Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Kitulean on September 04, 2010, 02:10:07 AM
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Is there anything in any books that, while not really a KASU, just bugs you? For me, specifically, it's any time they make these huge complicated plans about how to take Ax anywhere and how they have 2 hours and only 2 hours. Such as when they're taking him to see a movie and they plan out how he has to leave after half of it. Why not simply duck out for 5 minutes into the bathroom to let him do a demorph/remorph in the stall? Between Jake and Marco, they could have guarded the stall for that long.
I understand that they didn't even get that far, but the point is, they planned to have to leave. When I first read it, I asked why they didn't just do the bathroom morph thing, and I still don't know why now.
Another related thing is the whole issue of how Tobias and Rachel can't do normal boyfriend/girlfriend things. Why the heck can't they? I can't think of any place they could go (that teenagers go on dates) where Tobias couldn't duck into a bathroom for a quick de/remorph after about an hour and a half. It seemed like manufactured drama.
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it always bugged me that they never morphed ducks (until the end).
best way to air-travel.
there were quite a bit of pointless plots that bugged me as well. (buffahuman, atlantis, etc. the helmacrons' first book was amusing at times, though.)
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I think the main problem with Tobias and Rachel is that when they went out on dates they did have to keep that in the back of their heads. Instead of just being completely in the moment and enjoying themselves, they had to keep an eye on the time. I think that would kind of ruin things after a while.
Why didn't they get goose morphs when they had the chance, because Cassie had a goose in her barn in the beginning. Why did Tobias never get an owl morph after book 13?
Many people were bugged by Cassie not getting a better battle morph, but I have an answer for that. The wolf was the first thing Cassie had that could actually fight. She went through the whole first book with nothing better than a horse, and I don't think she did much in book 2. Aside from everyone getting elephant/rhino morphs in the David trilogy, no one besides rachel went out and got a new morph for battle. And the elephant/rhino thing was mainly to cause destruction and panic anyway. Not to fight. Unless you count Jake's rhino morph in 16. That's the best explanation I have.
Why didn't they tell David he could stay at Erek's house? They wouldn't even have to tell him they were androids. just say they have this friend he could stay with that has a bed, air conditioning, and TV. That's all David wanted when he broke into the hotel. Not sleeping on hay with the bugs and noise of animals.
That's it for now.
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There are many things they could have done but haven't. Reading the books, I often told myself "But why don't they simply do that?!" Manufactured drama or lack of ideas, I don't know... You often tell yourself "(s)he/I could do that then" afterwards, because you had more time to think about it, because you weren't in the same mood then... So maybe KAA&MG/the Anis didn't think about that when it happened... It's still strange, but it can be the beginning of an explanation.
For David, I think they just didn't trust him since the beginning, because of the names of his pets, because of what he wanted to do... They just didn't like him since the beginning and didn't want him to find out about the Chees. They were paranoid and angry, and David felt it...
I think both of the sides have responsibilities about what happened then.
In a lot of movies/TVshows/comics/novels..., you can see that if 2 persons talked together, explained themselves, then there would have been a lot less fights and deaths. But people aren't perfect, people aren't reasonable... and usually don't trust each other.
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Cassie BEING there bugged me.
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Cassie BEING there bugged me.
Word.
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Something that drove me nuts when they were revealing themselves to Rachel's family: the characterization of Jordan. It was established early on that she was 2 years younger than Rachel. And when the Ani's came clean to their families they were 16. That means Jordan was 14. One year OLDER than Rachel was when she first met Elfangor. So why the heck did Jordan think Ax was a Pokemon? Either they forgot her age when writing that scene or Jordan is just a flat out idiot. If a 13 year old Rachel can recognize an Andalite as an alien a 14 year old Jordan should have been with it enough to figure that out as well.
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Well, even if Rachel saw the space ship and not Jordan, I think that she was pretty clever in the early books, so you're right, it's really strange...
Or maybe she was addicted to Pokemon and the word popped out of her mouth before she thought about how stupid it was to say that... ^^'
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I thought it was Sarah calling Ax a pokemon, and jordan went along with that instead of saying it's a dangerous monster that might hurt them. Then again, I haven't read the book in a while.
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anytime an Andalite was mentioned as having only one stalk eye or some awesome scars to increase his bad ass points, I couldn't believe he'd never morphed once after his injury to fix it.
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Yeah, that is kind of weird. Also if many Andalites aren't even going to use their morphing ability, why give it to every soldier?
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Here's something. In the first half or so of the series, it's emphasized several times how much morphing takes out of you, physically. The characters don't morph more then once or twice in a short space of time, they have to rest/are exhausted, etc. In later books, they morph constantly without ever passing out or anything detrimental happening. Particularly in #39, I think Cassie morphs about 10 times in 24 hours.
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That might be chalked up to getting more used to it, especially since Cassie is an estreen. Just like when you're out of shape, exercising can be a pain. Though the more you do it, the longer you can last. Eventually you can easily do things without becomeing tired that would have left you exausted a few weeks or months ago.
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That might be chalked up to getting more used to it, especially since Cassie is an estreen. Just like when you're out of shape, exercising can be a pain. Though the more you do it, the longer you can last. Eventually you can easily do things without becomeing tired that would have left you exausted a few weeks or months ago.
Yeah, I agree with Chad completely. Real life example: A while back I got a job involving a lot of hard physical labor. When I first started in the middle of the slow season, I'd work, come home, pass out, then wake up sore the next morning. By the middle of the busy season (a mere 4-5 months from when I started), I was doing two to three times as much work, coming home to party with friends until like 1am and be fine the next day.
Either way to get back on topic...
Why didn't they get goose morphs when they had the chance, because Cassie had a goose in her barn in the beginning. Why did Tobias never get an owl morph after book 13?
I agree completely with those two things entirely. They made me rage every time I read the books. How many plotlines could have been entirely skipped over if they could fly in unison for long distances or if Tobias could fly completely silently and see in the dark? If I had a dollar for every time I read, "Bird of prey don't exactly get along," or "Hawk eyes aren't exactly good for seeing in the dark, but are great for stargazing," I could probably pay to have a movie made >_>
I mean, they had access to geese/ducks from the start and always complained about the lack of endurance/non-compatibility of the raptors. Common sense should have kicked in at around the eighth time they talked about hiding from birdwatchers. Tobias was an excellent, experienced flier. He should have gotten an owl as soon he could morph again. He even mentioned envying them repeatedly in his own books. Yes Tobias, you too can now fly silently in the dark.
