The wall between Jake and Cassie

[Hylian Dan]

ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD

After a long, awkward silence I said, "Anyway. That..." I gestured out toward the water. I wanted to say that it was the first real joy I had felt since seeing Rachel kill Tom. But there was a wall between me and Cassie.

A few minutes later, after watching Jake morph and fly away, I climbed up to where Ronnie waited.
I knew I had said good-bye to Jake forever.

This is one of the (several) major things that upset people in Book 54: Jake and Cassie go their separate ways. But this is an important outcome that had been in development for a while, and it's tied up in some of the big themes of the story, so I want to clarify exactly what leads to it.

I am about to quote an absolutely obscene amount of text from the books, book 53 in particular. Sorry. Book 53, however, is the most tightly written book in the series, and it examines the major moral conflict of the story. It also shows how Cassie and Jake's fate is sealed. I think the dynamics of their relationship, the overall story, and it's message will become clearer by drawing out these particular excerpts, so I figure it's worth this embarrassingly long post.



The problems start in book 49, when Jake fails his family and Tom captures his parents. This was the first turning point. Jake falls apart because his dream of saving his family had been holding him together, and it was his mistake of waiting that doomed them.

In book 50, the cracks form between Jake and Cassie. Jake gives up being the leader. He stops trying to hold things together, so that responsibility falls on Cassie's shoulders. She manipulates Jake into submitting to his duty as the group's leader, but now he doesn't have the patience for careful mediation of conversations and considerations of moral complexity. Cassie is the one forcing him to act, so she is not in a position to voice her thoughts about the morality of their decisions. Jake sets his sights on nothing but victory, and to keep him from breaking Cassie tries to do the same.

“That’s right, Mom,” I said, my voice hard. “The Hork-Bajir could die. Every single
one of us, human and Hork-Bajir and Andalite, could die. Any day. At any time. I
still don’t get your point.”
My mother gasped. It wasn’t a fake gasp, either. She was shocked. “Cassie! How
can you say that? We’re talking about lives.”
“I’m being realistic. This is a war, Mom. Do you understand what that means? Some
of us are going to die. That’s a fact. From disease or injury or deprivation. It
doesn’t much matter how, does it? Nothing we do now can change that fact. Not
building a nicer shelter or being all pleasant to each other. Nothing will stop the
dying except winning the war. And right now, our chances of winning don’t look
real good.”
I turned away from my mother’s stricken face. Walked away.

“I’m not a leader, Jake. You are. You’re going to have to talk to
my parents. And to Rachel’s mother and sisters. Even Tobias’s mom.”
“Why should they listen to me?” Jake countered. “Look at the situation. We’re hiding
in the forest, living on the charity of the Hork-Bajir. If you were an adult—or even
another kid, not Cassie—would you listen to me? No, you wouldn’t. So why don’t
you just leave me alone?”
He looked at me. Then turned his head. “Please, Cassie.”
Jake quickened his step and left me behind.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I called after him. Desperate.
He didn’t stop.
“You’re acting like a coward!”
The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them.
Jake stopped. Turned. His face was a stranger’s. “What did you call me?”
He’d heard me. Too late to take back the words. “A coward,” I repeated, flinching.
“Now that it’s the final crisis, you’re turning chicken on us.”
I didn’t expect his weary laugh. “I’m not chicken,” he said. “I’m just trying to give
everybody a fighting chance. I’m not going to insist people do what I say when I
don’t have the slightest idea what’s right or wrong. What’s smart or stupid. Cassie,
it’s my fault we’re on the run. You can’t deny that.”
I walked up to Jake, took a deep breath, and tried to sound reasonable. Reached for
his hand and held it tight.
“Maybe you’re right, Jake. And maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you area good leader,
after all.”
He tried to pull away but I wouldn’t let him go.
“No, Jake. Listen. If that’s the truth, you have to take charge. And if you really are a
failure and it really is all your fault, then it’s your responsibility to get us out of
here. We need you, Jake. Either way, it has to be you.”
It was a cheap shot. Jake’s Achilles’ heel has always been his sense of
responsibility. I could see him weakening.

That afternoon I lied and told everyone that Jake hadcalled a meeting for later that
evening.
Then I told Jake about the meeting. Two minutes before it was about to start.
He was not thrilled. But he wasn’t angry, either. He was just...neutral.

I watched Jake’s face. I had to admit he didn’t exactly look like an inspirational
leader.
He just looked like a sad, harried kid.
And it felt like my fault.

Before I could stop it, the air seemed to leave my lungs. How could we live with
ourselves if one of the new and very inexperienced Animorphs got seriously injured
in battle? Died, even? There was something wrong with the whole idea.
“We’re not doing this,” I said quietly but with conviction.
<It was your idea,> Tobias pointed outgently.
“No,” I protested. “I was just thinking out loud. I wasn’t suggesting we actually do
it. It’s not right.”
Jake cleared his throat. “Cassie, recruiting handicapped kids, or differently abled
kids, or whatever we should say, might be our only chanceof survival.”
“Our chance of survival. What about theirs? We’re going to use kids less fortunate
than us to keep us alive? Why are we so important? Why are we more important
than anyone else?”
“That’s not what we’re saying, Cassie.” Jake’s voice was low but firm. “Handicapped
people live on this planet, too. When I say ‘our’ chance of survival, I’m including
every human being on Earth. Everyone has a stake in this fight. Why not give other
kids the power they need to fight back?”
I didn’t know what to say. Jake was right.
Suddenly, a revelation. I was thinking like my mother. She was right about the
emergency living conditions the Hork-Bajir had built.

Jake grinned. For a minute he seemed like the old Jake again. Full of energy and
confidence.
That should have made me happy. But if didn’t.
Because I didn’t like what we were about to do. And because it was clear that in
this situaton, Jake didn’t care what I thought.

