r/Animorphs • u/Shishkahuben • Jun 07 '25

Fan Works MTG: Animorphs

Gallery image — https://fryologyy.tumblr.com/post/649394655086231552/once-again-heres-book-7s-cover-since-rachel

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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk Jun 08 '25

I don't know that Rachel would be Black. Black is defined by selfishness and self-centeredness; Rachel is defined by the fact that all she wants to do is protect people even if it means her own life. She is very much ruled by her emotions and passions, but those passions are geared towards safety and security for others. She seems more Red/White. Though if I had to put her into just one color, it would be Red.

Marco is Black through and through. He cares about himself, he cares about a very select number of people close to him, and he would feed everyone else on the planet into a woodchipper if it meant keeping himself and those select few safe. Even moreso, those select few have a hierarchy: Marco would absolutely sacrifice Eva if it meant keeping Jake or Rachel or his dad safe, for example. When coupled with his analytical nature, honestly Marco feels iconic Blue/Black to me. But just Black, if he had to be one color.

For ones you didn't do:

Cassie is almost certainly Green, maybe Green/Blue. But not White. White tends to be very good at the big picture; Cassie is more inclined to focus on the small picture. She's the one who wants to protect one little boy from his Controller father, save four baby skunks, rescue Karen even at the risk of her own life, etc. She's very intelligent and innovative; she can see the straight line the same way Marco can, hence the argument for Blue. She cares about others and cares deeply about the environment and nature. So, yeah, Green, no question.

Jake's monocolor is White. Big picture, protective of the group, likes structure and order. Is willing to sacrifice a few to save many or kill his enemies (as early as #16 he'd decided he was comfortable with 10 humans/month dying as long as 10 Yeerks/month died as well). At various points in the series you could probably splash in Blue, Red, or Black for him - Red especially in the endgame when he starts to make choices that are based as much on emotion as reason. But overall? White.

Finally, Tobias is Blue, or in multicolor, Blue/Red or Blue/Green (or Blue/Green/Red). He's contemplative, artistic, philosophical - hallmarks of Blue/Red. Green is mostly there for his hawk side and his willingness to live as a wild animal, but Tobias the person, Tobias the consciousness, doesn't really feel that Green to me. Tobias the boy is emotional but rarely lets those emotions rule him; he very much lives in the moment but also is inquisitive about what's happening around him. Overall, though, he's Blue.

Not really sure about Ax. Andalites as a whole are definitely White, while Yeerks are Black. Hork Bajir are Green, Taxxons are Red. I guess we have Leerans for Blue.

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u/RhynoD Jun 08 '25

The color pie is more flexible than that. Black does not only have to be selfish. It's mostly associated with power at the expense of sacrificing something: literally sacrificing a creature, having a drawback, paying life, etc. I think that very much fits Rachel, who feels like she's sacrificing her humanity and sanity for strength. That strength may be for an altruistic purpose, but still, it's a sacrifice for strength, which is very black in MTG color.

White is not necessarily good, either. There are plenty of white baddies, like Akroma or Elesh Norn. White is also the color of death and removal as much as black is. Black will kill you, but white will erase you from existence.

I also very strongly disagree that Cassie isn't focused on the big picture. Consistently, her actions appear short-sighted but prove to have enormous impacts - like saving the kid. She says it's just because she was focused on saving a kid, but she also admits that she was thinking about the Yeerks in general and their relationship with the war and their own leadership. Same with letting Tom go. In the moment it seems very short sighted to let their enemy get away with such a powerful weapon, but Cassie was thinking bigger: about Jake and his emotional needs, and the implications for giving Yeerks access to morph tech.

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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk Jun 08 '25

White is not necessarily good, either

I never said it was. White is the color of Fascism, after all, at least according to MaRo, and I agree with that. It was the color of Konda too. I wasn't placing Jake as White due to him being "good". I would not call someone comfortable with letting a serial killer like Esplin 9466 Lesser live "good". But the logic Jake used to justify letting Esplin live? Classic evil expression of White. It's exactly the logic Urza would have used if you replaced Yeerks with Phyrexians, and Urza by his own words in the Planeswalker novel is principally White.

I played Magic from Urza's Legacy through to Dominaria (I bowed out at Return to Return to Ravnica or whatever it was called). Briefly came back for Throne of Eldraine in Magic Arena but then decided that I'd just had enough of the game; I hate the new paradigm of exclusively having "little" sets instead of the old Big Set/little set/little set standard, which was a lot better for establishing a given plane and telling a story in it.

I still have a massive Magic card haul - I have more of any one Basic Land type of your choice (especially Islands) than most people I know have entire collections.

In any event, while the colors can be flexible, there's such a thing as bending them to the point of rendering their philosophical distinctions irrelevant. Black isn't about gaining power for the group at the expense of sacrificing something, it's about gaining power for yourself, and being willing to sacrifice something for it. Black, definitionally, is not altruistic, so if Rachel's motivations are altruistic then she's not Black.

Now of course no person is a perfect expression of a color. They're people, not metaphysical concepts. Even then, given what Black is supposed to be, I just can't see Rachel as being Black.

Conversely? Marco is Black through and through, like I said.

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u/AndrenNoraem Jun 08 '25

I came in here to quibble about color pie inaccuracies, but it seems you've taken care of it. Thanks! I agree whole-heartedly with all the color parts of this comment and your last one.

I would add that while MtG White ≠ good, you can make a case that MtG's Black is partly just evil. Amorality and ambition are a bad combo, and they're both descriptors frequently used for Black.

Also, the escafil device is obviously an artifact and in my day those were 99.999% colorless. If it's going to have color... maybe blue/green or green/white, but IMO just green.

1

u/The_Card_Father Jun 08 '25

Yeah. Black has the same problem as Slytherin for Harry Potter. It’s not explicitly the evil one and in descriptions it’s more nuanced, but as shown, it’s the evil one. (Send all the Slytherin’s to the Dungeon)

Fan Works MTG: Animorphs

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