Author Topic: Thoughts in the End  (Read 4724 times)

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Offline Brad the Brit

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #30 on: March 23, 2009, 06:16:21 PM »
hi think... and yer cassie would have failed epicaly  :owned:

Offline Ash

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #31 on: March 24, 2009, 06:29:32 AM »
If thats what would've happened, I'd have been internally puking through it. I didn't want that much of a sappy ending. I guess moaning and whingeing about it (the unfairness of it all!  :P) ain't gonna change a thing.. but its fun to let it out. I was choking up a bit.

How would you guys have left the Animorphs in the end? I specially wanna know your version, Think.
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Offline Chad32

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #32 on: March 24, 2009, 09:54:57 AM »
Rachel lives, and gets involved with fighting the terrorists. She marries Tobias, who becomes a Human nothlit and lives with his mother. He gets employed as a pilot, and Marco buys him some private aircraft. Marco and Ax's endings I wouldn't change much, except that Marco doesn't become too bored and Ax doesn't get assimilated. Also the bladeship doesn't get the cube, so Ax's duty is just to help keep the area around Earth secure.

Tom lives, and teases Jake like a big brother would for waiting three years to rescue the guy. Jake gets a little depressed, but Rachel makes him and Cassie promise to not burn bridges between each other. Cassie becomes a zoologist. Toby takes her people to their homeworld to help the current resistance. Jake and Cassie are still friends, but I leave their future kind of iffy. They may marry, and they may not.

The Chapmans are finally able to tell Mellissa the truth, and they go on a bonding trip to celebrate freedom. Nora and Peter get divorced, but she remains a friend of the family.

The Auxilaries do different things, as most of them lived. From helping fight the terrorists, to just living "normal" lives. The YPM go to their homeworld to start a resistance there.

No One. Oh, and Visser Three gets beaten by Ax in a climactic battle, so that Ax is able to avenge his brother. Though Alloran still lives, and plays a big role in Rachel's rescue. He has codes that enable him to shut down the bladeship, and pull it into the pool ship with a tractor beam. Then they are able to convince the Yeerks on board to free Tom, Rachel, and all the involuntaries. As well as hand over the box.

I think that's all the major points.


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Offline Hylian Dan

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #33 on: March 24, 2009, 12:21:24 PM »
Quote from: Nohensen
I think that's all the major points.

And I think all the Animorphs would agree with you that that's they ending they wanted the whole time.

Quote
She betrayed him, then she left him. I feel for him that he still cares for her, though. I think she probably still cared for him too. It's a little sad, but she's the one to blame for not being there for him. If she had died, it wouldn't have been very different. Jake would still be depressed, and Cassie would still be absent from the Ax rescue mission.

I see this very differently, but I'll go into that later.

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In some way I wonder if Marco and Cassie couldn't get together. They were both based off of the married co-authors. Why some stanger named Ron?


KA and Michael see similarities between themselves and those two, but the characters aren't based on themselves. I've never gotten the sense that they're that narcissistic.

Quote
Vietnam is a poor example of a good war. That's why I mentioned WWII.

Most wars aren't like WWII. We like to organize shades of grey into black and white categories and see things in terms of good vs. evil, and WWII lends itself to that very very easily.

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It was a fiction series. It wasn't always true to how the world works. Why is it that in the end, she had to be so damn true to how war works out?

Because that's how she had been writing the series all along, and that's what we had gotten ourselves into. Animorphs was always intended to be more than mindless entertainment. (Heck, look at how much the story emphasized the significance of a person/animal/alien's brain.) It would be like the Magic School Bus series abandoning scientific inquiry for pointless entertainment.

Quote from: Azguard
The ending is like the end of high school, where you knew nothing would EVER be the same. And no matter how many times you come back together and try to relive those memories you can't. You become trapped in an ever more glorious past.

Good example. I agree.



Offline Chad32

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #34 on: March 24, 2009, 12:57:38 PM »
Quote
It would be like the Magic School Bus series abandoning scientific inquiry for pointless entertainment.

