Author Topic: Second in command.  (Read 4054 times)

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Offline MoppingBear

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #30 on: August 27, 2009, 08:54:25 AM »
didn't jake leave rachel in charge that time he left?  that shows that  at least he thought of her as second in command at some point.  its a tough choice, each character has advantages and disadvantages to being leader.  when it comes to strategizing and a thought out plan, i would rather have marco, but in the heat of battle, rachel is more quick thinking.  sure, occasionally she would choose to stay and fight when running is the best option, but overall she would be good at it.  tobias is probably the most balanced, but he doesnt really have leadership skills, same goes for ax. and cassie, while strategizing, is far too nice.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2009, 08:58:50 AM by russianspy1234 »

Offline Chad32

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #31 on: August 27, 2009, 11:09:53 AM »
I don't remember if Jake left her in charge, or if it was just decided without him that she would lead. Jake has left Tobias in charge of the Tobias/Marco/Ax power trio, so he trusts Tobias to keep his friends alive when the group is split up.

Marco has strategy, Rachel has drive, and Tobias has experience in alerting the others of dangers. Rachel would make a good leader if she has someone under her to help her focus her strengths. While Tobias is good at keeping them out of danger, I think Marco would be better at dealing with said danger once Tobias catches on to it.

Cassie, Marco, and Tobias would all be good at helping Rachel focus her strengths constructively, but between those three I would rather have Marco calling the definite shots.


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Offline voodooqueen126

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #32 on: September 05, 2009, 12:16:14 AM »
looking over the wonderful tv tropes, wondering who is what stereotype. good point about Tobias being the chick.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharactersAsDevice
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Offline yunyun

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #33 on: September 05, 2011, 05:22:48 PM »
i think it should be Ax, he knows the most about yeerks which really help and stuff

not Marco, in my opinion, he's not serious enough for it
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Offline Snakie

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #34 on: September 05, 2011, 06:57:16 PM »
Honestly it would be Tobias if he wasn't such a lone wolf who actively shied away from being a leader.

The others have more glaring flaws.

Offline Canicula

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #35 on: January 30, 2012, 11:31:13 AM »
Just found this thread and I think it's a really interesting question.
At first I tought Marco would be really good leader after the 5th book, he is a great strategist and so he can make good plans, but Marco is also ruthless. He would have crossed some moral boundaries much faster and I think Cassie wouldn't be able to follow him like she followed Jake, it would have caused many disputes between them and the rest of the group so it would be problematic.
Also when it comes to Visser1 Marco is very conflicted and it wouldn't be that good if he was in charge in this cases.

Rachel would be also problematic because at the end she is way to ruthless, and you saw how it ended it #37- The weakness...

Tobias would be a good leader if he could accept himself as a leader, after he got his morphing power back.
Jake left Tobias in Charge when he sent Ax, Marco and Tobias to a mission, so he knows he can trust him. Also Tobias hast a good balance between moral and ruthlessness: But Tobias isn't a character that could see himself in leading...

Cassie would be way to morally, I think she wouldn't do some things even if there were necessary...

And Ax could be a good leader if he was older. He was taught to follow leader and he would need time to go over this...

I think the best second in command would be a team with Tobias and Marco, I think they would have the right balance, like Jake had it.

But I mean to remember that Ax/Tobias/Marco ended always in Chaos like in 51-The Absolute. It was very funny and I laughed so hard but it wasn't what Jake had planned (Like the destroyed house from Chapman).


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Offline Chad32

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #36 on: January 30, 2012, 10:19:25 PM »
I don't think I'd call Rachel ruthless. She can be emotional, and her morph makes it hard for her to gauge her surroundings due to low vision and feelings of raw power. Like in book 7 when she charged into a group of Horks thinking they were Humans.


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Offline Noelle

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #37 on: January 31, 2012, 09:14:06 AM »
I think if anything it would/should be Marco.  He has a mind that's relatively cool under pressure/stress, and he has the strategic approach.  If you want to win a war you have to be able to think about everything in a pragmatic fashion, or else you're going to get into situations you can't get yourself out of, like Rachel seemed to do at times.  Marco also had the ability to look at everything objectively, which seems like the rest of the others had a hard time doing.  He was willing to do what it took to win, even if it meant killing his own mother, and that just demonstrates that he could be counted on to make an informed, logical decision no matter what.

