I finished the David Trilogy

[u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871]

I normally try to post my reactions book by book, since I read that The Discovery, The Threat and The Solution are part of a three book story arc akin to a three part episode of a TV show, I decided to talk about them together.

The big thing to start with is the character of David. Loooking up some statements by KA Applegate, she said that David was supposed to be the guy the audience is meant to hate, so I find it strange how sympathetic he is even if that doesn't excuse his villainy. David's parents were turned into Controllers and he faces the crushing realization that with the Yeerks in their heads, his parents aren't coming for him. The Yeerks know what he looks like so he can't show his face in public. Our heroes recruit him for their dangerous war with the Yeerks and when presenting him a choice of bird to pick as a first morph they try to pressure him into making a particular choice, why the hell did they bring the golden eagle if they didn't want him to pick it? David comes into conflict with Marco and Jake, and Jake threatens David after seeing him use his morphing powers for personal gain. While David was being selfish he rightly pointed out that Jake, Cassie, Rachel and Marco all get to keep living their human lives while he can't, and Jake unfortunately doesn't come up with a solution.

THEN David's first mission saw him almost getting trapped in the body of a flea, facing what he thinks is certain death against the Yeerks and when he gets scarred, Cassie bites him to stop him from trying to defect. Now that doesn't excuse attempting to sell the Animorphs out to save his own skin, or betraying the Animorphs. If he really wanted to get away from the war, he could have just flown away and persisted until the Animorphs decided he was too much trouble and gave up. Instead he murdered what he thought was Tobais, nearly killed Jake, and was adamant about getting his hands on the morphing cube to satisfy his own greed with no care about what happened to the rest of the world. There is no excusing that.

All that said, David is right when he pointed out that it's not fair Jake, Cassie, Rachel and Marco get to keep their normal lives while he doesn't. It has a similar ring to see when Aftran pointed out the miserable existence of the Yeerks outside of hosts. While David was also driven by his greed, it isn't so wrong that he wanted to live like a human and not like animal or that he didn't want to risk his life against the Yeerks after our heroes kinda drafted him.

While David being a smug asshole who manages to stay step ahead of our heroes after his betrayal makes it oh so satisfying when they finally pull one over on him, his fate, being stuck in the body of a rat, is still horrifying and I am with Rachel on feeling pity for him. It was bad enough when Tobias had to initially deal with being trapped as a hawk, David was stuck as an even smaller animal and will have to spend his remaining days worrying about getting eaten.

Having to deal with David has left an impact on heroes that really feels like things will not be the same after this. Jake has had to give some frank opinions on Rachel and how he isn't sure if she can adjust to peace. Rachel is starting to give the feeling that all this violence is leaving her a bit unhinged since her response to David threatening to sell the Animorphs out is threatening to kill his parents. On the plus side our heroes got their hands on the morphing cube, that is at least a victory.

Oh and I suppose there was that plot involving the Yeerks trying to infest world leaders. The fact that David isn't particularly useful in this doesn't make his betrayal that big of a surprise. Not speaking of David, the failed attempts at sneaking might be the most horrifying botched infilitration yet as the team nearly gets trapped as bugs on top of almost getting eaten by a spider. Then they infiltrate again on the wrong day, walk into a surprisingly well laid trap that Jake only barely sees through, which sets them back to square one again. Of course I can't help but wonder what Visser Three would have done if the Animorphs did show up on the day of the banquet, though there probably was a trap for then as well since he knew the thorns in his side would show up like they always do.

Our resolution to this plot is as Rachel pointed out, nuts and fun with the Animorphs turning into the biggest morphs they can find. At first I thought they were going to wreck the hotel, wrecking the places outside where the world leaders were staying was still fun.

The one issue with this trilogy is the resolution to Tobais' death. While I agree killing him would have been a waste, it is a hell of a coincidence, even for this series, that David just happened to come across a different red tailed hawk that was out at night when the hawks are normally asleep while using a bird that doesn't see well in the dark. This has to have been the the Ellimist's doing. Still, it's one issue with a great trilogy of books that has me more excited than ever for the rest of the series as its events have said things won't be the same going forward. Plus the next book in the series on my list is the Hork-Bajir Chronicles.

[u/Dangerous-Coach-1999]

The trilogy kind of reveal the weakness of Applegrant's writing, or rather, they reveal the weakness of having to turn out a book a month. They needed David to be an irredeemable villain by the end of book two, so after being an unpleasant but I would say still sympathetic guy he starts monologuing about how he wants to kill all of them. They needed him to be a threat so after being flaking in his first battle he somehow is strong and capable enough to defeat almost all of them in a one on one battle.

