Group Re-read 2.0 #9 The Secret

[RYTX]

Synopsis
No place to run. No place to hide....
The woods behind Cassie's house host a number of wondrous plants and animals, as well as a few rare Animorphs. Visser Three has come to suspect this, and has decided the best way to find "Andalite bandits" in the woods, is to destroy the woods. The Animorphs have to put a stop to this, because if the Yeerks find an Andalite, the forest isn't the only thing that will be destroyed....

Questions
   1. For awhile Visser Three has been trying to catch the "bandits" when they appear. Starting at MM1, and obviously in this book, he makes attempts to actively track them down or flush them out. What do you think about the Yeerk leader's methods to catch the Animorphs? Cunning? Foolish? What do you think is the best way to trap an enemy that could be anything?

   2. Another one of those important intra-Animorph relationships is Tobias and Cassie. Both hold Rachel as an important person in their lives, but more often than not they are the ones on the same side of an issue, typically opposite Rachel and Marco. What do you think of Tobias and Cassie's relationship throughout the series?  In this book, Cassie has a flash of anger at Tobias, who immediately lends his support to her: How is it the pacifist and the predator tend to get along so well? What do you think of those rare occasions where they take issue with one another?

   3. What do you think of the moral crisis Cassie faces here; When is it wrong for a creature, human or alien or animal, to take another's life? Are there exceptions? What alternatives would you suggest if you were troubled by such a life style?

   4. The Animorphs secret lives have huge effective on their relationships with their family; Cassie's clearly upset by the need to lie to her parents.  What do you think about the Animorphs family lives? How would your life be affected if you had to constantly lie to those closet to you?

   5. In the general  sense, Cassie is the groups moral compass. How does she serve that role in this book? She's the first to react to the logging, though for non-entire Earth saving reasons, and her activist mentalities first find a way to stop the Yeerk plan. What do you think of Cassie's realizations for setting a course of action? How about the way she saves herself and the commissioner from Yeerk capture?

   6. This is one of the few books where I'd like to address more than one morph. In addition to the usual questions about your general thoughts on the morphing experience, there are a few specifics for each of the following worth considering in this book.

        a. To enter the compound, the Animorphs use a termite morph. What did you think about Cassie's dilemma with killing the queen? What about the termites "loss of control" upon the queen's death? How does the termite experience compare to the ant? Beyond the social societies, the two groups don't have a lot in common. What is it that makes these morphs so terrifying? Why are they written to be this way, and what makes that idea effective?
      
        b. After that, the Animorphs protect a family in this book by taking on a skunk morph. A mother skunk at that.What did you think of all the effort they put into protecting the young? What about the nurturing experience itself? Do you think the parental care a mother skunk displays is at all comparable to that of human maternity?

   7. What would you do to console yourself in a moral crisis? Where do you draw the line of what you can and can't do in a conflict, and what would you do should you compromise those values?

   8. Approximately when is the last time you read this book? What changes do you expect or would like to see in a re-release?
   
  9. Anything else?

Answer, ignore and submit your own questions and comments as you please; but remember to vote!

Next week: #10 The Android

[Ember Nickel]

Again, my own points from a reread:

"No morphing except when necessary." <- Why not? To not get caught?

"You have to do it, too," I said." <- Shouldn't Rachel stand guard for Cassie in case real humans come around?

I never did see Courtney again. <- Then how does she finish the science project? Does Rachel have to run the maze?

Let's face it -- if we were Andalites, we wouldn't exactly be able to rent an apartment." <- unintentional (?) foreshadowing ahooooy

But a distraction isn't a bad idea." Jake looked at me. "Anyone want to volunteer? It would probably be safer than going inside."

He was offering me a way out.

<- wow, this again. See my thoughts on MM1.

"You've done far more than enough. A hundred times more than enough. But the Yeerks are still here." <- Define "enough."

"My osprey had been designed by nature for this-, flying high and finding prey...we had been designed by millions of years of evolution to be predators." <- you keep using those words, "design" and "evolution." I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

<Look, Cassie, you're human. Homo sapien. Your job is to keep yourself and your species alive. That's all nature wants from you. That's the whole point of evolution -- to survive. > <- aaand again.

Am I a part of nature, so I should just live by the laws of nature, kill to eat, kill or be killed? Or am I something different because I'm a human?"
"Well, I guess you're both," Jake said at last. "I mean, you are the person who got rid of the termite queen. You're also the person who went out of her way to save a bunch of skunks." <- see the thing is, nature does not pass laws like a Congress. "laws" in science are observed trends.

