#gonna be really embarrassed if I start spelling animorphs wrong and don't notice it for a few posts

[rays-animorphs]

Book 10 Part 4

About bravery and bats being good neighbors and the Animorphs almost dying several times in just a couple chapters.

The problem with fictional pacifists, is that most of them are written by people who are not themselves pacifists and who are not overly invested in depicting them accurately.

We already got some echolocation in the dolphin book. Now we’re going to have a lot more. Very excited about this. Bats are some of the most misunderstood creatures out there.

I don’t see why Erek would betray them or set them up, but my spidey senses are tingling.

How does Ax know directions? huh.

You know, it would be easy to think Marco isn’t brave, because he tends to be the voice of caution or outright second-guessing in the books. But here, instead of aborting the mission or insisting they needed a Plan B, he just dropped an unknown distance to his possible death without hesitation. Marco is extremely brave. I hope to be a tenth that brave.

I also remember some passage about how smaller animals can survive bigger falls — not proportionately bigger, absolutely bigger — than larger, heavier animals. Something about “a horse would break every bone in its body”. I haven’t seen that passage this time around yet.

Anyways, we have a similar concept here.

Anyways, that’s why I was surprised about Visser Three’s morph at the end of the first book. Clearly biomechanics are functional in this world to the extent that small animals can survive big falls, so you’d think biomechanics would also limit how big animals get. Even alien animals.

“Did it occur to you that the furnace might actually come on?” See, Cassie doesn’t just know about animals, she’s smart and sensible in other ways too.

Sometimes they’re in danger from Visser Three morphing into some fire-breathing space hydra, sometimes they’re in danger from… a furnace.

“I thought I’d been moving as fast as I could move. I was wrong. I had a whole extra speed.” So… wolf spiders have adrenaline or something equivalent to it?

They really do almost die in every book.

I guess I wanted life and death stakes on the regular at some point? (In my fiction, not in real life of course.) I actually could live without them now. I guess grown-ups really are boring.

I bet this was really fun to write though. “I know, I’ll have them use spider silk to rappel into an air duct. But, the silk won’t be long enough, so then they’ll have to jump. And then I’ll have them almost burn up in a furnace! but why would the try to cross the furnace? I know, I’ll make it so that they’re being chased by a rat.” That’s three lethal threats within the same segment of the book.

Plus a surprise fall.

I wonder if Ax is ever going to end up deciding that his human prince is out of his goddamn mind. Or if he thinks Jake is extremely heroic for taking such huge risks.