I just finished the last book

[aggiematt86]

Well, it's been around 13 years of reading, re-reading, stopping, restarting, etc. but I finally finished the Animorphs series. I know a lot of people don't like the ending, but personally I don't see why. The Yeerk empire was defeated. Yeah, a lot of good people died toward the end, but like Jake says, that's war, and people are going to die. I liked how they portrayed the world after the war, as well as the Animorphs' lives. I thought the One was pretty awesome, and it left the series open for a possible sequel. Anyway, I'd just like all your thoughts on the ending, and how it made you feel when it was finally over. I thought it was really sad, not only because of Rachel's and the others' deaths, but also by what happened to Ax, Tobias, Jake, and the whole Jake/Cassie thing. I was also pretty bummed that Jake was never able to save Tom. Lastly, I thought the Auxiliary Animorphs were amazing and I'd love to have seen James and the others live through the last battle. But I'm not disappointed with the ending. Applegate is truly a gifted author if she can evoke those kinds of emotions, and she'd been doing it from the beginning, so I have to congratulate her.

Anyway, that's my rambling for today.

[Venus]

Yeah i read the book for the first time pretty recently, but I was very dissapointed. Everyone died but Cassie, and really she was my least favorite character. Tobachel were my favorite, and well... that didn't end well.

I actually think Tobias was cheated as far as the narrative goes. Rachel dies and he doesn't get a chapter till 3 years later? He should have had either the chapter directly after Rachel's, or directly after Jake's first chapter. As major as Applegate made the R/T relationship throughout the series I'm surprised Tobias' reaction was so downplayed. He was so crazy in love with her and his response to her death was just kinda described in passing by the others. I mean heck, Rachel's last words were that she loved him. That's kinda major concidering she'd never said that to him before.

[MattHaggard]

Excuse the double negative but...

Doesn't not knowing make the ending a lot more meaningful?

As a writer, I try not to give every detail. That wouldn't be a book but rather a script.

Not knowing Tobias' thoughts or the fate of the Animorphs created the mystique that this cult of fans still follow. Would you be quite as fanatical if you had been given some cookie-cutter detailed ending? I think not.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I liked, but at the same time didn't like the last book.  I like most of it.  Didn't used to.  The first time I read it, as a little kid, I hated it.  But now I've come to realize that Rachel had to die, Jake had to be a broken shell, and you know what?  Tobias, even though he's my favorite character ever, had to be broken, too.

I do not agree with the cliff-hanger she left us, though.  Yes, yes, yes, Animorphs had to end on a cliff-hanger.  I get that.  I understand that there's simply no other way to have ended the series.  The whole "and then they lived out their days as celebrities, with no more battles ever" thing would have been utterly and completely WRONG as an ending.  But . . . I feel that K.A. could have given us a better cliff-hanger than the one she gave us, you know?  The introduction of new baddies that we know absolutely nothing about . . . I dunno, the way she did it didn't feel right to me.  Still doesn't.  We should've either A) learned more about the One and the Kelbrid or B) it should have been Yeerks.  Not some last-minute enemy we don't even know.

As K.A. herself admitted, she wrote that ending with fanfiction writers in mind.  I write fanfic, I even like a lot of fanfic, but I am of the opinion that no book should EVER be written expressly for fanfic.  Harry Potter tried that, too, and look at how that turned out.

[/end rant]

[Chad32]

I've already stated my opinions about the ending over and over. The short of it is that I hated it. The only parts I liked were Marco becoming a celebrity like he always wanted, and Ax coming out of his brother's shadow and being a Prince. I don't think it would be happily ever after what with there being anti-alien terrorists running around. It was just wrong in my eyes.

Back when I was first reading it, I had little understanding of the subtext of the series. Since I came here, I've come to understand the series and the author more. I have always thougth that she is a gifted writer, but I will never agree with the ending.

and that's as much as I care to rehash.

