Wouldn't Tom Find Jake

[saamoz610]

In the books, the Animorphs act like if they reveal their identities, then the Yeerks will read the books and find them.  But even with all their secrecy, wouldn't Tom, who is a known controller, just see the word "Jake" and "Tom" and figure out who and where the Animorphs are?  Could be that they never published their books in their world. 
Whadda ya think?

[Cloak]

Might mean that they were published AFTER the war ended . . . like the "secret accounts" or something.

[NateSean]

I don't take the interpretation of the stories being "published" books too seriously.

Yeah, in the beginning it seemed like Jake and Rachel were "writing this down". But what about Tobias? We know that Ax had his own Earth diary but that was seperate from the narrative in The Alien.

Elfangor had the Hirac Delest plot device. The Hork-Bajir chronicles from Dak and Aldrea's point of view were being retold by Jara, but that doesn't explain knowing Esplin's point of view. Most of Visser One's story was Edriss' testimony to the Council of Thirteen, but obviously there were spots before the actual testimony where it was simply Visser One's narrative.

[Chad32]

It would have to be after the war, since the Yeerks would easily find them once they knew Visser One's host's son was an Animorph. Even if they changed everyone's names, though apparently the guy's real name was Jake. One of the Animorphs has a parent that runs The Gardens, and frankly I'm surprised she wasn't taken since the battle morphs are mostly from The Gardens. Jake, Marco, and Cassie would be taken pretty quickly. Every controller would grab their brother, every administrator at the Gardens who had a daughter would be taken, and Visser One would be getting a call asking about her host's family.

I can imagine there being more than a few people in California with Rachel's mother's occupation, and Tobias isn't Human anymore. The Yeerks can be stupid sometimes, but even this wouldn't fly.

[Snakie]

 Its more basic than that, actually.

If the books actually existed within the universe that these stories take place in, they'd know they were human and we'd be at the point we found ourselves in on book #49 a heck of a lot earlier.

And as we saw in that book, once the Yeerks realize its humans they're looking for, its a relatively short step towards realizing WHO they are, even if we ignore the stuff about first names.

For that reason the premise that concealing last names would be enough to protect them is absurd.  I never took the narration style all that seriously though, and it never bothered me much.

[Jetstream]

It's best not to think about the framing device too much. It doesn't hold up under logical scrutiny.

[SitsInCorner1!]

If the plot framing was to be taken seriously and the yeerks didn't find out the identities, I'd be a little worried about how the yeerks had gotten so far with their invasion. 

[Blazing Angel]

We already did a "Things animorphs and other characters would never say" on this,

Visser 3: <Book 1: The invasion? That is it! No more childrens stories on the job!>

[yunyun]

It's best not to think about the framing device too much. It doesn't hold up under logical scrutiny.

Agreed. Also, in one book I think it did mention that it may not be their real names, that everything they've written down has been changed to protect them.

[Chad32]

And then their names didn't change to something like Zack, Simon, Ike, Emily, and Nikki once their enemies knew who they were. Though it would be weird if that did happen.

[spencer]

i always thought it was like a diary that was later published. but i didnt really think about it after a while, i used to skip the introductions.

[Tim Bruening]

In the books, the Animorphs act like if they reveal their identities, then the Yeerks will read the books and find them.  But even with all their secrecy, wouldn't Tom, who is a known controller, just see the word "Jake" and "Tom" and figure out who and where the Animorphs are?  Could be that they never published their books in their world. 
Whadda ya think?

I did indeed think that if any Yeerk ever found an Animorph book, the Yeerks would quickly discover their full identities.  Jake's intros would be enough to lead Yeerks right to him.

[Tim Bruening]

Might mean that they were published AFTER the war ended . . . like the "secret accounts" or something.

If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?

[pallosalama]

If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?

If they were written during the war for example, with an initiative that if they would publish them or the books would get in hands of Yeerks, they couldn't pinpoint them at the very moment.

[Tim Bruening]

If the books were published after the war, why any need for secrecy at all?

If they were written during the war for example, with an initiative that if they would publish them or the books would get in hands of Yeerks, they couldn't pinpoint them at the very moment.

If the books were written during the war, why provide the information that Jake's brother Tom is a high ranking Controller, or that Racael is Jake's cousin, or that Cassie's parents work at a zoo and at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic?