K.A's response to the final book criticsm.

[Kitulean]

See that's where you mistake me. I was NOT saying everything should have worked out and everyone should have been fine. I was and am saying that Everyone shouldn't have Failed. They stopped the invasion, but that's it. For the most part, every last one of them failed at everything else.

[Champion]

i just want to know what was with Ax? I mean, i know it wasnt him, but man that scene gave me the creeps.  ???

[Liz]

I love the debates about the ending of the book.  I probably don't have much new to add, but I will anyway. xD

Stuff like this is part of what really elevated Animorphs as a series. These characters had amazing fantastic lives, but I got to see how they struggled to cope with everything that makes life so confusing and difficult and complicated. The plot didn't hand them escape ropes, they had to rely on their various coping mechanisms. Some fared better than others. They all had their high points and their low points, and I could look at how they dealt with their problems, what worked and what didn't, and apply that to the way I live. If, after 62 books of this sort of drama, I had to read, "Everything worked out in the end, all these nasty problems went away, and they all lived happily ever after," I would have felt horribly betrayed. That's not how life is. These characters were so human because I watched them deal with life the way it is, and an ending that threw away that sense of reality to toss the characters into a new world where life goes the way you want it to would have hideously compromised the realism of the characters and my ability to relate to them.

Exactly.  I felt so betrayed by the ending of Harry Potter, for example, and it really changed my enjoyment of the entire series.  Maybe I'm just strange, but I've always much preferred the depressing stories where everyone dies at the end.

I just read a book that said something like, "In real life, not only do the good guys not win, but there aren't any good guys."  I know books shouldn't be like real life always (ooh, I remembered another quote: "Even the worst book is better than real life"), but the characters of Animorphs were so real to me that a fantastical ending just wouldn't have fit in my opinion.

traycon3 mentioned Death Note; I thought that ending did a brilliant job of showing that there really are no good guys.  I liked that same aspect of Animorphs that, as KAA said, was more like LotR than Star Wars.

Uh...had a lot more thoughts about the ending but I need to reread it and I'm tired.

[AcreLorraine]

You want fairness, go read something else.  Thus far, nothing in any of the books really ended up fair.  I admit, I hated the last book because it didn't fit with what I wanted to happen.  People had to die, it was obvious, but still...  I just didn't like it, but I agree that it was right.  If you disagree so much, write your own version of the last book and post it up.  I'll read it.  But there are some authors who screw up endings, and there are some who make a true ending.  If it had ended too happily I might have felt cheated.  But I did feel cheated at the end of this book.  I am complaining, but if you ask for vinegar, you shouldn't complain when you get it. 

[Chad32]

It didn't need to end like a fairy tale, but it did need to end more happily than tragically. If KA had killed off Animorphs throughout the series, like what would have happened in real life, then it wouldn't have been that bad to kill Rachel off. But after so many books with them all living, they deserved better. I'm pretty sure most fans agree with me, since KA was shocked at how many people disliked it.

[morfowt]

since KA was shocked at how many people disliked it.

but wasn't that when the book just came out? 5 years later, I'm pretty sure at least some of the people have had a slight change of heart.

[Shock]

i wasn't annoyed that K.A. let a realistic view of war seep in.

however, i am annoyed that she left off with a cliffhanger ending.

[Toc']

    Dear Animorphs Readers:

    Quite a number of people seem to be annoyed by the final chapter in the Animorphs story. There are a lot of complaints that I let Rachel die. That I let Visser Three/One live. That Cassie and Jake broke up. That Tobias seems to have been reduced to unexpressed grief. That there was no grand, final fight-to-end-all-fights. That there was no happy celebration. And everyone is mad about the cliffhanger ending.

    So I thought I'd respond.

    Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever. Often relationships that were central during war, dissolve during peace. Some people who were brave and fearless in war are unable to handle peace, feel disconnected and confused. Other times people in war make the move to peace very easily. Always people die in wars. And always people are left shattered by the loss of loved ones.

