Animorphs - The Entire Series

It adds a nice touch to the story that they even stop to think about it though.

They frame the concerns about morphing people or intelligent animals as if it's enslaving them like a Yeerk does, but that doesn't seem accurate. It's more like the ethics of identity theft. Which makes me think of what sort of identity a dolphin has, and whether a human could even understand it well enough to steal it. Or if that matters.

They're teenagers.

I didn't mean for the takeaway from my post to be "it doesn't matter and it's a waste of time for them to think about it".

Yeah, I could have worded that a bit better. I meant 'I'll give them a little leeway in not really getting the nuances of what they're doing right, because teenagers are dumb as shit.' Not 'don't think about it'. You're pretty much on the money with your analysis, and again, it's nice to see that even books like this take the time to consider such questions.

Also, it's Cassie who has this concern, and she's the one of them who is closest to animals and most empathetic to them.

I'll say more generally that one of the themes of this series is about identity. The protagonists can change their forms and become other creatures. The villains literally take over the bodies and identities of people. Tobias is trapped in a body he doesn't want to be in and doesn't know anymore whether he's a hawk or a person. So one of the questions the book asks is "who am I, really, and how does it differ from how people see me?" And along with that comes the other question, "How do I know that other people are really the way they seem to be?" And, of course, these are questions of puberty. Your body is changing. You're starting to navigate questions of romance and dating. You're navigating a social landscape and social pressures you didn't have to face when you were younger. As a teen, you start creating a new identity for yourself, and from what I remember, the way other people think you becomes of supreme importance. So a lot of the series is about that.

Funny, given that it's Cassie who morphs a skunk so that she can impersonate the dead mother of some orphaned kits.

Actually, my favorite part of that was Tobias telling her that the skunk kits were still alive, but confessing that he ate one

The best part of THAT is that the characters are well written enough that it carries some emotional weight

I was just thinking the fact that Tobias has basically permanently assumed the identity of an existing animal is strange. It was one of Cassie's injured animals so it actually might not ever be released back into the wild, but still, he's basically cloned an existing creature to drive around in. Even if it's not sentient with much concept of identity or capacity for self-reflection, and birds of prey are more or less interchangeable within an ecosystem, it's still kind of weird to think about.

On an unrelated note, I'm surprised how obvious the Cassie/Jake thing was from the start, because if I noticed it at the time I was reading these I don't remember it at all. I didn't finish the series, but I did read dozens of these things. It's not even subtle or subtext; it's outright text, from book one. I guess I was just oblivious. I feel like a mixed race couple was kind of edging on still a bit controversial, even in the 90s. Especially for a children's book. Am I wrong about that?

That's my take, though. I think the writer just gave them this hangup because if they were willing to morph humans, it wouldn't really be animorphs anymore.

Mixed race couples are a bit controversial now in some parts of the country, especially for a children's book.

Yeah, a lot of the moral quandaries raised in this series are really good (and probably shaped young me more than I realize) but they're hesitance to morph intelligent animals (or people, to a lesser extent) always felt kind of weak to me. Then again, most nine year olds don't have the most developed moral compass for things like identity fraud

Plus the way they abandoned that in later books when it was convenient kinda made it seem needlessly restrictive in retrospect.

Lets not make unspoilered comments about things that happen in later books, please.

Also, the Animorphs slowly get changed by the war, and a lot of their earlier ethical stances and hesitations disappear.

It's funny what we completely overlook. I somehow missed all the body horror when I read this series as a kid. I just thought it was neat that they were transforming into animals, I didn't think there was supposed to be anything gross about it. There was one scene (I think it's in the next book?) where they morph ants and get into a fight with another colony and it's pretty disturbing, but that stood out to me as an outlier. Nope, on reread it's all body horror all the time right from the start.

On a different topic but kind of the same theme of how kids engage with these books, at what point do you think that someone is too old for them? Obviously they're targeted at younger kids, and we're all getting a nostalgic kick out of reading them right now as adults and marveling at themes which are so mature for younger audiences, but there's a self-conscious period in the middle when someone gets too cool to read/watch stuff aimed at preteens.