Finally, Jake looked at me. Some of the old, inspirational Jake in his expression.
“Cassie? You’re with us, right?”
I was angry. And I was hurt.
But what could I do?
I’d been the one to insist we follow Jake.
My Jake.
How could I refuse now?

Jake glanced up and down the street. “This is it,” he said.
I couldn’t help myself. I protested, again. “Jake...”
Jake shot me a look. It wasn’t a friendly one.
I was stung. I looked away.

“Please tell me I misunderstood,” he said. “Please tell me you haven’t actually
convinced disabled children to participate in this nightmare.”
Jake spoke. “We had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” my father said angrily. “Jake, I thought you knew that.
Where’s the boy I used to know? The boy who was so clear on right and wrong.”
I wondered the same thing.
Jake wasn’t Jake anymore. His eyes were harder. Maybe his heart, too. And I didn’t
like the look that came over his face now.
It was the look that Rachel got when she was determined to win no matter what. It
was the look Tobias got when he was closing in on a mouse.
“We’ll wait for you over there,” Jake told me. He didn’t answer my father. He just
led Toby and the others away.
Even Jake’s back looked different. Straighter. More unyielding.
Jake, the Jake I knew, was going away. And I didn’t know how to get him back.
Yet I still felt I had to defend him.
“Dad,” I said. “I don’t have time to argue ethics with you. I don’t have time to
convince you that sometimes you have to do something—uncomfortable—to make
things right in the end. This is war. Every minute counts. We’re fighting to save the
human race.”
“The human race?” my father repeated. “Okay, answer me this, Cassie. Is what
you’re doing with these disabled children humane?”
My father sounded like me.
Like the old me.
But I wasn’t that naïve person anymore.
I had no answer.
I turned and walked away. Started to morph osprey.
“Cassie!” he cried. “Cassie! Wait!”
But I didn’t wait.I finished the morph and flew.

Cassie is no longer standing on solid ground, no longer trusting herself, instead doing what is necessary. She is facing the horrible reality of war even though she is disgusted by what it's doing to her. Then, when Visser One is about to kill Jake, an anonymous Hork-Bajir-Controller attacks the Visser and saves Jake. This jolts Cassie, and she realizes that there are still Yeerks fighting for freedom.

Cassie is a peacemaker by nature. She had been struggling to adopt an "Us vs. Them," "The ends justify the means" mentality, now that the stakes are higher. She sees how this is hardening Jake, blurring the line that separates the Animorphs and their enemies.  She sees the Controller save Jake, and then she sees Jake and Tom prepare to kill each other.

First, though, a vitally important speech from book 23:

"I fight you," a Hork-Bajir I didn't know said to me as I fluttered
along, keeping pace with the group.
 
<What?>
 
"In Yeerk pool. Before. I fight you." He grinned
and pointed to a nasty scar across his left eye. Then he pantomimed
a bird coming down and raking his face with its talons. "Fal Tagut say
'Aaaahhhh!' "
 
<l did that? I'm ... sorry.>
 
"No sorry! Fal Tagut not free." He tapped his head with one long claw.
"Fal Tagut have Yeerk. Now free. Good! Hork-Bajir and humans friends.
Toby say."
 
It was a long speech for a Hork-Bajir. Fal Tagut seemed worn out by it.
 
I wondered about the image of Hork-Bajir and humans living side by side
if the Yeerks were defeated. Humans didn't have a great record of
getting along with people different from themselves. Humans killed one
another over skin color or eye shape or because they prayed differently
to the same god. Hard to imagine humans welcoming seven-foot-tall
goblins into the local Boy Scout troop when they couldn't even manage to
tolerate some gay kid.
 
Get pushed, push back. Toby had already seen it. She knew that the
Hork-Bajir would need to be strong to defend themselves against humans
once the Yeerks were defeated.
 
Get pushed, push back. The only way.
 
No, not the only way. There was another way. Don't push to begin with.
It's the aggressors who start the cycle. It's the guy who wakes up in the
morning and decides he can't get through the day without finding
someone to attack, to insult, to hurt.
 
But where does that leave you? Letting jerks dictate your reactions?
Always sinking to the level of whatever creep comes along?
 
My mind went to that other hawk. The one who wanted my territory. There
it was: Push and push back. But it wasn't a good comparison, was it?
That hawk wasn't human. All he had was instinct. Couldn't blame him for
doing what was natural.
 
So maybe humans were no better. Maybe you couldn't blame a human
animal for just being an animal. Except that my hawk opponent had no choice, no
free will. He'd never heard "Blessed are the peacemakers," or "I have a
dream," or "All men are created equal."
 
It suddenly occurred to me, right then, for the first time, that what I
thought was so unique about me - that I was half instinctive predator,
and half human being - wasn't so unique after all.
 
Every human - Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, all humans - kind of lives on
that edge between savage and saint. And the thing is that sometimes when
you get pushed you do have to push back. And other times, you have to
turn the other cheek.
 
I saw the scar on Fal Tagut's face. I'd put it there. I'd been
trying to kill him at the time because he'd been trying to kill me. Now
we were on the same side.
 
I guess the trick is to figure out when to do which thing. When to
fight, when to let up. A balancing act. And even if I went back to being
fully human in body and mind, that balancing act wouldn't go away.
 
Maybe realizing that should have made me feel bad. But it didn't. Just
made me feel human.

But Jake lifted the tiger’s seven-hundred-pound body on three legs and started
after his brother. Into the shadows.  Into the darkest place Jake had ever been. The
place where he would have to kill his brother. Or be killed by him.
Suddenly, I remembered my father’s face. His voice. “Is what you’re doing
humane?”
No matter which way it went between Jake and Tom, I would lose Jake.
Because if Jake had to kill Tom, he’d never be the same. He would cross whatever
line it was that separated us from them.
And I was pretty sure there was no crossing back.
I ran ahead into the dark. Followed the trail of Jake’s blood.
Tom crashing through the woods ahead of me.
Soft, irregular thudding. Jake.
Stalking his brother. Prepared to kill him. For what?
For a morphing cube. For...
It wasn’t worth it.

