Unrealistic *Spoiler*

[11:11]

Well Jake does die in MM3 (and Rachel for a second) and Elfangor gets killed in the very first book which is something that effects Ax throughout the series off and on. I dunno I guess it never really bothered me that no one died until the very end. There were plenty of other hardships that went on throughout the series that they had to deal with without anyone dying.

[Alex Oiknine]

Well, I said it was unrealistic, I just disagree that it was poor execution for a 9-12 series.

Without a substantial amount of other characters, any character in the beginning would have to die in the first few books in order to achieve being a peripheral character without kids knowing it was a peripheral character and expecting that character to die. To have a death happen to a character by the middle of the series, there would have to be a lot more than 5 characters - or kids would develop less attachment to other characters knowing they're peripheral and destined to die (I mean, what would anyone think of a character singled out to be the only unnarrated character in the story?) Even so, most kids probably wouldn't even be attached to the character until that character narrated - I think narration is a big key to that attachment in the Animorphs series, because it is not written in third person with any sense of semi-omniscience for the audience. It's the curse of first-person narration - that's why we can feel so upset when George Weasley or Dumbledore die even when they're not really main characters at all - because of the third-person narrative.

Doesn't work the same with first person narrative, but the first-person narrative provided so many more benefits for the sake of really engrossing the kids in the horrors of war. I think Tobias probably could have been killed mid-series (any time after book #3 really) and it could have made sense from a book production standpoint because as much as kids loved him he was a character in a fragile bird body, didn't have morphing powers for a long time and then avoided morphing like the plague a lot of the time, etc., etc. But doing the series with only five narrators would have been hard, too.

It would just be really, really hard to pull off is my point, and I can completely understand why it wasn't done. I write FanFic with a mature rating and I plan to have some more characters narrate and peripheral characters included over time. My plan is that peripheral characters will narrate and if regularly narrating characters die peripheral characters will move up. But realistically, I feel that's something I can handle as an adult reader, not a preteen. And my child education seems to agree with me so far - it would have been very difficult, and very likely not profitable - to attempt that. And Scholastic thought Tobias and Ax were controversial enough as characters as it was - hence them narrating less books than the others. >> But I mean, I do wonder how it would have worked that way - but I usually wonder that in conjunction of wondering how much better the series could have been written if it was aimed at a teen or adult audience.

[Kotetsu1442]

...Scholastic thought Tobias and Ax were controversial enough as characters as it was - hence them narrating less books than the others.

Could you clairify or tell me more about this? I had never heard that they were considered 'controversial' in any way, I just figured it was harder to write from their perspective (especially while Tobias was completely trapped as bird: "And then everyone went inside to go about the mission. I kept lookout. I preened my feathers some. I kept looking around. Fifteen minutes later I let them know that more reinforcements were approaching. I kept lookout some more. Everyone came running out while morphing back to human. Then they morphed bird and we flew away).

...I usually wonder that in conjunction of wondering how much better the series could have been written if it was aimed at a teen or adult audience.

I thought it was considered "young adult." I mean, it started out appropriate enough for children (I remember it being very vague about saying what happened in #1 when the policeman Human-Controller died for example) but it quickly became deep and serious in some topics, as well as occasionally graphic; I always assumed that the target was intended to be 'young adult' (though I know the boundary between "children's book" and "young adult" can be flexible often).

[Alex Oiknine]

Could you clairify or tell me more about this? I had never heard that they were considered 'controversial' in any way, I just figured it was harder to write from their perspective (especially while Tobias was completely trapped as bird: "And then everyone went inside to go about the mission. I kept lookout. I preened my feathers some. I kept looking around. Fifteen minutes later I let them know that more reinforcements were approaching. I kept lookout some more. Everyone came running out while morphing back to human. Then they morphed bird and we flew away).