This is on my mind because I have a 13 year old relative who I've been sending SFF books to for a while, and I've been trying to give him thoughtful stuff. He also just came out as trans, which isn't something I can personally relate to but seems to have been big in other posters' relationship with this series. But he's the kind of precocious reader who might be turned off by "kid stuff" so I don't want to blow my cool uncle cred.

Thirteen is probably ok, i think, but he might find the writing overly simplistic. If it helps, there's going to be a comic book/graphic novel of the first book coming out soon. You might want to get him that. Then if he likes it, say, "You know, this was originally a book and there's a series...."

This is a complete tangent and has nothing to do with the interesting ethical discussion y'all are on, which I wholeheartedly enjoy, but I feel like this is the second or third time already that there has been a "nearly electrocuted bird" at Cassie's barn. It seems to be a different bird every time.

How are all these birds surviving near-electrocution? I thought it was pretty much just scorched talons on a wire if a bird completes the circuit. Maybe I don't know as much about bird electrocution as Cassie. Are the Yeerks going around torturing birds with electric weapons?

I don't remember if this happens but it would be interesting if Cassie's parents start suspecting something weird is going on as the number of animals with weird injuries starts increasing. Feel like all kinds of wildlife is getting scorched and slashed and half eaten by giant centipedes already. I feel like I remember this being a minor plot at some point.

E: vvvvvvvvv

The Yeerk cops are freaking out and tasing passing birds. An Internal Affairs investigation (surprisingly, no Yeerks involved) has determined that they felt their lives were threatened.

13 is definitely fine for Animorphs, your relative will love this stuff.

Listen here buddy. Yeerks are the thin grey line between us and lawlessness.

Visser Three is great because it's pretty easy to see that all the times he conveniently appears and spots the Animorphs is because he's insanely paranoid and flips out over random animals all the time.

There's something definitely off about him. No other Yeerk comes off as that crazy.

He's not wrong though. Hell for all his obvious prowess in combat, he's now been hit in his Yeerk pool, his Blade ship during what should have been an easy prisoner handoff, and now a ship got blowed up good. And he still has no idea of what he is up against or how many there are. If word of this gets back to head office, at best he loses command, I'd be starting to flip out too.

The Message-Chapter 8


It's not really that romantic.


That's an interesting conversation. Knowing that you can just transform like that must really be lifechanging.


So, since Cassie won't answer Marco's question, here's the difference between dolphins and porpoises:

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphin_porpoise.html

The big differences is that dolphins have long beaks and porpoises have smaller mouths. Their teeth are different. Dolphins also have curved, hooked fins, and porpoises have triangular fins.


i have no excuse or explanation. It was the 90s. It was a strange time.



There's the same debate as Cassie had herself in the last chapter.

There's that added layer as an adult reader: Visser Three really is the worst boss, and we've all met him.

e: was it just me, or were dolphins a massive *thing* in the 90's?

Dolphins are cool. You don't need a porpoise for including dolphins.

Well. We do know now that they're sex-crazed thrill killers who torture animals to get high...

When the kids were feeding fish to the dolphins...could they have acquired the fish's DNA? I read these as a kid and I can't remember if they ever absorb DNA from a dead animal. Does the animal have to be alive to acquire it? I don't think it's ever addressed.

What? Nobody ever told me life was gonna be this way!

things have to be alive, yes

If the animals didn't have to be alive then Cassie's mom would work at a natural history museum and Tobias would be permanently trapped as a pterodactyl.

I started reading these when I was 13, but then again I knew full well I was a complete nerd at that age and had no aspirations of coolness. Perhaps if you sell as: yes the covers are goofy and the writing is easy reading, but these bad boys can fit so much body horror, violence and war trauma in them.

Cassie definitely got the worst of the body horror experiences through the series though.

