Group Re-Read: #45 The Revelation

[Terenia]

Summary
Things were already really weird. Fighting aliens. Battling to save Earth. And still trying to be normal. Marco, the other Animorphs, and Ax are almost used to it. Almost. But things are changing. The Yeerk invasion of Earth started out passively. Secretly. But now, everything seems to be stepped up. Even Marco's father is talking about some top secret project at his job. Something about developing Zero-space... Marco doesn't even know whether his father is a Controller. But he does know he's not going to let the Yeerks win this one. They've already got his mother. And Marco will do anything it takes to save his father. Anything...

Questions
1) This is obviously a major turning point in the series. Do you think that the ‘reveal’ of the Animorphs to Marco’s dad was handled appropriately?

2) Do you think that Marco’s dad’s reaction was a pretty accurate representation of what would actually happen? How would YOUR dad react if you told him you had spent the last three years fighting brain-stealing slugs?

3) What do you think would have happened if the Yeerks attempted to capture Marco and his dad rather than kill them? How would the Chee had reacted? What would have been the long-term affects?

4) This is the book where Visser One is finally destroyed and Eva, Marco’s mom, goes free. Do you think that this mission was handled well?

5) What do you think about the reunion between Marco’s parents?

6) Marco notes that it is possible that Nora was never actually in love with his dad, but was actually a Yeerk plant all along. Do you think this is a viable suggestion, or is he just grasping at straws? Do you think Nora was a Controller all along?

7) The book ended on kind of an odd note. After the Animorphs finally contact the Andalites there is a page break followed by the following words, in bold: "We do know who they are... and we know you, too... What do you think the meaning of this was?

8 )Anything else?

Next Week: #46 The Deception

[AniDragon]

Oh, man, I love this book! One of my favourites!

1) This is obviously a major turning point in the series. Do you think that the ‘reveal’ of the Animorphs to Marco’s dad was handled appropriately?

I think this is one of the ones that was handled the best, actually, compared to the other characters.

2) Do you think that Marco’s dad’s reaction was a pretty accurate representation of what would actually happen? How would YOUR dad react if you told him you had spent the last three years fighting brain-stealing slugs?

Very much so, and actually probably pretty close to how my own dad would have reacted.

3) What do you think would have happened if the Yeerks attempted to capture Marco and his dad rather than kill them? How would the Chee had reacted? What would have been the long-term affects?

If they tried to infest them on the spot, then it clearly wouldn't have worked since the Chee don't have ear cannals. However, if they'd brought them to the Yeerk pool, then they might have been able to pull off something like what Erek did, pretending to be a controller, and trapping the Yeerk.

4) This is the book where Visser One is finally destroyed and Eva, Marco’s mom, goes free. Do you think that this mission was handled well?

I think the mission was handled well. I think the execution setup was handled pretty poorly, though. Hmm, tie up the host on a platform above the Yeerk pool while starving out the Yeerk... What do you do if the Yeerk leaves the host and makes a mad dash for the pool water? It seemed like the platform she was standing on wasn't very big, the Yeerk would have probably plopped right into the pool had it tried to escape. Not a very smart setup. Probably my only beef with this book.

5) What do you think about the reunion between Marco’s parents?

Heartwarming and made me glee. ^_^.

6) Marco notes that it is possible that Nora was never actually in love with his dad, but was actually a Yeerk plant all along. Do you think this is a viable suggestion, or is he just grasping at straws? Do you think Nora was a Controller all along?

I don't think Marco believed it one bit, but was just saying it to try and lessen the blow on his dad. And actually... Didn't the Animorphs watch her for three days before the wedding, just to make sure? I can't remember that The Proposal that well...

7) Anything else?

Just... Amazing book. I love it.

[anijen21]

1) This is obviously a major turning point in the series. Do you think that the ‘reveal’ of the Animorphs to Marco’s dad was handled appropriately?

Okay, full disclosure: I didn't actually read the end of the series until this year. So my whole opinion is crusted with 10 years of resentment for how dumb I thought the late 30s-early 40s got, two years worth of laughing at spoilers that I heard, and a sprinkle of self-indulgent smugness.

All that said, I was sort of disappointed that the reveal wasn't more...integrated into the plot. I mean, making Marco's dad susceptible to infestation because of his work was definitely possible, and it does kind of branch off of that warning that Eva gave him years ago, like, "don't work for the military" or whatever, but idk it just felt so out-of-left-field. I just kind of wish it had been built up to rather than just "yep about that time," you know?

2) Do you think that Marco’s dad’s reaction was a pretty accurate representation of what would actually happen? How would YOUR dad react if you told him you had spent the last three years fighting brain-stealing slugs?

