their most dangerous/important mission yet.
It just seems like the Animorphs wanted him to fail, and he was just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A better approach it and show how evil is his would have been something like: Have them get the box back in a previous book. David sees them morph after a battle, and schemes his way into the group to get the power from the beginning.
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Oh, c'mon. You can't justify David's actions due to being mocked by Rachel & Marco, that's ridiculous moral relativity.
He literally considered collaborating with the alien invaders, and then went on an attempted killing spree of the group. No, the group probably shouldn't have included him in honest-to-god "Animorphs mission business" so early, but who knows? David, being David, would probably have taken that as a slight, "you don't trust me! waah!", it's a wash. No good options.
Yeah, David's situation sucked, being thrown into all this so quickly. But so were all the others, when it happened to them. Sure, David had the added horribleness of his parents being taken, but Marco's dealing with that too and never tried to murder anyone. David, basically, was an intrinsic f*ck-up, he was just a tinderbox of a kid to start with, Yeerks/morphing in his life or no.
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To be fair, I think David probably blamed the Animorphs for his parents being captured, given that they knew it would happen and they did nothing to stop it. Granted, too, of course, that there wasn't much the Animorphs could have done, but David might not have been in the right frame of mind to see it that way. Especially after how coldly Marco basically rubbed it in his face that his parents were now his enemy.
Yeah, Marco and Jake had to deal with infested family members, but they both had at least a little bit of family left. David not only got dropped into the war at the same time as losing all possibility of having a normal life, but then the other Animorphs, who are now the only people he can turn to, don't trust him. Jake doesn't even let him keep the hotel room that he broke into just so he could have a bed, for Ellimist's sake.
In all honesty, I think he was just trying to take back some measure of control over his own life . . . and he realized he could not do that while the Animorphs were still alive.
Not saying that any of that justifies murder. But for a young kid who basically just got thrown into the emotional meat grinder, I'd at the very least say it wasn't a foregone conclusion that he would have still been a psychopath without those factors.
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Right. David did have it rough, even rougher than the others, no doubt. Thing is, a stable person even under those circumstances doesn't go all serial-killer.
The kid was troubled even before that showdown fight at his house where his parents were taken, the books allude to that pretty strongly. No, he might not have become a killer, but he wasn't a normal, decent, stable kid.
And even if you factor in all he's been through, it's still no excuse. He dies.
And the Animorphs, in a certain view, were better than even that. I'd say it's more merciful to kill him, but a lot of people would side with them on the rat thing. There's no third possibility, can't have him stay anything but a nothlit once he's gone rogue.
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Honestly, I'm not sure I can comprehend the people that would see turning anyone into a rat as a mercy. Tobias may have willingly become a hawk, but that was his prerogative, in a way. He didn't exactly take every precaution to prevent it from happening. And he was still surrounded by humans--- his own friends. It may come as a surprise to learn this (well not really, most people know this implicitly--- just look at the football from Castaway XD) but leaving a human somewhere without the company of other humans *alone,* without any other form of torture, tends to drive the human bat**** insane. They hallucinate people to talk to, become paranoid, claw their own skin off to feel something. I wouldn't wish total solitude on my worst enemy, and that isn't even factoring in his lack of any humanity to cling to. Rats are social too, so he'd only be able to hide in their mind so long before the rat begins to become concerned.
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Its a bad situation. I wonder if they could have had him nothlit as Saddler, its a messed up option but so are rat and killing him. They could have had him pretend to lose all memory and live a """normal""" life. Of course there is the issue of the real Saddlers body.
Sadller is another part that I dont like about the David books, it would have been more impactful for him to die if we had met or heard of him like, ever before that. It has no impact when he is just some random guy from nowhere, and they even say they dont like the real Saddler.
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Does anybody else agree that the David arc is really dark compared to other books in the series?
When the Animorphs have to force him to become a nothlit, that part was so dark for me, even now that I'm an adult. Not to mention the fact that he attempted to kill them among all the other evil actions that he committed.
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Honestly, I'm not sure I can comprehend the people that would see turning anyone into a rat as a mercy. Tobias may have willingly become a hawk, but that was his prerogative, in a way. He didn't exactly take every precaution to prevent it from happening. And he was still surrounded by humans--- his own friends. It may come as a surprise to learn this (well not really, most people know this implicitly--- just look at the football from Castaway XD) but leaving a human somewhere without the company of other humans *alone,* without any other form of torture, tends to drive the human bat**** insane. They hallucinate people to talk to, become paranoid, claw their own skin off to feel something. I wouldn't wish total solitude on my worst enemy, and that isn't even factoring in his lack of any humanity to cling to. Rats are social too, so he'd only be able to hide in their mind so long before the rat begins to become concerned.