Another random bit that wouldn't have been as vital as the first two things, but still could have helped them out: acquiring Ax. A single mission where they all rushed in as Andalites, killed a large group, and left before anyone noticed they were all identical could have gone a long way in either halting any thoughts that the bandits were human or convincing the yeerks that the Andalite bandits were larger in numbers.
Another thing was Tobias' sheer lack of other flying morphs. By the end of the series, the yeerks were blasting red-tails on sight. If I were him, I would have acquired anything with wings just so I could get closer to sensitive targets. In fact, with birds of similar dimensions, he could have probably morphed mid-flight to confuse the yeerks (which would have also made a pretty awesome scene in my opinion).
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I'm not really sure about the morphing Ax thing, but Tobias should have definitely gotten other flying morphs.
I just think it's such a wallbanger when they finally get duck morphs, and Marco says "Why didn't we do this before?". That's a really really good question, and probably the ghostwriter taking a jab at the series because they went so long without something like that.
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Something that always bugged the hell out of me, was the characterization of Rachel slowly becoming all crazy psycho warrior girl. When in the last book of the David trilogy, there is a passage near the very end that specifically states how Rachel herself sort of lost the exciting thrill she always had for the war and "grew up a little bit" after the trauma of the whole David situation. I don't know, I guess I thought it was a nice touch for her as a character that was just thrown out the window, and now Rachel is regarded as this dark warrior who loved the war just a little too much.
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I really hate that portrayal too. she acted quite dark in the David trilogy, and two of the last things she did was say no to ultimate power and think about shopping just before the polar bear morpher killed her.
Yes she was the darkest Ani, but she never really lost herself. On TV Tropes someone called her a Blood Knight as soon as she took the grizzly bear morph, and that's just ridiculous.
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Ugh. The duck/goose thing bugged the CRAP outta me. :dull:
I hated the drama about morphing during movies and crap, too. But the thing that bugged me most of all was the fact that they would go to The Gardens, get ONE MORPH, and then leave. If I were them, I'd take a Saturday that there was nothing going on, go to The Gardens, and collect every animal I saw. :P (Not sure if they did this in later books, as I haven't read past Kangaroo Cassie, but, even so, it should've happened sooner... A LOT sooner)
It also bugged me that they never acquired a ton of different people, and did that morph mix thing that Ax did with their DNA. I mean, I know they don't feel like it's okay to use the DNA of sapient races, but, you're not morphing THEM, just using a little bit of this or that...
Also, it disappointed they never tried to carry coconuts as swallows. :(
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Maybe I have answers. I don't say they weren't stupid but they didn't know how many morphs they could have. So they were afraid, if they took too many morphs and didn't really need them, not to be able to take other morphs who could help. I think it's why they didn't take all the morphs they can.
And for Ax's DNA and DNA of people, they had this stupid rule, you know: not to take the DNA of sapiences. And Ax probably didn't want that anybody (except Tobias who is his family) take his DNA. That's his right, even if that's stupid. I mean, this was a war and they kept rules who limited them >_< They really didn't need that.
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The fact that nothing ever came of Erek's magical untraceable phone number at the end of #10. Would've been cool if they'd Chekov's Gunned it and brought it back when they couldn't find the Chee in the final arc, instead of being like "Marco tried, he didn't find them, so I was was like "try harder!" and he did". Even aside from that it just seems like it would have been handy.
I can excuse them not using human DNA because yeah, they did follow that sapience rule, and while it's a wallbanger reading it as adults it does make sense that kids would try to draw arbitrary distinctions between themselves and their enemies to feel more certain of their righteousness. It's a very young-person thing to do, so it doesn't bother me all that much, because they are just kids. And also because Marco and Tobias both obviously don't give a darn about that rule and break it when it suits them. Also, only Ax knows the frolis maneuver. Maybe he doesn't know how to teach it to others.
Personally, any time KA or the ghostwriters used one of these, I died inside: "the feathers spread like tattoos that then became three-dimensional", "running as a ****roach is like being strapped facedown to the bottom of a car" and "my face bulged out". Probably the most overused phrases in morphing. And every single time someone's like "Rachel's impervious to dirt!". It's like, we get the irony of untouchable Rachel being sullied by the war. Really. Now stop saying she's a magical supermodel being that shoots cleanliness out of her pores. EVERYONE always says it and it just bugs me.
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One thing that annoyed me was the lack of using dog morphs. And when they did use them it was pretty much fu n and games, whereas wolf form was used in battles often. Seriously, there are plenty of breeds that are superior in strenght to wolves and even leopards. And using a dog morph would have been quite practical in spying situations in public places, you just look like a stray dog, though a very muscular one.
Breeds that are able to kill a wolf and a human if controlled by an Animorph, go Google 'em up, see what I mean: German Shepherd (very common, easy to find, doesnt attract attention, possibly weakest of the breeds I mention), Bernese Mountain Dog (common as well, very strong but not naturally aggressive), Greater Swiss Mountain Dog (great strenght, a rare breed), American Bulldog (common in USA, rare elsewhere), Mastiff (common and a true gladiator breed), Bullmastiff (a bit smaller than Mastiff, common), Caucasian Ovtcharka (common in Europe and Russia. Very aggressive and powerful, used to guard sheep from wolves and bears, also used to guard the Berlin Wall), Central Asian Ovtcharka (a bit rare, closely related to Caucasian Ovtcharka), Kangal/Anatolian Shepherd (very savage, large but agile, these dogs eat wolves for breakfast), Great Dane (common), Rottweiler (very common) and the list goes on and on and on.
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First off: WELCOME TO RAF, NARA!
Second:
That bugged me, too! Dogs would have been GREAT morphs! Ugh.
Also, Dameg, before Ax joined the group they didn't know, but if there were a limit, Ax would've told them. dunno, just bugged the crap outta me.
