Why do people dislike Cassie?

[onnicarda]

Cassie was a very important member.

1) She provides the Animorphs with valuable information about animals; she comes up with brilliant ideas to pull of the missions

In Books #3, 4, 5, 9, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24, etc. etc. she comes up with the basic plan of the mission

2) She can read people's thoughts, and predict people's actions

In Book #22, Cassie is the one who cleverly forms the plan to capture and trap David (a traitor), while the others had come up with nothing~~the plan works perfectly and keeps their cover from getting blown

3) She is the most talented at morphing

In Book #34, on a nearly impossible mission-->she morphs from human to osprey, flies high into the sky, and slowly morphs from osprey to human--falling toward the Yeerk pool. Then she morphed from human to whale (all the while keeping the osprey wings), then landed into the Yeerk pool. She morphed back, then to a Hork-Bajir, and found the stolen Yeerk vessel (in the Yeerk pool) everyone was looking for

Aldrea, a great warrior, was astonished at her accomplishment.

4) She has the magic ability to "coach" the other Animorphs to morph back to their regular selves

In Book #3, without her "coaching", the rest of the Animorphs would have been stuck as half-wolves, half-humans (the 2 hours were drawing to the end or had already passed)

In Book #21, she guides Marco and enables him to morph back. Without her help, Marco would have been stuck permantly as a giant flea (the others had begun to despair)


5) She is a space-time "anomaly"

In "Back to Before", she disintegrates the alternate timeline, which snaps the Animorphs back to their normal lives. The undos the mess Jake created.

Without her help, the Animorphs would have died many times. When all the other Animorphs were sick, she successfully accomplished a mission, saved Aftran, and performed brain surgery on Ax. So, Ax would be dead without her help. 

Oh, and once she backed out a mission that involved slaughtering hundreds of innocent people. The other Animorphs decided to side with a Yeerk that was “against Visser Three.” In the end, they were wrong, and they would have been killed (gassed to death). But Cassie went under-cover, and pulled the switch. Her moralizing saved the entire team.

[Arkon]

Who doesn't like Cassie?

[Estelore]

She can read people's thoughts, and predict people's actions

Beyond her being an Animorph, I don't recall her being explicitly supernatural in her ability to 'read' people.

The reason fans frequently dislike her: she's overpowered, underflawed, and too obviously intended to be an aesop. In short, she's a Mary-Sue, by the standards of the Animorphs canon.

[onnicarda]

Well, she was very good at understanding people. She could read people's emotions.  Everyone relied on this ability to examine enemies, to help comrades. She brought down David, who was a major threat.

She was the only one who could see when Marco was upset (about his father's re-marriage), and she was the only one who comforted Ax when Estrid left. She helped support the other Animorphs when they were depressed.

How about the many times she saved the other animorphs' butts? How about her incredible morphing? She helped form the basis of lots of their plains... and she was not a mary-sue. She wasn't weak and she performed many acts of bravery. She DID have flaws, but which animorph did not?

[Estelore]

EDIT: Ahh, I see you changed your post. Mine changes to reflect it.

Bringing down David was very much a group effort; Cassie just took it upon herself to accept the moral burden for dreaming up an idea that would eventually have occurred to one of the others. Tobias is a nothlit; certainly he could see the damage value of forcing that condition on an enemy.

As for Marco's upset and Ax's need for comfort, that's Cassie filling her character niche. If she had stayed in the position of "team mom", then probably she might have developed enough in-series to be compelling as a character. What happened, however, was that she stepped widely outside her niche, encroached on Marco and Ax as "team brains and planning", and effectively made herself intolerably too perfect.

well how about the many times she saved the other animorphs' butts loll? her incredible morphing?

That's making our point FOR us. Compared to the other members on an individual basis, she did a disproportionate amount of butt-saving.  Her incredible morphing was capitalized-upon quite a few times, and the bird-to-girl-to-whale scheme was used TWICE, once in Meg.1, the other in the book with Aldrea... but on both occasions it was treated like it was a brand-new idea, not like it was recycled from past successful uses.

As for 'tons of flaws'... not really. Cassie wasn't given enough flaws to balance her added skills, if she is to be a compelling and easily-sympathized character. Unless you treat moralizing as a major in-series flaw... and the series only treats it as a flaw on a couple occasions, and then comes back to point out after-the-fact that it ended up saving the day... then the character Cassie is all but flawless. It makes her boring to read. As for forming the basis of many of their plans, it is stated in the series that Marco and Ax are the brains of the outfit, but all too often they're stumped over a solution that is totally obvious, which Cassie brings to the floor. Some might call that superior knowledge of and experience with animals, but honestly... practical knowledge of animals isn't really as rare as the series treats it. 

All that being said, this isn't an attempt to argue with you. I'm just trying to answer the question in your original post.

[onnicarda]

I no    I just like debating XD Well, Cassie was capable of forming the plan to bring down David. She predicted that David would select Rachel, and she saw the evilness inside of him. While the others might have been able to come up with an idea, Cassie's plan was very effective, and succeeded. You cannot aruge with this point.

