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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 17quote:“There! There you have it!” Karen cried, pointing triumphantly at Marco. “Kill! Kill, he cries. Kill the parasite! Kill the Yeerk. Now where is your human morality? Now tell me again, Cassie, how you humans and your Andalite friends are better than we are!” Honestly, I get why Cassie is doing what she's doing, but all the same, Marco is right and this is real stupid. Chapter 18 quote:I felt the start of an awful pain in my ear. But the Yeerk secreted a chemical that made my ear go numb. And then I felt it pushing its way through my ear canal the way you still kind of feel the dentist’s drill even after the Novocain shot. And there you go. You now know the story of Afran 942. Aftran the Cassie-Controller.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 04:50 |
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# ? Apr 26, 2024 15:00 |
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Obviously this doesn’t end here, but this is such a bad idea. I can’t believe Cassie did this. Really, if no one is looking for this girl yet (or even if they are) they should just hold her in the woods till the yeerk starves. Do we ever get the opinions of any Yeerks who take over non-sentient beings? Or more specifically, what those non-sentient beings think/feel about it? Do they seem as psychologically damaged by the process? I do think enslaving sentient beings to have more experiences is very different than eating a pig. I don’t think Yeerks have to be condemned to being blind in a pool - they can just as easily take over non sentient species. They might have to communicate a different way, or invent a new language, but that seems as valid a solution as the one they decide later.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 05:17 |
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Fritzler posted:Do we ever get the opinions of any Yeerks who take over non-sentient beings? Or more specifically, what those non-sentient beings think/feel about it? Do they seem as psychologically damaged by the process? I do think enslaving sentient beings to have more experiences is very different than eating a pig. I don’t think Yeerks have to be condemned to being blind in a pool - they can just as easily take over non sentient species. They might have to communicate a different way, or invent a new language, but that seems as valid a solution as the one they decide later. well, they couldn't take over the hammerheads without modifying them first on the other hand, they have the capability to modify them
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 05:43 |
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Fritzler posted:They might have to communicate a different way, or invent a new language, but that seems as valid a solution as the one they decide later. In the book where they take over horses, the horses have voice synthesizers that speak Gallard, the interstellar trade language, IIRC.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 05:44 |
Cassie, you absolute moron.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 05:48 |
HK-47 says it far better than I ever could.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 05:49 |
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Fritzler posted:I don’t think Yeerks have to be condemned to being blind in a pool - they can just as easily take over non sentient species. They might have to communicate a different way, or invent a new language, but that seems as valid a solution as the one they decide later. They want bodies that can use tools and weapons, which are mostly going to be intelligent species. They might be able to live happily as horses but they wouldn't be able to challenge the Andalites and form an empire.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 06:01 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Cassie, you absolute moron. And this is still not the stupidest thing that Cassie does in this book. Just wait.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 06:17 |
Wait, it isn't? gently caress me, I don't remember whatever you're talking about. I shall wait. Unless you mean her becoming a caterpillar? Because yeah, that's dumb as poo poo though true to her character.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 06:21 |
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Interesting chapter in that that Marco finds Cassie, given that Katherine identifies most with Cassie and Michael with Marco.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 09:03 |
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The part where Cassie gets infected is really well written and gives a much needed perspective to the Yeerks, but there is also a lot of dumb poo poo here.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 09:40 |
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Yeah, there is maybe a good way to do this and this ain't it.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 09:45 |
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E-P posted:Interesting chapter in that that Marco finds Cassie, given that Katherine identifies most with Cassie and Michael with Marco. Yeah, I wondered if there was anything more to it than that. Like how Marco's decision was to go get the others, while say Rachel might not have thought twice about killing even her best friend right then and there.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 09:49 |
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This is so dumb and makes no sense -- why do we even need to hear from the real Karen? In case she loves being a host?? And "oh I forgot the Yeerk would be able to morph" is maybe the worst plot point so far. I can understand Cassie standing for a kind of pacifism that's in conflict with the positions of the others, especially Rachel. That's a good dramatic hook. But there's a clever way to show that dialectic and then there's whatever this book is. (Although I agree that some of the descriptive writing has been stronger than ever). Is this when the rot starts to set in with the series?