Just to argue the other side, No because I really do believe this: I don't understand the folks who see this as the crueler option. Personally, I have no interest in being dead. None. Ever. To botch a quote from Cassie I think "life, almost any life, is so much better than being dead". This was a theme in Animorphs, you need to be alive to have any sort of hope.
I'm not much of a people person, but even I admit being completely cut off forever would suck. Still, I'd rather risk it that be out and out dead, especially because we know with morphing you can retreat into the animals mind. Maybe not entirely or forever, but there is a respite.
Rat especially isn't high on the list, but to lead a new life, exploring freely, facing the challenges of life, however terrifying they may be still seems so so much better than the void I expect is waiting. If I'd been David I wouldn't be happy with it of course. Personally I doubt I'd ever beg for death, but I think if I did, it'd take a long time to get there. Hopefully I'll never find out exactly what it takes to hit that switch though.
I wouldn't wish total solitude on my worst enemy
As an aside, I can't help but feel odd whenever people say this either. Clearly they don't have serious enough enemies. ::)
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No remaining bit of your humanity left, stuck in an alien body, having to worry about being eaten by wild animals, only have other rats for company, being forced to eat garbage and dirt to sustain yourself, have to deal with disease which wild rats always get and fleas, being stuck on a cold windy rock for the rest of your life, no doubt going insane from the loneliness and living conditions. It would be a living hell essentially.
And all that would be horrific enough on a well adjusted adult, but an emotionally unstable child? Thats just messed up.
And yes the David books are way darker than anything else Ive seen so far.
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This is an interesting (and revealing) divide between the group. More on that, although I might get a tad dramatic here:
Personally I doubt I'd ever beg for death, but I think if I did, it'd take a long time to get there. Hopefully I'll never find out exactly what it takes to hit that switch though.
Actually, it's a surprisingly easy switch to hit if you know how. People who commit suicide tend to do so because they gain no enjoyment from living. This happens for a variety of reasons, but the most common two are dehumanization and uselessness. Torture exploits the link between the two conditions very, very effectively. If you don't feel like a person--- that is, if you feel that you are just "an object" or "cattle"--- you will begin to feel that your own life holds no value, and will start to want to die. I experienced an only mildly toxic form of dehumanization as a kid. Namely, a brief bout with something like institutionalizatio n. It was still so bad that at one point I hated everything and everyone, and didn't want to live. The only thing that kept me from biting it was the belief that a god valued me for who I was, and saw others as they saw me.
As an aside, I can't help but feel odd whenever people say this either. Clearly they don't have serious enough enemies.
That's where you'd be wrong: it's precisely people who say this who have had really serious enemies. They just don't have them in the present. It's because they've felt terrible pain that they don't want it inflicted on anyone else, ever, not even people they hate. See: John McCain, and his virulent hatred of torture, even of terrorists that want to destroy us. I can't unsee the horror of becoming less than human and forced to live in filth and squalor because I live in its shadow. It could have happened to me, so so easily.
I didn't just read about Dolores Umbridge--- I "met her." Multiple times. And that's why I believe I have the authority to say that people like her, those Nice Lady Therapists, should never actually experience what they did to me and mine. Instead, they should be made to face the fact that they traumatized me and mine in the name of "helping us," and get fired, and make amends.
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No remaining bit of your humanity left, stuck in an alien body, having to worry about being eaten by wild animals, only have other rats for company, being forced to eat garbage and dirt to sustain yourself, have to deal with disease which wild rats always get and fleas, being stuck on a cold windy rock for the rest of your life, no doubt going insane from the loneliness and living conditions. It would be a living hell essentially.
Yep, not convinced. Still seems better than being dead to me.
Actually, it's a surprisingly easy switch to hit if you know how.
I'd say for some.
CDC stats (2013) say 17 percent of high schoolers had suicidal thoughts in the years, less than half make an attempt. Most people don't want to die that much.
I'd most everyone has periods were they legimately feel worthless and empty, but when I say hit the switch, begging for death, I mean pursuing it, beg your tormentor, beg your self, beg the reaper and throw yourself at it.
The other thing is that David's capture should be looked at through the themes of the series.
The animorphs have all killed multiple sentient beings, but killing David, by anymeans necessary, in unfair battle assination, etc, they still weren't damaged enough to do that to themselves, so yes, it was self, which was something they'd have to deal with it later.
But moreover, trapping him leaves a choice.
In this series one of the chief mantras is free or dead. Life is necessary for hope, respect for life must endure....
