Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Kagebutterfly on June 30, 2008, 01:01:01 AM
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Does anyone know what were or was K.A's favorite Animorphs book? Did she ever say?
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I have no clue. I can tell you about which is her favourite animorph.
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I've read somewhere that she liked writing #19 (which is one my faves too). She also liked the Helmacrons a lot.
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yeah, i read in many of her interviews, when asked, that #19 The Departure was her favorite book, and her favorite book to read. For me it was great indeed because it really dived into the gray area of good vs evil, and we got a totally new perspective on the war from the Yeerks. And then Cassie....man, making the ultimate sacrifice?
Put yourself in her position. Does anyone think they'd have been able to do what she did? Become a nothlit. A caterpillar just to make small peace?
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Put yourself in her position. Does anyone think they'd have been able to do what she did? Become a nothlit. A caterpillar just to make small peace?
not me
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cassie is dumb for doing that, its excatly the opposite of what marco would do
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well I guess you could call it dumb. you could also call it brave. It depends on your prespective. My prespective: brave
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i mean what does anyone actually gain from it? the animorphs loose a fighter and one little girl is freed.
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one little girl is freed.
they gained that
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one little girl means nothing to all the other humans and aliens that are still infested by the yeerks
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one at a time one at a time
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I think #19 was a very important book, and what the Animorphs gained from it was very subtle: they gained the knowledge that their enemies weren't pure evil and they had a very good reason for wanting to take hosts. In the end, this leads to Cassie giving up the Escafil device so that the Yeerks will eventually have a way to give up being parasites, which leads to the Taxxons agreeing to help the Animorphs, which leads to Jake teaming up with Tom's Yeerk for the final mission.
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I didn't like it. And I especially didn't like the whole "metamorphosis" can give you back your morphing power thing. Even if it was physically possible, how would anyone know when the two hour time limit started? It's not like it just instantly happens; it takes time to metamorphosize.
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when it comes out of it's cacoon (well chrysalis actually) wouldn't that count as metamorphosis complete?
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If they go one at a time but have to lose a fighter each time they do it, then thats just plain stupid. Overall, Cassie's decision was brash and illogical. She had no idea that with natural morphing she could come back. She was so hooked on one person, that she forgot that she had a responsibility to the rest of the world too.
The book is good because of the whole showing the grays of good and evil, but Cassie's decision was not a good one.
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Her act of brashness makes her much like Rachel, except the fact that she did something to help someone else. It also shows why the Animorphs need diversity though. Marco's thinking seems cold and intelligent, and Cassie's seems foolish and compassionate. Each provides a viewpoint for Jake to take into consideration.
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she wasn't planning on coming back. she didn't want to kill anymore. she just wanted it to end. she didn't forget her responsibilities. She said several times what she should do for the world instead of for Karen. She just didn't want to kill. if you didn't want to kill, what choice would you make?
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It also shows why the Animorphs need diversity though. Marco's thinking seems cold and intelligent, and Cassie's seems foolish and compassionate. Each provides a viewpoint for Jake to take into consideration.
It's also, I think, why the andalites always lose. they have no diversity.
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I doubt any of them really want to kill, but they're trying to do what they think is right for the greatest number of people. Like the Joe Bob Finestre situation.
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and yeerks don't count as people?
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Not really. They are attacking the home team, so you have to view your enemy as inferior to an extent or you end up like Cassie.
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she wasn't planning on coming back. she didn't want to kill anymore. she just wanted it to end. she didn't forget her responsibilities. She said several times what she should do for the world instead of for Karen. She just didn't want to kill. if you didn't want to kill, what choice would you make?
That kinda sounds exactly like shes forgetting her responsibilities. She pretty much just gave up. It's a shame that she has to kill and hurt people, but she and the other Animorphs were given the responsibility to save the world. It's all on their shoulders. By giving up, Cassie is condemming so many people to a horrible fate. Plus, she's turning her back on her friends, whose chances of winning are drastically cut without her in the battle.
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she wasn't planning on coming back. she didn't want to kill anymore. she just wanted it to end. she didn't forget her responsibilities. She said several times what she should do for the world instead of for Karen. She just didn't want to kill. if you didn't want to kill, what choice would you make?
That kinda sounds exactly like shes forgetting her responsibilities. She pretty much just gave up. It's a shame that she has to kill and hurt people, but she and the other Animorphs were given the responsibility to save the world. It's all on their shoulders. By giving up, Cassie is condemming so many people to a horrible fate. Plus, she's turning her back on her friends, whose chances of winning are drastically cut without her in the battle.
