I've already established what my main point is here indirectly: Most of what we are saying heavily has to do with how we would act in the exact same situation. Cassie's actions (And motivations) seem plausible to those who would behave similar to Cassie. Jake's motivations seem more believable to those who would have acted like Jake themselves.
---
The key here is "Pent-up rage and hatred" and "snapping under the pressure." What direction and how a person snaps heavily has to do with what sort of person they are. When I snap under the pressure, what happens is that I collapse not under my resentment but under my own self-hatred and fear. What's being held back is not hatred of others but hatred of self and an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. To a person like this, Jake's actions do not come off as rational or foreshadowed--- They come off as insane and unexpectedly violent. A similar belief will occur in someone whose experiences have led them to eliminate emotional factors when making decisions.
Oh trust me, I’m nothing like Jake. Not in the least. He’s almost the opposite of real life me. If I relate to or project myself onto any animorph, it’s Tobias for sure. Like him, my typical method of snapping under intense emotional pressure is to shut down, internalize, just leave without another word (or maybe some short biting words), privately stew in a swirling vat of emotions for a while, and do some seriously heavy introspection until I can face the world again. Definitely not leader material, more a solitary go-with-the-flow ideas guy. Still, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to get into Jake’s head. Having a certain viewpoint doesn’t mean we can’t understand where others are coming from.
When Jake’s pissed, he wants to lash out, but doesn’t really want to destroy anything, so he does it kind of passive-aggressively most of the time. He will yell and tell people exactly what’s on his mind from time to time as well. However, when he was under more stress than he’d ever had in his life from multiple factors that didn’t allow him his usual dealing methods, and saw an easy way to strike a huge blow against the enemy, that seemed like the ideal place for him to lash out with what felt like perfect justification at the time.
Jake’s feelings of self-hatred came after the fact, when he had a chance to sit back and really look at the damage he caused over the course of the war. And some of the things he did really were excessive and violent; I never said they were rational, just understandable from his perspective. He was trying really hard to remain impassive and unemotional, but it didn’t work. He was just too emotionally charged from everything he’d been through, just too personally close to the conflict to be able to remain detached and cool-headed.
As for foreshadowing, it started in #6 with the jacuzzi attack, which was mirrored by Alloran in
The Andalite Chronicles. Note the animorphs’ collective shift in moral views between the occurrences. In the beginning, the Yeerks were just the enemy, plain and simple. Then, by the time TAC rolls around, they start to appreciate the fact that the Yeerks are sentient individuals, and don’t all want war. The contrast between the first two events highlight how far the animorphs have come in perspective (even though they weren't there for TAC; it’s still heavily thematic regarding the end), and Jake’s actions in the finale highlight how far he’s fallen with respect to those occurrences. Following that, we get to see how Jake totally loses it when his family is in danger in #31. His ability to stay rational just vaporizes, and he can barely think through the stress. When Marco’s dad said Jake always had a place in his family in #50, Jake almost broke down crying because that made him feel more than ever like his own family was gone for good. That’s one of the moments that made him so driven in the finale (and made Cassie's betrayal hit that much harder). He felt like he had nothing left to lose, because his family was gone and he later found his friends couldn’t be trusted (with Cassie’s betrayal and Ax going behind his back). He felt completely isolated, and began keeping to himself. He didn’t feel like talking over plans with the others was a good idea, because one of them might object and ruin everything. And so, without Cassie and Tobias to temper him or Ax and Marco to counsel him, he made a bunch of really ruthless decisions that ended up getting a lot of people killed. Don’t get me wrong, no one was coming out of this war clean, but it could have been a lot less bloody.
Coming from experience, luck and goodwill are often the secret advantages of being passive. Perhaps because what's coming into play isn't luck at all, but a subconscious survival tactic which comes out of being able to read people really well.
But there's probably no way that K.A. was factoring that nifty feature in, and so I have no real excuse for most of this other than it having been part of Cassie's character since the start of the series. (As early as #4). She has a knack for knowing things she shouldn't....
