Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Ss112 on February 10, 2010, 08:56:24 AM
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I don't know if it's been discussed before (it probably has, it's kind of inevitable after reading the book), but I just read #48, and I'm really stumped. There are so many feelings in that book that Rachel, and David, go through, until, of course, you get to the end, and she's sitting there in the alley staring at David, the rat. And he's begging him to kill her, and she cries, and then she says she wants to do the right thing, but doesn't know what that is, and the end just leaves you hanging. So what are your thoughts? Do you think she actually did the 'right thing' (according to David, at least) and put him out of his misery? I personally believe she would have, although it would have come with immense guilt, (which she, in a sense, already had) as I personally don't see her going back to the rock outpost and depositing David back there... I'd even venture to say it'd be a worse fate than death.
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Hooray shameless fanfiction plugs!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3516180/1/Animorphs_The_Prey
Don't worry, it's short and on topic.
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I think she would have killed him. It is the right thing to do. trapping him as a rat like that was just wrong. I don't care how bad david was, it was just not better than ending him quickly.
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Personally..I think she took him back to the rock.What he did...turning on the Animorphs and such..I..think Rachel took him back and choose to let him life his life out as a rat..it might not have been the right"choice"but I think it was a way for David to suffer for what he did/was going to do.
I might sound abit...mean but I never liked David.
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i hope he's dead :P
i would do the deed myself
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It might have been a bad idea to keep him alive. He may look harmless as a nothlit, but don't forget that he was still armed with thought speak. He could have been able to tell anyone that visited the island. I'm thinking that he might be dead because if they let him live, He could have told the Yeerks several secrets about the Animorphs, such as their tactics or plans and they could have very easily lost the war.
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I think yes he was probably dead before the end, but I can't say rachel did it.
Can't think of a substantial reason for her not to, but I really don't think she did
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I don't know, I think she is crying at the end because she knows what she had to do which was to kill him.
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if they let him live, He could have told the Yeerks several secrets about the Animorphs, such as their tactics or plans and they could have very easily lost the war.
true, that. huge, huge problem.
i need to reread 48. i would, however, like to think that rachel was spared from having to kill the guy- not a pretty decision. could she have done it? i think so. but i thank god i've never had to make a call like that, myself. =| when i was younger, i'm pretty sure i told myself that i could have done it. no sweat. but now...
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In 48 David threatened to tell random controllers about the Animorphs. Then in the next book the Yeerks start to look for humans. If Rachel did spare him, it makes sense --timing wise --David was the reason their cover was blown.
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ho, snap. nice point.
i wonder if kat-mike (see, these interviews are blowing my mind in unprecedented ways. now i can't just say "KA", i have to somehow include Michael) actually had that in mind. sometimes, i think, these things just "fall into place" without rhyme or reason.
that would make an interesting little side story, too. (conspicuous nudging of RAFanfiction writers)
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In 48 David threatened to tell random controllers about the Animorphs. Then in the next book the Yeerks start to look for humans. If Rachel did spare him, it makes sense --timing wise --David was the reason their cover was blown.
This is a good theory, however, many random controllers (including Chapman) had already speculated that the 'Andalite Bandits' were really humans all the way back in #4. They just weren't going to go around throwing speculations at Visser Three, without proof, only to get their heads cut off. The timing of their discovery does match with #48, but the real reason their cover was blown was because the Yeerks had actively begun looking for humans with animal DNA in them. The blood samples and the DNA that the Animorphs left lying around after their battles confirmed this for the Yeerks. Also, this Yeerk operation could have easily been started because one of Animorphs slipped up and got caught on one of the hundreds of missions they had been on before. The 'Andalite Bandit' cover wasn't a long-term solution anyway. It was only a matter of time before it was blown, and the rumors were proven true, especially if they had been started by the Yeerks all the way in the start of the series.
Personally, I believe that Rachel did kill David at the end of #48. Just a gut feeling on this, especially as how she suddenly became more violent and bloodthirsty in the last few books, and became far less reluctant to taking lives. The one scene in particular that makes me think of this is in #52, when she goes to kill a controller even when he is trying to escape the war and trap himself in a bird morph. That's an awfully big change, going from stopping the Yeerks, to simply killing them all. Something very personal must have happened to her to push her into that kind of state.
