#ani 53

[emeraldmew]

The choice to never name Tom's second yeerk is such a fascinating move. There were plenty of points in 53 where Applegate could have dropped it. The deal with Jake. Have Visser One address him by name.

But she never names him. He's always "Tom's Yeerk." Or, more horrifyingly, just shortened to "Tom" for the sake of brevity.

We even know that Jake knows the yeerk's name:

Nervous, toadying laughter all around. Someone reported that Tom had reached the Blade ship. The Blade ship was reporting readiness to join the attack.

Whoever reported this definitely didn't call him Tom.

But Jake never uses it. Neither does Rachel.

There is no separating Jake's trapped brother from the yeerk controlling him by using his name as a euphemism for the person Rachel is sent to kill.

[emeraldmew]

I want to believe that James disobeyed Jake and told the auxiliaries that they had a choice in whether to Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade the Pool ship/some of them took him up on opting out.

[emeraldmew]

We ran from that place, ran from thoughts of what we'd done. Ran for the bridge. His fault, it was Visser One's fault, all of it. Who had started this war? Not us. We hadn't asked for it. It was him. Him and his filthy, subhuman, parasitic race. His fault. Not mine. Not mine.

Can't outrun yourself, Jake.

[emeraldmew]

All right. Who else had to put the book down for a second to process "My name is Jake Berenson."?

[emeraldmew]

Jake: So, Erek, how do you feel about trolley problems?

[emeraldmew]

Ax held his head high and for a moment I thought he might refuse to answer Tobias's question. Then, <You must understand that the Andalite high command is not the entire Andalite electorate. This long war has made them a greater part of our civilization than they should rightly be, The Andalite electorate, the people, do not know what is planned.>

More of the general "the people are not their commanders" theme of Animorphs that's pivotal to keeping the Andalites from frying Earth and being done with us, but also...

I wonder if this is where the Andalite traitor plot really ended up. I know, Doylist answer is that the Andalite traitor plot was just forgotten about and all, but Watsonian-wise I could see the traitors being Andalites that want to prolong the war to keep the power they tasted during it. To them it's not enabling the yeerks to any sort of victory, it's maintaining a stalemate for their own ends.

[emeraldmew]

Three minutes later, I demorphed in front of General Doubleday again.

beautiful sequence of events here.

[emeraldmew]

From here on out the second-guessing, the legitimate doubts, and the self-indulgent whining, they were over. Save them for my old age in the unlikely event that I ever had an old age.

I'm sure only good decisions will be made by this narrator.