Current Events > Animorphs were WHACK.

(+) Yeah! (+)

RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

It also was the book that explained why earth was targeted, good ol Chapman even as a child/teen was a shitbag and suggested it to save his own skin.

Which is weird, because in Visser, The Yeerk who becomes Visser One is a sub-visser in charge of finding suitable species to infest, when Earth is discovered. At first they think it's a sensor glitch because apparently species numbering in the billions is unheard of. So that Yeerk is the one who decides to infest Earth. It doesn't come from Chapman's actions.

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RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

Yes he did, it was something to do with not wanting to kill yeerks who were defenseless I think, been over 10 years since I read the books.

It also was the book that explained why earth was targeted, good ol Chapman even as a child/teen was a shitbag and suggested it to save his own skin.

Yeah, Elfangor wasn't down with war-criming with the disgraced War Prince you kind of get the feeling the military probably wasn't too bothered by what Alloran did, given he wasn't even stripped of his rank, but unleashing a virus that painfully dissolves living matter was probably a PR disaster near the level of "Seerow's Kindness", even assuming the Andalite public is/was casually xenophobic. and lost track of the mind-controlling brain parasite. Whoops! At least he didn't get trapped as a Taxxon. That whole mission was a disaster from the word go, really.

@ElatedVenusaur
He was slapped on the wrist for the virus, that was why they said he had fallen from favor in TAC as the mission he went on with Elfangor was a simple one initially. Once they discovered it was higher stakes then anyone could have known Alloran wanted to reclaim his status by delivering the time matrix.

The books pretty much spell out that Alloran was cruel and needlessly ruthless especially with the virus. He was in essence the this is how dark Jake could get without his friends and even then that did not prevent Jakes cruel choices.

Animorphs shows how even the good guys can go far past the point of acceptable, and how horrible war crimes actually are.

Elfangor was the actual beacon of light in that he refused to go past a certain point even in war, same with Ax who speaks out against torture and needless cruelty.

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NeonOctopus posted...

idk if this was posted, but here's a 4 hour lecture on the story of Animorphs >_> It's fucking crazy as shit with kids gets disemboweled and alien politics and other stuff! I wish I read it lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zrE6m3xOoE

I'd love to watch an overview of the whole series since I only remembers bits but this is 4 hours long

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I only read a few books, but this series sounds wack. Are they in combined volumes or do I have to get all 50 books?
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LightningAce11 posted...

I only read a few books, but this series sounds wack. Are they in combined volumes or do I have to get all 50 books?

I don't think they've ever been released in volumes. Good luck finding all the books. I wonder if they're on ebay

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You mean WAS whack!

Ex-Kefiroth posted...

When I was a kid, I would grab Animorphs books off the shelf at the library just to look at the covers because I thought they were weird af.

Never read them though, and I doubt my parents would have even let me check them out if I wanted to lol.

Here's a cool video about the software they used and how they made those covers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRLi0VWdNIg

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Why the hell didnt Alloran just use one of the unstoppable morphs he now had to break out? Visser three uses a tooon that are basically unfighttable. When visser three slithered out his head he should have just morphed and vamped.

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ShyOx posted...

Why the hell didnt Alloran just use one of the unstoppable morphs he now had to break out? Visser three uses a tooon that are basically unfighttable. When visser three slithered out his head he should have just morphed and vamped.

IIRC morphing requires a ton of energy and he was exhausted from the venom. He also hadn't been in control of his own body for like thirty years and we see earlier in the series when Chapman's Yeerk relinquishes control that Chapman starts drooling and has trouble speaking and standing at first, and that's only a couple of years of infestation at most.

Alloran has bot been in control of his body for years, and to morph he needs not only energy but focus and the ability to do the morph. That is why some of the kids struggled to demorph from a combat morph that had lost limbs or was severely injured.

Elfangor did not even have the strength to morph and he had plenty of time but he was to weak, to tired and says so.

Alloran was not only poisoned and not used to having control of his own body but he did not have the energy nor focus to morph.

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AlCalavicci posted...

Good luck finding all the books

They were released in PDF format online. Like officially and legally. You can just download them.
http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/news/all-54-animorphs-books-are-all-available-for-free-online/42813

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RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

Alloran has not been in control of his body for atleast 10 years based on Tobiass age, and to morph he needs not only energy but focus and the willpower to do the morph. That is why some of the kids struggled to demorph from a combat morph that had lost limbs or was severely injured or when a morph went really fucked up like when they were certain insects.