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 10:44 |
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Cassie is a teenager who is weary of the war and has learned of the existence of Yeerks who are against the war and now desperately wants to prove that some common ground can be found. She's not making sound logical decisions.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 11:06 |
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It's frustrating and dumb, but also, I wouldn't trust a twelve year old with grocery shopping, let alone interplanetary war.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 11:36 |
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Fair points! I should defer judgment until the book actually ends anyway.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 11:39 |
There is a certain kind of nobility in being willing to completely martyr yourself for your beliefs, as Cassie is doing. I can respect it, even as I completely condemn it for being spectacularly, planet-destroyingly stupid.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 12:26 |
rollick posted:Is this when the rot starts to set in with the series? no, but i do think it's a moment that the ghostwriters will misunderstand over and over again as a fundamental part of cassie instead of essentially temporary psychosis due to PTSD, and which over-informs their depiction of cassie once we get deep into the ghostwritten stuff.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 16:20 |
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SirSamVimes posted:Cassie is a teenager who is weary of the war and has learned of the existence of Yeerks who are against the war and now desperately wants to prove that some common ground can be found. She's not making sound logical decisions. It honestly wasn't until I was revisiting the series with this thread that I realized how much this series presents everything as completely awful. All this fighting and struggling isn't fun and exciting: it's awful and terrifying and stressful and all sorts of other negative things, and you can see it wearing on everyone. There's two teenagers here arguing over whether they should kill a little girl to kill the parasite inside to keep their secrets safe, and none of this is presented as a good thing, or there being an obvious right answer: just two very bad options in a sea of worse options after a long road of other bad options. Even the point of view character, who you'd expect to be the "right" one, isn't desperately trying to convince everyone of her obviously correct moral position but is just tired and struggling to find another solution even as she knows and has known one doesn't exist. like it's obvious right now that these kids are forever scarred and traumatized for life, and this isn't even the halfway point. No wonder other books I read around that time (e.g. Harry Potter) seemed stupidly optimistic. "Oh, Harry, you got all the way to fifteen before you realized authorities couldn't be trusted and everything was on your shoulders and you started having nightmares? Let me tell you about Yeerks..."
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 23:58 |
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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 19quote:Up we flew, up from the pine-needle-covered floor of the forest. Up, up through the treetops. Up into brilliant sunlight. A lot of this is Cassie realizing how stupid she just acted, really. Chapter 20 quote:We flew first over the heads of the Controllers. The human-Controllers disguised as state police. Man, this book. I mean, honestly, this book is just about two traumatized soldiers on opposite sides of a war having a debate about war and morality. This is your lighthearted edutainment series about kids who have wacky animal adventures.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 03:17 |
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This loving book, why do I not remember this. I can't... even FAULT Cassie here, considering all the context. She just got called out HARD.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 03:37 |
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man, this is heavy
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:00 |
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I strongly disagree with anyone who says Cassie is stupid here. She's incredibly war-weary and desperate to find a way to find common ground with the enemy.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:14 |
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SirSamVimes posted:I strongly disagree with anyone who says Cassie is stupid here. She's incredibly war-weary and desperate to find a way to find common ground with the enemy. She's....acting foolishly. I understand why she's acting foolishly, mainly for the reasons you said, but it doesn't make her actions any wiser.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:36 |
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Oh yeah it's absolutely a terrible foolish decision.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:40 |
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Epicurius posted:She's....acting foolishly. I understand why she's acting foolishly, mainly for the reasons you said, but it doesn't make her actions any wiser. As maybe the thread's foremost Cassie critic... yeah, I don't fault her here. The poor girl is broken. Sure, there are many, many better decisions in this situation, but she's flat incapable of making them, because they're all more complicated than yes/no and her brain just does not have capacity for that right now.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:52 |
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SirSamVimes posted:I strongly disagree with anyone who says Cassie is stupid here. She's incredibly war-weary and desperate to find a way to find common ground with the enemy. You can have very understandable reasons for being stupid.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 04:59 |