Like I said before, I'm not totally convinced Cassie is good at handling people. She tries to be nice, and certainly makes efforts to defuse volatile situations, but lots of people can do that. If she was so good at reading people, why did she never even offer Tobias any help when he was losing his mind in any of his books? Why didn't she see the whole struggle Rachel was going through and help her? Seriously, all Rachel needed was for people to reassure that yes, she was a good person where it counted. Jake was in a fragile state of mind when his family got taken, and he desperately needed closure on Tom. But what do we see?
- Through inaction, Cassie just affirms Rachel’s role as the "bad guy" of the team at the end of #48, the book that shaped Rachel’s mindset for the whole finale. All she saw was Rachel getting progressively more violent, and never tried to help her, just pre-judged and condemned her apparent attitudes without ever trying to look deeper. Rachel, in fact, took deep personal offense to this and it drove her to a breakdown in the end, followed by a suicidal level of determination to keep her friends safe when she'd picked up the pieces of herself. Tobias was literally the only person she had who told her she wasn't a monster. Cassie, her alleged best friend, should have been there to do that too.
- With Tobias, Cassie barely has any interaction with him throughout the series, apart from them sharing dreams after he mistakenly tried to eat her in #4, and the bit in #9 when she coldly treated him like he was being a jerk for eating cute little animals (which couldn’t possibly be more insensitive to his more obvious struggles if she actually tried) right at the moment when he was trying to open up to and sympathize with her. Come to think of it, it’s no friggin’ wonder he never talked to her afterwards. It's not like he has serious issues with emotional dependence, trust, acceptance, and getting hurt by those closest to him or anything.
[spoiler]
<Hey, Cassie,> a thought-speak voice said as I crunched noisily through the woods. <What's
going on?>
I looked up and saw Tobias go skimming by. He flared, turned on a dime, and landed on a
branch. He dug his ripping talons into the soft bark.
"Not much," I said.
<I heard it was pretty bad last night. >
"Yeah? Who did you talk to?"
<Ax. Who else? He was definitely weirded out by the whole thing. >
I stopped walking. It was something in the way he said "weirded out." "Tobias, who else did
you talk to?"
<Maybe Marco,> he said.
"And Marco told you I went nuts, right?"
<Actually, the word he used was "insane." Also "Looney Tunes." And "wacko." But he
meant it all in the nicest possible way. >
I laughed bitterly. "Well, I guess I did go a bit wacko," I said.
<Welcome to the club,> Tobias said. <None of us is going to come through all this
completely normal. You know that. Too much fear. >
"Well, I'm pretty sick of it," I said. "I had to destroy the termite queen. I know, she was just a
bug. But you know, who am I to decide that it's okay to kill one animal and not another? Here
I am, the big Earth Mother, tree-hugger, animal-lover, as Marco would say, and when it gets
down to it, I'm just like ..."
<Just like me?> Tobias asked.
"Just like any predator," I said lamely.
<You feel bad because you had to kill the queen in order to survive.>
"I shouldn't have been there. It's their world, not mine. Those little tunnels in a rotten piece of
wood -- that's their whole universe. I invaded it. And when they got in my way, I reacted.
Who does that remind you of?"
<Look, you are not a Yeerk, and termites are not human beings,> Tobias said. <There's no
comparison.>
I didn't bother arguing. "Look, I have to morph. There's something I need to do."
<What?>
I sighed. "It's something stupid, all right? There's this mother skunk we have who's injured.
She has a litter of kits who are going to die. I think I know where they are, more or less, but I
can't get there walking like a human."
For a moment Tobias said nothing. <Skunk kits? Near the edge of the Yeerk logging compound?>
"Yes."
<I can show you where they are.>
For a frozen moment of time I refused to understand what he'd just said. I didn't want to think
of why Tobias . . . why a red-tailed hawk would know the exact location of a litter of skunk
babies.
I took a couple of deep breaths. I tried to keep my voice level. "Are they still alive?"
<There are four still alive,> Tobias said.
