Author Topic: Chapman  (Read 3901 times)

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Offline nothlitlifestyles

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Chapman
« on: June 12, 2008, 12:18:03 AM »
I always wished that we could have learned a bit more about his character I mean if in fact the Chapman in The Andalite Chronicles is the same as the one throughout the series, then what changed? I mean your made to hate him in The Andalite Chronicles, I mean he is completely willing to sell out the human race, but then in book two you almost just gotta love him giving in to the yeerks just to prevent them from taking melissa and then gathering up the will to fight the yeerk to make sure it stays that way. Is it just one of those once you become a parent your whole world changes things or what?

Offline RYTX

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2008, 01:17:50 AM »
Probably.
Personally I love that move; Chapman is always referred to as the controller, even when we learn it was all for his kid, the whole series calls him chapman and you hate him. Then they introduce him as free human, and surprise, you still hate him!

Maybe more than the parent thing is that he just grew up. He's a teenage boy thrown in over his head, but he's still a punk and is just looking out for number one. Lots of folks like that, but as they get older they realize that not everything is about them, and there are whole bunch of things that can change your out look on life in the whatever something years since your days a rebel; just look at Principal Skinner!
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Offline Estelore

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2008, 11:12:38 AM »
Actually, up until he becomes a Controller I can understand his motives quite easily.

Remember, he was voluntary. To PROTECT his FAMILY.
Sure, he's self-serving, in the sense that his family is part of his whole self.
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Offline Kharina

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2008, 01:30:17 PM »
People can change a lot as they get older, and I guess this is just one of these cases.  I always liked how Chapman became a Controller to protect Melissa.  And his fight with Innis 226 is one of the strongest and most sustained cases of host rebellion we see in the series.  All the others only last a couple of seconds before the Yeerk regains control.  This may be partly due to Innis being quite weak, and partly the fact that it was his child that was threatened, and it's amazing what all species will do to protect their children.

Offline Kelly

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2008, 08:06:43 PM »
yeah i thought it was strange we were positioned to feel sorry for him in book 2, but when they go in more depth about him when he was younger he was a little sh*t.
I guess yeah, people change when they become parents...
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Offline Gafrash

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2009, 09:43:16 AM »
What was Chapman meant to look like?! Beyond old and a little bald?! Was he tall? Did he have a moustache? Think he had grey hair?

Offline SuperBlue

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2009, 10:19:33 AM »
i pictured him looking the way he did in the show, same with Tom and Erek's human form
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Offline JFalcon

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2009, 01:04:34 PM »
To be honest I can see the similarities between chronicles Chapman and main series Chapman.
In both cases he's extremely selfish and has his price. In TAC he sells out humanity for . . . what? What did he sell us out for? We don't know, we just know he was stupid enough to try to make a deal with the Yeerks, and apparently still continue thinking they were his friends even after having the future Visser Three in his head, even after seeing what being a host was like.
In The Visitor he sells us all out for his daughter and is perfectly content to the rest of us suffer so long as his daughter is okay, ignoring the fact that if she isn't killed when the Yeerks win she'll be made into a controller then. As he threatens Visser Three you can see the total almost Andalite arrogance of the man to think he could be a threat to the entire invasion, rather than just screwing over poor Iniss 226 if he got him shoved into a looney bin, that overblown sense of self importance, that arrogance is totally the teenage brat who landed the Jahar on the Taxxon homeworld just because he didn't like the Andalites.
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Offline Zues770

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2009, 12:47:16 AM »
A child changes everything . . . . I guess  :-\


I've always wondered what the Chapmen that was a controller felt about Melissa feeling as if she wasn't loved and alone in her own house. I'm sure he felt like dirt about that. I'm sure you could say that's Karma for him selling out the world . . . even though he didn't know he had done it. He's the main reason the yeerks found out about earth.

Offline Seryna

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2009, 05:03:35 PM »


I always thought that Chapman was a selfish, self absorbed human when we first met him.  He felt free to sell out the human race for a buck, like a CEO would abandon his workers.  Yet when he and his wife had a daughter, Melissa, he realized that the world wasn't just about him anymore.  Like any father, he wanted to make the world a better place for his child.  The only choice he seemed to have was to volunteer himself in place of his precious child- as much as seeing her feel isolated every day must have pained him.

