1. Great plan, job well done. Totally tactless, but effective, and while being able to tell the leaders may have felt more like a win, I still doubt it's practicality, so mission accomplished.
2. Russia. Don't know why, but this is why I think Russia may have been the controller, because I'd like to think the human HOS would not get drunk before a meeting of world powers.
3. I found his plan disgusting. It's a horrible, horrible lie, and while under the darkest circumstances I may be willing to lead someone else's life, I'd never want someone to take possession of my life. As foul as the murder attempts to me.
4. I don't think of David as being able to influence or lead. Left to his own he'd be surrounded by incompetents or traitors. The Animorphs can't risk him out there with the Yeerks, but if not for that I doubt they'd be okay creating a law breaker and letting him carry out his own agendas. Excellent moral fiber those kids.
5. I always think Jake, as the leader, should have had a personal foe. Him and the Visser, even him and Tom were never mutually personal enemies. However David and Rachel make good opponents. Brazen, ambitious, but not without sense. But why, I don't know. David never seemed upset enough about his parents, or hell bent on getting them back, so I while I'd like to say it was Rachel's shots at them that did it, it doesn't seem enough. Same puzzlement over how he went from: I hate Marco, to I hate Jake, to I hate Rachel. Too quick of a progression imo.
6. One of the greatest aspects of the trilogy, is Rachel having to face herself publicly, acknowledging that growing darkness, and her affects on others. I like the addict description for her. A little, a little more, and then it just becomes so hard to break the habit of something you come to love, and eventually it changes you. This book for a moment seems to say this is where she'll level off, but either by GW or KA that fails by 27, or at latest 32.
7. I really like these two in this book. Rachel's resentment, the way they speak of each other, their reconciliation is all very dramatic. Particularly like Rachel's statement about V3 wanting Jake's head on a stick. They seem to have the most complete views of what the other is capable of better than any of the others. I'll touch on them again in MM3 at least, but they don't strike me as close in a family sense. However, their ambition, their drive makes for a strong unity when they reconcile, and a bit of danger when they don't. It does somewhat surprise that Rachel accepts Jake as leader throughout, but then, it may be due to some of the many parts of her personality never really addressed in the books.
8. I've seen some brazen as rats, even in the face of danger they aren't all pure panic. They really hit the threshold between small and sizable animals, which is a bad place to be in my eyes, because you're at high risk from both ends of the spectrum, though better positioned to exploit both. And that about sums up most of what I have to say about the rat, every bad has good, every good has bad. Not a magnificent life I'd want to lead, but I could think of many worse things.
9. Never quite as striking as it should be, but then, Cassie's a very striking person.
10. No. They did it for their morals, not their security. They should have killed him, but weren't ready to take that step yet. As a kid, I doubt I'd have been willing to make that call either. As an adult I wouldn't look forward to it, but I'd accept that it would be the smartest off a list of ghastly choices.
11. Yes I would, and here's how. As a rat. 23 hrs a day of sleeping, eating, running for my life. 1 hour of considering the world. Not myself, not my life as a human, but to fall back into the habit of day dreaming for hours on end, things that never were and could never be. Lose the human self, be a rat, and in those fleeting moments where I can, just wonder if.
12. ....In this book Jake says no one would care if "Saddler's" favorite foods suddenly change or whatever, but I wonder if they would. Saddler's tongue, Saddler's brain, I wonder where it is Saddler's palette is stored.