Author Topic: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar  (Read 33077 times)

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Offline Terenia

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Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« on: January 13, 2010, 08:13:45 PM »
Summary
Jake is just a normal kid. Well, as normal as possible considering he can morph animals, and he's in a war against parasitic aliens. But as unbelievable as it sounds, something even stranger has happened. One morning Jake wakes up, and he's twenty-five years old.

Okay. Maybe it's a nightmare. Or maybe Jake's just lost it for a while and misplaced a few years. And there's another problem. The world Jake-the-kid went to sleep in has changed. It's ruled by the Yeerks. Jake has to find out if the other Animorphs and Ax are still around. Still somehow fighting. Or if he's really on his own...

Questions

1)   Starting at the beginning, with the battle scene, do you agree with Jake’s decision to leave Rachel and Marco behind? What does this say about how his leadership skills have developed throughout the series?
2)   Speaking with Marie, she brought up an interesting point. Whenever Jake gets distracted from his mission, something happens to ‘snap’ him back into leadership mode. In #11 it’s the Sario Rip, in MM4 it’s the whole going back to before thing, in #7 it’s the Ellimist’s vision of the future and now, in #41 we have this odd vision going on. What do these events say about Jake’s ability to handle his responsibility? What about his motives behind being an Animorph?
3)   (Again from Marie – thanks!) Rachel tends to get the short end of the stick, quite often. She is often the one ‘left behind’, she is described as descending into her own psychotic madness, and in this book she appears as a gnarled, disfigured version of herself. Do you think KA keeps throwing Rachel into these situations to prepare us for the inevitability of #54?
4)   In regards to Cassie, what do you think about the changes she has undergone? Is it realistic, in any universe, for Cassie the Peacemaker to become Cassie the Terrorist? How much of the dialogue do you think may actually be her Yeerk, Niss, talking?
5)   In the end, Jake must choose to save Cassie or save the world. His decision, in classic Applegate style, is left for the reader to interpret. What do you think he chose? Why?
6)   At the end of the novel, Jake overhears the voice of the supposed master of this vision. Who do you think he is and what role does he (she, it?) play in the series? Why introduce this strange being for just one book and never mention it again?
7)   How much of this book do you think was a manifestation of all the horrible, petrifying, debilitating and terrible acts that Jake has committed since becoming an Animorph? I am specifically thinking about the scene where all of Jake’s dead victims appear.
8 )   Anything else?

Special shout out to KitsuneMarie for giving me some preliminary ideas for the re-read. Sorry for the delayed post, I typed it up several days ago and the internet gods ate it.

Next Week: #42 The Journey

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Offline Myitt

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2010, 08:33:57 PM »
I love this particular book and could discuss it at length, but I wanted to just comment on Cassie the Pacifist vs. Cassie the Terrorist, for now.

I think the idea that Cassie had finally reached a point where she had no choice but to join forces with the only other people fighting against the Empire--the Yeerk terrorists, and the rebel hosts with the Evolutionist Front, was a natural choice for her.  The destruction of Earth and the capture or exile of everyone she knew and loved could easily have taken that pacifist part of her away, or at least recognized the necessity of fighting back any way she could.

It's interesting, though, to think that maybe the more violent parts of her dialogue and actions in #41 were more the Yeerk Niss, using Cassie's desire to fight back but putting it into real action while Cassie sits back in relative shame.

I don't know, because it seems as though they've forged a sort of voluntary relationship, so maybe they both see the necessity of their terrorist actions.  I thought it was a very interesting addition to the series, considering my roleplay characters were already pretty much Yeerk terrorists, and it did illuminate a bit of the dilemma in what exactly qualifies a person as a terrorist:  It all depends on your perspective.

I also liked the sort of underground human resistance, on the ground floors of the cities.  Do you guys think there was any more of an underground society, held in check by the Empire but too numerous to really be captured?  How about the supposed "unfit" hosts, were there any Yeerks who could've lobbied for their equal treatment?  On a slightly weird tangent, do you think there were things like prostitution, housebreaking and crime in a very intricately connected human/Andalite/Yeerk society on Earth?