    That's what happens, so that's what I wrote. Jake and Cassie were in love during the war, and end up going their seperate ways afterward. Jake, who was so brave and capable during the war is adrift during the peace. Marco and Ax, on the other hand, move easily past the war and even manage to use their experience to good effect. Rachel dies, and Tobias will never get over it. That doesn't by any means cover everything that happens in a war, but it's a start.

    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. Life isn't a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don't do a lot of celebrating. There's very little chanting of 'we're number one' among people who've personally experienced war.

    I'm just a writer, and my main goal was always to entertain. 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. I've spent 60 books telling a strange, fanciful war story, sometimes very seriously, sometimes more tongue-in-cheek. I've written a lot of action and a lot of humor and a lot of sheer nonsense. But I have also, again and again, challenged readers to think about what they were reading. To think about the right and wrong, not just the who-beat-who. 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. Wars very often end, sad to say, just as ours did: with a nearly seamless transition to another war.


Ok. She didn't want to end her series up  with all the characters saying "yeah! now that we saved the world and the universe, what would you think of eating something? My stomach is crying !"
Maybe she should remember that lots of "her" (more or less questionnable) books ended up with all the characters eating french fries and hamburgers in a fast food... Maybe she could remember... if she actually had written "her" books..


    So, you don't like the way our little fictional war came out? You don't like Rachel dead and Tobias shattered and Jake guilt-ridden? You don't like that one war simply led to another? Fine. Pretty soon you'll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents.


I don't care about the fact that Rachel is dead, about the fact Jake is blocked in the past, that Tobias cannot get over it.. I DON'T LIKE the fact that on the ground that she wants to be realistic she is just covering up  for the bad quality of her book!
She apparently doesn't understand (or doesn't want to understand) that most fans are not happy with the end NOT because they are stupid kids whose brains are being washed  by some propaganda and video games in favor of war but because they are disappointed by the way she scamped it all... She rushed into things so suddenly while there were so many useless and badly-written books she could have just not published (or replaced with good books)....[/b][/i][/color]



    If you're mad at me because that's what you have to take away from Animorphs, too bad. I couldn't have written it any other way and remained true to the respect I have always felt for Animorphs readers.

    K.A. Applegate

Yes... I'm glad she didn't end the book with a happy end in a Harry Potter way ! (Phew, we were spared that end).

Yet I think she has a very personnal and interesting way to express "the respect she has always felt for animorphs readers" ...  Indeed, the ghostwriters, the way "her" books fell into low quality ... Some of them were just useless/ridiculous/pathetic/badly-written (choose the word you want there) and you could feel they were only there to fill in the space because of the "supply" (=to make money). It doesn't really fit what she claimed about "wanting to be honest and respectful to her readers...

Anyway, in the end you could tell that she was eager to get rid of the animorphs and I hate that.  It's like me, writing an essay for a philosophy class, then getting tired of it and eventually finishing it with a general open question so that the teacher can sort it out themselves....
There is a word for that kind of work : slapdash work (as my dictionary told me)


And then if she was really honest... Why did she wait for 53 books to be written before killing ONE (and only ONE) of the characters? She sumed up 10 years or so in a few pages. She doesn't talk about James and the others. She doesn't talk about anything. The whole last book looks like an epilogue...
And then she cooks us a crappy end without real end cause "hey kids the end has no end".
Sorry but that's fast food...
This/These last books are like fast food to me untasty and unutrious.
It's all gross....

I am a disappointed fan cause i think animorphs deserved more attention...
I loved the first books, I liked the way she was trying to give a message in a subtle way and the 19th book is among my favorites... But as the series went the books lost their good quality (that's my opinion).


As for those who even dared to compare K.A. Applegate's work to Michaelangelo, Picasso... Just one thing : LOL
This end is not a masterpiece, it's a piece of s.h.i.t ! .
And as Escafil device said it, I also consider K.A. as arrogant and LAZY. Besides I think this message to us is just concupiscent.
I will certainly not buy and read another book by her... No way...

[Chad32]

I haven't even touched a Remnants book or ebook after the Animorphs ending. I got into Everworld before Animorphs ended, but left it. I won't be picking that one up either, especially since it only lasted twelve books anyway.