I felt an emotion I don't feel very often. I felt it boiling up inside me. I glared furiously at
him. At the ripping talons. At the nastily curved beak.
I could picture the scene in my mind. The way he would have swooped down, raked those
talons forward, snatched the defenseless kit off the ground and . . .
I was shaking. I laced my fingers together, just to stop them from trembling.
"I'm going to save what's left of them," I said. My voice didn't sound like my voice.
<I'll help you,> Tobias said.
I used my osprey morph and flew behind Tobias as he led me directly to the spot I had seen
the night before. I carried the frozen grasshopper in my talons. I didn't ask Tobias any
questions, and he didn't say anything.
He pointed out the almost-invisible entrance to the skunks' lair. And then he flew away. I
knew he'd go to Jake and tell him what I was doing. And I knew that I had hurt Tobias by
treating him so coldly.
But, to tell you the truth, I didn't care right then. I just wanted to find those baby skunks. I
don't know why, but somehow in my mind those baby skunks had become very important.
[/spoiler]
Legendary kindness and people skills, hard at work right there. Seriously, look at Tobias go, trying to bond with that active listening, heartfelt reassuring, honesty, and personal sacrifice as Cassie ignores it and trashes their chances of close friendship for the rest of the series. She apologizes later, but that kind of stuff still cuts really deep for him.
- With the whole cube situation in #50, you know what a “people-person” would do? Negotiate or manipulate. Things she was supposedly good at. She specifically says she wanted Jake to “be able to face himself in the mirror,” and that if he killed Tom he’d end up crossing the moral event horizon (which he debatably did anyway, partially as a result of her actions). And when she had a chance to capture Tom, the thing Jake has wanted more than anything since day one, she just let him go--no, more than that, kept Jake from him. And that played absolute hell on Jake’s sanity for the rest of the series, even long after the war. What a person with people skills would have done is sneak around, block escape, keep Jake from hurting him with constant reassurances, and then talk the Yeerk into surrendering with promises of life and freedom from Visser Three. Seriously, what Yeerk wouldn’t find that tempting, especially one that’s cornered at all angles and at extreme risk of being killed by V3 for the slightest mistake even if he does escape? Even if that failed, she’d still be in a position to just chomp his hand with the Dracon beam while Jake secures the cube and apprehends Tom. They could fix injuries with morphing later. What a person with people skills would NOT do is maul their boyfriend with no warning at all and doom their family members to the hands of the enemy. That just seems insane and unexpectedly violent.
[spoiler]
I stopped in my tracks.
Because there stood Tom, unsteady, blood dried and streaked on his face.
Clutching the blue box. And a Dracon beam.
His eyes were wild. They darted toward Visser One. I imagined what Tom was
thinking. Whoever had the morphing cube held the future of the planet in his
hands.
Why would he hand that over to Visser One?
Tom ran.
I followed him to the edge of the ramp. Saw a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark
below me. A crouched body, black and orange.
Jake!
He watched as Tom staggered past. Then padded after him. His paws nearly silent.
Again, I followed. Into the surrounding woods. Beyond sight of the school. Barely
keeping Jake, the silent, bloody beast, in sight.
Still, Tom must have sensed something. Because suddenly he looked over his
shoulder. Turned.
And fired.
The Dracon beam singed Jake’s shoulder! But he kept moving forward. Toward
Tom.
“Back off!” Tom screamed. “I mean it, I’ll kill you!”
Jake took another step forward.
Tsseeeew!
Tom fired again. The shot hit Jake in the back leg. He fell heavily.
Tom took off running. Sure that Jake would not, could not, follow.
But Jake lifted the tiger’s seven-hundred-pound body on three legs and started
after his brother. Into the shadows. Into the darkest place Jake had ever been. The
place where he would have to kill his brother. Or be killed by him.
Suddenly, I remembered my father’s face. His voice. “Is what you’re doing
humane?”
No matter which way it went between Jake and Tom, I would lose Jake.