I actually think he took it too lightly, and idk I don't think it was a very...parental reaction:

"When I stopped talking, the first thing he said was that he had to call Nora." 38

"What do you mean you can't tell me? I'm your father. I tell you what to do." 42

tbh out of all the Animorphs, I think Cassie's parents had the most realistic reaction.

3) What do you think would have happened if the Yeerks attempted to capture Marco and his dad rather than kill them? How would the Chee had reacted? What would have been the long-term affects?

Interesting. I hadn't thought about that. The Chee probably would have incapacitated the Yeerks/freed the hosts, and either taken on the responsibility of masquerading as those Controllers or instruct the newly freed hosts to do it. Probably the former. It would be kind of dumb for them not to have four or five Chees around who aren't integrated into society. I mean, even when the Animorphs need Chee decoys--don't those Chee have other lives they're deliberately ignoring? Or are there a few un-hologramized Chee just hanging out in the park all day?

4) This is the book where Visser One is finally destroyed and Eva, Marco’s mom, goes free. Do you think that this mission was handled well?

Again, not really. I just think the pacing of this book is so weird. Like Marco tells his dad really fast, and then they spend like ten pages gaining enough velocity to enter the ocean which is literally the stupidest filler in the ENTIRE SERIES (wouldn't crashing into the ocean at a high velocity be MORE DAMAGING than entering at a low velocity? Did this ghostwriter never fall down before?), and then even Eva's rescue just feels...anticlimact ic, somehow. Visser One was such a well-developed character, I would have at least liked to hear her take on her death.

5) What do you think about the reunion between Marco’s parents?

Cute, but again, somehow underwhelming. And I'm kind of with powertrash that by this point in his life, Peter had actually gotten over Eva and loved Nora.

6) Marco notes that it is possible that Nora was never actually in love with his dad, but was actually a Yeerk plant all along. Do you think this is a viable suggestion, or is he just grasping at straws? Do you think Nora was a Controller all along?

Going again off powertrash's theory, this could very well be the coldest thing Marco ever does. If Peter really loved Nora and was willing to risk his life to say her, Marco making up this lie (it was a lie, come on) to diffuse his responsibility and essentially condemn Nora to lifelong infestation is just...really bad. And it makes you wonder what happened to her after the war. Nora and like, Loren are the two most poorly handled characters in terms of their fates.

7) The book ended on kind of an odd note. After the Animorphs finally contact the Andalites there is a page break followed by the following words, in bold: "We do know who they are... and we know you, too... What do you think the meaning of this was?

I don't know. Nothing really came of it. It was kind of stupid, but it was supposed to be *intense* or whatever to show how big the *stakes* were now. And if the Yeerks did know who they were, why did Jake wait till book 53 to give us his full name? Whatever I thought it was kind of cheap.

[Vanish]

Great book!

Questions
1) I think it was handled ok, much better than the other characters but I still felt it could have been done better.


2) I thought it was pretty accurate, my father would have most likely acted the same way.


3) The chee might have pretended that he was infested, like how they had been thought of as controllers in the first place. I don't think it would have had too much of long-term effects, they could have had an idle chee continue the hologram of marco and his father and pretend to be a controller.

4) It was handled fine.


5) It was good, I liked(and hated!) how after she returned Marco's father said he had moved on. It definitely seemed realistic.

6) I don't think Nora was a controller all along. In an earlier book Marco's dad even talks about how they were fighting and at one point all of a sudden they were happy and never fought anymore.

7) That they are aware of the the Animorphs, probably mostly from book #19.

8 ) Great book! I had anticipated this for a long time as a child. Finally a parent knows about what was going on, Marco didn't have to lie to his father anymore and he got his mother back.

Marco is so dynamic and in my opinion the most 3 dimensional character in the book, I enjoy his books very much

[Gafrash]

1) This is obviously a major turning point in the series. Do you think that the ‘reveal’ of the Animorphs to Marco’s dad was handled appropriately?

[/b]
Man, I think this whole book just didn't get the number of pages it deserved. Suspicions of ghostwriters aside, the plot was a very important one and got handled well enough, but I dunno why it felt like it was lacking a bit of detail.

2) Do you think that Marco’s dad’s reaction was a pretty accurate representation of what would actually happen? How would YOUR dad react if you told him you had spent the last three years fighting brain-stealing slugs?

I think it was a genuine father reacting to seeing his baby child turning into an anthropod or a crustacean (out of all the morphs, Marco HAD to pick the less pretty ones.
My father would have been abrupt, while at the same time curious, I think. He wouldn't have been AS disturbed as Marco's dad was. But I think my dad would have clicked on to the situation after that moment, possibly as fast as Peter did.

