A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter

[shivanfire]

First, a disclaimer: I love Animorphs.  I love this series - so much.  Some of them are in the top 10 books I have ever read - and I'm truly grateful to Katherine and Michael for bringing them into the world.

Now, however, with the discussion about Animorphs 2.0, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit K.A.'s famous post-series letter (written around 2001) to the fans.  Unfortunately, I had a very negative reaction to this letter. Why?  Because it contains what is (arguably) a huge lie.  At the very least, it is a huge contradiction (close to the same thing).

I will prove it.  This will (obviously) be marked as a spoiler:

[spoiler]

This is from K.A.'s letter (source: http://hirac-delest.issamshahid.com/database/articles/kaa_response_54.htm)

Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever...Here's what doesn't happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt.

This claim is simply untrue - a lie.  I'll give four crushing responses to this statement, from the general to the specific:

1.  Animorphs is a sci-fi/fantasy story, which is a completely different genre than "war story."  Animorphs is much closer to Star Wars (a sci-fi/fantasy) than Saving Private Ryan (a war story).  Animorphs was never realistic, and it is not about a realistic war. 
2.  Around 1998, K.A. says (in response to question asking "Do you have any words of wisdom for Animorphs readers?"):

Two things: I hope my books help give you respect and awe for the natural world. Animals are at least as incredible and amazing as any alien species. The other thing is that in the books, it's up to kids to save the world. In life, that's true as well. 

  (source: http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-applegate-ka.asp)
Think - very carefully - about what this quote means, combined with the context of the ending (#54).  This 1998 quote says it's up to kids to save the world.  And yet, your reward as a kid for deciding to save the world is being killed (Rachel) or screwed up (Tobias, Jake)?  What a great message to send to kids!  Clearly, K.A. changed her mind about Animorphs somewhere between this 1998 interview and her 2001 letter.  Animorphs was NOT always a war story (as K.A. defines it).  Instead...
3.  Animorphs used to be a story about hope.  Think about The Invasion, or the Andalite Chronicles, or Megamorphs #1.  In MM #1, the last word is literally "hope"!!  Now, by "hope" I do NOT mean simplistic/cartoonish good-vs-evil fights.  I mean something much deeper.  The characters in the three books that I mention go through hellish nightmares (Tobias is trapped as a hawk, Elfangor actually DIES, Jake thinks that he let Marco die).  And amazingly, against impossible odds, they emerge determined to keep fighting.  First question - Is that realistic?  Not really... but when was the last time you turned into a tiger to fight aliens?  That's right.  Second question - Is that stupid?  NO.  If you think inspiration and hope are stupid, I feel really sorry for you.
4. Another line from the 2001 letter:

But I've never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn't going to do it at the end...And to tell you the truth I'm a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I'd wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping.

  Oh please.  This is what you call a "straw man" argument.  No one was hoping for a comic book victory.  What a lot of us WERE hoping for was something actually in the spirit of the series - like Megamorphs #1 (see the previous point), or #26 The Attack, or #4, or #13, or #6, or #7.  Why were we hoping for that?  Because that's what the series used to be about!  It used to be about hard questions, the need to keep fighting, trust and friendship, where to draw the line, and hope in the face of darkness (and yes - sometimes, a hard-won triumph).

Let me be very clear again - I was not looking for a cartoon victory.  I WOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH A DEFEAT - as long as it stayed true to the spirit of Animorphs that we all loved (again, #1 and Andalite Chronicles are perfect examples of this).

I know K.A. and Michael always cite Lord of the Rings (and how they wanted Animorphs to be more LOTR and less Star Wars), but here's the fatal flaw with that argument: unlike #54, no one finishes Return of the King feeling depressed.  This is how they feel: "Wow."  Lord of the Rings is not a slam-dunk victory, but it is awe-inspiring.  Frodo is scarred forever - like the Animorphs, he sacrificed any chance at a normal life - but you also appreciate the world that he has saved, you appreciate Sam's ability to return to the Shire, you appreciate Aragorn's coronation as the rightful king.  In Animorphs, there's none of that, even from the "successful" characters (Marco / Cassie / Ax).  In LOTR, the victory is complex and comes at a great cost - but it is clearly a victory.  In #54, all of that is brushed off-screen (we get one sentence of Ax being promoted), so from a reader's perspective it might as well not happen.

We care about Animorphs because we cared about the characters.  So what once was a series about hard choices, the shedding of innocence, and hope amidst adversity ends with (1) an exercise in cynicism, (2) a non-ending, and (3) a note from the author to "morph out" - which I translated as "grow up."

