Author Topic: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...  (Read 29533 times)

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Offline TobiasMasonPark

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Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« on: June 02, 2013, 10:36:41 PM »

     A thread for those of us unsure of why our heroes did 'x' when it would have been easier to do 'y'.

     Now, the reason behind many Animorphs actions is strictly for the sake of driving the plot. But lets put aside the plot for a second and discuss an alternative to some of the Animorphs' decisions. I think this should keep people busy, as our heroes make many a head scratching move.

     For some of the newer members, or for those of us who just plain forgot some of the stuff in the books, put the book number in parentheses (these things).

     I'll start with: Why didn't the Animorphs just load up on morphs from the get go?

     Sure, you could say that they were young, naive, and inexperienced, but come on! Marco claims to be paranoid, yet I don't recall him bringing this up. And the Animorphs are always surprised whenever they're faced with a mission where they don't have the appropriate morph. Had they just acquired everything at the Gardens, they wouldn't be in so much trouble. Of course, this is lampshaded in the fan fic "Idyllic" where either Marco or Jake says that, even if they had prepared, they'd still be screwed some how.
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Offline Snakie

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2013, 10:53:01 PM »
I remember at the very beginning of the series they wondered off hand whether there was a limit to how many morphs they could acquire, and Marco grimly remarked that they'd "probably find out at the worst possible time"  I don't recall which book it was, but I believe it was one of the 3 pre-Ax books, possibly even book 1.  Of course, one would think Ax would have dispelled such misconceptions.

But yeah, the reason the authors did it is because they wanted each character to have their own "signature" morphs, particularly bird of prey and battle morphs.

The reasoning WITHIN the storyline for the Animorphs not just acquiring everything in their reach is weak, and the above is the best I've got.

Offline theyoungphoenix

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2013, 01:21:04 AM »
I think Snakie answered that question for you. What he said made sense.
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Offline Snakie

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2013, 09:19:54 AM »
To keep this thread going, why didn't the Animorphs just hide David away until they could take care of the world leaders mission and ease him into things more slowly?

Trying to train a new Animorph and bring him along on their most crucial mission yet created tension they really weren't equipped to deal with at the moment, and shouldn't they have eased the new Animorph in with some smaller missions and morphing sessions first?  Was having a 7th person for THAT mission REALLY that critical?

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2013, 09:33:10 AM »

     That's a good point. It's one Poparena takes note of in his reviews. A lot of fans think that the Animorphs should have left Erek with the Chee. But one could argue that there was just too much going on at the time--the Summit meeting, David finding the box-- that the Animorphs sort of cracked under pressure and made some bad decisions. The Animorphs making bad decisions isn't at all detrimental to the story, though, as it shows how they have grown in how they handle certain decisions. The David Trilogy is considered to be a "turning point" of sorts for the series; it gets notably darker as the books go on from there. That could be why David was so poorly handled.

     Also, I think K.A. just wanted to give more reasons as to why David was such an unsympathetic ****.

     Another thing I've been pondering--though, it's probably a stretch:

     Why didn't Jake use one of the Chee to impersonate Tom while the Animorphs starved his Yeerk?

     Again, for the sake of the plot, I see why they didn't do this. But I'm sure that Jake spent many a day thinking of ways to free Tom, so maybe something like this crossed his mind? He could have asked any one of the Chee to project an illusion of Tom, go to the Yeerk Pool every three days to "feed" while Jake and the Animorphs keep Tom in the Hork-Bajir valley--or, perhaps less of a risk, the shed where they kept Jake-- and starved the Yeerk? They could have used that homeless Chee from the Exposed to pretend to be Tom for when ever Tom was supposed to feed. Tom could probably live at home, as though nothing happened, and supply the Animorphs with a wealth of information. The only problem here would be that he would have to keep up the charade when confronted by Chapman, and other controllers. And, of course, he'd still have to attend the Sharing. But they could always just keep the free Tom in the Hork-Bajir valley while a Chee lived his ordinary life. It would be a hell of a lot better than being a slave.

     Again, it's a stretch. I don't think the series would have been as great if they had gone this route. But it's neat to think about. I can see why K.A. wouldn't want to overuse the Chee-- the same reason she doesn't use the Ellimist all the time: too over powered.