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well, realize also that controllers would probably not just get "hey, the 'andalite bandits' are human" out of the talking rat, but also "there's this guy, marco ___, and these three other dweebs...", etc. out of him.
still.
i feel as though that tied together nicely.
in actuality, i believe the change in 48 occurred because katmike had decided it was time to drop the landing gear, so to speak. i doubt that they deliberately came up with a reason (saves them time, although they love the excuse "lets the reader decide"). either way, i liked dolphin's theory because, well... it's great when, in hindsight, story elements unintentionally fall into place. it's a good feeling. =)
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That would be sad if killing David was what sent Rachel over the edge. That means she went over the edge because of what Cassie did to David. Putting him through a fate worse than death.
But it really isn't the first Human that died because of them, and I'm not sure why killing a Human would effect any of them so badly, except in a case like with Jake and Tom. But then this is KA's series, and things will happen the way she wants them to whether they make sense or not.
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I also think she killed him for numerous reasons.
1. it seemed like the right thing to do
2. he knew WAY too much about them, he could blab to human that passes him and odds are that human would be a controller(which is why I always wandered why they never killed him in "The Solution". Did they forget nothlits are capable of thought speak? plus it would have been awesome to see them all go battle morph and whoop his lion ass :P)
3. After all David put them through, he deserves to die. I know that's kind of mean but if he had asked me to kill him, I would have done it right away. Not cuz I felt sorry for him, not cuz he could snitch to the controllers, but becuase he was a jackass and after everything he put me and my teammates through, nothing would have made me happier than to end him...wow...that was rather morbid
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They didn't kill him in Solution because he was Human. That's all. which is a dumb reason, but Cassie goes berserk if any Human is killed, regardless of what they've done. I think the main reason she left Jake in the end is because he sent Rachel to kill Tom.
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Meh, Even if her sense of right and wrong wasn't how it was, that still probably would have been the final straw for Cassie or any girl for that matter. That entire final arc was full of Jake making lowdown and morally wrong decisions, not just what he did to Rachel and Tom.
Back on topic...
They could have just killed him and never tell Cassie :P Just put him on that remote Island like she planned and then have Tobias fly there for a midnight snack :P
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I think that the situation in #49 actually proves that David was not able to contact the yeerks. David knew all of their names, their addresses, everything, but in #49 the yeerks were still searching for them. When the Anis got into the base, the yeerks had only found Tobias's mother (who David didn't know about), and it was implied that that happened very recently. If David got in touch with the yeerks, they would never have run the DNA search program at all. Before the Animorphs knew anything, the yeerks would have stormed their houses, infested their families and, if possible, infested or killed them.
That said, in #48, David had recruited two "henchmen," who saw Rachel morph multiple times, and managed to escape at the end of the book. If they talked about it, that certainly could have tipped off the yeerks that the Anis were human. So it might still tie in, in a way.
The one scene in particular that makes me think of this is in #52, when she goes to kill a controller even when he is trying to escape the war and trap himself in a bird morph.
I'm pretty sure that the controller only told Ax that he was trying to escape the war. If I remember right, Rachel didn't come in until after Ax had let him go, so she probably didn't know what the controller was planning to do.
On topic, I think that Rachel did kill David. I don't have any particular reason, it just feels like it would fit better than the alternative. And, like I said, we know that David did not get in contact with the yeerks.
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Then again, how would the two teenagers have tipped off the Yeerks? Who do you talk to to do that? They could have overheard them talking someplace, but that would be extremely coincidental. And, if that happened, it seems even more unlikely that information would have filtered and gotten passed along and upward to Visser Three/One and his army. (And they may not have even taken notice if it did-- it might not have been regarded much more than Chapman and Tom and whoever else speculating the "Andalite bandits" were human early on in the series.)
I think it's probably just coincidence, but it does seem a kind of fitting coincidence that the discovery they were human happened after David's return and the possible things he could have said.
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I'd like to think that Rachel didn't kill him. Despite her recklessness and bloodthirstiness, I think killing David would have been too much for her. Because David wasn't just another faceless human/humancontroller; he was someone who used to be human. And I think Rachel saw a lot of similarities between herself and David: their recklessness, their fondess for agressive animals as decisions for morphs (eagles, bears, lions, etc), and their tendency to "shoot first, ask questions later". Sure, you can say that David was "evil" (I would disagree, but NEVERTHELESS) and Rachel, despite all of those things, was "good".
Personally, I don't think it's as black and white as that. David probably figured that he had to adopt a survivor mentality; a sort of "eat-or-get-eaten- mentality that I think Tobias would agree with. Obviously, David went too far. But maybe he figured that it was his only option.