Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Hikaru on July 31, 2011, 11:17:50 AM
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So, my grandmothers a Jehovah's Witness and we go to these religious conventions every year, well a few years back at one I got to thinking. How come the Yeerks never used religion? I mean we have Jonestown and several cult examples in history of how religion can be a power used to er... 'brainwash,' people.
So why didn't the Yeerks ever use it? It would be simple, just turn some high ranking priests, ministers, or other types of religious leaders into human-controllers involuntarily, then have them hold some interfaith or large convention. Have them tell the people that if they became a voluntary human-controller they would be one step closer to god, or go to heaven, or gain enlightenment, or several other ways.
This would have completely won it for the Yeerks as half the world is religious. They would have gained voluntary controllers by the dozens.
Would it have made the series too easy or something?
Edit: Heck, just have them baptized in the yeerk pool. One dunk = insta-controller!
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0o Wow. What an excelent point. ... I'd never considdered that, really.
My thoughts would be that they didn't write that out because there are too many religions to accomodate, and they didn't want to step on anyone's toes.. And of course, if someone feels you're misrepresenting/making fun of their religion, you're gonna' get sued, buddy...
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Isn't The Sharing effectively a religion already? It's main attraction is to those who are emotionally/spiritually unfulfilled; it takes advantage of that feeling, and I don't see it as particularly attractive to those who already have a strong faith.
I can see Visser One wanting to start other fronts, perhaps one more like a dogmatic religion. Maybe they simply didn't have the resources.
Or as a more mundane explanation, a more overtly religious Sharing wouldn't pass S&P.
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The Sharing is actually a lot closer to a cult.
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The Sharing is actually a lot closer to a cult.
One man's religion is another man's cult. (And vice versa.)
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First issue I think is just cuz Applegate basically keep religion out of the series
As a plot device it does have potential, though I prehaps not astronomical: I'm hoping not every person of faith blindly obeys everything a member of the clergy says-which I figure they don't seeing as how many religious people blow of the practices of their faith and "sin" in general.
Plus it seems something novel like this would cause a few people to pause. Taking a slug in the brain isn't in the bible (Was it?)
But by and large there has to be issue making anyone a control: Otherwise they could have just rounded up politicians, civil servants, or invest kids classroom by classroom.
Probably where a few religious higher ups who were controllers, enough to just grab the world? Unlikely
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There's also the fact that unlike Visser 1, Visser 3 made no effort to understand humans, it's not unlikely that he simply did not know about just how powerful religious influence is.
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Organized religion has flourished in human history chiefly because humans are very social entities, concerned with being part of a group, and constantly fussy about how the group perceives them. The Sharing took advantage of the basic factors that motivate 'successfully organized' religious groups - that is, the obsession with status, popularity, group/caste/rank... - and skipped over the gory details of creating a belief system, instead just going straight to the heart of human interactions by implying that it's a vaguely bad idea to not be part of the Sharing.
In all likelihood, they could have expanded their ranks by making other branches of the Sharing in other parts of the world, with a more relgion-based focus... but for that geographic region, with so many teens in a small area, conveying to their extended families the feeling of being scrutinized... seriously, we think the only thing that would have made them MORE successful would be if they started the invasion in Boise and Utah, with the most powerful members of several Mormon churches. You want social pressure to conform, go there; you'll be wowed.
Anyway, basically... the Yeerks could use religion, and it would have worked scarily well in parts of the world that are utterly controlled by a specific religious group... but for areas under less-specific influences, it works as well if not better to just play directly on the human urge to conform to the herd.
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^ Wellspoken..
I prettymuch can't add anything extra to that. XD
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I think it would have been difficult. The reason its so hard to infest to the point where you cant just discretely slip a yeerk in a random person on the street is because it hurts to have a yeerk crawling THROUGH your ear drum. Baptisms wouldn't work because that's half a second under. The best they could do is offer the higher membership and then get them down there volunterilly
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^ He has a point.
But I agree that those of great faith would voluntarily turn to the Yeerks, if they were made to believe it would help them get to Heaven.
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I dont think many people would do that (And where in revelations if this found?) Then they would be forced to do it
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Are you talking to someone else? Because I don't recall referencing Revelations.
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Revelations talks alot about the rapture and they could say that the slug is part of ascension
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=/ with a loud enough voice and a large enough following of people, you can turn whatever words you wish into reality..;
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You wanna bet? their was that time I ran up on stage in the middle of an assembly and I ran up on stage and screamed "EVERYONE! DANCE!" and nothing.
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XD Well there's quite an easy explanation to that:
Nobody followed you. =P
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but I was wearing my hypno glasses that i ordered off of a superman comic!
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i was under the impression it doesn't hurt for the yeerk to enter if it doesn't want it to.
i think a better place than baptism, at least for catholics, would be in the confession booth.
