Totally Random Animorphs Thoughts

[Aluminator (Kit)]

That feeling of reading the series for the first time? That's actually a lot of the reason I'm excited about getting my parents' friends' kids into the rerelease, so I sympathize

[Chad32]

When I buy the rerelease of the books, I may try to get my neices into it. I'll let the parents decide how old they should be before introducing them to the series, though. They're 4 and 2 right now, btw, so it will still be a while.

[AnyaSciarra]

Edit: I thought of a random question. How do you guys pronounce Hork-Bajir? like Ba Jar or Ba Jeer? lol, just curious, I think I say the second one

I pronounce it Bah-zheer, like the sound of the Russian 'ZH' (As in Zhivago)

One thing I thought of today reading 24- When Cassie mentions Visser Three as being the only yeerk that has ever had the power to morph, she is apparently forgetting in 6 when Jake became a Controller and 19 when she herself took on Karen's yeerk. Weird, huh?

[Chad32]

Well those instances were a bit different from V3. They didn't keep their morphing hosts for very long. He's had his for decades.

[AnyaSciarra]

Well those instances were a bit different from V3. They didn't keep their morphing hosts for very long. He's had his for decades.

Okay. I thought that the author meant that literally.

[Kotetsu1442]

I've never had a Cinnabon.  I didn't even know they were real until a couple of years ago.  Same with Krispy Kreme.  They were mentioned a couple of times in a cheesy YA SF book series (not animorphs) and I thought the name was so ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be real.  That is, until one opened an hour away and I realized they've been around forever...  I've never had those either.

I just looked them up.  They are both a couple of hours away.   

That's just... so sad. Go buy one, now  .

Well, she doesn't really hang around people who read the books (besides me and Spoiler McSpoily Pants over there -_-) so she's fairly safe. It's not so much that she's adamant about not having things spoiled (I mean, besides really big things) it's just... I want to relive the experience of reading the books for the first time! XD I've been amazingly tight-lipped about Elfangor, for instance.

But yeah. -_- I said "So... what do you think about Tom?" and there was a pause where you can bet she was thinking "Oh, crap. What happens?"

I wouldn't worry about that type of spoiler too much. I mean, with the Tom example the "Brother against brother in a war" scenario was set up in book #1, and every time that conflict was relevant to a storyline but it didn't get resolved they only made it more clear that something had to happen. So all that asking about what she thinks about various characters early on only confirms for her that that they do develop and are relevant. I would rather know early on that the author wasn't completely blindly throwing stuff in but was instead prepared to take these characters somewhere, so something like that would only build suspense and anticipation as far as I'm concerned.



My random thought: I found it hilarious that the Nartec queen of book #38, The Mutation scoffed when Animorphs asked her if she spoke English, because it was obviously the "international language of commerce and intellectual discourse," But for some reason while they talked amongst themselves in English she thought it logical to try Chinese, Scandinavian, German and French first to communicate with them. One of the more endearing KASUs, because it is not so much a screw up as it is a kinda "Figure out which language you speak by trying them at random" trope.

[Stephquiem]

I'm the worst friend ever. My friend was reading #3 and I called and interrupted. D:

[AnyaSciarra]

I'm the worst friend ever. My friend was reading #3 and I called and interrupted. D:

Never interrupt a Tobias book!

[Stephquiem]

I know! I should know better! And she's reading my copy! What if the sound of her phone going off surprises her and she... DROPS IT?

...This actually is a worry. XD That book is falling apart.

[Alex Oiknine]

The really bad Animorph books also often seem to have the best quotes. I don't care how irritated other people get at filler material.

"Calamari"
"Snails?"
‹I am not in favor of snails.›

...

‹Let's just stick to speaking English.›
"Squid!"
‹Uh uh. Calamari is octopus, not squid.›

The Exposed page 65 onward.

And that doesn't include the Voyage/Journey/20,000 Leagues Under the Sea debate.

[Stephquiem]

How is #27 "really bad"? O.o That's one of my favorite books.

[Alex Oiknine]

How is #27 "really bad"? O.o That's one of my favorite books.

It's a filler book. It's really unnecessary to the overall plot of saving the world from Yeerks. The only thing that would really ever need to happen again was meeting the Drode, and that could have easily been done during any of their encounters with Crayak. The Pemalite Ship only ever gets mentioned again with The Mutation which was another completely useless book (And, though I debate this with other people on the LiveJournal forum, is in my opinion the worst Animorphs book ever with the exception of the Altermorphs.)

