Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: wotw2112 on May 05, 2012, 05:28:21 AM
-
So why did Marco never really get a main love interest in the series? Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Was it just KA didn't want to pair everybody off?
Was it mommy issues?
Was it supposed to be part of his character that he's just a "playboy"? (which I never really bought...)
Was it meant to be some kind of message considering how Marco ends up post-war? (Since KA was so fond of war-related messages)
Any other possibilities or thoughts?
-
Guess that's just apart of his charm, he's the unattached guy. ;)
-
I think it was one of the big running jokes of the series. The guy that had the most confidence with the women and thought he was the cutest was the guy that was the most dismal failure in the romance department.
-
Hmm...I never really considered that it was a running joke. I assumed (like much of what KA claimed to be doing) she was trying to send some deeper message.
But maybe you're right. It could just have been to keep him free for the comic-relief angles.
(Though I would call Jake a miserable failure in that department too considering how things ended up).
-
Because K.A. exceeded her two female character in the group limit, and probably didn't want to pair him off with Ax or David, as the audience of the 1990's was not ready for that. I mean, Jake and Cassie, Tobias and Rachel...Would they have ever gotten together if there hadn't been a war? Tobias was a loner, and his relationship with Rachel in the books is more mother/son than it is bf/gf. Jake and Cassie are said to have liked each other beforehand, but that could have just been sped up or made possible by the war. I think the relationships were more "I'm finding comfort in you because no one else can understant" kind of deal, coupled with a slight attraction to one another.
-
Well, Ax had a love interest too so that's why the pairing within the group thing never really occurred to me.
But I guess that's different since it would be pretty obvious that no andalite would be infested by a Yeerk (other than the obvious exception everyone knows about). Your comment make me think that it was probable that a good chunk of the reason why Marco never really looked outside the group was because he could never really tell if a girl was a Controller or not... Why that didn't occur to me sooner...
-
I'm dragging it a bit off topic, but why does R/T come off as more mother/son?
-
Not everyone has to settle down and get married to one person for the rest of their lives. If Marco was the type of guy that didn't settle down, I'd be ok with that. I am surprised not many girls seemed to like him.
-
I'm dragging it a bit off topic, but why does R/T come off as more mother/son?
Going off topic just to answer this question.
Since I've been on RAF, and after having read some interesting topics, I've come to see the Rachel/Tobias relationship in a new light. As a kid, I thought they were a good match, romantically. But now I see them as having a different kind of relationship. Specifically that of a mother and son.
Tobias was bullied A LOT in school, and after he becomes a nothlit he finds it difficult to adjust. Yes, eventually he comes to terms with his conflict of human/hawk, and gains independance, but prior to this revelation he relies a lot on Jake and Rachel to take care of him; especially the latter.
Rachel seems to enjoy the role of protector--it's a motherly instinct, but also stems from her role as older sister. I cannot say why Rachel fell in love with Tobias--maybe it's the whole Angel factor; a dark, brooding, mysterious boyfriend that mom doesn't know about. But she is constantly protecting Tobias in a way that I think is motherly, rather than girlfriendly. Tobias gives off this "needy" kind of vibe that must have grabbed his attention. Maybe that's why she likes Tobias, rather than Marco. With Tobias, she can provide him with the love he never had growing up; she can support and love him. With Marco, Rachel may not be able to do that, simply because he's more emotionally stable--arguably.
Just a thought.
-
Tough to say.
The 2 female characters went for Jake and Tobias, (both of which made more sense than Marco would have) and she didn't want to create another female character just to have 3 couples, which IMO would have been pretty stupid.
I don't think there necessarily has to be a deeper reason than that.
-
I'm dragging it a bit off topic, but why does R/T come off as more mother/son?
Going off topic just to answer this question.
Since I've been on RAF, and after having read some interesting topics, I've come to see the Rachel/Tobias relationship in a new light. As a kid, I thought they were a good match, romantically. But now I see them as having a different kind of relationship. Specifically that of a mother and son.
Tobias was bullied A LOT in school, and after he becomes a nothlit he finds it difficult to adjust. Yes, eventually he comes to terms with his conflict of human/hawk, and gains independance, but prior to this revelation he relies a lot on Jake and Rachel to take care of him; especially the latter.
Rachel seems to enjoy the role of protector--it's a motherly instinct, but also stems from her role as older sister. I cannot say why Rachel fell in love with Tobias--maybe it's the whole Angel factor; a dark, brooding, mysterious boyfriend that mom doesn't know about. But she is constantly protecting Tobias in a way that I think is motherly, rather than girlfriendly. Tobias gives off this "needy" kind of vibe that must have grabbed his attention. Maybe that's why she likes Tobias, rather than Marco. With Tobias, she can provide him with the love he never had growing up; she can support and love him. With Marco, Rachel may not be able to do that, simply because he's more emotionally stable--arguably.
Just a thought.
I really think that is the essence of the relationship, now that I think about it. Rachel always was the "momma bear" type of protector, whether it was her family or the world. "Screw you, you mess with my friends I'm going to take care of you myself." Tobias seemed to need that because he never had it, and it was really the only way into Rachel's emotional side (as opposed to "hey babe, you're hot, wanna date?") Rachel felt herself when she was protecting something, and that was how the relationship with Tobias worked. One of the best things the series did, I think, was show the darker side of the relationship (even though I think it was probably the favorite.) Even though the love might seem 'realer' on a level, there is a lot of unbalance there too. She felt she 'knew' what was best for Tobias, and so she always was trying to trap him as a human, constantly worrying about him.
