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freebooter posted:Am I remembering correctly: Cassie is setting in train a chain of events here that ends up saving all of them? That is a separate and later Cassie idealistic-but-stupid decision, which is giving Tom (and thus the Yeerk Empire) the morphing cube. Possibly due to that Tom becomes willing and/or capable of betraying the Empire for his own self-interest and helps the Animorphs. Also there are a few Yeerks the kids encounter who give up or run away since they can now morph, and Cassie tells Ax she thinks that effect will be further-flung and ultimately destabilize the Empire and end the war. However the Yeerk Peace Movement started in this book is a major part of another Cassie book, #29, but then is mentioned little after that. I think in an ideal rewritten Animorphs that focused more clearly on the themes it is establishing, Aftran should have just become part of the team. A lot of drama (with Ax especially!) could have been wrung out of that and it would make clear that not all Yeerks are evil.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 13:11 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 15:22 |
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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 23 Jake quote:We flew toward the osprey, but it soon went below the trees and out of sight. It was quite a distance away, and we’d been in morph for a long time. Of course, while all this is happening, Cassie/Aftran are getting further away from them. And while we know what happened, at this point, they don't. Chapter 24 Jake quote:We met up a few minutes later, out of the paths of the human-Controllers. Ax easily outran the humans, even carrying the big eagle. It only became difficult when Rachel suddenly woke up. You know, that's probably not going to kill the leopard.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 03:58 |
Huh. Chekhov's Leopard.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:06 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Huh. Chekhov's Leopard. Every time you forget about it, it shows up again, <Deep philosophical conversation about the nature of war> <Leopard attack!>
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:35 |
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That leopard must be mighty hungry to keep pursuing Karen even when she’s surrounded by strange-smelling people including an alien.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:43 |
I guess it really meant it when it said next time she's mine???
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:48 |
ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:That leopard must be mighty hungry to keep pursuing Karen even when she’s surrounded by strange-smelling people including an alien. leopards can always identify members of the "leopards eating people's faces" party and frankly that fits the yeerk empire pretty well
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:51 |
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:That leopard must be mighty hungry to keep pursuing Karen even when she’s surrounded by strange-smelling people including an alien. To be fair, they were all birds just a minute ago.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 04:56 |
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I hope the Leopard digs up the morphing cube and becomes a recurring wild-card antagonist.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 05:08 |
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the yeerk should go in the leopard
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 05:13 |
The leopard is a more effective and frightening antagonist than Visser Three
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 05:17 |
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This book is plotted like a farce, and I'm warming to it. Can't wait for Cassie's identical twin to show up.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 09:18 |
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rollick posted:This book is plotted like a farce, and I'm warming to it. Can't wait for Cassie's identical twin to show up. Karen tears off her obviously obviously fake mustache. "It was I, Visser Three, all along!"
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 19:36 |
The leopard tears off Karen's face.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 20:39 |
*laugh track* Oh, that leopard! Zoom to black centered on leopard's face
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 20:44 |
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The leopard poses dramatically <FOOLS! Your earth creatures do indeed make for the most fascinating of morphs>
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 22:43 |
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I often wonder what insults V3 would use other than FOOLS! if the authors were allowed free rein. I guess more than one scene would end with "FFFFF-"
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 22:49 |
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Strategic Tea posted:The leopard poses dramatically Visser 3 is a known cat-lover so it fits.
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# ? Apr 6, 2021 22:56 |
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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 25 Jake quote:We made a strange little group, there at the edge of the meadow. An Andalite. An elephant. A gorilla. A hawk. And me. I was human again. I guess sometimes you just have to trust. Chapter 26 Cassie quote:For a long time, I was gone. So I just want to talk for a second about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. You might think, like I did, that you know, the caterpillar sits in there, and then, I dunno, wings grow on it and other things. That's not what happens at all. So caterpillars have this hormone that stops maturity, so as it grows, it molts its outer skin and grows bigger. Eventually, though, the hormone stops being produced, The caterpillar molts it skin, and attaches itself to a plant, and then the new skin gets hard. Meanwhile, inside there, the caterpillar starts dissolving. It just breaks down. The caterpillar has these cells colonies in it, for wings and all the stuff that a butterfly has, that normally the hormone stops from growing. Now that it's gone, these cells grow, feeing off the slurry that was the caterpillar, and a butterfly forms out of it. It breaks itself out of the chrysalis (which, remember, is the hardened skin of the caterpillar, and then goes off to do its butterfly things, which is basically eating and having sex. It's a total transformation though. It's almost like the caterpillar and the butterfly are completely different animals.
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 04:37 |
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I was withholding judgement on what I remember happening in this chapter until I read it again, but I have to say it's probably the most unrealistic part of the whole book (including what comes next, which considering they once got timeblasted back to the Cretaceous, is hardly the most egregious handwavey science in the series). I admire the point KA is trying to make here and I believe every single one of the characters would be tempted to honour Cassie's sacrifice and let Karen/Aftran live - but not actually do it. KA's thumb is on the scale pretty heavily here. (Also, we know this works out fine because the series doesn't end, but plot hole: wouldn't the cop controllers ask how it was Aftran spoke to them in thought-speak?)
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 08:31 |
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freebooter posted:I was withholding judgement on what I remember happening in this chapter until I read it again, but I have to say it's probably the most unrealistic part of the whole book (including what comes next, which considering they once got timeblasted back to the Cretaceous, is hardly the most egregious handwavey science in the series). quote:(Also, we know this works out fine because the series doesn't end, but plot hole: wouldn't the cop controllers ask how it was Aftran spoke to them in thought-speak?)