     Hell, things for the Animorphs would have been so much simpler if they just had the Chee go to school for them, while they caught up on some z's in the Hork-Bajir valley. I mean, seriously! That's the perfect place to do Animorphs things! Why stick around in a barn, risking possible interruption from Cassie's parents, when they have a Hork-Bajir valley that only they can see! Come on, Animorphs. You've got these sources at your disposal. Use them!
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Offline Snakie

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2013, 09:43:20 AM »
Damn, I thought I'd had an original thought there, as I didn't remember that particular point from poparena's reviews.

The Chee were completely underutilized as the series went on, even though their useage increased as the story went on.  If they had enough power to create a hologram of an entire Hork Bajir valley, than there's a million different other acts of deception they could have taken part in that would have made any number of missions a lot easier.

I file that under the "its best not to think about it" categories, as the reasoning internal to the story isn't quite there.  I think KA (and the ghost writers?) ended up making the Chee a little more powerful than they were originally intended to be, and KA was definitely conscious of the idea of overusing them.

Offline donut

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2013, 10:29:42 PM »
I agree the chee were under used.  But I kinda think it would have hurt the story to have used them to their potential.

Like why didn't the anis ever use the chee to get aboard the bridge of the blade ship?  The anis could hide inside the hologram and then use the hologram to show a much larger presence and bluff a surrender of the bridge crew.  Even if they couldn't bluff it, they could likely take the bridge with surprise and use the chee or Ax to hack the computer system.  If they could turn the ship on the pool ship it would effectively end the invasion.  Or if all they managed to do was scuttle the blade ship it'd be a serious blow to the yeerk

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2013, 10:48:05 PM »
To answer Goose's first question:

We see what happens a number of times when the Animorphs tried to morph an animal with no experience or real knowledge of how that animal's mind works, only for the consequences to be near fatal. So loading up on a bunch of morphs when you have no idea what you are doing isn't going to be the smartest move, no matter how you slice it.

Think about it. Do you know how to use a bow and arrow? Do you know how to use a sword? Do you know how to use a sub-machine gun? Or a rocket launcher? If you only knew how to use one or two of these things, would it make sense to load yourself up with others until you had some idea of how they worked?

Then there's ever present problem of the Chee. Sure, they were underused on the surface, but you do realize they were not required to help the Animorphs right? Everything they did was their own choice. There were even Chee who were frustrated by the actions of Erek's group, so you can infer from that interaction in The Android that only a fraction of the Chee were actually involved in anything. And at least once Erek implied that as talented as the Chee were, it really was a task covering for the Animorphs and managing their own lives as well.

In the end, Jake had to blackmail the Chee to get them to help with over taking the Pool Ship.

Similarly with the Hork-Bajir, the Ellemist did not intend for the Hork-Bajir valley to be the Animorphs' couch. Under Toby's guidance, the priority of the Hork-Bajir was to free their people. Yes, they felt they owed Tobias a debt but, even though all of the Animorphs had a hand in freeing Jara and Ket, Toby was dead set on making sure the Hork-Bajir were independant of the human race even after the Yeerks were gone. So Tobias remained their token savior and the other Animorphs were pretty much just there. Marco's Dad and later everyone's parents not withstanding, the Hork-Bajir were not obligated to help the Animorphs.

It's got to be especially embarrassing when you figure Toby is not even a year old by human standards when we learn that she's freed more living Hork-Bajir than the handful of human and Hork-Bajir hosts the Anis tried to free combined.

As for Tom, he always seemed to get the high ranking Yeerks. Or the Yeerks that quickly earned Visser Three (One's) favor. Was Tom's competitive nature from his basketball days a small influence on Temrash and the other Yeerk? Who knows? But, the point is, Tom would been a host that people missed. And some of the human Controllers were beginning to suspect that the Andalite Bandits were actually humans. It wouldn't take long for someone like Chapman to get the significance of Tom specifically going missing.

Now here are my questions.

Why not give Toby the morphing power?

Cassie stops Jake from killing Tom. All is well with the world, but Tom wasn't exactly running the four-minute mile. At the very least, she could have ran him down, knocked him out, and grabbed the cube back before anyone was the wiser.

Why didn't Rachel just kill Visser Three after he let Ax go?

