Author Topic: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?  (Read 8060 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline eacortes

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 17
  • Karma: 5
  • Gender: Male
Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« on: November 23, 2009, 05:12:37 AM »
I cant help but ask what you guys thought of some of the goriest moments in the series, i had to reconsider if it truly was a childrens series. One such moment was in #53 when Cassie (fortunately a projection by Erick) is chewed up by a Taxxon and I quote: (...spilled entrailes all over the deck...bloodcurdlin g cries...).  Narly

Offline morfowt

  • God
  • ********
  • Posts: 8333
  • Karma: 112
  • Gender: Male
  • this is my avatar. it's a picture of nothing...
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2009, 06:13:15 AM »
I tended to just skim through those places and not really let the scenes sink in. I have a weak stomach...

Offline musicman88

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 836
  • Karma: 27
  • Gender: Male
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2009, 10:32:36 AM »
I think that it was necessary to describe some of the battle details just for realism's sake.  How are you going to get across your message that war is horrible if you don't actually describe the horrible bit?  If it wasn't a children's series I would've expected a bit more graphic detail actually.
YOU'RE WINNER !

Offline Phoenix004

  • RAF Ancient
  • Sr. Staff
  • *****
  • Posts: 20492
  • Karma: 710
  • Gender: Male
  • With great RAFpower comes great RAFsponsibility...
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2009, 10:40:50 AM »
None of the violence in the series bothered me, it would have seemed unrealistic without it. KA was always about showing the harsh reality of war.

I think that it was necessary to describe some of the battle details just for realism's sake.  How are you going to get across your message that war is horrible if you don't actually describe the horrible bit?  If it wasn't a children's series I would've expected a bit more graphic detail actually.

I agree. In recent years I've sometimes wished that the series had been aimed at an older audience to make it more real.
Animorphs Travels #1 The Invasion
http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=10876.msg860745#msg860745

RAFcon 2015: It's always Hot Dog Day somewhere!

Offline Chad32

  • God
  • ********
  • Posts: 11951
  • Karma: 195
  • Gender: Male
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2009, 10:51:49 AM »
I tended to skim over it too, though I understand why she would describe that stuff. You can't have a realistic war series if you don't go into the ugly descriptions of battle.


Ani-Master 2014!

Offline RYTX

  • Shadow and Flame
  • Xtreme Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 4877
  • Karma: 140
  • Gender: Male
  • Pretend I said something clever
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2009, 12:17:23 PM »
Really? I always felt like they could have embellished it a bit more; half the fun was the morphing, the other half was using the morph.
But I'm a sucker for tooth and nail so...
Something, something, oh crap I pissed everyone off again....

Offline Essam 293

  • Dedicated Archiver
  • Xtreme Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 2280
  • Karma: 170
  • Gender: Male
    • Hirac Delest - An Animorphs Archive
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2009, 03:09:30 PM »
I can't remember which book it was, but they were fighting in the opening chapter, and in the aftermath of the battle, Jake was basically walking around in his Tiger morph with his guts hanging out. That is the one scene that always sticks out to me when I think of the violence in Animorphs. The shark battle that left Marco's dolphin body nearly torn in half is also another one.

Even though this was a lot more graphic and violent than what you would expect from a kids series, I don't think it was too explicit or over the top. They were fighting a war, and literally did so tooth and nail. It was bound to get messy. The series wouldn't have been the same had K.A skimmed over the brutalities of their battles. In fact, I'd probably feel that there wasn't enough of it in there had this been a YA series, but I'm content with the amount that did make it into the books, especially for the target audience that they were sold to.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2009, 03:11:09 PM by Essam 293 »


Also check out: ANIMORPHS ANIMATED | ANIMORPHS 300

Xbox Live/PSN Gamertag: Aximlli

Offline Shark Akhrrana

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 771
  • Karma: 48
  • Gender: Female
  • OOOH FISH
    • Chronicles of Hyrule
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2009, 07:07:51 PM »
It didn't seem to bother me much. Not sure why.  It makes you see in your mind exactly what is happening in the scene.
There are plenty of violent gory scenes in the series. and well if you are into the story you expect them to be gory. I had to sometimes go back and re read sections to understand them better. But other than that it didnlt bother me at all. I.t just made teh story more real

