Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

You could reasonably assume Tom found out something he shouldn't have and was taken kicking and screaming, since he tried to fistfight Visser Three.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 02:04

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# ? May 25, 2024 11:38

McTimmy: Feb 29, 2008

Tree Bucket posted:

It's been years, but the exploding Taxxons really stuck in my head. And I remember trying to draw the Mardrut, and thinking it was cool that Ax had some weird in-built time-tracking ability.

Yeah, same. This and the sheer weirdness of Andalite Chronicles' ending are the two most dominant memories in my head.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 02:06

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

QuickbreathFinisher posted:

Ax is so good. I'm slightly ahead in book 5 and I'm excited for the thread to get to the first in a series of mall capers that begins with the Radio Shack visit that he, Jake and Marco go on. He really is the best.

I still, to this day, remember that scene.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 02:27

QuickbreathFinisher: Sep 28, 2008; by reading this post you have agreed to form a gay socialist micronation.
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:

You could reasonably assume Tom found out something he shouldn't have and was taken kicking and screaming, since he tried to fistfight Visser Three.

I think it's addressed in a later book that Tom actually joined the sharing (spoilers for what I'm pretty sure is book 6) to get closer to a girl he liked (who obviously ended up being a controller). An extremely teenager thing to do, honestly.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 02:52

Daikloktos: Jan 1, 2020; by Cyrano4747

QuickbreathFinisher posted:

I think it's addressed in a later book that Tom actually joined the sharing (spoilers for what I'm pretty sure is book 6) to get closer to a girl he liked (who obviously ended up being a controller). An extremely teenager thing to do, honestly.

Wonder if that lines up to possibly be Taylor. I barely remember that one though

# ? Jun 21, 2020 03:32

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Daikloktos posted:

Wonder if that lines up to possibly be Taylor. I barely remember that one though

No, Taylor doesn't have anything to do with Tom. I think the girl in question is in fact namedropped in Book 6, but it's definitely not Taylor. For what it's worth, however, there was a subplot in the TV show where Tom starts dating Melissa Chapman for a couple of episodes with the implication that he was trying to get her infested, but then it's dropped like a hot stone in the scramble to try and wrap things up after the Nickelodeon axe finally fell on the show.

Still, a point in the show's favour. It remembered Melissa was a character in this universe and tried, feebly, to do... something with her.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 06:14

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

feetnotes posted:

You'd think they could go seagull, fly down, then back to human before morphing dolphin. I guess they get better at the logistics later!

My concern at this idea would be ending up in a state part-way through the gull->human morph where you can't keep your head above water. Cassie is likely good enough at controlling the morph to avoid that, but the others aren't.

Epicurius posted:

To me, I sort of take Cassie's hesitation in this book at face value; She's risking all their lives on a dream they had and a conversation with a whale, and she's scared she's going to get them killed for no reason, and she doesn't want the responsibility of choosing. She asks Jake earlier in the book to decide if they should go on the mission, and admits that the reason she's asking him is "And then if it's a disaster, it will all be on your head," I said. "You'll be the one who feels bad. You'll be the one to blame".

So I guess I don't know whether I agree with you or not? I think I maybe have a more charitable view of "she wants to keep her hands clean" than the people who have the theory a saying, "She doesn't want to be stuck with the responsibility or guilt when things go wrong", which is maybe more fear than hypocracy?

tbh I find her extremely easy to empathize with here. As readers we know that they're going to survive this, but as another person said what they were doing on that boat was actually extremely dangerous, and I'd be scared shitless that Marco was going to fall down, go unconscious upon hitting the ocean, and drown. I probably would have reacted in a completely identical way to how she did, and at the same specific moment (right before doing a concrete action with a fairly high risk of death).

Epicurius posted:

I mean, the kids don't know that, though. They don't know to what extent the Yeerks have infiltrated. Also, from a practical standpoint, even assuming they can do the bird/person/bird/person thing every two hours, which they're having trouble with in this book, they still have parents, and while the "Mom, dad, I'm sleeping over at Rachel's house, and you don't have to call her mom because she said its ok" thing might work, if you say to your parents "Umm, mom, dad, I'm going to be gone for a few days because I have to turn into a bird and fly to England so I can tell the Prime Minister that alien slugs are trying to take over the world", the response you should expect is more on the level of either "We're taking you to a therapist" or "You're grounded".

