#it's like. well you see

[carlandrea]

The reason Animorphs works as a deconstruction of the kid hero archetype is that it comes at it from a place of respect for the genre, and for the children reading it.

It never denies the kids agency, because it is a book for children, who want to read about children being given agency. Animorphs doesn't treat its child soldiers as victims the way a story aimed at adults would. They are full agents within the story who make moral choices. The fact that they are children is treated as a tragedy, but it's not treated as something that absolves them of any responsibility.

It plays by the rules. These kids are the only people who can save the world. They cannot trust the adults in their lives. It just takes that story—the story it's telling—seriously.

The message of animorphs isn't actually of "isn't it fucked up that this book I read when I was a kid sent a twelve year old on an adventure" it just uses its take on the kid hero genre to get across the actual message, which is War Is Hell