If I'm not mistaken, Cassie had quit the Animorphs prior to making that "small peace" with Aftran. She was losing her animals, losing her friends, losing herself to a war with every battle. She wanted out. Quitting was the first step. Making small peace was the completion to the cause. She allowed herself to be trapped feeling she had nothing to lose, and only peace to gain.
I admire her bravery. No one can ever call Cassie a coward, or inconsiderate, or even foolish. B/c she was the farthest thing from that. The girl knew what she was doing. She understood the consequences, anticipated, waited, and acted on her instincts which were usually right.
How is being compassionate foolish? Or unintelligent? You need people like her in war. If her empathy made her weak then I don't know what strong is. You dont have to be a blood-thirsty killing machine all the time. Sometimes it takes more than that just to win.
Oh, and because of Cassie they were able to start the Yeerk Peace Movement, right? Wasn't that beneficial in anyway throughout the remainder of the series, all the way to the end? I think so
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it was one of the members of the peace movement that freed jake in #50.
thanks for adding that in filmstu2005. man I am so terrible at debating...
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when it comes out of it's cacoon (well chrysalis actually) wouldn't that count as metamorphosis complete?
But why does coming out of the automatically signal that metamorphosis is complete? The butterfly has to be ready to come out of it's cacoon first off, so it's metamorphosis should be complete before then.
And another thing; Why did Cassie still have all her morphs and her human morph was still her "base form"? She stayed in morph over the two hour limit, so shouldn't all the rules that applied to Tobias apply to her?
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ask ax. he'll know how natural morphing works
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How is being compassionate foolish? Or unintelligent? You need people like her in war. If her empathy made her weak then I don't know what strong is. You dont have to be a blood-thirsty killing machine all the time. Sometimes it takes more than that just to win.
I take that back, it wasn't foolish, it was cruel. By quitting and trying to become a nothlit, she showed that she didn't care if she condemned her family and friends to total slavery, just so long as she was content. Though I totally agree wars need people like her to keep everyone else from getting out of hand and to ground them morally.
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well...all the animorphs were cruel in their own way.
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Very true, no one in the story was truly good or evil, except V3, he was just kind of a goofy, bumbling fool who got stuff wrong alot.
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she wasnt brave by getting trapped, brave would have been sucking up her fear and hate of killing for the greatest good, instead she took a huge risk that aftran wouldnt screw her over, risking her friends, family, and the entire world just so she wouldnt feel bad about killing one little girl
not saying i dont love the book, and i can see why K loves it to get back on topic lol it was one of those books she could really get deep with a single character, get to explore them alot more
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she wasnt brave by getting trapped, brave would have been sucking up her fear and hate of killing for the greatest good, instead she took a huge risk that aftran wouldnt screw her over, risking her friends, family, and the entire world just so she wouldnt feel bad about killing one little girl
not saying i dont love the book, and i can see why K loves it to get back on topic lol it was one of those books she could really get deep with a single character, get to explore them alot more
You've got to be kidding me. So you claim it doesn't take bravery to live out the rest of your life blind, the size of a bug, and almost non-existent to the world? That doesn't take bravery? To never see the light of day again?
So you claim Cassie never sucked up her fear and hate of killing for the greater good? Lol. What do you think she had been doing all that time? It wasn't like she never got involved in the battles. Its not like she never fought or ripped a Hork-Bajir's throat out with her wolf jaws. She wasn't a benchwarmer! And even after that episode she sucked it up and continued to fight.
And I must remind you that she QUIT. In the opening sequence of that book She QUIT. What did she have to lose? She wanted to make one small peace. One peace. And she hoped that somehow that peace would spread and start something much bigger than expected. And because of her the Yeerk Peace Movement was formed. How were her actions selfish? She didn't do it for herself, but out of hope for humanity.
Isn't life all about taking risk? Didn't Elfangor take a risk when he gave them the Andalite morphing technology? They very well could have all been Controllers already. So Cassie took a risk. She became a nothlit. It ended well didnt it?
I could never understand why people disliked Cassie so much. She was always a character I enjoyed reading about. They all were. Tobias was my least favorite though because he could never got off his depression.
The book in which I most admired Cassie was in The Test, when Taylor returned. She knew it was wrong to try and gas the Yeerk Pool, and destroy so many innocent lives. In a sense it was similar to a terrorist plot, an analogy that cannot be denied. She was brave, she took out the station controlling the gas, and shut it down.
