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quote:Chee Land wasn’t so bad. That’s where I stayed now, mostly. They had TV. They had Oreos. David absolutely malding right now
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 04:26 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 22:32 |
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Mazerunner posted:David absolutely malding right now When did they switch over from "don't call us, we'll call you" to "your friendly extraterrestrial witness protection program"?
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 04:43 |
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Mazerunner posted:David absolutely malding right now Do you really think David likes dogs?
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 10:03 |
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disaster pastor posted:Anyway, yes, excellent book, though I'm still on the "Marco did nothing wrong and couldn't reasonably have saved Nora" side. And the next book is wild. (Plus, Ax finally gets his own spot in the rotation instead of sharing with Tobias, though there are barely enough books left for it to matter.) The only thing I'd disagree with is that it's super hosed to tell his dad that she was just a honey pot and never loved him, especially since they'd already done some surveillance that suggested she was free. Fuschia tude posted:When did they switch over from "don't call us, we'll call you" to "your friendly extraterrestrial witness protection program"? It does feel like they're starting to take the Chee for granted a bit, but I suppose it depends on how invested the Chee are in helping the war effort. Now that they are hosting Marco, at least it's one less Chee that has to be on doppelganger duty when they get stuck in their... fourth(?) spacetime wedgie.
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 14:16 |
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Being pushovers is the Chees' defining trait
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 16:08 |
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Capfalcon posted:The only thing I'd disagree with is that it's super hosed to tell his dad that she was just a honey pot and never loved him, especially since they'd already done some surveillance that suggested she was free. OK, this is a fair point. It's a very middle-school-kid way of trying to tie up that loose end for his father and make the most traumatic couple of days of his life a tiny bit easier, but, yeah, Marco doesn't understand love the way he thinks he does and this was legit wrong.
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 17:54 |
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It is selfish and condemns a woman to slavery but also makes sense as Marco strategic compromise to get what he ultimately wants. Plus it would be easy to convince himself that saving Nora would now raise red flags for the Yeerks. But yes, Jake would have to act very well to maintain opsec around Tom. His best friend just got suddenly killed.
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# ? Jul 16, 2022 18:13 |
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Book 46-The Deception Chapter 1 quote:“This is the resistance.” So this book starts right after the last one.. And ,they got to talk to the ever trusting Andalite military. Chapter 2 quote:]My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. I am an Andalite. Son of Noorlin-Sirinial-Coorat and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen. Younger brother of celebrated War Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. An aristh, a cadet, a warrior in training. Remember when the U thought we didn't have any enemies anymore? Man. Also, we finally get to deal with the enigmatic Visser Two (Or maybe enigmatic Visser One. I'm also going to say, I like the Ax-Marco-Tobias group. Epicurius fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jul 17, 2022 |
# ? Jul 17, 2022 04:13 |
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I'm so glad I found this thread. I loved these books as a child. 6th grade to be exact. The school librarian was so thrilled that I was regularly reading that when I ran through what we had, she put in special order to get more of the series so I could keep on going. She filled in when I told her there was a gap. Like we had 24 and 26, but not 25 or something like that. I'll never forget that. I didn't finish the series and would later just read about all the stuff I'd missed. I don't think I ever got around to the side books. But Animorphs is a firm childhood memory.
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# ? Jul 17, 2022 05:57 |
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Chapter 3quote:<Okay, I’m not the only one who heard that, am I?> Remember last book, we discussed the morality of theft in the Animorph worldview? Turns out Ax is just as confused about it as we are. Chapter 4 quote:<Visser One. Formerly Visser Three. Esplin 9466.> The Andalites would probably say that Ax has "gone native" to use the old term. But I think it's more complicated than that. I've argued since the beginning that one of the big themes of the series is about growing up...leaving childhood behind and becoming an adult, and that's what Ax has to do here. He has to abandon his old certainties, Ax had said in a previous book that his people are those who fight for freedom, whoever they might be, and he's being tested here, because he's come to realize that the Andalites aren't the paragons of virtue they believe themselves to be. But at the same time, he realizes that the humans also aren't the saints he supposed....that humanity is capable of cruelty and violence. So he has to determine for himself, with the help of his friends, what it means to be moral. He's got to find his own path forward. And if that isn't the definition of maturing, I don't know what is.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 04:18 |
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The plot is finally on the move again! This is great.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 06:40 |
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Hey, a Megamorphs reference! Remember those?
