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"Why bother? I'll just die tired" aside, do remember that we view humans as enemy combatants, for the Yeerks we're a resource. Not everyone salt their fields just to deny it to their foes - especially if you're planning to come back for a second round.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 21:43 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:57 |
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The Capture-Chapter 21quote:The fugue. So we got to see a little about how a Gedd thinks, and a Hork-Bajir thinks and how a Yeerk thinks. quote:And to my shock, I knew that those parts were now being transferred to me. I was listening to a podcast about the series (yes, there are podcasts about the series), and one of the things it talked about in regards to this book is what's called the myth of the perfect victim. The idea is that the 'perfect' victim of a crime or an injustice is an innocent, who something bad happened to through no fault of their own, and that somebody who doesn't live up to that standard is complicit in what happened to them. So, for instance, if someone is raped or sexually assaulted, somebody might point out that they were promiscuous, or they were wearing revealing clothing, or that got drunk, or it was their boyfriend/girlfriend who did it. Or, for instance, somebody who's car got stolen, they left their keys in the car, so what did these people expect to happen? So, these people aren't seen as victims in the same way as someone who didn't have those special circumstances. This is, in a way, a way of distancing ourselves from the event...."So long as I do the right thing, this won't happen to me." Of course, it's very easy in fiction to create this "perfect victim", so it's significant that Tom isn't. Tom got in this situation because he was sexually attracted to a girl, and followed her around, even in a way, kind of creepily. But that doesn't diminish Tom's victimhood or make what happened to him any less wrong, and the text never suggests it does. quote:The Yeerk was no longer in pain. It was beyond pain. RIP Temrash. Would have become President of the US if not for those stupid, meddling kids. The Capture-Chapter 22 quote:Jake? Are you all right, sweetheart?" my mom asked me that night at dinner. I looked up. I'd been staring at my food, I realized. Something with pasta and tuna fish.\ Oh, Ax. The little scamp. [/quote]And were you suspicious, Yeerk? I thought, looking at my brother. A new Yeerk was in Tom's head. Another arrogant master of the galaxy. My brother was trapped in a small corner of his own mind, able to see and feel, but powerless to do a thing. I knew. I didn't sleep much that night. I did not want the dreams to come. I feared terrible nightmares of the eye. The eye that had stared at me from a different universe. But the only dream that came was a familiar one. I was the tiger. My brother was the prey. But, in the end, I was my brother. And he was me. On the news that night there was a small report on the closing of the new hospital. There was no explanation. But I knew what had happened. The Yeerks knew their plan was blown. They understood that we knew about it. We had hurt them pretty badly. But I knew better than to celebrate. Visser Three would be more determined than ever to stop us.[/quote] Still, for them, this was a win. It was a good plan for the Yeerks...had that hospital opened, even beyond operation "Let's take over the Governor", they would have had a host conveyor belt. quote:The next day I did something stupid. At least, Marco kept telling me it was stupid. But he didn't object very much. He understood. And we leave our heroes, with the knowledge that Yeerks have very poor phone etiquette. That wraps up Book 6. I really liked it. The Yeerks had a great plan, and I think we understand them better now. It's certainly the first time in the series we've spent a long period of time listening to a Yeerk and inside one's mind, even if it was inside Jake's mind. Coming up next, Book 7, The Stranger. It's a Rachel book. Epicurius fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jul 31, 2020 |
# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:20 |
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Is there a touch of Sauron to the enormous all-seeing eye? (And the elvish word for "orc" is "yrc" isn't it?)
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:32 |
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Tree Bucket posted:Is there a touch of Sauron to the enormous all-seeing eye? (And the elvish word for "orc" is "yrc" isn't it?) Lord of the Rings is all over these books because Grant and Applegate are both huge Tolkien nerds. For example, the name of Visser Three's host, Alloran, is a homophone of Olórin, the true name of Gandalf.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:36 |
There are a lot of nods to LOTR.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:38 |
Also the Yeerk Pool backwards is "Rain Plus", make of that what you will.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:38 |
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Tree Bucket posted:Is there a touch of Sauron to the enormous all-seeing eye? (And the elvish word for "orc" is "yrc" isn't it?) The elvish word for orc is yrc, yes.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 22:40 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Also the Yeerk Pool backwards is "Rain Plus", make of that what you will. Also "nothlit" is an anagram of "Hilton", because when Applegate was writing the first book she was staying a Hilton hotel and started playing with the letters on the hotel room stationary pads they give you, or something to that effect. I also think she's since said that she's become embarrassed by proxy at the name choice post-rise and fall of Paris Hilton as a bargain bin celebrity.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 23:00 |
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Book 6 is excellent, but I'm really psyched for book 7. BIG debut, their first real, big victory, which is the setup for them discovering that even real, big victories can have big consequences... I read this one so many times as a kid.