Maybe controversial isn't as correct as "strange" - however, Applegate has at some point written their natures (being hawk and Andalite) being why they did not narrate more books as noted at this address: http://www.scholastic.ca/animorphs/animfaq.htm. Mind you, that was when it was still being published. Post-finale I believe she has written at least once that their characters had Scholastic concerned - that kids wouldn't be able to relate and read less of them. I mean, Tobias in his debut narrating book tries to kill himself flying into a mall window. It wasn't exactly a character you often see - not even for a high school series. And they always narrated less stories - in The Beginning we still see this, with Ax and Tobias narrating one chapter each - and Ax's chapter is just to give us an idea of what happened, or that something was going to happen.

I thought it was considered "young adult." I mean, it started out appropriate enough for children (I remember it being very vague about saying what happened in #1 when the policeman Human-Controller died for example) but it quickly became deep and serious in some topics, as well as occasionally graphic; I always assumed that the target was intended to be 'young adult' (though I know the boundary between "children's book" and "young adult" can be flexible often).

I think books are rated differently now, but when I used to buy books from Barnes and Noble or Borders Animorphs was always listed as 9-12. (Nowadays for all I know they'd be rated younger because the vocabulary seems to be a bit simple for kids - they've been pushing a lot of vocabulary, grammar, and math concepts down into younger grades than when I was in school. However, when I was in school, that was how they were rated - which would make sense - that would be late elementary school through middle school - and Animorphs was in the middle school and elementary libraries - never in my high school libraries - unless they were hidden around in the "Books you can't get credit for reading" types of categories!) They certainly weren't written at a high-school level at any point - most of the kids I know who read it nowadays are in second-fourth grade.

[Kotetsu1442]

Post-finale I believe she has written at least once that their characters had Scholastic concerned - that kids wouldn't be able to relate and read less of them.

Don't go out of your way searching for it on my account, but if you do know off the top of your head where statements like that are available I would be interested, I was under the impression that Scholastic basically gave them free reign as far as the content was concerned. Like I said, I thought that anomalies like less Ax/Tobias books was purely the author's decision.

I mean, Tobias in his debut narrating book tries to kill himself flying into a mall window.

I'm going to have to reread that very carefully. It might be that I first read it as a kid and wasn't thinking in terms of suicide, but I thought that the flying into the mall window was purely the hawk instincts not understanding glass and Tobias being too freaked out (from his first hunt) to fight the instincts. I guess there could be a bit of the "unreliable narrator" plot device though, something new for me to think about.



As far as Children's vs. Young adult goes, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a terrible source to ask about that, A family friend gave me a set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for my 8th birthday and from then on I perused the public library and devoured every type of fantasy I could regardless of intended audience, reading 'Adult' books in elementary school and "Children's" beyond college. I suppose it all depends on what the individual reader is interested in and can find something to get out when it comes to a book's 'level'. Incidentally, my little brother is about the age I was when I first got into Animorphs, so I suddenly realized it was time to get him into them the other day. He's really loving #1 so far and if he's anything like I was he'll have burned through the whole series by the end of this summer. He'll need his own copies when the re-release happens.

[Alex Oiknine]

To your first part, I'll look through the LJ community because I believe that's where I first read the quote.

Edit: Dang it, I give up. But I remember the general quote being something along the lines of there being a worry that kids wouldn't relate to the characters, so they ended up narrating less. Not that they were being CENSORED. And then Applegate ended it with "And they ended up being beloved characters" except in her own words, which is why I know for sure it is not the FAQ I referenced you to earlier. But it would take months of back-tracking the community to find the link, even with my remotely LJ-savvy skills.

To your second part...

"But I wasn't going to stop. I wasn't going to slow down. I shot toward the door like I'd shot toward the rat. I was just going to end this right now. I would hit the glass at full speed and maybe that would awaken me from this nightmare.
...
"A guy, dark hair, short, stepped to the door. He opened it.

"I must have been doing eighty miles an hour. A second set of doors, but these were open too. No impact. No awakening."

