Alright, I'm just going to say right now that I never saw Tobias as someone who would kill themselves just because life was too tough. Tobias always had that strength in him, it just took getting trapped as a bird to bring it out of him and allow him to discover his independance. But Tobias has always been looking out for himself, so I guess we can say that he was always a predator. Sure, Tobias was a really lonely kid, and he never knew love until he met Rachel--and, by some extension, Ax-- but...I don't know, I still don't see Tobias as the person who would resort to drug use and suicide--though, that doesn't mean that I'm saying people who use drugs or resort to suicide are weak (becasue they are not)--I just never saw Tobias as the sort of person.
I actually never thought about the Rachel-turning-to-drug-use theory. I remember the conversation she had with Jake about how she loved the war and thrived on battle, but I didn't think she would throw herself off a building or smoke up just because she got bored with life. Remember, the war ended on Earth, but there was still a lot of fronts on other worlds that Rachel would have most likely signed up for, had she lived. And come on people, she can morph, life for her would never get boring.
I disagree with the whole idea of recruiting more soldiers, because that's basically what the whole David Trilogy was about. I mean, they didn't know David and they suffered as a result of circumstance and poor judgement. Had they had more time to watch David they wouldn't have chosen him. What made the Animorphs work was that they were connected to each other in some way--except for Tobias, and that was clearly stated in book twenty. Imagine trying to recruit five or six or twenty other kids and adults that you know nothing about--each of whom are likely to be greedy, violent, or worse, Controllers , And the whole, scouting-out-human-controllers-and-waiting-three-days theory is just ludicous, because they wouldn't have had nearly enough time to watch x-number of people for three days. Ax was right when he said that the Animorphs were a gureilla group, not meant to become a large army. Besides, I think if they were to recruit more people the Yeerks would become more suspicious and stop believing that their enemies were really Andalite bandits--becasue, really, would an Andalite, known for arrogance and pride when it comes to technology, be willing to give technology to a primitive speices? No, adding on more members--at least, in the beginning--would have exposed the Animorphs.