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# ? Jul 30, 2020 23:25 |
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Wait a minute, was that who I think it was? Even this early, he's here? Hah!
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 00:05 |
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Lol at the very mid-90s assumption that a cellular phone would be untraceable.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 00:24 |
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Radio Free Kobold posted:Wait a minute, was that who I think it was? Even this early, he's here? Hah! It's the reason he's obsessed with jake
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 03:12 |
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disaster pastor posted:Book 6 is excellent, but I'm really psyched for book 7. BIG debut, their first real, big victory, which is the setup for them discovering that even real, big victories can have big consequences... I read this one so many times as a kid. Oooh, this is sounding good! The Capture and Ax's first book were the last ones I managed to find as a kid- it's all uncharted territory for me now!
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 04:29 |
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Now that they know you can starve a yeerk out they should just kidnap Tom and do that.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 06:46 |
I'm just gonna go on record as saying Alloran Did Nothing Wrong
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 06:54 |
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Avalerion posted:Now that they know you can starve a yeerk out they should just kidnap Tom and do that. If you do that you are effectively killing Tom because he'd need to go on the run because the Yeerks know who he is and would notice if he hasn't show up to the pool in X amount of days for his Controller's regular feedings. And the kids don't know how widespread the invasion is at this point and how big of a surveillance net they have over the planet that can be used to track escaped hosts. If Tom gets recaptured and re-infested, then he at the very least will out the kids as active resistance members, if not fully morph-capable humans, unless they took steps to cover up their identities throughout the whole process of freeing him. Or the Yeerks could just out and out kill him once they get their hands on him again. Either way Jake will never see his brother alive again, and that's an outcome he's fighting like hell to try and avoid. Basically, Tom is stuck with his new Yeerk for the duration, because literally every other option ends in disaster for him, Jake, and the other Animorphs too. Same thing goes with Eva.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 07:01 |
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Avalerion posted:Now that they know you can starve a yeerk out they should just kidnap Tom and do that. And then they'll know that the people they're looking for are connected to Tom and willing to take steps to save him, which points directly at Jake and then to his friends.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 07:06 |
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nine-gear crow posted:Also "nothlit" is an anagram of "Hilton", because when Applegate was writing the first book she was staying a Hilton hotel and started playing with the letters on the hotel room stationary pads they give you, or something to that effect. strangely fitting, considering what Book 3 showed about living in the body of- and sharing a mind with- an animal. You can check out any time you like... but you can never leave.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 07:48 |
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Avalerion posted:Now that they know you can starve a yeerk out they should just kidnap Tom and do that. They should frame Tom for a murder so he's locked up for a while
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 13:53 |
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This is it, my first Animorphs. My mother took me and my sister shopping to pick out our Christmas presents, and this was among mine. I had been fascinated by those covers. I got into the bags on the car ride home and started reading and couldn't put it down. Of course it was supposed to be for Christmas, and so went in an almighty sulk when she took it off me to hide away. She eventually gave up and let me have it when I kept breaking into the cupboard where the presents were hidden. Like others, I'm surprised at how short the actual Yeerk infestation actually is when it left such a mark. And look at these kids being sneaky and competent. That didn't mean all that much reading the first time, but doing it in order and seeing them just escaping with their lives to completing a goal here, and even if it did almost go horribly pear shaped they came up with a plan then and followed it through. Next book spoilers It's a nice progression to next book where they finally get their first big win Man Tom's new Yeerk is dumb. It may not have the memories of Jake not normally being a total food obsessed weirdo, but Tom does. I've just thought of something. This book is the first we see Visser Three in a human morph. Do you think he has ever succumbed to the forbidden pleasures of the cinnamon bun?