And finally I always thought the little billboards were amusing.  Trips back to the homeworld!  Make the homeworld your home, too!  What did they do, build condos next to Sulp Niar? XD



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Offline Gafrash

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2010, 09:08:01 PM »
1)   Starting at the beginning, with the battle scene, do you agree with Jake’s decision to leave Rachel and Marco behind? What does this say about how his leadership skills have developed throughout the series?
This was one of the gruesome battles the Anis had. Jake has always had tough calls, but his emotional state at this stage of the series, is turning into a more desperate one, (I suspect that's why KA lined up the story in this book, to show this) hence the somewhat 'cold' decision. In the end, it wasn't by much that all the Anis would have been caught.


2)   Speaking with Marie, she brought up an interesting point. Whenever Jake gets distracted from his mission, something happens to ‘snap’ him back into leadership mode. In #11 it’s the Sario Rip, in MM4 it’s the whole going back to before thing, in #7 it’s the Ellimist’s vision of the future and now, in #41 we have this odd vision going on. What do these events say about Jake’s ability to handle his responsibility? What about his motives behind being an Animorph?
He seems to be subliminally driven by a responsibility to the well being of those close to him. But it's not revealed until later on that Jake's TRUE motives, desires, are really the safety of his family, those he loves.


3)   (Again from Marie – thanks!) Rachel tends to get the short end of the stick, quite often. She is often the one ‘left behind’, she is described as descending into her own psychotic madness, and in this book she appears as a gnarled, disfigured version of herself. Do you think KA keeps throwing Rachel into these situations to prepare us for the inevitability of #54?
Interesting question! It does seem as if she was preparing the readers, if not psychologically, emotionally, to the ultimate end that someone like Rachel may have reserved


4)   In regards to Cassie, what do you think about the changes she has undergone? Is it realistic, in any universe, for Cassie the Peacemaker to become Cassie the Terrorist? How much of the dialogue do you think may actually be her Yeerk, Niss, talking?
I think, this story was mostly about the contrasts. Jake's reactions to a world that has turned even more upside down. Even Marco, as the Visser taunting his otherwise best friend.


5)   In the end, Jake must choose to save Cassie or save the world. His decision, in classic Applegate style, is left for the reader to interpret. What do you think he chose? Why?
In the dialogue between those mysterious alien individuals responsible for this, a hint to what choice Jake had made COULD HAVE BEEN given. Yet all KA chose to say is 'Interesting choice'. In my experience, 'interesting' is what you say when you got nothing to say about a  topic and don't want to sound stupid.
But I think it was important for KA to leave this open. Not just because of 'Applegate's leaving-the-end-open style', but because the result was virtually redundant. Realizing that ANY CHOICE Jake made on one hand would have serious consequences on the other, I think it's more important to think about the steps of HOW it got to that stage. At the end we all already know that the world Jake was in was not real, literally a nightmare.
The end result ends up being just a detail. 


6)   At the end of the novel, Jake overhears the voice of the supposed master of this vision. Who do you think he is and what role does he (she, it?) play in the series? Why introduce this strange being for just one book and never mention it again?
I've always had this question on the back of my mind, too.
Here's a plot that could have perfectly been done by a handful of other characters in the Animorphs universe, and yet, at this stage of the series, we get a complete unknown... Really would like to ask KA about that.
Because it felt like a mental experiment on a human specimen, I've always liked to entertain the thought of the good old Skrit Na being at play here.

7)   How much of this book do you think was a manifestation of all the horrible, petrifying, debilitating and terrible acts that Jake has committed since becoming an Animorph? I am specifically thinking about the scene where all of Jake’s dead victims appear.
I would say, a lot of it was Jake's fears and uncertainties linked to his leadership in the war. The 'experiment' was really just about Jake's reactions to this, so those behind the experiment, would really throw anything that was relevant and would have an impact at him.

8 )   Anything else?
Didn't this plot feel like it's been done before? Right around the time MM4 comes out, a plot in which Jake refuses to be in the war, we get another plot of an alternate world, one in which Jake becomes a controller, and it's safe to assume that the scenarios portrayed in the future in #7 may have taken place before the story here. Not to mention the fact that BOTH MM4 and The Familiar begin with a gruesome gut-wrenching battle that has serious repercutions on Jake. Kinda makes you question what KA was trying to achieve with these same-but-different plots here, after having covered those previously in the series, really.


What of the strange new alien species that was shown to be a new type of Controller?! Chasing Jake. Could it have been a clue to the physiology of the aliens responsible for this experiment on Jake? If they are anything like the Ellimist and the Drode, it wouldn't be hard to conceive them including themselves into some corner of the scenario, like a 'Where's Wally' piece?
I don't know why, but I always thought of them as the Sstramm, a race stated to having been Yeerk-enslaved earlier in the series.

Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2010, 09:17:29 PM »
Quote
He seems to be subliminally driven by a responsibility to the well being of those close to him. But it's not revealed until later on that Jake's TRUE motives, desires, are really the safety of his family, those he loves.

I thought it was always about his brother, and his hopes of getting his immediate family back to the way it was before.

I don't have much else to say. He probably just left Rachel and Marco becausethere wasn't anything to do with them. If he managed to rescue them, so what? Rachel was already with the rebels, which was why she was sent to talk to Jake. Marco and Ax were likely far out of reach, even more so than Tom ever was.


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Offline morfowt

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2010, 09:29:07 PM »
Quote
He seems to be subliminally driven by a responsibility to the well being of those close to him. But it's not revealed until later on that Jake's TRUE motives, desires, are really the safety of his family, those he loves.

I thought it was always about his brother, and his hopes of getting his immediate family back to the way it was before.

I don't have much else to say. He probably just left Rachel and Marco becausethere wasn't anything to do with them. If he managed to rescue them, so what? Rachel was already with the rebels, which was why she was sent to talk to Jake. Marco and Ax were likely far out of reach, even more so than Tom ever was.

I think you're misunderstanding what terenia meant. she meant the first chapter, not that nightmare/alternate reality/whatever:
Quote
<Shut the door, Jake!> Marco roared. <There
are more on the stairs!>
<Marco, Rachel, get out of here now!>
<We can't. Rachel's . . . can't leave her. You
cut the Yeerks off or it'll be too late!> He was
breathless, but insistent. <We'll find some other
way out.>
A Hork-Bajir emerged from the steam cloud,
saw me, and broke into a run. Time was definitely
not on my side today.
Lose everyone, or lose two?
I dropped and rolled under the door, sprang
up and broke the glass box that housed the emergency
close switch. Engaged the switch.
What alternative did I have? What choice?

Offline Terenia

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2010, 09:30:55 PM »
Yeah, that's what I meant. Thanks morf :D

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Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2010, 09:38:43 PM »
Oh, THAT time he left Rachel. Okay. My bad.


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Offline anijen21

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2010, 12:08:29 AM »
1)   Starting at the beginning, with the battle scene, do you agree with Jake’s decision to leave Rachel and Marco behind? What does this say about how his leadership skills have developed throughout the series?
to be honest all of this Jake-angst always got a little redundant to me. WE GET IT, YOU'RE A LEADER, IT'S HARD, SACRIFICES SUCK, WAH WAH WAH ETC.

2)   Speaking with Marie, she brought up an interesting point. Whenever Jake gets distracted from his mission, something happens to ‘snap’ him back into leadership mode. In #11 it’s the Sario Rip, in MM4 it’s the whole going back to before thing, in #7 it’s the Ellimist’s vision of the future and now, in #41 we have this odd vision going on. What do these events say about Jake’s ability to handle his responsibility? What about his motives behind being an Animorph?
I would say this is just the odd characteristic of the Animorphs universe that whenever something interesting happens to a character, they're the ones who are narrating, but #7 and MM4 kind of disprove that...I don't know, I think Jake is one of the best-written abstract leaders I've ever read, you know? Like he gets what it *means* to be a leader, and most of the time that was interesting to read about. But, as above, it got a little annoying near the end of the series, until he screwed up as bad as he did and I realized I should have been paying better attention.

3)   (Again from Marie – thanks!) Rachel tends to get the short end of the stick, quite often. She is often the one ‘left behind’, she is described as descending into her own psychotic madness, and in this book she appears as a gnarled, disfigured version of herself. Do you think KA keeps throwing Rachel into these situations to prepare us for the inevitability of #54?
I think she's punished because she's pretty.

4)   In regards to Cassie, what do you think about the changes she has undergone? Is it realistic, in any universe, for Cassie the Peacemaker to become Cassie the Terrorist? How much of the dialogue do you think may actually be her Yeerk, Niss, talking?
Terrorist-Cassie seemed realistic but annoying to me. Like I always kind of felt she was about two more nasty PETA documentaries away from pouring red paint on rich ladies wearing ermine coats, so all of the pathetic "omg what have I done" "look what this war has done to my poor innocent Cassie" whining from Jake in this book just annoyed me. Dear God Cassie can't have a dark side, she's our hopeful ray of sunshine! If anything Cassie should have been secretly violent and vindictive A LOT MORE.