If K.A. wrote the ending to simply "make us" realize that war is terrible - mission accomplished, I guess.  But I think we already knew that starting from The Invasion.  Sorry, but I have WAY too much respect for Animorphs to take the narrow message of #54 over the higher message of #1:

Until then, we fight.

[/spoiler]

So, agree?  Disagree?

[Shark Akhrrana]

Wow that's deep. I mostly agree with you .
Animorphs was more than a War story.
I was also not expecting cartoon ending of a good vs Evil fight since well it was more shades of gray.
I was not expecting a 100% victory. but i was expecting more "YAY" than what we got.
I prefer the message of HOPE rather than the WAR IS TERRIBLE message.
I can look at the news and know war is terrible but Hope is not as easily visible.

[Chad32]

The final message didn't satisfy me either. one of the weirdest parts is twhen she talks about relationships. She says relationships started during wartime break up during peace time, except there's no reason to think Rachel and Tobias' would end. The one that did end started before the war, and had little development during it.

She talks about how Rachel wouldn't be able to cope with peace, but then she introduces anti alien terrorists. Gee, I wonder if Rachel would have gotten involved in that perhaps. Among a list of other options.

She used the Bolivian Army ending to screw over most of the suriving Anis, but I believe most fans want them to have survived. Why? Because it's not a satisfactory way to end the series.

[Gumby]

Very good man, I agree. +1 for you.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

I agree. I think you've just put into words what I've felt for a long time. The ending was depressing and upsetting, true, but the most upsetting part was the death of the spirit of the series over the course of the later books.

[Gotchaye]

With the way writing works, a lot of this stuff can be reconciled.

First, on war stories: you can have a sci-fi war story.  There are lots of sci-fi war stories, in fact, and a lot of people here took Animorphs as a war story from very early on.  It also makes sense (and isn't unusual) for an author to claim that a story or character "always was" something that the author didn't intend from the beginning.  Lots of authors have an experience of their story "growing", and, regardless, I think you could make a pretty good case from just #1 that the series was aiming for significantly darker than Star Wars.

On the message: The message that it's up to kids to save the world doesn't mean that those same kids have to live happily ever after.  It remains true through the last book that it was up to kids to save the world.  They go through a lot on the way, and there's a message there about determination and hope, but the books also don't pull punches and pretend that the whole thing was costless.  And the kids do win - they accomplish what they set out to accomplish - and their victory is an all-in-all good thing.  It's not as if there's a big reveal where it comes out that the yeerks weren't actually bad guys, and despite the "war is hell" message it's never seriously in doubt that the war the Animorphs are fighting is one worth fighting in.  Finally, I note that, in fact, many readers on this forum did manage to take the "war is hell" lesson along with the "it's up to us to save the world" lesson. 

I don't know about the death of the spirit of the series, as Aluminator puts it.  I guess I can see it, but, at the same time, how much of your perception of the spirit of the series is due to the ghostwritten books?  It's entirely plausible that KA's intent all along was to slowly have things get darker and darker over the middle books, but a lot of the ghostwritten books were of necessity rather episodic, and they had to end with things basically the same as they were when the book started.  I guess I just don't buy that the ending has to be seen as nothing but an "exercise in cynicism", though from everything I've seen I'd agree that many readers could have used some more closure.

[Duff]

The spirit didn't die, it changed, and evolved, and I fully respect Katherine and Michael for doing it that way. Yeah the early books were more about hard wins and moral victories and at the end of the day they usually had a discussion about their feelings and how they were glad to still be alive and together. As the series went on these instances became less and less frequent. The kids were put through a horrible ordeal and they became more and more scarred by the whole war.

And yes, it was always a war story. Your initial claim was that you would prove it wasn't, but you never actually offer any evidence to oppose this claim. Just because you say its a science fiction/fantasy story (which it is) doesn't make it any less of a war story. It can be both, and it is both. They constantly refer to themselves as a guerrilla force, they deal with tough issues of battle, they go through PTSD, they go through war.

And things didn't end so well in Lord of the Rings. Just like Animorphs it was a hard won victory. Just like Animorphs the ones who were pulled into the battle (the hobbits/animorphs) were never the same afterwards. They tried to go back to the shire but it wasn't the same, especially for Frodo who essentially sailed off just like The Rachel did.

But you made a good argument. I get that alot of people didn't like the ending and I get that you needed to say that. It sucks that this is your only post on the forum so far, hopefully you stick around.