There's also, of course, the big answer to "why doesn't the author have their characters do x" which is that it doesn't fit with the story they're trying to tell, and this is, of course, a story about becoming a teenager and going through experiences and changes you're convinced you can't tell anybody about, as all the things you took for granted as a kid about trusting adults and knowing who your friends were and just accepting the world around you and what you've been taught all fades away. This is, at its base, a story about adolescence and the fears and struggles you face going through it.

The former is a very good point that hadn't occurred to me.

And even without it, it doesn't bother me in the least that this doesn't happen. I was just spitballing about what would hypothetically be the best action in their situation.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jun 21, 2020

# ? Jun 21, 2020 18:46

PetraCore: Jul 20, 2017; 👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

I always assumed the morphing tech was intended by Elfangor to help them prove their case, but even then, there's a difference between proving you can turn into a tiger and use telepathy and proving alien brain slugs are real.

Correct me if I'm wrong, they recruit the disabled kids bc yeerks would never use a physically disabled host unless they had some sort of societal power, right?

# ? Jun 21, 2020 19:22

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

PetraCore posted:

I always assumed the morphing tech was intended by Elfangor to help them prove their case, but even then, there's a difference between proving you can turn into a tiger and use telepathy and proving alien brain slugs are real.

Correct me if I'm wrong, they recruit the disabled kids bc yeerks would never use a physically disabled host unless they had some sort of societal power, right?

It would at least get people to take you seriously, and it's pretty easy to prove (tell them the name of controllers, have those people put under surveillance - or imprisoned - for several days). You wouldn't even necessarily need to do anything forcefully; you could just give them the names of controllers and have them offer high pay to various people to stay under surveillance for over 3 days, and unsurprisingly all the people they said were controllers wouldn't accept the deal.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 20:06

ANOTHER SCORCHER: Aug 12, 2018

PetraCore posted:

Correct me if I'm wrong, they recruit the disabled kids bc yeerks would never use a physically disabled host unless they had some sort of societal power, right?

Exactly, they need to recruit more people without worrying about quarantining each one for three days or the Yeerks finding out. They figure the Yeerks won�t infest disabled people.

Their justification for it being teens specifically is a little weaker but makes more sense within the specific book. They reason that teens will accept the story of the Yeerks more readily than an adult, who they�ll have to convince and who might want to do their own thing. Within that book though, their parents who are now hiding with them try to take control of the groups decision making (I think specifically Rachel�s mom does this) and the Animorphs basically have to put them in their place and tell them all to shut up and that they aren�t making decisions anymore.

# ? Jun 21, 2020 20:43

PetraCore: Jul 20, 2017; 👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:

Exactly, they need to recruit more people without worrying about quarantining each one for three days or the Yeerks finding out. They figure the Yeerks won�t infest disabled people.

Their justification for it being teens specifically is a little weaker but makes more sense within the specific book. They reason that teens will accept the story of the Yeerks more readily than an adult, who they�ll have to convince and who might want to do their own thing. Within that book though, their parents who are now hiding with them try to take control of the groups decision making (I think specifically Rachel�s mom does this) and the Animorphs basically have to put them in their place and tell them all to shut up and that they aren�t making decisions anymore.

Yeah I think the moral grayness is definitely in recruiting teens, not in the disabled thing, bc like, disabled people can make their own decisions, especially if there's no mental impairment, and they have the same stakes as everyone else in wanting to defend the Earth from the yeerks.

'Adults might want to do their own thing' is specifically funny to me though with the context of David. I guess it's more of a worry that an adult might want to take over specifically bc of age and a desire to 'protect' the teenaged Animorphs?

# ? Jun 22, 2020 00:02

ANOTHER SCORCHER: Aug 12, 2018

PetraCore posted:

Adults might want to do their own thing' is specifically funny to me though with the context of David. I guess it's more of a worry that an adult might want to take over specifically bc of age and a desire to 'protect' the teenaged Animorphs?

Yeah that�s basically the text�s justification, thought tbh I think it�s really just that this is Animorphs, the book series about teens becoming animals.

# ? Jun 22, 2020 00:39

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

From memory that whole saga happens after Jake gives the speech of "we need to be asking ourselves if something is expedient, not if it's right" and they go full terrorist. it's interesting to me that a lot of people jump on that event in particular and not them bombing the Yeerk pool with however much collateral damage that inflicts.

# ? Jun 22, 2020 00:40

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Message-Chapter 24

quote:

The creature Visser Three had become did not tire.

We did.