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(1). The fact that Visser Three seemed to suffer from an almost fatal case of Villain Decay as the series went on. Not that he was exactly brilliant in the earlier books either, but there was something about him that was freaky. It was probably from sheer lack of experience and the lack of knowledge I had as a reader, but the situations the Animorphs got into "back then" seemed far more compromising than what occurred later. Though they did quite a few silly things too, and it did get more thematically complicated as it went along.
(2). What the hell that creature was at the end of Book # 41. And other such unexplored plotlines that K.A. didn't have time for. My suspension of disbelief can be pretty impressive, so the stuff like "Why didn't they morph geese more often" never even occurred to me. I was more bugged by the fact that plotlines were sometimes forgotten about or discarded. I mean it was an incredibly impressive, long series. But still...)=
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Personally, I'm totally fine if #41 is never mentioned again. Least favorite book in the series by FAR. Ugh.
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Yeah, I didn't like it either ^^'
@Broken: Actually I think they never asked! And that's what bugged me. They never asked everything to Ax. Ax kept "secrets". I know that I would have asked him enough things to know his planet by heart at the end of the series ^^'
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I never really paid attention to the goose thing, either. I don't recall if the Anis mentioned what the goose senses were like, but I know their raptors were superb for seeing things a human would miss. It's possible they stayed with raptors because geese didn't have that sensory superiority.
The always-the-same descriptions of morphing bug me, too. They didn't when I first read the series, but now that I'm going back more slowly it drives me crazy. I mean, nothing quite screams "FILLER!" like the same phrases repeated 70 million times.
As for the Frolis maneuver, I doubt any of them knew how, and it's possible only an Andalite could do it (although I kinda doubt it, especially for Cassie since she was an estreen). Even if they had known how to do the maneuver, though, I don't think they would have done anything with it. The only really effective species to use the maneuver on would be humans, and they had that "Don't morph a sentient species" rule that stayed until the final battles. By that point, the war had escalated way, way beyond trying to be stealthy by creating a new human morph.
One specific thing that bugged me is in #8, when the first Controller is becoming free. Tobias calls down to the rest of the Animorphs in thought-speak, but Ax says something like "None of us could answer him because we were all in human form."
What the heck, Ax?!? You're in a morph, which comes with thought-speech. Use it!
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One specific thing that bugged me is in #8, when the first Controller is becoming free. Tobias calls down to the rest of the Animorphs in thought-speak, but Ax says something like "None of us could answer him because we were all in human form."
What the heck, Ax?!? You're in a morph, which comes with thought-speech. Use it!
I think that was a KASU.
Something else who bugged me was the few Controllers they freed at the beginning. In #1, the girl who escape... What did it happen to her?
And in #19, the girl who was Aftran's host.
I mean, the Yeerks are known by other Yeerks, even if they don't make a list of the hosts, some people must have known this 2 hosts. And the Yeerks need a good organization in the Yeerk Pool, to give back the right host to the right Yeerk etc. so they must know who has which host. So even if somebody escape, the Yeerks can go back to their house and take them back. The only way to be really free is to run away, change your name, change your life, everything to be the farthest you can from your old life... I also don't see how Aftran could stay free in the Yeerk Pool during many volumes without anybody pay attention of the fact that her host left without him...
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One specific thing that bugged me is in #8, when the first Controller is becoming free. Tobias calls down to the rest of the Animorphs in thought-speak, but Ax says something like "None of us could answer him because we were all in human form."
What the heck, Ax?!? You're in a morph, which comes with thought-speech. Use it!
I think that was a KASU.
I think so too. I certainly don't have a better explanation.
I mean, the Yeerks are known by other Yeerks, even if they don't make a list of the hosts, some people must have known this 2 hosts. And the Yeerks need a good organization in the Yeerk Pool, to give back the right host to the right Yeerk etc. so they must know who has which host. So even if somebody escape, the Yeerks can go back to their house and take them back. The only way to be really free is to run away, change your name, change your life, everything to be the farthest you can from your old life... I also don't see how Aftran could stay free in the Yeerk Pool during many volumes without anybody pay attention of the fact that her host left without him...
Perhaps Aftran altered the Yeerks' database of hosts so his didn't show up anymore? That would explain how Karen managed to stay free, as well as how Aftran got away with his host sympathy (a crime punishable by death, IIRC) for so long before being detected.
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The fact that Karen (Aftran's host) wasn't killed or reinfested is a plot hole. The first Human could have actually been recaptured or killed, and we just didn't see it. Or it could be the crazy lady in MM 1. As for Karen, they needed her not to die or get recaptured to have more of a win for Cassie, even though it goes against Yeerk protocol established in book 8.
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The always-the-same descriptions of morphing bug me, too. They didn't when I first read the series, but now that I'm going back more slowly it drives me crazy. I mean, nothing quite screams "FILLER!" like the same phrases repeated 70 million times.
And every time they morphed something small, "the ground rushed up at me." WE KNOW.
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Personally, I'm totally fine if #41 is never mentioned again. Least favorite book in the series by FAR. Ugh.
OT:
What are you talking about? 41 is a great book! :P
Many people don't like it because it doesn't make sense. Ironically, it does make sense because it's just a dream. Jake's dream. That's why the Venber tastes so bad, because it symbolized Jake's disgust every time he bites an enemy in his tiger morph.
That's also the reason everything goes conveniently for him. His subconscious makes ways for him to survive. :)
It's actually a great book if you just think it's Jake's dream.
And, also, maybe the reason they repeat is lines is for the new readers. :) I mean, it was made so you can start reading from ANY book. Unlike HP or LOTR.
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Ugh, 41 is terrible. The only good things about it are the Marco/Rachel interaction in the beginning and the scene with Tobias as Elfangor. Everything else is saccharine ("do you think someday I'll free my friends?" amazing art kid), irrelevant, wannabe clever ("get it, Rachel's all ugly now? Because she's so pretty? Oh and also Marco's a Visser just like his mom! IRONIES!") or just wall-bangingly stupid (Jake conclusion of "I almost sentenced Rachel and Marco to death, but you know what I really regret? Not stopping to pander to Cassie's need to mope!"). And not to mention the frigging moon ray. Moons are not suns, Yeerks! Really, that's the best Jake's subconscious can come up with. I could have taken it being nonsensical if it wasn't so dang bad in every other way, too.