At this moment, the war is about to swallow Jake and Cassie. It is going to transform them into something entirely different. Jake will kill his brother and Cassie will have enabled him. Cassie sees this line and decides that she and Jake must not cross it. Cassie makes this decision for Jake.

This changes Jake's approach to leadership.

The six of us, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, Ax,
Cassie, and I, had stayed together through im-
possibly bad times, through every defeat, every
close call, every mind-twisting weirdness, every
horror. None of us had ever turned against the
others. There had never been a betrayal.
Cassie let Tom take the morphing cube. Per-
haps she had done so because to her the alterna-
tive was worse: She feared for me, for my soul I
guess, if I was forced to kill my own brother.
Not good enough. Not for me. All that counted
now was that we win, and Cassie, maybe for the
most decent of motives, had hurt us badly.
I loved Cassie. Always had. Still did. But
there was this thing between us now. And I could
never trust her again. She had put my personal
well-being ahead of winning a war we absolutely
could not lose. And, I knew, that her decision
might have come in part from my own
self-doubts, my own inability to throw off moral
ambiguity.
If I had been stronger . . . if I had been as
strong as I should be, maybe Cassie would not
have made her fatal mistake. I saw that clearly
now. Too late for either of us.
And that was the other reason why I would al-
low myself no more second-guessing. A leader
who shows weakness invites disaster.
We flew back to the Hork-Bajir camp. And as
we flew I thought. Not about how my orders to
destroy the Yeerk pool had resulted in the literal
obliteration of the city, but about how, how, how I
could destroy the Pool ship.

NOTE: Trying to post the rest of this, having a few problems. Hang on a minute.

[goom]

*applause* +1

(mind if i merge your posts together, or was that intentional?)

[Hylian Dan]

Thanks, but one sec, goom. That's about half of it. I'm trying to post the rest.

*Alright, got it. For some reason, I have trouble posting quotes from book 53. Cleaning them up now.

Done.

At the beginning of the American Civil War
both sides thought the war was about taking or
holding cities and ports and rivers and mountain
passes. They thought it was a chess game.
By the end of the war they'd figured out that
they weren't playing chess. Cities didn't matter
much. Ports and rivers and mountain passes,
while useful, were secondary to the real game.
The real game was destruction.
Lincoln had figured it out earlier than most
and his generals; Ulysses S. Grant, William Te-
cumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan made it
happen.
They burned enemy homes and farms. They
burned crops in the field and slaughtered farm
animals and wrapped railroad tracks around
trees. They starved the enemy.
They realized that warfare was no longer
about chivalry and honor, but about killing
the enemy. Find the enemy, kill the enemy.
Kill so many of them that those who are left
alive lose their will to fight on. Do whatever it
takes.
That's the way war has been ever since.
For a long time we had fought the Yeerks re-
actively. We were always ten steps behind, trying
to foil this plan or that plan. We'd tried to
fight the war with at least some vestige of
decency. And maybe that had been okay when
we were fighting to stop an infiltration. Now things
were different. We were down to the final
stages. Either the Yeerks would prevail, or we
would.
So I gave simple orders to my people, the
original Animorphs, and the auxiliary Animorphs,
and Toby's free Hork-Bajir. Orders I had never
given before: Kill the enemy. Kill the Taxxons.
Dress it up however you want, that's what war
is about. If there's some glory in there somewhere, I
must have missed it.

(Note how often KA and Michael reference the Civil War. Gone and Remnants allude to it on page one. And then there's book 47.)

Jake is then confronted by Arbron and the reality that there are factions of Yeerks who just want out of the war.

They had given me up for dead back at the
valley of the free Hork-Bajir, so when I came fly-
ing in at first light there was a certain amount of
amazement.
...
I landed on the ground and demorphed as
Cassie came running up, her tear-streaked face
bright. She stopped herself from hugging me,
and then turned away.
"Cassie. Stay. Please," I said. "Marco: Did we
lose anyone last night?"
...
My fellow Animorphs just stared in dumb,
openmouthed, it-can't-be, no-way shock.
All but Cassie, who sighed as if she
holding her breath for weeks.
I went to her and said, "You knew, didn't
you?"
She shook her head. "I hoped, that was all. I
hoped."
"Pretty good hope, Cassie," I whispered.
"Oh my God," Marco said, getting it now. "It's
the morphing. That it, isn't it? The Yeerks got a
taste of morphing. The Taxxons have figured out
they could do it, too."

She looked blank. "Something similar to their
present forms? Centipedes? Caterpillars? No,
they'd want a longer lifespan at least. And you said
said strong . . . ah. I have an idea. I don't know.
Maybe . . . I don't know. I'd be guessing.
I said, "Cassie, you guessed that letting Tom
take the morphing cube might weaken rather
than strengthen the Yeerks. You guessed that Ax
was . . ." I stifled the most bitter word that came
to mind. ". . . conflicted. I'll back your guess
any day of the week."
"I think he means he means he's sorry he doubted you
and treated you like crap," Rachel said archly.
"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. Come on,
Cassie, show me where to go next."

I took her in my arms. The anaconda's habitat
was probably not the most romantic place on
Earth, but it felt safe. "You know I love you."
"I love you, too, Jake," she said, and put her
head on my shoulder.
"I guess if we win, if we survive, maybe we
should, you know, get married and all. I mean,
eventually. I know we're young, but man, we've
been through enough that it should count for a
few extra years, shouldn't it?"
I don't know what I expected her answer to
be, but I didn't expect her to start crying. And
not tears of joy, either.
"I would like that ... eventually," she said. "But."
"But what?"
She sighed. "But, Jake, what are you going to
be? What are you going to do?"
...
"Look, Cassie, when this is over I'll be done
with it forever. I'll go back to school, get an edu-
cation, go to basketball games, get a driver's li-
cense, go to college, figure out what it is I really
want to do. And be with you. You and me."
She forced a smile. "A year after it ends, if it
ends, if we win, a year afterward if you want to be
with me, we'll talk about that again, okay?"

