Richard's Animorphs Forum

Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: saamoz610 on March 03, 2012, 10:43:47 AM

Title: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: saamoz610 on March 03, 2012, 10:43:47 AM
In the books, the Animorphs act like if they reveal their identities, then the Yeerks will read the books and find them.  But even with all their secrecy, wouldn't Tom, who is a known controller, just see the word "Jake" and "Tom" and figure out who and where the Animorphs are?  Could be that they never published their books in their world. 
Whadda ya think?
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2012, 11:32:54 AM
Might mean that they were published AFTER the war ended . . . like the "secret accounts" or something.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: NateSean on March 03, 2012, 12:39:18 PM
I don't take the interpretation of the stories being "published" books too seriously.

Yeah, in the beginning it seemed like Jake and Rachel were "writing this down". But what about Tobias? We know that Ax had his own Earth diary but that was seperate from the narrative in The Alien.

Elfangor had the Hirac Delest plot device. The Hork-Bajir chronicles from Dak and Aldrea's point of view were being retold by Jara, but that doesn't explain knowing Esplin's point of view. Most of Visser One's story was Edriss' testimony to the Council of Thirteen, but obviously there were spots before the actual testimony where it was simply Visser One's narrative.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Chad32 on March 04, 2012, 11:51:20 PM
It would have to be after the war, since the Yeerks would easily find them once they knew Visser One's host's son was an Animorph. Even if they changed everyone's names, though apparently the guy's real name was Jake. One of the Animorphs has a parent that runs The Gardens, and frankly I'm surprised she wasn't taken since the battle morphs are mostly from The Gardens. Jake, Marco, and Cassie would be taken pretty quickly. Every controller would grab their brother, every administrator at the Gardens who had a daughter would be taken, and Visser One would be getting a call asking about her host's family.

I can imagine there being more than a few people in California with Rachel's mother's occupation, and Tobias isn't Human anymore. The Yeerks can be stupid sometimes, but even this wouldn't fly.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Snakie on March 05, 2012, 09:42:15 AM
 Its more basic than that, actually.

If the books actually existed within the universe that these stories take place in, they'd know they were human and we'd be at the point we found ourselves in on book #49 a heck of a lot earlier.

And as we saw in that book, once the Yeerks realize its humans they're looking for, its a relatively short step towards realizing WHO they are, even if we ignore the stuff about first names.

For that reason the premise that concealing last names would be enough to protect them is absurd.  I never took the narration style all that seriously though, and it never bothered me much.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Jetstream on March 09, 2012, 07:41:13 PM
It's best not to think about the framing device too much. It doesn't hold up under logical scrutiny.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: SitsInCorner1! on March 10, 2012, 07:11:23 AM
If the plot framing was to be taken seriously and the yeerks didn't find out the identities, I'd be a little worried about how the yeerks had gotten so far with their invasion.  :)
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 11, 2012, 11:32:09 PM
We already did a "Things animorphs and other characters would never say" on this,

Visser 3: <Book 1: The invasion? That is it! No more childrens stories on the job!>
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: yunyun on March 12, 2012, 08:53:19 AM
It's best not to think about the framing device too much. It doesn't hold up under logical scrutiny.
Agreed. Also, in one book I think it did mention that it may not be their real names, that everything they've written down has been changed to protect them.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Chad32 on March 12, 2012, 05:15:41 PM
And then their names didn't change to something like Zack, Simon, Ike, Emily, and Nikki once their enemies knew who they were. Though it would be weird if that did happen.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: spencer on March 27, 2012, 05:51:03 PM
i always thought it was like a diary that was later published. but i didnt really think about it after a while, i used to skip the introductions.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 25, 2015, 06:11:28 AM
In the books, the Animorphs act like if they reveal their identities, then the Yeerks will read the books and find them.  But even with all their secrecy, wouldn't Tom, who is a known controller, just see the word "Jake" and "Tom" and figure out who and where the Animorphs are?  Could be that they never published their books in their world. 
Whadda ya think?

I did indeed think that if any Yeerk ever found an Animorph book, the Yeerks would quickly discover their full identities.  Jake's intros would be enough to lead Yeerks right to him.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 25, 2015, 06:12:17 AM
Might mean that they were published AFTER the war ended . . . like the "secret accounts" or something.

If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: pallosalama on June 25, 2015, 04:32:12 PM
If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?


If they were written during the war for example, with an initiative that if they would publish them or the books would get in hands of Yeerks, they couldn't pinpoint them at the very moment.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 25, 2015, 08:12:18 PM
If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?