I mean, I'm one of Cassie's few devoted fans, and even I wanted to beat her upside the head in that one. And Jake for pandering to her. Again, he nearly sentenced Rachel and Marco to death, but his biggest problem is that he didn't play nursemaid to Cassie's pollyannaing? Terrible conclusion to a terrible book. I can't believe I waded through 150 pages of that - twice - for that sorry excuse for a payoff.
I mean, I love me some nonsensical dream sequences. They're my favorite thing to write and among my favorite things to read. One of my other peeves in the series is that their dreams/nightmares are often too linear - Jake's dream in #6 or Marco's dream in #30 being examples of that. Neither of them really have dream logic to them, and that bothers me. Meanwhile, by contrast, Marco's dreams in #5 and #15 have really deranged nightmare logic to them, which works for me, and Cassie's in #19 are flashbacks, which also makes sense.
But #41 doesn't make sense in normal logic or follow the rules of dream logic. It feels less like the "and then surreal stuff happened and I instantly understood it and/or didn't question it" nature of dreams or the "my subconscious is unloading all its crazy onto me at once in a completely impossible way!" of nightmare logic. There's no jumping back and forth in the sequence of events, there's no fixating on repetition, there's no people randomly changing identities, no big location switches. It's too linear and plausible for dreams and too stupid and convenient for reality. It just feels like someone had ten pages of ideas and then just did a bunch of "...and then!", and added a few incongruities to try and have it masquerade as a dream.
So, it fails as a story, it fails as a dream, it fails as a plot set-up, it fails as an insight to Jake's character, it fails as a standalone piece...*whew* Pretty much, I hate #41. I hate every page and nearly every letter on that godforsaken book. I like to pretend it didn't happen and thankfully, the series canon pretty much agrees, as it's never mentioned again.
As for repeating lines, it's the specific descriptions that bother me. It's like KA came up with a few stock phrases to have the Anis use whenever they morphed, and just recycled them. Lazy writing. There are so many other words that also convey "bulge".
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Yeah, the copy/paste descriptions get tedious after awhile. AND YES, them not bombarding Ax with questions about everything bugs the crap out of me, as does them not going after every morph they could possibly get. Of course, that would eliminate the standard book plot of 'problem - find morph that will solve it'
Also, Dameg, that whole bit with the woman in #1 and Karen is why, in my fanfiction rewriting of #23, the woman from #1 is revealed to be Loren, who has been fighting a one person guerrilla war since being freed from infestation (remember, Tobias never saw her), and SHE takes Karen on the run with her to keep them both safe and to make sure Karen is never infested to give away the Animorph identities.
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The thing that always bothered me the most was the way K.A.A. always portrayed sharks as mindless eating machines (that for some reason, always seemed to attack Marco...) Yes, they are very efficient predators, but for all of the research she did on other animals, you'd think she'd be able to look past the stereotypes people create for sharks.
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@41:
First of all, dream logic. It doesn't make sense. I mean, sometimes I dream about very contradicting things every 5 seconds.
there's no fixating on repetition
Remember the old hawk?
there's no people randomly changing identities
Again, Tobias. An old red tailed hawk at first, then an Andalite nothlit. Marco's rank change. Jake's dad.
no big location switches
there were quite a few. It just so happened that Jake "blacks out" everytime there was a big switch (funny, huh?).
Again, he nearly sentenced Rachel and Marco to death, but his biggest problem is that he didn't play nursemaid to Cassie's pollyannaing?
maybe subconsciously, Cassie's yammering was more important to him. It's a guilty trait that he doesn't show in the real world, like how Tom is more important than the world to Jake.
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Also, Dameg, that whole bit with the woman in #1 and Karen is why, in my fanfiction rewriting of #23, the woman from #1 is revealed to be Loren, who has been fighting a one person guerrilla war since being freed from infestation (remember, Tobias never saw her), and SHE takes Karen on the run with her to keep them both safe and to make sure Karen is never infested to give away the Animorph identities.
I also tried to explain Karen's freedom in my fanfiction... even if it isn't perfect, I made her leave with her parents in another country where they couldn't be found, maybe with the help of the Yeerk resistants.
But still, it would have been really hard for her to be free, it would almost need a volume to do that correctly ^^'
If they rewrite a little the Animorphs for the new release, I'd like they explain how she stayed free, and how Aftran stayed undiscovered so long.
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Another thing that was annoying, besides the lack of dog morphs, was the sound effects in every battle scene and very often in morphing scenes too. There were too many sound effects and too often, one WHOOOM here and there is just entertaining but too much sounds too childish.
Oh and those generic morphing scenes bored the hell outta me. Seriously, I have no idea how many times I have had to read what it's like to become a fly.
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@41:
First of all, dream logic. It doesn't make sense. I mean, sometimes I dream about very contradicting things every 5 seconds.
That's what I'm saying. #41 makes too much sense to be a dream and not enough to be a real story. It's in that awkward limbo where it's just a lame story.
Now granted, my responses to these next parts may be incorrect since I haven't read #41 in a year and am not going to suffer it again.
Remember the old hawk?
Nope. Totally forgot. Good point.
Again, Tobias. An old red tailed hawk at first, then an Andalite nothlit. Marco's rank change. Jake's dad.
Marco's rank change gets noted, which breaks the dream logic of "stuff changes and I accept it without question" for me. I mean, it sometimes happens in dreams, I think? I've never had that happen in a dream where I was like "hey, suddenly I get it's a dream because you aren't who you just were!".
That said, totally forgot the other two, so good points there.
there were quite a few. It just so happened that Jake "blacks out" everytime there was a big switch (funny, huh?).
Totally forgot again. Good point. Does he lampshade this or does he go with it?
maybe subconsciously, Cassie's yammering was more important to him. It's a guilty trait that he doesn't show in the real world, like how Tom is more important than the world to Jake.
Which is one heck of a disappointing thing to find out about Jake.
