I was actually starting to wonder about that too, the whole ear thing I mean. As for infestation maybe a Taxxon is infested through their rear. Amusing, and disgusting as that may sound consider that we know nothing about their physiology, a giant worm only has so many ends to stick in the pool and frankly I don't trust that thing's head in the Yeerk pool, if something's going in there I prefer it be the portion without a long bull whip tongue and rows of teeth.
Especially a non-voluntary Taxxon, what would keep him from eating the yeerks in the pool? They've displayed in book 4 that they can function underwater, can attack underwater and with tongues that lash out like bullwhips and apparently secrete some sticky substance they could grab a few yeerks before anything gets into their head.
Yeah. How much can a government care about their people when they go to war with a species that's superior to them, and one of which is giving them advanced technology. I mean, if the Andalites took them seriously from the get go, they would have lost at the Hork Bajir Homeworld at the latest point.
In their way I think they cared a great deal. When it comes to your freedom and the freedom of your people just because someone can kick your butt doesnt mean you don't take them on, if that were the case the Animorphs would never have fought. I think that ironically the Yeerks were fighting for freedom, their own freedom but freedom none the less, the Andalites, for all their fine talk, were trying to deny it to them. The first (and possibly only) Yeerks that went to war on the Andalites didn't just stroll off their planet, they had to escape, the Andalites presumably told them how to make ships, then told them not to do it. The Yeerk empire wasn't even born on the Yeerk Homeworld, it was born on the Hork-Bajir homeworld, until that point it was a band of militant refugees, and they might have been a minority that felt war was their only option, in HBC weren't Seerow's requests to speak with the Yeerks still on the Yeerk Homeworld denied? So as far as we know no talks were held with the majority of the Yeerks still on the homeworld in HBC, no Andalites said "Lets talk this out, m'kay?" They just blockaded the crap out of that world and confined the yeerks to their pools until the planet was liberated . . . assuming it ever was liberated, I don't think the Empire ever managed to reclaim their homeworld, if I recall it's stated once or twice in the main series as still being under blockade, yet Visser Three does try to take the time matrix there in TAC.
So high ranking Yeerks taking Taxxon hosts out of consideration to their people as well as their Taxxon allies is totally buyable to me. Given that Aftran not only existed but found a number of Yeerks just like herself, given that Visser Three himself doesnt seem that bad at the start of the war I don't think we--erm
the Yeerks are as evil as you--erm
we humans have been led to believe by the Andalites, even Visser One had her redeeming qualities and had no intention of letting all of mankind be infested if only to protect two otherwise insignificant humans.
However (time to drop the bias) I believe the real answer may just lie in the fact that it's stated in TAC that a Yeerk who infests a Taxxon for long becomes more Taxxon than Yeerk, it's possible that the council members took Taxxon hosts originally for the above or any other reason, but found themselves on some level unable to leave. I mean even many humans fear and despise change, even if it's a positive one, and of course the mere fact that they're being constantly fed by servants elevates them above any other Taxxon, most Yeerks seem to be very much about wanting to be and be recognized and/or envied, a Taxxon that doesnt have to worry about hunger? That'd be envious to other Taxxon controllers to be sure, while at the same time fulfilling their host bodies lust for food, so there's the addiction to decadence possibility as well.