As for Cassie and Jake, they kind of mutually needed each other as well. Cassie grounded Jake from spinning into unchartered moral territory that he wasn't comfortable with (which Marco and Rachel was.) And Jake provided Cassie with a sense that he could keep the world from spinning out of control into the moral black-and-black. In the end, when the morals proved to be what was holding them back from claiming victory in the war, their relationship deteriorated because they lost what was needed to hold them together.
And with the brief Ax romance, he simply needed to know he wasn't the only Andalite in the Universe.
Marco was more or less independent from the get go, probably because he'd already walked through the "I'm on my own" phase with his mom dying and his father going basically mentally MIA on him. He didn't really need anyone to cling to, and was in the end more focused on the war, so he really didn't have the time or need to actually seek out someone on an emotional level.
**of course, this is all opinion.
-
The R/T relationship may have had a mother/son feel to it; but so do a lot of other romantic relationships. According to the books, they had known of each other before the incident, and were attracted to each other to some degree. The war just made them take full notice of each other and threw them into each others' arms.
There are a lot of "normal" relationships out there between damaged people where one person takes the caretaker role while the other fills the caretaker's need to help someone. It can be both caretaker/victim and romantic. It's just how their personalities fit together. He liked her and felt safe with her; and she liked him and enjoyed that he went to her for comfort and emotional aid.
Cassie and Jake had "liked" each other before the incident as well. They would've ended up in a normal relationship even if they hadn't been entered into this war. Really, the war is probably the only reason they didn't live happily ever after.
Marco, I think was always too concentrated on getting his mother back and keeping his father from going into an apathetic coma to even worry about girls. All his big, "I'm the cutest and biggest chick-magnet" was all bravado and a front to keep people to see that his home life was affecting him so much. He pretended to be such a player so people would dismiss him as shallow and single-minded; and not look deeper into his troubles.
-
Because Animorphs is NOT Friends. You don't need every character to pair off. It's a sci-fi not a romantic novel. It would be like having Book and River finding random lovers in the Firefly series.
-
Not EVERYONE had a love interest on Friends. Well, I mean, if you do what I do and pretend the Joey/Rachel ship never happened.
-
Marco never had a serious love interest because Ax wasn't his type and everyone else on the team was spoken for. The logistics of him maintaining a relationship with some one outside the Animorphs while keeping all of that a secret are pretty unworkable then you've gotta throw school and family oblications on top of that. And after the David ordeal they wouldn't be bringing some one in just because Marco like-liked her.
Granted, there are plausable ways that KA could have introduced a love interest for Marco who was in the know about the invasion but they are all likely to be kinda convoluted and there would be issues with things like the narriation order.
Bottom line is that Marco had enough issues unique to his character that relationship drama just wouldn't have fit.
-
I also imagine he'd be a bad boyfriend.
-
Maybe KA wanted Marco's character to have different plot lines? If 4 of the 6 main characters are in relationships then there is plenty of time and pages to explore these themes. You all might notice that Marco's character is the most believable and interesting one in the whole series. Not saying its because he was single, but it might have helped save space for more important stuff.
-
I also imagine he'd be a bad boyfriend.
I am curious about your reasons, please share.
-
I forgot where but I read a pretty good fic where Marco got together with Mellisa Chapman and she ended up becoming useful to the Animorphs since she lives with two controllers (pretty much an intel person like Erek) of course there are several reasons why this probably wouldn't work for very long in canon before Mellisa would eventually be found out but ever since then I've shipped those two XD
-
While I was reading the series for the first time, i never noticed that Marco never paired up. And thinking about it now, I'm not bothered by it. As a clue others stated: not everyone pairs up, especially as young as the characters were. Marco had other things on his mind at the time. It's kind of refreshing actually considering the length some authors go to to ensure their characters get a happy ending.
Though, I'm speaking as the one person in my circle of friends who remains unpaired.
-
I seriously wish K.A partnered Marco with Rachel, you know. 'Cause Tobias and Rachel just aren't the same type. In what world a hot chick would fall for a bully-magnet? That just doesn't add up. It should have been like Rachel developing feelings for Marco as the series progressed, despite him being a pain in the ass for her all the time. That would have been really cool.
-
I didn't like Tobias with Rachel for one reason. Tobias is a Hawk, Rachel is a human. I can't see past that.
-
But technically, they're both human, except Tobias is in the body of a hawk, so it still sorta makes sense
-
Still is nasty in my mind... Dating a hawk.
-
I think it just shows that their relationship is beyond just physical attraction. The closest real example I can think of is somebody's staying with their spouse or lover despite an accident that left them disabled or disfigured. Besides, it's not like they're having sex or anything and anytime they've gotten as close to "physical" as one can get in a kids' novel, Tobias is in his human form. And this is coming from someone who preferred Rachel and Marco XD
-
Group dynamics probably, as has been said.
I don't think he really needed one though. I don't think a romance would have added anything to his story. It was deep and interesting as it was.