Cassie's great crime

[Morilore]

They could have put David down painlessly, without him ever knowing what had happened.  Lead him into that cage, then drop a brick on him.  At least they could have tried.

[SuperBlue]

They could have put David down painlessly, without him ever knowing what had happened.  Lead him into that cage, then drop a brick on him.  At least they could have tried.

Lol that's horrible! I'd probably throw up after doing that

[BennyBoy]

As much as I understand the Animorphs 'humanity' I really agree that it would have been better to kill him. Both as a logical move and as the humane thing to do. If you need him to morph first and then kill him, so be it. Take away his human face and body first before you get rid of him, whatever. It was actually pretty cruel to trap David as a rat. Even though he did some horrible things, that fate is something the Animorphs shouldn't deliver so easily. Well obviously not easily, since they struggle with it... but at the end of the day it would have been better off to kill him. Trap him in rat and throw him to a snake for all I care... wash the blood off your own hands but don't leave loose ends that make for crazy psycho rats. =P

[LisaCharly]

At the same time though, they're what, 14 years old or so at that point? Trapping David may not have been the most logical thing to do, and may have been crueler, but from a young person's perspective (especially young people who've sometimes espoused that any life is better than no life - Rachel in #17, Marco in #5 and #10), I can totally see why they thought it was the better choice even though I disagree. While there may not be a rational difference, to humans there's an emotional difference between killing someone you know, whose situation is your fault, outside of combat, and killing someone you don't know as collateral in the middle of a fight.

[Chad32]

A young person who had already spent over a year fighting and killing countless people. Granted most of them were Hork-Bajir, but they have still killed before. They weren't innocent children anymore. They were soldiers.

[LisaCharly]

I never said they were innocent. I just said that they were young. Even with life experience young people tend to act more out of emotions than logic. Emotionally, there's a difference between killing someone you know in a trap and incidentally killing someone in a direct fight for your life in combat, even if the qualitative result is the same.

[BennyBoy]

True, I see where you're coming from and agree. Especially the reminder that David was created by them, or at least conditioned to follow after a series of unlucky events. That being said I stand by the fact that the more logical decision would be to kill him, but it is understandable that the Animorphs didn't choose that path.