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 16:37 |
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I only watched a couple of the tv show episodes because I realized it was hot garbage but one thing I thought was cool is that Shawn Ashmore, who played Jake, has an actual identical twin brother irl so when they did this book on the show they had the twins act as Jake and Ax-in-Jake-morph rather than using camera trickery.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 17:03 |
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The one nice touch about the episode is it goes to a shot of Ax as Jake eating dinner, and nobody in his family notices anything because Jake's table manners are normally just that terrible.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 17:16 |
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Ednamamame posted:Man Tom's new Yeerk is dumb. It may not have the memories of Jake not normally being a total food obsessed weirdo, but Tom does.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 18:28 |
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nine-gear crow posted:If you do that you are effectively killing Tom because he'd need to go on the run because the Yeerks know who he is and would notice if he hasn't show up to the pool in X amount of days for his Controller's regular feedings. And the kids don't know how widespread the invasion is at this point and how big of a surveillance net they have over the planet that can be used to track escaped hosts. If Tom gets recaptured and re-infested, then he at the very least will out the kids as active resistance members, if not fully morph-capable humans, unless they took steps to cover up their identities throughout the whole process of freeing him. Or the Yeerks could just out and out kill him once they get their hands on him again. Either way Jake will never see his brother alive again, and that's an outcome he's fighting like hell to try and avoid. what they need to pull that off is some kind of locally-grown guerilla network. like an actual resistance cell.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 19:30 |
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Radio Free Kobold posted:what they need to pull that off is some kind of locally-grown guerilla network. like an actual resistance cell. Again, another thing the TV show does that's nowhere in the books is that Tobias stumbles upon an actual legit human resistance cell complete with a badass female commander... in the final episode of the show. It literally amounts to "oh wow, you guys are cool and all, but I'm gonna bounce because there's like 10 minutes left before the credits--and I guess you all maybe died, I dunno." It was kind of like how the 2009 V show ended with the protagonist stumbling across a proper military-led resistance operation and, oops, show cancelled, gently caress you.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 20:58 |
Ednamamame posted:This is it, my first Animorphs. My mother took me and my sister shopping to pick out our Christmas presents, and this was among mine. I had been fascinated by those covers. I got into the bags on the car ride home and started reading and couldn't put it down. Of course it was supposed to be for Christmas, and so went in an almighty sulk when she took it off me to hide away. She eventually gave up and let me have it when I kept breaking into the cupboard where the presents were hidden. He would be far less angry if he had.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 22:06 |
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Radio Free Kobold posted:what they need to pull that off is some kind of locally-grown guerilla network. like an actual resistance cell. I'm getting the impression that the yeerk operation is still small enough where just blowing the whole thing public would end it for the yeerks. The whole thing seems very local.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 23:01 |
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Book 7: The Stranger, Chapter 1quote:My name is Rachel. We all do know the drill, but the books continue to want to explain it to us in the first chapter. I guess I can't blame them too much. Kids might pick up this book and not have picked up the previous one. quote:It was a Sunday night. It was late. The circus had finished its last show. Their trailers and tents were clustered around the back side of the big City Arena. The Arena is a place where they hold rock concerts and ice shows and play basketball games. And where they have circuses. I don't know if I realized this before this read, but these shows are very much about family....both the family you have and the family you build. We haven't seen too much about Cassie and her parents yet, but a lot has been focused on Jake and his brother, Marco and his father, Marco and his mother, Ax and his feelings about his brother, and Tobias and that he doesn't really have a family outside the Animorphs. In the last Rachel story, she put herself in danger to comfort her friend, who's parents had been Yeerked, and the only reason Melissa had been saved was because the Chapmans' love for her was strong enough that they were able to resist the Yeerks. Even the Animorphs' internal relationship is sort of a pseudo-family, with Jake the strict dad, Cassie the nurturing mom, Marco the bratty son, Rachel the strong willed daughter and Tobias....the family's pet hawk the daughter is in love with? Ok, so my analogy got a little away from me here, but I think my overall point is strong...that family relationships make up a major part of the series. quote:There wasn't much activity in the little tent and trailer city outside the Arena. I could hear dogs barking. I could hear raucous laughter coming from a brightly painted trailer. I could smell the usual circus smells - manure, hay, beer, cotton candy. There were security guards around the perimeter of the area, but I wasn't worried about them. See, even Rachel makes the comparison! It's not just me! quote:I found the gate in the elephant pen and opened it. I slipped inside while Cassie retreated into the shadows to watch my back. I moved slowly, not making any threatening moves that might alarm the elephants. So, once again, after the kids have solemnly vowed to only use their powers to fight the Yeerks, one of them uses it for something other than to fight the Yeerks. To be fair to Rachel, she's not entirely wrong. While animal acts in circuses can be entertaining to watch, the process of training the animals can be pretty cruel, and this is especially true of elephants. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was the subject of a 14 year lawsuit regarding mistreatment of elephants (as well as a bunch of previous prosecutions for animal cruelty) that only ended in 2014. In 2016, they agreed to stop animal acts altogether, and went out of business a year later. A bunch of places have passed laws restricting or banning animal acts in circuses, although in the US, I think New Jersey is the only one to do so. Anyway, lets watch Rachel abuse her powers to theaten people. The Stranger-Chapter 2 quote:"People say I'm pretty, I don't know and I really don't care. But I'll tell you one thing - no one who has ever seen me morph into an elephant ever used the word "pretty" to describe it. No comment really necessary regarding this chapter, other than that they're lucky Josep wasn't a Human-Controller.
