Did anyone dislike Jake's orders? (regarding Rachel)

[anijen21]

I agree. The last two books were a total clusterfudge. You could chalk it up to Jake's utter exhaustion and desperation, but you know what? That boy deserved every ounce of guilt he felt.

[SuperBlue]

I always felt it a bit random, how Rachel was chosen to kill Tom. Jake always went on and on about how he was only an Animorph to free his brother so I thought if anybody was gonna do away with Tom it would be him

[Aluminator (Kit)]

See, this is exactly what KAA was getting at. Her entire purpose of the entire sequence and the post-war thing was to show us, as readers, just how horrific war could actually be. We're lucky she only decided to kill off one Animorph when she was in that frame of mind. Rachel was someone we as readers knew and cared about. I personally feel that Rachel would have fared far better after the war than, say, Tobias or Jake managed to. She may have found what she was best at with the war, but she was an intelligent and adaptive girl- she would have been fine. That makes it all the more tragic to me- whatever future she would have had was simply ended because of the war. I absolutely hate that the finale came down to that, but all that means is that KAA did what she set out to do very well, so kudos to her for that. In that respect it's an incredibly good end to the war.

On the other hand, though, the situation feels kind of contrived, the plan was not an Animorphs plan, and everyone was acting out of character. I'm wondering if taking the series and twisting it all over like that was worth it. Sure, we got the powerful, messy ending that KAA wanted, but at the expense of it continuing to truly be Animorphs in my mind. *shrugs* I guess I wouldn't have considered that to be a worthwhile trade-off, but that doesn't make me right.

[Lydia]

I definitely didn't like the plan. Though Rachel was the right person for the job because of her fighting skills and so on, she didn't have to go alone. Why didn't Jake send some of the auxillary animorphs to go with her as backup?  I mean that's a typical Jake plan. Ofcourse he knew that other morph capable yeerks were aboard the blade ship. So instead of slaughtering all the aux. animorphs, five of them would have been very helpful. I totally hated Jake for that.

[Tobichel]

I definitely didn't like the plan. Though Rachel was the right person for the job because of her fighting skills and so on, she didn't have to go alone. Why didn't Jake send some of the auxillary animorphs to go with her as backup?  I mean that's a typical Jake plan. Ofcourse he knew that other morph capable yeerks were aboard the blade ship. So instead of slaughtering all the aux. animorphs, five of them would have been very helpful. I totally hated Jake for that.

Yeah, that was my post. An error occured so i had to post with my name.

[Jdorsey314]

my disapproval of Jake's decision is the most strong opinion ever produced by any living thing. I hate him. I wish him dead. I wish him to die in agony and then burn in hell forever and ever and ever and ever. I am stewing in my anger today. I have also proven spontaneous human combustion is not possible, as the most ideal set of circumstances for it to ever happen have already existed for an hour and a half. I need to invent some new swear words. how do you get a hold of rocket propelled grenades these days? no one come near me. I may involuntarily lunge at them and twist their head around 180 degrees. I could chop down a tree with my bare hands. does anyone have any regular grenades? I want to burn down some forests and start a world war, I might invent some form of laser weapon and vaporize the nearest wallmart. I want to walk up to Jake and give my honest opinions to him I would say "hello, you #$%& stupid %$## #%$&ing &%&@, physical stimuli will be necessary to more accurately convey my emotions. mind if I stab you repeatedly?" I just typed a passage so horribly gory that It made me sick. I decided to delete it. anyway, I don't just wan't him dead, I want him to be real. I want to kill him myself.

ranting is necessary to prevent the pressure of ones head pressure from reaching dangerous levels. If I wasn't doing this I might die. thank you for reading.

[cathey]

Jake was getting desperate after his parents were abducted to the Yeerk pool. I don't blame him for that. He took the responsibility of leading the most dangerous and important group of soldiers in human history at age 13. People shouldn't take leadership as granted. He did the best job possible for anybody of that age. We're romanticizing this series, but when it really came down to that, when you knew that you couldn't let either the Yeerks or the Andalites win, when you understood that time was running out, that you had to make the right choice right then, to save planet Earth and possibly the galaxy, what would you do? Jake did what the leader of the Animorphs, the leader of all resistance on Earth had to. He had to sacrifice the people he loved, and his decency and humanity for the end. That was it. He had to. Time was running out.

