How would each Animorph be split personality-wise if they were cut in half ala The Separation?
Cassie would probably split into Cass and Cassandra.
Cass is fiance to Ronnie Chambers in the last chapters of #54 (that’s his nickname for her) and she contains all the brutally pragmatic parts of Cassie’s survivalist nature. Cass eats a baby seal if that’s the only food in the Arctic, Cass understands that it’s kinder to kill a wounded skunk than to let it suffer, Cass cuts Jake out and finds a better partner when it’s what she needs, Cass learns to live without the codependent team dynamic in a way that none of the boys ever do. Cass is the side of Cassie who would saw off chunks of herself in order to escape a trap, able to keep going even after everyone around her has fallen and she is herself bleeding out. Cass killed half a dozen innocent humans right along with their yeerks because it was the only way to save her friends (#43), Cass agreed to blow up the yeerk pool for the sake of the greater good (#51), and Cass would survive the war even if she had to leave her teammates and huge chunks of herself bleeding out on the battlefield without a second glance. She wouldn’t be actively cruel, but she wouldn’t bother being nice. Her dynamic with the team would be rough, probably, because she’s that one-woman army (emphasis on one), but she’d still be better than Cassandra.
Cassandra is, well… Cassandra. Just because she’s right all the time when predicting the future doesn’t mean anyone has any reason to believe her. Cassandra correctly calls all the ways that the war will destroy her and her friends, but Cassandra also becomes a voluntary controller (#19) and gives the morphing cube to the yeerks (#50) so frankly she’s not the kind of person who can be trusted. Cassandra is just as hampered by her lack of pragmatism as Cass would be by her lack of long-term idealism. Cassandra is the side of Cassie who is downright condescending when she smugly explains to Marco that there’s no such thing as suppressing free will (#28), and Cassandra is willing to judge Tobias for killing a baby skunk in order to survive (#9). Again: she might turn out to be right in the end, but she’s obnoxious and self-righteous and moralizing and judgmental as fuck about explaining her point of view in the moment. So just because she happens to be right all the time, that’s no reason anyone has to listen to her. If she could learn to explain herself better, to come down from her ivory tower, then she’d get a lot more done.
Ax would become Ax-Man and Aristh Aximili.
Aristh Aximili is the side of Ax that is caught up in duty before self, in the enormous weight of responsibility he bears by being the sole representative of his people in this vast and foreign war zone. Aristh Aximili would be cold, aloof, unwilling to work with his team unless absolutely necessary. Aristh Aximili tries to kill Visser Three, time and again, even at the near-cost of his own life (#8, #13, #18). Aristh Aximili would tell his friends nothing, would listen to orders from any andalite who is able to give them, and would constantly tell himself that the current situation is temporary so it’s best not to get too attached. Although intelligent and disciplined, Aristh Aximili would be hampered by his unwillingness to admit there’s anything he can’t do. Aristh Aximili fights alongside the Animorphs, but tells himself he is not one of them (MM1) and undermines them when they get in his way (#18, #46). Aristh Aximili is constantly asking himself “What Would Elfangor Do?” and feeling crushed by the sense that he’s letting his brother, and by extension his entire species, down. Aristh Aximili would probably get himself killed young and glorious in some vain attempt to take out Visser Three, and would tell himself that it was ultimately worth it in the end.
Ax-Man is a mouth-sound-playing, cigarette-butt-eating hedonist too busy taking in this whole new planet with an open heart and an empty stomach to worry about doody. Ax-Man doesn’t have to ask himself what Elfangor would do, because he’s already doing it: he’s eating five cotton candies in one sitting, devouring almanacs and “These Messages” to learn about this fascinating new culture, becoming shorms with Tobias, and hanging out at the local Taco Bell with his human friends. Ax-Man views the whole planet Earth as a giant playground for him to explore. He might not get much done, but Ax-Man knows when to get the whole team to take a break and go to CinnaBon (#14, #18) and he appreciates the chance to get a glimpse of human families (#6, #8) even while missing his own.
Jake would split into fascist Jake and armchair quarterback Jake.
Fascist Jake is the “Supreme Leader” we get a glimpse of at the beginning of MM3. He’s the side of Jake that, when push comes to shove, is willing to shout at David and even tell Rachel to smack him around when he thinks it’s necessary to maintain discipline on his team (#21). Fascist Jake is the “Napoleon Junior” who sends all the Auximorphs to their deaths in spite of James’s objections to letting them fight (#53). Fascist Jake would assume that he has absolute authority on the team, and he’d try to get Rachel to hurt or kill Marco in punishment when Marco inevitably objects. Fascist Jake is righteous and rigid, able to make decisions quickly but unable to take criticism. No matter how much Jake experiences genuine reluctance about being a leader, and genuine hesitancy to tell his friends what to do, that side of him willing to send his friends to die still exists throughout the series. Fascist Jake would be terrifying, because he’d have all the parts of Jake that simply assume the world will mold itself to his desires until the continents are forced to move from the sheer power of his will. He wouldn’t be able to sustain it, though, because he’d be demanding unquestioning respect from the kind of team that simply doesn’t do respect for authority. However, he’d still be more effective than his other half.
Armchair Quarterback Jake is the side of Jake that Marco points out during #54, the one who constantly questions his own instincts and has no faith in himself. Armchair Quarterback Jake is that ruminating side of Jake who thinks he had the power to stop every single bad thing that ever happened to any of his friends, and that he was just too stupid or too weak to see the correct way out where no one would get hurt. Armchair Quarterback Jake is the side of Jake who is constantly calling himself stupid and short-sighted for failing to anticipate every single move his enemies make (#11, #16, #36) while also failing to realize that his friends in some ways have just as much responsibility as he does. This side of Jake is the one that won’t make any decision at all for fear of making the wrong one, the perfectionist who is paralyzed by his own impossible standards. If Fascist Jake is a bull in a china shop, charging around not caring who gets hurt in the process of his total war against the yeerks, then Armchair Quarterback Jake would be Achilles in his tent: too wrapped up in what-ifs and self-doubts to do anything at all. This half of Jake might even be unable to function at all, unable to make decisions for fear of deciding wrong.
Tobias would be half-human, half-hawk. Duh.
Human Tobias would probably just be that kid we see in #1 and the flashbacks from MM4: naive, idealistic, crushing on Jake, too willing to commit to a cause. Without his hawk half, human Tobias wouldn’t necessarily survive the war. In #33 Taylor’s metaphorical pressure cooker separates Tobias’s “weak little human boy” from his “raptor self… who knows. Pain is normal. Life is pain.” Human Tobias, with no predator to protect him, would get chewed up and spat out by the war until he was either dead or unable to continue to function. In some ways human Tobias is ready for the world to confirm his fears — that he is weak, inadequate, insufficient — and in many ways human Tobias is so idealistic that he has no idea at all how bad the rest of the world can be. Human Tobias is desperate for love and belonging, and we know that if he can’t find that belonging with the Animorphs then he’ll find it with the Sharing.
Hawk Tobias is all the parts of Tobias that kill dinosaurs and mercora to ensure humans’ survival, that would rather starve than own up to being hungry. Hawk Tobias will eventually cause human Tobias to become his sardonic, fatalistic, darkly humorous self… if they are one and the same. Alone, hawk Tobias would probably just give in to the impulse to escape, to be free, to throw off all human ties. Who knows if that part of him would achieve Tobias’s desire to be fully bird, or if he’d still have some small part of humanity he’d be unable to suppress.
Marco is covered in this post.
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