Well, she DID save the Animorphs many times. She may seem too perfect. In the books, she did do a lot of butt-saving xD So, are you saying that Cassie was not realistic? That she was too big of a "super-man" to be real? I think, that those type of heroines should be praised. Like Melanie in "Gone with the Wind", she was very self-sacrificing. But shouldn't these qualities be respected? Her compassion? Her kindness? Her understanding? While it may seem boring, it makes us consider questions about morality and humanity.

I suppose that her knowledge about animals was not that special, but that was the author's fault for not fleshing out this idea xD

[AniDragon]

The problem with Cassie is that she didn't evolve as the series progressed, she DEvolved. She showed a lot of signs of evolving as a character in book 19, and one part of 25 (with the dead seel), but then after that she not only slips back into her over-moralising, it gets even worst. She got annoying to read.

And btw, I'm saying this as someone who used to LIKE Cassie.

[onnicarda]

That is true XD But doesn't her moralizing help the animorphs keep positive, and fight against the Yeerks with better confidence and clearer conscience?

[AniDragon]

Some moralising is okay. But I find she was getting overboard, to the point where it was handicapping the team.

[Estelore]

While the others might have been able to come up with an idea, Cassie's plan was very effective, and succeeded. You cannot aruge with this point.

I very MUCH argue with that point. By my standards, her plan didn't succeed at all. Admittedly it involved some intervention by Crayak, but David came back, and Rachel was temporarily taken out of commission and emotionally crippled by the aftermath of the entire situation. What Cassie did was come up with a plan to sacrifice what could have been the last piece of her own best friend's sanity, in the name of torturing an imbecile to death-by-nothlitism, because a) the imbecile was in the wrong place at the wrong time, making him dangerous, b) Cassie was too weak to just mercy-kill him, and c) Cassie knew Rachel was in control of herself just enough to go through with it, and to be the bait needed to fool David into that trap.

Just by my standards, it was a pathetically awful plan, and the entire situation could have been saved by just eliminating the threat in its entirety. Considering how many creatures predate upon rats, it's not like Cassie realistically believed David could have survived on his own OR died in any remotely humane way. Her actions were, in a word, cruel.

Well, she DID save the Animorphs many times. She may seem too perfect. In the books, she did do a lot of butt-saving xD So, are you saying that Cassie was not realistic? That she was too big of a "super-man" to be real? I think, that those type of heroines should be praised. Like Melanie in "Gone with the Wind", she was very self-sacrificing. But shouldn't these qualities be respected? Her compassion? Her kindness? Her understanding? While it may seem boring, it makes us consider questions about morality and humanity.

Precisely, she's not realistic. She's not a super-man; she's a super-whiner who has far too many convenient moments of spotlight and good publicity.  I don't see her as self-sacrificing at all; she is in fact the only Animorph whose entire family stayed intact and who didn't herself lose either life or the ability to both morph and be human. Rachel died; Tobias went nothlit AND lost Rachel; Ax was taken by The One; Jake lost his family and arguably his sanity; Marco, Jake, and Tobias were ALL on board for "Ram the Blade Ship."
Cassie? Hell, I'd say besides a few nights of sweet dreams in the aftermath, Cassie didn't lose much of anything, unless you count having to mourn the deaths of the other Animorphs... and honestly, I don't much count that. She gave up less than any of them; she profited from their losses.

She never once compelled me to question morality or humanity. I went into the series with a set of beliefs about what is humane, what I consider moral... and really, Cassie failed to fit the bill at every occasion. She is stated to be moral, compassionate, humane, merciful, what-have-you... but her actions don't really match up; at best, she's uselessly moralizing at a bad juncture, and at worst, she's dangerous.

I suppose that her knowledge about animals was not that special, but that was the author's fault for not fleshing out this idea xD

Umn... everything about all the characters is "the author's fault." That includes everything to be liked and everything to be disliked. :-/

[visser101]

i can't speak for others, but for me i liked Cassie all the way to the last book. after i got over the "wtf" i thought "that b****!". reviewing the series with this new outlook i saw that the whole time she was making fight more complicated with her incessant moral fits adding needless stress to everyone else shoulders. while at the same time she had been holding back letting Jake and Rachel (her "boyfreind" and best freind ) destroyed themselves as she coasted along.

really Cassie makes David look like a nice guy. in fact David could be considered another victim of Cassie's evil.

and that is why i don't like Cassie.

[Estelore]

visser101's post

QFT. Thanks! I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. That being said, obviously all are entitled to their own perceptions of the series and characters.

[visser101]

ya, but think mine is the best.

[wildweathel]

Cassie is an interesting (and perhaps unintentional) study in what happens when an idealist lets her morals float adrift from reality.

[onnicarda]

Cassie is an interesting (and perhaps unintentional) study in what happens when an idealist lets her morals float adrift from reality.

I agree.