I felt like I had been swimming forever. Half an hour into the chase, I was exhausted. We had been powering through the water at panic speed. Fighting every current. Fighting the terrible urge to rest as our tails weakened. Fighting the growing hunger.

WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.

The mardrut never tired. It never weakened. It gained on us a foot at a time, bit by bit.

I could see it now. A huge purple-and-red mottled bag that undulated and oozed through the water. It was propelled by the three huge water sacs, firing one after another. Between those loud bursts, the hundreds of tiny tails that covered its entire surface thrashed and kept up momentum.

Credit to Visser Three. His morphs are disgusting.

quote:

WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.

Then he spoke. We had all heard that silent voice in our heads before. It was like hearing the most terrible curses. It was pure malice and hatred poured directly into our brains.

<l am coming for you, brave Andalite warriors,> Visser Three sneered. <l am coming for you.>

That voice churned my insides. I felt my own hatred flaring up to match his. The images Ax had painted - an Earth brown and empty and filled with nothing but the slaves of the Yeerks. . . .

I had lived my entire life without feeling hatred. It is a sickening feeling. It burns and burns, and sometimes you think it's a fire that will never go out.

You ever feel hatred? I think I did once, but it didn't feel like burning. It felt very...cold, like a cold certainty and rightness that that the thing I hated had to be destroyed. Scariest thing I ever felt.

quote:

<l am coming for you. You will be mine. Shall I make you Controllers? Or shall I simply eat you? The time for me to decide draws near. You weaken. Your time runs short.>

WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.

We had all been exposed to Visser Three. Ax had not. He seemed to shudder, even in his shark body. The dead shark eyes showed no emotion, but his
swimming became erratic.

<Ax,> I said to him. He did not answer. <Ax, we have heard his voice before. We've heard his threats. And we are still alive.>

<He will kill us,> Ax said. <He will kill us! He killed Elfangor!>

<Ax, hang in there. Don't answer him. Don't think about him. Just swim!>

But Ax's fear was catching. He was right. We didn't have enough time to make it to land without being trapped in our dolphin bodies. And we would never escape him, anyway. I glanced back.

He was only five body lengths away!

I demanded still more from my burning muscles, but there was nothing more to ask.

This is the end, Cassie, I told myself. This is the end.

I felt the terrible hatred surge in me again. But I didn't want to end my life that way. I would not die with hate in my heart. That would be one victory I could deny Visser Three.

I let my mind drift, even as my shattered body struggled to go on. I felt my mind floating back. To the barn, and all the animals there. To my father, my mother. To Jake.

I remembered good things. Riding the high thermals with Tobias and the others with wings spread wide. Good days. Sitting at my grand mother's feet as she told me the story of our family, of all the generations who had lived on and worked the farm.

And then a more recent memory surfaced. The whale. I remembered his huge, gentle silence filling my mind.

I could even hear his song.

Wait! I could hear his song. That wasn't memory. I was hearing his plaintive, haunting song, reverberating through the water.

He was not far away.

I opened my mind and let my human consciousness slip away. I let go. I invited the dolphin mind - the mind that loved to play and loved to fight and loved the feeling of soaring out of the water right up into the air like a bird - to surface in my head.

I fired echolocating bursts, a thousand quick clicks compressed into a few seconds. And more than that, I cried for help.

It was foolish. It was ridiculous. But I cried out in a silent plea, like a child with a nightmare calling for her mother.

The monster is after me! The destroyer! The evil one!

Help me.

<We have used eighty percent of our time,> Ax managed to say.

<Twenty-four minutes left,> Marco gasped.

<lt doesn't matter. I'm done for,> Rachel admitted. <l can't keep going. And he's too close. It's time to turn and fight.>

WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.

<We cannot possibly win,> Ax said.

<We know,> Jake said. <But if I have to lose, I'd rather lose fighting than let him catch us one by one.>

<That is a very Andalite thing to say,> Ax said. <We have a lot in common. I wish it had ended differently.>

<On the count of three,> Jake said.

<One.>

<Two.>

<Let's go.>

We stopped. We turned to face the mardrut.

<Jake?> I said. <l wanted to tell you . . .>

<Yes. Me, too, Cassie,> he said.

Aww. That's cute.

quote:

WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.

The red-and-purple behemoth rushed at us.

I shook with terror. But I was too tired to swim away.

Help me! I cried one last time. But I knew there was no one to help.

And then I let it all go ...

. . . and said good-bye.

<In Edward G Robinson voice> "Where's your cetacean God now, Cassie?"

