Apr 24
Animorphs #48: The Return
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Animorphs #48: The Return
The scene of the Animorphs voting whether or not to make David one of them might be one of the best character moments in the entire series. You can read into everyone's actions in this scene so well.
Marco sees "the bright, clear line." David hasn't seen any of them yet. He doesn't know anything. Just giving him up to the Yeerks is incredibly cruel, but it's the safest option. At the same time, how much of this is just his personal feelings? He's the only one who dissents on the basis of personality. He doesn't really like the way David acts, but is that enough reason for concern or is he just writing him off because he can't stand being around him?
Cassie is eager to go for it. She had just taken a massively risky leap of faith with Aftran, and it had actually paid off. And if trusting a Yeerk could lead to good things, surely trusting a human would turn out even better. She's already seeing the big picture: maybe David is the first of many. Maybe they could extend their force even more and give themselves the opportunity to make a bigger difference.
Rachel starts out against it. Despite their frequent disagreements, she and Marco both share that ruthless streak and often end up on the same side of heavy decisions as a result. She's the first to agree with Marco about giving David up, and the first to voice against making him an Animorph. But Cassie's argument sways her over. Cassie is probably just thinking that more people equals more power, but Rachel frames it by saying that more people means they can afford to take bigger risks (something that Marco can't help but agree with). Cassie is thinking optimistically, but Rachel sees it from a warrior's perspective.
Tobias is for it, and of course he is. David is just like Tobias was back then: no real family, no real home, and effectively a stranger to the rest of the group. He can't give up on David. He needs to have faith that things will work out, the same way they did for him (in a way). There's literally no other choice, as far as he sees it. He says Jake should make the ultimate call but clearly doesn't actually believe that, seeing as how when Jake replies that they need to put it up to a vote, Tobias immediately votes in favor of making him an Animorph.
Ax in particular is fascinating to me here because he's the one who actually suggests making David an Animorph in the first place. At the start of the series, breaking the law of Seerow's Kindness and sharing Andalite technology with humans, let alone a complete stranger, would have been completely unthinkable to him. But now he's seen just how fallible Andalites can be. He's begun to doubt the pillars of his society, and has thrown his lot in with the humans instead. He makes a very human suggestion here. It's something you'd expect Cassie or Tobias to come up with, not Ax. When the vote actually comes around, however, he votes against it. Like Rachel, he views it from a military perspective, but comes to the opposite conclusion. More Animorphs would be good to add to their ranks, but he's been in an army before and this ain't exactly one of those. A seventh member isn't enough of an added benefit, and putting a stranger in the role is too much of a wild card when they're about to undertake such an important mission.
We don't know what Jake is thinking. He never provides an opinion, only stating the facts of the situation and prodding the others for their votes. He's presumably freaking out inside, but trying to keep a calm demeanor in the face of the biggest decision they've had to make up to this point. Any weakness at this pivotal moment could skew everything, so he has to remain as neutral as possible until he can properly collect his thoughts. He's the last of the group to make his vote, and he really doesn't end up making one in the end. David wakes up, sees them, and Jake decides to bring him into the group. If David hadn't woken up there, what would Jake have chosen: Safe but cruel, or risky but optimistic? We never get to find out what was going through his mind at that exact moment, only in the aftermath.
And of course, this is all underscored by the dramatic irony of what this will eventually lead to. The group decides against inaction, but by their actions, they will commit a horror upon David arguably just as bad as the Yeerks would have. Would it have been better to leave him behind and be haunted by what they didn't do, or to have tried to save him and be haunted by what they did do?
I like the stupid ahh eyes for him as a rat
Thoughts on Animorphs Vol 48
What a fucking trip. Of course the only way David could ever return would be for Crayak to help him and of course Crayak would, just to mentally fuck with Rachel.
How much you enjoy this book entirely depends on how much you like Rachel as a character.
I did some searching for reactions to this volume just to see what the consensus was on whether or not Rachel kills David at the end and I'm surprised by how many people don't seem to like this one or dismiss it as filler fluff.
Rachel facing the consequences for what the Animorphs did to David all this time later is sobering. It's a wake up call to the audience that...yes, David was twisted, but he was still just a kid. A kid who lost his home, his parents, and then he was placed on island and forced to live as a rat. There is a psychopathy that is inherent in all children, up to a point, and I say this as someone who remembers their childhood better than most of their adult life. I remember what it was like to not have so much of a conscience. I remember the thirst for impulsive cruelty, the likes of which I would never fathom now because it's wrong. There were things that I did--not cruel, just random and fucked up--just to do them. I remember what it's like, but I could never place myself back into that state of mind because I fully understand now how and why it's fucked up.