See, I could understand if Cassie's life was more important to him than anyone else's. That, actually, makes a lot of sense for the character and is completely believable. But it wasn't Cassie's life at stake - she was just having a whingefest after a battle where at least two members had much more of a right to complain than she did. And Jake didn't shut her down so much as just not cater to it. So...yeah. Doesn't reflect either character well. It makes Cassie look like an overemotional, selfish, clueless whiner and Jake look like a lovesick, obsessive idiot. Personally, I like that both characters are flawed - they are, after all, teenagers, and Cassie is an emotional, sanctimonious whiner sometimes, and Jake is an idiot sometimes, but this conclusion just felt like character derailment for me. Mostly for Cassie, because I really like her in most of the other books, and this book is just everything that Cassie haters complain about times ten.
Anyway, I just hate #41. Maybe if the ending was different I'd be okay with it, but as it stands I hate what the book says about the characters and I think it's a lame story. You bring up good points and things I missed because I haven't read it in a while, but the point is, it doesn't feel like a dream to me and the payoff makes me want to punch puppies. You've done a good job defending it and maybe someday I reread it, but probably not since it makes blood spontaneously shoot from my eyes.
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One of the problem with Animorphs is that the writing style is childish and the story pretty mature. It's a strange mix... It would have been better if they wrote it like HP, it would have fitted better to the story...
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@41:
I do agree that the ending sucked and the character portrayal was a bit off. :P
it's also kind off bugging that Jake always say that "Rachel is beautiful, but I don't think of her that way.". Kind of makes you think on how Jake really views Rachel a the start of the series. ;)
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It makes me think Jakes sees her as pretty, but isn't attracted to her. I see my sister as pretty, but I wouldn't want to bone her.
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I loathed 41... :dull: It just sucked, IMO. (Also, AWESOME! Another Cassie fan! :D :D :D ) IDK, maybe I hated because I normally know I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming... But, you're right, dreams don't make ANY sense except to the one dreaming them, and only WHEN you're dreaming them. There's always "tra lalalala I'm in LA! BAM! Now I'm in Alaska! And that makes sense! Not gonna question it.. Was always here" kinda thing. Jake didn't have that in 41. It just didn't seem weird enough to be a dream, and wasn't real enough to an actual event. It just sucked. But, I hate dream books/episodes. I hate it when I read something, or watch something, and then find out that NONE OF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! To me, it seemed like 41 was the AppleGrant experimenting with Acid. -_-
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Most of things I can't stand revolve around some people's morphing theories that involve nanobots.
Also I hated when K.A. would create an excellent character and then completely drop them for the rest of the series, ex. the other andalites that survived the battle I mean one cannot morph the other is going to die and we still don't know what happened.
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IDK, maybe I hated because I normally know I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming.
wow, you're reallly... Cassie-like! In a sense.
But, you're right, dreams don't make ANY sense except to the one dreaming them, and only WHEN you're dreaming them. There's always "tra lalalala I'm in LA! BAM! Now I'm in Alaska! And that makes sense! Not gonna question it.. Was always here" kinda thing.
maybe because, like you, Jake had a feeling that he was dreaming? YOU always dream knowing you are dreaming right, it happened to me once, and I tried to control it to fit my needs (Cassie being able to thought-speak w/o being in morph). Also, when you're nervous, you nervousness also affects your dream (unable to morph).
It just didn't seem weird enough to be a dream, and wasn't real enough to an actual event. It just sucked. But, I hate dream books/episodes. I hate it when I read something, or watch something, and then find out that NONE OF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! To me, it seemed like 41 was the AppleGrant experimenting with Acid.
Then you also probably hate Megamorphs 2-4 and book 11.
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I forgot what book 11 was... And no, the Megamorphs happened... In a sense. Didn't hate them, but they weren't my favourite books.
Also, how does that make me Cassie-like? :P I should also rephrase that: I normally know I'm dreaming when I remember the dreams. :P I rarely remember my dreams, so I don't know about those, but the ones I do remember, at least 70ish% of them I know I'm dreaming. The other 30ish% are nightmares, and I don't know I'm dreaming. D:
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Book 11 is pretty lame, as are MM3 and about half of MM4. MM2 is horrible but it fulfills every child-like fantasy of mine. nimorphs and dinosaurs and aliens and jokes about broccoli! I'm ten years old again!
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I normally know I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming... I hate it when I read something, or watch something, and then find out that NONE OF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!
I havent read the book you're talking about, unfortunately, but I gotta say that when I'm asleep I'm usually not conscious of the fact that the dream is not real. Just this morning when I woke up I had to reload my brain for 10 minutes to remember what parts of the dream really happened in real life and which didnt. Sometimes I'm not sure which is a real memory and which was just an event in a dream. Like I remember that a person I know said she might be pregnant and I'm still not totally sure was it a dream or not. >8/ And I'm not gonna ask her. It must have been a dream.
Other than that I too hate movies (and books too) which make you watch an utterly long scene, only to be revealed that it didnt happen. Makes you think that was the most pointless thing Ive ever seen.
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As far as I can recall, Mulholland Drive is the only thing I've seen pull off a long dream sequence with the big reveal and not have it seem fake. And it actually captures dream logic fairly well. Not perfectly, but fairly well.
Personally, I usually either know I'm dreaming for the whole dream or stay oblivious the whole time. There's no point where I'm like "this doesn't make sense!" and I suddenly realize it's a dream.
Anyway, back to Aminorphs. I do wish we'd seen more of the parents, especially mid-series, and gotten a bit more of an explanation as to why they were so oblivious. Naomi and Peter I could understand - Naomi had two other kids to watch and was apparently very busy with her job, and Peter was just a terribly irresponsible parent from the get-go - but Jake and Cassie's parents seemed relatively attentive and close to their kids, and yet we see more suspicion from Rachel's dad than we do Walter, Michelle, Steve and Jean. A few more scenes of the kids and their homelives would have been nice, especially since the ghostwriters tended not to do them.
Also, in #47, the fact that nobody mentions that Marco "died" is a bit irksome. All Jean wants Jake to do is clean the basement? No mention whatsoever of "your best friend of nearly a decade was mysteriously gunned down I'm really sorry but you still have to do chores"? Really? The fact that AX saw the aftermath of Marco's "death" more than Jake is just downright weird.