3) What do you think would have happened if the Yeerks attempted to capture Marco and his dad rather than kill them? How would the Chee had reacted? What would have been the long-term affects?

I don't think the Yeerks would have been interested in two human rebels at this stage, they'd rather terminate the problem. Plus, the Visser probably would have gotten off on telling the 'currently enprisioned' Visser, that her host had just 'lost' her relatives in a 'trajic accident', for added torture.

Also, a couple of re-reads back I stated that I would have liked to have seen the Chee get more involved, by throwing a hologram masking the Anis morphing or something, and, I now realize, that we kinda get it here.

4) This is the book where Visser One is finally destroyed and Eva, Marco’s mom, goes free. Do you think that this mission was handled well?

[/b]
It was a VERY edge-of-your-chair-tight moment, on my first read.  
There was one bit I remember getting confused, because we were given the estimation that the pool was around 100 ft in diameter, but I always imagined it bigger since The Weakness(where he ran across the sludge!). In my mind, the piers were always at the edge of the pools. It's just a technicality, but I got a bit lost imagining Marco/gorilla and Rachel/grizzly leaping from the end of one pier to another.
Call me pedantic, but this could be attributed to a ghostwriter, as I got the same experience at a final scene in The Ultimate later on. I wonder if it was same ghostwriter.


b]

5) What do you think about the reunion between Marco’s parents?

[/b]
Again, I wasn't satisfied with the amount that was written. Things were so different on both Marco's father and mother, since Eva's 'abduction', it wasn't as simple as a running-down-the-hill-and-meeting-each-other-in-arms moment for me... NOT IN A BOOK THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT WAR, as the author herself always states.
It just left me with much to be desired.

...I was sort of disappointed that the reveal wasn't more...integrated into the plot. I mean, making Marco's dad susceptible to infestation because of his work was definitely possible, and it does kind of branch off of that warning that Eva gave him years ago, like, "don't work for the military" or whatever, but idk it just felt so out-of-left-field. I just kind of wish it had been built up to rather than just "yep about that time," you know?...

Yep, this is what I am trying to say, too, anijen21.

6) Marco notes that it is possible that Nora was never actually in love with his dad, but was actually a Yeerk plant all along. Do you think this is a viable suggestion, or is he just grasping at straws? Do you think Nora was a Controller all along?

[/b]
Impossible to tell. Hard as it was to engage with the Nora-character, credit where credit is due: it is plausible that Nora was genuine.
This is years after Peter lost Eva. He was showing signs of moving on in previous books. No reason why he couldn't have met a partner. And whether that partner was genuine or not at the moment that they met, it's anybody's guess...
HAVING SAID THAT, I just thought of something... Nora was Marco's teacher, right?! That means she was one of the staff at his school, which happens to have a very important Controller as its assistant principal...

6) I don't think Nora was a controller all along. In an earlier book Marco's dad even talks about how they were fighting and at one point all of a sudden they were happy and never fought anymore.

I recall this, too, actually.

7) The book ended on kind of an odd note. After the Animorphs finally contact the Andalites there is a page break followed by the following words, in bold: "We do know who they are... and we know you, too... What do you think the meaning of this was?

[/b]
This was a bit bizarre, wasn't it?!
We are reading along and suddenly there's this statement from the enemy directed at us!
Why would the writer include that?!?! And then not in the following books?!?!?! Just for 'St.Because's' sake?!

8 )Anything else?

[/b]
Overall the book was a good read, but not amongst my favorites, though it clearly had the potential to be so.

Good moments was the way in which they entered the pool this time, the bug-fighter roller-coaster ride and how Jake was seemingly in control and all, but they had overlooked that tiny detail, and then they panicked!!  

...and then they spend like ten pages gaining enough velocity to enter the ocean which is literally the stupidest filler in the ENTIRE SERIES (wouldn't crashing into the ocean at a high velocity be MORE DAMAGING than entering at a low velocity? Did this ghostwriter never fall down before?)...

...and then even Eva's rescue just feels...anticlimact ic, somehow. Visser One was such a well-developed character, I would have at least liked to hear her take on her death.

EXACTLY! We are no wiser as to HOW Visser One got to be in the circumstances of Visser Three's captive a second time. We can only assume there was failure in the Anati system, ?

And just for the record, anyone notice the NO OBJECTIONS from Cassie on the parboiling of Yeerks, this time around?!

[Chad32]

1) I think it was alright. Earlier in the books it says he used to be good and all, and Ax accidentally put something into his work that was a MAJOR breakthrough. after making that public, I wouldn't be surprised if the Yeerks were watching him.