That poor buffalo and ant man. That was a fucked up book.

The Message-Chapter 9


I choose to pass over the absurdity of a hawk wearing a watch.


See, she was all worried about sapience, and.....


So while you all no doubt know this, dolphins have echolocation. Dolphins send out high pitched clicking noises, then when the sound waves bounce off something solid and come back, dolphins have a bunch of fatty tissue in their forehead and jaws that magnify the noise. The dolphin uses the reflected sound wave to detect obstacles and prey.


There will be more on dolphin/shark interaction in the next chapter.

While as an adult a lot of the focus is on the horror in a 'how the hell did this pass censors' way, another great thing about the books is how it shows the fun side of being able to turn into an animal from a first person perspective. Here with the dolphins, flying in previous books, Rachel first morphing the cat.

The balance of not being to trust that your loved ones are not trapped in their own bodies, dealing with horrifying animal instincts like constant terror and hunger for gross insects, your own near death or traumatic injuries, I don't think we've had any yet, but the loss of limbs in morph seemed to be a constant looking back. I think we have the first coming up in this book? contrasted with the sheer joy of being able to fly, or swim like a dolphin.

Come for the fun animal adventures, stay for the war trauma.

The Dolphin's acoustic organ is called the "Melon"

Did you know that? I didn't!

See, parents? This is just a chill thread about a chill series of books where your kids can learn facts about animals!

Fun facts like how long a gorilla can remain conscious after getting disemboweled and stabbed in the heart!

Or, more near at hand, how well a dolphin can swim with a severed tail. Answer: not very. Why is it always Marco?

This chapter is really cute, and all of the horror just makes the rare fun chapter that much more bittersweet. I admit I got a little choked up thinking about what happens to these kids over the course of the series while reading about them having a fun time as dolphins just now.

The tonal whiplash hasn't felt cheap yet. To me, it really feels like it ties in with one of the central themes of the series, the kill or be killed nature of both their struggle with the Yeerks, and of nature in general. A bunch of dolphins acting like goofy teenagers without a care in the world is bound to have a run in with a hungry shark, probably sooner rather than later.

I'm also a big fan of how Cassie describes the barrier between the sea and the air, and the dolphin mind wanting to play games. Really just glad whenever these kids get one nice chapter loving this book so far.

The Message-Chapter 10


So, time for animal facts. First, sharks and dolphins spend a lot of time near each other, which is mostly because they eat the same things, and for the most part, they ignore each other, because they're both too big for the other one to eat.

For the most part, they ignore each other.

Here's the thing, though. Dolphins are smart animals. Really smart, actually. Because they're so smart, they suffer from a problem that a lot of other animals don't have, which is boredom. A dolphin gets bored, it gets depressed, it goes kind of around the bend. One of the things that seems to amuse dolphins, though, is killing things. They seem to enjoy watching other animals suffer. (If you ever saw the documentary "Blackfish", about the killer whale Tilikum, who was responsible for the death of three people, that's likely what happened there. Killer whales are actually a large species of dolphin, and incidentally, are one of the few species of dolphins actually to prey on and eat sharks.) So, every once in a while, a pod of dolphins will go on a shark hunt, just for its own amusement. They'll kill sharks and then play with the bodies. Sorry if this ruins your Flipper rewatch. I'm not going to even talk to you about dolphin sexual behavior.


As far as I know, dolphins don't actually have any strong feelings about whales at all. Killer whales will sometimes hunt whale calves for food, and going back to the above comment, there was an incident a few years ago where a pod of killer whales attacked a blue whale for fun, The blue whale was big enough to not care and just swim away. In fact, killer whales have their name because of their whale hunting behavior. Spanish sailors called them asesina ballenas, which means whale murderers, and that got flipped around in English, so instead of whale killers, it became killer whales.


Ok, so that's not good, at all. This the first life threatening injury suffered by the Animorphs....I mean, I assume a dolphin getting its tail bitten off is life threatening.