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Cassie-like in a sense that, you're into your dreams and all that mystic what not. :P
@LisaCharly:
Absolutely! A great filler plot would be Jake acting as if Marco had really died. Like he had to act the part, or the Yeerks would get suspicious and... fine, it's a bit lame. :))
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Actually thats an awesome idea for a fanfic. Being called into chapmans office or something, having to see a guidance councilor. I like fanfics without action (weirdly enough) because they explore the emotional depths rather than just ZZAAP! I cut off the Hork Bajirs leg!
Then again, I like that too!
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Haha. I love dreams. Whenever I remember my dreams, I always immediately go look in my dream book. :P
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I started to keep a dream book too at one point. Mainly because sometimes I have repeat dreams and it helped me remember the places I had been to before. I was also trying to get into lucid dreaming. I don't do it anymore, though.
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Haha. I like where this thread's gone ;D
Most of the stuff that bugs me has already been stated- the repeated phrases are a big one. It seemed like every single ghostwriter, and even KA, was just recycling that stuff for most of the series. I don't think I even read most of the morphing paragraphs the first time through the series. They're easily spotted and avoided filler.
Lisa, I would have said it if you hadn't already brought it up, but yeah, we don't get to see enough of their home lives. Again, I feel like that's a bit of a shift as the series goes on. Early on, we have many small scenes of them at home or school or whatever, and we actually get to see how this story relates to the real world. Later, the books trended more towards just opening in the middle of a mission, focusing on what goes wrong, and then closing with them being successful, with no sense at all that these might be normal kids aside from that intro repeated for the fortieth time or whatever. Actually, Lisa, I agree with you about 30 being an excellent book, and I think a big portion of that can be attributed to the fact that it so effectively entwines Marco's personal life with the invasion.
I loved the direction Rachel was taking by the end of the David trilogy. I was looking forward to seeing where she'd go, how she'd cope, and how it would end up. But when the ghostwriters took over, she became scary inconsistent, lost all of her personality aside from brutality, and turned into a one-dimensional crazy person who wouldn't be fit for anything but war. That's not the character development I was hoping for. She may have been losing control or whatever, but it felt like the writers were doing the characterization equivalent of recycling morphing phrases.
Visser 3's decay is disappointing as well. He was scary at first, but by the time you've got the Animorphs giggling about him bathing in grape juice to get rid of skunk smell, he sort of loses that intimidation factor. I know if I were the Anis, he wouldn't have sent a chill down my spine or whatever just by walking into the room for the entire series. I might just start laughing by the 20th or 30th time I met him.
I dunno, I guess most of my complaints revolve around the decay of the series later on, and how formulaic it started to feel.
Most of things I can't stand revolve around some people's morphing theories that involve nanobots.
Aw. Haha. Ouch. I like our theory. I mean, I can see not agreeing with it, but "can't stand" seems a little harsh :P
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I don't mind theories about nanobots, personally. I mean it is technology on a molecular level. Nanobots should fit in with it. Then again some things may be better unexplained, such as medichlorians. Or however you spell the word from Star Wars. I'd rather it be a mystical force than whatever medichlorians are supposed to be.
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Things that bug me:
How Cassie lived in a farm, but the only one mentioned to have a proper dog was Jake.
Why couldn't Cassie get a kelpie or something...
One thing that annoyed me was the lack of using dog morphs. And when they did use them it was pretty much fu n and games, whereas wolf form was used in battles often. Seriously, there are plenty of breeds that are superior in strenght to wolves and even leopards. And using a dog morph would have been quite practical in spying situations in public places, you just look like a stray dog, though a very muscular one.
Breeds that are able to kill a wolf and a human if controlled by an Animorph, go Google 'em up, see what I mean: German Shepherd (very common, easy to find, doesnt attract attention, possibly weakest of the breeds I mention), Bernese Mountain Dog (common as well, very strong but not naturally aggressive), Greater Swiss Mountain Dog (great strenght, a rare breed), American Bulldog (common in USA, rare elsewhere), Mastiff (common and a true gladiator breed), Bullmastiff (a bit smaller than Mastiff, common), Caucasian Ovtcharka (common in Europe and Russia. Very aggressive and powerful, used to guard sheep from wolves and bears, also used to guard the Berlin Wall), Central Asian Ovtcharka (a bit rare, closely related to Caucasian Ovtcharka), Kangal/Anatolian Shepherd (very savage, large but agile, these dogs eat wolves for breakfast), Great Dane (common), Rottweiler (very common) and the list goes on and on and on.
Thank you, Nara, I totally agree with this too. I would even add a Dobermann to your mighty canine list up there. David would have morphed a Dobermann, me thinks. ;)
Being a 'dog person', I know enough about dogs to know that the Anis, a character like Cassie, could have exploited that a lot. Instead we get the good old Golden Retriever and Irish Setters (goofy fun) and Poodle (annoying temperament). Dogs and cats are like central to human dwellings, wish that could have been more explored.
I for one was really ticked off by some of the inconsistencies in onomatopeia throughout the series (ref. to animal, alien, tech sounds etc...). Let's all agree that the 'TSEEEW!' sound is trademark in the books. But it was typed different every now and again. And in the Andalite Chronicles, the Andalite shredder was applied as TTTSSSAP! or something. But in The Arrival, Gonrod's crew were using Andalite weapons that sounded an awful lot like TSEEEWWW! or something like a dracon beam. "GHAFRASH!" was sometimes "GAFRASH!" and so on.
If I had a dollar for every time I read, "Bird of prey don't exactly get along," or "Hawk eyes aren't exactly good for seeing in the dark, but are great for stargazing," I could probably pay to have a movie made >_>
Hahah!
The fact that Tobias was being set up to be this Andalite descendant of Elfangor's lineage, and then virtually NOTHING was done with him, post-The Illusion. The character got quite bland, whinny even, to me after a certain point.
anytime an Andalite was mentioned as having only one stalk eye or some awesome scars to increase his bad ass points, I couldn't believe he'd never morphed once after his injury to fix it.
THIS bugged me, too. By the same token, the fact that we were NEVER given any further cues as to what could have been that notorious 'lethal injury' that a Prince full of zeal such as Elfangor couldn't morph/heal himself out of.
