The Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide!

[Overtired]

Saying things like, “I kind of think that I’ll start worrying about the treatment of cows more once there are no more political prisoners, no more children dying of curable diseases, and no more fanatics blowing themselves up to murder civilians.” Would be fair enough if it came from someone who was actually spending a fair amount of effort to end those things but coming from your average person it just comes off as smug, sanctimonious, crap.

Your average person isn’t doing anything to stop the spread of aids in Africa or to stop suicide bombers or to free political prisoners. Maybe you give some money to organizations that do, but that’s a tiny effort in the face of gigantic problems. If you think that there might be something wrong with the way we treat the animals we eat or that the very idea of eating animals might be morally suspect, you could, with a relatively small amount of effort, greatly reduce the amount of meat you eat or stop entirely.

Now that being said, I’m not a vegetarian so feel free to call me a hypocrite but saying you’ll care about an issue that you can actually do something about only after other issues that you really can’t do much about are solved, is a dumb argument and a pathetic attempt at moral justification.

[Phoenix004]

We all make up our own excuses for the things we do or don't do. I could go on for ages about how meat is an important part of our diet, humans are naturally omnivores, me cutting out meat won't make a difference, and I'm so picky with vegetables that I would be an incredibly unhealthy vegetarian. Those things are all true, but honestly I just enjoy meat too much to give it up.

One of the problems of the modern world is that there are too many problems to focus on, and we know about a lot of them due to modern media. It's impossible to help with all the world's problems, but I think it is our moral duty to help where we can on at least one issue we feel passionately about. Saying "I'll care about X when Y stops happening" is a little harsh and hypocritical, but it's not wrong. If you devoted all your time and money towards helping the homeless in your area, you are going to prioritise them over homesless people in a place you've been to. That's just the way our minds work.

[Overtired]

We all make up our own excuses for the things we do or don't do. I could go on for ages about how meat is an important part of our diet, humans are naturally omnivores, me cutting out meat won't make a difference, and I'm so picky with vegetables that I would be an incredibly unhealthy vegetarian. Those things are all true, but honestly I just enjoy meat too much to give it up.

I don't really have a problem with any of that. See the difference here is that you're explicitly not trying to make a moral justification for your choice of eating meat. Some of the points you raise are decent arguments for the eating of meat and are far better then the one made by KAA. But you are saying that they are inconsequential to your choice and that your reason for not giving up meat is that you enjoy it too much. In our society that's all the reason you need.

The problem I have is that when a person says, “I might care about eating cows if there weren't so many humans suffering.” Is that they are trying to make a moral justification for their choice to eat meat by saying that worse things are happening. That isn't a good argument and it isn't moral.

The point is that the argument KAA makes has within it the tacit admission that there is probably something morally questionable about eating meat yet says it's okay because there are worse moral ills in the world. It's like saying there is probably something wrong with the fact that I stole three hundred dollars but we don't need to worry about it because Bernie Madoff ran a ponzi scheme that stole tens of billions of dollars.

One of the problems of the modern world is that there are too many problems to focus on, and we know about a lot of them due to modern media. It's impossible to help with all the world's problems, but I think it is our moral duty to help where we can on at least one issue we feel passionately about. Saying "I'll care about X when Y stops happening" is a little harsh and hypocritical, but it's not wrong. If you devoted all your time and money towards helping the homeless in your area, you are going to prioritise them over homesless people in a place you've been to. That's just the way our minds work.

Remember I did concede that it would be fair enough for a person to say “I'll care about X when Y stops happening” if they actually worked to stop Y from happening.

If someone said, “I might care about the homeless in the next county but we have homeless people here” yet did nothing to help the homeless in their county, it wouldn't be a good moral argument for not helping the homeless in the next county and it couldn't be called anything but wrong.

[Noelle]

I agree with pretty much what everyone said.  Animal Rights and or Welfare issues are really tricky, because not only do you have to account for basic biology of humans, its delving a lot into the moral "unknowns" of animal psychology and, I hate to say emotions because that's the kind of language that makes people not take the cause seriously, but that's basically it.

Her whole response just kind of, in my mind, just pointed out that she isn't the best with "PR" of her fans.  That's not to say that everyone should be a master mediator or anything, but it feels more like she is doing her best by trying to smooth out the anger in her fan base while still being "forceful" with her own beliefs.  It might work for some fans, but for people who are thoroughly invested in the Animal Rights movement, or perhaps even people who payed any sort of "dues" in humanitarian causes, it's a huge slap in the face.  (Though, very few people have at that age, and there's nothing wrong with that.)  I guess KAA didn't want her series turned into propaganda, which is fair enough, its HER series.