5)   In the end, Jake must choose to save Cassie or save the world. His decision, in classic Applegate style, is left for the reader to interpret. What do you think he chose? Why?
That was a copout to be honest, and one of the worst parts of this book and #48...or whatever that Rachel fever dream was. In fact, just because of that reason, I don't think either of these books have any more weight or veracity than just as simple in-character dreams. Rachel never really had an encounter with Crayak and David, and Jake never really traveled to one possible future. At least this book was honest about it.

6)   At the end of the novel, Jake overhears the voice of the supposed master of this vision. Who do you think he is and what role does he (she, it?) play in the series? Why introduce this strange being for just one book and never mention it again?
I just read an interesting theory that it was caused by the Orff, since they were the only new element introduced into this new future. But since it was only mentioned once and never mentioned again, my reaction is more along the lines of "who gives a damn?"

7)   How much of this book do you think was a manifestation of all the horrible, petrifying, debilitating and terrible acts that Jake has committed since becoming an Animorph? I am specifically thinking about the scene where all of Jake’s dead victims appear.
Building off of #6, this is my main problem with this book, and a lot of the late-30s early-40s books. They start off pretty interesting, but far too many of them unravel in the second half into something incomprehensible and illogical, falling back on the second-worst cliche in fiction, right behind "I got amnesia" (which, regrettably, this series used at least twice), "IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM." I hate that. Hate it so much. Sci-fi is about speculation, about being able to do stuff you wouldn't be able to do in the real world, about answering all of those awesome "what if?" questions. So you know what, take responsibility for yourself and do it in a cohesive way that doesn't have to be deconstructed by the fallacies of someone's subconscious by the end. How much cooler would this book have been if Jake actually DID have to solve a problem in the future without running by trees that shouldn't be there and going to la resistance meetings that shouldn't be able to take place? How much cooler would #48 have been if Rachel actually DID have to confront her power-hungry, megalomaniacal demons about usurping Jake and killing everything that pisses her off? A lot cooler, that's how much. But instead, by the end, everyone gets to wake up in cold sweats screaming with no lasting consequences. I would say this is simply a poor consequence of increasingly apathetic ghostwriters, but KA did it herself in MM4 so I can't really discriminate in this particular circumstance.

8 )   Anything else?
I am working on a theory about this decade or so of books, and this book is really the perfect example of it.

The KA-written books worked so well, I think, because they never really latched onto a "genre." I keep trying to think of better ways to explain it, but it has to do with both genre and tone...I mean, Marco and Rachel can be flirting-I-mean-bickering on page 38 and then on page 40 they're traipsing through a battleground full of grisly dead bodies, you know? I think one of KA's best skills as a writer was the ability to give you the worst mood whiplash, to throw you from sappy romance to horrific violence to adolescent comedy and back without even knowing how you got there. You were bounced around all the time, which kept things fresh, unexpected, and really really readable.

Enter the ghostwriters.

They were not as skilled at this. But they tried. But rather than snapping back and forth between entirely different genres, often times the ghostwriters fell back on sort of dead genres, genres that are kind of corny and silly at this point, genres that don't really work anymore. This wasn't always the case--I think the point of a lot of these ghostwritten books was to put the Animorphs story through different subgenres of science fiction. We get our cyberpunk, our space operas, our epics, and now, our postapocalyptic future. I hadn't read this book the first time until like three months ago, because when I was 13 I think I had an inkling this is where the series was headed, and I was NOT OKAY WITH THAT. Then I actually read 1984 and saw The Terminator and A Boy and his Dog and realized, hey, you know what? Postapocalyptic fiction is like my favorite genre ever. Seriously, I even loved the newest Terminator movie just because that's exactly what it was.

So I actually really liked this book.

Until the end.

This book manages to be a pretty convincing post-apocalyptic thriller until that stupid scene with Controller!Marco, damsel-in-distress!Cassie, and whatever button Jake had to push or not push or whatever. Because at that point, it devolved into Ed Wood schlock. Campy, unbelievable, out-of-character crap. I mean, they were actually working on a MOON RAY. It nauseated me.

