Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: EscafilDevice on August 26, 2009, 05:39:23 PM
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Animorphs was very character-driven, especially in KA's books, but because of the length of the books they couldn't really be subtle. Rachel is a good shopper, but what does she dress like? What did Tobias do in his spare time?
I think that if Animorphs were made into a movie/"updated" they would fill in some of the gaps.
For example, I could see Marco as the lazy smart kid who's a bit of a geek. He goes on 4chan (browsing the Victoria's Secret website my ass, Marco was looking at porn instead of hacking into the CIA website with Ax), is a somewhat serious gamer, and is heavily into science fiction. He annoys Rachel in the classes they have together and he makes Cassie want to pull her hair out when he aces tests but doesn't do homework. No girls really wanted to date Marco in the series, so he's a less creepy/more sympathetic version of Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory in this regard.
Do you kind of see where I'm coming from?
I think about stuff like this when I'm running, maybe we can flesh out the Animorphs a little more.
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Interesting idea, but I don't really agree with most of your thoughts about Marco. When the series first started in 1996, the internet wasn't exactly a household thing and gaming was barely more advanced than the Sega Megadrive. Naturally this changed as the series went on, but as it did the Animorphs got more heavily involved in the war and wouldn't have had as much free time. Therefore it's unlikely Marco would have been a serious gamer. Other than computer games, he seemed to go online or watch TV a lot, and later in the series he would have spent time with his dad and maybe his step mum.
I wouldn't have been surprised if Marco was surfing the net for porn, but considering the age range that the series was aimed at, KA isn't likely to mention "adult" material.
Marco appeared to be good at last minute homework (some of the time anyway) and he was clearly very intelligent, but he certainly wasn't book smart. Personally I doubt he was the type who could pass tests without revising and due to being an Animorph he wouldn't have the time to study (even if he'd wanted to).
Rachel is a good shopper, but what does she dress like? What did Tobias do in his spare time?
It's possible that KA didn't go into details on Rachel's wardrobe because the current style could easily have been outdated by the time the book was published. It's also possible that she assumed the kids reading a sci-fi/action book series probably didn't care about fashion. ::)
Rachel presumably went shopping a lot, plus she still went to gymnastics classes for most of the series. The rest of her time was probably spent babysitting her sisters or out with her dad when he came to visit.
As for Tobias, I'd say he's one of the easier ones to guess in a way. Being a hawk he would have spent a lot of his free time hunting, as the success rate of his hunts wouldn't have been particularly high. When he wasn't hunting or on a mission, he would have spent a lot of time hanging out with Ax, talking and (later on) watching TV. We also know that he did a lot of scouting in his spare time, following known Controllers and searching for entrances to the Yeerk Pool.
Between school, homework, being an Animorph and helping out at her dad's clinic, Cassie probably spent time with Rachel at the mall and such.
As for Jake, I honestly can't think of much. Despite the fact that he and Cassie obviously liked each other, they never seemed to go out on a date (even after they kissed in #26) and he didn't even seem to hang out with Marco that much later on (outside of missions). One of the few hobbies we know he had was basketball but he lost touch with that pretty early on, and he wasn't as into computers as Marco was.
Thanks for bringing this up though, it's something I'd like to put more thought into when I continue my fic.
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i was surprised about how uninterested in maths Marco was, I mean his father supposedly discovers Zero Space flight but Marco acts like the plucky comic relief guy... Seriously if Charlie Epps and Amita had a child that child would be good at maths right? a real world example is Marie Curie and her daughtes all contributed to science (i think both mother and daughter won noble prizes). Unless Eva was less intelligent, but then would Marco's father have married Eva if she couldn't keep up with him? Geniuses tend to marry each other.
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From what little we know, Eva was intelligent, but we don't know what she did for a living. It's often hinted at that Marco was a lot like his mother (eg. similar driving skills) so maybe she wasn't book smart either.
You do make a good point about Marco's lack of interest in Maths, but it's not that surprising really. We're certainly not all carbon copies of our parents. Besides, I don't think Marco was bad at Maths (there was a scene in #14 that proves this) he just wasn't interested in it so he didn't bother putting the effort in.
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I agree with Phoenix. It's implied throughout the series that Marco is quite gifted with computers and math, it's just that he doesn't care to try in his classes, and has little interest in school in general. Honestly, aside from Ax and Cassie's knowledge of animals, I would say the Marco is the smartest member of the group, including book smarts. I think he's just lazy.
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Haven't you heard of hereditary? Obviously Eva was smart ( i pictured her as nurse or a midwife) but Marco's father would've been a genius, why did he marry her?
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Voodooqueen good numb3rs reference I'm glad I'm not the only one watching that show. And he married her cause he loved her
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Is it possible to love someone who is not your intellectual equal? could you fall in love with someone with down syndrome?
a huge part of marraige is actually compatibality in intellect, background, beliefs etc, possibly one of the reasons divorce is so common in the west and arranged marraiges are so successful, because the decision is being made on rational grounds rather than "our hormones like each other today".
(btw i actually had slight doubts about Elfangor and Loren, but then humans are as Andalites intelligent but lack education, so perhaps this is the explanation for Eva and Marco's father)
http://www.cracked.com/article_17061_5-things-you-think-will-make-you-happy-but-wont.html
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It's important to have common grounds, but equal levels of intelligence are not a requirement. I don't think there is a set of definite requirements.