Who is to say that David wouldn't have become less of a psycho when he got older? With a little more experience? David didn't see Elfangor get devoured by Visser Three. He didn't have that initial wake up call to just how real the war was. He didn't have the same experiences as the rest of the team that made them mature faster.
A kid who hasn't gone through half of what the Animorphs already experienced at that point is going to want to use the power for self serving purposes. A kid used to sleeping in a bed--anyone used to sleeping in a bed--isn't going to want to sleep in a barn, they're going to use their power to sneak into a hotel (I would).
I think it's easy to dismiss David as purely evil if you're a kid reading the books, but as an adult, the full scope of how fucked up the situation is from all angles is on full display.
So it's my opinion that Rachel does kill him in the end because she knows it is the right thing.
He is begging for death. Rachel, trapped in rat morph a short while ago, was subject to rotting food being presented to her and she had the real fear of becoming a nothlit so she had just a taste of what David has been living with the last year.
Rachel has accepted that she has to make this sort of call. There's no one else on the team able or willing to. This is her role in the team. She is beauty, she is brawn, she is the executor.
She knows that there's something wrong with her to love the violence so much, but she doesn't want to be evil. She desperately wants to be one of the "good guys". But she understands that someone on the "good guy" team has to be willing to wipe out the other side.
She talked such a big game about killing David, but when she's finally faced with having to do the deed it's too much--the fact that it's a mercy to end his life makes it harder. Deep down, she's a scared little girl who has to ask:
At which point did her love for the action become a cope so that she could weaponize herself?
Oh my God I just made the stupidest fucking connections between characters and I have my head in my hands
I don't know if I'm seeing things, but my brain is drawing a line between Getaway Transformers and David Animorphs and I don't like it😭
I was playing Minecraft Story Mode, and found a secret route that was unlocked by letting Axel lose his arms. This started Stella’s redemption arc early, and also let you not wear the pumpkin on your head (which let the admin not steal your brain.)
We wandered back to Beacontown, and Stella and I had a bonding moment where I was calling her “brother.” I had her sit on a block, then turned on a waterspout which pushed her off. We laughed about it.
Olivia came running toward as and frantically told us that something terrible was coming. We ran back into the woods and found the Witherstorm, which was strange because I was playing season two. Axel, Olivia, and Whiteout from WoF were taken away by the purple beam. I tried to run away, but I was sucked in too.
We were dropped in a huge icy dome that resembled the Icy Palace of Despair in episode two, but this was still chapter one. This didn’t make sense.
We saw the admin in his snowman form, who greeted us cheerfully and declared that we were going to die unless we figured out how to defeat him. I told everyone to look for a flower (because that was how you beat him at the end of the game, according to this dream.) We found flowers arranged in a cross shape and dug down beneath them, finding buttons. I somehow knew mine would just make him more powerful and tried filling the hole back up, but the dirt slid down and pressed the button anyway, revealing two admins, the snowman, and Romeo in his normal form. They were both massive.
I paused the game and told Marcel that I had unlocked a secret route, and he came over to watch me play. We came back, and I went through some intense trials, for example having to eat an entire wooden bat before something came to kill us.
Eventually, the admins stopped tormenting us. They opened up a door to the outside and told us that the kids today were tempted by flying, so they would let us leave if we chose to. If we did, we’d be permanently changed into hawks and be free.
Stella, Axel, and Olivia all left. I was tempted to do it too. I asked if we’d ever have another opportunity to leave, and the snowman said he didn’t know, likely not.
Wanting to continue the game and see how it went, I declared that I would stay. The two other people who were still undecided, a guy my age and a younger boy, started to leave, but I screamed at them to not leave me alone. They turned around and stayed.
The door disappeared, and we had to continue the game.
They handed us a long wooden bat with nails on the end and a folded-up letter, saying that both had to be disposed of properly. We broke the bat into smaller pieces for easier handling and gave it to the young boy to deal with, so the rest of us could figure it out the riddle.
I read it, and realized that it was about Animorphs, a letter David was sending to Rachel. Rachel was swinging through the trees, and David was a pigeon somehow. He was asking her for his power back.
Rereading Animorphs makes me realize just how much of a filter I must have had as a kid.
That Saddler-David thing was most severely fucked up.
Animorphs as Musicals: Les Miserables
David edition. After this theres only 1 left lmao