Author Topic: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness  (Read 12673 times)

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Offline Terenia

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Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« on: May 12, 2009, 06:57:49 PM »
Summary
Something is very wrong with Ax. He's sick. And the Animorphs don't know what to do about it. They can't take him to a hospital. They don't know how to contact the Andalite home world. And Ax is dying.
Casie and the other Animorphs come up with a plan. but it involves finding a new way into the Yeerk pool. There's just one problem: Jake, Rachel, Tobias and Marco come down with Ax's sickness. And now, for the first time, Cassie is on her own...

Questions
1) Why do you think that Cassie does not contract the Yamphut?
2) What do you think about Cassie performing brain surgery? Is it at all realistic? Additionally, do you think the Chee could have/should have been more help?
3) How does Cassie do on a mission alone?
4) Cassie saves Aftran, and is faced with her dying of Kandrona starvation. Instead of letting her suffer, they allow her to use the Escafil Device to morph whale permanently. This ends up being the same motive that moves Cassie to steal the cube later on. My question is: How did Cassie not see the answer to the Yeerk problem then and there? Why did it take another 15 books or more?
7) How do you feel about the character of Tidwell/Illim?
6) Anything else? Funny moments? Sad moments? Intense moments?


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Offline Shark Akhrrana

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2009, 06:59:32 PM »
I have to catch up haven't started reading yet.. finals T_T
this is one of my favorite books idno why i think the whole idea of brain surgery was interesting.

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Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2009, 07:37:49 PM »
1) Why do you think that Cassie does not contract the Yamphut?
2) What do you think about Cassie performing brain surgery? Is it at all realistic? Additionally, do you think the Chee could have/should have been more help?
3) How does Cassie do on a mission alone?
4) Cassie saves Aftran, and is faced with her dying of Kandrona starvation. Instead of letting her suffer, they allow her to use the Escafil Device to morph whale permanently. This ends up being the same motive that moves Cassie to steal the cube later on. My question is: How did Cassie not see the answer to the Yeerk problem then and there? Why did it take another 15 books or more?
5) How do you feel about the character of Tidwell/Illim?
6) Anything else? Funny moments? Sad moments? Intense moments?


1) It could be her immune system being better because she's always around sick animals. Maybe she takes vaccines frequently because of this. Maybe it's just another way of making Cassie special, as has been going on throughout the series. I always thought it would be funny if she got sick at the last minute. Like when they're on the beach.

2) Seems realistic to me. I thought erek did enough, being Cassie's assistant.

3) Well she pulled it off with a bit of luck. It might be a bit unrealistic for a water logged bird to make a clean getaway from the pool. I was a little nervous that she may have grabbed the wrong Yeerk for a bit there.

4) Cassie didn't see any answer until after she let Tom get away with the cube. Even in the moment that she stopped Jake, she wasn't thinking of that. Her saying that stuff about helping the Yeerks was just clinging to a small positive thing that happened in the hopes of justifying what she did.

5) I thought it was interesting to hear about the peace movement, and to see that all Yeerks weren't painted with the same brush.

6) Aftran: He's waking up, Cassie. And now he's starting to scream!
Cassie: He's Screaming? Am I hurting him?
Aftran: No Cassie. He's screaming because he has a Yeerk in his head.

That was hilarious when I read that, and I still find it funny. 29 is an interesting and important book in the series. Probably the last really important book Cassie narrates for a while.

Sometimes I wonder, when Jake gets sick in eel morph, why they didn't split into two groups instead of all leaving together. One or two members could have escorted Jake out while the others continued. I would have liked to see more of ax's thoughts on Aftran, but it's never stated.

Lastly, I think it would have been better for Aftran to somehow join the group. Instead of becoming a whale and "put on a bus", figuratively speaking.


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Offline goom

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2009, 07:52:04 PM »
I have to catch up haven't started reading yet.. finals T_T
this is one of my favorite books idno why i think the whole idea of brain surgery was interesting.


same here.
one of my favorites.

1) Why do you think that Cassie does not contract the Yamphut?
probably because she's around animals a lot, probably a good immune system.
 :2cents: i'd always wondered why the yamphut stayed with them even after they morphed. wouldn't the morphing 'heal' them (like marco's rabies)?

