And for Jake. Would it have really been hard to starve Tom's Yeerk out and have him fake a suicide? Switch his body with a Chee, bury it, then have the Chee come out and refill the grave? No one is the wiser. The Yeerks certainly wouldn't be suspicious if one of their own had to go away for four days, died, and its host committed suicide instead of returning to the city.
UGH! This is something that I always thought about too. I don't see why the Animorphs didn't hold Tom captive while the Yeerk starved, while the Chee, who were the ones who flew Tom back to the city, created a hologram of Tom to satisfy Jake and his parents. It's not like it would have even been the Chee who would have held Tom captive as the Yeerk died, so they wouldn't have violated their programing. Or I just don't see why at ANY point in the series the Animorphs couldn't have taken Tom hostage and had him "go missing"
or something and had him just live out with the Hork-Bajir temporarily. It just bothers me, I mean they were able to hold Jake hostage when he became a controller, Tom without morhphing powers would have been nothing. Plus after they starved out the Yeerk they could have given him morphing powers and I'm guessing he'd be a willing fighter against the Yeerks and could tell them about Yeerk pool entrances and all that. Same deal with other controllers. All of them already knew about the war, and having been controlled by the Yeerks I'm guessing a good deal of them would be interested in helping the Anis out.
The Animorphs' solution to Aftran; let her become a whale nothlit. Is that all they could come up with? Surely there must have been a better way. Seriously, how badass would it have been if Aftran had become an Animorph? We know that the Chee can produce Kandrona rays to keep a Yeerk alive within their own bodies, so... right, this is getting hypothetical and off topic...
I get what you're saying, but I think the problem with that was Aftran was part of the Yeerk Peace movement and I'm not sure how willing she'd be to go against and kill some of her own people. I'm guessing like what Jake said at the end of #29, she did her part in the war and was ready to live a different life.
I think the thing that bothered me most was kind of what I was mentioning above. How the Animorphs didn't give the morphing power and recruit former controllers to be Animorphs. Granted it'd be a little risky, and a lot of controllers would be going missing, but it'd put the Yeerks on their toes. Plus not only would they free someone, they'd also have someone who was familiar with what was going on and knew about the invasion, but could also help them out and be someone willing (assumably) to fight alongside them. Book #50, in particular, is where this really bothers me. This is where they still had a morphing advantage over the Yeerks and when looking for recruits they didn't necessarily have to resort to dragging more kids into the war. Going back to what they would have done when they captured a controller they also could have done something a little like Cassie did and gave the Yeerk a ultimatum and ask them if given the choice they'd give up their host if they wouldn't need to rely on the Kandrona and had different bodies. Depending on what kind of the answer the Yeerk would give, they could either starve them out or bring up the morphing/nothlit solution.
Another thing that bothered me was why one of the Chee didn't project holograms at the end of #53 of the auxiliary Animorphs, kinda like how Erek did in book #30 (I think?) of the Hork-Bajir dying and burning. Then while a Chee was projecting a hologram of them dying, the real auxiliary Animorphs could have gone along with Rachel. Granted this is all if they hadn't starved out Tom's Yeerk in the first place and the Yeerks still got the morphing cube. Okay, I better stop I'm blabbering.
I love how I keep thinking of all these scenarios as if they were real and not just a plot in a book series
That said, I actually liked the ending good enough.
