First, a disclaimer: I love Animorphs. I love this series - so much. Some of them are in the top 10 books I have ever read - and I'm truly grateful to Katherine and Michael for bringing them into the world.
Now, however, with the discussion about Animorphs 2.0, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit K.A.'s famous post-series letter (written around 2001) to the fans. Unfortunately, I had a very negative reaction to this letter. Why? Because it contains what is (arguably) a huge lie. At the very least, it is a huge contradiction (close to the same thing).
I will prove it. This will (obviously) be marked as a spoiler:
[spoiler]
This is from K.A.'s letter (source: http://hirac-delest.issamshahid.com/database/articles/kaa_response_54.htm)
Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever...Here's what doesn't happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt.
This claim is simply untrue - a lie. I'll give four crushing responses to this statement, from the general to the specific:
1. Animorphs is a sci-fi/fantasy story, which is a completely different genre than "war story." Animorphs is much closer to Star Wars (a sci-fi/fantasy) than Saving Private Ryan (a war story). Animorphs was never realistic, and it is not about a realistic war.
2. Around 1998, K.A. says (in response to question asking "Do you have any words of wisdom for Animorphs readers?"): Two things: I hope my books help give you respect and awe for the natural world. Animals are at least as incredible and amazing as any alien species. The other thing is that in the books, it's up to kids to save the world. In life, that's true as well.
(source: http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-applegate-ka.asp)
Think - very carefully - about what this quote means, combined with the context of the ending (#54). This 1998 quote says it's up to kids to save the world. And yet, your reward as a kid for deciding to save the world is being killed (Rachel) or screwed up (Tobias, Jake)? What a great message to send to kids! Clearly, K.A. changed her mind about Animorphs somewhere between this 1998 interview and her 2001 letter. Animorphs was NOT always a war story (as K.A. defines it). Instead...
3. Animorphs used to be a story about hope. Think about The Invasion, or the Andalite Chronicles, or Megamorphs #1. In MM #1, the last word is literally "hope"!! Now, by "hope" I do NOT mean simplistic/cartoonish good-vs-evil fights. I mean something much deeper. The characters in the three books that I mention go through hellish nightmares (Tobias is trapped as a hawk, Elfangor actually DIES, Jake thinks that he let Marco die). And amazingly, against impossible odds, they emerge determined to keep fighting. First question - Is that realistic? Not really... but when was the last time you turned into a tiger to fight aliens? That's right. Second question - Is that stupid? NO. If you think inspiration and hope are stupid, I feel really sorry for you.
4. Another line from the 2001 letter: But I've never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn't going to do it at the end...And to tell you the truth I'm a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I'd wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping.
Oh please. This is what you call a "straw man" argument. No one was hoping for a comic book victory. What a lot of us WERE hoping for was something actually in the spirit of the series - like Megamorphs #1 (see the previous point), or #26 The Attack, or #4, or #13, or #6, or #7. Why were we hoping for that? Because that's what the series used to be about! It used to be about hard questions, the need to keep fighting, trust and friendship, where to draw the line, and hope in the face of darkness (and yes - sometimes, a hard-won triumph).
Let me be very clear again - I was not looking for a cartoon victory. I WOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH A DEFEAT - as long as it stayed true to the spirit of Animorphs that we all loved (again, #1 and Andalite Chronicles are perfect examples of this).
I know K.A. and Michael always cite Lord of the Rings (and how they wanted Animorphs to be more LOTR and less Star Wars), but here's the fatal flaw with that argument: unlike #54, no one finishes Return of the King feeling depressed. This is how they feel: "Wow." Lord of the Rings is not a slam-dunk victory, but it is awe-inspiring. Frodo is scarred forever - like the Animorphs, he sacrificed any chance at a normal life - but you also appreciate the world that he has saved, you appreciate Sam's ability to return to the Shire, you appreciate Aragorn's coronation as the rightful king. In Animorphs, there's none of that, even from the "successful" characters (Marco / Cassie / Ax). In LOTR, the victory is complex and comes at a great cost - but it is clearly a victory. In #54, all of that is brushed off-screen (we get one sentence of Ax being promoted), so from a reader's perspective it might as well not happen.
We care about Animorphs because we cared about the characters. So what once was a series about hard choices, the shedding of innocence, and hope amidst adversity ends with (1) an exercise in cynicism, (2) a non-ending, and (3) a note from the author to "morph out" - which I translated as "grow up."
If K.A. wrote the ending to simply "make us" realize that war is terrible - mission accomplished, I guess. But I think we already knew that starting from The Invasion. Sorry, but I have WAY too much respect for Animorphs to take the narrow message of #54 over the higher message of #1:
Until then, we fight.
[/spoiler]
So, agree? Disagree?
You lost me when you said Animorphs is not a war story, but a sci-fi/fantasy story.
For one, those are not mutually exclusive, mainly because 'war story' is not, as you're treating it, a genre.
It's a type of story, that's all. Any story of any genre can be a 'war story' - sci-fi, horror (how fitting would THAT be), fantasy, what have you. As long as the thematic content is ABOUT war, it's a war story. Animorphs is very DEFINITELY about war - it is literally about the effects of it on children and others forced to fight, and it is figuratively about the effect on humanity as a whole. On ALL sentient beings. It's a deconstruction of all our glorious notions of war. That's Rachel's entire reason for existing! (Well, almost.)
And Star Wars, if you're concerned with things like genre, isn't even a sci-fi series.
It is what you call 'space opera'. Essentially, fantasy tropes, sciencey setting. It is INFINITELY more similar to Lord of the Rings (if Tolkien had bashed himself over the head with a steel-toed clog before sitting down at his typewriter) than it is to, say, 2001: A Space Oddity. ODYSSEY. Haha! Wow. David Bowie on the mind.
Examine the events of the Animorphs series.
The 'heroes' are, by definition, guerrilla fighters, caught up in what is called an asymmetrical war. Very different from Star Wars, which is much more of a traditional 'journey' story - even if the destination is more metaphysical than corporeal (i.e. enlightenment in the light side of the Force).
And, for the record (directed at everyone now), I believe what she meant by it being 'up to children to save the world' was something along the lines of "it's up to the young to put a stop to the cycle of war, where their parents had failed".
If you see war as cyclical and self-propagating, in that sort of light, the ending makes perfect sense.
They are consumed by the next revolution of the cycle. Crayak and the Ellimist, Good and Evil, duel within us endlessly. Because we are sentient.
It is our beauty and our bane.
To me, the ending is wonderful.
I LOVE how broken they all were, after the war ended. Except maybe Cassie. Been a while since I read The Beginning, and I never have paid much attention to Cassie...
But that's what war DOES, what war IS.
It is pain and horror and it breaks people, inside.