Sometimes I think Jake wanted to kill Tom. At that point there really wasn't a better ending for Tom. They didn't have the luxury to abduct Tom and starve his Yeerk to death anymore. Tom was already independent of Visser Three, he was off to another galaxy to infect another innocent planet/species if he lived. Wouldn't Tom himself rather be dead than live to see Earth destroyed and another world made slaves because of him? Jake didn't have to flush the Yeerks, but he did, not because he needed a diversion - that was a good excuse - but because he wanted the revenge. Cassie let Tom run away with the cube, not because she wanted to save Jake's remaining bit of humanity - that was a good excuse too - but because she believed the Yeerks deserved to be have an out to their lives as parasites. Personally I think Jake actually wanted to kill Tom at that point, there wasn't much other ways to free the real Tom anymore.

I agree the ghost writers got Rachel completely wrong. Rachel wasn't THAT crazy. I think in the end KA had to ride with what the ghosts have done for her, but still, Rachel was sane, cool, composed - not crazy and blood thirsty. She did fear for death, and the most important thing to her at that point was whether she mattered in the war. Plus, she understood Jake's decision. She didn't mind that Jake assigned her mission impossible.

I don't think Jake could or should go after Tom himself. Yes Jake was ruthless, but Marco hesitated at killing his mom. Alloran's brother missed on purpose when he had the perfect chance. Would Jake really execute through when Tom begged for mercy? Plus, it was Jake's plan. He was already under so much guilt that he couldn't even tell anybody the whole plan, just the pieces that they were involved in. He couldn't die, or risk not surviving yet. He had to send somebody. James' crew wasn't that loyal to him, he could only ask James but then there's nobody leading the other Auxiliaries, and they were needed for the distraction. He could only ask his crew. Ax was needed for the computers, and for communication with the Andalites. Marco was needed for the computers. Tobias was needed for the Taxxon. Cassie would probably do everything in her power to stop Jake, and that would mean the end of the human race. There was only Rachel. And even if he asked someone else instead, would Rachel have enjoyed sitting out and watching the grand fight from away, knowing that she does better? If not Rachel, it would have been Marco or Tobias or Ax or Jake himself that we're mourning over. And Rachel would be pretty unhappy she didn't get to fight in the final battle afterwards.

I know. I was pretty shocked when I was reading the second half of 53 too. But it made sense. Jake was strong enough to make the decision, and good enough to never forgive himself for it.

[NothingFromSomething]

Guys, it wasn't anything other than Rachel was the only one who'd actually do it, probably Marco aside, and obviously both Ax and Jake himself.  And both Ax and Jake were needed elsewhere.  I guess he could have gone with Marco, but Rachel was pretty much the obvious choice.  The morphs and fighting proficiency probably came into it too.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I think that many elements of Jake's plan were, well, rushed.  But I think he honestly did the very best he could have, and a heckuva lot better than I could have ever done.  Hindsight is 20/20, people.

For example, if he knew Tom was going to double-cross him anyway, why not kidnap him and starve out the Yeerk?  As sad as it is to say, I think Jake had stopped thinking of Tom as his brother at all by that point, and only as 'the enemy.'  He straight-up says in #47 that he "doesn't have a brother anymore."  It was that thinking that really got Tom killed, in the end.  (Side note: I always think of the one scene Tom actually ever gets as a free human being, clear back in the first book, and he uses that one singular moment of screen-time to go kamikaze-charging at Visser-freaking-Three armed with nothing but his fists; Jake, that's the guy you wrote off as 'not your brother anymore').

Also, I'm sorry, but sending Rachel in alone was a bad move, and should have been avoidable.  The auxiliary Animorphs may not have been completely competent in battle yet, but at least a dozen of them could have been sent in along with Rachel (still leaving enough of them on the ground to provide a perfectly adequate distraction; they only really needed six of them as part of the diversion, after all).  And with the rest following Rachel onto the Blade Ship, they could have overwhelmed the Yeerks by sheer numbers.  Inexperienced or not, more people is better than less people (as was the entire point of the auxiliaries).  Attacking Tom didn't have to be a suicide mission.

*sigh*  But it's really easy to pick apart Jake's actions, when we are so far away from these events, as readers.  The fact is that he was under as much pressure as can possibly have been piled onto one person, fighting for the fate of the world.  And this was their last stand, their absolute last desperate chance to avert a total Yeerk domination of Earth.  The fact that Jake was able to see all the puzzle pieces as clearly as he did (knowing Tom would double-cross him, coming up with a plan that played off of that fact, knowing they'd need a diversion on the ground to keep the Yeerks from guessing they were already aboard the ship) is frankly amazing.  Most people would have simply broken under the pressure, and Earth would have been screwed.

Conclusion: Jake is human.  For better or for worse.

