Author Topic: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter  (Read 11943 times)

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Offline Terenia

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #30 on: February 20, 2010, 03:59:24 PM »
Jen, I'm not trying to say that writer's are gods and readers are the mere mortals relishing in their every written word. What I was trying to get across was the fact that if you are a writer you can take into consideration what the readers want, you can accept their criticism and apply it to your work, but in the end you are still in control of your own masterpiece. The readers don't HAVE to like it, and by no means do I think they are required to. In fact alternate ending fanfics are some of the most popular, and I think that's great. Think you can do it better? Go ahead, try. In the end, though, whatever the writer puts to paper is canon and that's that.

As a reader, I expect to be allowed to voice my opinion. At the same time, I don't expect it to have too much of an impact. As a writer, I look forward to feedback and criticism from my readers, but I don't always follow every suggestion that my readers make.

It's a balancing act, but I think that itw is correct in saying that you cannot accuse the author of LYING to us. They stood by what they believed was true of the series and, since they wrote it, how could they be lying? They were not trying to deceive us in any way.

Whether you agree with the ending, or with their final message, is a different story. After all, we are all entitled to our own opinions.

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Offline anijen21

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #31 on: February 20, 2010, 04:38:30 PM »
well if it's come down to arguing about semantics, then that's where I lose interest lol. I just think the OP has every right to say that the ending wasn't in the spirit of the story if that's how they feel. Authors may be in charge of canon, but we're in charge of interpreting it. There are at least 10 religions that all use the Bible as their main text, after all.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2010, 04:42:03 PM by anijen21 »
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Offline Shock

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #32 on: February 21, 2010, 07:57:24 PM »
There are at least 10 religions that all use the Bible as their main text, after all.

true but not everyone has the ability to talk to the person that wrote it :P
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Offline anijen21

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #33 on: February 21, 2010, 08:09:39 PM »
lol are you implying that some people do?
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Offline Chad32

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #34 on: February 21, 2010, 08:33:58 PM »
No one really talks to God. All they do is say or think something, then attempt to interpret future events as what he might be saying. That's not a conversation.


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Offline Duff

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #35 on: February 21, 2010, 09:06:26 PM »
Hey, at least we got an ending. The could have just cancelled it 10 books early. Even people who don't like the ghostwritten books don't actually wish the series ended at 26.

I completely agree.  In some sense, Animorphs is a war story.  But in some sense, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are war stories.  What I meant, to be more specific, was that Animorphs was not a “realistic” war story, in the sense that the Animorphs survive odds that are literally impossible.  For one example, the Yeerks fire their Dracon beams on the Animorphs thousands of times but they always miss, just like the bad guys in Star Wars (Marco even makes fun of this in #7).  In a “realistic war story,” this would never happen, but it is a well-known trope of fantasy (unrealistic) war stories.


The dracon beams did not always miss. The books wrote about limbs being blown off, guts spewing out, bits of flesh flying off. Sounds like a pretty realistic war story. Sure nobody died, but nobody ever dies in a story like this until the very end, thats just how stories work.


I know she mentioned that she had a page/space limit, and I really think she could have used the pages wasted on the final ending to delve more into the other issues that were missing...i.e. what happened with the auxillary animorphs,

They all died...sorry
« Last Edit: February 21, 2010, 09:11:38 PM by Duff »

Offline shivanfire

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #36 on: February 22, 2010, 04:03:25 AM »
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duff: The dracon beams did not always miss. The books wrote about limbs being blown off, guts spewing out, bits of flesh flying off. Sounds like a pretty realistic war story. Sure nobody died, but nobody ever dies in a story like this until the very end, thats just how stories work.

1. I'm pretty sure Dracon beams / shredders used to kill instantly (an Andalite was instantly vaporized in #18, and I'm pretty sure in Andalite Chronicles as well).  At some point, I guess they must have been "down-graded" to non-lethality.  But this still supports my point.  Example: Leia was hit in Return of the Jedi, but people still make fun of Star Wars.  The Animorphs get hurt way more by Hork-Bajir blades and Visser Three's crazy morphs than by Dracon beams.  This is ludicrously unrealistic.
2. It is NOT "just how stories work."  Above, I talk about how Saving Private Ryan is the type of realistic war story that Animorphs is NOT.  In Saving Private Ryan, a main character actually dies halfway through.  Even in Lord of the Rings (the gold K.A. standard), a member of the Fellowship (Boromir) dies 30% of the way through.  If you're looking at death count, Animorphs (until #54) is in the box with Star Wars: a big fat zero.  The "no hero dies" trope is completely impossible, but it is a staple of fantasy.

