The yeerks

[Unknown User]

Wanted to say hi to the forum, but I also wanted my first post to be productive!

The yeerks are the bad guys; from the enslavement of the Hork-Bajir to their adventures on other far off planets they have been the essence of evil and the hated enemies of the Animorphs. I realize this, but I also think the yeerks got a bum rapp. I mean they ARE virtually senseless arthropods with no way to interact with the world. As I have grown older and my perspective matured, I have gone from hating the yeerks to pittying to sympathizing with them. Has anyone else felt these feelings for the Yeerks? Not to mention I would have liked to learn just a little more about their culture than is permitted by the series.

[Coal Kropotkin]

Hi! Welcome to RAF!!! You should make an Intro thread!




I understand the pity for the Yeerk, but, at the same time, they chose to forcefully enslave races, murder, and commit all manner of evil wrongdoings. Now, if they had stayed with Gedds, then that's another story. They were darn near symbiotic(Think I'm spelling that right), but, instead they chose to steal Andalite technology, and force themself upon the universe in many, many evil ways. Now, that's not to say that all Yeerks are evil, just look at the Yeerk Peace Movement. I believe that a lot more of them would have been peaceful, had the opportunity presented itself.

However, I also believe that had they never done what they did in the first place, the Andalite stealing, and waging war, yada yada, then it would have been very, very possible to find a way to get them hosts, in a good way. Probably some advanced form of cyborg/android. Something near flesh, but still not.. Y'know, horrible. And, of course, the Andalite Morphing technology could have become very useful to them in due time, and they wouldn't have had Seerows Kindness as a law had the Yeeks never screwed that up..


So... In short, I do pity the Yeerk for the reasons you gave, but I also think of them a bit like Nazi soldiers, just following orders, trying to make their own life better, but hurting others in the process. Thus, very little sympathy, a lot of pity, though.

[Myitt]

Hi TMA, welcome to RAF!  You can post an introduction thread on the RAF social board, if you'd like.

There are many, many topics that we fellow nerds have endlessly discussed involving sympathy for the Yeerks.

Here's just one example you might find interesting:

http://animorphsforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,3879.0.html

The short answer to your question is that in my opinion, yes, the Yeerks were in the end made out to be not quite as bad as they first appeared.  Some Yeerks truly were power-hungry and insane, but most were just average people caught up in a war, some of them were probably even young people--not too different from the Animorphs.  All of them forced into war, and the Yeerks themselves had a corrupt government that basically brainwashed them all into believing that what they were born to do is morally right.  

In the end, can you really blame them for believing what was shoved down their throats?  Some Yeerks were even disgusted, frightened or ashamed of taking hosts, even though they were born to do so.  When the penalty is death, and there's a death sentence for host sympathy, again there isn't much of a sane choice.


I also wish we had learned a bit more about Yeerk culture, other than a curse word and the word for 'pet'  The little glimpses into the way of life on the Yeerk homeworld were a nice tease, but I guess most of that is up to fafiction writers and roleplayers (by the way, if you're interested in roleplaying, there are a number of Animorphs-based RPGs  here.  I'd suggest my personal favorite, the Space Bar... )

I think the comparison to Nazi soldiers is a pretty good one, although I think most Yeerks were more like regular German soldiers caught up in the idealism (or even against the idealism) of their government.  Even some Nazi soldiers didn't agree with the Nazi ideology, but were under a lot of national pressure to follow their orders.

[comet266]

So I guess what I really realized throughout the series is that yeerks, like humans or andalites, are not all the same.  I think that was one point that Katmike was really trying to drive home throughout the series.  Yes you have power hungry yeerks who stole andalite technology and are searching to overpower as many species as possible, but then on the other side you also have the Yeerk peace movement and Yeerks like Aftran.

And if you think about it, being a parasitic species that has very poor senses in their natural body really sucks.  I'm sure a lot of them had they been offered the morphing solution early on, would have been satisfied with that.

[AndaliteWarrior100]

Can I please say what I beleive Yeerks are?
Yeerks are grey-green slugs with triangles making up their bodies, size of a rat. They turn into water and slither through the ear canal. They still are in water and slither through the brain, connectiong their neurons to their victims. They take full control. The leader's name is Visser Three, the first -and hopefully only- Andalite-Controller. He is fighting to become Visser One, the Highest rank in the Yeerks language. They have enslaved Taxxons, and all of the beautiful Hork-Bajir, along with many Leerans. Humans are their next on the list. They have Yeerk Pools

[Coal Kropotkin]

Can I please say what I beleive Yeerks are?
Yeerks are grey-green slugs with triangles making up their bodies, size of a rat. They turn into water and slither through the ear canal. They still are in water and slither through the brain, connectiong their neurons to their victims. They take full control. The leader's name is Visser Three, the first -and hopefully only- Andalite-Controller. He is fighting to become Visser One, the Highest rank in the Yeerks language. They have enslaved Taxxons, and all of the beautiful Hork-Bajir, along with many Leerans. Humans are their next on the list. They have Yeerk Pools

...


You're new, aren't you?

[AndaliteWarrior100]

Yep. I just was searching for stuff (I am an animorph lover) when I found this.

[Gumby]

I believe so.