This same strategy is used in #33 to much, much different affect. They set you up with all of these expectations and then do something completely different...like I said, the ghostwriters weren't as good at this as KA, but sometimes it just WORKED.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2010, 12:14:22 AM by anijen21 »
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Offline RYTX

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2010, 06:42:26 PM »
1) Logically yes, emotionally no, goes to show how he learns to do what is necessary, even if it's something terrible
4) Everytime I read this book I believe the Yeerk is doing all the talking, but I figure Cassies is in agreement and willing to do the terrorist thing. After, 10, 20 years of this, her still holding out would be less believe able than, well, alien parastic brain slugs taking over the world.
5) I don't know, and I really wish she wouldn't make me make those choices. I notice no one else has really answered this either. If pushed, I'd say Cassie, but I have no reason to it, just my hunch
6) I always figure this was whatever being shunted Crayak out of a galaxy before coming here (and being a space time master; curious if it still outmatches Crayak) Really, I take as an allusion to as close a "God" KA puts in the series. idk why. But
Quote
Because it felt like a mental experiment on a human specimen, I've always liked to entertain the thought of the good old Skrit Na being at play here.
:wow: dude, you just blew my ***ing mind! Seriously, I wasn't gonna do this till later, and it's messing up my studying now, but I read this and nearly screamed. I love it, awesome theory, never even considered it before, and now it's what I'll probably think everytime I read this. It makes perfect sense to me, and just puts so much potential back into one of the established though really unexplored stories of the series. Awesome.
7) Again, agreeing with Gafrash and will add whoever was doing this apparently knows how to push a kids buttons. Disappointed they made the little mistakes, like marco's rank slip-up but whatever.
8 ) Kinda wish they hadn't done the enter and drop thing, orff, whatever was in control etc, but hey. This book is filler. Nothing really added, so everythings basically bfd, and you may have to manipulate a few things to keep it canon, but oh well. At least now I have more fun things to do next time I try and give skrit na a place in the universe  ;D (Seriously, nearly exploded my head as soon as the idea was contemplated. No joke)
« Last Edit: January 14, 2010, 07:53:45 PM by RYTX »
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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2010, 07:47:13 PM »
1)   Starting at the beginning, with the battle scene, do you agree with Jake’s decision to leave Rachel and Marco behind? What does
this say about how his leadership skills have developed throughout the series?

Well he was pretty much right, lose everybody or lose two.  He pretty much had no other choice.


2)   Speaking with Marie, she brought up an interesting point. Whenever Jake gets distracted from his mission, something happens to ‘snap’ him back into leadership mode. In #11 it’s the Sario Rip, in MM4 it’s the whole going back to before thing, in #7 it’s the Ellimist’s vision of the future and now, in #41 we have this odd vision going on. What do these events say about Jake’s ability to handle his responsibility? What about his motives behind being an Animorph?

This is just some random little kid.  He wasn't even handpicked by the elimmist, and just got lucky because he was friends with Tobias.  I think even hardcore military leaders would have issues with the pressure Jake was under.  It also makes storytelling sense.  Have him have an issue, and have something snap him back.  We can't have him quitting after all.
 

3)   (Again from Marie – thanks!) Rachel tends to get the short end of the stick, quite often. She is often the one ‘left behind’, she is described as descending into her own psychotic madness, and in this book she appears as a gnarled, disfigured version of herself. Do you think KA keeps throwing Rachel into these situations to prepare us for the inevitability of #54?

Rachel gets the most punishment because she can take it.  Can't have half the things that happened to her happen to Cassie, she would break.  Tobias had plenty of bad things happen to him too though.  That might be what brought them together.

4)   In regards to Cassie, what do you think about the changes she has undergone? Is it realistic, in any universe, for Cassie the Peacemaker to become Cassie the Terrorist? How much of the dialogue do you think may actually be her Yeerk, Niss, talking?

I can definitely see Cassie becoming a voluntary controller for a Yeerk that she agrees with.  It was most likely both, Cassie had become jaded by then, and even if she wasn't speaking directly, agreed with everything Niss as saying.

5)   In the end, Jake must choose to save Cassie or save the world. His decision, in classic Applegate style, is left for the reader to interpret. What do you think he chose? Why?

He chose to save the world.  I feel this for 2 reasons.  1, he had already show the ability to sacrifice two people to save more, and 2, this Cassie was hardly the Cassie he knew and loved.

