#ani 38

[emeraldmew]

I love that the "make it look like the Animorphs broke up" plan involves Rachel actually attacking a McDonalds. Girl found out that it's fun to be a grizzly in a public location last book and she's not giving it up.

[imperfectskeleton]

The biggest question that #38 (The Arrival) raises is not "Is Estrid Alloran's daughter?" but "did Arbat ever truly intend to personally kill Visser Three?"

Sure it seems like a distraction to hide the real mission from ever going down in history — a failed assassination attempt with the most expendable soldiers available. But killing Visser Three would be big. It would be worth a lot (even though the Yeerk empire is not remotely playing to his strengths having him in charge of Earth, he's still a very powerful leader, after all).

I know there are a lot of reasons to say killing Visser Three is a ruse to stall their way to the Yeerk pool but I think Arbat meant to do it until he heard his name in his brother's voice. Because even when the playful teasing is a gut punch, a knife in the back, it's the sound of a childhood. It's playfully sparring while their parents are busy, training after school, roughhousing as young adults who've never seen war or eliminated a species for the good of the universe.

The voice of a brother you haven't seen for 15 years or more, calling back memories of your childhood except this time the fight is real (it doesn't matter if it's real. What's real is your brother, worse than dead by all accounts, and he didn't really try to hurt you, just disarmed you. It wasn't a real fight, it was Alloran. You've looked after his family disgraced twice over, but how can you be disgraced when this is YOUR BROTHER)

I think this is the only time Esplin has interacted with Alloran's family. I think he's genuinely delighted to twist the knife, for both Alloran and his brother. Watch me break him, too, butcher of the Hork-Bajir. You watched every soldier in your unit massacred, took the fall for a planet that could not be saved and your brother? He was never that. Soft. Scientific. So female in his interests. Oh, how easily one of my lieutenants could break him. Or, if I'm feeling kind, I can torture him, and morph, and you can live with the knowledge of having eaten him. Isn't this fun, War-Prince Alloran?

Andalites care about honour and revenge killings. Alloran would be near impossible to free, and at this point in the series Jake is giving up on Tom, an easy target. Killing him would be the kind thing to do, the duty of his next of kin. I really think Arbat meant it until he heard his brother's voice.

[emeraldmew]

Bringing up Leera early in the book is certainly no coincidence: Ax's reaction to Unit 0 stands in sharp contrast to how he met the crew of the Ascalin. His guard is up even though he's excited to see them and wary of every variance from how he expects them to act.

Ax's sexism is... on the one hand, I want to smack that precious cinnamon bun. It's grating. On the other it's a look into andalite machismo, which both tells us about andalites and about how Ax sees his human friends.

Even the fact that Ax is hung up on Estrid's being a *gasp!* girl aristh stands in contrast to how he sees Rachel and Cassie. It's insight into how he sees humans and andalites as operating under different rules. What Rachel and Cassie can do is, as far as Ax is concerned, standard human skills. He's not used to human-style sexism so he doesn't go in with preconceived notions about the differences in human abilities. It's his own in-group he can't quite figure out because he's grown up with andalite expectations of andalite gender roles.

In a way, to Ax, humans are alien enough that they're humans before they're male or female humans. It's an interesting look at how the distance makes them all just un-andalite before other factors set in (not to say he doesn't love his friends, he just also really sees them as alien).

[emeraldmew]

40 also adds a bit of context to Aloth-Attamil-Gahar's... er... enterprising before his arrest and assignment to Unit 0.

Considering the andalites who would be in need of organs are presumably the ones that cannot remorph healthy tissues themselves I imagine vecols pretty much have to rely on the black market if they want to survive rather than wither away out of sight the way andalite culture demands.

It doesn't make Aloth a good guy by any stretch but it's an interesting peak into the andalite homeworld.

[emeraldmew]

ah, late-mid-series Animorphs, where losing limbs and having fist-sized holes blown through our protagonists is just a Tuesday.

Mr. King, I hope you didn't use your standard hologram for an infiltration mission.

[emeraldmew]

So did Alloran ever realize his brother was on Earth? Did he have a chance to see Arbat at the Sharing community center before the andalites hoofed it?

EDIT:

Visser Three looked at the Andalite. <Arbat!> The Andalite's eyes flickered and his finger hesitated on the shredder.

oh duh. he knew his bro was there.

I blame missing that detail on work.

[emeraldmew]

52 is really just a reskinned 38 but Ax is playing both himself and Estrid, huh?

[emeraldmew]

I do like the Cassie and Ax bonding we haven't really seen since book 8. I do wish there was more of it.