2) What do you think about Cassie performing brain surgery? Is it at all realistic? Additionally, do you think the Chee could have/should have been more help?
definitely not realistic, but the erek did his part in assisting her. cool, but not probable.

3) How does Cassie do on a mission alone?
personally, i think she does better by herself.
KA definitely gave her a lot of luck (not getting hit by a dracon beam, the gleet biofilter opening) to make up for her being alone.

4) Cassie saves Aftran, and is faced with her dying of Kandrona starvation. Instead of letting her suffer, they allow her to use the Escafil Device to morph whale permanently. This ends up being the same motive that moves Cassie to steal the cube later on. My question is: How did Cassie not see the answer to the Yeerk problem then and there? Why did it take another 15 books or more?
honestly, i don't know. my first reaction to her suggestion was, "give more of them the morphing power!".
maybe she didn't trust the yeerks to not abuse the power?

5) How do you feel about the character of Tidwell/Illim?
i think he should have been used in more books. interesting guy.

6) Anything else? Funny moments? Sad moments? Intense moments?
i'll re-read it later and post a few.

Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2009, 08:06:39 PM »
Definitely not realistic? How so?

Not that I'm any kind of credible source of info on brain surgery.


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Offline gecko52

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2009, 08:15:38 PM »
I think she didn't get yamput because she's an estreen.

Offline Terenia

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2009, 09:12:31 PM »
I think she didn't get yamput because she's an estreen.
Any reason why you think that? I don't think yamphut is tied into morphing at all, although it might be, now that you mention it. Ax gets sick in human morph, Jake in eel. Marco shortly after demorphing from osprey. Tobias is in his natural form, but his natural form is a morph, so perhaps it's different. We don't know the circumstances around Rachel getting sick.

Hmm...an interesting point to ponder.

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Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2009, 09:22:57 PM »
I think she didn't get yamput because she's an estreen.
Any reason why you think that? I don't think yamphut is tied into morphing at all, although it might be, now that you mention it. Ax gets sick in human morph, Jake in eel. Marco shortly after demorphing from osprey. Tobias is in his natural form, but his natural form is a morph, so perhaps it's different. We don't know the circumstances around Rachel getting sick.

Hmm...an interesting point to ponder.
That is an interesting point. I never made that connection, but it all happens when they morph, or are in morph. Who knows if Rachel morphed or not.


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Offline anijen21

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #8 on: May 12, 2009, 10:27:12 PM »
LOL I HAVE ACTUALLY REREAD THIS ONE SORT OF RECENTLY!

my thoughts:

1) Why do you think that Cassie does not contract the Yamphut?
Plot-induced immunity tbh. Actually, I think Yamphut is kind of stupid. It doesn't make any sense that an alien disease is virulent to humans. There are very few diseases on Earth that can be contracted inter-specially, unless you've got AIDS or something and can die from feline pneumonia. Bacteria and viruses evolve to attack very specific biologies, so an Andalite-evolved disease would probably have no effect on human biology. NOT TO MENTION that if morphing can heal tissue damage from injuries, why can't it heal tissue damage from disease? Maybe ten years worth of fanon is working against me here, but I always assumed that the morphing technology purged any foreign organic growth, excluding whatever the morpher intended, eg clothes and Yeerks.

2) What do you think about Cassie performing brain surgery? Is it at all realistic? Additionally, do you think the Chee could have/should have been more help?
I actually really liked the level of detail that they used describing the actual brain surgery. I liked that she used the saw that cut the holes in birdhouses, I liked the description of her disinfecting the wound and cutting him open, idk. I did not like the "it will heal on its own" though because that was unnecessary considering he CAN MORPH which I think was dropped very often in ghost-written books for some reason. Anyway, it was very well-paced, tense, and believable. Besides, it's not like she was actually digging around in gray matter, she was just doing an appendectomy in Ax's head and those are supposed to be pretty easy surgeries. idk. I bought it.

3) How does Cassie do on a mission alone?
I usually hate Cassie, but once again, I liked this. I liked the sense of hopelessness that started to creep in as the Animorphs dropped out one by one, leaving her alone, because tbh she was always kind of the weakest link as far as confidence and courage. So she really stepped up to the plate in this case, and that was nice to see.