SirSamVimes posted:I strongly disagree with anyone who says Cassie is stupid here. She's incredibly war-weary and desperate to find a way to find common ground with the enemy. She exposed her soft, meatbag-like underbelly to Aftran. The fact that Aftran chose not to shoot here there until she died is almost immaterial. In some ways this reminds me a little of the Christmas Truce. Just people who absolutely did not want to be there wanting to stop the killing.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 05:25 |
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It is interesting that, for all the literal mind-reading that goes on between Yeerks and their hosts, Yeerks are still opaque to one another, giving them plenty of opportunity to lie and scheme against each other. The only exception is in sequential infestation; just as Jake learned about Tom's experiences from Temrash, his replacement would learn at least as much about him upon infesting Tom as Jake did on being infested by him.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 05:33 |
Epicurius posted:I don't know. It seems to be a very teenage thing to do. Your teenage years are when you start working out your own beliefs, and realize that your friends don't always share yours, and the whole "I can't be your friend anymore if you believe that" seems very adolescent. I know this is a few pages ago but lol she's literally saying she's fine condemning the whole human race to slavery and death as long as she personally doesn't have to pull the trigger. That does actually make her complicit. Of course it would be difficult to be friends with someone who, with their actions at least, are judging you to be of lesser moral character. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Apr 4, 2021 |
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 09:05 |
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I recall this book, and I feel the same way I did back then. Aftran is pissing into the wind, like a little girl is sitting there crying and punching Cassie trying to get away from her attacker, and Aftran is whinging about how hard it is to be a Yeerk? Give me a break, what a self serving lie. Yeerks can snivel about smug moralizing species when they stop enslaving children in the name of being a smug moralizing species. e: realized this may have come off as too aggressive, so I want to add that I'm not angry at anyone here, I'm just disgusted by Aftran's arguments because they're the arguments of exploiters everywhere. "I deserve this because" etc HIJK fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 4, 2021 |
# ? Apr 4, 2021 18:49 |
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I just picked up one of the Alternamorphs recently. You guys weren't kidding about it being bad—not the writing, but the interactive design of it. I'm not sure the author had ever read a CYOA book
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 22:36 |
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Fuschia tude posted:I just picked up one of the Alternamorphs recently. You guys weren't kidding about it being bad—not the writing, but the interactive design of it. I'm not sure the author had ever read a CYOA book They're the most linear CYOA books I've ever read. HIJK posted:e: realized this may have come off as too aggressive, so I want to add that I'm not angry at anyone here, I'm just disgusted by Aftran's arguments because they're the arguments of exploiters everywhere. "I deserve this because" etc There's a quote from Applegate about the book i plan to share when we're done that you might find interesting. Epicurius fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Apr 4, 2021 |
# ? Apr 4, 2021 22:55 |
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Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 21quote:The caterpillar grew still. It stopped writhing. Most animals become calm and quiet while being acquired. Well, Cassie is a caterpiller. Chapter 22 Jake quote:My name is Jake. So that's the summary of what the other Animorphs were doing while Cassie, Karen, and Aftran were on their Hatchet adventure.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 02:01 |
not to distract from the chapters but i just found this great panel from the graphic novel for book 2: rachel went a little more elephant than i thought Jazerus fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Apr 5, 2021 |
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 05:36 |
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Epicurius posted:So that's the summary of what the other Animorphs were doing while Cassie, Karen, and Aftran were on their Hatchet adventure. This is the first (only?) main series book to cut away from the main narrator, huh? I didn't remember that bit.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 06:00 |
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I understand why everyone is so rough on Cassie for the (dumb, traumatised) decisions she makes here. But Jake makes a good point. It's obviously KA's point, and it doesn't quite map onto what's happening in the here and now in a book series that's mostly teaching kids to see things in terms of ruthless utilitarianism, but... I can admire what she's trying to do here. Am I remembering correctly: Cassie is setting in train a chain of events here that ends up saving all of them? Fuschia tude posted:This is the first (only?) main series book to cut away from the main narrator, huh? I didn't remember that bit. There is at least one more down the track, a Rachel book that cuts to Marco sometimes while the others go on, shall we say, a fantastic voyage
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 10:24 |
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I am not hard on Cassie, I am hard in the writing.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 10:28 |
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# ? Apr 26, 2024 15:00 |
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Even assuming that Cassie turns Aftran and she promises to never ever take over another sentient being, that 5 year old child has got to go. They could maybe force her to live with the Chee and never see her family again but otherwise they gotta kill her. The Yeerks know who she is and will 100% want to reinfest her, she has dangerous information and theres no way she can maintain OPSEC.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 12:40 |