I wouldn't go so far to say that Rachel was "ruthless," but she definitely didn't always think before she did things.  She was more of a "tell me what to do and I'll do it no matter what," type of person, which is valuable, but things never really go well when she calls the shots.  There were numerous times when Jake went down she took charge immediately after, and she didn't always make intelligent moves.  I think in MM3 when Jake got shot she told Ax to go and kill the people who did it, which was really dangerous to Ax and it didn't help the mission at all (they should have been going after V4, not the people in the battle.)  I think in the last book in the David trilogy Rachel did something similar, which split the group up and left her vulnerable to David.  And of course, there's book 37...but I hesitate to really quote any of that because the book was just not that great on a lot of levels.  -_-


While Ax seems like a good candidate because of his knowledge/military training, I don't think he'd really be able to thrive in a leadership position (at least on earth) for a lot of reasons.  Firstly, he doesn't know enough about earth to lead a guerrilla group.  If it were a straight up attack force, maybe, but since they have to blend in and hide in a lot of places, he wouldn't know what the best morphs were for each place/job.  And an Andalite leading humans is just asking for a lot of values dissonance in the group (what do you mean don't just blow it up?!).  I think Ax had the right idea, when in Rome act as the Romans do and just let the humans handle their own invasion.

Though on top of that, I think Ax had a really big insecure streak too, which would make him undermine himself in a leadership position.  He always seemed to feel as though he needed to be led (which was part of his training,) but on top of that he seemed to just crumble down when he was put on the spot to make decisions at times.  There was a lot of that in 18, even though he was basically dealing with a lot of hostility directed towards him, part of being a leader is dealing with decisions that screw up and make a lot of people mad.  But he also didn't trust his own judgment enough, like in MM3 when he noticed something was wrong about the troops that came and killed Jake, but he didn't press the issue when someone told him it was okay.


As for Cassie, I think if she were second in command they'd be so careful and moral they'd never get anything done.  Though at times in the book I wonder if she was really the second in command.  I wonder how much influence she had over Jake's decisions.  I don't know if this is correct, but it seemed like towards the end part of what caused their relationship to crumble was the fact that Jake just started to disregard her opinions, and she wasn't able to handle that.

Offline Aquilai

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #38 on: January 31, 2012, 10:38:44 AM »
I quite like JFalcon's idea (+1) about Cassie being a valid 2nd in command (I'm not sure I agree but he made a good point out of it). Of all of them I think Cassie would be able to handle the group best which in real life terms is called management. There's a difference between leadership and management. Whilst Cassie would be able to make everyone feel good, keep the team together, listen to everyone equally, earn and give respect I don't think she is decisive enough for unanticipated events or combat situations. For example her most notable decisive action was to stop Jake from stopping Tom. That turned out...well it depends on your pov (yay eventually saved Earth? boo too many sacrifices? A whole topic in itself.)

Marco as almost everyone has said would be closest they have to the optimal 2nd in command. It's a staple of military stories/shows that those who follow a chain of command but have not been tested as a leader yet realise later the responsibility of "the big chair". If Marco was second in command he'd adapt and think twice about the loss of his team mates (ie be more cautious about being ruthless). An example of a similar case would be in the BSG Miniseries (Battlestar Galactica) Colonel Tigh being hesitant and looking at Commander Adama when he's forced to decide whether or not to sacrifice the lives of a deck full of engineering crew.

Some are born natural leaders but even then they need the experience to round off the rough edges. Marco already has the tactical skills which will develop more with experience, for Rachel to achieve this skill would require too many sacrifices and frankly with only a limited number of resources (just the Animorphs) they can't afford a single casualty/captured.

Ax is similar to Rachel in this respect, he learns to be a Captain in relative peacetime at the end of the series. Some may even say he's just given it for free when he hasn't actually led as a leader which is kinda stupid. (Just because you're considered a hero you're suddenly a tactical military genius worthy of being Captain of your own ship?) Better than Rachel though Ax is more analytical with better field awareness. The decisiveness he'll learn on the way but unlike Rachel he will think first. Given the opportunity to develop, Ax would learn quicker than Rachel. Tobias is too much of a loner and follower. He needs Cassie's people skills and empathic awareness even if he can observe the battlefield better than others he's not even worthy of being noted as a candidate second in command. (Had to be said.)

As for combination leaders it's...plausible albeit theoretically. Practically, the whole point of a leader is so you know which person to follow. The Animorphs as a small group could decide that Marco decides the plan and say Ax handles the execution but inevitably they will face a situation where loyalties will be divided. If you consider an even worse case where you divide leadership even further down you have Tobias micromanaging from the skies (or backseat fighting), Marco yelling a reminder of the objective and Ax trying to keep Rachel from killing herself, Cassie leaving her position to support Rachel's vulnerability. Things will NOT turn out well.