I guess my morality is primarily concerned with sentience, and protecting the lives (secondly, welfare) of sentient creatures. I'd say it's overwhelmingly wrong to take sentient life (hey, we're in Ketran-world!) as regards point 3. Exceptions are usually of the "implausible hypothetical situation" variety, although I'd probably the wrong person to fight an intergalactic war. Had the termite queen survived, it presumably would have spelled the end of the Animorphs, the end of the human resistance, and many worse fates for many sentient Controllers, so perhaps the most moral thing to do there was killing the non-sentient queen in order to protect sentient beings. I tend not to judge non-human animals for killing each other. Tobias' behavior is rather hypocritical here.

[Ouroboros]

1. V3 struck me as more lucky than brilliant in many of the early books. He came off like a ridiculously cartoonish buffoon. I think his intent is good (for a bad guy), but his drive for promotions and glory makes him lose sight of reason sometimes.

2. I think that this early in there is still a lot of ground to be gained between the group as friends, and even though Tobias is a predator now he is also still a shy dorky kid who doesn't like to be conflicting with people. People will take issue with one another sometime over something. It's impossible to agree 100% of the time, and they deal with it like any normal teenagers would, I think.

3. That's just a whole can of worms waiting to pop out, but I think it just depends on the situation...general ly. Alternatives? Not many.

4. You do what you gotta do, as much as it sucks. I think they took the right approach. I'd rather constantly be in trouble and missing school and save the world than live life as I knew it, sitting by and watching the world fall.

7. The easy answer would be be just get over it and deal, do whatever you have to do to keep as many people safe or get the job done safely because you don't have much choice. Jake seems pretty good at that, even though he does have lines even if they are blurry and grey sometimes. Though we also see that there are definite lasting effects.

8. Earlier this week.

[Noelle]

1. I think his plan was solid on paper.  He was doing what it took to get done what he needed done.  The problem was he wasn't counting on humans actually having a mind of their own.  He was acting like he already had the world and it's inhabitants at his disposal, and he didn't.  This is why Visser 3 failed, suffered a massive bad ass decay, and ultimately Visser 1 was the REAL threat. SHE knew what humans would and wouldn't do and she knew how to manipulate and get around them.  I guess in retrospect it was kind of a big irony.  Visser 3's biggest goal throughout the series was to get an Andalite host in order to become successful, yet in the end his Andalite host was his downfall because he simply couldn't let go of it, he couldn't possibly understand the planet he was up against as his Andalite.  (And his Andalite host was probably prone to the same judgement errors as him "pffft, humans...this'll be EZ mode...wait...what do you mean we CAN'T log the forest???!)


2. I think this was symbolic of Cassie just simply being unable to accept that sometimes the world isn't pretty, it isn't black and white, there is no right and wrong when it comes to survival.  When she didn't have the fate of the world in her hands, it was easy for her to make judgements like "it is wrong to kill. period, no matter what."  With her once friend turned carnivore, and her other best friend adapting to the idea that you have to kill to live, she couldn't handle it.  Her moral compass was so strong she was blind to what she had to do, and she hated her friends for accepting it while she couldn't.

3. I personally ascribe to the "survival of the fittest" belief.  You are entitled to do what it takes to preserve your species.  Not be cruel or excessive, but if you cannot protect your own kind, then what is the point of even living?  If Cassie had such a problem with the idea that she had to kill, then she should have simply walked away from the war. (lol termite...small wonder she didn't go vandalizing exterminator stores or something.)

There is no shame having a strong moral compass and beliefs you cannot alienate.  I believe the biggest downfall of Cassie (and probably why we have the "Team Cassie"  "Team Trap-her-as-a-skunk phenomena) is that she refused to exit the fight, and instead of doing what it took, she was constantly trying to enforce her beliefs on the others, crippling the group.  (I believe the war would have been done much more efficiently without her...but that is for another paper.)

She would have been right to exit the war.  Some people are just born not able to stomach killing others, nothing wrong with that.  But she didn't, she mentally tortured herself and the rest of the group (ok, maybe not torture) throughout the series.  She had several chances to exit, even chances to take a peaceful role in the war.   She could have joined the Yeerk peace movement and been a spy.  But she didn't because she seemed to have this obsessive need to police the actions of her friends and force her beliefs on them.

4. I think that just proves my point in 3.  I would have been fine with it because, ultimately, I was protecting their lives.  I would do what it took to make it happen.  If Cassie couldn't, no problem.  Then just don't do it, don't fight and your conscience is clean.

5. I'm probably going to get a lot of flack for this...but I think ultimately Cassie was useless to the group.  She held them back and held them down.  Instead of them being able to speak freely, they had to treat the war with kid gloves to appease her.  This is why she needed extra plot devices and super sparklies to actually justify her presence in the group.  "Yeah, she's a pain in the ass...but...she has magical moments of inspiration!  And she can do brain surgery!  And she's a temporal anomaly!  That's worth it...right?"