4) Cassie saves Aftran, and is faced with her dying of Kandrona starvation. Instead of letting her suffer, they allow her to use the Escafil Device to morph whale permanently. This ends up being the same motive that moves Cassie to steal the cube later on. My question is: How did Cassie not see the answer to the Yeerk problem then and there? Why did it take another 15 books or more?
Simple answer: Because she is a moralistic moron. Sorry, I really don't like her character, and I HATE HATE HATE how she was left off the hook for her actions so much. Ugh. I can never verbalize why I feel this way, but idk...all of her actions were guided by her conscience alone, and never the pragmatic sort of rationality that Marco or Jake employed. And that pragmatism was villified in the end while Cassie's intentions were validated...ugh THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS, and I think letting her off so easy on so many of these counts revealed a kind of favoritism and immaturity. I'm still pissed at her about leaving David in rat morph, and that was a mess Rachel ended up cleaning up for her.

7) How do you feel about the character of Tidwell/Illim?
I really liked him. I really liked his limited character development: I don't know why, but the detail of him flicking soap bubbles at his wife really stuck with me. I like when hosts are given believable, sympathetic motivations for becoming hosts or joining the Sharing or w/e. The Yeerks exploiting those levels of human vulnerability are what make them such evil, awesome villains.

6) Anything else? Funny moments? Sad moments? Intense moments?
I am dee-dee-dee-lirious!

And when Ax and Erek were playing that game and Ax is like "I now owe Erek one million dollars" lol idk it was really funny in a sick, scary way. Very effective. This is one of, if not my very favorite ghost-written book. Thirty-three probably comes in at a close second, but that one was a little bit too twisted and unlikely to work as well as this one.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2009, 10:30:27 PM by anijen21 »
I go off topic on purpose.

Offline SkyMorpher

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2009, 10:58:10 PM »
I liked the idea someone put out during the LJ reread of this one...it would have been really interesting if Aftran had used the morphing ability to pull a frolis and somehow help them as a human nothlit.

What I can't figure out later is once the Yeerks got the cube, why were they still intent on taking over the world?

I enjoyed the Illim/Tidwell thing. I actually put Illim into Jake and Cassie's daughter in the Animorphs Relations RPG lol I also wish he'd come back more...he was mentioned later in The Test and then again a few books later when they lost contact with him.

btw if morphing eliminates yeerks, why did Jake's temporary yeerk try to make him morph?

lol with the brain surgery I also thought "appendicitis"

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Offline morfowt

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2009, 12:34:03 AM »
1. Cuz otherwise she'd be stuck in bed and we woudn't have much of a story  ;D
but to be more serious, I think she was just luckier than the others...

2. I thought it was realistic, not that I know (or want to know for that matter) what a realistic one would look like...

btw if morphing eliminates yeerks, why did Jake's temporary yeerk try to make him morph?
where in the book did it state morphing eliminates yeerks?

Offline goom

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2009, 01:14:42 AM »
where in the book did it state morphing eliminates yeerks?

i think they mean 'eliminates the need for hosts for yeerks'.
right?

Offline Shark Akhrrana

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2009, 01:43:48 AM »
I think the reason Yamphut affects while in morph is quite simple. How Ax explained (going on memory here so need to reread this I'm like ch3 right now ). From what he was seen foreign objects stay with you when you morph. They don't vanish. when they had the chips implanted in them as Sharks and morphed to flies they almost died because of the chips. And when they got in teh fightwith teh Ants Marcosaid he still had teh head of the ant on him afterward. Yamphut is caused if i remember correctly by the concentration of viruses in the ...Tira glad i believe it was called. The viruses are a separate thing from the body and in my opinion should be able to say there .

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Offline goom

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2009, 01:56:46 AM »
then how did marco's rabies get cured in book #42?

Offline Shark Akhrrana

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Re: Group Re-Read: #29 The Sickness
« Reply #14 on: May 13, 2009, 03:02:57 AM »
i think it has to do with what the Tira glad does. it keeps the stuff away from the rest your body. The Rabies was in his system already. but yeah that is a big if.

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