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.