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 12:08 |
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Epicurius posted:
Even if I didn't know which book we were in, I could tell poo poo's getting real by how many of these moments stuck in my head.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 12:19 |
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Just cutting back to the last book for a sec - it's a minor thing, but I liked that it was Rachel who was with Marco on the pier rescuing his mum. They've had a weird sort of bond over his situation, particularly that in two instances (15 and 35) Marco thinks she's died and it's Rachel who tells him that there was a last minute rescue/no body, and I think that stems from Rachel being the only other character who had a regular family but then "lost" a parent ans therefore personally understands his situation; in her case through divorce and moving away, which isn't the same thing, but still. I just thought it was a nice, appropriate moment that she's the one who helps him rescue Eva.quote:<We know of your situation on Earth, human.> The voice belonged to another Andalite. Its tone suggested an officer superior to the one with whom Jake had just spoken. This is actually a completely reasonable suspicion for the Andalites to have, no matter how much the ghostwriter puts their thumb on the scale with "cold, imperious" and "puny, backwards/great honorable". (Probably less reasonable for the Andalite on the other end to immediately accuse them of such, but I guess they got some bored radio operator and his supervisor rather than an intel operative.) quote:“Ax?” This, I really like. Ax is always a fun character because he's the fish out of water alien, but - especially in his own books - you can see that he's just a genuinely good and honourable dude. In this case, he's genuinely torn about his loyalties and doesn't know what to think, but he's upfront about that in the sense of being honest in his advice. Compare and contrast with Marco talking to his dad about Nora in the last book, where IMO he lies to his dad for his own happy family benefit, but tells himself it was for his dad's benefit; lying to himself and possibly not even realising it. (I don't think Marco deserves censure for that - his situation was way more personal, plus they're all traumatised! - but I do think Ax deserves recognition for rising above it.)
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 12:51 |
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Oh also: I was on holiday in New Zealand this week and watched a bird of prey at dawn, flapping its wings away above a foggy valley at the crack of dawn, and sagely thought to myself: "The air is too cool this early in the morning... the poor fellow has no thermals." Thank you, Animorphs
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 12:53 |
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…Did Tobias seriously refer to Henry V as “Henry Five”?
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 14:29 |
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bravesword posted:…Did Tobias seriously refer to Henry V as “Henry Five”? Near as I can tell. I have pdfs of what seem to be transcriptions or OCR of the books, but the only actual errors I've found seem to be obvious text errors, which wouldn't include something like that.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 14:44 |
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Let's not forget the kid dropped out of middle school
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 14:56 |
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Also that's something that could absolutely have been written in the 90s as "it'll sound cooler if he says it like this." Wrong, obviously. But that was the 90s.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 15:03 |
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They also spend a lot of time obsessing over Vissers I and III. Could make a difference
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 15:07 |
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bravesword posted:…Did Tobias seriously refer to Henry V as “Henry Five”? English kings had such weird last names.