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I dont think many people would do that (And where in revelations if this found?) Then they would be forced to do it
People rewrite the bible all the time in some branched off faiths and cults. If we're talking about every religion though, look at where the sacred writings come from, Mormons he pulled it out of the ground, Islam from that prophet, etc. If the religion angle was done well enough and all resources exhausted, it would have been a great way to 'pull the wool over humanities eye's so to speak.
They would just need to infest some high ranking leaders such as the Pope, or religious branch offices. Have them say that the yeerks are a messenger sent from 'so and so prophet,' and that by accepting one they are now closer to god or can directly talk to him, or will go to heaven, or whatever else we can come up with.
I mean look at Jonestown as example in history, they convinced everyone to suicide with kool aid in order to go to heaven. Now replace suicide with infestation.
I only thought of this question because at those conventions it's like 10,000 people that go a year. If at every convention people were led to be infested... Well my state would practically be half empty.
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I would think to stop readers from think KA believes religion is evil. If people think the series is supposed to be a big anti religion metaphor, then it would be really bad PR.
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But I'm not trying to say religion is evil. I'm trying to say if the evil guys used it for evil purposes, they could have gotten further in their invasion.
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You are amking very good points but I dont think people are gullible enough to let a slug crawl in their heads
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To be honest the Yeerks definitely could have taken a more active approach to infestation. It just suited the story that the Yeerks weren't "too" powerful. Unlike government positions, religious leaders would be ideal targets since they're less protected. Once you control the leaders and the followers don't notice the difference then you control the followers. I can't imagine it would be difficult for the Yeerks to convert a confession booth into a Yeerkification booth. They don't have to be so obvious as "Put one of these in your ear! Your chosen deity demands it!"
The idea of incorporating the Yeerks as a part of religion/belief system may attract unwanted attention from law or intelligence agencies (home grown terrorism). Even science background civilians might be inclined to examine how a slug can help you become spiritually enlightened. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this couldn't work I am already picturing several tv/movies scenes where a whole town is under control by a cult or alien influence. They'd just have be very cautious.
Something that the Yeerks should have done early on was to infiltrate the medical institutions (doctors, dentists, etc). Except for those incredibly fortunate (or unfortunate) virtually everyone who is capable of seeing a doctor eventually does. It wouldn't take too much to restrain a single patient at a time to infest them with a Yeerk. Of course perhaps the Yeerks only want "healthy" humans but almost everyone goes to the doctors eventually. You would also expect that the Yeerks would have studied human physiology for compatibility so they wouldn't or rather shouldn't be squeamish using such an effective host harvesting technique.
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nope
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Um...what do you mean, nope?
THAT'S your argument to his above adequate response? :huh:
You aren't going to try to refute his ideas? Just nope? We're supposed to take your word for it?
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I dont even remember what I was syaing nope about.
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Visser One had a good bean on human psychology. If we take the focus away from KA Applegate and keep it within the story universe, if Visser One had never handed the planet over to V3 she may full well have explored the religion option as well as developing the Sharing.
Alas, it probably wasn't entirely her decision since there were thirteen people who were kind of above her and she had used Earth as her "Please Don't Kill Me for Going Awol" card.
Early Stargate and the early seasons of Stargate SG-1 explored the idea of an alien species using religion and human fear of a higher power to control and subjugate the human species. It made for some very interesting storylines.
It's too bad the writers got so bored that they had to call in the Farscape cast to save it.
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There isnt pain when a Yeerks crawls in your ear, it secrets a sort of anesthetic.
I'm actually going to a Convention of Jehovahs Witnesses this weekend, and I can promise you that enough people will be going to give the Yeerks a small ARMY. if every controller taken was armed with a dracon, they could make them their special task force and the Animorphs wouldn't stand a chance - way too many people.
I do agree that the reason it's probably not in Animorphs is probably very basic; KA did t want to offend any particular religion, because the vast majority of them have the time, money, tempers, and will to sue her into her grave. Otherwise, she probably would've.
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The thing is I think Christianity is the only religion that baptizes people, especially with that water thing. I don't think any other religion use that method.
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Oh great, just SPOIL my idea that I am doing with my fan webcomic. :P
;D
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Oh great, just SPOIL my idea that I am doing with my fan webcomic. :P
;D
Umm sorry?
I wrote a fanfic with this idea back in 06, focusing more on the JW conventions. But by the 3rd chapter it felt blasphemous to continue as well as the fact my character in it was a Mary Sue. So it was discontinued. I still think think it was an interesting angle for the series to try though, which is why I posted it up here.
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I never get why they didn't use that thing...what is it? Confessions? To Yeerk-ize peops XD
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I think it would have been difficult. The reason its so hard to infest to the point where you cant just discretely slip a yeerk in a random person on the street is because it hurts to have a yeerk crawling THROUGH your ear drum. Baptisms wouldn't work because that's half a second under. The best they could do is offer the higher membership and then get them down there volunterilly
The Yeerks inject a pain-killer so that the host won't feel pain during infestation.