Offline Chad32

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #37 on: February 22, 2010, 04:26:04 AM »
At some points getting hit by a beam would completely vaporize you. Not just leave a wound.


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Offline Shock

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #38 on: February 22, 2010, 04:42:33 AM »
lol are you implying that some people do?

nope, just saying that we can talk to the person that actually wrote animorphs without starting religious conflict.
Cannibals are seriously messed up
Quote
[17:05:27] Reiyn: Shock's tact and diplomacy is unparalleled.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information. For in his heart, he dreams himself your master
Quote from: K.A. Applegate
So sorry to get you into writing. What a horrible thing to inflict on you. Should have just sold you crack.

Offline Dancinggal

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #39 on: February 22, 2010, 05:41:07 AM »
Hey, I'm new here too, and I thought this was a super interesting thread. Nice to see so many people still totally into these books in an obviously passionate way.

To answer the OP, I disagree. Here is why, point by point (I'm not sure either of us are going to 'crush' each other though).

1. Obviously any fiction is in its very nature going to be unrealistic to a certain degree. Certainly, most of the story couldn't have continued if all of the characters did not survive till the very end. However, while Animorphs is certainly not Saving Private Ryan, it is also not Star Wars. The issues discussed throughout the series were certainly much deeper than what most space operas contain. There are plenty of examples of this throughout the books. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that the end requires the readers to think about the true cost of war, and about the people that are really affected by it. The authors often used their work to make the readers think about war and the reprecussions of it. I really like that it wasn't a happy ending. I think the one we got was a lot more interesting and thoughtful.

Also, science fiction is often used to discuss deeper issues, including war. Just because the premise isn't realistic, doesn't mean it can't discuss very deep issues.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by putting in this quote. Would it be better if the authors just said, save the world without thinking of the human cost? No. They always valued their audience a lot more than that. Truthfully, any type of conflict is either distressing for those involved, or turns them into monsters. The authors always tried to include the impact of violence on the Animorphs throughout the series, starting in book 1 when Tobias was trapped in morph.

3. The last book is still hopeful, just in a different way. It is about something bigger than just the Animorphs. Andalites, yeerks, hork bajir, taxxons and humans all come away from the conflict better off. However the cost is the burden of the individuals. I actually think it is incredibly hopeful. Most conflicts do not end this happily. Really, it is showing that if you are fighting for the right reasons, without wanting just plain revenge or just wanting to hurt someone else, you can create a better outcome for everyone involved.

4. I take point four to mean that you feel the ending wasn't in spirit with the rest of the series, but I think it very much was. It was an ending, an appropriate one for a series that was incredibly dark. I think it very much reflected where the last ten books or so were leading. I started reading Animorphs as a 10 year old, and ending up finishing them when I was about 18 or 19. I was quite impressed with the maturity the series managed to achieve, in that at that age I could see a lot of value and truth expressed through what was essentially quite a childish premise.

I personally feel that the ending to Animorphs was a lot better than the ending to a lot of other children's books, in particular Harry Potter, which seems to have the type of ending you wanted from this series. Also, I don't see how the message of book 54 was more narrow than the message of book 1. Are you saying that a message of hope is more important than a message of the true price of war?

I guess in the end we will just have to agree to disagree. I think I would have been disappointed with the type of ending you were after, but that's just me. Evidently, a lot of fans really seem to agree with you.

Offline ThermalRider

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #40 on: February 22, 2010, 11:55:18 AM »
To start off, I just want to say that I haven't read every word that's been posted in this thread because frankly, I don't have that much time anymore. However, I have seen some good points on both sides of the fence. Now on to my take on the subject.

I enjoyed the ending in a certain fashion. As someone who absolutely loves Animorphs of course I wanted to see more and to know more, but I can completely understand the ending and I'll lay out some points as to why it's believable and ok with me.