And then Tom enters the scene.

Tom's face smirked. "Little brother, you've
got to know by now: Wars aren't won with clean
hands."
"Don't listen to him," Cassie said, but it was
almost a whisper.

Through the first half of the book, Jake wavers between following the Us vs. Them, ends justify the means mentality, and following Cassie's mentality. After Tom makes his offer, Cassie and Jake have this conversation, and Jake decides which side he will favor. And, finally, The Answer comes to him.

<Cassie, just go ahead and say it,> I said finally.
<Say it? You're expecting some moral lecture
from me about turning Tom's Yeerk and a hun-
dred of his chosen people loose with a fantasti-
cally powerful warship to roam the galaxy? Never
knowing what suffering he may inflict?>
<Something like that, yeah.>
<Because that's me, right? The voice of whin-
ing morality.>
She sounded bitter. I wasn't surprised. I was
surprised by what came next.
<I gave the Yeerks the morphing cube,> she
said. <Because of that the Taxxons may become
a force for peace. And Tom, the real Tom, and
your parents, may be restored to us. And because
of that, Tom, the real Tom, and
your parents, may be restored to us. And because
of that, Tom's Yeerk has seen a way to betray his
own people and become some kind of warlord on
his own.>
I took a moment to digest that. She was actu-
ally blaming herself. <Cassie, these things hap-
pen. You can't always predict the results of the
things you do. You try your best, take your best
shot, and maybe it comes out right, and maybe it
comes out . . . I don't know, confused.>
<Brilliant, isn't it? So I make the decisions, I
make the big call, sanctimonious little me, I
make the moral, optimistic decision, and where
are we?>
<Better off than we were,> I said, but I was
only half-listening now. An alarm bell was going
off in my head. Why? What was the problem?
What was it?
<And some species we don't know about is
maybe doomed when a Blade ship full of morph-
ing Yeerks descends on them.>
<It's never completely clean, Cassie. Doesn't
work that way. But you try your best to keep it
clean. The fact that you know you'll be dragged
in the gutter doesn't mean you don't try like hell
to stay out of it. You don't get a lot of straight-up
good or evil choices. You get shades of gray. I
mean, we started this war thinking we'd hold on
till the great and glorious Andalites came to res-
cue us. Now we're making deals with Taxxons
and Yeerks to gain a victory fast enough to keep
the great and glorious Andalites from making
their own shades-of-gray decision.>
<What are you going to do?> Cassie asked.
<I'm going to win,> I said. But I didn't be-
lieve it. Why? It was all there. It was all possible
at least.

...
 
It came to me all at once that I could beat
him. Use him and beat him.
One of those rare, perfect moments when a
dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details,
simply fall perfectly into place and form a single
clear picture.
It took my breath away. The perfection of it.
The pure, ruthless perfection of it.
All I had to do was send my friends to die.
Cassie was still talking to me, but I didn't
hear her words. I had seen the vision. I could see
the pure, straight line from point A to point Z.

Erek said a long string of words I didn't un-
derstand.
"What?"
"I was offering you my opinion of your morals
and your ethics and your sense of decency," Erek
spat. "I was speaking an ancient Mesopotamian
dialect known for its wide variety of curse words."
I nodded. "Tell you the truth, Erek, your being
mad at me is the least of my problems. Marco?
Erek is your property. He tries to leave, stop him.
If he succeeds in leaving, Ax, you'll execute this
Controller."
I shot a challenging, defensive look at Cassie.
"Any comment?"
"No."
I glared at my friends, all of whom were look-
ing somber. Erek had been with us, an ally, a
friend, for a long time. "Does anyone have any
thing to say?"
No one did.

"Jake, some of these kids, I mean, they're all
their families have, you know? They're still just
starting to deal with Ray's death. It's not like we
haven't fought. I can't..."
"Look, if we lose this battle it's over, you un-
derstand me?!" I raised my voice to be heard by
everyone. "If we lose it's over. This is the battle.
This is the last stand. We lose and here's what
happens: The Yeerk fleet fights the Andalite fleet.
If the Yeerks win they'll be free to enslave every
living human being and kill the ones they don't
want. If the Andalites win there's a very good
chance they'll sterilize Earth: kill everything in
order to end the Yeerk menace once and for all.
So, you don't like me telling you what to do, you
don't like your job, you don't like me, period? I
don't really care. Before this night is over the ca-
sualties will be piled high and some of you stand-
ing here right now will be dead and I don't care
because we are going to win. Is that clear? We're
taking that Pool ship and before this night is over
we'll have Visser One right here." I held up my
tight-clenched fist.
I was ranting. I was trembling. I'd never done
this before. Never put myself forward as some
kind of Napoleon wannabe. I felt like a jerk. Like
some kind of nut. My friends must have thought I
d lost my mind. But no one said so.
No one but Marco. "You know, you're turning
into Rachel." He frowned. "Where is she, any-
way?"

<The pool is full to capacity. These are the
Yeerks that were rescued from the earth-based
Yeerk pool. Plus the bulk of the unhosted Yeerks
recently transported here.>
<Some reason you're telling me all this, Ax-
man?>
<Jake, there are seventeen thousand, three
hundred seventy-two Yeerks in this pool.>
That rocked me.
Visser One had to know we were here, on the
loose. He had to run for the bridge and not stay
to win the fight in engineering.
Seventeen thousand. Living creatures. Think-
ing creatures. How could I give this order? Even
for victory. Even to save Rachel. How could I give
this kind of order?
They could have stayed home, I thought. No
one had asked them to come to Earth. Not my
fault. Not my fault, theirs.
No more than they deserved.
Aliens. Parasites. Subhuman.
<Flush them,> I said.

