Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Darth Zakryn on January 27, 2011, 07:19:07 PM
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We all know the Animorphs all committed some horrible evil in the war against the Yeerks at some point, but to me, Cassie's biggest evil, the one thing that sets Cassie apart from everyone else, her one great, totally unforgivable crime is to erase John Berryman from history. Granted, there was a lot at stake, but come ON! They couldn't think of any, ANY other way to ensure V4 never found the Time Matrix? Hell, they could have just intercepted Visser Four before he found the Time Matrix. And for those of you will say, "But they didn't know where he was before he found it," THEY HAVE A MACHINE THAT TAKES YOU ANYWHERE YOU THINK IT. How hard would it have to be to think, Take me to Visser Four before he finds the Time Matrix by ___ hours/days.
She just erased one man from history, and it didn't even have to happen. This is a fundamental perversion of the highest degree. And if you believe in afterlife, spirits, souls, this only makes it more unforgivable and more horrific. Cassie, at that point, went from me to being a meaning-well-but-misguided-idealist to being a Complete Monster. And she never has an Oh My God What Have I Done moment either. In fact, before I read #54. The Beginning, I was hoping she'd be tried for war crimes because of this. What, is she too cowardly to tell the world she made it so one person never existed? Wouldn't surprise me, but they'd probably excuse it as "the world isn't ready to know about the Time Matrix" and stuff like that when they should be in JAIL. It makes you wonder if they really WOULD have been tried for war crimes if the governments of Earth had a full scope and understanding of what they REALLY did during the war. Most of the things they glossed over. That would make for an interesting topic, so I'll leave it at this.
Thoughts?
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Post-war earth just wasn't ready for that sort of thing. I wonder if the Animorphs omitted the Ellimist, Crayak and the Drode from their various books and autobiographies.
Imagine if the world knew that time travel was possible. It would cause a lot of problems, don't you think?
Besides, I doubt if the Ellimist would have allowed it.
And, even if Cassie did admit to erasing Berryman, the council couldn't do anything about it. First of all, they had no idea that time travel was even possible. Second of all, what can you do? Sentence someone to prison for erasing someone from existence? Sounds kind of ridiculous.
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That coule be construed as ERASING THE SOUL.
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How could they even prove Berryman even existed?
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Fine. Just forget it. If you were suddenly erased from history, I'm sure you wouldn't care either. Enjoy Nothing, no afterlife, no ANYTHING. ::)
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Thank you! A Cassie thread that ISN'T about her letting Tom get the Morphing Cube. It's about time people realized she's screwed up big time plenty of times before that ;D
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But I wouldn't know if someone just erased me from existence, would I?
Would you?
I'm not condoning what she did. I never read megamorphs 3. But I read about what Cassie did on Wikipedia, and I have to admit that I was disgusted.
Really, Berryman should still exist. Because the Animorphs erased him from existence, which means he would have never found the Time Matix, which means that the Animorphs would have never had a reason to travel through time and, thus, the events in megamorphs 3 shouldn't have happened. It's a time travel paradox.
What I am saying is that the council can't arrest someone for erasing a person who no longer exists, because there are only six people who remember that he ever existed.
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The way I remember it, Cassie hadn't really decided to erase Berryman. They were still discussing it, in fact, when Berryman's parents happened to see the Time Matrix instead of each other, and that made the decision for her. Granted, I think she would have done it anyway. But maybe in her warped mind erasing him was better than killing him? After all, remember, she thought she was doing David a favor, too. :P
As for putting her on trial for it, well, you do have the problem of proving that Berryman ever existed. The Time Matrix would have to be brought up, and I don't think the human race is ready to know about that kind of technology. Think of how many people would seek to abuse it. You think that erasing one person from history is a crime? Imagine how many people have enemies that they'd like to see deleted from the space-time continuum (hint: a lot).
And really? To be completely honest, considering how many innocent lives (Hork-Bajir and human) Cassie has ended, this one life almost seems trivial. Yeah, erasing someone from history might be worse than killing them if you believe in the soul (I personally don't, but respect anyone who does), but at least Berryman knew it was coming and even okay'd it (if I remember correctly, he actually told Cassie where to find his parents). I'm not saying that that makes it okay, but this isn't the worst thing Cassie has done. Not by a long shot.