2) I think he handled it a bit better than he probably should have, like Anijen said.

3) Never thought about that, but Anijen came up with good ideas. Something would have been done with them.

4) I've read the book recently, but didn't go over it in the last few days like I planned to. It just seemed like Visser One just showed up or something. Like it seemed off. Though I liked the part where Marco is trying to drag eva off, but she resists until she gets her hands on v1 and crushes her. Then she say Ok we can go.

5) Want more details! Not just aww they look sweet kissing. This is one of the major things I was hoping for in the series, and they spend more details on getting the bugfighter into the pool than the reuinion!

6) That was just a wrong and blatant lie. A sign that Marco still felt he wanted his real mother back with his father more than accepting that his dad loves another woman. Probably one of the worst things he ever does.

7) Nothing came of it, so I don't have much to say.

I have a busy schedule, but I do want to read the final arc and really have something to say as the series goes to crap. also I've been thinking after finishing, we might just start over with book 1. One book a week with 60 books in the series, and there are only 52 weeks in a year. No reason to not start over.

[RYTX]

In a rush at the mo so
1)No, but it works dammit
2)Also know. I don't think my parents would ever believe me, even with morphing and violence and all that. They may believe it sure, but not me
7)This is dumb but i like to think it's like pick up from the transmitter. Like if it were a show, you'd just through but the transmitter getting this message after the credit. Just a bit of fun irrelevence.
8)This book makes me reevalutate GW's in general. I'll have to review some of the complainents later, but I love this book. One of the best imo GW or KA. Some I'll leave you all to decide what that means. 

[Terenia]

I've been thinking, based on your responses, that this book really would have been better off as two separate books. One dedicated to the fact that Marco had to reveal himself to his dad, and one to rescuing his mom. Yeah, it would shift the rescue back five books (because obviously it would have to be a Marco narration), but it would give each event the amount of page time they deserved.

[Vanish]

I totally agree teach, both parts of the story could have been made into their own separate book. With all those filler books I don't understand why they didn't do that.

[Gafrash]

Here's me being anal again, people, but has anyone else noticed this is the THINNEST book in the series?!?!
It does feel like KA could have split it into two, granted, but there was plenty of space to flesh these two plots out into one book. I mean, it's THE REVELATION!!! This had potential to be so much MORE epic!

And, conversely, can anyone tell me if this ghostwriter happens to be the same as the one in The Weakness or The Ultimate?!?!

[Chad32]

It was a thin book, wasn't it? And yes these plot points could have been in their own books. If so, which would you have first? Do you think it would be more interesting to have Peter know Eva is alive first, or for Eva to be rescued and find out Peter has remarried before she and Marco tell him?

There's so much wasted potential like this that it makes me angry at all the mid to late series filler books. Not that the early series didn't have its share of filler.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Oh yeah. This is where the series actually starts to resemble something "readable" again in my mind. Up until this point, it's been mostly downhill since the David trilogy.

1) This is obviously a major turning point in the series. Do you think that the ‘reveal’ of the Animorphs to Marco’s dad was handled appropriately?

I dunno... I mean, I do like the way it was handled... but it seems like we deserved more...

2) Do you think that Marco’s dad’s reaction was a pretty accurate representation of what would actually happen? How would YOUR dad react if you told him you had spent the last three years fighting brain-stealing slugs?

It totally depends on Peter's personality. As it is, this book is the most we get for his character development, so I guess that is how he would have handled it. Haha... I can't even picture my dad's reaction. I can't imagine he'd take it quite that well.

3) What do you think would have happened if the Yeerks attempted to capture Marco and his dad rather than kill them? How would the Chee had reacted? What would have been the long-term affects?

*shrug* I guess the Chee would have gone along with it, and been "infested" and kept the Yeerk inside their bodies like they do with their standard Yeerks. That would have led to the issue of "what do we do with them now?" but I don't see it causing any major problems. Maybe another subplot, though, in a later book.

Hey, I have a question. The Chee are obviously capable of projecting holograms beyond themselves... why did Mr. King need to be directly Draconed for this plan to work? Couldn't he have hid in the corner of the room and projected holograms of Marco and his dad?

4) This is the book where Visser One is finally destroyed and Eva, Marco’s mom, goes free. Do you think that this mission was handled well?

I actually liked this scene a lot. It's a well-written action sequence, and very tough to put down. Like AniDragon's saying, the setup is stupid as all get out (who decided Visser 3 got to preside over this execution anyway?), but once you get past that, I found it to be pretty kickass.

5) What do you think about the reunion between Marco’s parents?

