Personal list for just awesome moments? So for shining moments for the Animorphs, or really well-written moments in the series?
1. "Ram the Blade Ship". Haters to the left. This is one of my favorite ending lines of all time, because it really ended the series the way I feel like it had to end to be true to the message of the series and the characters. Not to mention, Jake pulling out of his depressed, traumatized shell to make one last ballsy stand for goodness and courage in the face of evil? Crowning Moment, baby.
2. The Rachel and David fork scene in #22. Rachel's books are pretty uneven, but #22 is a home run. It's so upsetting to me. As a kid, up to that point, you kind of look up to Rachel because she loves doing the brave, righteous thing and does it while looking fabulous and being confident throughout. And then this book comes along and our beloved hero Rachel, using no weapons except a common kitchen utensil, has another kid her age on the ground, jamming a fork into his ear, resisting the urge to twist it and make him scream, and is whispering in his ear about how she's going to kill his parents. Ugh. It's the most disturbing scene in the series to me.
3. Tobias takes out an entire cargo ship as a bird in #3. Improbably? Maybe. Lucky? Certainly. But this scene was necessary to establish Tobias as a capable character beyond just their air support. It also comes as the cherry on top to a book where Tobias feels generally useless and hopeless. And yet, it doesn't all end happy - the chapter ends as Price Cut Polly gets shot out of the sky.
4. "Marco, your mother loves you." "I know my mother loves me, Yeerk." in Visser. Marco is so made of win in Visser. The fact that he, at probably 14-15 years old, is making the highest ranking Yeerk off the Council squirm and doubt him is just excellent. The fact that he's shooting down Edriss' attempts to manipulate him, that he then goes on to turn the tables on her, and then pretty much shoots his dream of saving his mom in the face...this little exchange does a great job illustrating why the Visser One storyline worked.
5. "If I give in to fear, it gives everyone permission to give in to fear." in #16. Finally some Jake character development, and probably some of the best in the series until the end. Jake would have stayed pretty static and inscrutable if this scene hadn't happened, and it does a lot to illustrate why the Cassie/Jake relationship works.
6. The conclusion to #26. The only story I can think of in any fandom where I feel like "power of love" works. Also, you have Ax regaining his honor, Jake sassing off Crayak, and the big twist revelation that the Howlers are children and not just heartless killing machines. And also Erek getting a +5 in character depth.
7. Cassie quits in #19. The whole toothbrush scene always freaked me out, but I really loved how her quitting played out wit the others especially. It really put into the light a lot of the stress that they were under, and I felt like we got to learn a bit more about each of the characters based on how they reacted. Also, Rachel's "you just said the world can go to hell so long as you, Cassie, don't end up turning into me"? Epic.
8. Marco's insomnia chapter in #30. Beautifully written, digs deep into the character, and how utterly screwed up is it? This is probably my favorite scene because I'm biased, though it doesn't have the same long-lasting impact on the series that the other ones listed did, but I just love the idea that even at that stage, he's wondering how he'll someday justify himself, not only to immediate people like his dad and Jake, but to history.
9. Ax saves Leera in #18. After half a book of being untrusted, being unsure, and being manipulated...Ax saves a whole freaking planet. Right before he snaps back out of time. Yes, the timing is too-good-to-be-true, but who cares, Ax rocks this book, and this book is awesome. He saves a whole planet. Come on.
10. Rachel's death. The whole scene is just so graceful and dignified for her, and it's especially powerful after she's spent the last thirty-odd books struggling with the violent part of her herself. I still can't read this scene without tearing up. Heck, I still can't think of "you were brave. You were good. You mattered." "Okay. Okay, then." and not feel a little choked up. It was a beautiful send off to a fantastic character.
Tangent, but I was actually making a list of the most disturbing scenes in the series the other night, in honor of Halloween. Here's what me and my friends came up with:
1. The Rachel and David fork scene in #22
2. Marco considers biting a bully's throat out in #15
3. "I made Jenny Lines breathe" in Visser
4. Tobias breaks his beak off during torture in #33
5. Cassie demorphs from termite while still inside the tree in #9
6. "They're not food!" in #43
7. Amnesiac Rachel's fingers emerge from the gore of her grizzly body in MM#1
8. Cassie brushes her teeth until they bleed in #19
9. David stalks Rachel in #22
10. Marco's rage monologue in #10
What we were surprised by while making this list was how disturbing some of these scenes were without necessarily being violent, how many of them were early in the series, and how many of them took place while the kids were in human form. When they're in battle morphs or whatever, it's easy to get caught in the fantasy of animals vs. aliens. But when they're just middle school kids, only a little older than the target age audience for the book, and the war is seeping into their daily life to the point where one of our heroes has another kid on the ground, using a kitchen implement to hurt him, and whispering about how she's going to kill him family...that always creeped me out. And some of the others were just creepy because of the implication of violence; we don't need to see Jenny Lines drown to imagine it, and David doesn't need to act to send that really creepy "I know where you live" message to Rachel. One of the things KA's great at is using the reader's imagination and very little information to give the reader a very cogent picture of how messed up the events in the series are.