Don't get me wrong - I love a lot of filler books for the sake of their humorous quotes. But I'm not going to act like they were relevant to the series, the general plotline, or necessary for character development. Hence, not great books. We already got all of Rachel's claustrophobia in The Underground. We know the Chee back-story. The Pemalite Ship is never used through the series except as an excuse for them to need to morph orcas and meet the Nartec, who are also utterly irrelevant.

It really pains me to say, but even though there were three books where morphing cetaceans were utterly necessary (The Message, The Exposed, The Mutation - the only book I thought was actually any good was The Message. As a hobbyist cetologist, that was a very disappointing thing for me in the series.

I could go on, but other than the laughs I just do not find The Exposed at all relevant. Even if it is a million times better than The Mutation.

My favorite book is The Sickness and I hear people insulting it all the time as being a filler book, a Cassie-superhero book, etc., etc. Let's face it - it's a matter of taste, and there's always two sides of the spectrum.

[Kotetsu1442]

It's funny, because now that I understand what you mean by "filler book" I realize that I saw it completely differently. Your 'unnecessary' deals with how relevant it was to ongoing story-lines and character development; a good way to classify a book as 'unnecessary' or 'filler' as you're using it (correct me if you think this is inaccurate) would be along the lines of "Can I skip this book and miss nothing important for the rest of the series?"

For me, as I read the series, the ones I thought of as 'unnecessary and filler' were literary issues of story lines and character development, but in-story issues of necessity from the Anis' perspective to the ongoing conflict. For example, from my perspective The Experiment and The Unknown were unnecessary because even a victory on the Anis' part could accomplish nothing, while I considered The Exposed and The Mutation as necessary because if the Anis choose to sit those missions out they would have allowed the Yeerks to further their cause in some (theoretically) significant way.

(BTW, How do you consider The Message unnecessary though? I mean, they meet Ax and he joins their cause; it is relevant to the entire remainder of the series?)

(Also BTW, is you're interest in cetology purely personal interest or have you worked in it or other forms of mammal marine biology?)

[Alex Oiknine]

I don't think The Message is irrelevant - I listed it as the only cetacean-oriented book that was relevant. Don't tell anyone, but I have an enormous crush on the Ax-man.

I think The Experiment and quite a few others count as "filler" by many people. And that's fine. But I think it's important to note that some of the missions mentioned above are things that could have never graced the series and none would have been the wiser. If no one ever read The Exposed or The Mutation they wouldn't miss out on anything in the series, anymore than The Experiment. The whole plots of those books were created simply to give a Yeerk-vs-Animorph story, but didn't find any way to tie that story in with the bigger picture, or make it relevant later on. Which really is no different from The Experiment. After all, without Crayak's interference the Yeerks would never be able to detect the Pemalite ship, theoretically - it was because the systems were down that it was detected. Going from there, The Mutation was even more pointless because there was no reason they should be able to detect the ship even if they had known where it was hidden (and they didn't). Essentially, they were stories just so that there would be stories - and what point did they make, really?

As far as cetology - I read a lot of literature on cetacean societies, books on anatomy, etc., etc. I used to know and interact with a zoologist that studied humpback whales in Maui. However, I'm horrible at calculus and calculus is necessary to pursue biology as a major. I ended up becoming a cultural anthropologist that also studies cetaceans in a hobbyist fashion, including SCUBA diving and watching them ravenously from boats while getting to diving destinations :3

[Kotetsu1442]

I don't think The Message is irrelevant - I listed it as the only cetacean-oriented book that was relevant.

Ah, my bad. I just misunderstood your statement before.

And though I was quite fine with The Exposed as being necessary in my terms (once the situation was set up, the Anis definitely had to go about the mission set before them), I was really skeptical when The Mutation started. I mean, since the Pemalite ship was fully functioning, then the Yeerks wouldn't have been able to detect it and would have literally had to comb the entire ocean looking for it, the Anis really could have said "Let's just sit this one out and let them waste their time and energy on this one while we rest and start coming up with another way to hurt them." That and it is annoying when Exposed ended with the ship being put deep enough that "only an android could reach it" and then Mutation starts with "Nevermind, the Yeerks are capable of building a good enough marine-craft... in fact we aren't even going to remember the idea that it was intended to be unreachable at this point, now it's still nearby and 'deep, but not that deep, we won't even need to go Calamari this time'"



Sorry to hear about calculus getting in your way, I imagine it is probably often the bane of people interested in similar biology careers; I didn't realize that it was even necessary for biology. I saw chemistry drive out plenty of people away from similar majors when I was in college, and as far as I'm concerned it was necessary because chemistry is very relevant in that respect; but I would think that that high a level of pure mathematics wouldn't be necessary for biology; odd, that.