Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Homer on January 07, 2009, 12:36:30 PM
-
sometimes i think the books will do better with a few uttered vulgarities...
like when rachael is mad with david...
or when jake is mad at some failure...
or elfangor just saying it to visser 3 for fun.
its like quite obvious applegate knows the f word... so its a pity really that she replaces those instances where they can be used with less strong words... makes the words a bit impotent really. Eg. "David you stupid jerk" sounds weak compared to "**** you David" ... Ya?
and jake and cassie...
sometimes u just wish they get it over and done with... its always a kiss here, a hug there, eye contact... and you wonder: when will u guys just GET DOWN to it :o
ah well sometimes i do... just wish applegate will add sometime like: "And that night i brought cassie to my house, and there on my bed we finally did it." Y'know? No need to get all detailed, as long as she just makes it clear that it happened. What do you think?
Pls pls pls don't report me for putting this post. I did it in good faith, trust me ;D
-
For a children's series, no. She was already pushing the boundaries as it was.
-
I don't think it would work unless the series was for... an older audience.
I wouldn't mind if they let out a few more swears since, well, if they're really mad saying "CRAP!" doesn't really do much imo. I think they should say stronger things since she has no problems showing the "darker side of war".
About the romance thing, idk, I mean, especially for Jake x Cassie, I always saw their relationship as... innocent. They seemed so private about their relationship and the only time they ever kissed was after a mission, as Cassie said in book # 34. If anyone, I think it'd be Tobias x Rachel to go for that... extra mile? idk lol
-
lol thats why I listen to Animorphs the Radio Drama (unsensored) cause they get all the stuff thats hidden
-
I think K.A hit the right balance with Everworld in terms of swearing and innuendos, and if she had done the same thing with Animorphs if it had been marketed for an older audience, then I think it would've been fine.
As for a high amount of swearing though, I think it would've been ridiculous to have that in Animorphs, mainly because you have to remember that these are 12-13 year old kids. They are going through hell, with enslavement, morphing changes,... death, but they are still kids. They're not gonna go "f*&k you" again and again with every battle when they're still too young to pick up those types of habits. I could see it happening in the final arc maybe, since they are 16 at that point, but before that it would've been OOC for them. You don't need swearing to make the series more mature or "darker". As Nohenson said above, the boundaries were already being pushed for a middle grade series.
Also, sex scenes? Really? They're 12 year old kids. I could see rape/forced breeding coming into play, but again, I didn't feel the series had to go that far to be mature enough.
-
Eh, I've seen kids using that language all the time. And they were never 12 in the series, iirc. They started at 13 and ended the war at 16. And most 13-16 year olds drop the F-Bomb approximately two hundred and twelve times... a day. :P
Besides, they had more of a reason to swear than most teenagers.
That said, when I write them I still prefer to save the cursing for important moments. Because if they start swearing all the time it loses the impact.
-
Eh, I've seen kids using that language all the time. And they were never 12 in the series, iirc. They started at 13 and ended the war at 16. And most 13-16 year olds drop the F-Bomb approximately two hundred and twelve times... a day. :P
So, very, very, if unfortunately true. I still think it's hilarious that Marco couldn't call bat **** bat **** in A17.
As far as sex scenes, the short answer is no, not necessary, but I've got more to say on the subject after I think it over.
-
Eh, I've seen kids using that language all the time. And they were never 12 in the series, iirc. They started at 13 and ended the war at 16. And most 13-16 year olds drop the F-Bomb approximately two hundred and twelve times... a day. :P
I suppose that varies with different locations then, because I hardly ever heard anyone drop the F-bomb when I was 13, or from someone my age. This was also the time when Animorphs first came out, so I was basically the same age as the characters, so if I saw that kind of language in the books, then it would've totally pushed me away from relating with the characters. It wasn't until I reached high school at 16 when swearing started to become a more common thing.
-
Yeah, I lived through a sheltered childhood too.
-
I agree I would have liked to see a Everworld-level of swearing. Ha.
I don't think sex scenes would be necessary. I can't think how they would really add to the story. Maybe for Rachel and Tobias it would add something to the complications of their relationship, but I dunno.
-
Sex scenes? In Animorphs?
I mean, yeah, might be more realistic if one or two of them were sexually active at that age, sure. But would it add anything to the story, really? KA was covering enough pretty advanced subject matter as it is. Animorphs was a war story, not a melodrama. Save it for the HarperTeen romance shmuck.
Tobias: Raaachel, we had people sex the last three times! You promised if I did the dishes we could do hawk sex! I even got you flowers AND a dead mouse!... come on baby...
Jake: So Marco, what's your favorite position?
Marco: Humpback Whale... Don't ask.
-
wasn't there a thread like this (http://animorphsforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,1875.0.html) already?.. ::)
it's a childrens' book anyways. maybe if she re-made the series.
-
haha thats funny homer & dahjo :)
i like it the way it is now
-
yeah, i like the animorphs they were. everworld is everworld, but animorphs is animorphs. maybe if it started out like that, but not now.
swearing maybe, and sex, no. i dun think there isn't much needed for that.
-
I could see sex again if it was older, but a vulgarity or two would be perfect.
