Do you guys enjoy the "David" books?

[ViciousVisser]

So I am currently re-reading Animorphs and whenever I read the "David" arc, it always reminds me that this was one of my favorite parts of the series. I consider it to be a highpoint in the overall arc. However, I am wondering if there is anybody out there who agrees or disagrees with me.

[guitarhero01234]

I'm a little torn when it comes to the David trilogy. On one hand, the three books serve as great bases for character development, especially for Rachel, and they're generally well-written books. Though, I feel that David's development in particular was very rushed, and he maybe needed another book or two to get from where his character started to where he was at the end. I feel like one minute, he was a semi-normal if a little misguided kid, then bam, total psychopath, with very little in between

[NickDaGriff]

I'm with gh on this.  One thing that might've improved it is if he were in a couple more books, starting out normal and then getting slowly drunk with power/revenge.  Make the monster underneath reveal itself in subtler ways at first.

I do like those books.  They're a highlight in the series for me, just slightly flawed.

[ViciousVisser]

I think those are really good points. They are excellent books, although it does appear that his overall character was rushed. For some reason, this specific arc really sticks out to me among the series. I just really enjoy the character development and the overall feel  of the arc. My favorite one is probably The Solution. Man, was it dark, especially for the age demographic! Do any of you have a particular book you like in this arc?

[RYTX]

I love, love, love the trilogy. Though nothing is flawless, these books are some of the best in the series.

This probably as high as the stakes get before the final arc: Keeping the blue box out of enemy hands, finally enlisting other humans to the fight, and having to keep a number of world leaders safe; no where else do so many things of such importance have to be balanced. (Let's face it, even before the filler stretch, a lot of the books where spy out on person/new tech and escape alive).
This, and the novel threat that was David, that there was someone using there powers against them, so damn effectively,  is spectacular, and brings out a lot of the best, and worst, in all the characters.

But for the bad: I don't really mind David's lack of development. He's 14, course he's crazy, but I like that it isn't some drawn out descent into madness. That really he's always kind of sociopathic, plotting his own ends and quickly excepting that in his new world he can pull different strings in new ways. He didn't develop because, that's always who he was, he such had new tools to work with to let it out, I think that's brilliant.
What did bother me is how quickly he switched focus, because it was a function of the series structure, not his character. In 20 he and Marco but heads, in 21 that tension's largely forgotten so he and Jake can build up to a head, and then finally moving it all to Rachel in 22. It works the way it was written, but it was written that way because it'd be weird for a book told by Rachel to center on the conflict between David and Marco. It would have been nice if those match ups could have been resolved, or left to one.

The other problem was the world leader issue. It's classic Animorphs nothing gained, nothing lost, but that kinda sucked when everything else was so grandiose. We know one of them is a controller, but that's of no consequence ever again, no allies are made, V3 isn't even properly punished for failing on that scale. That plus some sloppiness of 5 vs 6 at the meeting, that element was always something of a let down.

But on the whole, great set, laughs, tears, gasps, everything that makes the series great is on full display in the trilogy. Love it love it do

[NickDaGriff]

This probably as high as the stakes get before the final arc: Keeping the blue box out of enemy hands, finally enlisting other humans to the fight, and having to keep a number of world leaders safe; no where else do so many things of such importance have to be balanced. (Let's face it, even before the filler stretch, a lot of the books where spy out on person/new tech and escape alive).
This, and the novel threat that was David, that there was someone using there powers against them, so damn effectively,  is spectacular, and brings out a lot of the best, and worst, in all the characters.

[...]

But on the whole, great set, laughs, tears, gasps, everything that makes the series great is on full display in the trilogy. Love it love it do

This, so much.

But for the bad: I don't really mind David's lack of development. He's 14, course he's crazy, but I like that it isn't some drawn out descent into madness. That really he's always kind of sociopathic, plotting his own ends and quickly excepting that in his new world he can pull different strings in new ways. He didn't develop because, that's always who he was, he such had new tools to work with to let it out, I think that's brilliant.

True, he was rotten from the beginning, but I think it was exacerbated in kind of a rushed and artificial way due to it being a pre-planned trilogy.  In all honesty, the Animorphs were kinda dicks to him, even in light of the circumstances.  I haven't read it in a while, but I remember their treatment of him feeling borderline OOC and kinda dumb.  "Here are some birds to acquire, BUT YOU CAN ONLY CHOOSE ONE.  ...Oh, you're picking that one?  Don't mind us all silently judging you over here.  HOW DARE YOU JOKINGLY CALL TOBIAS BIRD-RACIST."  David should've been the one instigating stuff and causing the rift, not the Animorphs.  That's my main issue.

I just would've liked to see him in a book or two where he isn't the main focus, but you start getting the sense that something's wrong.  They actually properly try to get along with him and make him part of the team, and then he ends up screwing them over.  Small things at first, like randomly killing the seagull, fixating on the more violent and dangerous aspects of his spy-dad worship, lashing out excessively over small stuff, etc.  Have those things steadily alienate him from the group, which then leads to him turning on them.  More of a slow burn kinda thing.