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# ? Jul 18, 2022 16:14 |
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Tree Bucket posted:The plot is finally on the move again! This is great. It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember loving the last part of the series for (not sure this is really a spoiler but:) finally becoming a fully serialized narrative. It provides exactly the kick in the pants the series needed, sending everything into high gear by utterly demolishing the status quo, raising the stakes, and pushing more pressure on the team than ever before. This book in particular is a great example of that, with an ending that still sticks in my mind over two decades later. Honestly, the biggest shame is that the rest of the series wasn't written like this. Looking forward to the rest of this roller coaster ride! Now I just have to jump back and catch up with all the books I missed
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 00:46 |
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Chapter 4quote:“Okay. The Yeerks want Earth.” Jake looked at each of us in turn. “Well, they can’t have it.” Another one of the recurring themes in Animorphs is, what's the role of ethics in war? What moral lines do you draw for yourself so that you can maintain your humanity. One of the recurring things they've stuck to is that they don't morph other human beings without permission, and I think they've stuck to that throughout the course of the series. So to give this up now means they're losing some of themselves....they're saying "Well, we can cross this line, given the circumstances. I know a bunch don't like Cassie, but there's the famous Nietzsche line "“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.”. One of the things Cassie has been is a countervoice against those nihilistic impulses, the idea that anything goes. We're also seeing a really mentally exhausted Ax. He's mentally lost, he doesn't know who to trust, he's tired of all this debate and not knowing what to do. All these kids have been fighting for way too long. Chapter 6 quote:“My financial advisor suggested I put at least some money into something safe and slow and steady. The rest is going into something riskier. I mean, my kids aren’t going to college for another sixteen years.” First off, the Yeerk and human pilots are right here. If you're young, invest in a growth plan, keep putting money in it. but that being said, I understand the impulse, especially if you're young to invest in riskier stuff.. The Yeerk's kids aren't going to college for 16 years. She has time to invest in their future. (Their future will be that of servitude to the Great Yeerk Empire as hosts for loyal Yeerks, but that's not important right now). This chapter also has some of Ax's confusion about who exactly he is and where he fits.
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 03:45 |
Hey Marco is way wrong about knocks on the head. Even Archer knows that!!
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 04:38 |
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I always stick to my wartime morality. Maiming the enemy, killing non combatants, chemical warfare? A-ok Stealing?? Hacking the NSA? Whoah step back you absolute monster.
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 07:16 |
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Aside from the fact that acquiring and morphing other humans is, as has been pointed out, a lesser crime than many others they've already committed - I'm pretty sure all of them have morphed other humans without their consent before? The boys morphed those Secret Service agents in the David trilogy, Ax has morphed Jake, Marco morphed that office worker and Cassie morphed Rachel in the alligator book. (Though I guess you can argue morphing a fellow Animorph is different.)
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 07:41 |
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freebooter posted:Aside from the fact that acquiring and morphing other humans is, as has been pointed out, a lesser crime than many others they've already committed - I'm pretty sure all of them have morphed other humans without their consent before? The boys morphed those Secret Service agents in the David trilogy, Ax has morphed Jake, Marco morphed that office worker and Cassie morphed Rachel in the alligator book. (Though I guess you can argue morphing a fellow Animorph is different.) TBF they just acquired the Secret Service guys, I don't think they ever actually morphed them. Marco morphing the office worker is the first real time any of them actually broke the taboo (and he did so secretly) except for morphing each other in situations where consent was inferred. And I think they're so hung up on it because its one of the big redlines they set for themselves at the beginning and they've been holding onto it like an anchor up until now. Strictly speaking they've definitely done a lot worse, but they've built this up as a taboo and stuck to it for a couple years now. Taking the step is a much bigger symbolic deal than anything else. I think it also matters that most of the worse things they've done have been in the heat of battle and usually aren't pre-meditated. Its probably part of why they're so hung up on not stealing and not morphing other people, a sort of divide they can put up where they don't do 'bad' things if they're not in life-threatening danger which has been slowly eroding away. Their experience with David probably also helped reinforce that. By breaking a lot of their taboos he cemented their importance as a way to keep some semblance of normalcy. Zore fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jul 19, 2022 |
# ? Jul 19, 2022 08:15 |
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Yeah, fair, I think all of that makes sense. Especially the David part. Though it's been so long now I can't remember exactly what the conversation/circumstances were that led to them drawing a red line on the idea of morphing other humans.
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 09:15 |
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freebooter posted:Yeah, fair, I think all of that makes sense. Especially the David part. Its basically the first thing they decide on back in book 1. They also keep bringing up parallels to how its similar to what the Yeerks do in terms of 'stealing' someone's identity and autonomy, but I always thought that was a weird argument. Honestly the big reason to have it be taboo for them is because there are a lot of unsavory things they could get up to if they started casually morphing other people. And I think Applegate/Grant realized it would open up a lot of uncomfortable doors and take the focus off of the 'kids turning into animals' hook of the series and built it up from that.
