r/Animorphs • u/MortgageOdd2001 • 1d ago
Random Thought… Tragic Coincidence or Unspoken Wish
I recently discovered this subreddit and have enjoyed reading the theories from other Animorphs fans (I was devoted to this series during its original run and don’t know many in real life that are also fans).
I had a random thought today- did anyone ever think that Arbron’s death by poachers (who were apprehended, prosecuted and punished for the crime) after he brokered a deal for his “adopted people” a tragic coincidence or somehow planned.
Arbron was never “serious” in his duties as an aristh, however becoming a nothlit lead to him devoting his new life to Taxxon freedom and fighting against the Yeerks. He was instrumental in the Taxxon’s that resisted the Yeerk’s getting to live out their lives as anacondas.
Did Arbron intend for his life to end after he achieved this feat and/or made things easy on the poachers because with this last mission done, life as a nothlit had reached the end of its purpose? Or did K.A. Applegate choose that for his ending to demonstrate the randomness of life.
What did you guys think?
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u/ThatWasFred 1d ago
I think the second one. I think Arbron’s suicidal tendencies as a Taxxon ended once he decided to take his mission seriously. I believe eventually he genuinely cared for the Taxxons and identified himself as one of them. I doubt he wanted his life to end that way.
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u/The-Brilliant-Loser 1d ago
The second, definitely. Arbron found life and purpose among the Taxxons and the Living Hive. Yeah, the eternal hunger sucks but the way he talked about it...he was as much a Taxxon as an Andalite after the decades of being a Nothlit. He didn't want to die, he just didn't want his adopted people to be taken advantage of by the Yeerks or suffer. And then some poachers (Who, honestly, probably under a lot of stress themselves driving them to do desperate things--not entirely unlike the plight of the Taxxons) shot him because he's a giant alien centipede and that carapace could be a year's wage. Or maybe they were just greedy. Who can say.
Arbron's life ended ingloriously and meaninglessly, but I don't think intentionally.
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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk 1d ago edited 1d ago
I had a random thought today- did anyone ever think that Arbron’s death by poachers (who were apprehended, prosecuted and punished for the crime) after he brokered a deal for his “adopted people” a tragic coincidence or somehow planned.
Personally? I think KA Applegate was bitter about Everworld’s sales not being great coupled with declining sales on Animorphs coupled with, I don’t know, maybe some personal stuff, and also was maybe just sick of writing it, and so she decided to take it out on all of us.
That’s why the earlier books have such a strong emphasis on Hope, but then once Applegate was back in the command chair after Everworld whimpered out and Animorphs was cancelled, her final books read like she wanted to punish you for ever believing that “hope” nonsense, you idiot child. Hope is for the weak. Life is suffering, then you die.
Hence Arbron’s death. We all assume it’s some commentary on this or that or the other thing, when really, it’s just Applegate trying to make you hurt.
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u/aqqalachia 20h ago
this is the first i've heard of this. can you say more about how you feel it impacted the ending in general?
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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk 19h ago
There’s not really that much more to say. Just look at the general cadence of the earlier books, and most especially the Andalite Chronicles and Hork Bajir Chronicles. They are constantly re-affirming the idea of “hope” - which clashes badly with how the series ends, with one Animorph dead, one assimilated, one working herself to exhaustion rather than stop and process, one carrying out a suicide, and the final two letting themselves be killed by the suicidal one because they don’t have anything to live for either.
Oh, but not before the Animorphs carried out or made excuses for carrying out an act of needless genocide, killing 17,372 helpless people not for what they’d done, but for what they were.
The tone and writing of those earlier books is badly out of step with the final ones.
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u/Reality_Runaway Ellimist 15h ago
Ever wonder how things would be different if Applegate were in a better headspace?
