It’s been a while since the last book was published, but I wanted to share my thoughts on everything that went astray with Animorphs, leading into the ending which is singularly off-putting.
Notwithstanding insistence on an anti-war message, there’s a visible military agenda written into the series, apparent on occasions when Jake reels off military trivia, in passages that hang on the valor of the armed forces, and in the countless examples of military rhetoric at large sprinkled throughout the books.
The behavioral messages woven into the lines of Animorphs run much deeper however. They revolve more generally around the use of authority and identity and response in relation to it; including authority as an endowed role and defining character trait, inability to function without authority figures, the responsibility to exercise and follow authority notwithstanding doubts, feelings of transgression from disobeying authority, and learning to entrust in authority and do one’s duty. Specifically, a dehumanizing divide is drawn between Jake and the other Animorphs by his manufactured role as leader, one that derails the course of the series.
Animorphs at heart is about a knot of friends whose commitment to their cause takes shape in their personal convictions and their bonds with each other, their families, and others close to them. They each grapple with inner conflicts – family for Marco and Jake, saving life on Earth whilst taking lives for Cassie, balancing life for Rachel, and identity and belonging for Tobias and Ax – that motivate and define their participation. As a team, the Animorphs arrive at decisions by mutual consensus and take charge in carrying them out. At other times, they act alone opposite the group out of necessity or personal beliefs. These complex dynamics resonate with the themes of individualism, free will and personal connections that underpin the series.
Subordinating the Animorphs to one member belittles their interactions and experiences, as individuals and as a team. Jake’s natural role in the group is the link that first brings them together, a stealth leader at most (although that can be said for all of them), but not someone in a position to assert authority over or give commands to the others. He’s declared leader categorically at the outset however, for the express sake of declaring a leader, to frame the Animorphs as soldiers and set an example for those reading to seek out and follow authority. This agenda spirals to unravel the tone and events of the series.
The introduction of Ax to the Animorphs with his insistence on serving a prince formally distinguishes Jake’s status, however tongue in cheek the title might sound.
Jake’s role as commander is further hammered in by The Warning as he starts giving tactical orders to the group and drilling them into units. His narrative also becomes mired in the qualms of leadership which style him above and apart from the rest of the team.
The Ellimist-Crayak arc adds another dimension to Jake’s leadership mandate, essentially divine right, as he’s singled out as champion of the side opposing evil.
Jake goes on to start styling himself as general, evident when he boasts trivia on military leaders to Tobias in The Illusion.
In the Reunion, Jake authoritatively reprimands Marco for the natural instinct to follow his reappeared mother, when he himself becomes swept up in a family crisis one book later.
Later, in the Journey, Jake threatens to court-martial Marco (half-joking), in very pointed military overtones. But even more so, note how gravely Rachel (out of all people) is shown hanging onto Marco’s failure to follow orders, excusing it just barely by his coming down with rabies.
The Familiar establishes Jake’s power of life or death over the other Animorphs as he makes the call to abandon Marco and Rachel in the thick of battle, and it’s subtly implied he lets Cassie fall in the alternate reality as well, when having woken he calls her to make sure she was ok with how things went down the day before. It’s true that the first of these circumstances resembles a spontaneous retreat, and the second, prioritization when they’re both doomed anyways. Nonetheless, they foreshadow things later to come.
Perhaps most telling is The Weakness, which insinuates 1) that the Animorphs are unable to function without a leader and in Jake’s absence, they must necessarily appoint another from their ranks to obey. 2) that it’s not in a leader’s interests nor their teams’ to second guess their command no matter what takes place 3) that all things given, Jake is the one fit to lead and his role and responsibilities once more surpass those of the other Animorphs.
Jake’s ‘general complex’ grows exponentially in the final arc of the series as the size of the resistance swells and he talks up a leader’s responsibility to make sacrifices without misgivings or self-doubt.
The introduction of the Auxiliaries, singled out for their obedience and sorted into ranks forthwith, cements the chain of command subordinating the other Animorphs to Jake, and their expendability beats a precedent for Rachel.