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And I never understood why everyone hates Cassie. Yea, her moralizing can be tedious sometimes, and her narration is very dull. But she isn't a monster. At least she was THINKING about doing the right thing. Sure, for some missions there may have been one blatant answer. But come on. You're going to hate on someone for having an opinion and a conscience?
Some say she's a hypocrite. I don't know about that. I haven't read nearly as many books to form much of an opinion on that. But she isn't evil.
Come on people.
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We all know the Animorphs all committed some horrible evil in the war against the Yeerks at some point, but to me, Cassie's biggest evil, the one thing that sets Cassie apart from everyone else, her one great, totally unforgivable crime is to erase John Berryman from history. Granted, there was a lot at stake, but come ON! They couldn't think of any, ANY other way to ensure V4 never found the Time Matrix? Hell, they could have just intercepted Visser Four before he found the Time Matrix. And for those of you will say, "But they didn't know where he was before he found it," THEY HAVE A MACHINE THAT TAKES YOU ANYWHERE YOU THINK IT. How hard would it have to be to think, Take me to Visser Four before he finds the Time Matrix by ___ hours/days.
She just erased one man from history, and it didn't even have to happen. This is a fundamental perversion of the highest degree. And if you believe in afterlife, spirits, souls, this only makes it more unforgivable and more horrific. Cassie, at that point, went from me to being a meaning-well-but-misguided-idealist to being a Complete Monster. And she never has an Oh My God What Have I Done moment either. In fact, before I read #54. The Beginning, I was hoping she'd be tried for war crimes because of this. What, is she too cowardly to tell the world she made it so one person never existed? Wouldn't surprise me, but they'd probably excuse it as "the world isn't ready to know about the Time Matrix" and stuff like that when they should be in JAIL. It makes you wonder if they really WOULD have been tried for war crimes if the governments of Earth had a full scope and understanding of what they REALLY did during the war. Most of the things they glossed over. That would make for an interesting topic, so I'll leave it at this.
Thoughts?
That was the moral event horizon for you? She trapped a boy in the body of a rat to live a depressing life at the bottom of the food chain, gave the Escafil Device to Visser frikkin' Three, left the group at one time just so she wouldn't have to compromise some of her beliefs for the good of her species, and you pick THIS as her moral event horizon point? No, I don't find anything horrible about wiping someone from existence. I don't think it was the best plan, but I wouldn't say it's a bad idea. Just neutral.
even if I believed in souls, it's possible the guy could have been reincarnated into a new body. No, I don't have a problem with her doing this.
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And I never understood why everyone hates Cassie. Yea, her moralizing can be tedious sometimes, and her narration is very dull. But she isn't a monster. At least she was THINKING about doing the right thing. Sure, for some missions there may have been one blatant answer. But come on. You're going to hate on someone for having an opinion and a conscience?
Some say she's a hypocrite. I don't know about that. I haven't read nearly as many books to form much of an opinion on that. But she isn't evil.
Come on people.
Yeah, okay, I am a little hard on Cassie sometimes. I don't actually think she's a monster, either. But I get SO frustrated that she never ever sees any negative consequences of her decisions (yes, maybe she's made fewer mistakes than the other animorphs, but she HAS made mistakes, KA), that I overcompensate by ripping her to pieces and pretending she's a horrible evil person.
To be honest, if I were an Animorph myself, I think I would be the 'Cassie' of the group. I hate the very idea of killing, and would try my best to avoid it wherever I could. But I also freely admit that this attitude would lead me to make some very stupid decisions occasionally, and those stupid decisions would come with terrible consequences. I love the ideas that Cassie stands for. I just don't like that she's so -beep-ing perfect, when in reality she shouldn't be.
[/rant]
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Yeah, okay, I am a little hard on Cassie sometimes. I don't actually think she's a monster, either. But I get SO frustrated that she never ever sees any negative consequences of her decisions (yes, maybe she's made fewer mistakes than the other animorphs, but she HAS made mistakes, KA), that I overcompensate by ripping her to pieces and pretending she's a horrible evil person.
I love the ideas that Cassie stands for. I just don't like that she's so -beep-ing perfect, when in reality she shouldn't be.
Thank you, I always did kinda hate that when the others made bad decisions, it backfired worse. I always thought that morph capable ant shoulda come back to bite her in the ass.(along with the other things she did). I also hated the fact that she jumped down the other animorphs throats when they made morally shaky choices, when she made just as many.
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That coule be construed as ERASING THE SOUL.