===============================================

Offline wolfev

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 390
  • Karma: 53
  • Gender: Male
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2009, 09:23:43 PM »
Rachel eating through her own tail was a little much. That is probably one of the most intense sequences throughout the whole series. Actually pretty much all of the solution is that way. Did that win an award? The thing to remember is that the morphs can cure you of any physical injury. That is K.A.'s loop hole that make's everything okay.
[img width= height= alt=" border="0]https://vspace.vassar.edu/evwaldron/warriors/banner2.jpg[/img]

Offline anijen21

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 666
  • Karma: 49
  • Gender: Female
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2009, 10:24:35 PM »
I thought the loop hole was the thing that made everything so violent in the first place

you'd never see someone beating an enemy with their own severed arm in any other kid's series. Yeah, the technology allowed them to do that, but the technology didn't cure the psychological effects. And more than bloodshed and dismemberment and disembowelment, I think that's what made the series dark.

Even if the series was overly violent, at least it was appropriately honest.
I go off topic on purpose.

Offline DinosaurNothlit

  • Pixellated Prehistoric Paradox
  • Gold Donor
  • *********
  • Posts: 14066
  • Karma: 521
  • Gender: Female
  • RAWR!
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2009, 03:50:37 PM »
Nah, I don't think the gore and violence in Animorphs was too much.  If anything, it was not enough.

For one thing, I did that "kill-counting" project for a while (to tally up how many kills each Animorph committed), and one thing I learned from that is that K.A. seems to like to weasel her way out of explicitly saying that someone died.  So many times, it's really ambiguous whether someone actually got killed or not, and it makes it really frustrating to try to count kills.  Anyway, I'm just bringing it up because I think the series would have been darker if they'd paid some more attention to each kill, and I think that would have made it better.

But, yanno, considering it was war and all, yeah, there's gonna be violence and gore.  And I think the books even left a lot of detail out.  A noteworthy example is in #3, when Tobias says something to the effect of "I won't say what happened next.  That will be my own personal nightmare."  Of course, that does have the effect of making the reader's imagination come up with what happened, which may almost be worse.  :-X

Offline Chad32

  • God
  • ********
  • Posts: 11951
  • Karma: 195
  • Gender: Male
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #11 on: November 24, 2009, 04:16:33 PM »
I think it was plenty, and I'm not really worried about giving all those warriors their five seconds to illustrate that they died, and how exactly they died, and what their names were, and all that. I actually think she was pushing the bar as it was, and much farther would have forced her to give it a higher rating.


Ani-Master 2014!

Offline DinosaurNothlit

  • Pixellated Prehistoric Paradox
  • Gold Donor
  • *********
  • Posts: 14066
  • Karma: 521
  • Gender: Female
  • RAWR!
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2009, 04:30:22 PM »
I'm not saying that she should give names and backstories and such of every random extra that died.  Just that she shouldn't have been so afraid of the word 'kill.'  Loads of people died in Animorphs.  That should have been a much bigger deal than it was, that's all I'm saying.

And maybe it would have earned the books a higher rating, but . . . so?  They would have been better books for it, and if the publishers can't deal with that, then poo on them!  :P

Offline anijen21

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 666
  • Karma: 49
  • Gender: Female
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2009, 04:35:09 PM »
maybe it was less the author and more the first person narration...I can't picture anyone besides Rachel maybe being comfortable saying "I killed like eight Hork-Bajir that night." And from what I remember, one of the most brutally-written scenes was the mean Rachel one where she ran over a bunch of Hork-Bajir in #32
I go off topic on purpose.

Offline tobiasthehawk

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 170
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • Bleh
Re: Gore and violence in Animorphs. Was it too explicit?
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2009, 04:48:10 PM »
I personally believe it should of been described to even more detail. War is horrible and frighting. A life changing experience and I think it needs to be written about in a deep descriptive way.
"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."-Stephen Hawking

 "I'm sorry, I lost my boots and the legs of my pants in a deadly fight with a giant seaslug, which I won in the nick of time with my clever thinking and my, uh... cleverness."
-- Roger, while procuring pants at the Galleria

[img]http://dragcave.net/image/WL2N.gi