Before that, Jake dispatches half the team on a dangerous mission to blow up the Yeerk pool, one they could have all rightly been on given its significance. What’s showcased instead is the chorus of voices hailing Jake as the irreplaceable one, Cassie and Ax going out of pressure to make amends for defying leadership, and Rachel kept behind as the brute needed for the dirty work.
It’s the manner of Rachel’s death that breaks the narrative above all else however, leaving a deeply unsavory impression.
Every aspect of it is painstakingly constructed, from the detached, impassive way she puts forth her expendability, to how she anticipates the reader’s disbelief by acknowledging all the close calls the Animorphs had survived, to the threat presented by Tom, to the detailed play-by-play of her fight against the morphed Yeerks, to her final assist from Tobias and her tearful farewell with him and the rest of the team (the recipient of her “I love you” is incidentally left up in the air). Most of all, it’s how her death is validated at each turn, by Jake, by the Ellimist (i.e. god), who pigeonholes her as a “happy accident”, by Rachel herself.
And yet, whatever events dug prior pitching context for Rachel’s actions, whatever circumstances thrown urging her impersonal sacrifice for the ‘greater good’, it is plainly out of place.
It’s out of place for the same reason the Animorphs find morphing ants and later termites so deeply unsettling, the loss of identity and surrender of will to the hive. It’s the very same reason they resist the Yeerks to begin with, whose military hierarchy and mantra of the ‘greater good’ fly in the face of their individualism, free will and personal connections.
If Jake had run off after Tom and Rachel interceded, saving him, to die herself in the process, it would be a whole different story. Her actions as written, however, do not constitute selflessness but loss of self. There’s no bridge from the bright, determined teenager we’ve known to the resigned soldier, complacently expended on orders to kill her cousin. The bottom line is that Jake would never ask Rachel to carry out such a mission (if it really came down to it he’d go himself), Rachel would never go, and to insist otherwise betrays the bonds and themes that give life to the series.
The last slap in the face is Cassie’s exclusion from the final expedition. Whatever conflicts she may have had with the team’s actions, Cassie cared deeply for her friends, committed herself beyond measure, and always came through when it counted. Cassie was an Animorph at heart, same as all the rest, and her natural place was alongside her friends at the end, notwithstanding Jake’s concern. Cassie’s implied abandonment of Jake and the team, however, is only the conclusion of a train of subtext driving the reader to reject her as a part of the group.
The truth is that Animorphs is written in a way that’s persistently manipulative in its characterization.
Case in point: Cassie’s role as a pacifist is warped throughout the series by reckless actions (such as her surrender to Aftran, putting everyone at risk), ridiculous ethical objections (e.g. morphing animals without their consent) and other episodes angled to draw frustration from the reader (which however don’t include her stopping Jake from killing Tom, a very definitive point in the series). The same holds for the Chee, whose non-intervention is topped off by draining the pool ship’s weapons at the end, and even for Elfangor, whose refusal in the Chronicles to empty a few thousand Yeerks into space is vexing given they’re an openly hostile presence and sparing them amounts to killing thousands of hosts later on.
These actions have direct consequences - Elfangor brings about the infestation of Alloran and the Chee’s sabotage slams the lid shut on Rachel. And while they may be validated on the surface – the Yeerk peace movement sparked by Cassie or the Ellimist’s praises of Elfangor’s respect for life, the takeaway led between the lines is that there’s no place for pacifism in war, and more openly that pacifists will inevitably let down those around them.
On the opposite hand is Rachel, who’s called out as reckless and out-of-control early on though very much resolved, proactive and resourceful (coming to the rescue in the Yeerk pool more than once, solving the Ellimist’s riddle in The Stranger and so forth). And later in the series when her blunt aggression is instantiated (‘Mean Rachel’ in The Separation, the entirety of The Weakness, her spoken threats against the Yeerks and other Animorphs, her elimination of the wannabe Yeerk nohilt and preparedness to run down the guardsmen in The Sacrifice etc.), it’s always done in self-conscious, heavy-handed tones.
Note how Jake is shown questioning her future outside of the war when she maintains some of the strongest ties to regular life in the group (her interest in gymnastics, enthusiasm for fashion, academic excellence award etc.).