-_- If a character needs so much specialness to make it worth writing in then...something is wrong with the situation.  If you need to justify a person's existence with magic in a non-magical novel then just throw in the towel and say "yep, she was a wet towel, they would have been better without her."

6. dont have time for this at the moment

7.I draw the line at justification.  Was I justified in what I did?  Did it serve the greater good?  Did I make people safe?  Of course, I will never be ok with killing, I would probably need therapy (or, like Cassie, I just wouldn't fight and seek to be HELPFUL instead of mentally torturing those who are probably already mentally tortured by what they have to do.)

But ultimately, I would have to help my species survive, and if I didn't, I'd be more evil than the ones actually antagonizing our existence.

8. I read it probably...a month ago? Three weeks ago?  If anything, they need to make Cassie's character more reasonable, but that would need considerable rewriting.

Though I don't think this was intentional on part of K. A. Applegate, because Cassie was her favorite character, I think that she is ultimately one of the most unlikeable, because while the other Animorphs grew strong and resolute and had the well being of the human race in their mind while they were simultaneously tortured by what they did...Cassie never grew one bit.  She held onto her beliefs until the end and antagonized her friends.

To me, Cassie complaining and moaning about having to kill is like walking up to a Soldier who risked his life for us on the front line and going "don't you feel bad for what you did?"  Well, child, if you are so ungrateful for the sacrifices of our lives and sanity for your sake, I invite you to go live in the society of the enemy. 

And to me, character growth wouldn't be her accepting killing.  It would be her accepting SHE couldn't do it and exiting the war, and thanking that her friends, no matter how disturbing, COULD do it.  But instead she was given her happy ending and sunshine and butter flies and never lost A SINGLE THING in the war, like the others.

Part of me wonders if HER parents were controllers, if she would have accepted that she needed to fight and would have spared the group the termite mental meltdown.


9. Sorry, I'm mean, I know it.

[Noelle]

Actually, I lied, for my number 9, I'd like to discuss exactly why people hate Cassie so much, and why I think this might be more of a cultural phenomenon than bad writing.  But it's long so I'm going to put it in a separate post.


9. Though, I think that we have to consider, this series was written in an entirely different time, in an entirely different generation.

This series was written for pre 911, when it was easy to idealize that morals were black and white and easy.  The wounds of the world wars were healed, the liberal minded were against the vietnam war, we believed the world was reasonable.  It was easy to say war is never needed, there is no reason to kill.  In such an idyllic state, it is reasonable to sympathize with cassie, and see the yeerks as merely different.

911 was a huge, terrible wake up call.  After the series ended, the kids that read it have to grapple with the terrifying realization that there are enemies that WILL kill innocents for unjustified reasons.  And we NEED to protect ourselves, and the cost is high, but we have no choice.

Looking through that jaded lens, many just cannot accept her stance.  It is cruel to those who fight for us.  It is rigid and illogical.  We see our friends who once sat around on the playground with us and read these books with us dying in Iraq and coming back terribly, mentally scarred, never the same.  For us, to protect us.

In the former world, this book series was hope that we could live in an idealized world, that we could free ourselves from the need to kill.

In the world we live now, it is tantamount to a social faux pas, cassie is a smack in the face to our society.  For this reason, I wonder if the series can ever be accepted well again as it is written, with cassie generally seen as "the special one."

In my parents generation, forcing your morals on others was a tool for ensuring a good society.

In my generation, it could be seen, as evidenced by 911, forcing your views on others is annoying at best and vile and evil at worst.

Sad, but that is reality.  If we don't accept morality isn't black and white we'll never survive.

And that is exactly the point this series was trying to prove.  What always struck me as funny was the mary sue test question of 'is your characters the mouth piece of your views'.

Well, in good fiction, they are.  Why are you writing if you don't want to prove a point?  Do you want your character to be a thoughtless blank slate to be nothing more than a shallow fantasy-fulfillment piece?  (Why, hello, bella swan. Fancy seeing you here.)

We get three views.  View one, loren and cassie: killing is bad.  Period.  View two: visser one and visser three: bad people are real, the dangerous ones are cunning and connivng and can make bad things happen.  the terrifying, but less dangerous ones, are the ones that just try to plow through without understanding their enemy.  View three: elfangor, alloran, and Marco.  Killing is bad, but if you want to be free you have to pay the price, and there isn't a happy ending for those who sacrifice themselves for it.

In pre-911 world, cassie and loren had a point.

In post 911 world...cassie and loren are pretty much stating to us the sky is blue.  No **** sherlock, step aside and let the people who understand freedom isn't free do their work for you.