In short, at least in my mind, there is only 1 optimal solution to this problem and that's having Marco as second in command and trusting him as he picks up the essentials of leadership. I wouldn't trust anyone else to be able to pick things up fast enough to not get me killed.
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Offline matthew

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #39 on: February 04, 2012, 09:45:59 PM »
Marco because of his strategy. 

Offline Snakie

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #40 on: February 17, 2012, 01:36:35 AM »
This is an extremely hard question to answer, and this is simply because K.A. went out of her way with each of the other 5 characters to highlight why they are not "leaders".

Rachel and Marco are the two most viable "seconds in command" simply due to their willingness to make difficult decisions and other qualities (fearlessness and assertiveness in Rachel's case, intelligence and cunning in Marco's case).  Despite this, these characters were both put in charge in different books, and both to very poor results.

Rachel: Overly aggressive when elected leader when Jake is out of town, and only narrowly gets Cassie rescued after a failed raid leads to her capture.  Ultimately acknowledges her shortcomings as a leader and essentially begs Jake never to be away again.

Marco:  Plan to kill two vissers and his mother is an absolute disaster, and only dumb luck and a little literary latitude keeps multiple Animorphs from being killed as a result his overly ambitious plans.  He's very clever, but ultimately not great at making clutch decisions.  Despite his pragmatic nature he let his emotions lead the Animorphs into an abnormally risky situation even by their standards, and the other Animorphs let it happen against their better judgement.

The others never took any leadership initiative, and this alone puts them on a tier below the above 2, but they've each got other issues as well.

Cassie: This one's easy.  She's defined by her moralizing and her compassion.  Great qualities in their own way, but there's simply no way she'd ever be able to make the tough decisions needed of a leader.

Ax: Naturally a soldier, not a leader.  Happily embraces Jake as "his prince".  Paradoxically, his other poor leadership quality is his arrogance.  Both of these qualities are harped on repeatedly throughout the series since his introduction as a character.

Tobias:  I used to think he was a solid one simply because his leadership flaws aren't as glaringly obvious as the rest.  He's a poor candidate due to his more moral nature in a manner similar (but not as extreme) as Cassie.  More importantly, though, he is a poor leader because he doesn't WANT to be a leader.  This is something he explicitly states many times.  He's a follower by nature.

I feel like K.A. made such a effort to justify Jake's position as leader as to cast all of the other 5 characters as obviously NOT leaders.  The two most viable alternatives (at least IMO) even had whole books devoted to highlighting their shortcomings as leaders.  I think trying to choose between the two is splitting hairs and trying to argue for any of the other 3 is unjustified.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2012, 08:17:22 PM by Snakie »

Offline Liberal Tobias

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #41 on: February 17, 2012, 03:55:46 AM »
I don't know if The Reunion would be a good book to use to make the statement that Marco isn't a leader. It's not like there weren't some extenuating circumstances with that one. If Marco didn't feel like he had to prove he could kill his mom, he could have done all right with it. Not like The Weakness, where Rachel was driven by nothing other than her being able to say "All right! I have the keys now."

However, I think what made Marco not an ideal "leader" is that he was so damn good and useful in the role he had. I think that there was a comfort level there for him and the group.

Offline Snakie

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #42 on: February 17, 2012, 11:21:42 AM »
There are always extenuating circumstances in these books.  Always.  Leaders make the right decisions in spite of them.

I don't really think those excuses apply.

Offline Liberal Tobias

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #43 on: February 17, 2012, 11:41:00 AM »
There are always extenuating circumstances in these books.  Always.  Leaders make the right decisions in spite of them.

I don't really think those excuses apply.

Then explain The Conspiracy. Jake was not coping well, and Marco leads the Animorphs to save Jake.

Offline Snakie

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Re: Second in command.
« Reply #44 on: February 17, 2012, 08:24:03 PM »
There are always extenuating circumstances in these books.  Always.  Leaders make the right decisions in spite of them.

I don't really think those excuses apply.

Then explain The Conspiracy. Jake was not coping well, and Marco leads the Animorphs to save Jake.

I remember Jake ultimately taking charge of the situation at the end, though in the end the plan was Marco's.

I never said he wasn't a good planner.  Thats not the same as being a leader.