Note her manufactured conflict with Jake which includes establishing her as unfit to lead (The Weakness), her snuffed out challenge to his leadership, repressed to a dream (The Return), her resistance to the cardinal sin posed by Crayak (of deposing her commanding officer), and her ultimate submission to Jake’s authority to go die on his orders.
And note in particular the following quote from The Return
“They needed me to be the bad guy. And I needed them to be the good guys. See, if they were the good guys, and I was on their team, then that automatically made me a good guy, too. Even if I was different.”
when there’s no moral gulf between Rachel’s actions and the rest of the team’s.
It’s clear that Rachel’s narrative is being twisted into a very specific mold, that of the grizzled, unruly soldier who learns - defer to your superiors, follow orders, and everything will be ok because no matter what acts you commit, ‘you’re with the good guys’. Meanwhile the actual character is thrown figuratively and literally under the bus.
Marco’s supposed ruthlessness is similarly bent out of proportion. Despite his cool, calculating nature, Marco is equally as driven as the other Animorphs (if not more) by attachment to family and friends. It’s from that concern that his caution flows. That’s why it’s so off-putting to read his stated readiness to off his mother for the cause in The Reunion, where his natural intent would have been to save her. And Marco’s cold indifference shown to Rachel’s death likewise rings false.
Perhaps the most slyly subverted member of the team is Ax, whose Prince Jake fixation sums up everything that goes wrong with the series. The seemingly harmless ‘running gag’ presupposes Ax’s basic outlook on the Animorphs, that of subordinates following a commanding officer, and our own outlook by extension. It’s especially at odds with Ax’s own character development, which finds him breaking away from the rigid Andalite ranks toward the circle of Animorphs, won over by their friendship, free spirit and readiness to act on personal convictions. Ax himself skirts both the Andalites and humans countless times as he stakes out his own direction. And yet his first instinct shown upon encountering the Animorphs (The Message), even made aware they are not a part of the armed forces, is to ask for their prince and pledge allegiance to Jake.
This military ethic forced onto Ax haunts his arc through the entire series. More broadly, it speaks to the ritual militarism of the Andalites portrayed as a whole, though supposedly reluctant warriors by circumstance. Examples include their rites for all occasions, the mass suicide on the fallen ship in The Decision (where evacuation would have been in order) and Menderash’s eagerness to go nohilt for the last mission (which is highly disturbing when you think about it). And while there’s no shortage of criticism for the Andalite military in the books, their culture is endorsed just as often in between the lines.
Filtering out all of the propaganda, all of the filler (including half of the main series storylines starting with book 14 and the Megamorphs but not the Chronicles), and what technical problems the series has (not without its plot holes), Animorphs is a highly compelling read about friends fighting for freedom in its rawest form. And it’s this spirit of the story that captures our imagination, notwithstanding the failed resolution. The affirmative nature of language spurs an instinct to accept what we read as given. But just as a song may contain notes out of place, so can words fail to fit a story, which is a living, breathing thing, as is our response to it.
Having rejected the written arc of the series, it’s intriguing to consider how Animorphs actually should turn out. To that end, it’s remarkable how many notes The Beginning strikes correctly even as its message flies off the mark.
The amount of emotion wrung by Rachel’s death sinks home that there’s no ‘happy ending’ in store for the Animorphs, no return to normalcy from the experience they’ve shared. Even Rachel and Tobias’s relationship would likely hit some rocks as he morphed permanently to human and later resented her for it (on a side note, and in no way detracting from it – their pairing never seemed exclusive in nature – there’s palpable attraction hinted at between Rachel and Marco throughout the series, and possibly some feelings Tobias has for Melissa as well, however spuriously canon).