On a similar note, also, the ambiguity about how one acquires the morphing power through contact with the blue cube. Does one need a conscious agent with the latent ability or does one touch the device and just go on random physical contacts and that's all that is required.
That whole thing with Helmacrons don't really 'die' and only enrich their colony or something, that really bugged me.
Something that always bugged the hell out of me, was the characterization of Rachel slowly becoming all crazy psycho warrior girl. When in the last book of the David trilogy, there is a passage near the very end that specifically states how Rachel herself sort of lost the exciting thrill she always had for the war and "grew up a little bit" after the trauma of the whole David situation. I don't know, I guess I thought it was a nice touch for her as a character that was just thrown out the window, and now Rachel is regarded as this dark warrior who loved the war just a little too much.
I really hate that portrayal too. she acted quite dark in the David trilogy, and two of the last things she did was say no to ultimate power and think about shopping just before the polar bear morpher killed her.
Yes she was the darkest Ani, but she never really lost herself. On TV Tropes someone called her a Blood Knight as soon as she took the grizzly bear morph, and that's just ridiculous.
:bow2: This is gold! Totally agree with yas.
The fact that nothing ever came of Erek's magical untraceable phone number at the end of #10. Would've been cool if they'd Chekov's Gunned it and brought it back when they couldn't find the Chee in the final arc, instead of being like "Marco tried, he didn't find them, so I was was like "try harder!" and he did". Even aside from that it just seems like it would have been handy....
HAHAH! :rofl2:
(1). The fact that Visser Three seemed to suffer from an almost fatal case of Villain Decay as the series went on. Not that he was exactly brilliant in the earlier books either, but there was something about him that was freaky. It was probably from sheer lack of experience and the lack of knowledge I had as a reader, but the situations the Animorphs got into "back then" seemed far more compromising than what occurred later. Though they did quite a few silly things too, and it did get more thematically complicated as it went along...
Yeah, I share this feeling, too. You can only attribute this 'decay' to ghostwriters.
Visser Three creeped the far out of readers early on and maybe even through the middle of the series. He was chopping heads and bursting thoughts into the protagonists' minds. Later on, he's just this automaton, still doing these things to some degree, but resembling 'sizzle with no stake'.
The Varnax was a morph that intrigued me, but we got zero more than that scen in #The Visitor. Really wanted to see the Visser pull the Yeerkbane morph on one of his subordinates.
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Another interesting thought is Cassie getting a Yeerkbane morph, the morph most effective to kill a Yeerk without damaging a host body. Will she kill a life to save another? :angel:
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I doubt that the Yeerkbane evolved to take the Yeerk out without also ripping pieces of brain our as well. I dare think that the Yeerkbane may have started as a brain eater at first, but also ate Yeerks if they were inside the brain.
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Well, maybe the Yeerkbane already started out as Yeerk eaters before the Yeerks even learned to infest brains. Also, if the Yeerkbane lets the host live, for instance a Gedd, they sort of share a symbiotic relationship. A living Gedd would take on more Yeerks, thus more food for the Yeerkbane. If the Yeerkbane killed both host and Yeerk, then the Yeerks would eventually lose hosts, and the Yeerkbane would go hungry in turn.
I doubt Yeerkbanes could directly eat Yeerks from the pool; if that was the case, then the Yeerks would be extinct long ago. ;D
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anytime an Andalite was mentioned as having only one stalk eye or some awesome scars to increase his bad ass points, I couldn't believe he'd never morphed once after his injury to fix it.
THIS bugged me, too. By the same token, the fact that we were NEVER given any further cues as to what could have been that notorious 'lethal injury' that a Prince full of zeal such as Elfangor couldn't morph/heal himself out of.
I can probably answer both of those, actually.
In #7, Cassie shows Jake a scar she got from a raccoon, despite the fact that all the Animorphs were morphing quite regularly. I guess the scars existed before the Andalites (or Cassie, in her case) gained the morphing power.
Many, many times the Animorphs mentioned that morphing drains their energy. Someone dying from a lethal wound, who had presumably had that wound for some time, may not have the energy to morph, which appears to be what happened to Elfangor.
On a similar note, also, the ambiguity about how one acquires the morphing power through contact with the blue cube. Does one need a conscious agent with the latent ability or does one touch the device and just go on random physical contacts and that's all that is required.
Per the "buffahuman" book, it looks like a random physical contact is all that's required.
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Another thing that bugged me, was the whole "perhaps we can 'turn off' the Leeran psychic probing thing"... WTH?! If I want to stop seeing, I shut my eyes, I use my eye lids to do that, yes. But psychic ability?! Really had to stretch to picture how exactly the morphs could simply switch that sort of thing?!
And then the fact that they never re-did a Leeran morph. The Anis could have fixed a significant number of issues by resourcing to them. Surely, towards those decisive stages of the war (ref. selecting new Animorphs, detecting Controllers in the armed forces) Jake would have thought of using the Leeran, inspite the whole no sentient morph rule.
anytime an Andalite was mentioned as having only one stalk eye or some awesome scars to increase his bad ass points, I couldn't believe he'd never morphed once after his injury to fix it.
THIS bugged me, too. By the same token, the fact that we were NEVER given any further cues as to what could have been that notorious 'lethal injury' that a Prince full of zeal such as Elfangor couldn't morph/heal himself out of.
I can probably answer both of those, actually.
In #7, Cassie shows Jake a scar she got from a raccoon, despite the fact that all the Animorphs were morphing quite regularly. I guess the scars existed before the Andalites (or Cassie, in her case) gained the morphing power.
Many, many times the Animorphs mentioned that morphing drains their energy. Someone dying from a lethal wound, who had presumably had that wound for some time, may not have the energy to morph, which appears to be what happened to Elfangor.
I always looked at that Cassie scar thing as a KASU. Cassie had to say something along those lines to do with the context at the time. Being the 'junior vet' and all, she was the only one who could have said this to cover the whole thing they were debating on the Ellimist's prepositions.
The Morphing Process doesn't take a 'snap' of the subjects physical conditions. It 'saves' the original, DNA. A scar is not a genetic trait. It is a genetic 'patch' up on a superficial injury.
