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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 23rd, 2023
  • macji@pawb.socialtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•Animorphs did it first
    5·
    12 hours ago

    I don’t think it’s fair to say that they all end up doomed. I’m rereading it now, so maybe I’ll eat those words but remember, this is a war fought by 5 human children, alone, with very little help along the way. Maybe in a conventional war you get all sorts, but in the guerilla secret war run by just them? It’s all about their individual selves and interpersonal dynamics, and the fact that they alone held on with no support is why they personally suffer the way they do. (spoilered for series end. Seriously don’t read, just go read the books, they’re worth it)

    spoiler

    Rachel was never going to be happy with the war’s end, she was always going to be the Mad Jack of the series, and that fact made her so terribly unhappy that she took the decision she did to give her life for the cause. If she didn’t they would have lost. Her death is the spark for a lot of the worst sadness as the series ends

    Tobias loved her, deeply, and had been falling for her the entire time. He’s also doomed to live as a bird, and had struggled with that doom since literally book 1. Rachel was his link to humanity and she’s gone. He is untethered and returns to the wild, unable to deal with being human, and very literally not human at this point.

    Cassie was Rachel’s best friend, and a pacifist, and in her own mind a hypocrite. She’s had to to so many things she never wanted to do, harmed more than she they felt like she helped. She did it because it was necessary, but the horror of tearing so many throats out with your own teeth is just too much. She’s lost her best friend, and Jake is being raked through the coals as the rest of humanity learned what happened and start asking questions.

    Marco has never wanted any of this, he was only really in it to save his mom. I don’t remember, but I think he does? And I think he gets a lot of the peace he’d been missing in his life, and quietly just carries on with his family that has actually been reunited by this war.

    Jake… Jake became the person who had to make every hard decision, including the one that kills his cousin, Rachel. He made the call that tapped Tobias. He made the calls that forced Cassie to break her principles. He made the calls that won, with no certainty they ever would. If there’s anyone who has been under pressure, it’s him, and it just ratchets up as people realise who he is and what he’s done.

    And even with all this sadness, we only ever see the immediate couple years later, and we know Cassie and Jake are going to love and support each other beyond that. We have hope that Tobias will return, better, happier, more at peace. We hope that Marco gets what he always wanted, happy parents and happy home. We know the story continues, Kathleen just doesn’t give it all to us as it ends.

    So, yeah, it’s a sad story and it builds over like 54 books. Maybe with more forethought it could have been even more nuanced than it is, but by book 3 they’re already discussing the awful nightmares and torturous nights they have. I think for what it is and what they’ve been through, the ending makes the most sense.

  • macji@pawb.socialtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•Animorphs did it first
    11·
    15 hours ago

    I think it’s fair to say after all these 13 year olds (!) have been through, return to happiness is rather safely out of the question. I agree with you that that’s a hopeful and sweet theme, but I rather appreciate her willingness to say, no, sometimes things, and people, just break under terrible circumstances beyond their control. The tragedy is that it had to happen at all, that the invasion forced them to become heroes when they were only children.

    But with their sacrifice and heroism, from which they could have easily walked away at any time but didn’t, humanity is saved and the awful slavery of the yeerks is ended not just for humans but for everyone. But they did too much, and while it was necessary and worth it, it’s a tree they planted whose shade they’ll never see and which cost them everything. Sometimes it’s just not okay.

    And that to me, while sad, is far more <real> than stories that bend over backwards to make it all okay. There’s a place for both, and Animorphs is not hopeless or gritty grimdark just to be edgy, I actually think it’s full of hope that the war could be ended at all, with such good outcomes for the galaxy, and against such odds, and with the heroes they happened to have on hand. But it’s not free or without consequence.