Elfangor did not even have the strength to morph and he had plenty of time but he was to weak, to tired and says so in his novel.

Alloran was not only poisoned and not used to having control of his own body but he did not have the energy nor focus to morph.

Every 3 days visser 3 has to go feed though is my point; unless hes being rendered comatose each time I feel like he could have gotten away. Ill chock it up to willpower or something similar

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MisterPengy posted...

They were released in PDF format online. Like officially and legally. You can just download them.
http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/news/all-54-animorphs-books-are-all-available-for-free-online/42813

Aw shit!
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MisterPengy posted...

They were released in PDF format online. Like officially and legally. You can just download them.
http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/news/all-54-animorphs-books-are-all-available-for-free-online/42813

Yoooooooooooooo

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ShyOx posted...

Every 3 days visser 3 has to go feed though is my point; unless hes being rendered comatose each time I feel like he could have gotten away. Ill chock it up to willpower or something similar

Honestly, he probably was. Far too dangerous and far too valuable of a host. Not only is he an Andalite which alone would make him irreplaceable, but his body has all those morphs.

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MisterPengy posted...

They were released in PDF format online. Like officially and legally. You can just download them.
http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/news/all-54-animorphs-books-are-all-available-for-free-online/42813

Lockdown is now morphin' time.

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ShyOx posted...

Every 3 days visser 3 has to go feed though is my point; unless hes being rendered comatose each time I feel like he could have gotten away. Ill chock it up to willpower or something similar

If I had a sweet host bod like that, you bet your ass I'm drugging it as I crawl out.

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I can't remember how they addressed that in the books. I vaguely recall or could just be imagining that he had pretty much given up on freedom even when the gang was there and probably could have saved him.
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Oh I did a read-through topic of the series on the Books board back in 2013. I summarized a lot of the books' plot points and gave a few thoughts. I'm totally gonna read through my read-through topic again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/202-books-and-literature/65203465
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AvlButtslam posted...

Oh I did a read-through topic of the series on the Books board back in 2013. I summarized a lot of the books' plot points and gave a few thoughts. I'm totally gonna read through my read-through topic again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/202-books-and-literature/65203465

Heh, in post 4 I said I needed to get back to my reread. That never happened, but now I started over. Going to hold myself accountable this time and keep to a schedule.

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Its not hard, Ive been blazing through most of it. The only difficult bits are some of the ones in the middle because the humor kind of goes full camp at times due to ghostwriting. Theyre such quick reads though its not a big deal. My favorite stuff so far has probably been the really early books when theyre more or less the proto-animorphs. They nearly die a loooooot

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The early books are when they still have not figured out how to be a good team they just kept getting lucky.

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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Heh, in post 4 I said I needed to get back to my reread. That never happened, but now I started over. Going to hold myself accountable this time and keep to a schedule.

Ha, that's cool that we're still talking about Animorphs 8 years later. I eagerly await your read-through topic next.
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I just read through 90 posts of this thread and I am super interested.

I probably only read like three books as a kid and I also watched the TV show. If I remember right, the TV show got cancelled pretty early and didn't get much of a chance to explore everything in the books.

Anybody care to explain some of the mythology of the series to me? I've figured some things out by reading this, but there's still tons of gaps.

I remember the aliens who can morph being like centaur type creatures in their natural form and one gives the animorphs their power before dying to start the series and then his brother shows up later and works with the animorphs.

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TommyG663513 posted...

I just read through 90 posts of this thread and I am super interested.

I probably only read like three books as a kid and I also watched the TV show. If I remember right, the TV show got cancelled pretty early and didn't get much of a chance to explore everything in the books.

Anybody care to explain some of the mythology of the series to me? I've figured some things out by reading this, but there's still tons of gaps.

I remember the aliens who can morph being like centaur type creatures in their natural form and one gives the animorphs their power before dying to start the series and then his brother shows up later and works with the animorphs.

The andalites (blue centaurs) developed the morphing technology and are the galaxys big dicks in the locker room. They have other shortcomings that come up later, but it all starts with Elfangor giving the kids the morphing power in the construction site.(which we find out was highly illegal)

You start finding out over the course of the series this is actually all part of a chess game between two deities, the Ellimist and Crayak. You get their whole story too; the Animorphs are the Ellimists champions and the Yeerks are Crayaks.

It was actually an andalite that started the yeerks conquest by giving them access to ships and technology; they quickly started their empire and subjugating races throughout the galaxy.

