That I understand. However, it is not entirely Cassie's fault. The blame lies on all the Animorphs' shoulders. Who would have predicted those turns of events? (besides the Ellimist) The Animorphs all agreed to trap him inside the rat morph, instead of killing him. They thought it was the better thing to do. I doubt any would have agreed to kill David on the stop. Cassie was "too weak"? I think they all were "too weak", if that's how you will describe it. While her actions were cruel, who would have voluntarily killed David?
None of them could realistically predict that result of David actually coming back, but the primary reason they all agreed on the rat-trap was
Cassie. They new she'd be impossible to live with if they had a human murder on their hands, and that this even worse alternative would still somehow be "acceptable" in her skewed perceptions of morality.
The 'better' thing to do? "Better" certainly doesn't imply "good;" one might call it better to lose one eye and both hands than to lose both eyes and both hands, but neither of those circumstances seems particularly good.
As for any of them killing or not killing David... in absence of Cassie, the ONLY one of them I don't see making the logical connection and promptly removing him is Jake, and only particularly because he would always consider the entire situation his fault (since he's the 'unofficial' leader) and the judgment to kill would have been on his head. Rachel has no such need for restraint, and Ax may even have leapt at the opportunity. Marco and Tobias have added motive: David morphed Marco as a way to betray the team, and Tobias was the first one David targeted for death, all the way from the beginning, when they were choosing his flight morph.
So who would have voluntarily killed David? Likely any of them, with the possible 'no' for Jake. They refrained so that Cassie would stay and function in the team.
Of course, it is quite easy for us to say they should have killed David. We are not faced with actual situations.
Of course we are; the events only occur within the pages of the books and in our own minds, as we read them. We recreate the situations in their entirety, in our minds, and as the readers, it is our right and perhaps our obligation to judge what occurred.
If the Animorphs disliked the plan, they would have said so.
I recall at some point all of them making it clear that they disliked it, and at least two alluding to the fact that just killing him would settle the issue immediately and without continued unnecessary risk.
Also, are you scorning Cassie because she did not suffer as the others? Is that justified? Are you saying she should have done something to make herself become a nothlit or die? While you may disagree with Cassie's opinions, isn't everybody different? Everyone has different ideas of moralizing.
I'm saying that
as a character, her complete lack of comparable personal losses during the war is suspiciously Mary-Sue-isch. The Animorphs' success as a guerilla band is, in and of itself, pretty unrealistic for as long as they kept it up... but none of them dying until the last book? Unfathomable. Cassie not encountering any of the losses or setbacks of the rest of the team? If anything, laughable. I'm not saying
Cassie should have done ANYTHING. I'm saying, if the author wanted Cassie to actually be appreciable and as real a character as the others were, for the fans, then more steps should have been taken to demonstrate Cassie in a considerable amount of personal suffering, the way
every other Animorph was. If we never see Cassie in some genuine agonized state, then we only see half of the character, during a war story. The worst she ever has is a few moments of doubt and fear, and that's what ALL of them had, by default. As for Cassie's opinions... let's keep in mind that there's a difference between opinions and overwhelming tendencies to nearly get everybody killed who has been fighting on your side to save your planet. The difference, while maybe insignificant, is this: the instant that opinion becomes an action, or a failure to take action. Like it or not, Cassie is basically conscripted into a six-member military the instant she touches the Blue Box. If she had been part of an organization large enough to make the her individually expendable, she would have been punished for mutiny or cowardice, and that would have been the end of it. It was the Animorphs' bad luck as guerilla fighters to be stuck with her and no viable alternatives, and it's our misfortune as readers to be stuck with a character who flops so comprehensively in every effort taken to make her compelling or likable and audience-sympathetic. If anything, the authors try too hard at the 'sympathetic' part, and they overshoot by a couple lightyears, placing her firmly in Mary-Sue territory. >_<