Because if Jake had to kill Tom, he’d never be the same. He would cross whatever
line it was that separated us from them.
And I was pretty sure there was no crossing back.
I ran ahead into the dark. Followed the trail of Jake’s blood.
Tom crashing through the woods ahead of me.
Soft, irregular thudding. Jake.
Stalking his brother. Prepared to kill him. For what?
For a morphing cube. For…
It wasn’t worth it.
Suddenly, I knew the truth.
I reached the clearing where they both stood.
Tom was out of breath. Staggering.
Jake was only a yard or two behind him.
Tom turned. Lifted his arm. Aimed his weapon.
“I’ll kill you, Jake,” he said, voice ragged. “I will.”
Jake snarled. Crouched. Prepared to spring.
That’s when I shot forward and closed my jaws over Jake’s uninjured back leg.
Clamped down.
Jake roared. Turned on me. Smacked at my head with his paw. The blow sent me
sprawling. Claws raked deep gashes in my side.
But it was worth it. The pain, everything.
I’d done what I had to do.
I’d made the sacrifice.
Tom disappeared into the night.
Jake and I lay there, panting with pain and fatigue.
We had nothing to show for this fight. Except that we were alive to fight another
day.
And tomorrow, Jake could face himself in the mirror.
[...]
We’d been back twelve hours and Jake still hadn’t spoken to me.
Hadn’t even looked at me.
Nobody but the two of us knew what had happened. They knew only that Tom had
gotten away with the morphing cube. That Jake was devastated.
And they knew something was very wrong between me and Jake. But they didn’t
know why. Finally I decided to force the issue with Jake.
Jake stared at me, his eyes cold and hard. “Well?”
“Stop treating me like I’m the enemy,” I said.
Jake turned and began to stalk away. I trotted alongside him and grabbed his
sleeve.
He yanked it out of my grasp and faced me. His face was white with anger. His lips
were shaking. “How could you do it?” he cried, his voice breaking. “Why?”
I choked. “I was trying to protect you!”
“Protect me?” His brows lifted in amazement. “How?”
“You were wounded. He might have killed you.”
“Then why didn’t you go after him?” Jake demanded. “You weren’t hurt. With the
trees for cover and the wolf’s speed, you could have taken him down!”
I couldn’t explain. Because I didn’t understand it myself. All I knew was that letting
Tom take the morphing cube had seemed absolutely the right thing to do.
And something still told me I was right.
[/spoiler]
Sure, he can face
himself in the mirror, but she can’t grasp why he wouldn’t want to face
her after what she did. Personal betrayal involving incredible physical and emotional pain, endangering the war effort, and almost getting them both killed on the spot (I think the only reason the Yeerk didn’t shoot them in the confusion was because maybe his dracon was running low, otherwise he had two animorphs at his mercy and every reason to kill them), all because she didn’t want to see Jake hurt. Is she just that self-absorbed that she can’t see what’s wrong there?
Personally, I don’t see any way to reconcile what she does and how she acts with what the authors say about her, unless she’s unknowingly working on a totally different level. Hence, my headcanon. She could have helped them overcome their respective issues in a healthier way, but didn't because the Ellimist needed hardened soldiers, not happy kids. On her subconscious, STG level, she saw that if they weren't constantly being pushed to rely on themselves more and more, they wouldn't have become strong enough to do the things that needed doing.
If she is good at reading people, and knew exactly what she was doing throughout the series, then the implications about her aren’t very nice. It would mean she was being incredibly callous and/or messing with peoples’ heads, causing them a huge amount of grief and danger for no real rational reason. If she’s a part of the Ellimist, she’s at least got a decent motivation then, even if she doesn’t fully understand why.
When I did a bunch of rereading for this post, I also noticed she mentions how she doesn’t even know
why she does things quite a lot. She just chalks it up to, “I don’t know,” and, “Something tells me I’m right,” all the time. I've got three examples in the above two excerpts alone. Just running off extremely lucky selfish gut instinct, or perhaps something…
More?
*strokes chin melodramatically*