# ? Jun 22, 2020 01:13

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

isn't our cetacean god about to koolaid man visser 3?

# ? Jun 22, 2020 03:09

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Radio Free Kobold posted:

isn't our cetacean god about to koolaid man visser 3?

Oh, Yea!

# ? Jun 22, 2020 03:16

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

Epicurius posted:

Oh, Yea!

# ? Jun 22, 2020 03:26

QueenOfTheEvening: Jan 6, 2020; by Athanatos

PetraCore posted:

Yeah I think the moral grayness is definitely in recruiting teens, not in the disabled thing, bc like, disabled people can make their own decisions, especially if there's no mental impairment, and they have the same stakes as everyone else in wanting to defend the Earth from the yeerks.

'Adults might want to do their own thing' is specifically funny to me though with the context of David. I guess it's more of a worry that an adult might want to take over specifically bc of age and a desire to 'protect' the teenaged Animorphs?

It's also literally what happens when their families move into the Hork Bajir valley.

# ? Jun 22, 2020 21:40

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Message-Chapter 23

quote:

<I've made up my mind what to do with you,> Visser Three said. <After this long chase I am really quite hungry.>

He rushed at us.

We rushed at him.

Something dark came hurtling up from the ocean floor.

Something dark and long and bigger even than the mardrut.

FWOOOMP!

Visser Three shuddered and stopped dead in the water.

A second dark shape, as fast as the first.

FWOOOMP!

<The great ones,> I whispered.

< It's the whales!> Marco yelled.

There were five of them in the water.

The two big males who had struck first had heads like sledgehammers. Sperm whales. Sixty feet long. Sixty-five tons. The weight of fifty cars.

They had dived deep and come tearing up at awesome velocity to slam into the creature from another world's ocean.

The mardrut was big. The mardrut was strong. But nothing living can survive for long, being slammed by creatures weighing a hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

Then, the whale - my whale, because that's how I thought of him - began to lash the mardrut with his tail. Hammer blows. Hits that could have knocked walls down. Again and again, as two smaller females joined in and the two sperm whales circled back for another attack.

<Rrraaaggghhhh!> Visser Three's cry of pain and fury echoed in my brain.

<He's retreating!> Jake crowed.

<He's running!> Rachel said. <Hah-hah!>

<I don't think Visser Three likes whales very much,> Marco yelled. <I don't think he likes them at all!>

The whales chased him for a while, but they let him go in the end.

Whales are not very good at killing. They don't really have much of a talent for hating and destroying.

Humpback whales are filter feeders. They eat krill, so they aren't good at killing. Other types of whales, though, the ones that eat fish, like sperm whales, are very good at killing.

quote:

My whale, the big humpback, returned in a few minutes and rested in the water beside me.

I wanted to thank him, but, as I said, whales don't think in human words or human thoughts. Still, I tried, anyway.

Thanks, big guy.

People who argue about how smart whales are, or whether they are as smart as humans, kind of miss the point. Whales will never read books or build rockets or do algebra. In all those areas, humans are smarter.

Humans are the great brains of planet Earth.

But it isn't necessary to believe whales are as smart as humans to believe that they are great. They don't have to know words to sing songs. They don't have to be anything but what they are to be magnificent. And even though I don't really know what a soul is, I know this - if humans have them, then so do whales.

I wanted to thank him for responding to my call for help. But I had a strange feeling, as he opened his great heart to the dolphin mind that was in my own, that he hadn't just come in response to me.

I had the feeling - and that's all it was, a feeling - that in some way the sea itself had called him to respond to the presence of an abomination.

Of course I never told that to Jake or any of the others. They would have laughed. At least, Marco would have.

You know what? I'm laughing too.

quote:

<Morph time is almost up,> Ax said.

<l think if we morph, the whale will carry us until we are ready to morph again,> I said.

So we morphed back to our human bodies, and Ax morphed to his Andalite body, and we crawled up on the whale's huge back.

I fell asleep. I know that sounds pretty incredible, but I did. I was exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. In every way you can be tired, I was tired.

When I woke up, it was sunset. We were near shore. I could see the beach, and just a little farther down the shore, the mouth of the river.

We were wet, of course, covered with splashing water and the spray from the whale's blow hole. It was a little cold, especially now that the sun was going down.

But then again, I wasn't Visser Three's lunch, so I wasn't going to complain.

Jake was sitting cross-legged on the whale's back, smiling at me.

"Some day, huh?" he said.