The war swallows Jake. And, then, the battle is won.

"Look, Cassie, when this is over I'll be done with it forever. I'll go back to school, get an education, go to basketball games, get a driver's license, go to college, figure out what it is I really want to do. And be with you. You and me."

On the screen I saw the Blade ship slowly
picking up speed and pulling away. They didn't
fire at us.
Tom was dead.
And I wondered how I was ever going to ex-
plain it. I had ordered my cousin to execute my
brother. How would I ever explain that?
All these years I'd fought to keep us all alive,
to stop the Yeerks, always with the hope that
someday I would save my brother, that he would
come back, that he'd be Tom again. That was
why I'd enlisted in the war to begin with. I was
going to save Tom.
Tom was dead. The Yeerk in his head was
dead.
And Rachel.
And how many others?
General Doubleday's soldiers who had pro-
vided the suicidal diversionary attack on the
ground.
The auxiliary Animorphs who had gone with
them to trick the enemy.
How many of Toby's people?
Seventeen thousand Yeerks, frozen. Flushed
into space.
Plus.
Plus.
All at my command.
<Jake, I need your okay,> Toby pressed. <The
Yeerks want you. They want your assurances
<A pack of traitors,> Visser One said, but the
fight had gone out of him.
Tom was dead. Rachel was dead. How would I
explain this to my parents?
Silly to think of that right then. Silly and stu-
pid.
<Jake . . .> Toby urged.
<Rachel,> Cassie said softly. <Toby, we lost
Rachel. And Tom is dead.>
Toby absorbed that, then said, <Jara Hamee,
my father, died bravely in battle here today.>
Still I couldn't say anything. How did I ex-
plain . . .
Marco was still in gorilla morph. He said, <lt's
okay, Toby. Tell the Yeerks that Jake will be along
in a minute. Tell them Visser One is our captive.
Tell them we approve the deal you made.>
<My people may not agree,> Ax said.
<Yeah?> Marco shot back. <Guess what? This
is our planet. These are our prisoners. This is our
victory. If the Andalite high command doesn't like
it they can come and try to take a piece of us.>
Cassie came to me and sort of leaned into
me, as close to a hug as we could get right then.
I was afraid she would say something sympa-
she had I think that would have been it, I think
my brain would have just shut down because all
the pain would have suddenly been real and
deep inside me.
Cassie said, <We still need you. You're not
done yet, Jake.>
The right thing to say. Cassie was good at
that. I noted the effect on me, observed my reac-
tion from a million miles away.
I sighed. Okay. Yeah. I still had a job. Do the
job.
<Everything else can wait,> Cassie said.
Yeah. It could all wait.
I took a deep breath.

<No. No more killing,> I said.
"What do you mean, no more killing?" Tobias
demanded, breaking his ringing silence at last.
He stabbed a finger at the visser. "He's the one
responsible for all this!"
<He's a prisoner of war,> I said softly. <We
don't kill prisoners.>

"So, you, too, huh Cassie?"
"Jake did what he had to do."
"Did he? Someone flushed the Yeerk pool into
space. Did he have to do that, too? They were un-
hosted Yeerks. They were harmless."
"We needed a div —" I stopped myself.
"A what? A what did you need? A diversion?
You're going to tell me you needed a diversion so
Jake massacred seventeen thousand sentient
creatures? A diversion?"
I took a deep breath. "Jake says maybe you
should get off the ship, Erek. The Andalites will
most likely be coming aboard soon. It's up to you
whether you go on keeping your existence secret.
We won't divulge it."
"I see."
"Bye Erek."
He nodded. Then, as he was passing, he took
my arm in his pseudo-hand. "Take care of Jake.
He's going to need you."

"Is Jake here yet?" I asked Marco. I figured
I might as well find out right away. I wasn't eager
to see Jake. I mean, yes, I was. But the Jake I
was eager to see might not even exist anymore.
The Jake I wanted to see was the one who had
talked about us being together after the war was
over.
The war was over. We weren't together. Now,
this reunion was just bound to be awkward if not
painful.

"She called me a war criminal," I said.
"She's wrong," Cassie said.
"Did what you had to do, man," Marco said.
"We all did."
<Jake, it was I who pointed out the possibili-
ties to you,> Ax said. <l pointed out that the
Yeerk pool aboard the ship could be drained.>
"Yeah, but I made the call. I pulled the plug.
So why don't you tell me: How is that prosecutor
wrong? How is Visser One evil and I'm not? I'd
really like to know that." I had intended it to be a
rhetorical question. I hadn't meant to sound so
plaintive.
Cassie took it seriously. "Jake, I've thought a
lot about this."
Marco rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we know."
"I've had to think about it because I've done
the same things you've done, Jake. You were the
leader, but if you're a war criminal then so are we
for following you." She shivered. It was cold and
the breeze was gusting. "I've had to make my
own peace with things I've done."
Despite myself I was hanging on her words.
And despite myself I was remembering kissing
her.
"Jake, you can't. . ." She took a deep breath.
"You can't equate the victim and the perpetrator."
"So as long as you're playing defense it's not
possible to commit a war crime?" I asked. "That's
pretty close to just saying that the winner makes
the rules because it's the winner who writes the
history."
She grabbed my arm and searched for my eyes,
forcing me to look at her. "No, Jake, it isn't.
There are a lot of close calls in history, lots of
wars where the blame is evenly split between the
sides. This isn't one of them. Before they came
to Earth no human ever attacked a Yeerk. No hu-
man ever harmed a Yeerk. This one is clear: We
are the victims. They made war on us."
"That's good," I said softly. "All of that is
good. We have justification. We're the good
guys."
Marco said, "That's right, Big Jake, we are."
I nodded. "That's good for the big picture.
See, my problem is a little more personal."
<What do you mean?> Ax asked.
"Well, Ax-man, you're right, you did call my
attention to the possibilities on the Pool ship.
And when you did that I guess I should have
thought, Well, Jake, it's a harsh, terrible thing to
do, but you're justified because, after all, you're
the victim here. But that's not what I thought.
You know what I thought?"
Cassie released her grip on me. But Marco
just took a step up close, right in my face.
"I know what you thought, Jake. You thought
Die, you filthy worms. Feel the fear, Yeerks. Feel
the pain. Feel the helplessness. You wanted
them to suffer and the idea of them suffering and
dying made you happy. You were thrilled. You
were high."
Cassie winced. She looked away.
I said, "Yeah, Marco. That was about it: word
for word."
"Well, dude, you don't get to be a war crimi-
nal by thinking bad thoughts. It's what was done,
not what was felt or thought. You have to judge
the act. You were acting in self-defense. You
were enjoying the fact that you were winning.
Two different things."
Cassie seemed less certain. Far less. She
seemed ready to join in with Marco, but she
couldn't bring herself to do it. She tried to hide
it, but there was this look in her eyes, this side-
ways look at me.
<Prince Jake,> Ax said, giving me back the ti-
tle he'd given me long ago, <l am not a human.
But it seems to me that it is up to your own
people to decide the morality of your actions.
Their decision seems clear. My people agree with
that assessment. We, the An'rmorphs under your
leadership, stopped the Yeerk threat. We saved
Earth. We may have saved my people as well,
surely we saved many, many Andalite lives.>
I was suddenly exhausted. Worn out all the
way, deep down. And everyone had run out of
things to say.
After a long, awkward silence I said, "Anyway.
That..." I gestured out toward the water. I
wanted to say that it was the first real joy I had
felt since seeing Rachel kill Tom. But there was a
wall between me and Cassie. And Marco, well,
he's a guy and we guys don't do a lot of emo-
tional stuff with one another. "Anyway. I'll be
good tomorrow, on the stand."

