Seriously...What did people think happened to Saddler?!

[TobiasMasonPark]

     I've been thinking about my favourite character, David, and got to wondering about Saddler.

     So, a kid gets hit by a car, is given some rather fatal injuries, and hospitalized. His parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and cousins ALL go to the hospital to visit him, see that he's 100% perfectly fine, despite looking like he had been smooshed a day earlier. Then...he just disappears one night. And  #23: the Pretender comes and everyone is like, "So yea, Tobias has a relative he never knew about."

     Stop for a moment; take a few steps back. How did Saddler's family react?

     Yea, I realize there's a line in 22: The Solution that goes something like Saddler's family had to accept that miracles weren't real. Yea, fine, ok. A miracle is one thing. But David was walking around as Saddler for at least a day, if not a few hours. Jake's parents saw him. Rachel's parents saw him. Then poof and everyone's all "Well, miracles don't happen."

     But clearly one did! At least, from their POV.

     Now, it's been two years since I've read the Solution. I'm not sure if Rachel mentioned that the hospital staff found the real Saddler's body...But I don't really recall that anywhere in there.* So, for now, we have to assume that a very gloomy, distraught, and freaked out family just left their relatives and went home to start the therapy that I'm 100% SURE they endured for the rest of the series.

     Seriously, though, what the hell went on there?! Did they think he just went missing? Well, how could that be? Surely he told someone--Saddler's parents, or Jake's or Rachel's-- that he was going to Taco Bell with Jake. What, Jake just LET someone abduct Saddler? Oh, you think maybe Saddler ran away from town due to PTSD--you know, nearly dying could have that effect on a person. Nah, I'm not buying that. Maybe, they really DID find Saddler's body in that elevator shaft? Ok...But that doesn't change the fact that the family was with him almost 24 hours and he seemed 100% normal. So, he goes from mangled, to perfectly fine, to mangled again?You couldn't play that off as a hallucination--everyone saw it! What was it, collective hallucination?!

     I'm curious as to what you lot think. Here's what we can start off with--though, these theories do NOT sit well with me:

     1) They found Saddler's body eventually.

     2) Saddler ran away or was abducted.

     3) The family just completely accepted that the son they saw--100% healthy and without injury-- just disappeared with no explanation.

     I'll throw in my own two cents as the 4th theory:

     4) Saddler's family got Yeerked:

     [spoiler]So, Rachel and Jake go home. Saddler's parents are just like, "Where's your cousin Saddler?" And Jake just says: "What? The one that clearly died in the hospital, even though he was just here? No auntie and uncle No-name, I haven't seen your dead son. Maybe he's still dead at the hospital where we all saw him die. Well, I'm sleepy. Gonna get some shut-eye. Got some heavy duty Yeerk-Fighting to do tomorrow. Sorry about your dead son, who is dead and didn't heal completely like everyone here saw him do."[/spoiler]

     Or...The Animorphs send an anonymous call to the hospital, telling them where they might find the body of the 100% healed boy they all saw rise from his death bed earlier in the day. The hospital staff find Saddler's mangled and smooshed up body and are obviously spooked. Controllers infiltrating the hospital Yeerk the people who find the body, and call Saddler's immediate family--excluding cousins-- and tell them they have some bad news. Saddler's family is then Yeerked themselves, to make sure they keep quiet about the situation. THAT, in my opinion, is the most likely explanation short of the Ellimist reversing time to make it so that Saddler never existed.

     Thoughts?**



     *If someone has the book and could refer to the end, let me know if it is.
     **This is extremely long winded.

[theyoungphoenix]

How long has this been bouncing around in that mind of yours?

Anyways. I've never really thought about it. I guess I would say that they might have found the body, gone (accidentally) to some controller, and got Yeerked. Makes sense to me.

[Cloak]

To be honest, I find your fourth theory the most intriguing of them all. I never considered it, but it is exceedingly plausible, if only really, really, likely.

*rubs his chin*

It wouldn't surprise me if that is what happened, and maybe it's what tipped the Visser off enough suspect humans being the Andalite bandits, though he stubbornly refused to believe it for a while? Probably not as likely.

[Snakie]

That has also bugged me from the very first read all those years ago.

I just assumed they eventually found Saddler's body and the family accepted that his brief health was some unexplained aberration.  His getting better was never explained, so I guess if they could accept that they could accept him going back just as mysteriously.