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# ? Jul 31, 2020 23:53 |
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Rachel keeps using the elephant to mess with people in her books
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 00:16 |
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if i was an animorph and it wasn't for yeerks, bet your rear end i'd be loving with people
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 01:08 |
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Avalerion posted:I'm getting the impression that the yeerk operation is still small enough where just blowing the whole thing public would end it for the yeerks. The whole thing seems very local. I think that would then lead to step two, overt invasion and attack, which the Yeerks would ultimately win but which would kill a good chunk of the human population, which neither the Yeerks nor the Animorphs want to see happen.
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 04:40 |
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Epicurius posted:No comment really necessary regarding this chapter, other than that they're lucky Josep wasn't a Human-Controller. I'm pretty sure Rachel's plan if Josep said or did anything that indicated he was a Controller was just to go "oh, OK" and tusk him.
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 05:16 |
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disaster pastor posted:I'm pretty sure Rachel's plan if Josep said or did anything that indicated he was a Controller was just to go "oh, OK" and tusk him. It would be a very happy "Oh, Ok!"
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 05:50 |
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Yeah I imagine if a Yeerk got thought spoken at, they wouldn't be able to resist the urge to hiss ANDALITE FILTH at them.
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 11:40 |
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Epicurius posted:No comment really necessary regarding this chapter, other than that they're lucky Josep wasn't a Human-Controller.
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# ? Aug 1, 2020 15:01 |
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The Stranger-Chapter 3quote:You threw the guy into the air?" Jake asked. "Wasn't that maybe just a little unnecessary?" I like that line. quote:"We have other stuff to deal with," Marco grumbled. "The Andalite didn't give us this power so we could turn into the Animorph Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." Kind of asking a lot of Marco not to milk suspense, isn't it? The Stranger-Chapter 4 quote:he entrance to the Yeerk pool?" I echoed. "Where? How?" I think Rachel sometimes gets stereotyped as all action, no thought, but she did figure that out. quote:"So?" I asked, a little more patiently. There probably is kind of a deep statement to be made here about how the Yeerks are using big American teen gathering places...the school, the mall, as fronts for their secret gathering places, but I'm probably not the one to make it. I will say, throughout the series, keep an eye on Yeerk pool entrances, because there will be more. quote:"Good job," Jake admitted grudgingly. "The question is, now what do we do?" It's something people forget sometimes, I think, because Ax is an Andalite and the Andalites have been fighting the Yeerks, but of all of them, Ax actually has the least experience of them all in fighting the Yeerks, and he's in the most alien environment. So, really, even though he has more raw information about the Yeerks and how they fight, in a lot of ways, he's the Anamorphs' student.
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 00:33 |
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https://www.wikihow.com/Smize I can't believe Tyra Banks is a secret Andalite. (Just got caught up with this thread, read the first dozen books as a kid, am looking forward to seeing what I missed)
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 03:39 |
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Epicurius posted:I think Rachel sometimes gets stereotyped as all action, no thought, but she did figure that out. I agree that the stereotype exists, but it annoys the hell out of me, because the text says the opposite: Rachel is Marco's competition for "smartest Animorph." A lot of their dynamic (that isn't Marco attempting to flirt) is informed by this; Rachel doesn't understand why Marco is so hesitant when they're both smart enough to know that their plans are probably pretty good, while Marco doesn't understand why Rachel is so gung-ho when they're both smart enough to know that there's no plan so good that they can't at least improve it by giving it more thought, if not replace it with an even better one. There's a point in the second half of the series where (vague-ish background spoilers, I guess?) it's either implied or stated outright — I don't recall for sure — that the only reason the Animorphs are still passing their classes, let alone keeping their grades high enough to avoid suspicion, is that they're all cheating off Rachel.
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 03:40 |
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There’s also an interesting bit about Marco’s remarks on Ax and Rachel in that while by the end of the series they basically hate each other (Rachel viewing Ax as a traitor to the team and Ax thinking that Rachel is insanely bloodthirsty), they’re by far the most similar Animorphs in that they both love the war and battle and very kick-in-the-door battle plans. Of course as mentioned Rachel excels at school and Ax never paid attention in school but there are broad parallels between the two.
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 03:54 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:57 |
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Remind me why Rachel eventually views Ax as a traitor to the team? I just realised that I never finished the series originally as a kid, and read the final 10-odd books as part of my 20-year-old-ish re-read, so my memory of some of the aspects of the ending is spotty. And I distinctively remember which book I stopped at: The one where Cassie goes to Australia which even my 12-year-old brain thought was shameless filler with no point to it other than getting a kangaroo on the front cover, and I was like, gently caress this, I'm done. And then in literally the very next book the Marco gets outed to the Yeerks as an Animorph and the end-game kicks off. That's pretty funny.
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 04:42 |