I smiled. "Yeah."

"We did it. We saved the Andalite. And we got out alive."

"Barely," I said.

"You know something? You were right. You trusted your feelings and we followed you and we're all safe."

I nodded. "Yes, I guess so. Only ... as Marco would say, let's not do this again any time soon, okay?"

Jake smiled his slow smile. "It's fun being a dolphin, though, isn't it? I know you were worried about it. You know, thinking maybe it wasn't right and all."

I shook my head slowly. "I'm still not sure it's right. But I guess we don't have much of a choice. The Yeerks started this fight, not us. And after what Ax said ... I guess it's not just about one species, human beings. It's about all the animals. It's about all of Earth."

Jake nodded. "I think if you could ask the dolphins, they would say it's all right to use them. Since what you're trying to do is save them."

"Nah, they would just think it was all a big game. They would never understand."

We both laughed. Even if they could talk, the dolphins would never really understand what we were so upset about. We knew that better than anyone.

"I guess that's true," Jake said. "But we do understand." He met my gaze. "We do understand what's at stake. And we'll do whatever we have to do to win."

I knew what he was trying to tell me. We'd used the dolphins to save them. We'd used other animals to save them, too. And that made it okay.

So, while there are two more chapters, including a denoument for Ax, that's the story of whale Jesus.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 00:07

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

If you don't like whales kicking the crap out of Visser Three why are you even here

# ? Jun 23, 2020 00:09

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

If you don't like whales kicking the crap out of Visser Three why are you even here

I love whales kicking the crap out of Visser Three. But whales kicking the crap out of Visser Three because Cassie called out to their innately kind and understanding souls is, wow, really dumb.

On the other hand, even if it took some cetus ex machina, it's nice that they finally got to succeed at the exact mission they set out to do, without losing a fight and having to abort or having somebody get captured. Vague spoiler: it's going to be a little while before that happens again.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 00:21

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

Can whales actually hit stuff with their tales? Wouldn't that just, like, push them through the water?
That said, I imagine getting hit by a fast-moving sperm whale would be extremely unpleasant.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 03:59

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

I mean, being hit by a whale tail would push you through the water, but it would also hurt. If you're hit by a car, the force of that pushes you through the air, but it still doesn't feel very good.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 04:25

Daikloktos: Jan 1, 2020; by Cyrano4747

If a whale hits you hard enough do you impact the water behind you like it was a concrete wall similar to too high a fall?

# ? Jun 23, 2020 04:53

Patrick Spens: Jul 21, 2006; "Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"; Pillbug

The water is concrete thing happens when you are moving too fast for the water to get out of the way. If a whale hit you hard enough to get you moving that fast, you'd be pulped by the impact.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 05:02

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

Tree Bucket posted:

Can whales actually hit stuff with their tales? Wouldn't that just, like, push them through the water?
That said, I imagine getting hit by a fast-moving sperm whale would be extremely unpleasant.

I was curious too so I googled it and it turns out that they can.

https://sciencing.com/whales-protect-themselves-4566498.html

# ? Jun 23, 2020 05:03

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

I do like the running gag throughout the series that Visser Three keeps turning up in monstrous alien gribblies... and almost always gets his rear end kicked by Earth wildlife. I remember one of the later books explicitly stating that Earth's ecosphere is unbelievably vicious by galactic standards, and that most aliens who know about Earth have humans on their radar for the simple fact that humans are the apex species of this death world.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 13:17

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

Cythereal posted:

I do like the running gag throughout the series that Visser Three keeps turning up in monstrous alien gribblies... and almost always gets his rear end kicked by Earth wildlife. I remember one of the later books explicitly stating that Earth's ecosphere is unbelievably vicious by galactic standards, and that most aliens who know about Earth have humans on their radar for the simple fact that humans are the apex species of this death world.

I also like the implication that he morphs specifically to win fights through brute size and strength, because if he has to actually fight using that body, it's not going to work well. He'd never let the morph's instincts take over like the kids do; "have 100% control over the body at all times" is an absolute rule for a Yeerk.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 13:29

Some Pinko Commie: Jun 9, 2009; CNC! Easy as 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣!

The weirdo fire monster thing seems like an incredibly useful morph that he should've used more often, in that case.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 14:54

Fritzler: Sep 5, 2007

Light spoilers for a future book and question about Visser 3�s biology:
I remember later the Yeerks are genetically adapting sharks so their brains are big enough for Yeerks to live in. Does this ever come up in Visser 3�s morphs? He can�t morph small enough wit hour killing the yeerk inside? Does this ever come up in an animorphs battle plan against him?