Though I'm no legal expert, I'm fairly certain no jurisdiction in the world has a precedent for that, nor a statue of limitations for which they can persecute her.
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Oh God I just snorted so loudly at that.
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That coule be construed as ERASING THE SOUL.
If there is a God/soul/afterlife I am pretty sure it has provisions for time travel accidents / attacks.
The soul for example, exists beforehand, and is put into the body. Stopping someone from being born only prevents the body, the soul would likely end up somewhere else.
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And I never understood why everyone hates Cassie. Yea, her moralizing can be tedious sometimes, and her narration is very dull. But she isn't a monster. At least she was THINKING about doing the right thing. Sure, for some missions there may have been one blatant answer. But come on. You're going to hate on someone for having an opinion and a conscience?
Some say she's a hypocrite. I don't know about that. I haven't read nearly as many books to form much of an opinion on that. But she isn't evil.
Come on people.
Thank you! Sure Cassie was a pain in the ass sometimes but somebody needed to be mr/ms morality. LOL I think people just hate Cassie cuz their favorite Anis all died and she's still alive :P Plus there's that whole Mary-Sue thing in Megamorphs 4
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I am glad there are plenty of people who get annoyed with Cassie as much as I do. The moralizing just always made me roll my eyes.
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I don't really hate Cassie. However she is my least favorite. All the Anis have done some pretty bad things. Or at least most of them. Some of the worst stuff was done by Cassie, yet KA seems to try her hardest to vindicate what she does. Trapping David doesn't come back to bite her in the butt at all, and in some way giving the Escafil Device away actually helped the Anis. Also Karen just wound up being overlooked by the Yeerks for some reason after book 19. Not to mention that they let Cassie live it down too easily after she left during book 19. All forgiven and forgotten.
I wonder what people think the worst thing each Animorph did during the series. Justified or not.
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Thank you all! You have given me a lot to think about, and this helps assuage some of my concerns. I can now safely say Cassie's crime is not as bad as I thought it was. Forgive me for sounding all high and mighty, I just guess I take things too seriously. And I AM a spiritual person, so...
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I wonder what people think the worst thing each Animorph did during the series. Justified or not.
I've actually been thinking about this quite a bit lately. However, I think someone would need to make a second topic to discuss it, since we'd get too far off-topic discussing it here. So . . . who wants the karma?
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The visitor from the future calls the people like Berryman "collateral damages"... Sorry for him but... (season 2 episode 4, no subtitles yet but soon, for the people who wanna watch it...)
Really, it doesn't sound that horrible to me. Maybe I'm not enough sensitive, don't know...
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The only thing Cassie ever did that I can't forgive is David, David, David. Everyone with a brain knows that killing David quickly would have been far more merciful than killing him slowly, agonizingly, in the living hell of a body that isn't his own on the bottom of the food chain in a place where he is all alone. That whole plan is rock-solid proof to me that Cassie's definition of evil is just "things that give me the willies." I can appreciate that as a message of the series, but I don't like how it never came back to bite her. KA made David Rachel's demon, but IMO he should have been Cassie's demon.
Aftran and the morphing cube I can forgive because Cassie has to deal with the consequences of those choices, of being hated and suspected by her friends, and they rebounded to good things. How many Yeerks must have deserted after morphing gave them the freedom to escape their society's chains?
As for Megamorphs, I like to pretend that Megamorphs 2 and 3 never happened.
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Yeah, I harp on Cassie about giving the box up, and some people have defended the decision because of some good things that happened. Trapping David as a rat over just killing him? Did not help anyone. Not one person. And the person it bothers the most isn't even the person that came up with the idea. I'm not even sure why Cassie didn't want to kill him. Because he's Human? That just carries unfortunate implications about the Hork-Bajir and Yeerks she was willing to kill.
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So true. That always weirded me out; that they were willing to butcher Hork-Bajir on a regular basis, with a childlike mind, but not human-Controllers. Then again, Hork-Bajir are WAY more dangerous than a human host, so.........
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So true. That always weirded me out; that they were willing to butcher Hork-Bajir on a regular basis, with a childlike mind, but not human-Controllers. Then again, Hork-Bajir are WAY more dangerous than a human host, so.........
I thought that was because in the case of humans it could have been them in their place, (you know them as the controllers/role reversal) but the hork bajir were all controllers.