I find it more plausible that those Andalite officers may well have been before the whole technology was made available, and perhaps Prince Seerow's tech was only viable for up-coming Andalites. Notice it was mostly the young ones who were shown to express interest and fully exercised morphing.
On a similar note, also, the ambiguity about how one acquires the morphing power through contact with the blue cube. Does one need a conscious agent with the latent ability or does one touch the device and just go on random physical contacts and that's all that is required.
Per the "buffahuman" book, it looks like a random physical contact is all that's required.
Oh, man, that is just cheap! I'm sorry.
How many insects could have potentially touched the Cube when it was disguised as a photo album stickit thing in Cassie's bedroom?! And, if we go further down these lines, what about all the bacteria that inevitably comes in contact with it?!?!
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About the Leeran morph, I'm not sure they kept it. Because they went to Leera from Z-Space and then went back to their body directly... and in the "past", so in fact they lived in 2 places in the same time: on Leera, and on Earth as mosquitoes... It was special, and I'm not sure the Leeran DNA traveled from Leera to Earth and back to the past.
For the Cube, don't forget that it was in the outside, before David found it. How many worms and flies touched it? :P Good point here, the buffahuman is a KASU too...
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Also, starting from book 1, Jake and the others claim that you need to concentrate to morph, and stopping the concentration stops the morph in between. Jake stopped his Homer morph when he was startled, for instance. I don't think bufallos are capable of concentration. ;)
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lol Yeah, right ^^
Really, this buffahuman is so... stupid and useless. Never liked this part of the story...
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I always assumed the Leerans could turn off their psychic abilities (like humans closing their eyes), because there's no way Visser One would have let a bunch of mind-readers hang out scanning her thoughts with her giant OMGBABIES secret. The idea that it was just because they were morphs was pretty silly.
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Here's something that's bugged me for some time. In #54, after Rachel's funeral, Tobias disappears into oblivion, right? Hey! It's awesome that he spent an entire book risking his and his friend's lives to save Loren, and then she's totally forgotten about after #53! I find it really hard to beleive that he NEVER ONCE looked her up. I kind of disagree with Cassie's statement that Rachel was the only person who loved Tobias, too. I think Loren loved him. She put herself in harm's way for him at the end of #49. I think it would have made logical sense for Tobias to at least see how she was doing after the war, but that's just me. She could've been a tie to humanity for him, and she was a crisis center worker, for pete's sake. She could've helped him with his grief.
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You're not the only one to think that. It's very strange to me, but I think I know why it was written like that. The writers used Loren as a plot device. She wasn't supposed to be important. It's really an injustice to both of their characters. Tobias still had Ax and Loren, but abandoned them both because he lost Rachel. I'm sorry, but that's just not right. Of course there's a whole list of things that bug me about the ending.
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I suppose they couldn't fit everything into one book and tie up all the loose ends - I mean, they did have to cover the events of three years in the lives of dozens of characters. But Loren WAS important, and it is sad that she gets ditched so unceremoniuously. Eva and Peter also disappear off the face of the Earth, and that annoys me since it's their freaking son doing the "aftermath" chapter. Really, Naomi and Jake's parents are all mentioned in passing, but characters who had much more of an important effect on the story as a whole were just dropped.
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It would have been best if the last book was a Megamorphs book, but I think by that time Applegate was just ready for it to end. She didn't want to do another big Megamorph sized book.
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Eva and Peter also disappear off the face of the Earth, and that annoys me since it's their freaking son doing the "aftermath" chapter.
This is my axe to grind, like, forever. This will never stop ticking me off.
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Tobias still had Ax and Loren, but abandoned them both because he lost Rachel.
Oh, I hadn't thought of it like that! What a plank.
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It would have been best if the last book was a Megamorphs book, but I think by that time Applegate was just ready for it to end. She didn't want to do another big Megamorph sized book.
I think #54 should have been two books, myself. The #54 we all know and have an ambivalent relationship with should've discussed the end of the Yeerk war, and then covered the first year after its end in much more depth. Then we would've had room to find out what happened to Loren, Eva, Peter, Chapman, Melissa, the auxiliaries (seriously, if they were all killed, as is probable, how come they didn't get any memorial and are never mentioned again? Jake doesn't feel guilty about them at all?) and anybody else you can think of. We could have 40 or 50 pages of that, instead of 5 pages of Marco going, "Yeah, here's what happened to the main characters and Arbron and Toby. And now, let me go on and on about how rich and famous I am!"
The final book, #55, could then cover the next two years. I also think a really cool and much better ending to the series would be everybody climbing aboard the Rachel, and just leaving it there. As someone said on another thread (or maybe earlier in this one), we get into another story and then are just left hanging.
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Tobias still had Ax and Loren, but abandoned them both because he lost Rachel.
Actually, this is pretty realistic. Loren and Tobias never really had a connection. The latter had amnesia, and the two only had one chance to bond (and it was not even a mother and son thing). There's no real intimacy. They're blood related, but Tobias just realized that, this isn't his family. Rachel and the Animorphs and Ax are.
And to Ax, Andalites give a lot (an understatement) of importance to pride. Maybe Ax didn't want to destroy Tobias's pride by comforting him.
Plus, Rachel was the only thing left keeping Tobias human. Losing that, to the person who he claimed to see as a hero since book 1 (Jake), just made him go nuts. I can relate. Some people just value their significant other more than anything else. More than their world
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Also, starting from book 1, Jake and the others claim that you need to concentrate to morph, and stopping the concentration stops the morph in between. Jake stopped his Homer morph when he was startled, for instance. I don't think bufallos are capable of concentration. ;)
See, I had the same thought about the Buffaman. :P But it sort of makes sense to me, humans concentrate because we have dozen to hundreds of thoughts roaming around our heads, animals, to include buffaloes, are simpler, so their main thought would be similar to human concentration?
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Okay Ax clearly states that the process of morphing freezes DNA, and that it is unfrozen.
This is my main problem with most of the morphing theories, people forget that one bit.
We have no idea what "the one" is.
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I forgot that ax says it freezes.
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Where does Ax say it freezes DNA? I'm not doubting you, I just can't remember.