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And I must remind you that she QUIT.
The fact that she quit just furthers the point that she turned her back on her family and friends just so she could feel morally satisfied.
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I'd like to feel morally satisfied...
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And I must remind you that she QUIT.
The fact that she quit just furthers the point that she turned her back on her family and friends just so she could feel morally satisfied.
She was losing herself in a moment of weakness and did what she felt she had to do. Please don't tell me that people never fall. And if I remember correctly she came back right? At least she got back up.
So the fact that she quit does not further the point, at least if you dont take the situation out of context. You have to look at it as a whole.
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If things went as planned, she never would have gotten the chance to redeem herself. And I agree that everyone has moments of weakness, but she still ditched her friends and family.
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didn't you learn anything from animorphs? plans never go as planned.
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It doesn't matter if she quit or not. She still knew all the information and all about what was going on. When she let Aftran into her head, she took one huge risk. Even though she had quit, all the info about her friends was right there and it would have been so easy for Aftran to just turn it all over to the Yeerks. When she let Aftran into her head, she betrayed not only her friends, but the whole human race.
I realize that Cassie did good things with the Peace Movement and so on, but it all could have been thrown away if Aftran had had just the slightest ambition to want to help the Yeerks.
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In her defense all I can say is Cassie trusted her instincts. And she was usually right about them.
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yeah, i read in many of her interviews, when asked, that #19 The Departure was her favorite book, and her favorite book to read. For me it was great indeed because it really dived into the gray area of good vs evil, and we got a totally new perspective on the war from the Yeerks. And then Cassie....man, making the ultimate sacrifice?
Yeah, that is definitely one of my fave Ani books as well! Yay for complexity and gray area....not to mention the introduction of Aftran, whom I love! :D
Though I love the follow-up book ten books later, "The Sickness," even more!
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Jake also fell due to his weakness... MM4 remember?
Tobias also fell, book (Taxxon morph, forgot the title... :p)
Rachel... well, Rachel is really strong.
So is Marco and Ax, although both of them were reluctant/indifferent at first.
Cassie also made another "dumb yet wise" sacrifice at the final arc. Giving the morphing cube to Tom.
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Cassie also made another "dumb yet wise" sacrifice at the final arc. Giving the morphing cube to Tom.
Indeed....and it was crucial in winning the war!
Cassie saw the bigger picture, more so than anyone else. Choices she made that seemed stupid at the time always paid off later--for example the YPM played a key role in helping Jake escape from Visser 3 in #50, and it probably wouldn't have existed to such a degree without Aftran....
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Rachel... well, Rachel is really strong.
I guess you forgot #48 The Return? Rachel is not impervious to moments of weakness.
Okay, I will admit this. You are right. Cassie was selfish. She found herself acting selfishly when she quit the animorphs. It was wrong of her to just allow, as Rachel said, "the whole [to] drop dead just so long as you, [Cassie], don't end up turning into me (Rachel)."
But it was in her moment of weakness, after ripping out that Hork-bajir's throat out. It was after those countless war battles. It was after all those nightmares which constantly reminded her of the terrible inhumane things she had done. And being the kind-hearted pacifist it drove her crazy. Take into account the type of person she was and realize that moment was inevitable and necessary for her character development. It wouldn't have worked with Jake, Marco, or Rachel. They weren't as resistant to the effects of war like she was.
It was selfish, alright. Her family, her friends. Cassie gave up on it all just so she could feel morally satisfied. And I don't fault her for that decision. Not one bit. There was too much on her plate and she knew she was losing herself. She claimed she didn't need time to recollect, and that her decision was final, but she wasn't aware that her decision-making wasn't complete. There was an ordeal she had to undergo. One that would change her perspective on the war in its entirety.
And then with Karen, Cassie jeopardized the Animorphs secret by allowing Karen to infest her. But by the time that happen she had come to understand Karen. So much that she was able to anticipate her actions, knowing that Karen was not a real threat to her or her friends. Read the book again. Cassie is a very smart girl.
But i have a feeling that even if she didn't come across Karen, she still would have went back to the Animorphs.
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ok this thread is pretty much dead, but noone really hit the point that I saw in it.