Of course, if they did find his body, it sorta shows a major flaw in David's plan in the first place, as it suggests that he would ultimately have to deal with the fact that they'd eventually find his dead doppelganger....

This is definitely one of those situations wher KA just wanted us to accept what was written and not question it any further.

[RYTX]

No, they never explicitly say that Saddler's body was found by anyone-which was my grievance: I don't think he would have smuggled it out of the hospital, and granted no one's looking for it, but eventually that thing would start to smell....

Historically, I guess I've gone with option 1 up there. I always forget they went straight there ( the cover art makes me think the trap is during the day, but the Taco Bell scene is at night, they are sequential aren't they) so that does make it harder for Jake to have an explanation.


I don't like the controller option, why would his family stay in the area, why, spare maybe Tom, would they go to the sharing or any other place that would make them targets for the Yeerks. And that doesn't change the fact that the rest of Jake and Rachel's families should still be going "WTF, where'd that kid go?"

[NateSean]

I agree with 4. Especially when you consider that the Yeerks already knew or suspected that David had been given the morphing power by the "Andalites". The Yeerks would know the significance of a patient arriving at the hospital with life threatening injuries, only to miracuously recover in a short amount of time. They would at least suspect something.

Also something to consider. Even in the 90's hospitals had basic security systems and Saddler would have been in the emergency room. Anyone who has been to the emergency room for any length of time would know that a patient can't get up from his bed to go to the bathroom without forty people knowing about it.

So this lends plausibility to Theory number 4 as someone would have seen David moving Saddler's body. Maybe a low ranking Yeerk watching the security cameras reports to Visser Three. They erase the footage, knowing it's David, but don't make a move yet because they figure the Andalite bandits will eventually try capture David and the Yeerks are using him as bait.

As to what happened to Saddler's body, maybe the Yeerks recover it, drop it in the morgue with a John Doe tag and it simply becomes a segment on Unsolved Mysteries.

This is all fan theory of course. Snakie's suggestion is just as plausible.

[SuperBlue]

I wish KA had elaborated more on that. They made it pretty clear that David dropped Saddler down the elevator and if Jake and Rachel had never figured out what was going on, what would stop the hospital staff from eventually finding the real Saddler's body? An elevator squished corpse would give off some type of smell and even if it was squished beyond recognition, there'd still be ways to find out that it was Saddler. So what would David's plan have been if the hospital called Saddler's parents and told them they just found a corpse whose DNA matched the son that they thought was safe at home with them?

[Tim Bruening]

I wish KA had elaborated more on that. They made it pretty clear that David dropped Saddler down the elevator and if Jake and Rachel had never figured out what was going on, what would stop the hospital staff from eventually finding the real Saddler's body? An elevator squished corpse would give off some type of smell and even if it was squished beyond recognition, there'd still be ways to find out that it was Saddler. So what would David's plan have been if the hospital called Saddler's parents and told them they just found a corpse whose DNA matched the son that they thought was safe at home with them?

I expect that the Yeerks would figure out that David had morphed Saddler, and then start investigating Saddler's relatives, which include JAKE and RACHEL!  They would surely ask TomY to keep an eye on Jake for any evidence of involvement with "Andalite bandits".  TomY would then notice that Jake often sneaks out at night, and that he is often absent at around the times of Andalite bandit attacks.  This should lead to the Yeerks realizing the truth about the Andalite bandits much sooner than the late 40s books!

[yunyun]

Yeah, that's a really good point. It's not like Jake would be hard for the yeerks to get, his brother got the whole family in #45.

Though that did happen right after/during an important mission, right? So it would make somewhat sense if the Yeerks didn't care to much about it until at least a few weeks later, which by then it could have been forgotten/lost files/whatnot.

I wish KA had elaborated more on that. They made it pretty clear that David dropped Saddler down the elevator and if Jake and Rachel had never figured out what was going on, what would stop the hospital staff from eventually finding the real Saddler's body? An elevator squished corpse would give off some type of smell and even if it was squished beyond recognition, there'd still be ways to find out that it was Saddler. So what would David's plan have been if the hospital called Saddler's parents and told them they just found a corpse whose DNA matched the son that they thought was safe at home with them?

David probably didn't think that far. He didn't really even think his plan of getting his parents back with the morphing cube  through (I think one of the characters pointed that out, though I don't exactly remember what happened)
But yeah, there should have at least been a few news reports over Saddler's body that the Animorphs ended up discussing.