I have mixed feelings about this topic.
K.A. plays with the notion of Good X Right.
A character doesn't have to be perfect goodie goodie to be liked. This is as close to dumb and stupid that Cassie will ever get, to me. It's where you can see her sentimental caring side getting on the way of the bigger picture. We are talking about an individual with no question that she WOULD NOT sacrifice a human life for the sake of the greater whole. And that's admirable, thought double crossing to the ends of the whole Animorphs' efforts against the Yeerk Invasion on this last DESPERATE phase of their conflict.
I, too, hold it totally against her,
Nohensen. I thought all sorts of bad stuff about Cassie upon first reading this. Crazy. Dumb. Stupid. were words that came to mind along with curses.
But I liked the Cassie-character nevertheless. There was a lot happening there!
CASSIE KNEW JAKE through all those years. Jake, at a deep level, had been fighting this war in the name of his family, to protect his parents and to ultimately save his brother. When he lost these three presences in his life, he felt he had lost his reasons and, quite unconsciously, began 'falling apart'. Cassie HAD SEEN that the boy she liked had c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y changed. If losing his parents to the enemy did this to him, she KNEW that Jake killing Tom would damn right finish him.
...do you really think Jake should have killed his brother? Should he have been the one to do it? Do you recall a scene in Book 30 i think, The Reunion. Marco cast his own b.s. aside to target his mom. He was actually going to kill his mother. He charged straight at her in hopes of knocking her off the mountain so she'd fall to her death. But do you remember what happened next? Jake, yes, JAKE interfered and tackled him. He stopped Marco from killing his own mother b/c he knew it would destroy Marco. Marco the comedian. The ruthless strategist. I think we can argue that Marco was mentally stronger than Jake. He'd already dealt with his mother's death, and seeing her return was just as painful. Had it been Jake in his place, I think Jake would've broke apart.
So Cassie stopping Jake from killing his own brother was justifiable. Jake himself had already done the exact same thing. Cassie saved him because they needed him. It wouldve messed him up. Remember what Rachel told Marco in the final scene of The Reunion. Marco didnt know what to do. He wasn't sure if he could survive the situation and end up killing his mother. He wondered about that choice. And Rachel said, "Well, I'd hope that someone would come along and take that choice away from me." Which is exactly what Cassie did.
I think Cassie did the right thing. You can be mad with her all you want, but she was essential to them winning the war against the Yeerks. A war that was able to offer hope in the end to other species. Rachel made a great sacrifice, and it mattered in the end. Jake wouldve been messed up if he had to kill Tom, especially right after losing his whole family to the Yeerks. But we can also say it was K.A.'s way of leaving our Animorph heroes with no hope and in their darkest hour. Its the way the story had to go. Its called Drama.
Awesome comparison here,
filmstu2005.
You shouldn't isolate that climactic moment when Cassie lets Tom escape and ignore the rest of the book, how the writer set up Cassie's decision.
Jake was depressed and was no longer being a good leader. Cassie didn't know how to handle the situation. She calls him a coward then regrets it immediately. Subsequently she bites her tongue and follows Jake as he makes morally questionable decisions and gives morally questionable orders. She holds back because she knows Jake isn't in the mood to deal with her questioning his judgment. She gets frustrated with the naivete her parents display among the Hork-Bajir, but her dad calls her out on the immoral way he thinks she and the Animorphs have been acting. Cassie gets frustrated and flies away without saying goodbye, afterwards realizing that it's possible she won't see him again.
If you isolate that one moment when she stops Jake, you overlook how the whole book was setting up that there was all this pressure building up on Cassie, coloring her judgment in that crucial moment.
And good point here, too,
Hylian Dan. From a plot perspective the pressure was building on Cassie. She was bound to do something. It was her proposal to make those disabled kids auxiliary Animorphs.
Yes, there could have been a better way to do what she 'unconsciously' (I believe) accomplished. BUT WHERE would the story and plot action fit. I liked it for the precise fact that it made me pissed at Cassie. For the fact that I would have done differently. A wolf and a tiger COULD HAVE DONE something more than just letting a human-controller get away with their one invaluable weapon.
To me this was one of the greatest twists and highlights of the whole series. I was gutted by the end of The Ultimate!!!
I remember, at that point, the tone of the book itself had kinda already changed with The Revelation. It was no longer about 'morphing a new animal per title' per si. It leaned more towards warfare kind of thing. But, with The Ultimate, things got the feeling of completely plain desperate for those kids.
