Jake

[gecko52]

I wanted a forum dedicated to my favorite character Jake, any comments about him? Feel free to put them in

[Chad32]

Sure, why not?

At first, Jake seems like a regular guy, with no outstanding abilities. Rachel is brave, Cassie has strong morals, Marco is a strategist, and Tobias...I'm not sure.

Leadership is a great burden to bare, and he didn't ask for it. Sometimes it makes me wonder how things would have gone if there wasn't a designated leader. Everyone in the group is connected to him in some way. His best friend, his girlfriend, his cousin, and his admirer. Kind of funny how when the Ellemist practicaly confesses to stacking the deck, this isn't mentioned at all. Like Rachel, he seems to be just a pleasant addition to the important members of the group.

Eventually he gets more and more used to being a leader. At some point he also starts studying up on historical leaders. In the end, he is one of the two most suffering survivors of the war. His cousin and brother are dead, Cassie left him, and he alienates Tobias (or the other way around).

[ThinkAgain]

That reminds me. Does anyone have the quote handy, where Jake states that he'd studied the Civil War, and how the North won, because they were the first to realize that the one to cause the most damage and death will win?

[Chad32]

I don't know. But I'd start with the last book he marrates, and work my way backwards.

[anijen21]

wasn't that in the book where his grandpa died?

[EmberGryphon]

It was 53. ^^

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 Tecumseh
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.

[anijen21]

dag, yo

[RYTX]

And the thing is that's so true.
Wars are no longer fought by warriors out for honor and glory for there nation.
It's about tearing up the enemy, and the civil war really was a turning point in that direction.

Jakes the one that grew on me most by the time the series ended.
To put all this on the group was one thing but Jake had so much on him that only he alone could take on.
I can't pretend I've ever had anything comparable to the stuff he went through, but in those times of reflection when I think about the weights of a normal life; Jake was nothing less than Atlas. He held the weight of the world on his shoulders
And he never even shrugged

[Chad32]

Well, in America's defense, we aren't the first nation to fight wars dirty. And we are the only nation in history to help rebuild a country after we defeat it.

[gecko52]

I like Tobias's little speech in book 49:

If he defeated the Yeerks, freed humanity, rescued Earth, that was good. But that was just a bonus. His main goal was much simpler. To save his family. That goal was what had given him strength. That goal was what had kept him sane. Allowed him to retain a center of calm focus amid the awful chaos,"

every time i read that, I cried a little

[musicman88]

I DON'T NEED YOUR CIVIL WAR!
IT FEEDS THE RICH AND IT BURIES THE POOR!

[Galladerotom]

Jake at the end of the war

I think an interesting part of Jake's storyline is when cassie decides to let the yeerks have the escafil device. He feels that Cassie simply can't be trusted (not to mention the loss of his family) and I think Cassie's moralistic attitude from jake's perspective definatly caused him to release the Yeerks through the cleaning cycle.
Also I note that in the fanfiction Book 56 the author makes a note about why Cassie broke up with him: because whenever she saw him she thought of the war and what he did. By the way I think that Jake actually got of easy with the war crimes tribunal. (I think because of the bias at the trial of Visser Three towards the fact that jake saved the world).

[Dameg]

At the end, I felt that Cassie, Marco and Aximili became adult, but Jake became "old"... They lost their youth, but him lost all his life...
I felt as if he died with Rachel and Tom... Same for Tobias, he died with Rachel.

[Galladerotom]

At the end, I felt that Cassie, Marco and Aximili became adult, but Jake became "old"... They lost their youth, but him lost all his life...
I felt as if he died with Rachel and Tom... Same for Tobias, he died with Rachel.

I think that Applegate had that idea of the animorphs being "veterans" of the war. In general she views the world with an idealistic point of view and is strongly pacifist.

[Chad32]

I agree about KA's pacifism. The most pacifistic member lived somewhat happily ever after, while the two most warrior-like died. I don't really know where I'd put the series on the sliding scale of idealism and cynicism, but it's likely on the idealistic side.