I assume you know what the yeerks are. Thats sort of a broad overview of the various races in play. Earth is a goldmine because apparently theres generally not anywhere near 6 billion sentient beings on any planet. The invasion begins quietly with the yeerks in hiding, so most of the series is a shadow war between the Animorphs and the yeerks. They gain several key allies throughout the books however

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ShyOx posted...

It was actually an andalite that started the yeerks conquest by giving them access to ships and technology;

9/11 was an inside job.

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SpaceBear_ posted...

9/11 was an inside job.

Poor Seerow was just a naive dreamer who thought the Yeerks deserved to share the beauty of the universe. He literally had no clue they would want to get better host bodies and would take them by force.

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ShyOx posted...

The andalites (blue centaurs) developed the morphing technology and are the galaxys big dicks in the locker room. They have other shortcomings that come up later, but it all starts with Elfangor giving the kids the morphing power in the construction site.(which we find out was highly illegal)

You start finding out over the course of the series this is actually all part of a chess game between two deities, the Ellimist and Crayak. You get their whole story too; the Animorphs are the Ellimists champions and the Yeerks are Crayaks.

It was actually an andalite that started the yeerks conquest by giving them access to ships and technology; they quickly started their empire and subjugating races throughout the galaxy.

I assume you know what the yeerks are. Thats sort of a broad overview of the various races in play. Earth is a goldmine because apparently theres generally not anywhere near 6 billion sentient beings on any planet. The invasion begins quietly with the yeerks in hiding, so most of the series is a shadow war between the Animorphs and the yeerks. They gain several key allies throughout the books however

Can you go into any more detail?

Was Elfangor killed right after making the kids animorphs? Didn't he have a brother that showed up shortly after to help the animorphs?

How do the Vissers work? It's just a ranking system for the yeerks right?

The mythology of this series is really fascinating to me. Please feel free to go off on tangents and explain whatever. This has been one of the most interesting topics I've read here in a long time.


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MisterPengy posted...

Poor Seerow was just a naive dreamer who thought the Yeerks deserved to share the beauty of the universe. He literally had no clue they would want to get better host bodies and would take them by force.

Seerow was also blind to the fact that what he wanted to do could have worked if they did it through diplomacy and the proper channels. Had he pushed for it politically and gotten the yeerks to sign or agree to certain terms like we will not enslave others, it will be a mutual gain for both parties the war never would have happened.

It would also have allowed the malicious yeerks who were trouble makers to be caught early on and examples made to show we do this the right way or not at all.


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TommyG663513 posted...

Can you go into any more detail?

Was Elfangor killed right after making the kids animorphs? Didn't he have a brother that showed up shortly after to help the animorphs?

How do the Vissers work? It's just a ranking system for the yeerks right?

Yeah, Visser is, like, a warlord. Visser Three is in charge of the Earth invasion. Visser One is the top dog whose host is Marco's mother.

There's a really haunting moment in an early book where Visser One is addressing Marco thinking he is also a Yeerk host.

Visser One says something along the lines of "I'm not sure if you're aware, but your host is the biological son of my host. She's really screaming away inside my head here."

I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. That's when Marco decides to really take the war seriously.

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TommyG663513 posted...

Can you go into any more detail?

Was Elfangor killed right after making the kids animorphs? Didn't he have a brother that showed up shortly after to help the animorphs?

Yes and yes. Elfangor crashed on Earth, gave the kids the power to morph because it was pretty much all he could think of in the moment, then Visser Three came down and morphed into some monster or another (he's always showing off his implausibly vast array of bizarre monster morphs) to eat him. His younger brother Ax was on the same ship that he was and crashed into the ocean in an escape pod, the kids end up finding him a few books into the series and he works with them going forward.

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SpaceBear_ posted...

Yeah, Visser is, like, a warlord. Visser Three is in charge of the Earth invasion. Visser One is the top dog whose host is Marco's mother.

There's a really haunting moment in an early book where Visser One is addressing Marco thinking he is also a Yeerk host.

Visser One says something along the lines of "I'm not sure if you're aware, but your host is the biological son of my host. She's really screaming away inside my head here."

I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. That's when Marco decides to really take the war seriously.

The power struggle dynamic we get shown in glimpses(and which is fully revealed to us in the Visser book) between Vissers One and Three is a really neat element that adds so much texture to the series. And it's kind of neat that it's implied the Council of 13(which run the show in the Yeerk Empire, at least in theory) is ambivalent about Visser One's infiltration plan(and/or about Visser One personally), because they put Visser One's bitter rival in charge of it i.e. Visser Three, who thinks they should just invade, seize control, and get it over with.
Visser additionally implies Visser One has an actual emotional attachment to the children a former host body gave birth to. The series really goes out of its way to avoid painting the Yeerks as irredeemable monsters, which takes quite a bit of effort given that they're mind-controlling brain parasites actively working to infest other sentients.