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 09:22 |
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I think the fundamental thing is that morphing a human or anything else involves running a copy of its mind on the morph's meat brain, and essentially killing that copy when you demorph. Does the human copy have enough thought process to be conscious, or is it just pure instinct? Who knows!
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 20:27 |
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Strategic Tea posted:I think the fundamental thing is that morphing a human or anything else involves running a copy of its mind on the morph's meat brain, and essentially killing that copy when you demorph. Does the human copy have enough thought process to be conscious, or is it just pure instinct? Who knows! You're not killing it, just exiling it to the uttermost void of z-space.
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 22:51 |
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Strategic Tea posted:I think the fundamental thing is that morphing a human or anything else involves running a copy of its mind on the morph's meat brain, and essentially killing that copy when you demorph. Does the human copy have enough thought process to be conscious, or is it just pure instinct? Who knows! Horrifying idea: what if you become a human nothlit and realize that the body you're controlling is gradually becoming self aware?
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# ? Jul 19, 2022 23:14 |
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Chapter 7quote:We strode boldly across the airfield. The USS George Washington has been in the news recently, unfortunately because of an outbreak of suicides among sailors on board. Part of the problem, they think, is that the ship is currently undergoing maintenance in Norfolk, and sailors are doing routine maintenance, while at the same time, sleeping (or more likely not being able to sleep) on the ship. Chapter 8 quote:“Ax! Look at the radar. They’ve spotted us” That was....lucky,.
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# ? Jul 20, 2022 03:21 |
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Epicurius posted:
When I posted this video last year, I didn't know a future book would anticipate it even more closely
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# ? Jul 20, 2022 07:24 |
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Family stuff going on today. More cool Yeerk naval adventures tomorrow.
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# ? Jul 21, 2022 04:08 |
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It is a little weird that they fixate on the plane being an F-16D. Like, the D model is just the two-seater version, there's nothing special about it. You'd think the kids would just call it an F-16.
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# ? Jul 21, 2022 04:17 |
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Acebuckeye13 posted:It is a little weird that they fixate on the plane being an F-16D. Like, the D model is just the two-seater version, there's nothing special about it. You'd think the kids would just call it an F-16. Maybe the writer just likes planes.
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# ? Jul 21, 2022 04:19 |
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Acebuckeye13 posted:It is a little weird that they fixate on the plane being an F-16D. Like, the D model is just the two-seater version, there's nothing special about it. You'd think the kids would just call it an F-16. As a guy who just finished seven Let's Plays all about fighter jet minutia interwoven with random batshit crazy like Animorphs whips out on the reg, I cal tell you with confidence that people would and will crawl out of the woodwork to blow whole aircraft carriers' worth of gaskets if/when you don't get details about military hardware exactly right.
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# ? Jul 21, 2022 05:00 |
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IIRC the Applegates got given a tour of an aircraft carrier for this book and I remember the feeling that they really wanted to make full use of that. Like, it's a good book, but I remember points where I was like "OK I don't need the ship's life story." (Or I thought it was weird that the Animorphs seemed to know all about how an aircraft carrier works, I forget.)
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# ? Jul 21, 2022 08:32 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 22:32 |
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Chapter 9quote:<This thing is massive,> Cassie said. <It’s … it’s too big to be real.> There will be a test later on Nimitz Class aircraft carriers. Chapter 10 quote:<Jake, something’s definitely going on.> <Innis 226!> "Yes, Visser?> <I need you to dress as a sailor and travel to a human aircraft carrier to carry out certain tasks> "Visser, you know my host is an educator. He has no experience in military matters. Besides, there's a meeting of The Sharing where we expect to get a US Senator....." <I know all this, fool! Carry out my orders!>
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# ? Jul 22, 2022 03:47 |