Offline donut

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #8 on: June 10, 2013, 03:14:16 AM »
Quote
Sure, they were underused on the surface, but you do realize they were not required to help the Animorphs right? Everything they did was their own choice.

Yeah, but that's about the same as saying the animorphs weren't required to fight the yeerks or listen to Jake.  It came up from time to time, true, but it was in everyone's best interest to do so.  The chee knew that if the yeerks won all the dogs would be killed, so supporting the animorphs was their best chance of continuing what they wanted to do.  And at least some chee never seemed to have a problem helping the animorphs before the last fight.  They concealed the valley, they spied for the anis, they took their place for the Arctic trip.  And the anis saved a good number of the chee when they went to pemalite ship. 

I get why they couldn't replace high level yeerks though.  They would have had to do things that would violate their programing to keep their cover, like killing people.

To your questions,

Toby - I don't think their was much of a reason not to, just no reason to do it.  She wasn't going to fight with the anis, she had her own war to win.  She also couldn't lead the HB morphed.  She wouldn't have been Toby to them as soon as she changed.

I think Cassie wanted Tom to have the cube.  She seemed to think it was the right decision even when she didn't realize she made it.  And wasn't Tom still armed at that point?  I seem to remember wondering why Tom didn't just shoot them when Cassie stopped Jake.

I can't recall which time you're talking about with Rachel.


Here's one:  Why didn't the animorphs ever train or rehearse?  Until the end when they were staying with the HB I don't think they had ever even practiced what they were going to do.  As Marco put it we don't practice, we just go in and hope everything works out.  (at least he said something close to that.)


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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #9 on: June 10, 2013, 07:15:53 AM »

Quote


Toby - I don't think their was much of a reason not to, just no reason to do it.  She wasn't going to fight with the anis, she had her own war to win.  She also couldn't lead the HB morphed.  She wouldn't have been Toby to them as soon as she changed.

...

Here's one:  Why didn't the animorphs ever train or rehearse?  Until the end when they were staying with the HB I don't think they had ever even practiced what they were going to do.  As Marco put it we don't practice, we just go in and hope everything works out.  (at least he said something close to that.)

I don't think the Animorphs wanted to deprive the Hork-Bajir of there leader. Taking Toby into Animorphs battles would have risked her life, and the Horkies would have been left with no one to organise them. Would have been pretty awesome though :P

Did they really have time to practise? The first portion of the war required them to still lead relatively normal lives in order to not seem suspicious. Going off everyday to practise missions or morphs may have got in the way of normal activities.
Also, I seem to remember a lot of missions being decided on the spot. No time to practise in those situations.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2013, 08:39:40 AM by Adam »
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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #10 on: June 10, 2013, 07:40:58 AM »
Why did they wait until book 25 or whatever to start using the chee to cover for them at home when they did missions? Why didn't they rescue Tom in book 31, when that was the best chance they'd ever had after book 1? Why didn't they tell David to crash at Erek's house, since the main reason he was causing problems is because they wanted him to sleep in a barn full of animals? Why didn't they use dracons?


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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #11 on: June 10, 2013, 09:03:46 AM »
I don't think the Animorphs wanted to deprive the Hork-Bajir of there leader.

They wouldn't have had to. Toby wouldn't have to join their missions, but giving her the morphing power might have come in handy, should she, say, lose an entire arm on one of the many raids to capture Hork-Bajir.

Of course Toby might have refused it on principal, but a Seer with the Andalite morphing ability could probably think of some uses.

Offline donut

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #12 on: June 10, 2013, 01:46:30 PM »
Quote
Why didn't they tell David to crash at Erek's house, since the main reason he was causing problems is because they wanted him to sleep in a barn full of animals?

They didn't trust David, and the yeerks didn't know about the chee.   They could have lost their spy network if David blabbed.

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #13 on: June 10, 2013, 02:02:58 PM »

     Well, even if David DID blab about the Chee, what are the Yeerks going to do--infest them?
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Offline donut

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Re: Seriously Though, Why Didn't the Animorphs Just...
« Reply #14 on: June 10, 2013, 07:16:16 PM »
The biggest advantage the chee had was no one knew they existed.  They were spies, and in the spy world to be known is to cease to be useful.  At the very least, if the yeerks had found out about the chee, they'd take measures to find them and destroy them.  And if the yeerks could ever capture one intact...