James and David

[EscafilDevice]

Does anybody notice how in #50 when the Auxiliary Animorphs are introduced there is contrast made between James and David?

James has blonde hair, so did David. James chose a lion as his battle morph, which was David's, and some of the Animorphs got a little nervous. Also think about how their situations/personalities are so different. James benefits from becoming an Animorph (well, until he dies) and it ruins David's life. James is also more responsible while David is careless.

I think James was set up as a foil for David and was forgotten with the frenzy of finishing up the series. I think that each book in the final arc became more rushed, Y/N/M?

[Chad32]

Yeah, I think he was too. There may have also been a little something going on between Marco and one of the auxilaries, if I recall. There was potential there, but it was pushed under the rug.

I think the auxilaries would have been handled best one of two ways. One is to make the original animorphs work like seargents while some auxilaries work under each Animorph. each one having their own group, and it would be interesting to see how each Animorph manages their own group.

Another thing is to simply make branch groups that work in different areas of the country/world, but work independantly like Toby and her group does. The Chee can be used to keep an eye on them, and give quick information via chee net.

[Phoenix004]

I kinda like the idea of their being separate Animorphs cells in different countries, especially if they only kept brief contact with other cells to ensure security (The Chee would be ideal for communications as they can't be infested). However, despite the fact that we know the Yeerk invasion must have been quite widespread, we don't actually know how far it had spread or which countries had been infiltrated.

Anyway, back to the James/David thing. I think it probably was supposed to show a "what if" image of David, to show how well he could have turned out. Or maybe KA just stuck the Lion morph in there as an in-joke and the rest is coincidence.

[Yarin]

Wait James died?

[SuperBlue]

didnt all the auxiliaries die?

[Yarin]

I don't think so

[Kitulean]

The Auxiliary Animorphs died in the last battle against the pool ship. One of the reasons I hate that book. *gestures*

[MoppingBear]

it never specified that they all died, but it seems pretty likely as we dont hear about them in the parts of the book past the war.  jake would have probably taken them instead of two total newbies if they were available.

[anijen21]

Jake sent all of them to stand outside while Visser Three shot them all one by one in his Pool Ship.

It was one of the most disturbing images in the whole series, I thought. But somehow the army was fine. Doubleday survived, didn't he?

[Jess]

Most of Doubleday's men survived. The Auxiliaries were the red shirts - they were the front of the line, they were the first ones that Visser One attacked.

It seems like a such a cop out that after all the Auxiliaries are brutally murdered (I recall Visser three killing them from the bottom up... Imagine the agony of having your legs dissolve into molecules and then have the rest of you go that way too) Erek is able to break the security codes in order to drain the pool ship's Dracon cannons.

The Auxiliaries were handled very inelegantly, whereas a traitor like David got a proper send-off AND a follow-up book.

Throughout the series there was the subplot of how to deal with the disabled, not realizing that someone that may not be physically fit is still mentally strong - mentally stronger than, even - and is still useful in many ways.
This was touched upon for like two seconds.

There was the Andalites' handling of vecols, the yeerks unwilling to take physically disabled host bodies...
We got the Auxiliaries for one book, really, and like, four chapters give or take in books 52 and 53 where they're all killed and the disablility subplot just goes to hell.

All of the characters were fascinating as well, especially James.
I would have liked to see more of a parallel drawn between James and David and James and Jake.
UGH don't get me started lol

[DinosaurNothlit]

Wow, that's a really interesting point, and I'd never thought about it before.  And it's true, too.  James is like, the anti-David.  Both were leaders, in a sense, but one only wanted to gather a team to serve himself, and the other served under Jake even as he lead his own people.  David's life was ruined, James's life was improved.  David considered morphing as a way to commit crimes and cheat the system, and James, too, found morphing to be a 'way out,' but in a bigger sense.  There's tons of parallels.

And yeah, I agree that the Auxiliaries were handled very poorly.  You could tell that KA probably had big, complex plans for them, what with the introductions and detailed characterizations they got in book #50.  But after that, they got lost in all the noise of the final arc.  It's a shame, since I would have really liked to have heard more about them after the war.  You know, not even necessarily to have survived the war, just some acknowledgement of their sacrifice, and what it meant for them to have been Animorphs in the first place.

[Liz]

And yeah, I agree that the Auxiliaries were handled very poorly.  You could tell that KA probably had big, complex plans for them, what with the introductions and detailed characterizations they got in book #50.  But after that, they got lost in all the noise of the final arc.  It's a shame, since I would have really liked to have heard more about them after the war.  You know, not even necessarily to have survived the war, just some acknowledgement of their sacrifice, and what it meant for them to have been Animorphs in the first place.

If only the Auxiliaries had been introduced earlier...but I guess the whole point was that they didn't want to recruit more Animorphs except as a last resort.  :/

That was the main thing that bothered me in #53 (that was when they all died, right?), that they didn't even get mentioned after that battle.

[voodooqueen126]

yeah well the animorphs should've began recruiting more people as soon as David thing was over: they were sooks to be put off by one creep and should've selected their next person based on that person's character knowledge rather than a bunch of disabled children in book 50.

[Liz]

I remember Ax's objection to making David an Animorph was that they were a guerrilla team and adding more members would add more risk.
I don't think they needed a big ol' army until the final arc, when the war was brought out into the open.

[voodooqueen126]

nonsense, guerrilla/assymetric warfare/terrorism require as many people as possible just like every other army on earth, though they may lack numbers (there are presumably more people in the American Army then Alqaeda not including members of affiliated organisations)this is not by choice but circumsttnces, real life guerrillas/assymetric warfare/terrorism actively recruits new members as much as possible, especially guerrillas in say Afghanistan or Vietcong who have extremely high death rates. furthermore many human guerrilla armies actually have superior numbers to their enemy (take the Iraqi insurgency as example and the vietcong) what differientates them is their lack of resources (Che Guevera said the way to distinguish government troops and guerrillas was that guerrilla are/must be sparing with bullets as they lack resources/access) and by extension technology (flying a plane into a building or using a dirty bombs rather than nuking a city or fire bombing dresden). It would've been more correct for Ax to be concerned about unwieldy command structure or higher possibility of capture, but even then regular armies have about 8 people under a sargeant and 16 under a lieutenant+ assorted  corporals, lance corporals etc (roughly, my knowledge is not precise). Both problems can be averted by making use of the cell system (each one commanded by an original animorph so 5-6 groups of 4-8 ppl each) as used by terrorist organisations with great success.
As for 'the yeerks will start becoming suspicious about all these controllers disappearing and new andalite bandits emerging: this could be averted with: 1. all cells using the same morphs and appearing separately or  2. they kept up the masquerade for two long anyway, why didn't they just kidnap their families and fight full time?