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I like your marco ideas, I always figured it would be porn rather than victorias secret or baywatch myself too XD
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People fall in love (or marry regardless of love) for many different reasons. Unless you're first date with someone involves an IQ test, you're unlikely to know how intelligent they are compared to you unless they're in the same line of work. Maybe being of the same intelligence level is important to some people, but I wouldn't call it compulsory for a relationship to work.
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I don't think porn can be in a kids book
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I don't think porn can be in a kids book
Exactly. That's why KA said things Like Baywatch or Victoria's Secret instead, because porn wouldn't be appropriate for the target audience.
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I don't think porn can be in a kids book
Exactly. That's why KA said things Like Baywatch or Victoria's Secret instead, because porn wouldn't be appropriate for the target audience.
Well duh.
I'm talking subtext here. It doesn't have to be something mentioned, just something we think would be likely considering what we know.
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But the point of this thread is to flesh out the Characters without the limit that the authors and publishers had, so yeah, the way I read it is that Marco looked at Victoria's Secret catalogues and watched Baywatch with a healthy supply of Kleenex and tube socks handy.
I also like the detail that Cassie gets pissed at Marco for doing well without trying--we know Cassie was like a B student and Rachel won that academic award, but I have the kind of feeling that besides the couple of teachers who didn't buy his BS, Marco did well in school and pretended he didn't.
I kind of think Tobias was driving himself crazy with nothing to do but hunt. I'm sure it took up a lot of time, but with the human intellect I honestly had trouble believing he ever had to resort to roadkill. I think all of that honor-among-predators stuff was a psychological coping mechanism for him to make his life a little more complicated. I dont believe he was suicidal, so if he REALLY was having trouble surviving, he'd have no trouble dumping dignity and taking matters with other predators into his own hands. Or...talons. I believe, like most people here, I think, that most of tobias' angst was self-inflicted.
As far as Rachel, I just reread #32 and though I thought mean Rachel was in character, I didn't think nice Rachel was. Rachel isn't conflicted between her bloodlust and cowardice, I think her Achilles heel, at least opposing her love of the fight, is insecurity. Rachel is gorgeous and "doesn't care," but she certainly spends a lot of time on her appearance if that is the case. I think Rachel has a lot to prove to people--not only that her beauty is not just skin-deep, but that she's not just some blonde airhead. So she overdoes it. She overcompensates, showing that deep down she is not entirely okay with who she is. That is the other half I would have liked to see.
Um, who else...I like the few details we got about Ax, what he does all day. Honestly I can just see him going into town on schooldays and studying humanity in its natural habitat. Like going into a church and asking, "what kind of spirtual temple displays a man being tortured and dying on that primitive, wooden, intersecting device?" lol idk.
And Jake...tbh, Jake is the one I feel like we know the least about. He liked basketball before the war, he was Jewish, he looked up to his older brother...but after the war started, it seemed like his entire life was devoted to it. I guess it's kind of sad. He was always the one with the knowledge about military protocol and combat history, so I kind of picture him up all hours of the night, reading war histories and strategy guides under the blanket. I really think, out of all the Animorphs, Jake lost who he was the most, or at least who he had the potential to be, even more than Tobias. Tobias was already messed up. But Jake could have been totally fine.
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Yea, if Cassie was a B student she would not be becoming a vet. Its harder to become a vet than it is a doctor.
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Yea, if Cassie was a B student she would not be becoming a vet. Its harder to become a vet than it is a doctor.
lol ikrite?
Then again, she would have had some awesome recommendations...n ever underestimate the power of nepotism.
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I believe you're right about Jake. He does devote his entire being to the war, perhaps even moreso than Rachel. Tobias does it because that is the only thing going for him. The war, and his very small group of friends.
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Yea, if Cassie was a B student she would not be becoming a vet. Its harder to become a vet than it is a doctor.
lol ikrite?
Then again, she would have had some awesome recommendations...n ever underestimate the power of nepotism.
She could know a lot about animals but be mediocre everywhere else. Marco and Rachel are the AP Scholars but Cassie's probably the type that wins the "Citizenship Award."
I picture Jake as being really typical and I think that's why his transition into the boy Eisenhower is so powerful. He gets decent grades, aims to go to a decent college (not super-competitive, but still good), and is one of those guys that everyone likes. I picture Tom as being more of the uber-jock (it was said that he was a former basketball star) but in less of the stereotypical **** kind of way. Catch my drift?
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my parents talk ideas at dinner: politics, science, history, psychology (any subject and they know it) without that intellectual element their marraige wouldn't be able to survive their otherwise volatile personalities, if one was less intelligent then they would become bored with the other... the smarter you are the more important intellect in other people becomes, it probably doesn't matter for the average, but for a genius (like the genius of a man who discovers Z space) it would be essential, you know how bad it is being stuck on a bus next to someone who is a sandwhich short? now imagine being married to that person.
I always imagine Jake becoming a doctor... until the war he was basically a very nice guy who would make a great doctor if his grades improved.
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Jake wanted more of a novelty career, if I'm not mistaken. I remember reading how he wanted to do something military-related from the get-go, and a very "old Jake" thing to do would want to be a pilot or be the captain of an aircraft carrier or something.
I also recall at one point he did want to be an MD, but of course a lot of his dreams became short-lived because of the war.
Marco was the procrastinator but certainly wasn't just an "average" student - he was probably just lazy.