[Essam 293]

Just FYI, the link in the original post should be changed to http://www.hiracdelest.com/database/articles/kaa_response-full.htm

That other link and whole sub-domain will be disappearing soon, as I pay off the site's bills for the year.

[KleenexCow]

Personally, I mostly like the ending of the series, and I agree with what she said in her letter. I would have been disappointed if the series had ended with all six Animorphs, 16-ish, facing mostly mundane lives disturbed only by fame. I thought that going down fighting was just right--and Rachel's death, in particular, has always struck me as near-perfect, and I liked that the boys gave post-war life a try for three years but failed miserably and became warriors again (Marco can try to convince me all he wants, I'll never believe he was truly happy) to rescue one of their own. If anything, I just wish that they had all died together.

I mean, I have my complaints, too (I wish that they had take Cassie with them, and that there had been some resolution for Tobias and Loren, and that The One had gotten some development before #54), but those kids were guerilla fighters to the last, and I loved it.

[Chad32]

Actually Gotchaye, they didn't all accomplish what they set out to do. Jake lost Tom. But I guess the others did. Tobias did find a prupose in life, even though he gave up on a better life when Rachel died. Rachel and Cassie's goals were to save Humanity and the world respectively, and that got done. Marco became famous, and Ax became a Prince, although then Ax got assimilated.

I don't see why Marco wouldn't be truly happy with his life. Just because you get bored from time to time doesn't mean you're missing something. It just means you need a little vacation. If Marco isn't truly happy being a celebrity, then I guess I don't know Marco, which would be sad because he's my favorite.

And I understand that they will forever be changed, but that doesn't mean they have to die for it. That doesn't make sense.

[Terenia]

With the way writing works, a lot of this stuff can be reconciled.

First, on war stories: you can have a sci-fi war story.  There are lots of sci-fi war stories, in fact, and a lot of people here took Animorphs as a war story from very early on.  It also makes sense (and isn't unusual) for an author to claim that a story or character "always was" something that the author didn't intend from the beginning.  Lots of authors have an experience of their story "growing", and, regardless, I think you could make a pretty good case from just #1 that the series was aiming for significantly darker than Star Wars.

On the message: The message that it's up to kids to save the world doesn't mean that those same kids have to live happily ever after.  It remains true through the last book that it was up to kids to save the world.  They go through a lot on the way, and there's a message there about determination and hope, but the books also don't pull punches and pretend that the whole thing was costless.  And the kids do win - they accomplish what they set out to accomplish - and their victory is an all-in-all good thing.  It's not as if there's a big reveal where it comes out that the yeerks weren't actually bad guys, and despite the "war is hell" message it's never seriously in doubt that the war the Animorphs are fighting is one worth fighting in.  Finally, I note that, in fact, many readers on this forum did manage to take the "war is hell" lesson along with the "it's up to us to save the world" lesson. 

I don't know about the death of the spirit of the series, as Aluminator puts it.  I guess I can see it, but, at the same time, how much of your perception of the spirit of the series is due to the ghostwritten books?  It's entirely plausible that KA's intent all along was to slowly have things get darker and darker over the middle books, but a lot of the ghostwritten books were of necessity rather episodic, and they had to end with things basically the same as they were when the book started.  I guess I just don't buy that the ending has to be seen as nothing but an "exercise in cynicism", though from everything I've seen I'd agree that many readers could have used some more closure.

Awwww, you got to the rebuttal of the rebuttal before me.

What Billy said. +1

[esplin]

*claps* bravo OP, bravo

[itw2009]

wow. i love this thread. kudos all around for some really, really good and intelligent points on both sides.

anyway. =) to answer:

DISAGREE.

[spoiler]i never "expected" anything of #54. maybe i take gullibility and open-mindedness to an extreme, but ultimately, i was never disappointed or upset by the story's "conclusion". yes, i ranted and raved when rachel died. yes, i yelled at jake and tobias and cassie in turn... but you know? i thought that the ending finished out the story appropriately.

this was a "war story and then some". i don't see how you can perceive it as being otherwise; you'd need better words than "closer to ___ than ____" to convince me.

and what on earth would you have katmike do? they mentioned all the fame and glory the group received. hell, the animorphs got a LOT. how much more epic does it get than talk shows and commercials and free cars and movies.... and a huge blurb in the history books? i mean, President of Earth? yes? we laugh at/with marco, but how much influence did the entire group have afterward? they could have taken over countries. and none of this is inferred or implied- i believe that it is all clearly stated in #54.