Some of the yeerks coexisted with their hosts like those in the yeerk peace movement where the host and yeerk coexist in harmony not enslavement.

That is why I say Seerow was an idiot as he literally jumped the gun when he did not go about it the right way. A war could have been averted had he gone through political and diplomatic channels.


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Could the animorphs turn into chimaeras/hybrids? Turning into a fuzor from beastwars would be amazing.

IronWolf87 posted...

Could the animorphs turn into chimaeras/hybrids? Turning into a fuzor from beastwars would be amazing.

Ax's human morph is a combination of the others, but I don't think there's anything suggesting they could do the same thing with different species.

Did anyone else play the PC game, Know the Secret or something? Remember how the final boss form of Visser Three was like a giant cactus? Lol. It was basically Togemon from Digimon.
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I'm suddenly reminded of this scene in the show.

https://youtu.be/qaXMaIgnuu4

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TommyG663513 posted...

The mythology of this series is really fascinating to me. Please feel free to go off on tangents and explain whatever. This has been one of the most interesting topics I've read here in a long time.

Seerowpedia is a great resource for information about everything Animorphs related.

https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

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I'm up to book 2 now.

Excellent timing on this, I just finished my re-read of The Dresden Files yesterday.

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trappedunderice posted...

DAMMIT LOL

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animorphs was a great series to read as a kid. facts

boy do I miss reading so much like back then

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how much of the books did the tv show cover?

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ModLogic posted...

how much of the books did the tv show cover?

Very, VERY little.

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The tv show covered the bare minimum of the books as it was a nickelodeon tv show and the budget was not really there and they sure as hell could not cover the violence.

No one really read the books back then to the point I think whoever made the show just skimmed the material or their child gave them the disney version of the books.

The Invasion and The Capture were probably the closest episodes to the book if I remember correctly.

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@IronWolf87 I'll just rip on some tangents then since I'm re-reading and gathering knowledge for my podcast then lol

Considering how many books you don't get as much mythology as you might think. Honestly, we needed more about the andalites. We get the entire stories of the Hork-Bajir and Yeerks which are comparatively short. We get the Andalite species origin but never enough of the picture of their society or what their homeworld is like.

The Hork bajir were genetically engineered by the Arn to help terraform the planet and maintain the balance of the eco system. The Arn live on the same planet but beneath a mist full of monsters made to keep the hork bajir away from the Arn below, and the HB don't even know they exist. They live in trees and are herbivores feeding on bark, though because they're bladed 7 foot tall death machines they get turned into the yeerk empire's shock troops. They're 'dumb' by the standards of sentience and only have 500 words in their language. However, every 10,000 or so Hork Bajir (which is probably greater than their entire population at any one time) you get a Seer, which is a hyper-intelligent hork bajir. We see two of these in the series; Dak Hamee, who leads the failed resistance against the yeerk alongside the Andalite Aldrea(they fall in love) and Toby Hamee, his great-great-granddaughter(might be off a great here). Toby leads the HB during the main series and is named for Tobias, who they see as their liberator.

The Yeerks are the blind deaf slugs, and are trapped on their homeworld. They're fairly intelligent but have no technology and are stuck using the bodies of Gedds, which are a bit like ungainly apes with two extra arms. Many yeerks are happy staying in the pool and don't see the point of the empire or even taking hosts. After the yeerks steal andalite ships and leave, the yeerk homeworld is completely cordoned off by the andalites and the only yeerks seen in the series are among the 250,000 that leave the planet in the stolen ships. Their first big takeover is the Hork Bajir, so in the Hork Bajir chronicles book you get the origin stories for both races.

Most of this got covered but:

1. The 6 main characters are the core of the plot. Each is from the perspective of a different one which gradually has its own overarching plot going forward.

Marco's mother is Visser one, and we find this out early on. Most of his plot is him maturing into Jake's lieutenant and trying to save his family from the yeerks. He succeeds. His father spends most of the books putting his life back together after the death of Marco's mother, oblivious. He is the first one the Animorphs rescue of the parents, in book 45, which starts the end of the series.