It takes the death of one of the Animorphs to fully impress the toll of that experience. And Rachel’s is singularly suited for that purpose, driving apart Jake and Cassie, alienating Tobias, and souring the spoils for Marco. Framed a different way, all of the other Animorphs have inner struggles left to work out after the war, Tobias his self-sufficiency having lost everything, Cassie her lingering reservations about the fight, Jake his survivor’s guilt, Marco his recognition that fame and fortune weren’t all he was chasing, and Ax his need to get out from his brother’s shadow (although he does effectively die later) - and for all of them, their realization that they were in it for their friends. In this light, the two Animorphs who check out by the end of the series are the ones most at peace with themselves.
Finally, the open-ended cliffhanger is a very fitting way to leave off, keeping alive the story of the Animorphs and the action and suspense central to it.
All that said, here’s one possible alternative resolution to the series (having stripped away Jake’s role as commander and the rest of that leadership agenda)
Anticipating Tom’s treachery, Jake has the Chee sabotage the Blade ship in advance to hinder his party of Yeerks from taking off. The Animorphs all board the pool ship (the main cast at least - the auxiliaries are a toss-up, their central purpose in the plot being to give the morphing cube to Tom, and most of them would likely have been killed upon discovery) and as Visser One is defeated (on a side note, the series’ defining villain deserved a bolder exit than sentence to life imprisonment; maybe one of his underlings morphing a varanx and sucking him out of Alloran’s head?), Jake sneaks off in tiger morph to pursue his brother, with conflicted intentions, as the others start to look for him.
[This reaction would be all the more motivated if Cassie received support from Animorphs other than Tobias for sparing Tom – which would make sense whether coming from Rachel, her best friend, Marco, who regained his mother after a long time spent as a controller, or even Ax, who was closely attached to his own brother Elfangor]
Jake locates Tom and attacks his band, but is ambushed and overpowered by the morphed polar bear who knocks him out. Just as Jake is about to be dealt the killing blow, however, Rachel barrels in, rescuing him, and events take a turn similar to the book. She gets Jake to safety somehow but becomes stranded on the Blade Ship as it undocks, her escape cut off by Tom. The remaining Animorphs, late to the chase, can only communicate through a screen, dumbfounded, as they scramble for a way to get her out. Rachel snares Tom with the help of Tobias, and panicked, Tom appeals first to her and then to Jake, who now roused, feels a pang of regret. Rachel bites down instinctively, however, sealing Tom’s fate (although freeing him) and her own as she’s killed upon de-morphing, with her teammates, helpless, looking on.
Tobias lashes out at a stunned Jake for running off, and the Animorphs settle to meet the Andalite detachment that boards the ship. The Andalites honor the Animorphs’ promise for Yeerk/Taxxon nohilt amnesty, although they don’t turn over any morphing cubes directly (you’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now).
When Rachel’s body turns up floating in space after, the corpse of Tom’s snake is found beside her, unsettling Jake. The two are buried at one funeral out of respect for him and there’s tension between the families who sit on opposite sides (Jake with his parents) mourning their children. Tobias carries away Rachel’s ashes at the end, withdrawing into solitary life as a hawk. Jake sinks into a depression afterward, distancing himself from Cassie as he struggles to come to grips with the fates of his brother and cousin and his associated guilt. Tom in particular is vilified by the public for his actions (his grave vandalized) just as a shunned Alloran and other former controllers have trouble reintegrating into society. Marco and Cassie, also fazed by their experience but better readjusted than Jake, team up as they do in the book to bring him out of his funk.
When the news comes in about Ax, Jake sets about approaching the surviving Animorphs (though once more, not in a capacity as commander). Cassie (who isn’t off dating some sap) insists she come along, but is rebuffed by Jake’s concerns all the same. As he arrives on the day of the mission, he sees an osprey circling overhead, assuming its Marco. Marco emerges from elsewhere however, and when Cassie lands and de-morphs, she and Jake embrace and reconcile. Jake, Cassie, Marco and Tobias, possibly accompanied by others (maybe a love interest for Marco, or even Alloran [with all his morphs] as an ironic twist) board the Rachel, and the ship takes off as the Animorphs see the last of Earth. They encounter the Blade ship at length in deep space and ram it as the narration fades out.
[It stands to reason most of them would not survive the battle, although a plot twist with a lone survivor, resembling the Ellimist Chronicles, could be something the scripted ending was angling for]
