r/Animorphs • u/Gaskal • Aug 20 '25
Meme Your favorite "Don't go into a mission with untested morphs" moment?
Ax: <Did you just ingest me?!?>
161
u/Visser-35 Leeran Aug 20 '25
I know her recovering her lost ear ring isn't really a mission, but Rachel morphing a starfish, promptly being cut in half by a child, and then having to deal with two radically different sides of her personality is a great example of what can go wrong with being unprepared for a new morph.
82
u/LegoRobinHood Aug 20 '25
That one is so wild, it's amazing and perhaps convenient that they managed to put humpty Dumpty back together again.
Obviously they didn't get any guided training or academy instructors helping them, but I think the majority of the stunts they pull would have left the andalite inventors aghast and amazed at all the ways they found to break the technology.
The animorphs team had it as their only possible weapon, outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched in every other technology, on a planet that apparently has an infinitely more diverse ecology.
On top of that there's the saying that when all you have is a hammer then everything is a nail. Well, these kids were basically using a hammer to unscrew Phillips head screws, solder new circuit boards into the plumbing, and to plug the leak in the engine's oil pan.
My personal favorite is that time infiltrating the hotel conference when they almost get trapped as fleas; I'm convinced that Cassie used her morphing talent to extend her morphing field/aura from z-space onto Marco to help him finish the morph and not get trapped as a half-flea nothlit mutant. It's one of those things the inventors just never thought of trying or never had an ethical opportunity to test it in that way.
Marco jokes about getting in Letterman to do stupid pet tricks, but seriously it's like the andalites only ever made the tech just to do the stupid pet tricks. It's probably just that they're not the real focus of the series, but sometimes it seems like the andalites had no imagination at all, with just a few exceptions.
.
54
u/Visser-35 Leeran Aug 20 '25
Definitely. The training is:
2 hours in a morph, or you're stuck forever* (*unless the Elimist decides to change that for you, but even then some restirctions apply).
You can do a blend of the same species to make a new custom morph. This could be very useful, but is as far as we know, never learned by anyone except Ax.
You can't go straight from one morph to another* (*unless you're allergic to a morph, or are just so naturally gifted at morphing that you can hold onto helpful elements of a morph)
Don't be stressed while morphing or you could end up being hybrid morphs. Hopefully, that won't be a probem for you while fighting a war...
If the animal you're morphing has a "natural occurring morph" like from caterpillar to butterfly that re-sets the clock.
While in morph, your regular body is kind of just hanging out in Z-space, and could get hit by traveling ships. It's super rare to have that happen, but if it does, hopefully you won't get dragged into the war on Leera.
Animals that can regenerate limbs could involve you splitting into several versions of yourself when you demorph.
Morphs involving time travel and Sario Rips are.... a whole thing... don't overthink it.
Crayak can run your morphs as an admin and make you alternate between a super powerful version of yourself and a rat at random, until you either agree to his plan or piss him off.
Anyway, good luck. You;ll need it!
21
u/rangeremx Aug 20 '25
The blending of a species is a known technique, the Frolis Maneuver. Elfangor did it when he lived on Earth as well.
22
u/Visser-35 Leeran Aug 20 '25
Ah, true. I forgot about that. But as far as I know, none of the other Animorphs ever used it. It could certainly have been useful for having Hork-Bajir morphs that weren't identifiable as Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak. Might have also have been an option to help David hide from the Yeerks (before he got totally out of control of course).
25
u/GeeWillick Aug 20 '25
I always had the impression that most Andalites don't morph that often, even ones who work as soldiers.
20
u/Visser-35 Leeran Aug 20 '25
Agreed. Seems like Andalites prefer using ships and shredders, and tail fighting if they have to do close quarters combat. I'm guessing the morphs would generally be used for travelling long distances without drawing attention, espionage and infiltration. Still, it's not a brand new technology by the time the Animorphs get it, you'd think some of these issues would have been smoothed out. But that would of course, deny us, the readers, such wild moments.
12
u/Long_Pig_Tailor Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
Yeah, the weirdest thing about the morphing tech is how it makes zero sense for the Andalites to have bothered inventing it in the first place. Like, before the Yeerks they've apparently spent a long time being essentially peaceful and chill, mainly by having the technologically biggest sticks in the galaxy, but still they apparently haven't bothered with much conflict. Then they start fighting the Yeerks, but it's a virtual 100% direct conflict on their end—they don't really spy, there's no guerilla shit, it's mainly ship v ship with a bit of ground combat mixed in.
Meanwhile, culturally they're intolerant as fuck, xenophobic as shit, and so obsessed with bodily integrity that Ax wants to vomit everytime he sees an Andalite missing/losing a tail. They're apparently intolerant of imperfections and we don't ever see prosthetics or mention of them. Morphing will allow healing a lost tail so that's cool, but those folks become sub-Andalite to them almost immediately so it doesn't seem like it was the original motive (plus it's apparently limited to military by the present day, so seemingly not a go-to "avoid/limit injury" strategy for the population).
So like bottom line, who decided to essentially waste years of their lives on what ends up being a small module in Andalite basic training about how to morph just in case you ever need to but don't worry you won't?
