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Animorphs

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This page is about the book series Animorphs. There was also a television series called Animorphs inspired by the series of books described in this article.
Animorphs is an English language science fiction series of children's books written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. The first book of the series was published in 1996.

On the surface, the series chronicled the lives of five average human teenagers and an alien (from a race called Andalites) who, with powers of shapeshifting ('morphing') granted them by alien technology, attempt to prevent the takeover of Earth by a race of parasitic aliens called Yeerks. As a whole, however, the series does not focus so much on the superficial elements of the plot as on how the war affects and changes them.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

Summary

In an undisclosed city on the United States coast, later revealed to be in California near Santa Barbara, five 13-year-olds, Jake, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, and Cassie walk home one night from the mall through a forbidden abandoned construction site. There, they spot a blue light in the sky, which they discover is an alien spacecraft. The petrified children watch as the craft lands and out steps a strange creature from another planet. This alien calls himself Elfangor, and he is an Andalite. He tells them of an alien invasion by a parasitic species known as the Yeerks. The human race is completely oblivious, and it does not have the means with which to fight off this invasion. Elfangor's people are also two years away from sending another force to Earth, and by that time, the Yeerk conquest of the planet would be complete. The youths are disbelieving. However, Elfangor tells them that he can give them powers to resist the imminent Yeerk occupation: the ability to touch an animal, and then become it -- a process known as "morphing." Incredulous, the teens argue amongst themselves but quickly decide that they have no choice but to accept. Within minutes of Elfangor's landing, Yeerk spacecraft have located the wounded alien. The sinister beings land, headed by a Yeerk general, Visser Three, who is in possession of an Andalite body. The children escape, but Elfangor is left behind and consumed when the Visser morphs into a hideous monster.

Frightened and confused, the children are unsure of what to do. They are very young and suddenly have the weight of the whole world on their shoulders. They instinctively turn to Jake, who becomes their de facto, albeit reluctant, leader. They decide to fight. After "acquiring" some animals' DNA, the children call themselves the "Animorphs", a name invented by Marco. Soon Jake discovers that his brother, Tom, is a "Controller", a being infested and governed by a Yeerk parasite. They quickly identify several other Controllers, including Hedrick Chapman, their vice-principal. The children begin to despair, having just scratched the surface of the immense Yeerk conspiracy. When Cassie is captured by a known Controller, the Animorphs stage a rescue operation in the Yeerk Pool, a vast underground complex where the species feeds. They save her and cause the Yeerks some damage, but Tobias stays morphed for more than two hours in order to keep the Animorphs' identity a secret and becomes a nothlit, a being trapped in morph (in this case a red-tailed hawk).

A while later, they rescue a young Andalite aristh, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, Elfangor's younger brother. The Animorphs destroy a Yeerk logistics ship. Jake is captured by his brother's Yeerk and tries to find a way to save Tom and his parents. Marco discovers his mother is Visser One while fighting to protect his father from constant targeting by the Yeerks. Rachel meets the Ellimist and finds a way to destroy the Yeerk food source while dealing with her parents' divorce and her own disturbing penchant for violence. Ax tries to adjust to life on Earth while remaining loyal to his own people. Cassie tries to hold onto her values while at the same time betraying them, while healing animals and being a good student. Tobias must cope with life as a human trapped as a hawk, straddling the line between human compassion and the animal urge to kill to eat.

For the next three years, the Animorphs wage a tiring, and increasingly desperate, guerrilla war against the Yeerk invasion. They visit new and strange planets, and encounter various species no human has ever known. They gain allies, lose friends, slowly lose their childhood innocence, and are forced to grow up quickly, make terrible decisions, and witness the horrors of war, all the while trying to hold on to their normal lives - dealing with school, family and friends. Ultimately, it boils down to one final battle in which the Animorphs attempt to capture the Yeerk pool ship and the former Visser Three, now Visser One, with it.

Ghostwriters

Many of the novels from the #25-#52 range were written by ghostwriters. Typically, Katherine Applegate would write a detailed outline for each book, and a ghostwriter - usually one of Katherine's former editors or writing protegés - would spend a month or two writing the actual novel. After this, Katherine - and later her series editor, Tonya Alicia Martin - would edit the book to make it fit in with the series' tight continuity. Ghostwriters are credited for their help in the book's dedication page: "The author would like to thank [ghostwriter name] for his/her help in preparing this manuscript." The books fully written by Applegate herself after #25 are #26 The Attack, #32 The Separation, #53 The Answer, #54 The Beginning, and all of the Megamorphs and Chronicles books.

The following books were ghostwritten:

It is worth noting that Katherine Applegate originally intended to write every single Animorphs book herself. However, due to a myriad of contributing factors - such as the birth of her son, and the difficulties involved in ghostwriting Everworld (which was originally intended to be mostly ghostwritten, like Katherine's third Scholastic series Remnants), she ended up having to have a large amount of the books ghostwritten.

Themes

The books throughout the series discuss underlying themes questioning the morality, judgment and idea of what is good and evil facing the central characters.

One such theme is the control of creatures and sentient beings. In the first book the Yeerks are portrayed as evil and parasitic. Their intentions of aggressive invasion in order to 'control' the bodies of their subjects leaves little question in the minds of the Animorphs about the morality of their actions. However, the morphing technology employed by the Animorphs creates inconvenient parallels with the actions of their supposedly 'evil' enemy.

In the book, 'morphing' is achieved by acquiring the DNA of the subject creature through touch. The creature is then replicated in both body and mind when a morph occurs. Animorphs are often forced to keep control of the animal's 'instincts'. This is particularly true of certain animals that are described to have highly agitated mindsets, such as mice.

Thus the Animorphs are confronted with the question of whether they are no better than the Yeerks, since they too are taking over the body of their host morphs. Throughout the book they deal with this issue with a mutual agreement not to morph sentient beings, particularly other humans, unless they gain prior consent. However, on several occasions they find it impossible to maintain this self-imposed rule.

Also present is the theme of 'war blindness', expressed in the Animorphs' creed: Fight the enemy, don't become them. This becomes particularly problematic when one Animorph or another loses objectivity in a given situation; the Yeerks take hosts unwillingly, in most cases, and they have no problem fighting among civilians, seeing most humans as 'expendable'. The Animorphs, however, cannot take such views, lest they become as bad as the Yeerks.

Characters

The Animorphs

Others

Minor characters

List of Ketrans

Ketran Terminology

See also

External links

 

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