When Jake was about to kill Tom, Cassie stopped him before he could cross that line. But Jake crossed that line later, when he emptied the Pool ship. Cassie did not cross that line.

<Stand in front of me,> he said. <l'm going to
roll right down the mountain if I demorph in the
wrong order.>
He demorphed without problems. And then,
there he was: Jake. Not the old Jake, exactly, a
little bigger, an inch or two taller. Jake as a
grown-up, I thought. But then, no, that was wrong:
Jake had been a grown-up for a long time.
"Hi, Cassie."
Jake always called me Cassie. Never Cass like
Ronnie did.

...

"Jake, this sounds ... I mean, one ship? You're
supposed to go into some hostile space with one
ship, and rescue Ax from the Blade ship and pos-
sibly a whole alien empire?"
"Plus it seems there may be a third, unknown
alien species involved," Jake said. He smiled in a
way that was so much like Rachel. That same
self-mocking swagger. How had I never noticed
that similarity before?

...

"I'll go, too," I said. "I just need a day to wrap
things up and . . ."
He was shaking his head. "No, Cassie."
"Look, if it's because of us, because of, you
know, you and me, hey, that's separate and apart
from saving Ax. Ax is one of us."
"That's not it, Cassie," he said, all the swagger
gone now. He was the old, awkward Jake now,
struggling to express feelings instead of making
lightning decisions. "Look, Cassie, you're doing
what you need to do and were born to do. Part of
what we won was freedom for the Hork-Bajir
people. And a place for them here on Earth.
That's something we won. It's in the bank. It's
real and it's good and your job is to protect it.
Me . . ." He shrugged. "Look, for better or worse,
this is what I do. This is what I am, not what you
are."
"I'm still pretty good in a fight," I said.
He laughed. "Pretty good? Cassie, you're a
one-woman army. But you're the soldier who has
fought her war and moved on. That's good. It's
not me, though. Come on, Cassie, we both know
this is a lifeline for me."
I brushed away a tear. I didn't know how I
felt. Relieved? Rejected?
"So you just came to say 'good-bye'?" My
voice quavered miserably.
"No. I mean, yes, to say good-bye. For now.
But also, I came for Tobias."
I stared at him.
"Don't bother to tell me you don't know where
he is," Jake said. "I'm sure he's sworn you to se-
crecy. But you have to ask yourself what's best
for Tobias now. Ax was his shorm. He has to go,
you know that, even if he does hate me."
"He doesn't hate you, Jake. He never did. His
heart was broken, that's all. And you know, To-
bias never had anyone. No one before Rachel. No
mother, really, no father he could ever know.
Rachel was the first and only person who ever
loved Tobias."
Jake nodded. "Yeah. I know. But Ax was his
friend. So are all of us, even if he doesn't want it
that way. So tell me how to find him."
A few minutes later, after watching Jake morph
and fly away, I climbed up to where Ronnie
waited.
I knew I had said good-bye to Jake forever.

[ThinkAgain]

Beyond the One, beyond Rachel's death, beyond Tobias' losing himself, beyond Jake and Cassie's final breaking up...

...Was simply Jake's reaction to his parents being captured.

Jake wouldn't have collapsed from his parents being taken. He'd be struck, but on a different note. He'd fight harder, possibly with a vengence. I don't see it as "Jake was fighting the whole time for Tom, and now that's lost." At that time, no one knew of the blade ship thing, or how Tom was trecherous. I would have seen Jake fighting for three instead of one. It wasn't lost, just dragged further away. Increasingly bleak odds never slowed him before. Why now? He would have just tried to continue on, trying to save them. He'd lived that way with Tom for three years, now that he's further away doesn't mean he's lost. I see him going down when he finds out Tom cannot be saved, but that is later. Before then, he should still be leading the same, just with more grit. He should have still been with Cassie. If Cassie could have done it again with the cube, she would have.

EVEN IF he still crashed the same way, after Jake realized she only did it to save him, that it was part of her nature and instint to do it, after it proved to actually help end the war in the end, that wall should have never been there. I agree their relationship should have ended with the war. I don't agree that it would have ended before the war's finally.