He was trying to kill himself that whole entire chapter. His hawk wanting the sky in the end wasn't him losing out to instinct, they make it pretty clear he only doesn't control it because he desperately WANTS to hit something at full speed, the whole chapter. They don't flat out say he wants to die, just "I want to wake up" - but he's not stupid, he knows he's awake.

[Terenia]

I've read the bit about Ax and Tobias narrating less due to a choice on the part of Scholastic as well. I think it was more of a collaborative choice between the author's and Scholastic, though. None of them really saw those two as  characters that children could relate to, which is all important in a monthly series book, especially if it has a rotating narrator system.

As far as marketing, I've always seen it aimed towards a very elementary audience, not even necessarily middle school. When they first started coming out they were everywhere at my elementary school, but when I got to junior high it was already a 'kids book' that was mock-worthy (of course this wasn't the intention of Scholastic). Essentially, I think that the books were directly marketed at the same kids who were just getting out of The BabySitter's Club and The Boxcar Children and heading down the route of reading Goosebumps religiously. For me, that had always seemed like an elementary school audience.

Plus, if you look on some of the early ones, it has a reading level listed of a 4.5 or something. Obviously I know that's bull and reading level is never, ever decided upon correctly, but I figured that Scholastic put it there to basically tell parents what age it was appropriate for their kids to read them.

[Kotetsu1442]

Wow, that really does change my view of early-in-the-series Tobias. I went ahead and re-read that book this morning to make sure I had the context.

Still, I wouldn't call him suicidal. Yes, he didn't actually believe he was in a nightmare when he was trying to 'wake up' when he was first entering the mall. But he wasn't actually planning on killing himself and just using the term 'waking up' as a euphemism, because it wasn't life itself he was trying to end, he kept stating that he wanted to be human again, not end it all. He really wasn't behaving in a rational way (although I suppose many would argue that there is no such thing as a rational suicide) and in some disjointed way had convinced himself that destroying the hawk would give him back the humanity he believed he had lost, as he flew at something with high speed once inside the mall he said that he hoped to find himself stopped because he had his 'puny human arms' again.

By the end of the chapter it had shifted too, he definitely stated that 'the hawk had one' and that it was in control, thinking that 'the blue sky was safety' and that 'it didn't understand the glass.' In a way, he seemed to have convinced himself that the hawk was holding him captive and that he was willing to die fighting his captor, then he simply gave up and submitted to the capture at Rachel's pleading. Certainly not rational, but not suicidal in the sense that it was his intent to kill himself.

For murder they have the term "crime of passion" which can legally be considered a temporary insanity with lesser culpability; I wonder if mental health experts have a term distinguishing 'suicides of passion' as opposed to someone who is suicidal in a planned, premeditated way.



In any case, it's now 9:30 AM of the 4th of July, so I need to get out and play; I'll contemplated the depths of these and other favorite books some other time  .

[Estelore]

I started reading them in first grade; it never occurred to me that the content of the books could be inappropriate for any reader. In fact, last night Chunes asked me, if I could change any aspect of my childhood, then what? I had to answer that I would have started reading Animorphs at a much younger age. It would have had me better prepared for some of the more unpleasant aspects of life, because I would have been able to draw emotionally on the strengths of each character to help me deal with my own reality.

[Shenmue654]

I had started in second or third grade, so I was older than Estelore but younger than the target audience. The books were easy to read and I had great reading comprehension. It only occurs to adult me later that maybe I shouldn't have been reading them at that age. The main characters were in the early stages of junior high and there was some seriously disturbing content in there.

But then again, I guess that's proof that kids are smarter and more tolerant than parents give them credit for. After all, I played a game meant for teenagers when I was ten. Alone. Depends on the kid.

As for whether somebody should have died, I disagree. Part of the reason Animorphs worked was that the main characters were so consistent. At the age I read them at, I was certainly afraid they wouldn't make it out in each book. I think we're looking at this from the perspective of adult nerds who have read a lot of books and played a lot of games. Just because we could predict what would happen now doesn't mean the target audience could. Yet new as they are in the ways of cliche and nerd-dom. X3

I can tell you straight that I had empathy with the characters because they were consistent, though death would've made for a more realistic war story. : )


 

[Alex Oiknine]

Still, I wouldn't call him suicidal.