1) I think that Animorphs is definitely a war story. It's about people who are thrown together to fight a war that they didn't ask to be a part of. In some cases they didn't even really like each other. (Think about how Marco thought Tobias was weird and also his strained at times friendship with Rachel) These characters came together and bonded in a huge way through their experiences fighting the Yeerks. That's a war story.

2) To those who say that the spirit or message changed, I both agree and disagree with this. Any story that goes on for so long has to change in some ways. If nothing in the story changes, then you end up with static, one dimensional, boring characters and story lines. After so many years of fighting a guerrilla war, the Animorphs are worn down, they're tired, they're willing to take chances. Just look at the Auxiliary Animorphs. You really think that the Animorphs would have taken that risk at any point before that? Even if the Yeerks had made the kind of advances that they do in #54, the Animorphs would not have been desperate enough to use the blue box again so close after the David incident. The point is that they changed. They aren’t the same people that they were in book #1 or even the same people that they were in book #26.

Take a look back at an old picture of yourself, think about the person you were then, even one year ago, and I’ll bet that you can see a bunch of differences in who you are and who you were, and you weren’t involved in a crazy war with aliens.

3) In regards to the ending itself, I don’t think that it betrayed any of the characters. All of them take something different from the war. I don’t know if you can really say that any of them are happy though. Even Marco with all of his TV deals and everything still reminisces about his days with the Animorphs and morphs sometimes to get back to it. And once the Kelbrid come into the picture, that feeling of “it’s up to us to stop it” comes right back into play. The same feeling is still alive. In their own ways, I think that everybody wanted to be there. Not in an overt sense, but still, there is some part of each of them that wants to put them back in those situations. Plus, the story isn’t really over. The Yeerks were kicked off Earth but they still a big force throughout the galaxy. Don’t forget, the Yeerk invasion of Earth wasn’t even a full operation, at least for most of the series, it did pick up at the end obviously.

My point is that there is still a lot happening. The war is far from over. I equate it to Star Wars. If you follow the Expanded Universe and read those books, you find out that yes, the Emperor was killed at the Death Star II, but the Rebels/New Republic don’t attain peace with the Empire until 15 years later.

4) As far as Lord of the Rings goes, up until the end of the book, you have only 1 ½ deaths. I’m only counting main fellowship characters. I say half because Gandalf dies but comes back although Frodo and Sam didn’t know that. So the only real death is Boromir, and he was corrupted by the ring. Everyone who dies in LOTR was corrupted in some way. Theoden, Denethor, they were corrupted. So nobody “good” dies in Lord of the Rings. Even Frodo was corrupted and he essentially ended his life by going to the Grey Havens. And if you look at Tolkien, you can see that he wanted his characters all to live because of the devastation that he went through in World War I.

5) I think that the fact that all of us can feel these sorts of emotions about the ending is the entire point. We all fell in love with these characters and followed them for so long. They became our friends, our comrades, and the feelings that we get are exactly what those characters are feeling. So when you feel those sorts of things, it’s another emotional tie that the story itself creates for its readers.

Anyways, I could probably go on for a very long time about all this so I’ll cut it short here for now at least.

Offline anijen21

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #41 on: February 22, 2010, 03:09:13 PM »
lol are you implying that some people do?

nope, just saying that we can talk to the person that actually wrote animorphs without starting religious conflict.

there are plenty of schools of thought that would argue that is just as irrelevant as the fact that we can't ask what God meant in the Bible.

Assuming God actually wrote the Bible :/
I go off topic on purpose.

esplin

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #42 on: February 22, 2010, 06:02:05 PM »
Idk who said it but i agree that the whole one/kelbrid adventure was a waste of precious space in the last book

Offline Chad32

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #43 on: February 22, 2010, 06:16:24 PM »
I know TV tropes considers the One and Kelbrid to be discontinuity, for what it's worth. As bad as the ending was, it was made worse by that. At least before that Marco and ax were happy.


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esplin

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Re: A Rebuttal to K.A.'s final letter
« Reply #44 on: February 22, 2010, 06:37:14 PM »
It was just some dumb set up for the cliff hanger ending, it could have been done better IMHO