[Chad32]

Remind me again how handing the cube over helped more than it hindered again? Yeah a few yeerks and some Taxxons defected. Big whoop.

Losing his parents may have dragged him down more than it should have. I guess because if he had gone to them first instead of last, then he wouldn't feel as guilty. If he had told everyone they needed to get their families out as soon as they learned the Yeerks plan with the DNA, then everyone could have been saved. He felt extra guilty because he rushed in when he should have held back, then held back when he should have rushed in.

I'm not sure what I would have done in Cassie's shoes. I just know she should have helped him get Tom alive, and not leave him. If she had thought clearly, and seen that third option, and rescued Tom alongside Jake, it may have rejuvinated him.

[Hylian Dan]

The second post is important, though, this isn't just about Jake's parents and Cassie handing over the cube. Her decision makes Jake realize that he had been too weak a leader, and he decides to never waver again in the face of moral ambiguity, because he had to win the war at all costs. When he realizes that the Taxxons were defecting, he reconsiders Cassie's viewpoint and starts to follow her again. But after the confrontation with Tom, Jake sees the clear line from A to Z, the path to victory. Cassie keeps talking, but Jake stops listening.

[Chad32]

Yeah, I see. I wonder why Marco wasn't brought into this. He sees the clear path, but isn't swallowed up in everything that's going on. She may have gotten him to help talk to Jake.

[ThinkAgain]

The cube wasn't also just for a few stray Yeerks and the Taxxons.

It was what led to Tom betraying the Visser. Without the power to morph, troops who could morph, and possesion of the cube, Tom would have never betrayed him. Without Tom betraying the Visser, the war would not have ended how it did.

Also, I posted my above post before you edited and added more quotes, which is why it seems repetitious.

After reading that final addition, however, I still feel the strength of the emotion, even now.

Also, Marco did talk to Jake. Read the quote where he talks about flushing the Yeerks.

[Duff]

Along the lines of Jakes parents effecting him differently than Tom; Tom was a controller before it was ever in Jakes power of knowledge to prevent it. His parents were free for years and because of a mistake Jake made, that caused them to be controllers. He had made mistakes before, but they had never cost anyone their lives or the lives of their family until then.

Fantastic summary Hylian (I didnt read it all...i mean come on lol) but I got the gist of what it all means and I skimmed a good amount.

It definitely came down in part to the fact that Jake changed as a result of the war and Cassie refused to. At first Jake thought he needed a moral compass to keep him on the right path, but when the compass would risk everything stubbornly pointing north when NW would have saved millions of lives then theres a problem. And on the other hand Jake changed too much, lost touch with what made him a good person to Cassie in the first place.

Jakes quote where he says I still love her, always will, but I can never trust her was a great one to sum things up

I think they didnt get back together after the war because Jake was ashamed of what he had done and what he had done to her. And she knew that she broke the trust between them and she probably thought she was the cause of Rachels death and Jake blamed her for it.

I bet if they had sat down for a good long time and worked through everything that had happened and expressed themselves fully they could have chipped away at "the wall" and been together forever, but obviously they were never able to bring themselves to do that.

[ThinkAgain]

(I didnt read it all...i mean come on lol) but I got the gist of what it all means and I skimmed a good amount.

I'm ashamed of you Duff...

[Chad32]

If Cassie had made that third Choice, Tom's Yeerk would be dead. No betrayal of Visser Three needed.

So what would happen if Tom didn't betray Visser Three? Rachel would still be there to keep Tom from becoming the next eva. I'm not sure what exactly would have happened, or what would really be different.

[ThinkAgain]

They would not have been able to get on the pool ship. If it had lifted off, the war would have continued for far longer.

[Kelly]

Sigh.
They should've ended up together

[ThinkAgain]

I think, while mostly satisfying and would please a lot of people, that in the end would simply be too perfect for how the series was progressing.

[Hylian Dan]

Fantastic summary Hylian (I didnt read it all...i mean come on lol) but I got the gist of what it all means and I skimmed a good amount.

Haha, yeah, I anticipated some skimming. But that material's there as a reference, so you don't have to hunt through the books for those moments.

Here's another conversation that ties into this very directly. From book 17:

To my surprise, it was Tobias who said, <You know, something about this
doesn't feel totally okay. You know?>
 
Marco, who had been lounging on a bale of hay, jumped up. "What? What?
We have green kryptonite here! We have something that can make Yeerks go
nuts. Why is that not a good thing?"
 
<It sounds to me like they get addicted to it. Like a drug,> Tobias said.
 
I winced. "It's oatmeal, okay? Not anything illegal."
 
<A drug is in the eye of the beholder,> Tobias argued. <lf you get
addicted to the illegal stuff and it messes you up, that's a drug to
you. If you get addicted to oatmeal and it messes you up ->
 
"It's still just oatmeal," I said. "Oatmeal is oatmeal. Jeez! I can't
believe we're having this conversation."
 
"Look," Marco said, "the bigger question here is WHO CARES?! They're
Yeerks. They're the enemy. They attacked us, not the other way around."
 
<What about the hosts? The humans?> Ax asked. <The Yeerks are made
invulnerable to their normal hunger for Kandrona rays. They can live
inside their human hosts forever, even if the oatmeal is later taken
away. These hosts would lose all hope.>
 
"If we lose this war we're all going to be without hope," I said. "Ax, I
can't believe you, of all people, would even hesitate."
 
Ax swiveled his stalk eyes toward me. <We Andalites have been at war
longer than you. We understand the temptation to sink to the level of
your enemy.>
 
"Sink to the level of -" I started to yell.
 
Ax cut me off. <We also know that you can't win if you are not prepared
to be a little ruthless. It's a question of balance. How far into
savagery do you go to defeat the savage?>
 
I looked around the barn. Marco and I had drawn closer, almost
unconsciously. Tobias was up in the rafters, using his hawk senses to
listen and look for anyone approaching the barn. Ax
was shifting on his four legs and stretching his scorpionlike tail.
 