Cassie is torn between fighting in the war and her peaceful nature; she is mostly fighting to save her family and friends but you also figure out that the entire planet is on the line fairly early on. The yeerks are going to eliminate all the species on earth that aren't food. This includes plant life as well. At one point in the books, her peaceful nature and morals really conflict with the group, especially Rachel and Marco, both of whom are ruthless. Without her though, the books probably would have ended much darker for the main cast regardless of who survived. It is worth nothing that this isn't always the right path, and ruthlessness rapidly becomes the order of the day.

Early Tobias books deal with him being trapped in his bird morph and his former life as an orphan. He was abandoned by both parents and is shuffled between an aunt and uncle, and is unloved. After he becomes a hawk permanently, It's pretty brutal and he nearly kills himself. He eventually surrenders to his nature and begins living in the wild as a hawk. He's probably the most important Animorph early on because he gathers all the intel as he no longer has school or responsibilities. Without his early conviction the Animorphs may never have even formed. His story continues along this path of deciding between his human nature and his life as a hawk. You also find out he's Elfangor's son, and Ax's nephew. Ax lets Tobias acquire him and even teaches him about Andalite culture, believing him to be his lifelong best friend and deserving of the heritage. Tobias also finds his mother and rescues her.

Ax is Elfangor's brother and joins fairly early in book 4. He is immediately found to be hiding things about the war effort and quits after 3 books, only to be brought back into the fold and deciding to trust his human friends over his own people, as his brother did. His story revolves around his torn loyalties between the Andalites and the humans. We see a few other andalites in the series and it repeatedly questions his loyalty to Jake, who he calls his prince. He's one of the most militant of the Animorphs and frequently leaves his votes and judgment up to Jake.

By far however, the two most major storylines involve Jake and Rachel. They become the most changed by the war and what it does to them, and represent the overall themes of the horrors of war.

Rachel becomes ruthless to the point of scaring the other Animorphs. She genuinely begins to relish the slaughter even if not the fear that comes with it all. She experiences almost no PTSD that we see in the series and some of the least remorse. She more than once challenges Jake's ability to lead, though most of that is internal. She is the first to see that Jake is beginning to use them and their skills. His sincerity becomes more transparent; though he does care deeply, he also is the first one to begin to try and see an endgame to the war. Rachel is often asked to do 'the dirty work' and sees herself as protecting the morals of the rest. When David the seventh member of the group turns against them, Jake tells Ax to go get Rachel. Why? Because he knows that if David has to be murdered, he and Rachel will be the ones to bear it on their conscious. Some of the darkest parts of the series are explored with Rachel, and she is an excellent character, probably no.1 among the fandom.

Jake overall still takes the cake for the hollowness and futility of war however. His cunning and skills appear early, and begin to transform to pure ruthlessness. He borrows more of Marco and Rache's philosophies and less of Cassie's and Tobias'. Near the turning point in the books, Jake is making life or death decisions every other week. During battle everyone listens to him. He finds out his ancestors were both veterans of wars. One was a ranking platoon leader in World War 2, the other was a ranking officer in the civil war. He begins to understand he has to separate his feelings for his 'troops' and stops seeing them as friends in order to make cold and calculated decisions. When it comes time to evacuate their families, Jake's family is infested. His mother, father, and Tom are all yeerks and this begins to break Jake. He surrenders more responsibility during this time and is clearly suffering from PTSD. At the end of the series, he sees the only way to win the war, and sends Rachel to her death to kill his own brother. He sends 17,000 yeerks out into space and is accused of war crimes, and this further breaks him. At series end he has taken more and more of Rachel's personality on and also relishes combat. He sees that after all this time, war is the only thing he's good at. Tobias resents him for killing Rachel, his only love. The others don't blame him for it, but others do.

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Also side note the TV show is one of the worst things I've ever seen produced on screen. It is terrible.

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I remember I fell off on reading the series for a few years, then I randomly saw the second to last book in a store and bought it on a whim. I was blown away by the simple fact that Jake's last name had been revealed. I was like "oh shit must have gotten real"


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Darkninja42 posted...

I remember I fell off on reading the series for a few years, then I randomly saw the second to last book in a store and bought it on a whim. I was blown away by the simple fact that Jake's last name had been revealed. I was like "oh shit must have gotten real"

I did the same thing in middle school in the library; I realized the books had obv continued and even FINISHED?!?!? I mean this was pre widespread internet like early early 2000's so it wasn't readily available info. I think I started again around the time of Taylor 2.0, and then realized THEY DIDN'T HAVE 54

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