6)   At the end of the novel, Jake overhears the voice of the supposed master of this vision. Who do you think he is and what role does he (she, it?) play in the series? Why introduce this strange being for just one book and never mention it again?

I always assumed it was either Crayak or Elimmist seeing  how he would handle such a situation.

7)   How much of this book do you think was a manifestation of all the horrible, petrifying, debilitating and terrible acts that Jake has committed since becoming an Animorph? I am specifically thinking about the scene where all of Jake’s dead victims appear.

Pass
8 )   Anything else?

Not that I can think of.

Offline Chad32

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2010, 10:57:38 PM »
I see Russian is another person who believes jake wasn't picked out like the others besides Rachel. I don' really see anything about him that the team absolutely needed. Leadership skills can be honed by anyone, and the main reason jake is the leader is because in the beginning Marco said he was. but that's another topic.

I like the Skrit Na idea. That would be cool. They are an interesting species who probably should have made an appearance in the main series. Maybe instead of Helmacrons.


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Offline MoppingBear

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2010, 11:04:16 PM »
I see Russian is another person who believes jake wasn't picked out like the others besides Rachel. I don' really see anything about him that the team absolutely needed. Leadership skills can be honed by anyone, and the main reason jake is the leader is because in the beginning Marco said he was. but that's another topic.

I like the Skrit Na idea. That would be cool. They are an interesting species who probably should have made an appearance in the main series. Maybe instead of Helmacrons.

yeah marco could easily have been the leader. rachel does have unique qualities though.  actually, now that it hink about it, its pretty unlikely the the elimmist would handpick 4 and leave 2 to chance.  tom did end up being pretty important to the war, close to as important as visser 1 was.

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2010, 11:10:06 PM »
Actually yes. Having a controller in the family did give the Anis some clue to the inner workings, especially since Tom's Yeerk became reasonably high ranking. although it's obvious he hit a glass cieling, as it were, since he complained to Jake about not getting up any farther.


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Offline KitsuneMarie

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2010, 11:35:39 AM »
2)   Speaking with Marie, she brought up an interesting point. Whenever Jake gets distracted from his mission, something happens to ‘snap’ him back into leadership mode. In #11 it’s the Sario Rip, in MM4 it’s the whole going back to before thing, in #7 it’s the Ellimist’s vision of the future and now, in #41 we have this odd vision going on. What do these events say about Jake’s ability to handle his responsibility? What about his motives behind being an Animorph?

Jake always claims his motivators are saving his brother and the rest of humanity (as well as other threatened races), and keeping his friends alive and uninfested. While I don’t doubt that these are goals that do truly drive him, I don’t think they’re always enough to sustain him.

First of all, I’m not entirely sure he even really believes he can save Tom anymore at this point. Look what he says on page 16: "Did he buy it? Did he believe the lies I'd grown so used to telling? The fake-nice routine I put on for a brother who's not a brother at all anymore, but the enemy?" Maybe Applegate didn’t mean for Jake’s words to be taken at face-value, but they don’t account for the possibility that Tom is even existent anymore.

When Jake is faced with particularly difficult situations or when he is exhausted by the terrors and responsibilities of war, he loses focus and becomes apathetic and resentful. This is why I think he is prone to his occasional outbursts of “I didn’t ask for this!” and “Fine, then you make the call.” Oftentimes, the books follow these outbursts with some kind of supernatural or strange scientific phenomenon that steps into the story to give Jake a good scare, to show him why he is needed, to broaden his vision beyond his own plight. When he is reminded that the whole galaxy is relying on him and that it would be impossibly selfish and disastrous for him to give up, he snaps back into good-leader mode.

Therefore, I think Jake's other big motivator is responsibility--even though the same responsibility that bolsters him is continually crushing him back down into a state of self-pity and frustration.

3)   (Again from Marie – thanks!) Rachel tends to get the short end of the stick, quite often. She is often the one ‘left behind’, she is described as descending into her own psychotic madness, and in this book she appears as a gnarled, disfigured version of herself. Do you think KA keeps throwing Rachel into these situations to prepare us for the inevitability of #54?

I think it’s becoming clear at this point in the series that post-war Rachel would have an extremely difficulty time fitting into society. I’m not sure when the other Animorphs start thinking of Rachel as someone who needs the war, but from her raging at the end of the opening scene’s battle in #41, it’s clear she’s toeing the deep end. The image that kept popping into my head when Jake describes her blindly stumbling and groping her way into battle in grizzly morph was that of Frankenstein: arms outstretched, moving awkwardly, not quite human.

