#animorphs read through

[rays-animorphs]

The implicit decision at the end. "Rachel took initiative while I was gone. She nearly caused the death of my girlfriend and might have lost the cause entirely. On the other hand...do I want my crew to be too afraid to do anything when I'm out? That could lose us everything too. And she's already feeling pretty bad. What do I tell her?"

And he chooses to tell her that she did good, that she did what she had to do.

It's a war. We do what we have to do because we're forced to do it.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Oh goodness, Tobias is doing the “if you speak English loudly and clearly enough, people who don’t speak English will suddenly be able to understand you” thing.

[rays-animorphs]

The interesting thing about 38 is I know how the series ends. Even if I didn't know, I know the genre. But the kids don't know how it ends. And they're ...acting like this is all real. Which makes a lot more sense than if they weren't. But it's still jarring. This isn't how adventure stories work. Adventure stories work by the heroes being brave against all odds. But this hasn't been this sort of story since the kids watched Elfangor get killed by Visser 3 in the construction yard and did nothing. It's never been that sort of story.

And it does, in fact, feel like they could lose. Like they can't not lose. How can a handful of children win against an invading army? It's ludicrous.

[rays-animorphs]

Cassie hid the morphing cube *in the barn*. Surely this can't be the first time some bug has walked across it.

Oh well. Suspension of disbelief.

[rays-animorphs]

<I am ready Prince -- well, I am ready.>

Such a dis, but Rachel totally deserves it.

I appreciate that, while it would be so easy to have Cassie as the Designated Damsel In Distress, the Animorphs don't rescue her specifically particularly often. (As far as I can remember, the last time was in book 1.) But in this story? It's perfect. Rachel fucked up, now she's at risk of losing her best friend. I love it.

Also I love how the story straddles both "even the best leaders mess up sometimes" and "yeah Rachel is being a pretty shitty leader."

[rays-animorphs]

Oh wow.

So, one thing I think about sometimes, going through this series, is which stories are load-bearing, essential to the overall story, and which ones aren't. I think this one is. Because however the end game goes down, this is going to be part of it, Cassie having a moment of not being able to do the tough, ruthless thing. And immediately after she gets fucking attacked by an ant-Cassie hybrid.

Because, I mean. Wouldn't you be a lot more willing to do the tough, ruthless thing after something like that?

[rays-animorphs]

Book 38: "Andalites have reached the Earth" we're actually going to move the big-picture plot forward? And it's an Ax book? I can't wait.

You'd think if you were writing a series dozens of books long you'd run out of things to make it interesting at some point, and yet.

I am sad that Tobias doesn't get more POV books though. There are six Animorphs. It should be a six book cycle, not a five book cycle where Ax and Tobias have to share.

[rays-animorphs]

Coming back to #37 after a long hiatus.

I like some of the Rachel books but some are just really unpleasant for me. This is one of the unpleasant ones. Things are going to go Badly, I know they are going to go badly, I don't really like hanging around waiting for it to happen.