Post-conclusion EDIT: Just for the record, I don't actually place the blame on Jake for Rachel's death.  I place the blame on Cassie.  Her decision to play God with the fate of the world by letting Tom get away with the blue box may have caused a few Yeerks to defect, but, ultimately, THAT was the factor that made such desperate moves on Jake's part even necessary.  And, well, I for one truly want to believe that it was just a knee-jerk reaction to seeing Jake almost killing Tom, and it was just something Cassie did without thinking.  That would be a perfectly human thing to do.  If still the wrong thing.  Wrong, but understandably so.  But, if what she did was premeditated?  If she was intentionally handing over the Animorphs' one game-changing advantage in the hopes that a handful of Yeerks would find their way to their own little happy ending?  If that's the case, then I'm with Ax.  What Cassie did was unforgivable.

[cathey]

Yeah I didn't like Cassie either. Shame we almost have the same name... I mean, this is WAR. And not just any war, we're not fighting over oil or a more powerful stance in the UN, we're fighting so the human race could be free, so planet Earth would not turn into a slave farm in the galaxy. Is that really less important than Jake's decency? Also I totally disagree with her statement that the cause doesn't justify the means. If you're carrying 7 billion free lives on your shoulders, you do every ugly thing that you have to do.

I don't think Jake could have asked more people to go... Even Rachel knew that she was about to die when Jake told her of the plans and was scared waiting for her final fight. The Auxiliaries didn't even want to fight after one of their people died. If Jake asked James to give him 2 from his gang, to join Rachel aboard the Blade Ship, would they react as calmly as Rachel? Remember, James is new, and his people only listen to him, and they haven't gone through much to get as cold blooded as the Animorphs were becoming. They didn't understand the reality of war yet. The Animorphs group was already falling apart, so no way any vote would go through knowing it was very likely suicide for the chosen members. He couldn't risk Marco whining, Tobias challenging, Cassie trying to stop the plan in any way possible, or Rachel herself getting furious and demanding why not. It had to be kept secret. Maybe Marco could have gone as well. But I dunno, I have a feeling Ax and Rachel are the only two people who would calmly take the order and go execute, and Ax was needed for his technical skills. Plus sending Ax off wouldn't be so fun to read anymore... I am the servant of the people... yeah we've heard that a couple times now...

I do agree that I would prefer putting a few Auxiliaries to the mission, but that might not have been possible at all.  The kids were very likely going to freak out. Rachel was the only one tame enough to accept the mission and not tell anyone about it.

About Tom... Ever since Tom got the morphing ability, it became impossible to free him. You couldn't tie him up anymore. He's either going to morph bug to escape or morph jaguar to fight to the death. I'm very, VERY surprised that Jake's yeerk back in book 6 decided to surrender instead of going for the escape at night. The tiger was the most powerful morph in the group. And I don't think Rachel developed the killer nature to murder her cousin at that point in the series yet. They would have hesitated in killing Jake. The Yeerk had no problem killing any of them. Plus, if he gets out, he's gonna get promoted to visser rank in no time. He doesn't, it's death by starvation. Such polarized choices and he decided to surrender...

[DinosaurNothlit]

Cassie is just so thoroughly not a big-picture person, I don't think she could ever quite wrap her head around what it was they were fighting for.  Sure, she can completely fall apart over one life (human, Hork-bajir . . . or termite), but a hundred, or a billion?  She could never even fathom those numbers.  She is, in essence, a walking talking example of that saying "One death is a tragedy, one hundred deaths is a statistic."  That was, honestly, just how her brain worked.

Keep in mind that, although the auxiliaries were inexperienced, the Yeerks were very new at morphing, too.  And, with enough people, taking the Blade Ship wouldn't have necessarily been a suicide mission at all.  Send in a dozen auxiliaries, overwhelm everybody on the Blade Ship, maybe there's a casualty or two, but that's still a heck of a lot less scary than being on the ground out in the open where you're apt to get shot at with ship-board Dracons.  As all of the auxiliaries actually were.

Granted, of course, that the Animorphs had no idea at the time that putting all the auxiliaries on the ground would be a suicide mission for them.  But they still should have known that being exposed like that would be far more dangerous than trying to overpower the Blade Ship from inside (with adequate backup).

Hmm, that's a pretty good point about Tom.  I think they still could have freed him, but it would have taken all of them to do it, and taking all of the Animorphs out of the fight for those three days would have been a bad idea.  See, even though he could probably take one of them in a fight, he couldn't take all of them.  That's the same thing that did Jake's Yeerk in, too.  Underestimating the strength of the team as a whole.