Granted, trapping him limits some of his freedom. Killing him takes it all away.
A rat can find ways to die. Climb up and jump off a building, bait a cat or hawk, run under a car. Asking Rachel was a deep and dramatic moment, but he could have found other ways if that's what he really wanted.
It's because they've felt terrible pain that they don't want it inflicted on anyone else, ever, not even people they hate. See: John McCain
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Idk some of the worst things of my life I'd definitely be willing to see on some other people. And only because I know the harm it could do. Guess McCain's just a better person than me.
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Let's not forget that rats have a lifespan of 3 years at best.
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I think part of this misses the sheer desperation that led to the plan to trap David as a rat. It seems clear that they basically had no other plan, they couldn't be assured of beating him in a battle as they hadn't been able to do so already, morph capable soldiers are hard to kill even when you outnumber them with an entire yeerk army let alone just 6 to 1, and he had already threatened to give them up to the Yeerks... every second they wasted was dangerous, and if they battled him and failed to kill him, say he barely escaped, he might feel so threatened that he had nothing left to lose and attempt to team up with the Yeerks, or at least thought speak a little message to them to get the animorphs all captured/killed so they couldn't stop him after he escaped to another city. Trapping him as a rat was the only smart way to outwit him at that point. After that, it's a matter of whether they should have killed the david-rat when he was defenseless. There are few other options that they could have actually forcefully trapped him as, it had to be small enough that he couldn't demorph, and weak enough that he wasn't still a threat and that he could never escape to inform on them to the yeerks.
Perhaps they should have given him the option to die after he was trapped as a rat. Or at least humanely planned to regularly visit him on the island to give him company, at least having prison wardens to talk to wouldve kept him with some semblance of humanity, perhaps they could've left him with some kind of pass-times (a TV, books? could a rat somehow operate a gameboy? lol) he could have enjoyed in his human mind though that would've been a danger if they were discovered, but his thought speech ability was a danger anyway if anyone discovered rat island. But a better option probably would have been to leave him to live out the remainder of his rat life with the Chee. They wouldn't have needed to use violence to keep him in the underground dog park, as he couldn't exactly overpower them as a rat, and the chee have already shown they can imprison yeerks in their heads without violating their programming so a peaceful imprisonment would've worked.
From a narrative standpoint though, it was far more interesting to have that dark twisted ending. I wouldn't have liked the ending had they solved it with a deus ex chee-ica. Would've been more moral, humane, even logical (less danger of being discovered than on rat-island). But wouldn't have been as good of a story.
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One of the issues I have with the trilogy is that it packs a lot of issues into one storyline, which might have been better explored in their own storyline.
I'm going to turn away from Animorphs and use Season 6 of 24 as an example. During the premier weekend (which had 4 episodes over Sunday and Monday), you have several allegiance-flips by many different people, then you have Jack Bauer kill his friend, and 2 minutes later a nuke goes off in LA. So you don't really care about Curtis getting shot, because it's immediately proceeded by a bigger problem, and the nuke just kind of falls flat because you've had so much else going on.
In the case of this trilogy, David being the focus makes the world leaders take a back seat, and as mentioned - this never gets brought up again. Which world leader is a controller? (It might be specified, but I don't remember). Did the Yeerks try to take over world leaders again? The stakes of this are never mentioned again, but are only used to make it seem more necessary that they get David into the fold immediately. However, that could have been accomplished with any one of several options, including:
- Any mission that requires 7 people or morphs to pull off
- A time-critical mission that requires them to recruit immediately
- A mission in which the odds are stacked as such that having more "teeth" (as Jurassic World would say) makes it much more likely to succeed
Leave the World Leaders for another story, and then address that issue then, and let it build into something.
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The David saga is a great story that wasn't done justice due to it's length (only three books) and the forced order of narrators.
I think the David saga should have gone through enough books to give every character a book with him. Not necessarily because every character needed more moments with him, but because that would have really sold the arch they were going for, which felt really rushed.
Heck, I'd have liked to have read a David-narrated book too, or they should have ended the saga with a Megamorphs style story from multiple POV's.
I'd like to have seen him peak as a member of the group, take part in a few different missions, then descend into villainy. They tried to have that entire arch in three books and I just feel like it didn't work as well as it could have. Each book is good on it's own (The Discovery has amazing action, The Threat great drama, and The Solution great character moments), but the overall arch of David just feels a little...unearned.
Rachel was the character who had the least to do with David in the first two books, yet it had to become a David vs Rachel story in the last book because it was Rachel's turn to narrate. The trilogy suffered due to that, too.