Cassie stopped fighting because she felt that by fighting she was lossing what she was fighting for, humanity. She felt that she was becomming that which she was fighting to destroy. I think this was somewhat reflected in the conversations with karen she had where karen kept saying that there's no difference between humans and yeerks.
was her decision to try to make peace with the yeerk stupid? - definitely
but it gave hope. Hope for an end where one side didn't have to be completely destroyed to end the war. Trust me, as much as it is necessary to fight and kill, and sometimes, completely destroy, it is not something that anyone desires (except a few blinded by bloodlust), and the chance of a solution that deosn't involve complete destruction, even a fool's chance, is something worth taking some risks for
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You have to give up something to save the planet. Innocence is not really something to hold onto as tightly as Cassie tried to.
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You have to give up something to save the planet. Innocence is not really something to hold onto as tightly as Cassie tried to.
On the other hand (playing the Devil's Advocate here, hope you don't mind), that's an easy statement to make when you are removed from the situation. Cassie's actions weren't always the smartest, and they may have been inherently selfish, but they also were spawned from her strong morality and, as donut so eloquently stated, the fear that she was becoming the enemy.
What's the point of fighting for something if you become that which you are fighting?
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If it achieves the goal you want to set out, and your motives never change, I'd say it's fine. See, the motive for doing something is the main difference between two sides. They may do similar things, but one may do it to save the planet while the other does it to destroy the planet.
This is actually mentioned in the TV Tropes page about this kind of thing. The hero never just states that there's a difference in motives.
But you are right. I've never been a soldier, so I can't say anything from experience.
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I don't think it was her innocence she was trying to hold on to. She didn't really have a problem (realitivly speaking) with killing until she stopped feeling bad about it, until she felt nothing from it.
I think it was that she was afraid she was lossing her compassion and even her sense of right and wrong (as it seemed to be set up in several books leading up to this one), effectively the very things that made her who she was, the things that she saw as seperating her from the yeerks and the very thing she was fighting for.
If you destroy what you're fighting to protect, then what's the point?
And to the people who consider her a coward for it, I happen to think it was an incredibly couragous act. Incredibly stupid, but couragous. People talk all day about courage, but they only seem to think of physical courage, the courage that lets you charge a machine gun. Almost noone pays attention to moral courage, the courage that lets you stand up for what you believe in, even if everyone else thinks you're nuts.
I would never consider cassie a coward for backing out for the reasons she did, an idiot maybe, but not a coward.
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She's an extremist, and I tend to look down on extremism. You mention destroying what you protect, but in book 19 she was basically giving the world the middle finger rather than change herself.
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that small peace was probably a huge inspiration to a budding yeerk peace movement. there is power in martyrdom. and of course, her little resurrection from her martyrdom doesn't undo that.
cassie is the Yeerk messiah. she basically allows herself to die for them, gets resurrected for them, and ultimately gives them salvation from their parasitic (if you follow the analogy, 'sinful') states w/ the morphing cube.
it might seem stupid to you. but I suppose ghandi and christ and bobby sands are all stupid in some way too. she took a stand and did something that she thought would have a much bigger impact than fighting and killing in a potentially futile war. she saw more power in that small peace than in a hundred dead hork bajir controllers.
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I do not equate Cassie to Ghandi or Jesus. Not by a long shot.
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that small peace was probably a huge inspiration to a budding yeerk peace movement. there is power in martyrdom. and of course, her little resurrection from her martyrdom doesn't undo that.
cassie is the Yeerk messiah. she basically allows herself to die for them, gets resurrected for them, and ultimately gives them salvation from their parasitic (if you follow the analogy, 'sinful') states w/ the morphing cube.
it might seem stupid to you. but I suppose ghandi and christ and bobby sands are all stupid in some way too. she took a stand and did something that she thought would have a much bigger impact than fighting and killing in a potentially futile war. she saw more power in that small peace than in a hundred dead hork bajir controllers.
I think that's a really interesting parallel to draw. Cassie's idea truly was the only possible route to salvation and an end to the war. Hm, I never thought of it that way before.
+1
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While I do agree that letting Yeerks become nothlits is a good idea if they choose to do that, I really disapprove of the way she did it. And it's not like she even did it on purpose. Plus it wasn't the only way.
Obviously there are people willing to become voluntary, so if a system was put in place where yeerks could take voluntaries and only voluntaries, that would be a good alternative to nothlitism. Unfortunately voluntaries are looked down upon as scum in the series, so there's prejudice to deal with against their choice.
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And such a system would work well in our enlightened minds, but keep in mind there are the Andalites to contend with too. I don't think that they would ever agree to allowing Yeerks to run around in ANY host, voluntary or not. It was a stretch just getting them to agree to what essentially amounts to Yeerk genocide. Humans have a good deal of influence over the fate of the Yeerks after the war is won, but they aren't the only factor. The Andalites would argue that so long as a single Yeerk remains hosted (even in a voluntary host) there is the potential for the plague to spread again.