Jake and Cassie were the only ones not to say much. Jake looked
troubled. He was staring, but not at anything real. I could guess his
thoughts. His brother, Tom, is a Controller.
 
But it was Cassie who surprised me. Usually she's the one getting all moral.
 
"Cassie?" i asked. "What do you think?"
 
She hesitated. Like she just wanted to keep tending to the badger. She
sighed and stood up. When she turned around, I was shocked. She had a
stricken look.
 
"I ... I don't know anymore, okay?" she said.
 
I was confused for a moment. Then it hit me. We'd had a bad run-in with
a human-Controller whose Yeerk was Visser Three's twin brother. This
Yeerk had found another way around the Kan-drona. He cannibalized fellow
Yeerks. Sometimes human hosts got in the way.
 
In the heat of the moment, hearing that evil creature speak, Cassie had
demanded his destruction. She'd asked Jake to do it. Jake had refused.
 
I don't know why, but it frightened me to think of Cassie not knowing
what was right and wrong. Or at least thinking she didn't know. Cassie
was my best friend. I counted on her to balance me. She was supposed to
be sensible when I was reckless. She was supposed to be moral when I was
ruthless.
 
But things had gotten more and more confused for all of us, I guess.
 
"Look," I said, "okay, maybe this oatmeal is a drug to the Yeerks. But
you know what? This is a war. Sooner or later, if we are successful, if
the Andalites send help, if the human race rises up, we're going to try
and destroy every Yeerk on planet Earth. Right? That's our goal. This
isn't like some normal war where you hope you can make peace and
compromise. We can't compromise. The Yeerks are parasites. How do we
compromise? Let them have a few million humans as hosts?"
 
<They will never compromise, anyway,> Ax said. <They must be forced back
to their own home world.>
 
<So we try and feed them addictive drugs,> Tobias said with obvious
distaste.
 
"It's OAT-freaking-MEAL!" Marco exploded.
 
Cassie suddenly laughed. It was a cynical laugh. I didn't know she was
capable of a cynical laugh. "And all the rights and wrongs, and all the
lines between good and evil, just go wafting and waving and swirling
around, don't they?"
 
Jake shook off his funk and stepped to the center of our little group.
"I have to ask myself: If it were Tom, and it may be Tom in the end, would
 
I do this to him? On the one hand, life as a slave of a Yeerk. No
free will at all. On the other hand, as we saw with Mr. Edelman, some
free will, some ability to communicate, but with this insane Yeerk in
your brain."
 
<So?> Tobias asked him. <What's your answer? >
 
Jake shrugged. "In the Civil War, they were ending slavery. Most of the
Southern soldiers who were killed weren't slave owners. They were just
guys trying to be brave. Maybe they could have worked out a compromise.
Maybe they could have ended the war earlier if the North had agreed to
leave some people as slaves. But would that have been right? No. So the
war had to go on till everyone was free."
 
<Or dead,> Tobias added grimly. <But okay, that's a pretty good example.
You're right. I hate it, but you're right. We have to win.>
 
I laughed without any humor at all. I'm pretty gung ho. Unlike Cassie,
unlike Tobias perhaps, I'm ruthless at times. But even I have enough
sense to know the words "we have to win" are the first four steps on the
road to hell.

Notice that in book 53, when Jake gives his big Napoleon-esque speech he says, "I don't care because we are going to win." And then KA sends him down the road to hell.

Ax asks the big moral question of the series: "It's a question of balance. How far into savagery do you go to defeat the savage?"

Take another look at Tobias's speech from book 23, as it directly tackles this very question.

Get pushed, push back. The only way.
 
No, not the only way. There was another way. Don't push to begin with.
It's the aggressors who start the cycle. It's the guy who wakes up in the
morning and decides he can't get through the day without finding
someone to attack, to insult, to hurt.
 
But where does that leave you? Letting jerks dictate your reactions?
Always sinking to the level of whatever creep comes along?

This point foreshadows the conversation Cassie, Ax, Marco and Jake have in book 54 about whether their actions were justified.

Tobias continues his thoughts and arrives at what seems to be the thesis of Animorphs:

So maybe humans were no better. Maybe you couldn't blame a human
animal for just being an animal. Except that my hawk opponent had no choice, no
free will. He'd never heard "Blessed are the peacemakers," or "I have a
dream," or "All men are created equal."

Every human - Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, all humans - kind of lives on
that edge between savage and saint. And the thing is that sometimes when
you get pushed you do have to push back. And other times, you have to
turn the other cheek.
 
I saw the scar on Fal Tagut's face. I'd put it there. I'd been
trying to kill him at the time because he'd been trying to kill me. Now
we were on the same side.
 
I guess the trick is to figure out when to do which thing. When to
fight, when to let up. A balancing act. And even if I went back to being
fully human in body and mind, that balancing act wouldn't go away.
 
Maybe realizing that should have made me feel bad. But it didn't. Just
made me feel human.

In the end, Jake decides to see the conflict in terms of Good vs. Evil. His violence is a means to a moral end. Cassie, however, lives by the human creeds "Blessed are the peacemakers," "I have a dream," and "All men are created equal." During book 50 Jake leads her in the direction of seeing the conflict in terms of Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them, but then a Controller saves his life. This reminds Cassie to see the Yeerks, her enemies, as equals. And she decides to turn the other cheek instead of descending into savagery. Bear in mind the eradication of the Pemalites.

So books 50 and 53 are written to ask the question, who is justified, and who is right? Jake or Cassie? Both? The story is set up so that the planet, possibly even the galaxy is at stake as the backdrop to these moral questions. Do the ends justify the means? Do we descend into savagery for the sake of the greater good? Do we turn the other cheek? Do we try to make peace with our enemies? Which course is the most dangerous, the most destructive?

The answer, Animorphs suggests, is that this is a never-ending balancing act.