Tobias and Nothlitism

[TobiasMasonPark]

     Pro: He doesn't have to worry about becoming a controller, and thus exposing his friends to the Yeerks.

     Con: Always possibility that another Hawk will come and attempt to steal his territory.

[Nar Klawip]

Pro: He doesn't have to worry about lunch money.

Con: His lunch consists of mostly rats and mice.

[JFalcon]

Pro: I'd say the level of freedom. He can go anywhere a hawk could survive, and he can see anything a hawk can see which means he probably saw amazing sights from a fairly unique perspective.

Con: The danger, no longer being on the top of the food chain, having to be on constant lookout for attacks from bigger hawks or eagles, owls and what have you. He was always fighting the yeerks and natural predators, sometimes both.

[Blaise Zebrataur]

Pros: He was happy as a red-tailed hawk and really came to peace to live that he was BOTH human and hawk(in his mind).

Cons: Not able to have a relationship with Rachel.(Personally I'd be happy to be trapped as a red-tailed hawk and never see any Cons but that is just me...)

[Blaise Zebrataur]

I kind of always thought that the space he hid in was the right size for a hawk, but too small for a human. So even if he wanted to, he might not have been able to.

I kindof agree this this.

Either way you could tell he was happy as a hawk so if he trapped himself on purpose or not is only known by Tobias and K. A. Applegate.And the red-tailed hawk body did always seem to fit Tobias for me so I figure right off when I read it for the first time,that he would trap himself in that form.

So I think that he...did trap himself and would mention his old life and that because he was missing it now and then,but he wanted to put that behind him and live as a real hawk as best he could.

Either way in the end,I will always like the chracter known as Tobias.

[Phoenix004]

Topics merged.

[Canicula]

I also wondered if he trapped himself as a hawk on purpose or if it really had been an accident. At first I thought that it was an accident but in the later books I thought he did it on purpose, but there are some points that makes me think It must have been an accident because he had no reason to do this on purpose that time:
Sure, his live was horrible and he hated it, but why should he trap himself at the moment when he finally found something worth fighting for? In book one he stated:
"Suddenly the wimp is a hero," Marco sneered.
This time Tobias didn't blush. "Maybe I just found something worth fighting for, Marco."
"You don't even fight for yourself," Marco said.
"That was before," Tobias said softly. "Before the Andalite. Before he died trying to save us.
I can't let that go. I can't let him die for nothing. So whatever you guys decide, I'm going to
fight."
He must have known that he couldn't fight like the others if he is trapped in the body of a bird, and he really wanted to fight, so trapping himself would make no sense.
And an other point is, that after they were on the construction site he made friends for the first time. Rachel made it clear, that she cared for him and and I think the others wouldn't let him down after what happend at that evening.
So for the first time he had people who cared for him and a reason to fight, so why should he trapped himself at the point his live was getting better?

[yunyun]

I still think it was on purpose. His life always sucked alot, and bird is a perfect way to forget it Yeah, he did want to fight, but maybe he did think up the possibility of being helpful as a hawk. And maybe when the other decided to join too, he felt that a hawk is goo enough.

[DinosaurNothlit]

See, the thing is, I don't think it was a conscious decision at all.  I don't think Tobias rationally thought, "well, my life sucks, I want to live as a hawk, but on the other hand, my life is getting better and maybe I shouldn't, oh what the heck I'll do it."  I think it was a sort of mixture between an accident and a decision.  I definitely don't buy that it was completely an accident (for reasons I've stated a long time ago in this very thread, incidentally).  But I don't think it was completely a decision, either.  Tobias seemed to truly believe that he still wanted to be human, right up until book #13.

What most likely happened was that some subconscious urge to abandon his human life and stay a hawk made him hesitate, even when he consciously knew he should be trying to escape.  Does anybody know that feeling?  It's like forgetting to get gas on the day you're supposed to go to the dentist.  Consciously, you aren't actually thinking "well, how can I give myself an excuse to be trapped away from something I don't like?" yes that sentence was intended to have a double meaning  But at the same time you probably wouldn't have made that mistake if you didn't subconsciously know that you would benefit from it.

[Noelle]

I always thought that it was a subconscious decision.  I think deep down he wanted to, but I don't know that he definitively decided that he wanted to be trapped.

If it was an actual, conscious decision, I don't think he would have done it.  All of the things he had his freak out about in book 3 would have been on his mind as he decided, and I think he would have at least waited a little longer to become a hawk, or waited until his situation got massively worse. 

[Ouroboros]

I like to think that he did it as an act of escapism as well.

Sure, there's still the war and the danger and all that, but most of the human concerns and problems he had no longer matter.

[Canicula]

But at the same time you probably wouldn't have made that mistake if you didn't subconsciously know that you would benefit from it.

Not if it wasn't a mistake. I mean if he really was trapped in a cave which had the size for a hawk but was to small for him to morph back to his human body he maybe really had no other choice then wait. I don't want to say, that I think it was like that, but it could really have been like that. Than he wouldn't have made any choice, neither a conscious nor a subconscious one.

[Pippi]

I think he trapped himself on purpose. In "the Test" when he faced Taylor again, we had this monologue:

Was I different, or was I just like her? I'd trapped myself. Why? I hated Taylor because she knew. I was going to destroy her. I don't think Tobias is weak, despite his doubts but he did trap himself on purpose probably to free himself from his nightmarish human life

[yunyun]

yeah, also he said:

An hour and fifty minutes? An hour and fifty-five?
How long?!
The others had escaped already. The other Animorphs, I mean. They'd dodged the visser's fireball gauntlet. They'd slipped out to safety, back through the janitor's closet, back into the school. Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Jake.
Had I missed the deadline? Had I been more than two hours in morph?
Couldn't have. Can't have. No. I'd be trapped forever. A bird.
Independent, free, alone.
Forever.

The free part makes me think that it was on purpose.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     But the Yeerk Pool is HUGE! You're telling me Tobias couldn't have flown behind one of those buildings that are apparently down there, demorphed, and remorphed? No. I think he did it purposely.