Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Splintercell100 on July 09, 2010, 01:18:08 PM
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After Jake acquired the Howler morph, why did he never try to morph the Howler again after he left the Iskoort Planet? When reading #26, it felt to me like K.A. Applegate made the Howlers seem pretty powerful. Even a single howler seemed very formidable. I mean, their howls were enough to incapacitate most people in the nearby vicinty. Also, their regenerative ability and acute mind that can pinpoint a living organism's weakness seemed like great traits to have in battle. Also, since one single Howler was able to take on all the Animorphs and Ax in that battle in the book, it only goes to show that the Howler morph is more powerful than Jake's tiger morph.
Can you imagine how different the series might have turned out? (I might be overstating the Howler's potential here.)
In close quarter battles, he could incapacitate most of his foes with his shrieks. He might have been able to catch Visser 3 off-guard and knock him unconscious with his howls before the Visser could morph. Then he might have been able to kandrona starve Esplin.
I mean, it is possible that Jake could just simply walk into the Yeerk Pool and continue howling and running around till everyone was on the ground unconscious or dead. (Though this would hurt innocent victims and thus would most likely not happen.) After all, what would Jake have to worry about? Any slashes from the Hork Bajir would just heal itself. (I am not sure what would happen if he got his head chopped off...but I would venture to say he would stay dead and not regenerate.) But even more so, he could have been the one to be aboard the Blade Ship in #54. A quick demorph and remorph and I am positive he, with his howls, could have taken out the yeerk troops that were with Tom. Then he could have either tried to land the ship or just bail and demorph and remorph to a bird in midair. If that happened, Rachel and even Tom might be alive. )
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There's the No Morphing Sentients rule. also Crayak or Ellemist may have removed the Howler DNA.
That would have been a nice morph to use against V3's morphs. I kind of wish he had used it, especially toards the end. I could see him taking the Blade Ship with that morph.
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There's the No Morphing Sentients rule.
I call shenanigans. Especially at the end, when the Animorphs were breaking every rule in the book, that rule wasn't worth the cost of a life (Rachel's, and possibly Tom's as well). Besides, didn't they make exceptions to that rule? (I seem to recall them morphing Leerans to check on the infested/non-infested state of the U.S. officers, although that may have been a fanfic)
also Crayak or Ellemist may have removed the Howler DNA.
It would have been Crayak. The Ellimist was obviously on the Animorphs' side, and would probably have been happy to let them keep the DNA in exchange for their doing his mission.
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They suually get the person's permission before morphing them. But yeah, I never really liked that rule anyway. Just use the morph responsibly, and things should be fine.
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Even though this would most likely fail, I would have ran up to the Ellimist and/or Crayak and tried to acquire them. Most likely just the Ellimist because I can't see him hurting me even if I failed.
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I can't see that working at all for various reasons.
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I would presume that part of the agreement between Ellimist and Crayak would have to have been that the Anis don't get to retain morphs acquired during the challenge once it is over, but it would have been nice to have that mentioned in the same way that they confirmed the time-travel related morphs were no longer available, so it doesn't just seem like the author forgot to explore that potential.
As for acquiring the Ellimst, what exactly are you going to acquire? If the forms that he appears before them in are all illusions you'll get nothing, but even if he actually creates an entire body for his forms you'll just get an old-man or a bird-thing. Even if the Ellimist in his entirety still existed in a physical location, you'd just get a Ket's DNA, nothing special. With the Crayak on the otherhand... it's hard to say, he may have started out as just some alien, different than anything we know but not significantly beyond the powers of the other aliens we do know, or maybe his race/people of another galaxy actually are super-powerful naturally, but he was still "more machine than man" by the time Ellimist met him (it?) so DNA of whatever form you got still wouldn't necessary be a super-space-and-Z-space capable amazingly equipped being and with would not be in any case be capable of the super-natural abilities that Crayak and Ellimist have. Not that the Anis knew all of this, but they must have assumed that these beings were very much not of this world (universe) and not acquirable because they didn't fit into its physical rules.
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I don't even think any of them have touched The Ellimist in the first place.....2nd, like mentioned, wen in dream or "outta this world" missions....you can't keep the morph. Otherwise, they'd morph T-rex and had been done with the war in #27. Now if they were allowed to morph the Chee (which wouldnt happen cus they're Androids) then that would have been great as well...oh well
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Well there's a difference between In Time of Diniosaurs and The Attack. The Anis didn't go into the past when they went to the Iskoort Homeworld. There was no time travel that we know of. So the only reason Jake didn't keep his morph is because Crayak wouldn't let him. Either by removing it or telling ellemist to remove it.
