This reread I've noticed that there's sort of a... motif around food that just keeps popping up. Food - what and how you eat - is really sort of a thing in Animorphs.
Obviously there's Visser Three, cannibalism king, munching on his enemies and subordinates alike since his very first scene. There's also his brother, who has to become a cannibal to survive because when he's cut off from the pool he decides his continued existence outweighs his brother yeerks.
There's Jake eating a spider during his first morph of the green anole, which sticks with him (and every other narrator) until Tobias has a breakdown over eating a rat. After that, the spider doesn't get brought up much anymore and Tobias learns how to be a predator.
But then I noticed the similarity between Tobias and Arbron.
Tobias has already been a nothlit, but it's not until he hunts like a hawk that the reality sets in in full.
And when Arbron is trying to get Elfangor to kill him...
It's not just being a taxxon that sends Arbron into a suicidal spiral: it's eating like one and understanding that if he survives his wounds he'll still likely be eaten like one.
For both of our nothlits, hunting and consuming something like a thing is the point where you cannot reverse becoming it. Tobias often sees his hawk body as a predator first and the flying that comes with it comes second.
In a way even though he didn't become a nothlit this applies to Jake as well: Marco coins the name "Animorphs" for their group immediately following Jake's return from the anole mission. Eating the spider didn't technically change anything, but heck if it didn't coincide with the point of no return.
Aside from that, we also see how alien diets play a huge role in how the species develop and the role they play in the wider series with andalites, hork-bajir, taxxons, and yeerks.
Andalites were a prey animal that had to eat on the run to avoid being eaten. So they developed into a very defensive species that after wiping out their own predators tries to assert control and order over the rest of the galaxy to feel safe.
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles will delve into this a bit further, but by 13 we learn that Hork-Bajir are designed around their diets and that very design (sharp blades for cutting bark) becomes the reason the yeerks see them as weapons.
Taxxons are always insatiably hungry. They cannot control their own appetites to the point of cannibalistic feeding frenzies and aligning with the yeerks. They're another group we'll get into more later in the series too.
And of course yeerks rely on Kandrona to live. The Animorphs strike their first major blow against the empire by destroying the Kandrona generator in 7, which continues to ripple throughout the series. Yeerks cut off from Kandrona starve to death so unless they're able to figure out the cannibalism thing like Esplin 9466 the Lesser they have no way of leaving the empire. The only other alternative they've found drives them mad by replacing their brain stem. In this way food becomes a weapon of the Animorphs.
Just... I never noticed until now just how much food is a running theme in this series.