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 08:39 |
If afran just never went back into Karen, the yeerks would re infest her and see from her memories who the 'andalite bandits' were lol
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 09:59 |
SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:If afran just never went back into Karen, the yeerks would re infest her and see from her memories who the 'andalite bandits' were lol Yeah I actually don't remember how this is resolved. I'm certain they won't waste Karen, but I don't know how she could escape either.
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 10:00 |
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Fuschia tude posted:
It told them who it was, though? Name, rank and everything.
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 11:03 |
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Crespolini posted:It told them who it was, though? Name, rank and everything. lol disregard everything I said then
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 23:03 |
obviously it was just the andalite bandits tricking them into being eaten by a leopard as far as karen's memory goes...i've got nothing. we know yeerks can replay memories, maybe they can erase them? but you'd think they would just turn people into voids if they could do that, at least for hosts that don't need to maintain cover like hork-bajir.
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# ? Apr 7, 2021 23:56 |
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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 27 Jake quote:I was sitting in science class, listening to some hopelessly complicated lecture about fungus when I saw the familiar flash of brown and tan shoot past the window. GET! THAT! BUTTERFLY! should be the Animorph motto. Chapter 28 Cassie quote:I had to lie to my parents. I stuck to the truth as much as I could. I mean, I told them about falling in the river. I just left out Karen. And I told them I’d survived for three days eating mushrooms.\ So, the ending was maybe eh, with how Karen could get away, the "butterflies are natural morphers", etc. But I still think it was a good book over all, and hopeful in the sense that enemies don't have to be enemies....that there can be peace. Applegate explained why she included the Yeerk point of view. quote:"Sometimes the bad guys of the world come at you guns blazing. Sometimes they come at you wearing a mask, hiding their intentions, deceiving and manipulating, turning one person against another without giving you a fair chance to fight back. Life would be easier all around if evil people would simply announce that they are evil so we could all reject them. But in many cases evil creeps in, hiding behind politics, philosophy, patriotism, law, religion, science, art. Sometimes evil can be very plausible, logical. That's why I've gradually fleshed out the history of the Yeerks. I hope that readers will, on occasion, find themselves thinking, 'You know what, the Yeerks are making sense. They kind of have a point.' It's easy to figure out right and wrong when it's clear as black and white." But the challenge in our lives is "to be able to figure out right and wrong even when the bad guys 'kind of have a point'." So, good book, I think, even though some people might not think so. Next book is book 20, the Discovery, and trust me, we're in for a journey these next few books. No leopard, though, even though he's still out there, hunting.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 03:40 |
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i really liked what they were doing with this, even if it was a bit hamfisted and the logistics don't entirely work really looking forward to these next ones. i haven't read them since i was still reading the books the first time as a kid, but i remember them being good stuff
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 03:59 |
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Epicurius posted:So, the ending was maybe eh, with how Karen could get away, the "butterflies are natural morphers", etc. But I still think it was a good book over all, and hopeful in the sense that enemies don't have to be enemies....that there can be peace. Applegate explained why she included the Yeerk point of view. Maybe Aftran lied, and is still hiding behind those eyes, keeping quiet but claiming with Karen's voice that she actually did the thing. quote:So, good book, I think, even though some people might not think so. Next book is book 20, the Discovery, and trust me, we're in for a journey these next few books. No leopard, though, even though he's still out there, hunting. "If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out."
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:21 |
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Uh how do the yeerks not realize that this little girl stopped coming to meetings
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:29 |
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Hm, that's not the ending I remember for Aftran. Don't they give it the morphing power and it becomes a whale?
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:32 |
To be honest when I read this way back when the whole morphing thing seemed like a cheap cop out, but after reading your explanation of how it actually happens... it honestly seems like, yes, natural morphing. I'll allow it. I won't allow Karen, though. There is no way that girl should be alive and free. Free and dead, or alive and enslaved, but not both.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:35 |
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Terror Sweat posted:Uh how do the yeerks not realize that this little girl stopped coming to meetings
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:38 |
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Edna Mode posted:Hm, that's not the ending I remember for Aftran. Don't they give it the morphing power and it becomes a whale? All im going to say is be patient and we'll see Aftran again
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 04:40 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:To be honest when I read this way back when the whole morphing thing seemed like a cheap cop out, but after reading your explanation of how it actually happens... it honestly seems like, yes, natural morphing. I'll grant that the metamorphosis seems a great deal more intense that you might think, but isn't the two hour limit just how long all the matter can exist in Z-space before it loses cohesion? Tobias couldn't unmorph because there was no human body for him to morph back into.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 05:22 |
shush
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 05:25 |
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The ending was definitely dumb and obviously a cop out to maintain the status quo and I don't think Aftran (and the Yeerks as a whole) come off as sympathetically as KAA probably intended but I'm glad she tried, even if it kind of fell flat.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 05:29 |
The whole "you're predators we're parasites" would work a lot better if they weren't actively invading, but, she gave it a good try and definitely made clear it's not as simple as all that.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 05:31 |
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For me the revelation that Yeerks are blind, but not deaf and can communicate with each other within the pool is a big thing. I was under the impression before that that Yeerks were completely isolated outside of a host body, which made them a bit more understandable. IDK, maybe this is all Seerow's fault for giving them guns and spaceships instead of hoverchairs or something that would allow Yeerks to be ambulatory in their natural bodies.
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 05:46 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 15:22 |
Wait, so they never addressed that Karen was a controller and thus known to the yeerks
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# ? Apr 8, 2021 06:03 |