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Animorphs #20: The Discovery thoughts (pt. 3):

My ultimate opinion on David: you can't reduce his story to being about him being right or about the Animorphs being right. Everyone is wrong, and the whole point of this trilogy is that the protagonists are in an awful situation where they feel forced to do unconscionable things to survive, even though they hate causing such harm.

“David is an innocent victim of the Animorphs’ bullying who proves they’re all monsters” — this take feels completely off-base.

“David’s an irredeemable monster who would end up becoming a mass killer no matter what” — this take feels completely off-base.

He’s a kid. He’s a mean kid. He’s a kid who sexually harasses Rachel, bullies Marco, and makes a premeditated near-successful effort to murder both Tobias and Jake. And he’s a kid who wants to see his family again and doesn’t understand just how far he’s in over his head. He gets excluded by the same team that tells him he's not allowed to have any other friends or family anymore. And then he gets trapped as a friggin’ rodent with a two-year life expectancy. But at the time he gets trapped, he’s impersonating a dead kid whom he murdered in order to get one over on Rachel and Jake.

David does terrible things, and some of that is his fault while some of that is clearly a product of not being raised right. Jake and Rachel do terrible things to David, and some of that is their failing to figure out a more peaceful solution while some of that is clearly them being desperate scared kids trying to keep their own family safe. I don't think that any take on this trilogy that has a clear right and wrong side can exist in conjunction with a close reading.

Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here

#animorphs #animorphs book club #david animorphs #the discovery #20 #jake berenson #rachel berenson #ethics

this is our first real introduction to David's father.

And from downstairs I heard a strong, male voice say, "Yes, I'm home now and the alarm was going off. (Pause.) I'm sure I can handle it. (Pause.) No, I'm a law enforcement officer. No need to send one of your guards out here. I'll check it out." Click. David's father, obviously. Home from work. Home from work as a "law enforcement officer." Home from work with his gun.

and there's actually a lot we can take from this. first of all, before he was actually introduced, we knew who he was. David clearly looks up to him, even trusting Marco with the secret that he was a spy, and there's also the parallel of David having that BBgun and his father being mentioned with a real gun here.

secondly. David was raised by a law enforcement officer. one he looks up to and admires, which likely means that he also agrees with everything that his father believes in and has taught him.

so David has been taught about society through the eyes of a rich, white officer, and that explains a lot of his behaviour. He takes after his father, who (as seen above) is quite full of himself. He believes himself to be superior to everyone else because of his standards and role and position in life. David is the same way.

Sure, his eventual motives are important to his character arc, but a lot of how he thinks and what he will do moving on are greatly impacted by how he was raised. We can see this a lot with the Animorphs themselves — most obviously Ax, but Cassie and Marco, too — and David is no exception. He has been so heavily involved with this lifestyle and way of thinking that he probably always was going to have that strained bond with the Animorphs. They just think so differently because of their own morals and how they were raised. This was never going to work.

#it's so fascinating. also excellent writing.#animorphs book club #animorphs #the discovery #ani 20 #david animorphs #animorphs analysis

y'know we've talked plenty about David Animorphs lately but I'd like to emphasize something that I don't see people talk about enough:

He's a bad pet owner

Having any kind of illegal pet should dock you some points.

He had the venom sacks removed from Spawn, the cobra. Now on the one hand I understand that's necessary in order to have a pet that's not deadly. On the other hand, if an animal needs to have body parts surgically removed in order for it to exist safely in your house, it's not a pet you should have. That's like the extreme version of declawing a cat.

Why is Spawn not living in a terrarium with a heat lamp? When Marco morphs Spawn, the snake brain's first thought is "I'm cold", probably because it's in shadow under David's bed. The real Spawn apparently slithered out of a cardboard box under there when Marco acquired him. That's not an environment that a cobra should be in. As far as we know Spawn just roams the house and does not have a dedicated terrarium (much less a heat lamp) like he should.

David also has a cat. The cat and the cobra are both allowed to just roam the house freely. That's a recipe for disaster. The sight of a snake slithering around will trigger a cat's hunting instincts - that's why cats like to chase string. You might as well let your pet rodent roam the house freely where the cat can get to him. And since Spawn no longer has venom to defend himself, there is a good chance the cat would've killed that snake sooner or later (and if Spawn did still have venom, then it's the cat who would almost certainly end up dead). It's not safe for these two animals to be interacting with each other.

And in a series called ANIMorphs, I feel like poor handling of animals should've been a red flag.

#animorphs #david animorphs #the threat #the solution #the discovery #ani 20 #ani 21 #ani 22

It's bits like this that show David's arc wasn't inevitable. He makes a lot of choices in these three books, but this is one of them - protecting his snake from a deadly alien battle in his bedroom.

#animorphs #animorphs book club #ani 20 #the discovery