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I always thought it was because, by the time they realized that the Hork-bajir weren't, you know, evil (even though Elfangor freaking told them and they just didn't believe him), they'd already killed a whole bunch of them. So it was sort of a defense mechanism. They dehumanized the Hork-bajir, rather than having to deal with the mental anguish of all the innocent beings they'd suddenly realized they'd killed. Of course, once the Animorphs were firmly in denial about the Hork-bajir being anything close to human, it was okay to go right on killing them.
But, yeah, that double-standard always bugged me. That it was okay to kill Hork-bajir but not humans.
However, I think their unwillingness to kill David stemmed, at least in part, from the fact that they'd already known him for three books at that point. He was an Animorph, however briefly. I'd imagine it would be much harder to kill someone you know than a stranger.
KA made David Rachel's demon, but IMO he should have been Cassie's demon.
I definitely agree with that. Especially given Cassie's tender conscience about other things.
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In Cassie's defense with the whole David thing, I probably couldn't have done it either. Can you imagine him screaming in your head as your about to kill him? He'd probably beg and plead the entire time and after that I'd probably feel waaay too bad to kill him. The only Ani that I could see not giving in to David's begging and sob stories would be,
no not Rachel, Marco and maybe Ax. lol I always loved how Rachel was portrayed as the group's heartless monster when that title clearly belonged to Marco
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In Cassie's defense with the whole David thing, I probably couldn't have done it either. Can you imagine him screaming in your head as your about to kill him? He'd probably beg and plead the entire time and after that I'd probably feel waaay too bad to kill him. The only Ani that I could see not giving in to David's begging and sob stories would be, no not Rachel, Marco and maybe Ax.
I don't think any of them could handle it. If you remember in the Solution, after Rachel and Ax ditch David on that Island, Ax says, "I'd like to never speak of this again." The only reason Ax agreed to stay with Rachel was because Jake gave him a direct order. Rachel THOUGHT she could take it, but she couldn't.
Would I have killed David? To be honest, I'm not sure. If Jake put it to a vote, I probably would have voted to have him killed. But I wouldn't want to be the one to do it.
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I guess the only time I'd have felt comfortable killing David was if he was attacking me (which is why I thought that book shoulda ended with Rachel(Grizzly) and David(Lion) fighting)
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Having him scream and beg in my head for a minute would be much better than him doing it for two hours. I'd be able to do it, assuming I'd been doing something similar for the past two years or so.
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They could have put David down painlessly, without him ever knowing what had happened. Lead him into that cage, then drop a brick on him. At least they could have tried.
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They could have put David down painlessly, without him ever knowing what had happened. Lead him into that cage, then drop a brick on him. At least they could have tried.
Lol that's horrible! I'd probably throw up after doing that
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As much as I understand the Animorphs 'humanity' I really agree that it would have been better to kill him. Both as a logical move and as the humane thing to do. If you need him to morph first and then kill him, so be it. Take away his human face and body first before you get rid of him, whatever. It was actually pretty cruel to trap David as a rat. Even though he did some horrible things, that fate is something the Animorphs shouldn't deliver so easily. Well obviously not easily, since they struggle with it... but at the end of the day it would have been better off to kill him. Trap him in rat and throw him to a snake for all I care... wash the blood off your own hands but don't leave loose ends that make for crazy psycho rats. =P
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At the same time though, they're what, 14 years old or so at that point? Trapping David may not have been the most logical thing to do, and may have been crueler, but from a young person's perspective (especially young people who've sometimes espoused that any life is better than no life - Rachel in #17, Marco in #5 and #10), I can totally see why they thought it was the better choice even though I disagree. While there may not be a rational difference, to humans there's an emotional difference between killing someone you know, whose situation is your fault, outside of combat, and killing someone you don't know as collateral in the middle of a fight.
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A young person who had already spent over a year fighting and killing countless people. Granted most of them were Hork-Bajir, but they have still killed before. They weren't innocent children anymore. They were soldiers.
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I never said they were innocent. I just said that they were young. Even with life experience young people tend to act more out of emotions than logic. Emotionally, there's a difference between killing someone you know in a trap and incidentally killing someone in a direct fight for your life in combat, even if the qualitative result is the same.
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True, I see where you're coming from and agree. Especially the reminder that David was created by them, or at least conditioned to follow after a series of unlucky events. That being said I stand by the fact that the more logical decision would be to kill him, but it is understandable that the Animorphs didn't choose that path.