I wonder at what point Applegate decided that Rachel should die, and if Rachel's descent into madness was just as much an attempt to convince herself that Rachel's death was necessary as it was to prepare us for that possibility.

5)   In the end, Jake must choose to save Cassie or save the world. His decision, in classic Applegate style, is left for the reader to interpret. What do you think he chose? Why?

There’s some interesting ambiguity surrounding this question. Jake says that Justice would choose his friends, and then he follows that thought with a self-reminder that Justice is a kid. As much as Jake may look like a 25-year-old man, however, he certainly doesn’t act like one. War-hardened and mature as he may be, I think Jake still acts like a teenager (albeit one who is carrying a terrible burden). So I guess the question is, is he still a kid enough to embrace this youthful idealism that Justice—another child who has faced and surmounted terrible evils—does?

As I re-read the book earlier this week, I initially believed that Jake had chosen to save Cassie instead of foiling the Yeerks’ mission. I thought that, if Jake was idealistic enough to keep fighting, he should be idealistic enough to rescue a teammate at great expense. Plus he says on p. 127, “No mission was worth sacrificing her life.”

The more I think about it, though, it makes more sense to me that he pushed the abort button. He already proved in the first chapters of this book that he was capable of making the decision to sacrifice Marco and Rachel so that at least some of them could escape. And he is certainly makes this decision again with Rachel in #53. If the moral of #41 was “save your friends at any cost,” Jake’s actions in #53 would not have made any sense.

 
7)   How much of this book do you think was a manifestation of all the horrible, petrifying, debilitating and terrible acts that Jake has committed since becoming an Animorph? I am specifically thinking about the scene where all of Jake’s dead victims appear.

This book contains some truly horrific images. I remember the first time I read it, I thought it must be a dream from the very beginning. The disgustingly casual way Jake introduces himself as he disembowlels some Hork-Bajir Controller or something is unsettling enough, but then it’s followed by copious images of Jake fighting with his guts literally hanging outside of himself, of his ear getting ripped off, etc. Then the scene on pages 80-83 comes along, when all of the mutilated corpses of Controllers Jake has killed are coming after him—like something out of “Thriller,” but without the awesome dance moves. Maybe it's just my irrational fear of gruesome back-from-the-dead things, but my skin was crawling at this point.

Oddly enough, I don’t think any of this really affects Jake that much. It certainly isn’t what pushes him back into a frame of mind for good leadership. Sure, it wigs him out, but he agonizes way more over whether or not he should attack his father, or whether or not he should save Cassie. We never hear about Jake’s weird half-dead-victims vision again.

If this book is an experiment run by the unknown being who remarks on Jake’s “interesting choice” at the end, I think the being's goal is to discover Jake’s motivators. Here, it discovers that guilt isn’t one of them.

8 )   Anything else?

To me, the book’s most interesting sentence is on p. 92: "And yet when everybody thinks you're something you're not [in context, a Controller], when everyone tells you again and again who and what you are, it's hard not to wonder, way in the back of your mind, if they aren't somehow right."

On one level, this sentence pulls me back to the issue of Jake’s motivators. Maybe another one to add to the list is external expectations. His friends expect him to lead—even Visser Three recognizes the tiger as the leader of the Andalite bandits—and it turns out he’s good at it, so he does.

This sentence fascinates me, though, because of what the context suggests. Taken at face-value, this sentence suggests that Jake wonders if he is, in some way, a Controller. If being surrounded by Controllers is influencing his actions enough that he is starting to act like one. If he should be pitied for being a pawn in a situation over which he has little control. If he is only free to be his pre-war self every now and then—and even then, he is trapped in a cage of caution.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the thought that Jake is like a Yeerk. He dictates the actions of his friends and makes choices that could end badly. His actions can be cruel and cut-throat for the sake of his race’s survival and advancement.

Am I English-majoring it too much over here? Sorry for the over-analysis of this sentence :P
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Offline Terenia

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Re: Group Re-Read: #41 The Familiar
« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2010, 11:07:57 PM »
Yes, you are over english-majoring it, darling. I will counter it with my own Englishing...shortl y. I need to join all of my thoughts together before I give you a worthy response. :)

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