I can remember plenty of "OH ****!" moments in the series
-
i remember when i read the series (at a relatively young age) i thought she was pushing the line with 'crap'.
lol. ::)
-
lol. well, i think vulgarity would make it more realistic and it would be kewl here and there. but sometimes, when I hear people swear i just think they're trying to be cool and it comes off as the opposite effect to me.
-
I think she did a good enough job with the actual emotions so that when she used the second tier swear words like crap and damn they still had a good effect
It obviously would have been more realistic if they had dropped a few f-bombs, but not really necessary
Sex, no way dude, thats just stupid. Maybe if the characters were older it would have made more sense, but it still wouldnt really add anything to the story. Them having sex would be completely out of character, not just cause they're so young, but because rachel and cassie just dont seem like that. Cassie is def a wait til marriage and Rachel...well she wouldnt do it at 13 i know that lol
-
rachel? oh my gosh, i could see her swinging both ways, but with the war she definately swung towards holding back....
-
For older odience, yes. For kids, no.
-
Yeah I like it how it is. No real need for all the other stuff as its a childrens book series.
-
SPOILER WARNING, by the way.
Animorphs already has quite a bit of sex.
No, really.
But, first I guess I'd better begin at the beginning. (not The Beginning)
For those of you who don't know, Applegate is a very versatile author. To slightly paraphrase Scholastic (http://www.scholastic.com/kaapplegate/about.htm):
"Applegate is an award-winning author who has written books on a wide range of subjects and in a variety of formats, from picture books (http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/archives/017367.html) to adult romances (http://www.fictiondb.com/author/katherine-kendall~the-midas-touch~21154~b.htm)."
So, if she had decided that Animorphs would have improved with graphic sex and language that would make a sailor blush, well, I imagine she would have done so (and marketed to an older audience, of course).
There is certainly this in Animorphs: eros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves#Eros) (It's Wikipedia: clicky please readie)
Marco's father (do we ever learn his name?) & Eva
Elfangor & Loren
Jara & Ket
Tobias & Rachel (of course)
Dak & Aldrea
Ellimist & Tree
Oh, and apparently the Eros of human hosts is addictive to Yeerks (neatly covering both sex and drugs! Or at least eros and addiction)
Eslin & Derane (A08)
Essam & Edriss (Visser)
This, by the way, explains why Tobias and Marco's father are so badly broken up, after Rachel and Eva's deaths. They had both given parts of their souls away, and that part died. They are in a very real sense, torn in half.
Now, of these eight notice that: six end in one of the member's premature death, four are cross-species, and two of the remaining ones aren't normal for their species. Twisted much?
Now as far as physical intercourse is concerned, there are really four things to say.
- Obviously none happens on page.
- Obviously some happens off page. Where else do Tobias, Toby, Marco, and Ellimist's Andalite children come from?
- An insensitively handled sex scene would detract from the work. A lot. (LOL, dahjo)
- Tobias and Rachel do show quite a bit of physical affection. See the end of A33, for example.
So, are they having sex off page by the end of the series? Maybe. Maybe not. There isn't enough evidence to say, and you know what? I'm OK with that remaining unknowable.
-
I'd agree that an actual sex scene would be uncalled for. Maybe an implication (and really, with the amount of times Tobias goes to Rachel's bedroom, I think our imagination can do the rest), but that's it.
Vulgarities, though, could have worked. Not an extreme amount, of course, but when things get really bad, people will curse. And in fact, the books TELL us that they curse, they just don't put it the exact words on paper.
Ex: And then Rachel said some words I didn't even know she knew. (book one, slightly paraphrased as I don't have the book in front of me)
However, the way it was handled could come off as confusing to the more naive among us.
For example, in Megamorphs #3, when someone calls Cassie the "N' word. Clearly, this is a word that shouldn't be in a kid's book, so it's a good thing it was censored. Now, at the time that this book came out, I was quite naive about things like racism. I knew that racism existed, of course, I just didn't know that there were racist words. So when the book told me that "and then he called me a word I won't repeat", I didn't realize it was referring to what it was. I thought he had just called her a b*tch, and that she was over reacting.
So, had some curse words actually made it on paper, then my naive little mind could have realized that this part was meant to have something even worse than a puny little swear word.
Of course, this might have just been me. Like I said, I was quite naive.
-
...with the amount of times Tobias goes to Rachel's bedroom, I think our imagination can do the rest...
As I will now demonstrate
But we did it lots of mornings. Whenever Tobias managed to find an early breakfast and it wasn't raining.
See?
Tsk, tsk, your dirty RAFian minds...
..."it" is Rachel's homework.
-
I would've liked to see both if only for the fact that it shows them getting older and more mature. It just seems that they were 13 up until book 50 or so and then they instantly jumped to being 16. Some aging in between would've been nice.
I don't think that having them swear every other word would've been good for anybody, but they definitely had their chances to swear. Although KA did have someone sometimes say that "*blank* used a word that I can't repeat" and stuff like that I guess. And I don't think we need a full fledged sex scene with intimate details (I'll save that for my own fics), but some implied stuff would've been nice to see. Maybe Marco making a few jokes on how Tobias and Rachel had sex or having the rest of the Animorphs finding out what really went on between Jake and Cassie or something like that. Anything to make them seem a bit older really.