[cathey]

But they did go home for sleep when Jake was a controller. They weren't all over him at that time. Jake's Yeerk could have morphed tiger right there and took a stand. Tobias' hawk and Cassie's wolf were no match. Ax... maybe. I don't think you get to call Rachel and Marco in for showdown at 3AM in the morning. So if book 6 was any more realistic, Jake would have died there. In 54, the yeerks were saying they'd rather fight to death than die of starvation. So I'm pretty surprised Jake's yeerk didn't choose to go down the hard way.

Tom's Yeerk should be smarter. Any yeerk should be smarter. Aftran asked for death. I'm pretty sure Tom's yeerk would have took a stand. Morph bug, get caught, okay, demorph, morph jaguar, fight to death, fail, demorph, morph jaguar, fight to death again... Also who knows if Tom has a fly with him as backup / messenger? Cassie's decision was stupid. They still had a chance to save Tom if Tom was just a human (actually I'm surprised Jake didn't think of kidnapping Tom after book 6 but just decided to leave a weird message), it's impossible if Tom and his crew became morph capable.

I really don't know... Maybe he could have asked Marco as well, but how many flees do you get to put on an enemy without having them noticing? I agree that he might have been able to put 2 more people on the ship, but to outnumber is quite impossible. The auxiliaries had to pick up a flee morph btw, and they had to accept death.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I think what saved Jake was the fact that not all Yeerks think alike.  Sure, a fair number of Yeerks might have been so terrified of Kandrona starvation that they would have pushed their luck, trying to die in any other way except that.  But Jake's Yeerk seemed to be pretty bent on surviving as long as it absolutely could.  I believe he went so far as to point out the foolishness of humans that would fight even when the odds were against them, saying that it was better to play it safe and survive.  He didn't so much care how he died, because he only cared about not dying.

Of course, that way of thinking ended up biting him in the @$$.  But, I don't think it was necessarily unrealistic.  It's pointed out several times in the series that humans are rather unusual in our dogged persistence against long odds, and the fact that we keep fighting when others would have long-since given up.

I still think they could have saved Tom, if they had ever made it a priority.  If he were injured, he would demorph rather than die, and as a human they could knock him out, buy themselves a little time that way while he's unconscious, and then just keep at it and never let him get the upper hand.  Heck, if they timed it right, he might not even get the chance to morph fully before they could injure him enough that he'd just have to demorph again.  And then, he'd have to sleep, same as they do, they'd just have to be careful to always post a watch in case he woke up and tried something.  Maybe even employ a few of the free Hork-bajir to help.  It could be done.  Jake just didn't care.

[Chad32]

Honestly if the Chee could get the supplies, they could keep Tom's body unconscious, and feed him intravenously for three days. There were ways to make it work, even if he could morph. Although since the Yeerk stated it could morph too, they may have to worry about it morphing something and exploding out of Tom's head. Killing him and making his escape anyway.

Then again, the only reason he got the box was because the author threw Cassie and Jake the idiot ball, as TV Tropes puts it. A Human controller with a dracon beam is not enough to really escape from a Tiger and a Wolf. If Cassie had distracted Tom instead of attacked Jake, they could have brought him down and carried him off. We can debate this all we want, and there are some legitamately good ways to rescue Tom. It just happened the way it did because the ghostwriter wanted it to happen that way.

[cathey]

About Tom I really think they should have kidnapped him early on in the series. The Chee already covered for Jake once. They could have done that for Tom. They had so many morphs. All they had to do was ambush him and knock him out, then carry him out to the woods and starve the yeerk. It was so easy, and I can't believe it wasn't the first thing that came to Jake's mind once he was freed. It's one of my biggest grudges for the series. If Tom was saved they would have got more info on the yeerks earlier in the series, and they could have made him a new member when David found the cube. It's like KA wrote book 6 for nothing. ...though KA really wrote a lot of books in the series that had served no purpose or had some potential that was essentially, wasted...

I think in the very book Cassie stopped Jake from stopping Tom, she got mad at her parents for not understanding that this was war, and the whole human race is at risk. So I'm really amused at how self-conflicting these characters could be. Yeah I know. The point was mainly to point out where Rachel and Cassie got their extreme genes from, but it's still stupid.

My main reason for backing Jake in his final move was that time was running out. The only thing that mattered then was whether a certain strategy would work, and I really don't blame him. In almost every other scenario out there, Earth would have been fully infiltrated and destroyed. Even though his plan was flawed, and it was so sad reading his thoughts after watching Rachel die, "I ordered my cousin to execute my brother. How will I ever explain that?", it was understandable.