Insert Quote
Yeah. I'm not sure exactly what KA was going for, but there's some connection. Like when Tobias tells Rachel to be like Rachel, and not like her.
This book is filled with foreshadowing and symbolism and passages that relate to each other.
It was deliberate that the dance scene was included in the book that introduced Taylor. At the dance, Tobias starts to wonder about Rachel, whether she wants to trap him as a human, and he doesn't trust her as he tries to escape.
"Tobias, I want to explain . . ." She
broke off as her eyes followed mine to the picture of the red-tailed
hawk and the caption beneath it. "Longevity in the wild," it read.
"Almost never reaches the figures attained by captive birds guarded
against disease and predation. A generous estimate: eighteen years."
This raises the question: does Rachel want Tobias to live in captivity, as a human? To protect himself, and herself?
She paused to consider her next words. She was embarrassed by what she
was about to say. Fighting to get past her embarrassment. "But you've
got to realize that there's more. I'm not just a warrior," she said, her
blue eyes glittering so close to mine. "I'm a girl. I'm trying not to
let myself be dragged off the cliff, away from all normalcy, into this
insane life we live. I don't like what it does to me, Tobias, and I need
to be a girl again. I need a little bit of normalcy, okay? Not a lot,
but some."
She pushed back, away from me. I'd never seen Rachel so emotional.
Unless, of course, the emotion was an act. Unless she was stalling me
just to eat up the minutes, to trap me, to -
That part relates to a lot of other stuff in the book, such as this later description of Rachel:
Ax moved toward the chocolate fondue. A fly buzzed out of his cotton
candy beard. This fly was more easily visible: black against pink.
<Rachel? Is that you?> I called down.
<Could be, how would I know what fly you're looking at? I was just in
the middle of this big cloud, sticky and sweet and . . . Where's Cassie?
When Rachel confessed to Tobias at the dance, he'd seen her deep insecurities, the way she was struggling to understand herself, how
the line between the girl and the warrior, the pink and the black, was all blurred. But he doesn't know what he's dealing with, whether her emotion is an act designed to trap him.
From here I'll just paste a bunch of excerpts from the book that show how it all fits together.
And there was Aria. The young woman who said she was family. Who said
she would give me a home. Care about me, even. Aria. In truth, nothing
but a mask - a morph - for Visser Three. Visser Three, plotting my death.
I was a dupe. Again.
False hope.
Never trust. . . never!
Two baby rabbits. "Parsley" and "Pansy" Marco had
named them.
"Go ahead, Tobias. It's your turn." Cassie smiled encouragement. I
stepped forward with my lettuce leaf. Reached a hand over those two
tiny, vulnerable little lives. Trusting now, because we'd nurtured them.
"Ticktock, ticktock, the Andalite will be a bird forever, ticktock."
She was close by. I couldn't see her, my eyes, red with my own blood,
the veins broken.
"Time's almost up, Andalite. You'll never run free again. Never use that
fantastic tail of yours. You'll die, so soon. How long does a hawk live?"
Rachel?
No, no, the sub-visser.
I want you with me, to be part of me, my life, not to die a bird, not to
die for nothing.
Rachel?
She hit the red circle again.
I screamed. Screamed and screamed.
The blue button was pleasure: intense, continuous, out of control.
"Your time is up. Do you understand that? You can never escape your
morph. You will be a bird till you die."
Who said that? Rachel? Taylor, the sub-visser?
Me?
She's crazy, I realized. She's insane. The Yeerk. The girl. The line
between them all confused.
Hawk. Boy.
Yeerk. Girl.
I had a terrifying moment of understanding. Pity. To be the human girl
desperate, terrified, alone, all alone, needing someone to look at her
without cringing. To be the Yeerk, hungry for sensations that were so
intense, so powerful compared to the dull, blind life of a slug.
"This girl, this Taylor person, this insignificant injured girl wasn't
my goal, of course, I was a sub-visser, I was slated for a host who held
a vital position. My mother, the chief of police. I betrayed her, of
course. Helped them take her involuntarily."
Her eyes flickered. Shame? Surely not. Not from the Yeerk. But the
human? The human who was half of this split personality? Maybe.
<And now you hurt others to make up for your suffering?>
She was silent.
<Who are you?>
Her face twitched. Her eyes bored in on mine.
<Who are you?> I asked again.
"I am a sub-visser of the Yeerk Empire."
<No. You're a weak, misguided human girl. And you are also insane.>
She hung her head. For a long time she said nothing. Looked at nothing.
Then, at last, she raised her face to me and smiled.
"Then join me in my madness, Andalite," she said and sent my body and
mind reeling into hell.
<You know she should die, Tobias,> Rachel said.
<She will,> I said. <This is the Yeerk who lost a prisoner. Leave her to
Visser Three.>
<What she did to you . . .>
<Rachel. Be Rachel, not her.>
I started to run toward Rachel. She saw me and smiled. I slowed as I
neared her, breathing hard.
And suddenly I had my arms around her. I buried my face in her hair. She
held me tightly.
"Bad,"she said.
"Yeah," I whispered. "Real bad. I came close to, you know. Awfully
close. I was so ... I mean, I didn't..." I took a couple of shaky
breaths. "I lost myself. Didn't know who I was. Not sure I do now."
"Tobias," she said quietly, "I know who you are."
"It's all about contrast, don't you think?" Taylor asked. "That's
the way life is, eh? You don't know pain unless you know pleasure. You
don't know what it is to be strong unless you've been weak, isn't that
right, Andalite?"
<l don't know,> I managed to say. <Let me know . . . if you ever become
strong.>
<From the rising of the sun to the setting, to its rising again,> Ax
said, <we place what is hard to endure with what is sweet to remember,
and find peace.>
<Ah. Yes. As we say on the home world: "A test of will may lead to
wisdom; a loss of will breeds but defeat.">
Who am I? What am I? A bird. A boy. Something not quite human. Something
more than human.
The person Rachel loves.
I discovered something amid the pain and terror and confusion. I
discovered that the answer to what I am, to who I am, isn't something to be answered in a
single word or a single moment.
It could take a lifetime to figure out who I am.
For now, I'm willing to hang in there, floating on a thermal. Biding my
time.
So the book deals with the contrast between sweetness and harshness, blue and red, pink and black, warrior and girl, hawk and boy, girl and Yeerk, beauty and ugliness, how the line separating the two blurs. And when the line blurs, which side wins? Loyalty or betrayal, vengeance or mercy, weakness or strength? Tobias experiences this and begins to understand who Taylor is, who Rachel is, and who he is.
And while I'm digging through all these quotes from the book, I might as well point out a political comment I found interesting in the light of last year's
Sarah Palin fiasco:
The drone of plane engines. A frightening man-made shadow trailing me,
tracking me. Responding to every turn I made. I was the wolf. Across
untouched snow that glared in the sunlight. Paws pounding. Breathe.
Breathe, breathe.
I was the wolf I'd seen so many times in the video clip. That wolf, with
foam trailing from its mouth. Exhaustion and terror in its eyes. The men
in the planes shot everyone else in my pack. From the air. High-powered
binoculars and a rifle. Big game hunters who say I ruin their sport. So
they will chase me down. Chase me until I can't run anymore. And fall,
heart exploding, onto the plain. Victim of slaughter.
Better for the wolf who cannot fathom the evil depths in their
predators' hearts. Who sees this
merely in terms of nature's hierarchy. Man is smarter. Man has run
wolf down the way wolf runs down the caribou.