Planning or not, going out to kill yourself is suicidal. Quite a lot of people who commit suicide have no plan for it. When I was in high school one of the teachers I knew had a student commit suicide by thrusting a pen through his eyeball. Quite a lot of depressed people do commit suicide this way - fairly suddenly, no plan about it.

I can understand seeing a difference between someone who plans or not, but it is akin to saying someone killed out of passion over having a methodical scheme to kill one. It doesn't mean you didn't commit murder.

He didn't mean "then hawk had won" like he was losing to instinct. He was tired of being hawk. He didn't want to kill to eat. He'd been in morph for several weeks, and we know that loss of control of a morph for that length of time is essentially impossible - other than with creatures like ants or termites. Any other loss of control (like Cassie giving into the butterfly, Rachel letting the bald eagle fly her first dive) is a "voluntary" surrender of will. If Tobias "lost" to the hawk, it was because he was tired of control.

That is the same reason he was so upset for killing the rat - the hawk wasn't too difficult to control, he was just relaxing and a bit jazzed and didn't think to make it stop.

(It's this same knowledge of morphing that makes Marco so sure that David killed the crow on purpose in The Discovery, or Ax's uneasiness in The Android when Marco goes after a beetle in wolf-spider morph.)

Sorry - I understand not wanting to think he was attempting suicide, but I had a kneejerk reaction to suicide needing to be planned. Most people I know who have attempted didn't exactly go out and scheme, they just went from depressed to overboard.

[JohnBlaze]

It would've hurt the series....honestly, Rachel's death hurt a lot as well, but we accepted it because that was the end of the series, so we couldn't really say anything (unless KA would make a continuation with Rachel coming back to Earth thanks to a deal with the Ellimist and her and Cassie lead a resistance *ahem ahem*)

but yeah, a midway death would've been more realistic, but think about it....these kids are supposed to be the 'extraordinaries' amongst the human race...they were already faced with odds the whole time, I guess KA wanted us to believe that teamwork, strategy conquers all, as well as being all odds


...idk if anyone else put all of this earlier

[Kotetsu1442]

Sorry - I understand not wanting to think he was attempting suicide, but I had a kneejerk reaction to suicide needing to be planned. Most people I know who have attempted didn't exactly go out and scheme, they just went from depressed to overboard.

First off, no need to apologize for clarifying your viewpoint, I would never object to that.

Anyways, I'm not trying to reject the idea of suicide. If Tobias succeeded in killing himself it would have been suicide in the same way that a person who kills someone during a crime of passion did still murder them. But would you say then that a person who has committed murder while temporarily clinically insane is a murderous person? Could anyone really consider themselves anything but murderous in acknowledgment that they could be driven into the same state of mind under the right circumstances?

So I'm not saying that his behavior wasn't suicidal at that time, or that if he succeeded it wouldn't have been suicide; but that was because the horror of his kill had driven him into a temporary suicide crisis (that's the term I was looking for in the previous post), not that he himself was suicidal. A person in a drug induced state can similarly cause a person who is not suicidal to commit the suicide. I'm not saying that a suicide needs to be planned to be suicide, just there is a distinction between being driven to a suicide crisis and being a suicidal person.



As far as the 'loosing control of the morph' thing goes, I don't think that it can be said in any certain way that we know that 'loss of control of a morph for that length of time is essentially impossible,' There isn't enough information about nothlits and long-term effects of morphing a single body. Sure, after the initial surge of instincts the characters maintain control of the morph (mostly), but the instincts are still present and nag at them, they never have to maintain this control longer than two hours at a time. It can easily be an ongoing mental effort to maintain your identity in a different physical body complete with its own brain containing its mental processes. He talked before that episode of feeling like he was losing himself a lot, so I think at the end of the mall scene after Rachel's words it was a matter of surrendering to something he couldn't control; he was dodging things being thrown at him, saw the sky as purely safety and said "The hawk had won." He spent the following time as a hawk entirely and had difficulty thinking in terms of a human until something jerked his human side into asserting itself. It really wasn't until he became comfortable accepting that he was both hawk and human (#23, The Pretender) instead of trying to decide on one or the other that he really reached a relative long term peace.

