1. This one time I'm going to be less than cynical. Magic bird saves scared deaf kid. Touching. Couldn't have figured he'd have been caught because of that and another bird, so while the risk of losing cover by doing this kind of thing is always great, this time it was bad luck more than anything else.
2. Okay, not a terrible return, but it seems like it was done mostly to mess with Tobias again. Her treason was well concealed at first, but the true plan much more fitting. This book is where I really see the contrast between her and Rachel. Rachel wants to be with Tobias to help him, Taylor wants to be near him to make him suffer. Since they made of point of saying she could survive this type of damage, they should have given an answer. She's probably gone or she'd have made another appearance, but it seems like she should be alive, though perhaps not the host.
3. I don't see this as much worse than what they did end up doing to the pool, but that doesn't make un-ruthless, un-Yeerkish. This is where you start throwing out the word terrorist, subjugating those without authority to harm in order to change the system. It still was a major opportunity, and I think that it was fair of them to take part, I would as well, but this is something that could have weighed particularly heavy on ones consciousness. I think it was dumb of Tobias to go in though. He wanted to prove to himself he could handle Taylor, but this was an atrocious way to do it.
4. Everything works out for Cassie
. With the above, I can't fault her too much, but it's so hard not to because she did it as much to avoid hurting herself as she did the people of the pool. It's hard to like the person who is infallible, but the results are good (though saving the peace movement, good, not very relevant.)
5. As above, Tobias tried too hard to show what he is and is not by dealing with Taylor, because above all else he's failing to keep his identity through the series. Think about his books: Having to deal with being a boy living as a bird, getting the morphing power back and constantly having to weigh which life he wants most, finding out about his lost family, and 33 basically jammed all that back in his face, and he doesn't know how to cope. Oddly enough Taylor's final disappearance seems to subside some of these issues, but I think Tobias has gone to be less and less sure of what he his and what he wants, and is continuously trying to find new ways to reconcile what he is with what he wants.
6. Above all the fear element is gripping about the Taxxon form. I can't pretend I know what it's like, I've never been starved but there are times that I sit down at the table and look at what I have, and don't, and what others do and don't, and I feel far in the back of my mind a panic. A knowledge that my sustenance is based on luck, that it can go away in a moment, and I fear. And the hunger grows. Beyond that, well Taxxons have impressed and disappointed a couple times, but the body is still loathsome. Exoskeleton at that size. That there is still a mind in such a vile body, underneath a terrible instinct I think is the most amazing thing. How they didn't all go at the end. A fascinating race all in all.
7.
8. It strikes me these days that Tobias morphed into an attractive young woman in this book. I don't know why, maybe a certain fanfic since it didn't bother me a few years ago, but now, I just find that an...interesting experience to put in the book.
