Author Topic: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...  (Read 4041 times)

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Offline V2113

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #15 on: December 24, 2008, 08:26:01 PM »
You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.

I'm 11 years old and I was rethinking the plans. i even came up with an elaborate way they could've saved Elfangor. Not to mention a way they could've saved MANY others. I'll get a drawing up in a few.
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Offline Terenia

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #16 on: December 24, 2008, 11:40:39 PM »
There's always more than one way to reach a goal.

The 'morphers did what was best with:
1) What was available to them
2) What they felt was within their moral boundaries
3) What would best maintain their secrecy

Remember that for awhile they weren't fighting to win...just to hold the Yeerks off long enough for the Andalites to arrive. They had no need to be offensive. They wanted to do what had to be done and get back to being ordinary kids.

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Offline wildweathel

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #17 on: December 25, 2008, 12:11:26 PM »
Remember that for awhile they weren't fighting to win...just to hold the Yeerks off long enough for the Andalites to arrive. They had no need to be offensive. They wanted to do what had to be done and get back to being ordinary kids.

And that's exactly the strategic error.  By around the time of the David fiasco it should be eminently clear that the Andalites aren't in position to save Earth, only contain the infection; that they can and will burn the planet as soon as Z-space reconfigures.  They've seen Andalite forces use weapons of mass destruction on Leera, and at least Tobias knows about the biological warfare against the Hork-Bajir.  Andalites are fickle allies at best, and really present humanity with two options: survive on their own merits or be destroyed. 

That's really the greatest irony of the series: in the end, one species subjugates another.  The galaxy takes another step down Crayak's path.  Ellimist, for all that he's invested (retemporating Elfangor, sending the Chee to Earth, sending the last Arn, risking appointing the Animoprhs as champions for the Iskroot, giving Tobias the ability to morph, etc.), only wins the victory of allowing the Hork-Bajir another chance.

There is on Earth, and actual country that has this defensive strategy: they train all adult male citizens, they've dug into their mountains, and they avoid becoming entangled in foreign affairs.  Still, they are a small country with well developed high-tech manufacturing infrastructure.  Should a military power decide they want to invade, they probably could, successfully.  So here is there strategy: if invaded, they make the invader pay for each kilometer of mountain, each tiny valley in blood.  When forced to retreat, they destroy infrastructure behind them: bridges, dams, factories, power lines.  It is possible to take Switzerland at any cost, and there is nothing the Swiss can do to change that fact.  But what cost?  Hundreds of thousands of casualties to take scorched earth which comes with a complementary insurgency?

That is why Switzerland hasn't fought a war in two hundred years: total defensive warfare.  That is why the Nazis never executed Operation Tannenbaum.  What would a half million Swiss militia do against an invading army of one million?  Take two shots and go home.

By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves.  It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together.  They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.

Personally, I blame pacifist education.  When faced with a situation calling for violent action, they perform admirably, but never even realize how much they don't know.  They found themselves a guerrilla resistance, but never take the time to learn from the guerrilla leaders of the past.  They cling to tight to normalcy, but in that way nearly lose everything.
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Offline Terenia

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #18 on: December 25, 2008, 07:12:14 PM »
By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves.  It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together.  They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.
That would have completely ruined the legitimacy of the series and the characters, though. Sure, Jake could have become a little general boy, they could have run off into hiding and started recruiting an army, but how many scared 13/14 year olds would actually do that.

Those of you on this forum who are 14 and under....how easily would you abandon your families, cut all ties, and dedicate your lives to fighting a war you just learned about?

Quote
Personally, I blame pacifist education.  When faced with a situation calling for violent action, they perform admirably, but never even realize how much they don't know.  They found themselves a guerrilla resistance, but never take the time to learn from the guerrilla leaders of the past.  They cling to tight to normalcy, but in that way nearly lose everything.
So kids should be educated in such a manner that prepares them for all types of warfare? Just in case?
Maybe they should have researched guerilla warfare more once they began using the tactic, but none of them had the mind/personality to do that sort of research. EXCEPT maybe Marco or Jake. But still....I can't see it.


Let's say it's 23. Post-David, the YPM is known, the Chee are known, there's a Hork-Bajir colony, they have the Escafil device. That's a lot of assets. But It's still them versus the might of the Yeerk Empire. Which is pretty mighty.

I agree that near the end things could have come about in a better way. By that time they had enough experience that they should have known better. But only 20 books in, they're still getting a feel for it. You can tell just by the voice when you read it. They don't fully understand what they've gotten themselves into.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2008, 04:11:56 PM by Teach »

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Offline morfowt

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2008, 03:25:41 AM »
By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves.  It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together.  They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.
That would have completely ruined the legitimacy of the series and the characters, though. Sure, Jake could have become a little general boy, they could have run off into hiding and started recruiting an army, but how many scared 13/14 year olds would actually [/i]do[/i] that.

Those of you on this forum who are 14 and under....how easily would you abandon your families, cut all ties, and dedicate your lives to fighting a war you just learned about?
hmm...cut all ties, yeah I guess i could do that if I really wanted or absolutely had to...but fight a war...no way. as I've answered in the "how would you have done as the new animorph", I would've broken down after just the first major battle..

Offline Duff

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #20 on: December 26, 2008, 12:57:57 PM »
Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought, "Jeeze. They planned this SOOO badly! I could've TOTALLY done better!!", and then you mentally sketched out how it SHOULD have gone?

Seriously. Am I the only one who played mind-tactics midway through the books?

My favourite plan-to-pick-apart is when they were all fleas riding a dragonfly.
If they wanted it to go better, they could've gone with TWO dragonflies, dividing the team and improving their chances of survival. OR they could've been three sets of houseflies+fleas, much more common and less conspicuous, and even better chances of survival for the team if one pair got squished. Putting all the morphs in one basket, so to speak, was kinda' dumb. *shrug*

Yea but two dragon flys isnt much better than 7, a single one is much better than noticing two of them together. A human sees one its like oh a bug, they see two or more its like oh we have a bug problem. So they could have split the team up and sent two different dragonfly teams in different directions but they didnt really need that. If the interest is risking the smallest number of people then they should have only brought a few people in the first place, for what was really just a recon mission.

And flies wouldnt have the eyesight necessary to move around the compound and see anything and they couldnt even get to the compound from the distance they had to start from.


You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.


Exactly, and I think most of us could find a better way through a situation after reading the book, but would we be able to come up with something using just the facts they had before any plan was even established. They came up with some pretty brilliant plans, even if they had slight faults, which were usually just necessary faults for the story.

Offline Xan

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2008, 02:17:51 AM »
Put simply peeps, this is 6 14 year old kids, so they don't have formal training. They come from a society that espouses violence (it IS the left coast after all). If Elfangor had met 6 Delta or SAS or Spestnaz soldiers things would have been completely different.

Offline Taiyoh

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #22 on: December 27, 2008, 03:15:33 AM »
No.  But now since you've said it, I will :p

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #23 on: January 01, 2009, 08:21:27 PM »
I didn't make any other plans that I can recall, but that might have been because I'm only 11! :P  But I did start saying things like, "That is OBVIOUSLY a trap."
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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2009, 10:01:35 PM »
what i thought when i read number 52 is.. stupid cassie!!!!!!!!! if she didn't let tom go, maybe rachel wouldn't end up dead

Offline morfowt

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Re: Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought...
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2009, 11:28:30 AM »
...are you sure that's book 52? when they destroyed the yeerk pool?