# ? Jun 23, 2020 15:06

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Fritzler posted:

Light spoilers for a future book and question about Visser 3�s biology:
I remember later the Yeerks are genetically adapting sharks so their brains are big enough for Yeerks to live in. Does this ever come up in Visser 3�s morphs? He can�t morph small enough wit hour killing the yeerk inside? Does this ever come up in an animorphs battle plan against him?

I don't think it ever does. I'd be surprised if Visser 3 had any small morphs. Biology aside, Visser 3 is not really the type of Yeerk who goes for subtle and stealthy approaches to problems.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 15:54

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

I think a simpler answer for why he keeps morphing weird alien beasts is that those are simply what he had available - they are probably just normal animals on their respective worlds and only seem weird and alien to us.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 16:29

wizzardstaff: Apr 6, 2018; Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Visser Three definitely seems like the kind of guy to go big game hunting and claim a morph as a trophy.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 16:45

Some Pinko Commie: Jun 9, 2009; CNC! Easy as 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣!

Obtaining a Yeerkbane morph would probably require a bit more competence than we've seen so far though.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 17:21

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

biracial bear for uncut posted:

Obtaining a Yeerkbane morph would probably require a bit more competence than we've seen so far though.

A zoo, probably. I could see the Yeerks keeping some around as trophies after completing their conquest of their homeworld. And Visser Three making up a story about how he totally fought one and acquired it legit, when he just went to the zoo and had it sedated.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 17:35

PetraCore: Jul 20, 2017; 👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

Cythereal posted:

A zoo, probably. I could see the Yeerks keeping some around as trophies after completing their conquest of their homeworld. And Visser Three making up a story about how he totally fought one and acquired it legit, when he just went to the zoo and had it sedated.

It'd be even better if the Andalite host is the one who had acquired the Yeerkbane. It's a useful morph for fighting Yeerks, after all.

# ? Jun 23, 2020 18:01

feetnotes: Jan 29, 2008

That�s a good question as to which morphs the Visser picked up on his own. I think I recall that Andalites tend to see morphing primarily as a tool for espionage, and don�t have much conception of �battle morphs.� Makes sense considering they have an effective natural weapon in their tails.

I don�t remember seeing Alloran morph into battle forms before his infestation. Ax usually opts to stay in his normal form in fights, which you�d think would raise some questions about why only one of the Andalite bandits didn�t acquire an Earth critter, but I don�t remember it coming up. But it also makes sense consider Andalite pride.

Makes sense though that the Visser, as a yeerk, would want to take advantage of as many bodies as he could. When so much of your existence depends on what host body you can take over, why not opt for lots of them in one since you have the chance?

All these different approaches to mind/body issues still hold up and are very interesting to me

# ? Jun 23, 2020 19:13

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

feetnotes posted:

That�s a good question as to which morphs the Visser picked up on his own. I think I recall that Andalites tend to see morphing primarily as a tool for espionage, and don�t have much conception of �battle morphs.� Makes sense considering they have an effective natural weapon in their tails.

I don�t remember seeing Alloran morph into battle forms before his infestation. Ax usually opts to stay in his normal form in fights, which you�d think would raise some questions about why only one of the Andalite bandits didn�t acquire an Earth critter, but I don�t remember it coming up. But it also makes sense consider Andalite pride.

Makes sense though that the Visser, as a yeerk, would want to take advantage of as many bodies as he could. When so much of your existence depends on what host body you can take over, why not opt for lots of them in one since you have the chance?

All these different approaches to mind/body issues still hold up and are very interesting to me

If I remember correctly, the few times a Yeerk finds out their identities, they usually say stuff like "We wondered why all but one of you morphed to fight." and basically that they had all the questions you might have... but it's also basically said that none of them actually told Visser-3 their suspicions because Visser-3 was not the kind of boss you wanted to tell anything he might not like to hear... and it was nearly impossible to know what might fit that category. So people told him as little as possible.

# ? Jun 24, 2020 00:36

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

It's great that, re-reading Animorphs as an adult, Visser 3 is immediately identifiable as every crappy manager ever.

# ? Jun 24, 2020 01:33

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# ? May 25, 2024 11:38

wizzardstaff: Apr 6, 2018; Zorch! Splat! Pow!

It really changes the context for why the reader hates and fears him.

# ? Jun 24, 2020 01:42

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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