[Duff]

This is my absolute favorite arc of the series. I was planning a re-read next week before I even saw this thread because it's been so long!

Agreed with RYTX he was always a bad, troubled kid it wasn't so much a development as the Animorphs slowly seeing more of that side of him. I also like that they were a cause of the rift just as much as he was. They were a clique that wasn't as welcoming to him as they could have been because they were suspicious and because they were split on the decision to invite him in the first place.

That being said, I would have taken another 10 books with David and let it be a slow burn towards full insanity and then another few books of all out conflict. But, that's a tall order and a big risk for a monthly series of kid's books. They wrote the entire trilogy before any of it was released so even devoting three books to a storyline people might not have responded to is risky.

ViciousVisser you're right about it being really dark for the age demographic. Whenever someone calls it a kid's book I always refer to the David Trilogy and the final arc as evidence that it had some seriously mature storylines.

[ViciousVisser]

This is my absolute favorite arc of the series. I was planning a re-read next week before I even saw this thread because it's been so long!

Agreed with RYTX he was always a bad, troubled kid it wasn't so much a development as the Animorphs slowly seeing more of that side of him. I also like that they were a cause of the rift just as much as he was. They were a clique that wasn't as welcoming to him as they could have been because they were suspicious and because they were split on the decision to invite him in the first place.

That being said, I would have taken another 10 books with David and let it be a slow burn towards full insanity and then another few books of all out conflict. But, that's a tall order and a big risk for a monthly series of kid's books. They wrote the entire trilogy before any of it was released so even devoting three books to a storyline people might not have responded to is risky.

ViciousVisser you're right about it being really dark for the age demographic. Whenever someone calls it a kid's book I always refer to the David Trilogy and the final arc as evidence that it had some seriously mature storylines.

I know, right! I'm tired of people saying its a kid's book when clearly it has a lot of dark themes that aren't found in kids books. Glad I'm not the only one who believes that...

[NothingFromSomething]

My only issue with 'em is that Megadeth/Spawn "bad music and good comic books" line. 

Megadeth disapproval, K.A./Michael?     How daaaare yoouuu?

And Spawn blows.

[ViciousVisser]

My only issue with 'em is that Megadeth/Spawn "bad music and good comic books" line. 

Megadeth disapproval, K.A./Michael?     How daaaare yoouuu?

And Spawn blows.

Hahaha! Megadeath! It's so cool how it brings 90's pop culture in the series! I love it!

[Shenmue654]

I feel like the books tried a little too hard to make David basically Sid from Toy Story. And Sid himself turns out, in a later film, to be just a normal below-average person. I never really believed in David's privileged-white-male kind of evilness to any extent...And that might be because I actually met him. Many times. That's what happens when you're surrounded by kids with bad parents and learning disabilities.

The most extensive relations I ever had with a "David-esque" kid were with two people: One of which could have become David and instead became a very close friend (Roleplaying heals all wounds! ) and the other of which went rather bad. I can tell you that most kids who act like David feel powerless, and they've bought into a kind of exaggerated masculinity that they see perfected on TV. They want to be heroes, but they don't want to be generic paladin white bread heroes because this kind aren't "cool." When their skills and talents are acknowledged, they can become some of the most intelligent and practical people you'll ever meet, and great contributors of ideas. That's what happened with my close friend. : ]

The kid who did "go wrong" was annoying as all get-out and I basically invited him over because he was in my elementary school class. One time, he showed up at my house with a girlfriend out of nowhere and told me he'd run away from a psychiatric RTC. He also told me that those times at my house were fun. He seemed very frightened, and like a lot of really terrible stuff had happened that he wasn't willing to share. We talked up old childhood memories, and then he left. I never found out what happened.

And if David's merely "a sociopath," he still doesn't come across as quite believable. I've met three of those, too. With that said, if you throw out the idea of David himself the Animorphs got a lot of juicy character development in those books. I honestly like the fact that they were dicks to David--- That actually was believable. If you've ever had a group of friends large enough, you will start to think of it as an exclusive club, and you will treat newly entering members a bit dickishly.

[TheWolfEmperor]

David should've been the one instigating stuff and causing the rift, not the Animorphs.  That's my main issue.

As a group character development exercise, it works in the long run because when they recruit the Auxiliary Animorphs, they remember the mistakes they made with David and tried not to make them with the new group. Before David came along, they didn't even know the morphing cube was still in existence, much less had they ever considered the possibility of having to recruit and train a new Animorph.

[Dylan]

22 is one of my all time favorites in the series imo

[Dogman15]

A proper TV or film adaptation of David's story would allow for more character development of David. What would you add to a screen adaptation of the David Trilogy to improve it?

[NothingFromSomething]

Just switch the "bad" to Spawn comics and the "good" to Megadeth music.   

I mean, come on, Marco knows better.