#Rachel loves the war. She flourishes in it. She self-actualizes. And it's terrible

[meixiaotian]

still thinking about how each animorph's fate is directly related to how much they enjoyed the war

#animorphs #I swear I saw a post about this years ago but I don't know where it is #so I guess I'll say it again #Rachel loves the war. She flourishes in it. She self-actualizes. And it's terrible #She and her friends don't even know what peacetime Rachel would look like. *Can* she even exist outside of the war? #And it turns out #No! She can't! Peacetime Rachel never comes to pass! She dies before the war is over! #While Ax. Ax is relatively unbothered. He did enlist in the Andalite military after all. He's not as haunted as the rest of them #After Rachel dies he's the next. Peace comes but he chases the echoes of the war and it ends him. #In some awful way where he's gone but he's not. Not exactly dead but absorbed into a greater hive mind #And of course Cassie hates the war. Hates fighting hates killing hates it the whole way through #And when it's over she manages to move on. She spends her days saving the environment #And when battle again comes knocking at her door she says no #She says goodbye. She knows she'll never see the rest of them again. #Because the rest. They hate the war but not as much as Cassie. #And they try to move on but unlike Cassie they can't. #So off they go to enter into another war. And maybe they survive but maybe they don't #Leaving only Cassie as the real survivor of the war. Alone on Earth while her friends all went to die in space #goddamn #I hated the last book as a kid #I still wish they had a happier ending #but there's so much to chew over and cry about #it's a really good ending