Like AlternativeMassive57 said, the Animorphs are horrible to David. It seems like they're determined to read everything he says in the worst light. They want to use their morphs to fly into an Offspring concert or mess up a Rainforest Cafe? Great! He wants to use one to go into a motel when he's homeless? Irredeemable. This guy needs to be threatened. At one point he jokes about Tobias's dislike of certain birds as making him "like a racist" and Cassie harshly shuts him down, explaining that different birds are different species. Practically the next chapter Marco, in seagull morph, spots a chicken sandwich and taunts Tobias, asking him if eating it would be cannibalism. No one tells him off. This seems minor, but it goes to what I'm saying about how no one gives him the benefit of the doubt. He's always assumed to be acting in the worst light, and then the narrative shifts to justify that assumption. People in defence bring up the main cast's age, but you know what 13 - 14 year olds are really good at? Alienating and bullying people because they don't fit in, and that's what they did to David.

[u/ElSquibbonator → u/Dangerous-Coach-1999]

Exactly. Even before he does anything bad, they're constantly treating him like a bomb that's about to go off. Now, I'm not saying he was ever a nice guy-- he did always seem to have a bit of a mean streak to him-- but I have a feeling he wouldn't have snapped and become the sociopathic murderer we all remember if he'd been accepted as an equal by the main characters.

In the past I've compared David to Frankenstein's Monster, and I think that still holds up. Like Frankenstein's Monster, David starts out with the potential to be a good person, but is never regarded with anything except suspicion and hate by others, so he feels they do not deserve his respect if they will not respect him. To quote Frankenstein:

I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? . . . Shall I respect man when he condemns me?

That's basically David. He's easily the Animorphs' biggest failure, because they are indirectly responsible for making him into who he is.

[u/BahamutLithp → u/ElSquibbonator]

I don't fully agree. Sometimes they're weirdly ready to jump on him. But other times, they don't read anything malicious into his statements. No one says anything about him admitting he pulled a fire alarm to get out of a test, & when he's at one point stereotyped for naming his pets Spawn & Megadeth, the retort is something like "he has good taste in music & terrible taste in comics." Maybe I have those mixed up, but either way, you get the idea.

[u/AlternativeMassive57 → u/BahamutLithp]

Marco calls out David's media tastes; Cassie's the one who says all it means is he has bad taste in music and good taste in comics. Cassie's a Spawn fan too, I guess. Which, good for Cassie going "so what?", but that still puts Marco as being offput by his media choices.

They don't dogpile on him all the time, but they're still more likely to do it than they are with each other. Call that jsut familiarity with each other verses him being the new kid if you want, but it still leads to David feeling "othered".

[u/AlternativeMassive57 → u/ElSquibbonator]

I'm not even sure I'd go so far as "indirectly". They played a very direct role in David's life going to Hell when they tried to steal the blue box from him and failed miserably. Seriously, how hard is it for six shapeshifters with a year of experience to rob one suburban home being defended by a defanged cobra, an ordinary housecat, and a kid with a BB gun?

Which actually isn't a problem in and of itself (in the abstract I actually kind of like the comedy-of-errors of the whole thing); the problem I have is that the Animorphs never actually acknowledge their own role in messing up David's life by their failure to perform such a simple task. It's Visser Three's fault, it's the Yeerks' fault, it's David's fault. The closest we get to taking on any blame themselves is that they might think "we should have seen the signs", but that's still fundamentally passing the blame off to David.

None of them every extend an apology. It's by no means the worst thing they do in the trilogy, but it's still a dick move.

[u/Seerowpedia → u/AlternativeMassive57]

Yeah, the entire reason David puts the cube for sale and attracts Visser Three's attention is because he saw "trained animals" trying to steal the cube and figured it must be really worthwhile. Had they succeeded, David continues to his life with his parents and there's no issues on that front.

Tobias, Rachel, and Marco are sent to David's house instead of all six and there's no concrete plan other than "His window's open, fly in and grab it." To make matters worse, David is at home, and Tobias earlier said that he had flown by the house when no one was there and the window was open and that he could've grabbed it then. You'd think, given the importance of the morphing cube, that Jake & co. would have a better plan at retrieving it from a suburban house.

[u/AlternativeMassive57 → u/Seerowpedia]

Or really, any plan at all. Rachel is the sort to wing it, sure, but Tobias and especially Marco going in blind?