That's a good point. Except I never felt like she was trying to shove it down my throat during the series. I could take it or leave it. The last book did feel like that, though. There were a lot of things that just couldn't be overlooked if I wasn't really interested in finding a deeper meaning.


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Offline Hylian Dan

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #35 on: March 24, 2009, 03:18:22 PM »
That's a good point. Except I never felt like she was trying to shove it down my throat during the series. I could take it or leave it. The last book did feel like that, though. There were a lot of things that just couldn't be overlooked if I wasn't really interested in finding a deeper meaning.

They were really really fun books. When I bring up Animorphs, people say things like, "Oh, Animorphs! That was such a happy time in my life." The books were a huge source of joy each month, so the ending really hurt.

I'd say the ending had been set up really well throughout the series. The David trilogy and the Chronicles in particular were excellent for setting up the final books. After the way they were told, the main story would have to darken towards the end. There would have to be horrifying losses and extremely complex and ambiguous moral decisions at the climax of the Animorphs story. The set up was in place, but we had been following this story every month for five years. It was hard to accept when the Animorphs story became as tragic as the Andalite and Hork-Bajir Chronicles.

Offline Chad32

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #36 on: March 24, 2009, 04:00:21 PM »
Quote
She betrayed him, then she left him. I feel for him that he still cares for her, though. I think she probably still cared for him too. It's a little sad, but she's the one to blame for not being there for him. If she had died, it wouldn't have been very different. Jake would still be depressed, and Cassie would still be absent from the Ax rescue mission.

Quote
I see this very differently, but I'll go into that later.

So let's talk about this. I realise people may see things differently, just based of the fact that not everyone feels Cassie really betrayed Jake in book 50. Also that letting Tom get away had more of an impact on saving the world than I believe it did.


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Offline Azguard

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #37 on: March 24, 2009, 05:08:04 PM »
I agree Hylian Dan. While other things could have ended bad, we always believed that the series itself, our Animorphs, would come out victorious guns blazing, no casualties. It just became the Twilight Zone when we realized that no, we can't escape reality, and this series will end like the Chronicles. Sad also because it was the final say and final book. Again, like an eerie inescapable heartbreaking gray world. SO depressing!

 I actually hadn't read the last few books in the series, so I need to! I feel like I'm missing pieces.

 Another sad thing is this. The Animorphs themselves, despite fighting against crazy odds and they knew it, believed that one day the war would end, and they would be able to return to normal. Well...the war ended. But they didn't realize the impact of it. And I disliked passionately that the Animorphs were robbed of everything, that even though they won, they still lost more than any victory would have gained. It was like Fate punching them in the face and laughing. It was like a lose-lose situation as soon as they accepted to become the Animorphs. But they didn't know it.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2009, 05:09:59 PM by Azguard »
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Offline Kelly

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #38 on: March 24, 2009, 05:28:12 PM »
well...I've made it pretty clear a few times that I was upset about Cassie and Jake breaking up.  :-\
"I always considered myself a loner. I mean, not like a poor-me, Byron-esque, I-should-have-broughta-swimming-buddy loner. I mean the sort of person who doesn’t feel too upset about the prospect of a weekend spent seeing no one, and reading good books on the couch. It wasn’t like I was a people hater or anything. I enjoyed activities and the company of friends. But they were a side dish. I always thought I would also be happy without them."

- Harry Dresden/Jim Butcher, Ghost Story.