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My point is they were both "out of this world" missions, so those morphs were only for that time
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I can only assume Crayak and/or the Ellimist removed Jake's ability to morph the Howler. I'm also fairly certain that Crayak and the Ellimist cannot be acquired since they both lack a true physical presence. Anytime they appear in mortal form, it's either a projection or some kind of replica.
Besides, didn't they make exceptions to that rule? (I seem to recall them morphing Leerans to check on the infested/non-infested state of the U.S. officers, although that may have been a fanfic)
I assume that happened in a fanfic, since it didn't happen during the series. You do make a good point by bringing up the Leerans though, as they never used those morphs either. I would guess that the effect of their bodies being forced into Z-space and snapped back didn't allow for any morphs they acquired to be permanent. Another thing you might want to think about is why no time elapsed while they were on Leera before they were snapped back, but that's a different conversation topic entirely.
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like mentioned, wen in dream or "outta this world" missions....you can't keep the morph. Otherwise, they'd morph T-rex and had been done with the war in #27.
I disagree
Throughout the series the Yeerk empire proven to be devoid of even a single crack-shots on all of planet Earth, and wherever else the Animorphs went conveniently enough, but ya gotta think someone would be able to hit the broad side of a brontosaurus. and other big a$$ lizards
Even it a handheld dracon couldn't kill a rex in a shot, it should be able to incapacitate the limbs enough to line up something fatal
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like mentioned, wen in dream or "outta this world" missions....you can't keep the morph. Otherwise, they'd morph T-rex and had been done with the war in #27.
I disagree
Throughout the series the Yeerk empire proven to be devoid of even a single crack-shots on all of planet Earth, and wherever else the Animorphs went conveniently enough, but ya gotta think someone would be able to hit the broad side of a brontosaurus. and other big a$$ lizards
Even it a handheld dracon couldn't kill a rex in a shot, it should be able to incapacitate the limbs enough to line up something fatal
good point...very good point, I can't believe I missed that.
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Well, there is no in-story justification for the "can't use out of this world/time morphs after the book is over" but it was pretty well stuck to that even if there is no reason they shouldn't be able to use them, there was never even a suggestion among the characters; it's kinda a shame because very little dialog or narration would be necessary in each case would be necessary to patch up some of those holes (like a Crayak/Ellimist comment that 'now that the game is over your acquired morphs will be removed to ensure that they do not change your path on your own timeline').
And yes, the lack of time elapse on Earth during the Leera conflict really doesn't make sense in any justifiable way (Though it was necessary for them to fudge that random nonsense in so that the Anis' back-on-Earth, mosquito-formed bodies were not left in morph for more than two hours without their consciousnesses... although I can think of some fairly simple, logical ways to change the setting to fix this without a nonsense answer).
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That was actually one thing that irked me about the Leera book. No time elapsed, and Ax is like <Well of course that would happen.>
This was an unpresedented event that Andalites didn't even think was possible. Don't act like you know anything about what's going on.
That seemed like a handwave to explain why they aren't all stuck in mosquito morph, which is kind of a Voodoo Shark trope, if you know what I mean. A hand wave where the actual hand wave doesn't make sense either.
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Also, there is the fact that the book is called ANImorphs as in animal morphers. I believe Applegate just wanted to keep things basic. Just morph animals. I tend to agree, with all the different alien species in the animorph universe that the animorphs have encountered and the few they acquired (hork bajir, howlers, leerens,etc.)It would be way to fantastic and powerful to morph into a howler and blow a yeerk's head off with a single scream. But on the other hand it does make sense in the storyline to use the most powerful weapons available. ::)
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It would also be really cheap to morph a Leeran to gather Yeerk information or find out if someone is a controller.
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The thing is, I do understand why some of these would be "This would make things too easy for the Anis" problems, or why during the main series KA would plan to stick to the main premise, only using the fantastic morphs for the individual books in fantastic settings; but I would say that if you plan on this then plan on a good, solid reason why in each case (no, the time travel justification in #11, The Forgotten does not make sense for In The Time of the Dinosaurs). I mean, the plot holes were never so bad that it turned this good series or good individual books of it into bad, but having to ask questions like these then answer them only with suspension of disbelief isn't nearly as satisfying as it all just fitting: too fantastic, powerful or 'cheap' makes sense from a literary perspective, but doesn't explain why the characters who are fighting in a war wouldn't use the best and most appropriate tools at their disposal. (And like Chad points out with the mosquito morph problem, it is only worse when instead of not providing an answer for a plot hole it attempts to provide a reason that makes no sense itself).