If they were written during the war for example, with an initiative that if they would publish them or the books would get in hands of Yeerks, they couldn't pinpoint them at the very moment.

If the books were written during the war, why provide the information that Jake's brother Tom is a high ranking Controller, or that Racael is Jake's cousin, or that Cassie's parents work at a zoo and at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic?
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 28, 2015, 10:19:33 AM
Book 4, The Message: Tom speculates that the "Andalite Bandits" may not be Andalites.  This means that Tom would be open to the possibility that they are human residents of town who happened to acquire morphing powers.  When Jake behaves oddly later in the series (often being absent from home during Andalite bandit attacks, eating everything in sight one weekend just after an important Yeerk went missing after an Andalite attack at a hospital), Tom should grow suspicious that Jake may be connected to the Andalite bandits, and arrange to keep him under observation.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: RYTX on June 28, 2015, 12:55:09 PM
You do recall that the Yeerk your saying is open to that is the one that wound up in Jake and died 2 books later right?

No reason the new Yeerk would have the same inclinations
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 28, 2015, 03:54:27 PM
You do recall that the Yeerk your saying is open to that is the one that wound up in Jake and died 2 books later right?

No reason the new Yeerk would have the same inclinations

But wouldn't Tom's new Yeerk have access to Tom's memories of his old Yeerk speculating about the possible non Andalite nature of the Andalite bandits?
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: pallosalama on June 28, 2015, 03:57:39 PM
But wouldn't Tom's new Yeerk have access to Tom's memories of his old Yeerk speculating about the possible non Andalite nature of the Andalite bandits?

Interesting thought. Are thought-conversations between host and Yeerk saved in the hosts' memory? If so, then he could read them, but only if the Yeerk voiced his speculations to Tom.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: donut on June 28, 2015, 04:05:55 PM
Yes.  Which brings up another, semi related point.  Visser 3 knew about the peace movement later.  All he needed to do to root it out completely was have every yeerk swap hosts.  The hosts' memories would reveal all the traitors.

But back to this, we knew the yeerks had speculated that the andalite bandits were really humans.  The animorphs suspected Visser 3 was so convinced they had to be andalites that he simply wouldn't entertain the idea.  Makes sense given how much he romanticized the andalites.  We also know at least one and probably more knew the animorphs were human, but kept their mouths shut.

None of the narrative really makes a heckuva lotta sense if you dig at it.  Like how do we know Rachel's last words, or anything that happened to the anis once they left Earth at the end of the series.  It's always possible that half the information was false, to throw the yeerks off though.  Assuming the books were written but not published during the war, it could just have been a control to give the animorphs enough time to escape if the books were discovered.
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Tim Bruening on June 28, 2015, 04:07:31 PM
But wouldn't Tom's new Yeerk have access to Tom's memories of his old Yeerk speculating about the possible non Andalite nature of the Andalite bandits?

Interesting thought. Are thought-conversations between host and Yeerk saved in the hosts' memory? If so, then he could read them, but only if the Yeerk voiced his speculations to Tom.

Tom's old Yeerk had verbally expressed his suspicions to Chapman.  Tom would have heard his voice speculating about non Andalite Andalite bandits.  Tom's new Yeerk would have access to Tom's memories of that conversation.

P 37 of paperback The Message: Tom's speculation about the Andalite bandits, upon seeing the tracks of 4 humans on the beach, but no humans in the water: If they're human, why don't we see them out there?  Four sets of human tracks.  No humans in the water.  Is it possible...is Visser Three wrong?  What if they're not Andalite at all?
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: RYTX on June 29, 2015, 06:37:53 AM
You do recall that the Yeerk your saying is open to that is the one that wound up in Jake and died 2 books later right?

No reason the new Yeerk would have the same inclinations


But wouldn't Tom's new Yeerk have access to Tom's memories of his old Yeerk speculating about the possible non Andalite nature of the Andalite bandits?


Yes, but just because the old guy was suspicious of something doesn't mean the new guy would give a crap what he thought. This is probably his first human host, and he's up in his Yeerk to rule the world mentality, if doesn't care what has-beens dumb enough to get them self killed would have thought about the idea of lowly humans resisting.

It's all about character
Title: Re: Wouldn't Tom Find Jake
Post by: Dylan on June 29, 2015, 12:59:50 PM
Assuming the books were written but not published during the war, it could just have been a control to give the animorphs enough time to escape if the books were discovered.
It's best not to think about the framing device for the books. The whole it was written down idea doesn't make since for most of the books.
Also, The yeerks had always suspected the Andalite Bandits. It was a long lead up of left behind clues that lead to the discovery of the Animorphs.