[AcreLorraine]

Wow, that's a bit much.  I get your complaints about a cliffhanger ending, I hate that too, but really, calling it rushed.  So many people have that sense, but I don't see it.  As for not picking up any of her other books, that's just stupid.  So you didn't get the ending you wanted.  I stand by my argument, I don't like the ending, mostly because Rachel died and Tobias got screwed over because of it, but that is no reason to avoid the rest of her stuff.  I couldn't get into everworld, I admit that.  but Remnants was pretty good.  As for James and the others, they died.  We know this.  in the last book Visser 1 targeted animals specifically, removing them in clumps until there were none left on the battlefield. 

[Toc']

As for not picking up any of her other books, that's just stupid.  So you didn't get the ending you wanted.  I stand by my argument, I don't like the ending, mostly because Rachel died and Tobias got screwed over because of it, but that is no reason to avoid the rest of her stuff.  I couldn't get into everworld, I admit that.

Then you didn't get my point ...
It's not the ending that I don't like. And actually I think Rachel is better dead... I hardly see how she could have coped with the dull life after the war.

I just got the feeling that K.A. was too "busy" to really focuse on Animorphs...
And, I repeat, I got the feeling that the last book was just a very long epilogue.

As for James and the others, they died.  We know this.  in the last book Visser 1 targeted animals specifically, removing them in clumps until there were none left on the battlefield.

When i said "the others" I also talked about  characters such as Loren...

[goom]

yeah, i agree completely, no offense to harry potter lovers (myself included), but the ending was horrible.
he should have died.

i just want to know what was with Ax? I mean, i know it wasnt him, but man that scene gave me the creeps.  ???

i still haven't been able to figure it out.
K.A. should make one more book without a cliffhanger. "Ram the Bladeship!"...

[KOFSoldier]

I have to agree, The Beginning felt rushed to me as well. As well as a form of ventilation for her....let me explain.

During the course of Animorphs, KA had tried to write Everworld (her supposed "Dream Project"), but just couldnt get it to take off. In a way, I think she felt trapped. She created a monster called "Animorphs" and no matter what she did, she just couldnt get from under it's shadow. So I think she wanted to end it, and I think she might have been left just a little bit bitter about it. Things like this happen all the time actually. Kind of like when a music artist gets trapped under such a successful single, that they cant get anything else to sell.

Such as with Neon Genesis Evangelion, the fans hated the ending of the series so much, that the overwhelming response almost demanded that he made a new one (he was even receiving death threats over it).

So he created a movie to end it, and everyone died. A lot of people said he did this because he was angry, and this was his way of revenge.

[Duff]

I'd prefer to hate the way things ended and hate what happened to the characters then to have a happy ending that I didn't find realistic and that I could never really feel was real. Like harry potter, it wasnt just that it was such a happy ending, it was that it just didnt seem right. Animorphs felt right, no matter how many bad things happened.

I loved the ending lol

[Hylian Dan]

And, I repeat, I got the feeling that the last book was just a very long epilogue.

I don't see how this is a problem. I like how KAA tends to make the penultimate book the huge climactic finale, then uses the last book to wind down the story and show how the characters move on. When I've stuck with a story for so long, I find this a more satisfying way to close things than the Final Battle followed almost immediately by the end, cause I want to be able to process that I won't be able to read about these characters anymore.

If KA had killed off Animorphs throughout the series, like what would have happened in real life, then it wouldn't have been that bad to kill Rachel off. But after so many books with them all living, they deserved better.

This was addressed in the series, just like the major coincidence of how the Animorphs group was formed. The Ellimist and Crayak's game was part of the canon of the story. The Drode informed the Animorphs that the terms of the game established that there was always a way out for them.

In the Ellimist Chronicles, it's said that the rules of the game prevent the Ellimist from saving the dying Animorphs. I imagine that Crayak would not forfeit the war without taking a consolation prize, so he arranged the death of his most hated Animorph. He had tried to do that previously with Jake. Book 48 implies that his new target becomes Rachel.