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Well that's the Andalite's issue to deal with, not the Yeerks. The Yeerks shouldn't be forced to become something else or die. They did the same thing the the Yeerks that the Yeerks did to other species. While some may see that as karmic justice, it just doesn't seem right. It's obvious there were Yeerks who were in the same bind as the hosts they existed with. They either did what the government told them to do, or they starved to death.
Looking for voluntary hosts is what should have happened in the beginning when Seerow gave them portable Kandrona machines. Yes it would need to be regulated, and any Yeerk who enslaved involuntaries would be treated like any other criminal of any species that took part in slave trafficking or whatever.
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Well that's the Andalite's issue to deal with, not the Yeerks. The Yeerks shouldn't be forced to become something else or die. They did the same thing the the Yeerks that the Yeerks did to other species. While some may see that as karmic justice, it just doesn't seem right. It's obvious there were Yeerks who were in the same bind as the hosts they existed with. They either did what the government told them to do, or they starved to death.
I'm not arguing that the Andalites are right in any way by wanting to restrict/destroy the Yeerks. I guess the basic issue here is: who gets to decide the Yeerks fate? There are three main parties involved here: Yeerks, humans and Andalites.
1) Yeerks: Well, they already decided their own fate, in a way, by forming the Yeerk Empire to begin with. But, post war, I would argue that if afforded the choice a great majority of the Yeerks would probably agree with you that their best option is to take voluntaries or maybe become nothlits by their own will....but by no means have nothlitism forced upon them. Of course then there will be other Yeerks, former Imperialists, who think that the Empire was right all along, which could majorly ruin things for the rest of the Yeerks. It doesn't really matter, though, because the Yeerks are the losers in this war, so they don't get to choose their fate anyways. The two real players are the Andalites and the humans.
2) Humans: The humans are new on the galactic scene, and need to tread carefully. They need to appear strong without offending anyone (read: the Andalites). At this point the humans also have limited technology....VERY limited technology compared to their space-faring friends. While I am sure some humans would agree that Yeerks remaining in voluntary humans is acceptable, those humans in power would recognize that the important political move at this point is NOT to make the Yeerks and some humans happy, but to form a firm alliance with the Andalites. This means taking care of the Yeerks on their own terms (aka not frying them all), but still terms that are acceptable to the Andalites (hence forced nothlitism).
3) Andalites: I am convinced that after all of the propaganda that's been spread by the end of the war the majority of the Andalites peoples would be entirely satisfied to see the Yeerk race obliterated. Not through rehabilitation or slow genocide by way of nothlitism, but by flushing/frying as many Yeerk pools as possible and/or forcing them back to their homeworld and setting up an Andalite guard that will never allow them to leave it. For the Andalites there is no other option. However, the newest player on the field, the humans, make their way impossible. They too need to form an alliance with the humans, however shaky, or risk bringing a new threat to the galaxy.
So....yeah....not that I disagree with you on what would be best for the Yeerks, Chad. It's that from a political mindset, from a post-war mindset, it's just impossible for that to actually happen.
And now I've yanked us entirely off topic. Oh dear.
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I do not equate Cassie to Ghandi or Jesus. Not by a long shot.
neither do I. i don't even equate ghandi w/ Jesus, and definately don't equate bobby sands with either. those were just random examples of real life people who succeeded by doing something similar to what cassie did in #19. to understand cassie in #19 you gotta realize that not only did she hate the killing, the killing seemed futile. more futile than the Jews against the Romans, more futile than the Indians against the British, more futile than the Irish against the British. that's why I think what she did in 19 was awesome. rather than fight and kill possibly pointlessly, she makes 1 connection, 1 small peace. by martyring hersefl. a small peace that actually ends up growing into a larger peace movement inside the ranks of the enemy itself.
and as much as I really don't believe it (because if it was a well thought out strategy it was a stupid one that could've been done better. seemed like they played with the idea of having Cassie make a really dumb move but then changed their mind because they wanted to keep portraying her idealism as ultimately insightful and good), it was insinuated that Cassie actually knew what she was doing when she let them get the blue box.
I really like and respect what cassie did in 19. always been one of my favorites. what she did at the end of the series was much more stupid, but I do like how they turned it around. if they had thought it through, they could've had her actually give the box to a contact in the yeerk peace movement. maybe still have the tension by having her do it against jake's wishes.