partially-thought

[partially-thought]

Up until the end I hoped for all of them to be okay, and I was sure they wouldn't.

This series is truly great and I love it, I think it will stay with me forever, even when I only read it at 20.

If you think it sounds interesting, give it a shot. You will regret it, just like I did after reading the last book. But it will change you, and it will be a fun ride.

For as much as I love Animorphs, I’ve never actually read it in order all the way through. It was always scattered entries, whatever I could find at the library or buy at garage sales. There’s even a small handful I haven’t read at all. That’s why, for my New Year’s resolution, I plan to reread the series in its entirety. However, I know how my brain works, and I’m afraid I might lose motivation and quit too soon. That’s why, after each book, I will add to this post with, in my opinion, the most fucked-up part of the book, as well as the silliest part (because anyone who’s read these books knows that those are the two main tenets of the series). That way, I’ll have a publicly available record to hold myself accountable to if I start slacking, plus a nice thread of propaganda to hopefully suck more people in. I plan to read one mainline book a week, starting with:

[partially-thought]

The logics of morphing

So, obviously morphing is not scientifically possible, and, as a disclaimer, I am only in book 22 by now, so maybe some of these questions are answered later on, but some things I have seen do not seem to be consistent, even if you ignore the Science that obviously needs to be ignored.

So, apparently morphing is based on DNA. This is supposed to mean, that you become an exact duplicate of whatever you acquire. Setting aside epigenetics and everything which contradicts this, I still don't understand, how the acquired DNA tells you the age of the animal which you are supposed to morph. How come they never emerge as a larvae but always as a fly?

Also, why does any animal you want to acquire have to be alive? According to Ax it is possible to acquiere blood, but I don't think anyone ever acquired a raw steak or a Tiger pelt instead of a real Animal.

Next thing would be that you should, if you truly morph into an animal by reproducing their DNA, be able to acquire the morph somebody is in. That would reduce the risk of acquiring a morph substantially.

Another question would be why there is excess mass in Z-Space: When you morph something bigger than yourself, or when you are allergic to a morph, you need excess mass from Z-Space to conserve the necessary energy. But where does it come from? There should be no natural mass in the pocket dimension that is Z-Space. So are you using the mass of other people who are capable of morphing and are currently morphed something smaller?

And lastly, the question of nothlits: Morphing does not seem to be limited to certains species, since both andalite and human (and apparently red tailed harriers, but that was the Ellimnists fault) are capable of it. So why not use an Escafil Device on a nothlits to make them able to morph again? Especially Tobias could profit from this technique, since he is able to morph his old body.

[partially-thought]

I kind of saw it coming that they would have to dispose of David in some way the moment they turned him into an Animorph. But I would not have thought they would have to take it into their own hands.

My hope was that he dies in combat with Yeerks, but after the end of the second book that no longer seemed like a possibility.

But even then I hoped that he would be killed in a combat accident with Rachel.

What I did not see coming was the deliberate, cold blooded assasination that was the trapping him in Morph and sending him to some rock island. You could argue that they did not kill him, but as Rachel said herself - his life ended right there.

So yeah, I think this is the critical moment of the series. Before this, it could have been a children as heroes Series as any other - I mean, there already were some storylines of PTSD and morality, but that in itself is not necessarily absent in other childrens literature.

But a decision as heavy as this - even if it was the (IMO) correct decision in their circumstances, is unprecedented in other childrens Media I have seen.