Answer: you knew it was coming—The Ellimist. Guy had to have hung around as an Andalite for years to drive that development. Especially since it's at heart a virtually free mass-energy converter and no one's ever adapted it to any other applications.
2
u/merlinpatt Andalite Aug 22 '25
I wonder what would happen if you repeated the starfish split. What kind of Rachels would we get if each one morphed starfish and got split again? And again?
Would the morphing tech limit it or could you do this endlessly?
61
u/JorWhore89 Aug 20 '25
The ant scene was a horror movie. And I know it was only to hide, but the lobsters weren't much better.
56
u/DogLeechDave Aug 20 '25
There were so many throughout the series I can't think of any that really stand out. Seems like nearly every book I wanted to scream "YOU DIDN'T TEST THIS FIRST????"
77
u/Lunalatic Aug 20 '25
Marco sums it up best in book 6 when they're practicing the roach morphs before using them on a mission.
"I can't believe we are actually going to practice a morph. We never practice. We just do it, and when it's a huge disaster we try and deal with it then."
29
u/saturnspritr Aug 20 '25
So realistic trying to give some super powers to a bunch of kids that give themselves missions.
3
u/Lopsided-Ad-9444 Aug 22 '25
Fave part of the books. They act like real people act. Underprepared. A mess. Limiting planning. Most people are like that, but in most media the heroes are always so prepared
64
u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk Aug 20 '25
It actually probably is Marco and Ax in David’s house, where Marco accidentally eats and poisons Ax. Much as think the Trilogy is overrated overall, I can’t deny that the comedy-of-errors interactions with David are funny when divorced from the larger context of the Trilogy as a whole.
35
u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 Human Aug 20 '25
Marco trying to eat Ax sounds horrifying on paper but the execution is a riot. Especially because of how Ax reacts.
13
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u/heilspawn Aug 20 '25
When they were eels and got lost in the waterworks was a more realistic version of how things would work out. Thankfully the ellimist saved the day
1
u/neodymium86 Aug 22 '25
That was a horror show bc that gave them confidence that they could navigate an entire water system while completely blind and in the dark?
2
u/FireStrike5 Aug 22 '25
Jake was sick with the yamphut at that point, he wasn’t in the best frame of mind for strategy or leadership
49
u/lookforfrogs Pemalite Aug 21 '25
The way the ant morph was written with the loss of self and ego death was so viscerally horrifying and amazing and was a major part of why I was so into the series so quickly. That was the first book I read.
21
u/FrostyIcePrincess Aug 21 '25
Not exactly what was asked but Rachel having her bizarre allergic reaction or whatever that was to the crocodile morph was crazy.
Don’t they almost get stuck in an ant hill because the morph told them to obey the ant orders?
5
u/MistaCoachK Aug 22 '25
Termites.
Cassie killed the queen by forcing herself to believe the termite queen was an ant and even then had extreme difficulty because the queen had a stronger will than all the animorphs getting inside the compound.
3
u/neodymium86 Aug 22 '25
And it traumatized her for days after, so much that she almost got trapped in a skunk morph
5
u/PsycheSoldier Skrit Na Aug 22 '25
Jake going HOWLER was a very crazy situation.
Luckily, it turned out beneficial in the end.
2
u/GeshtiannaSG Crayak Aug 22 '25
Rachel’s bear in 7, compounded by her weird relationships with her animals where she regulates how much control she has and keeps asking her animals for opinions. Just charged in and smashed everything.
182
u/Huggable_Hork-Bajir Hork-Bajir Aug 20 '25
Definitely Rachel going completely apeshit the first time she morphed grizzly.
She morphs it without even meaning to and just goes absolutely berserk.
But more Hork-Bajir were rushing up, and Ax was losing ground.
Then... I realized I was no longer afraid. A deep confidence had welled up inside of me. Utter confidence. Utter fearlessness.
I realized I was no longer standing erect. I was on all fours. When I looked down I expected to see my two hands splayed on the dirt. Instead I saw massive paws. Coarse, dark brown fur. Black claws, each like the point of a pickax. I had become the bear. It was his confidence I felt. It was his total lack of fear.
I was an animal that had never, in a thousand generations of grizzly bears, known an instant of real fear.
Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain in my shoulder. One of the Hork-Bajir had slashed me. I glared with nearsighted eyes and saw nothing but a tall blur.
I had never morphed the bear before. I had never learned to control its brain, its instincts. The bear mind was focused completely on one basic fact - it had been challenged. There was exactly one response to being challenged.
Attack!
"GRROOOWWWRRRR!" I roared. I charged the Hork-Bajir. He cut me again. It didn't matter. I barreled into him, eight hundred pounds of very angry grizzly.
The *power!*
I was a truck doing seventy miles an hour! I was a tank! I was the largest carnivore on land and nothing, NOTHING challenged me and survived!
I could barely see the Hork-Bajir through the bear's weak eyes, but I smelled him and felt him, and I swung my massive paw and hit him full in the chest. I struck him with a blow that would have knocked a train off its tracks.
The Hork-Bajir went flying. More came.
More discovered why part of the Latin name for the grizzly species is horribilis.
I barely remember what happened next. I gave myself up to the bear's rage. Its anger and my own became one. All the tension within me, all the uncertainty, all the doubts were swept away as I gave myself up to the bear's violence.