The reason we can get behind loren is she is tragic, she paid the price.  She had wonderful morals but in the end she had to come to the realization they weren't realistic, she lost everything, even her happy memories.

Cassie didn't, she was rewarded for being a pain in the ass and being a mockery to people like marco and elfangor.

[Ember Nickel]

I don't totally agree. I think Applegate does use Cassie as a mouthpiece for her own views, sometimes, but I also think she believes that war can be necessary. You seem to consider Cassie a character whose moral thinking is rather black-and-white (in a bad way), but I think that Applegate would say that moral thinking shouldn't be black-and-white (thus disagreeing with Cassie).

And I don't think Loren lost her memories because of her morals, she lost her memories because some more powerful individual than her thought it was necessary for the safety of the galaxy, so I don't see what you're getting at there.

[Noelle]

Sorry, it's more symbolic more than anything.  Too many literature courses.  Obviously Loren lost her memories because someone erased them, I was just saying that the war affected her very badly in the end, even though she seemed to believe war was bad no matter what.  (Though, this could be argued, but unfortunately that's a whole other essay in itself, I'm mostly going on the fact that she had a father that was in the vietnam war, and in a way she inadvertantly convinced Elfangor to leave the war for her.  But like I said, that's getting into a 20 page essay on symbolism.)

Sorry, English BA's tend to warp your thinking into seeing symbols and trends that may or may not be there.     We can pull a BS philosophical essay out of anything.


I actually do agree that K.A. does not agree with Cassie entirely.  But I do say Cassie's thinking is black and white in a bad way.  My point is she put her in to show an opposing view point.  In the past, that view point wasn't insulting to a lot of people, so a lot of people liked Cassie.  Today, it is insulting to a lot of people, so there are some people that extremely dislike her.

[AllyVP]

Quite frankly, this book was boring, and I'm skipping it.  I sort of skimmed it, and one think did strike me.  Marco and I would get along very well.  See, I have a roommate that I love dearly.  But she is into the "green movement," which I find to be incredibly silly.  We compost under our kitchen sink, no one is allowed to drive unnecessarily on spare the air days, etc. 

When Cassie was freaking out about the logging news, Marco said "And I care about this...why?"

I'm on your side, Marco.  I just don't care.  I have a lot of things I care about, but saving three trees by recycling every cardboard box for the rest of my life (which is probably about what you are accomplishing) is not one of them.

[RYTX]

   1. Honestly I think he's being pretty clever so far. Blood hound, go after their likely home. Not bad. His later "front page article on The Sharing" boring, dumb and near cartoony, but right now this is the way to go about it. I can't think of many other times he did it-but really I think the best way to hunt morphers would be traps. Or at least better security at your events. But right now it's as good of villainy as V3 gets.

   2. Clearly I love to hate her, but these two strike me in this book, because Cassie has all this anger towards him that she admits isn't fair. Good to see her succumb to basic feelings of rage. In general, they are epicaly boring together being all fair and just, but them being the voices of compassion is, it works very well against the other too. Leaves me to wonder why they weren't really closer.

   3. When not doing so immediately and severely impedes your quality of life: When it's out to injure or kill you and yours, thing is destroying your home, you need to eat. Having said that, I'm grieving all the spiders I've unjustly killed, but there it is. There are always exceptions, but that list could go on forever. If you really are this troubled by it, well I think you have to bail on it. One of many reasons I never understood her

   4. They did not overplay family time in this series, and I'm glad. I lie causally, so don't see it as a big deal, though I can see where doing it for, you know, good reasons, would be hard to keep up.

   5. Morally, I saw nothing special or critical in this book. Strategically, she did well. I don't think skunk should have shut down the whole plan, but I've never been sprayed
   6.  a. I think the terrifying auto-matron aspect, like in the ant, was artistic license. Either way Cassie was out of line in her reaction b. First thought is of course HYPOCRITE, but more over this was artistic license the other way. I'll be saying throughout that humans are more like animals than animals are like humans-but the mother thing here was very anthropomorphic, and it's hard to shake that away. Why not be on par with a human mother is all I can ask, and I've no reason in response. Again, world defenders, need to stop playing zookeeper, but still a good "aw" moment.

   7. Self-pity, junk food, self-destruction in general. Not healthy, but nothing too big. The more I try and empathize with Cassie, the more of a moral abyss I feel. My morality is strongly tied to the law, which should be the enforcer, not the source. That said, in an off the chart fight, anything goes. If I did discover my limits, well I'm inclined to say I'd bail. But if I didn't I would just kind of bottle it up and keep going. Suffer in silence. May yet be the death of me.