To answer the original question, yes. I have sympathized with the yeerks, but they're conquest had went far from simple getting bodies as to complete galactic domination. There are solutions, like the Iskoort and fan fiction writers have proposed. The Yoort made the Isk, a biologicaly modified creature that cannot lvie without yoort, and Yoort can't live without Isk. they made themselves true symbiotes. A fanfiction I read showed future yeerks which created robotic bodies for themsleves to get in and control, complete with mini-kandrona generators.

So there are many other options then brutal enslavement.

[AndaliteWarrior100]

*shiver*   this is what I do to yeerks: *yeerk is slithering along* *WHAP!*  taxxons: 
 

[Coal Kropotkin]

*shiver*   this is what I do to yeerks: *yeerk is slithering along* *WHAP!*  taxxons: 
 

... what?

[AndaliteWarrior100]

Never mind, human. Was that rude? I am sorry. Intro:I am Falia-Megatron-Tulula, Warrior Andalite.

[Unknown User]

I believe so.

To answer the original question, yes. I have sympathized with the yeerks, but they're conquest had went far from simple getting bodies as to complete galactic domination. There are solutions, like the Iskoort and fan fiction writers have proposed. The Yoort made the Isk, a biologicaly modified creature that cannot lvie without yoort, and Yoort can't live without Isk. they made themselves true symbiotes. A fanfiction I read showed future yeerks which created robotic bodies for themsleves to get in and control, complete with mini-kandrona generators.

So there are many other options then brutal enslavement.

Yes but the yeerks do not have such technology, it's not as though they are the Arn and can simply make new bodies for themselves. Not only do the yeerks lack the genetics skill of the Arn but they are also not the chee, they can't just build mini kandrona generators. The yeerk situation is dismal, they want to be a galactic power but are forced to scavenge the technology of other races. This could be considered their own fault though, as they put to much emphasis on warriors and not enough on scientists

[Coal Kropotkin]

Exactly. At least Nazi Germany had both warriors, and AMAZING scientists.

Now, I do feel very bad for the Yeerks, certain ones, like V3, I hope die very, very painfully.

But, the first book I ever read was Visser, so I got a very biased view of Yeerks from that book, I like V1, and I understand the Yeerk plight, but, at the same time, they're... They're just not quite right, as a whole, I mean. The Yeerk Government is FUBAR, and the yeerks them self agree with this, not as a whole, but clearly as a majority.

So, yes, I do agree with you on that, that the Yeerk do deserve some pity, and even some sympathy, but as a whole, as a race, asa  people, I have very little sympathy for them. As individuals, yeah, there is a good bit of sympathy, now that I think about it.

[JFalcon]

Honestly I feel a great deal for the Yeerks, mostly because of Aftran who opens up the door so to speak.

Humans can sit back and judge any threat to their survival as evil, and to a human indeed they are. But to that threat humans might be just as much of a threat, and in the case of the Yeerks we were something they needed or felt they needed, we were bodies they didn't have, we experienced things they didn't get to without our help. And just like a man riding a horse or slaughtering a cow they didn't really need to consider our feelings in the matter because compared to them we were just as helpless as a horse or cow. Sure we could fight back, so can a horse or a cow.

Aftran says as much as well, to the Yeerks humans were cattle. This is a bit harsh on the humans but not actually evil because functionally it was true and like humans feeling bad for cattle many yeerks felt bad for their human hosts, many recognized them as equals to boot, something many humans don't do for even the species we consider sentient.

This is why I roll my eyes at the label of "evil" because in a well written story it's very rarely truly deserved, to me a good villain will always have a motivation that seems reasonable from a certan angle, a reason why anyone would ever follow them, that makes them a foe, a villain, not necessarily evil and in the case of the Yeerks as a species I feel this holds true. Then again I've also been known to make the argument that from a Decepticon standpoing Autobots probably look like rebel tree huggers.

You can argue that cattle aren't sentient whereas humans are but really what is sentience? We have a bunch of our fellow species on earth that we suspect may or may not be sentient and we continue to exploit them just like cattle because we need them or believe that we need them, it's a very Yeerklike quality or rather it's the Yeerks who display a very human quality. To the Yeerks did our sentience really matter? They still needed or at least felt they needed us. They were in a war, they needed hosts, and beyond that they would still need hosts, hosts that could reproduce quickly enough to supply every Yeerk with a body and as we see in Visser they looked everywhere for that and we humans were the only ones they found.

Add to the mix that the Council of Thirteen appeared to me to be a very new unstable almost illegitimate body of leadership and that the Yeerk Empire in the stars and the Empire on their homeworld seem to be two different things and it's just further evidence (Albeit in this case very much assumed) that the Yeerks themselves weren't evil, simply headed by bad management.

[esplin]

Wanted to say hi to the forum, but I also wanted my first post to be productive!

The yeerks are the bad guys; from the enslavement of the Hork-Bajir to their adventures on other far off planets they have been the essence of evil and the hated enemies of the Animorphs. I realize this, but I also think the yeerks got a bum rapp. I mean they ARE virtually senseless arthropods with no way to interact with the world. As I have grown older and my perspective matured, I have gone from hating the yeerks to pittying to sympathizing with them. Has anyone else felt these feelings for the Yeerks? Not to mention I would have liked to learn just a little more about their culture than is permitted by the series.

I think that sympathy for the yeerks was supposed to be realized and is one of the main changes in the book.  I always wanted more cultural/military info too.