Offline ThinkAgain

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #39 on: March 24, 2009, 07:58:48 PM »
Honestly, and I'm telling the truth here, I was expecting Rachel to die for a while. Not just because she loves fighting so much she will die doing something stupid; that doesn't contribute to the suspense of the literature. For instance, if Rachel died by randomly being shot by a stray Dracon while flying in eagle morph, it would have been useless and stupid, even though it is actually very realistic and possible. But no, I honestly saw her dying in the war; it seemed to be hinted at in small ways for quite a while. While I was not surprised she was the final casualty, I was still upset nonetheless. If was writing the book, and I was going for the realistic non-sappy ending, I would have done the same thing. Jake can't die, Ax was needed to work on the pool ship, Cassie was too weak, Marco was the key planner and Jake would not let him easily go, and Jake always felt indebted to Tobias ever since the incident were he was captured, and would avoid harm to him at all costs. That leaves Rachel, who gave herself the title of the one who will do anything, even if she didn't feel that way inside. She was the only choice.

I clearly see why Tobias reacted the way he did, and I won't repeat myself because I already said this before in a previous post. When his last tie to humanity was severed, he gave up on it.

Marco did what he would have. Remember, he's the master strategist. He sees moping around would be useless when so much profit could be made. While he is empty inside, he doesn't show it because it doesn't take him the fastest path from A to B. That hidden emptiness, however, is what lets him give up his success so quickly to join Jake.

Ax is the only character's fate I would change slightly. I see him being more depressed than he was in the book. He is Andalite, but he is human inside. Remember, he was only like 13 or 14 by our standards when he started, and still highly impressionable. When he returned to his people, he would be lost. Living just amongst humans would too leave him at loss. I do see him becoming incredibly reckless. His deeds would obviously grant him enormous increases in rank, and I see him making very dangerous choices in bad situations - much like he did. I don't like the assimilation idea though. I would rather him clearly fighting. Even if his fate would still be unknown, I'd want to see more than him simply getting sucked into some random entity. I'd also have Ellimist say something at the end, not to reveal too much, just to have some final statements. I'd still want them to be plunged into a new war, but more clearly. If they are all dead, they can't have a new war, so make the benefit of the doubt a little better.

I see Jake being depressed; the relationship with Cassie was doomed to fail, and this would cause him pain. Also, the war criminal accusations hit him in the heart, because he regretted so many of his actions so much. Flushing the pool ship, bombing the Yeerk pool, subjecting cripples and disabled children to war and death, dooming hundreds of soldiers, he knows that if the Yeerks had done the reciprocal, they would be charged as war criminals, and this makes him feel horrible. Between that and he overall feeling of uselessness post-war, I see him as the sad sack he became, and jumping at the gun to the mission to try to have life return to normal. Return to normal... that's probably the biggest irony of all.


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Offline Brad the Brit

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #40 on: March 24, 2009, 08:06:16 PM »
((Return to normal... that's probably the biggest irony of all.))

that pretty much sums up the last book.
 think i agree with all of your points exept one. tobanis blamed jake for rachals death sure. but i think he knew why the desison was made and he may even have started to come to terms with it by the time they when to save ax (if only slightley)

Offline ThinkAgain

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #41 on: March 24, 2009, 08:23:35 PM »
That's not what I said Brad.

I do see Tobias EVENTUALLY coming to terms with Jake, understanding it was the right thing to do.

It's just that Rachel was Tobias' last tie to humanity. When that tie was severed, Tobias was lost. Without her, he had no connections to humans in general. He lost purpose. As a hawk, Rachel kept him human. As a hawk, fighting the war gave him purpose. Without the war, his hawk is useless, and without Rachel, his trying to be human is useless. Drowning in all that uselessness, he simply retreats and tries to forget.

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Offline Brad the Brit

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #42 on: March 24, 2009, 08:26:41 PM »
ahhhh sorry i must have read it wrong. i totaly agree with you then

Offline Chad32

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #43 on: March 24, 2009, 08:48:53 PM »
So his mother is just meaningless. Man, why bring the woman back if you're not going to do squat with her?


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Offline ThinkAgain

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Re: Thoughts in the End
« Reply #44 on: March 24, 2009, 09:00:53 PM »
He originally did not know she had amnesia. By the time he found out, it was too late to abandon her. Also, Tobias was so desperate for a loving parent, he was willing to grasp at any wisp of hope, no matter how small.

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