Offline rossabo

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2009, 02:08:00 PM »
In The Visitor he sells us all out for his daughter and is perfectly content to the rest of us suffer so long as his daughter is okay, ignoring the fact that if she isn't killed when the Yeerks win she'll be made into a controller then.
I agree entirely. Also, does anybody see the irony where he becomes a controller to save his own kid, yet sends hundreds of other kids to become controllers?

Offline JFalcon

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2009, 06:45:00 PM »
Favortism for the win I guess, but yeah Chapman never really won any points with me, even if he was sacraficing himself for his daughter and even if it was enough for Rachel to hate him less it just ticked me off more. "She'll be taken later or killed, in the meantime you're selling everyone out!"

I did have sympathy for Iniss 226 though.
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Offline Chad32

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2009, 09:56:29 PM »
Why do people get labeled sell outs for fighting hopeless battles? You think those people screaming and crying in cages are somehow better off than the ones just going along? What Chapman did was save his daughter from infestation. She was never killed or infested. I'd say he made the right choice.


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Offline JFalcon

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2009, 01:30:09 PM »
I on the whole feel like there were many layers unseen to the war and also to voluntary hosts, I don't think they were all conned into being hosts, I think some of them might have been, some of them might not have understood what they were doing, but I believe a few of them genuinely wanted to be hosts, and I also don't think the Yeerks were as evil as they're made out, I do think that many, like Aftran, just wanted to be free, some hosts, like those in the YPM, saw this and wanted to help find the middleground between the slavery of humanity under the Yeerks and the slavery of the Yeerks under the Andalites, and so no, not every voluntary host was a sellout or, as the Animorphs would have it, a traitor.

Chapman was.

He's a sellout for having selfish reasons for betraying humanity on the whole, not once but twice, the first time was due to ignorance and selfishness, the second time was . . . well, pretty much due to ignorance and selfishness.

If his wife threatened his daughter there were other roads he could have taken apart from allowing himself to be infested. He could have run away, taken the girl and tried to disappear, after all Visser Three couldn't even find Loren, it's clear his eyes and arms on earth aren't endless. Chapman might not have gotten far, but then again he might have gotten away, and just trying would have been better than giving up the way he did because in giving up all he did was staple a "don't open 'till x-mas" note to his daughter's forehead, he didn't save her, the end of the war did.

If the yeerks won, which he was helping them to do, she would have been infested, how could he not see that? Besides we don't know what happened to her at the end when the Yeerks pretty much went public, she might have been infested then, what would Chapman have done to stop it?

The flaw with his decision is that apart from willingly helping other people's daughters and sons become controllers just to protect his own for a limited time he has no way whatsoever of stopping them once they win the war. His only defense was being able to make himself look insane in front of parents and that was, for the time being, enough to dissuade Visser Three, once his sanity wouldn't have fallen into question for any reason, or once Iniss 226 destroyed his mind enough to leave him a babbling loon what would his defense have been?

Once the Yeerks won she'd be dead or infested, period. I mean Visser One might have left some humans on earth once the Yeerks had enough because of her kids but Visser Three would just breed more yeerks like he told Elfangor he would, or he'd have torched the planet and killed the last of the humans in an attempt to get the Animorphs, I mean do you really think that's beyond the guy?

It's sort of like a parent who throws their kid out of the way of a train, but lets the kid land in quicksand, they avoid a quick death but if they're not rescued by someone else they just die later after being alone and sad for a good long time, which is pretty much how Melissa seemed, sad and alone until the series stopped remembering she existed.
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Offline Chad32

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Re: Chapman
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2009, 05:33:39 PM »
If Chapman had run away with her, the goal would still be the same: Try to keep her from being infested in the hopes that someone else saved the planet. With the way he did it, she was still able to go to school and have a reasonably normal life.

I doubt he helped the Yeerks any more than other voluntaries.


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