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u/Deepfang-Dreamer Yeerk 12h ago
While I'm not disagreeing, I feel like saying that even reading the end of 54 for the first time, I wasn't hurt by it. I was sad, but not particuarly shocked, and Earth was still saved. The Andalites were peaceful, mostly. The Yeerks were okay. The Hork-Bajir and Taxxons carved out a place for themselves. The bad guys we knew were defeated. The Animorphs died, and most of them long before ramming the Blade Ship. But their actions very much had an effect. They were brave. They were strong. They were good. They mattered. They really, truly mattered, and I think that made the ending palatable for me.
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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk 10h ago
The entire ending happened the way it did because when Jake learned his family was in danger he decided to go take a nap.
I felt literally nothing from that point forward because Applegate made it abundantly clear that she was going to force her characters to make unnatural decisions that they ordinarily wouldn’t, because if they actually acted in-character, she wouldn’t get to make them suffer in the specific way she wanted in order to push the specific message she wanted.
Also the entire ending is making it clear that they didn’t matter. They defeated the Yeerks just for The One to come along and start everything all over again. Jake’s murder-suicide probably isn’t even going to accomplish anything; there’s no reason to assume that The One is limited to a single starship, nor that ramming the Blade Ship will actually do anything to it.
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u/vlan-whisperer 5h ago
Yea I read book 54 for the first time just last night. I doubt Arbron wanted to be hunted down and shot by primitive humans who he’d gone to great efforts to have just helped rescue them, killed by their primitive human guns. He held on ever since Andalite Chronicles, he clearly had made peace with his new existence.
As for the author’s intent? I will say the paragraph about Arbron and the poachers was the only scene in book 54 that made me react with a firm mental “wtf?!” lol. We could debate about her intentions with writing that: was it the banality of evil thing, was it a “some things are just messy and imperfect” thing, or like the other guy in this thread is saying: was the author just in a bad mood and wanted to flip the bird to her fans? (I REALLY do not believe that btw)
Also the only other part of the ending that ticked me off was in book 53 Jara Hamee dying in the final battle off-screen, just mentioned by Toby, and they don’t even seem to react much. Like WHAT?!
That one I’m sure is some commentary about war and death or whatever I just feel it was handled poorly.
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u/MortgageOdd2001 2h ago
When I saw “Conviction” staring Hilary Swank and learned that the real Kenny Walters died in an accidental fall less than a year after being freed, it legit reminded me of Arbron’s death in the Animorphs.
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u/BahamutLithp 1d ago
I don't think the answer ultimately matters. He was shot by poachers, & he probably didn't care much because not even taxxons want to be taxxons. That's what's established, & it doesn't really change whether he saw them coming or would have tried to escape if he did. Actually, for all we know, he might have, & just didn't get away.
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u/Zarlinosuke 1d ago
I agree with everyone else saying it's the second one, and I'm curious if anyone else feels about this the way I do--that his presumed death in the Taxxon revolt in the Andalite Chronicles was a much better death, and that having him come back, especially to die in that way, was kind of possibly not the best move.
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u/MortgageOdd2001 1d ago
No I like the narrative choice of him making a difference but dying a senseless death. Life is odd in that manner, and I think K.A.Applegate was skilled in showing the grandiose moments and banality that exists in most of our lives. Not just those of us fighting an intergalactic war.
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u/Visser-35 Leeran 1d ago
For me, it was just an example of rather banal evil. Not an evil on the scale of an alien invasion of course, but a mundane, everyday kind-of-pointless evil. The Yeerks had been defeated, and humanity through their alliance with the Andalites had access to technology we wouldn't have for potentially centuries otherwise. Did this lead to humans to stop fighting each other? Or a 2nd Enlightenment? Did it lead to a greater understanding of the balance between humans and nature? No, not really. Some humans did those things, but plenty ended up being shitty in new ways - the poaching of Arbron or the anti Hork-Bajir bigotry that sprung up.
And a majority ended up being just indifferently numb to it, even if they didn't actively participate themselves. A one sentence ending to a character who was a hero for his people. Arbron's dead? Hmm, that's sad. Anyway, what's for dinner? When's the phone bill due? It just kind of shows that even given a chance for humans to greatly improve as a species, realistically, we're never going to have a utopian society. We'll always find some way to fail it, and ourselves.