[esplin]

I've already stated my opinions about the ending over and over. The short of it is that I hated it. The only parts I liked were Marco becoming a celebrity like he always wanted, and Ax coming out of his brother's shadow and being a Prince. I don't think it would be happily ever after what with there being anti-alien terrorists running around. It was just wrong in my eyes.

Back when I was first reading it, I had little understanding of the subtext of the series. Since I came here, I've come to understand the series and the author more. I have always thougth that she is a gifted writer, but I will never agree with the ending.

and that's as much as I care to rehash.

And I still agree with you. 

[Venus]

Excuse the double negative but...

Doesn't not knowing make the ending a lot more meaningful?

As a writer, I try not to give every detail. That wouldn't be a book but rather a script.

Not knowing Tobias' thoughts or the fate of the Animorphs created the mystique that this cult of fans still follow. Would you be quite as fanatical if you had been given some cookie-cutter detailed ending? I think not.

Actually i probably would be. Like I said the Tobias/Rachel dynamic was my favorite thing and recently I found a fan rewrite of 53/54 where everyone lived and I found it to be a much more satisfying ending. Everyone was still messed up, everyone was still struggling with personal demons, being alive and not having a cliffhanger did not make it 'cookie cutter'. 'Closure' doesn't necisarily mean 'happy sunshine fun time'.

[anijen21]

I don't necessarily have a problem with the tone, but I guess just the mechanism by which it all happened.

I know a lot of people like the plan involved in *Endgame*. I didn't. I didn't like the fact that somehow, magically, when Earth was saved the war was over. The Yeerks had already conquered two planets. The Hork-Bajir and Taxxon homeworlds were theirs. Yeah, Earth was a pretty major loss but it just all seemed so much cleaner than it should have been.

I didn't like the way Rachel died, though I agree she probably should have. I hated how Visser Three (or I guess One, whatever) was handled. A lot of the epilogue stuff seemed arbitrary. A lot of it worked, but I don't know...why would Tobias only talk to Cassie and Toby? Were those the two he was closest with throughout the series? No. What happened to his mom? What happened to Marco's parents, and Cassie's? How did Jake's parents feel about the fact that their younger son essentially killed their older son? There were just so many unanswered questions because the whole thing was resolved SO QUICKLY...I mean, part of the reason I love series like this, with such rich detail, is that you ask so many questions that you really can't expect to get answered. Like LOST. Is there any way LOST is going to answer every question you've ever asked? No. But SO MANY of those questions were just dropped, ignored, or contradicted that, I don't know, I kind of felt like, so what was the point?

[DinosaurNothlit]

I don't necessarily have a problem with the tone, but I guess just the mechanism by which it all happened.

I know a lot of people like the plan involved in *Endgame*. I didn't. I didn't like the fact that somehow, magically, when Earth was saved the war was over. The Yeerks had already conquered two planets. The Hork-Bajir and Taxxon homeworlds were theirs. Yeah, Earth was a pretty major loss but it just all seemed so much cleaner than it should have been.

I didn't like the way Rachel died, though I agree she probably should have. I hated how Visser Three (or I guess One, whatever) was handled. A lot of the epilogue stuff seemed arbitrary. A lot of it worked, but I don't know...why would Tobias only talk to Cassie and Toby? Were those the two he was closest with throughout the series? No. What happened to his mom? What happened to Marco's parents, and Cassie's? How did Jake's parents feel about the fact that their younger son essentially killed their older son? There were just so many unanswered questions because the whole thing was resolved SO QUICKLY...I mean, part of the reason I love series like this, with such rich detail, is that you ask so many questions that you really can't expect to get answered. Like LOST. Is there any way LOST is going to answer every question you've ever asked? No. But SO MANY of those questions were just dropped, ignored, or contradicted that, I don't know, I kind of felt like, so what was the point?

I agree with everything you said.  Particularly the part about the war being over so quick when earth was won.  That always bothered me.