what katmike did was tell this LOTR-esque ending from the characters' perspectives. as they always have.

so... let's talk tolkien for a second. let's talk bilbo baggins.

the guy goes through a LOT, but the story is told in the third person- you never get a sense for how he's changed (especially not in the child-oriented book, the hobbit) except in passing. there's more of a focus on celebration and general "yee-hah" than on bilbo's internal struggles- his problems with the ring and his literal need for adventure and an adrenaline rush after the conclusion of the hobbit.

now, let's talk frodo.

not depressed, what? when frodo comes back, the guy is done. DONE. he LEAVES. he's scarred. he's depressed, and you infer it from the fact that he's not making happy babies with some other happy hobbit from down the lane. the only thing you say is "we appreciate the world he's created". why? because the story is told in the third person- "the world" is all we really hear about. none of the inner workings of the mind. i daresay tolkien purposefully left that nasty bit out in order to fabricate the impression of a beautiful ending that was truly not so beautiful for some- namely, those who were in the thick of the worst of the fight from beginning to end.

animorphs is first person. the characters (except for marco, and it's from him that we get the most "yee-hah") are focused on their problems: the problems that are so much more glaring than movie deals or autobiography signings. i mean, watching your bff die? it would weigh a bit more on YOUR mind than standing in for a car commercial. watching your friends suffer physically and mentally in the aftermath... so much more concerning than a new mansion in Hollywood. (even for marco and ax, who are most notably the least 'touchy-feel-y' of the group)

regardless of any changes to an overarching theme that you believe 'ought' to be present, i believe the book series stayed true to its plot, characters, and thematic priorities.


now, addressing things from my perspective (i.e., not yours). sorry if this treads on some feelings, but i'll be blunt:

the readers don't "deserve" anything. katmike wrote this series for themselves, not for an ephemeral audience that they will never meet. (this concept of entitlement is very Gen X/Gen Y, btw.) where katmike took the series and what they did with the characters was their call, not ours.

also, if i can speak Gen Y-ese for a moment: no one here has the right to tell katmike what to do.

and if katmike "changed their minds", so what? if you think that's wrong, then i feel sorry for you. change happens. some of us don't take it well, but we all must force ourselves to coexist with it.

katmike did not "lie" to us. to use an equally strong word: bull****.

i don't think katmike ever had much of a message to send. i don't believe they sat down and planned the book series around some deep, morally or intellectually stimulating catchphrase. i believe that katmike's reasons for doing this- whatever they are- don't need to be defended.

now, personally, i see this rebuttal- "the ending was wrong because it contradicted the majority of the rest of the series 'in spirit'"- as the manifestation of a deeper, petulant rebellion against something that just doesn't sit well with you. you don't like it, so you look for something to blame. it honestly sounds like it's something that's been festering in your mind for a long time... and, although it was well-worded and presented in an organized and well-thought out manner, it reads of a little BS to me. like... a little exaggeration. it's a little too far-fetched.

i could be wrong. *shrug*

but think about it? i really see this kinda violently negative reaction to the end of a fictitious book series as being flat out over-the-top.[/spoiler]

and again, just to reassure people, i know your feelings are all totally valid. frustration, disappointment... yeah. i get it. i still love all of you.

(and thanks for the mental stimulation. xD i like that most about this thread.)

[Liz]

Thank you itw.  I agree with all of your points.  I did not think the ending violated the spirit of the previous books at all.

I love the ending!  TEAM ENDING!  ~makes t-shirts~

[esplin]

Thank you itw.  I agree with all of your points.  I did not think the ending violated the spirit of the previous books at all.

I love the ending!  TEAM ENDING!  ~makes t-shirts~

oh really? what about cassie? some team ending, ka's freaking pet gets to live but none of the other characters? thats awesome, and my favorite gets to die first and without a doubt.  Team was missing 3 members when they went out

Everyone hated book #54 because we didn't have that complete, happy, everything's-good-now, ending, but for us the last thing we wanted was some artificial closure.  (We both hate that word by the way.) So we decided that some, like Marco, would come through it all just fine, and some like Cassie would actually find a positive meaning from it.  But others, like Tobias and Jake would sort of never get past it.  And one would be dead.

Doing all that in 160 pages we didn't have much room to address everything.

i also wanna say thats not why for me, its the totally new plot line with the kelbrid and what i mentioned above XD
although some closer would be nice :[ i spent my childhood on this and it makes me mad, to the people who like the ending, congrats, you get to be content with animorphs.  The rest of us were disappointed and hurt even.