1. Though having just found out about a physical ailment in my own form, and being a bit distraught over it, I can't fault the Andalites for this. They are an able bodied people, and take great pride in that, it makes sense that those who cannot perform are looked down on, as first response. Shutting them away does nothing for them, they should still attempt at overcoming a handicap. Pity for the injured is not the same as shaming them, and that's what this really does in my mind I believe this was made a significant issue as a just another part of demonizing those who were once slated to be saviors, to make you dislike this near-enemy more. Maybe it was to foreshadow the auxiliaries, but I think this was part of the effort to degrade the Andalites even beyond their sins in war.
2. There is so much horribly wrong here. Kudos for being vets as long as you were, but dammit, the planet you are now occupy is under attack: help! If Ax could rig up all he did from spare parts in a few hours, I have to imagine two soldiers, one with access to a university physics department could do a bit more, but not even an effort? Now that's shameful. The friend ship is nice and all I suppose. Individually Gafinilan impressed physically, but that he'd sell out the planet for one person, I took him as a bit of an ass for that. Mertil seemed just timid. Even at the end, his little yell was just, uninspiring to me, because ultimately I don't think he'd ever make anything of it..
3. In the specific case of morphing, I consider it trading one illness for another: to go from being able to become anything, to trapped in one form forever seems terrible to me. But seeing how he lives now, not really using morphing as I would, it doesn't seem too bad a course of action. In the real world context though, nothings taboo. So long as the cure doesn't damage more than the disease, doesn't horribly impair quality of life, I'd go through with it.
4. Her death should have hurt Marco more. I like Marco and Rachel together. Yes they fight, but there's only a handful of times the hostility is genuine. After all this time of fighting together, saving each other, supporting ideas, being the two most likely to go off alone and the other insisting on being back-up, I would have thought. Their dynamic in most things was fine, but at the last good bye, I would have rather seen Marco show something more-and that was the one problem I had with the two of them.
5. Kinda flat. He was still paranoid and tactical and all that, but I guess it just wasn't a way that showed any change in him. Spying out an equally paranoid alien, well dumb really, but he did get the guy's M.O. Him and Mertil: I think Marco falls in and out of sympathy readily. He knows about being alone, but being a kinda closed off guy, having him show it is weird.
6. Anyone like the link? I've been stung by several bees, so I'm less than friendly towards them. I really liked the robber fly scene, just because you have a stinger doesn't make you invincible. This is about what I expected for a social mind in other creatures as well, and individual in a group, not a component in a machine, but I'll again cite that portrayal to predjudice. Bees sometimes sting, but also benefit. No matter what they are doing, ants are termites are thought of as pest. Bees are considered "smart" as insects go, but that's in part because of what has been done with them, and that is part of physical as much as cognitive ability. I would be frightened to live as a bee, one weapon and to use it is to die. Some other cool features, but little you can't find in other insects.
7.
8. Idea was too soon after the other new Andalites. Timing is everything Scholastic, but that doesn't seem to have been considered.