But, being me, I'm going to try to explain it anyway, by saying that, while the Yeerks had two planets under their belts, they suffered huge losses on those fronts, too.  The Hork-Bajir, which were already depleted by Alloran's virus, were then killed by the dozen by the Animorphs and of course by Visser Three himself.  There can't have been many Horks left by the end.  And then you have the Taxxons, a large portion of whom defected to the Animorphs' side by war's end.  So, maybe, after they lost earth and its endless stocks of humans for hosts, they simply didn't have enough bodies left to build the ships and things needed to keep the war effort going?

I'm not really trying to justify it, because I agree that it was really poorly explained, and K.A. should have handled it better.  I'm just trying to explain why it might at least be possible for it to have gone that way, because as it stands it's a pretty big plot-hole, and I hate plot-holes.  *pours fistfull of dirt into plot-hole*

[Chad32]

I was actually never bothered by the war being won shortly after Earth's loss. as has been said, the Yeerk only have so many Horks to use. They lost billions of hosts on Earth, and their psychic amphibians when they lost Leera. The Anati situation went down the tube after Jake warned the Andalites of a trap. To top it all off, there is a rsistance group on the Hork Homeworld that got started between book 30-40. Don't know how that went, and I'm surprised that Toby didn't send her group over to try to retake the homeland, but it's something.

And Taxxons are worse at actually fighting than Humans.

I'd say it's realistic that the tides would turn in favor of the Andalites after that.

[anijen21]

There's one other thing that bothers me, and I have a feeling that a lot of you will disagree with me, but let me put it out there anyway:

Rachel dies after she demorphs, because she's poisoned and injured by the five (or six? I can't remember) morph-capable Yeerks on the Blade Ship. Tom's a Viper (Cobra? something poisonous), there's a polar bear, I can't remember the other morphs.

Like I said, I think Rachel's death was necessary, tonally and thematically. It was kind of fatalistic poetic justice, in a way. All the same, poetic justice really only works if there's no other way it could have happened, no other option or possibility for redemption.

And I don't know, based on all the information available to her, I think Rachel was kind of dumb for using grizzly morph.

The grizzly is big, powerful, predatory, strong. But in that situation I think the elephant would have suited her better. Brute force, thick skin, raw weight and power. Especially in a limited space like the Blade Ship. Tom would have had a tougher time penetrating her skin, and all the other predators would have had the advantage of speed, but even that can be beaten with blunt force. She had tusks. She had massive feet. I don't know. The biggest danger would have been that she put a hole in the Blade Ship and got sucked out, but hell that's what ended up happening to her anyway.

Again, this is just me. I love poetic justice when it works. But this seemed kind of forced and unnecessary to me.

And Chad, you're right. Bases were covered, but the closer I read this series the more I realize how badly they covered them.

[Chad32]

Elephants don't have thick skin. Tom could still have taken her down. Real wild elephants avoid snakes because of this.

Rachel went with bear because she was most familiar with it. But she wasted time bashing controls, and didn't get clear shots on Tom or the polar bear morpher. The lionesses didn't have much impact on her at first, and the main reason the bison was able to get her so hard was because she was trying to finish off the polar bear.

Of course, grabbing the dracon beams off the wall and blasting everyone on high setting could have done the trick, but it would have been an ***pull.

Rachel died because KA wanted her to die. No other reason.

[anijen21]

Whether elephant skin or bear fur is more impenetrable is a toss-up, but at the very least, Elephants weigh a lot more and it would take a lot more poison to achieve the same effect. And I don't think Tom would have been able to bite her in the face like he did.

The point is, though, we seem to agree that her whole death scene was just a tad contrived.

And really, in the whole scheme of things, unnecessary.

[Chad32]

I used to say that her death wasn't in vain because Tom would have blasted the pool ship otherwise. But I eventually realised that it's just a BIT wierd that not a single other Yeerk on that ship decided to do it anyway. Get revenge on the Animorphs without any consequences. It wouldn't have secured Earth, due to the andalite fleet being nearby, but they would have still gotten revenge.

So Yeah.

[EscafilDevice]

anijen and Chad speaking sense ITT as usual.