I might be a little more sensitive just because I have put some (not as much as I should, but some) foot-work and volunteer hours into homeless animal rescue, and one of the really common arguments we come up against is "you're wasting time and money because you should be helping people" or "why don't you care about people this much, are you a psycho or something?"  But overall, I agree with Phoenix, whether its environmental factors or just mental differences, different causes ARE going to mean more to you, and your time is best spent doing something you're passionate about instead of something that doesn't make you quite as happy.

But on the other hand though, I don't think the ghost-writer presented her case very well either.  It was basically a book written by and for vegetarian-activists.  No one else is going to care about the message because Ax musing "Gee, do chimps have citizenship" or "I wonder why humans hunt harmless animals" or Cassie going on a crusade (again...for the billionth time) doesn't have any sort of impact beyond being a little bit amusing or just plain annoying.

[poparena]

Reprinted Animorphs Book Guide - #2 The Visitor

http://blip.tv/pop-arena/reprinted-animorphs-book-guide-2-the-visitor-6255749

[Phoenix004]

Nice review, I will have to check out the reprints at some point, although it doesn't seem like they've changed much.

I'm not defending Jake and the others being hypocrites for yelling at Rachel defending herself, but I would say the reason they got so mad at her is because it's one of the only occasions where an Animorphs screw up involved seeing a witness actually seeing them morphing. The idiots with guns at the start can tell whoever they want, if the Yeerks find out it doesn't prove Andalite bandit involvement. Rachel morphing in public could have been witnessed by anyone, including a controller who would realise that the bandits are humans (Chapman turned up only moments later after all). The Animorphs do some dumb stuff throughout the series, but there aren't many close calls that would openly expose them as human like that. Having said that, Rachel had every right to defend herself and given the situation she didn't have many other options.

[NateSean]

Rachel morphing in public could have been witnessed by anyone, including a controller who would realise that the bandits are humans (Chapman turned up only moments later after all).

One thing about that though is that the Animorphs have morphed pretty dang close to where they could be spotted by controllers. In this very book, Jake morphs from flea, to human, to tiger in the space of a few minutes. Rachel can see this from her position in the cage which is in the Blade Ship when all of this occurs.

So if she could see it, you know just a dozen or so controllers had to have witnessed it and were just too scared to bring it to Visser Three's attention. Although you could just as easily write it off as a KASU, it's still a reason to cut Rachel some slack over scaring off a potential rapist.

[poparena]

I'm not saying she couldn't have handled the situation differently, but the fact that Jake would get his head in a vice over that, and not, say, Cassie morphing a rat in school to cheat on a science project is off-putting.

[poparena]

My review of #29 The Sickness:

Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide - #29 The Sickness (1/2)

Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide - #29 The Sickness (2/2)

[Cloudbreaker]

Yet another great review.  Keep them coming!

EDIT:  Thought of something else.  I don't know why Erik couldn't restrain Ax (or why the animorphs couldn't tie him down with ropes), but it doesn't surprise me at all that he could sit by and watch Ax die.  After all, the chee give the animorphs information all the time that they know will result in the deaths of many.  They work with the yeerks as controllers too, which isn't exactly the most life-friendly environment.

[esplin]

The only thing that makes me sad is that about this is that I have to wait a long time for your review of #30.

[Phoenix004]

Nice review and a cool book overall. I also enjoyed seeing a sequel to a previous storyline and some of Ax's delerious comments are rather amusing. I don't hate Cassie as many seem to, but I agree that this is one of the few genuinely awesome books from her POV. As for the inconsistencies with Erek's programming, wait until you review #32.

[Noelle]

My main issue with Cassie in this book was her moral inconsistency.  In 19 she essentially risked the life of the entire world for a stranger, yet when it comes to one of the most valuable team members, she tells Erek to let him die because it's too risky to have her dad  try to save him.  I don't even know how it would be, the kids knew he wasn't a controller (they have done spy missions on people to figure out if they were controllers or not several times, I'm sure their parents were included.)  It just kind of makes you go "so...who's team are you on anyway..."  If she was scared for her parents and reflected on that...then at least it would be a character "flaw" or trait vs. some weird border-line traitorous state of mind.

Though I do agree, I think a lot of Cassie's "stupidness" and inconsistency can be chalked up to the fact that none of the ghost writers kept her character consistent.  I think Rachel's character suffered in that way too, but with Rachel being more popular it isn't noticed as much.

[esplin]

Eels song - The Mighty Boosh - BBC comedy

this song is slightly relevant to #29

[poparena]

My review of Megamorphs #3 Elfangor's Secret:

Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide - Megamorphs #3 Elfangor's Secret (1/3)

Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide - Megamorphs #3 Elfangor's Secret (2/3)

Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide - Megamorphs #3 Elfangor's Secret (3/3)