It's cute... but it's so... not what it should have been. I feel like we got gypped out of most of the emotional content that should be present in this book.

Kind of a side note, but does anybody else feel like most of the ghostwriters were pulling their punches? That's kind of the impression I get. It's like KA was willing to write whatever it took to tell the story, but a lot of the ghostwriters were very aware of the fact that they were writing childrens books.

6) Marco notes that it is possible that Nora was never actually in love with his dad, but was actually a Yeerk plant all along. Do you think this is a viable suggestion, or is he just grasping at straws? Do you think Nora was a Controller all along?

He seemed pretty confident that he was lying. All you guys that see this as a horrible thing Marco did, though... I can't fault him that much for it. At this point, he knows he's not going to be able to rescue Nora; he's saving his father some of the pain of the loss. Marco hates himself for saying it, but it seems to me that it was, at least partly, a selfless thing to do.

7) The book ended on kind of an odd note. After the Animorphs finally contact the Andalites there is a page break followed by the following words, in bold: "We do know who they are... and we know you, too...  What do you think the meaning of this was?

I kind of wish they would have kept this kind of thing up. It's kinda fun.

Anything else?

Not really off the top of my head. That's why having a discussion thread is nice

I've been thinking, based on your responses, that this book really would have been better off as two separate books. One dedicated to the fact that Marco had to reveal himself to his dad, and one to rescuing his mom. Yeah, it would shift the rescue back five books (because obviously it would have to be a Marco narration), but it would give each event the amount of page time they deserved.

That's a great idea. Marco has a lot of ground to cover in his books... he needed fewer of the "filler" books, methinks. They changed up the narration order in the very next book anyway, so we may not have had to wait a full 5 to see the rest of it.

It was a thin book, wasn't it? And yes these plot points could have been in their own books. If so, which would you have first? Do you think it would be more interesting to have Peter know Eva is alive first, or for Eva to be rescued and find out Peter has remarried before she and Marco tell him?

I, personally, would have liked to see Eva freed and hidden away. There would have been the potential for some touching Marco/Eva moments, and I think it would have been cool to see her interacting with the Animorphs. Helping them plan missions or whatever. If you go the other way, I don't see as much that you can do with it.

And, conversely, can anyone tell me if this ghostwriter happens to be the same as the one in The Weakness or The Ultimate?!?!

The Animorphs' Wikipedia page has a complete list of ghostwritten books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animorphs#Ghostwriters - The Weakness, The Ultimate and this book were all written by different ghostwriters. They probably did a lot of reading and feeding off of each other's work, though.

[Chad32]

Mr. King needed to be directly hit so the dracon beam wouldn't just pass through him. Sure he could make it look like the hologram was desintegrating, but there wouldn't be anything solid to make contact with. Dracon beams have been powered down since the HBC Chronicles, where a beam would just slice right through someone and desintegrate their body after one shot.

Yeah I think they could do more with eva being freed first than with Peter. She could help out on missions, and maybe even be given the power to morph. In fact that's probably what should have happened instead of bringing Loren back. they only brought Loren back as a plot device to get them to start making auxilaries. Eva could have taken her place by being rescued in 45, and there would be at least one less loose end left dangling at the end of the series.

[AniDragon]

Also, I just remembered something I would have loved to see in this book, which I've mentioned a few times before and will probably one day write a fanfiction of:

I would have LOVED to see Marco's funeral. I would have loved to see Jake need to pretend to be devistated over his best friend's death, and Marco possibly making funny remarks via thought-speach to the other Animorphs. (Because of course he'd want to watch)

[Gafrash]

And, conversely, can anyone tell me if this ghostwriter happens to be the same as the one in The Weakness or The Ultimate?!?!

The Animorphs' Wikipedia page has a complete list of ghostwritten books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animorphs#Ghostwriters - The Weakness, The Ultimate and this book were all written by different ghostwriters. They probably did a lot of reading and feeding off of each other's work, though.

That's a funny one, because, according to wikipedia, the ghostwriter was the same one who wrote The Illusion, which is a very fleshed out story, and my favorite Tobias narration. Interestingly enough, The Familiar and The Resistance (both unneventuful books) were also ghostwritten by her.


I kinda liked the revelation to Marco's dad and the freeing of Marco's mum ALL DONE IN THIS ONE BOOK. It's good! Only it DID feel like this writer was 'pulling the punches'.
We get a cool action scene within the last few pages, but a quick easy exit, the Visser morphs for the sake of morphing, and we did get a the intro to the blue-bands (Visser Three's elite trooppers) but nothing really picked up from this bad guy.
It's a great and relevant story, but there were just a lot of things missing for this to be the story that it deserved to be, I reckon.