[Alex Oiknine]

1. Yes, I (and the law) still call laws of passion murder ("crimes of passion" are not the exact equivalent of an "insanity plea.") They are considered murders of a lesser degree, but still murders along with a prison sentence. The difference is that it is not a first degree murder. I would also think killing others really can't be comparable to suicide. At all. But that legally, psychologically, and mentally the only big differences between the two is that more people have a chance of noticing and helping someone who has shown symptoms for a while compared to someone who does something spur of the moment. They're not usually a class of people who wouldn't have attempted "except for this one thing that happened that made me crazy." Certainly, we know this isn't the case of Tobias, who was addicted to morphing, became a nothlit, and then spent his time living bitterly going on about how he'd never be human again. Tobias fits the case of what, 25% of people who attempt suicide? (By which I mean, not showing symptoms that make people concerned he's suicidal and probably not planning anything or contemplating it - not that he's a hawk.) He's a ticking bomb.

I would also argue he's far from long-term peace in #23. It was more like a temporary peace (which seems to be something he finds at the end of all of his books, only to have it end up being irrelevant in the next). In the next book (from 23) he narrates, he experiences all those same internal conflicts when he gets tortured by Taylor, so that conflict still lived in him somewhere. Then again these sorts of problems - his next book also involves Taylor. Then he finds his mother and he goes through the same struggle as he tries to figure out why his mother didn't care for him. (And, for crying out loud, she's blind with amnesia to where she didn't even know the definition of basic vocabulary and he wants to tell her she should have cared for him?) We often decide he's happier as a hawk, but the truth is, if we go based on narration Tobias is a lot of consistent internal struggle.

2. To the morph thing - we know Arbron never lost control of his morph beyond the usual Taxxon need to eat, which is such a heavy drive even a Yeerk can't completely suppress it. However, when they've lost control of their morph, they are not aware of themselves. That seems to be a requirement in all morphs except for those completely overrun by some instinct. Ant, termite, Taxxon. You don't lose control while completely aware of who you are - it's being aware of who you are that seems to determine whether or not you'll be able to control the morph (same reason the Hork-Bajir were generally not considered good for receiving morphing powers by the Animorphs). Tobias, as he puts it repeatedly in the series, is his hawk morph. He didn't have some long-term, completely conscious blip in the ability to control his hawk morph. He just decided it wasn't worth controlling the actions. He's talking about a different type of tired than most people are ever even aware of. And I don't know, but I guess in my opinion trying to deny that side of him just degenerates his character, or part of what his character is about. He's supposed to be the kid who takes life too seriously, can't hold out for better times, etc. Tobias is, essentially, the kid who lets their current life situation dictate their future. I often argue the point that Tobias is sort of like the person who commits suicide from the beginning - he's gone from the human world and he gets to see that people didn't even notice, or that they just moved on.

His quote from MM#4 is an attribute to that part of his character - when he talks about how his life would have sucked, but he could have waited. High school wasn't forever, living with his aunt and uncle weren't forever. But that he'd looked for some salvation that just wasn't real. ("Giving up some of your freedom" probably isn't something anyone should ever agree to, even if they assume it's metaphorical - comes off as a bit cult-like, really.)  It's a shame he couldn't have kept some of that internal revelation in the regular timeline, it might have helped him a little post war.

[Green armadillo ette]

I agree, no deaths till the end was unrealistic, but I think that if someone died halfway, then that may make the series even more unrealistic than it already was.  Because, all of them are needed at the end.  So maybe it would be better with a death, but then the odds would be even less in their favor.