literally do not remember this one. ```His time ran out. Just a few yards from the machine that could have given him all the time in the world.``` i DID know the time matrix was buried in that construction site, tho no clue how he found it again, tho ax has an innate sense of local planetary time (either biologically or through cybernetic implants that just never get brought up) so maybe same with space? Melissa. Tobias says he's dating Melissa. Rachel's friend, the one whose dad is Vice Principal Chapman. Okay. I recognize THAT lurch. But I ... don't remember... WHY? That happens in this book? Is this the one where tobias becomes a voluntary controller and jake is in the future as an adult controller? ```On a day like this, it was hard to be a pessimist. Yeah, Earth was being invaded by the Yeerks. Yeah, all that stood against them were five kids and one Andalite with the useful power to absorb the essence - what Ax calls “DNA” - of animals and then morph into them.``` second "what???" of this page. tobias doesn't know what dna is. ```Even the slaves, standing by to attend to their masters and mistresses, seemed to be having a good time.``` and theres the wham, the point where NO ONE could miss that Something Is Wrong is this the one where tobias goes back in time to kill hitler? this seems like that time. ```Tobias came swooping in through the open hayloft. he reported. I gave him a slight nod of the head. But I didn’t acknowledge his presence beyond that. Cassie’s slave girl was still in the room, cleaning out the cage of an injured and very vocal goose. And as Cassie is always reminding us, the fact that a slave may not be as bright as a regular person does not mean they can’t tell tales. ``` and cassie is still the "nice one" even if she's influenced by this strange society. really drives home that you are always within a standard deviation or so from your home culture. ``` Tobias asked. “Excuse me, but I no longer need friends, real or imagined. I was playing Pong. My dad bought one for us. It’s so cool. Even my mom was into it, which, in a way is sad, because seriously, who wants to be doing stuff with their mom?”``` marcos mom is alive and pong is the most up to date video game. ```“What does Erek have?” Melissa asked. “He has information that the Yeerks are putting together a new front organization. This one, unlike The Sharing, is aimed at a very specific target.” Ax asked. “Our troops,” I said. “Especially troops being sent to the war in Brazil.” Cassie made a skeptical face. “Why would the Yeerks want to make Controllers of troops heading toward the jungle? What do they care whether we wipe out a bunch of Primitives?”``` really going hard here. ```“What are we supposed to do about it?” Melissa asked. “That’s thousands of miles away.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. But what are we supposed to do, sit around while the Yeerks destroy the war effort? Let the jungle rats continue to take up valuable land that we need?” “Yeah, it would be a pity if some of the Primitives escaped alive,” Cassie said. I shot a look at her. Had that been sarcasm? She smiled blandly. I had long suspected that Cassie might have slightly radical tendencies. A lot of blacks did. Blacks and a lot of Jews, although not in my family. My dad was a certified POE - Patriot of Empire. Still, if you had any Jewish blood in you at all, you had to be extra careful so no one thought you were a radical. I knew Cassie was soft-hearted toward her own slaves. But I’d never heard her make any kind of subversive remarks about the war. I’d always just assumed she was sentimental. ``` okay so thats why tumblr keeps talking about how jake is canonicaly jewish. also jesus. i do remember there being a book with cognitive dissonance but MAN did i not remember how hard it goes to show an alternate history where the animorphs are just entirely warped by a facist society. ```I felt my stomach churn. We couldn’t denounce Cassie as a subversive. We knew for a fact that the Triple S was heavily infiltrated by Yeerks. Denounce her to the Triple S and we might as well just turn her over to the Yeerks, and then all was lost. What was I supposed to do? I intercepted Marco’s gaze. He gave a slight nod. A “told you so” nod. The question was, where would Melissa stand if it came down to eliminating Cassie? I knew Melissa was no radical. But she was Cassie’s best friend, despite being white. I shook my head, trying to focus. The Yeerks, They were my problem. Not radicals. If the human race survived the Yeerks we’d have all the time in the world to round up the radicals and take care of them. ``` jesus. christ. ```I gave Cassie a blank look, not acknowledging what she might have meant. “We have to try to deal with this. Personally, I don’t want a world filled with Primitives any more than I want a world filled with Yeerks.” “Jungle rats and slugs,” Marco said with a laugh. “Now there’s a nice world for decent people to live in.”``` lol yup theres the drode. ``` Ax demanded. The creature grinned. “You, at least, are no different, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Still the arrogant Andalite.” “Shut up, Ax,” I snapped. “I am Supreme Leader here. I’ll ask the questions.” Having put one pushy alien in his place, I moved back to the other. “What do you want?” I demanded.``` god. ```The creature sighed. “Well, as much fun as it is to see you all this way, I suppose for us to move on I’ll have to return you, temporarily at least, to your usual condition: sanctimonious, self-righteous, and utterly tedious.” There was no flash of light. No bang. Nothing changed. Except that everything changed. I changed. Suddenly, instantly, I was a different person. I stared at the Drode. I knew now who he was. What he was. Whom he served. I shot a look at Cassie. Then at the girl standing beside her. Melissa was gone. Rachel was there. “So glad you’re back with us, Rachel,” the Drode leered. “You know you’re still my favorite Animorph.” “What was all that?” Marco demanded mid-morph. “Some kind of hallucination?” “No, no, no!” the Drode said. “It is glorious reality. Big Jake, Jake the perfect leader, Jake the compassionate, nothing more than a jumped-up little dictator with delusions of grandeur who insists on being called Supreme Leader!” “No, that was not reality,” Cassie snapped. “I do not own a slave! That’s sickening! What are you talking about?” “And where was I?” Rachel demanded. “I was thinking how I’d have to turn Cassie in for not approving of some war down in Brazil,” I admitted. “That’s not reality.”``` ```“The Time Matrix,” the Drode said. Ax’s stalk eyes snapped around to stare. “Oh, it existed,” the Drode said. “It exists. It was found by a lowly human-Controller, who uses the name John Berryman. He’s an actor. Not a very successful one. A lowly Controller whose Yeerk was, until he lost the battle for Leera, none other than Visser Four. And why did he lose the battle for Leera? Why, because of all of you. Ironic, eh?” “What does this have to do with all that other stuff?” “The Yeerk, the former Visser Four, has used the Time Matrix. He has traveled backward in time and is changing historical events. He’s rewritten the past in an effort to bring about a Yeerk victory and give himself greater power. You … the other yous … are unaware that life was ever any different. You have all been raised in an environment of delightfully ferocious oppression. It’s all quite wonderful!” “But slavery? Some genocidal war?” Cassie said, her voice cracking. “Why are you here?” Rachel demanded. The Drode sighed. “Sadly, I am here to offer you the chance to undo it all.” He spread his hands wide and smiled a hideous smile. “I want to help.”``` yeah man, the existence of things like the time matrix are so op ```“One of you,” the Drode said. “You can attempt to save your reality, put everything back where it belongs, end slavery, replace tyranny with democracy, millions of lives saved, let freedom ring, glory hallelujah in exchange … in exchange for one, single life.” “A life?” I asked. “The life of one of you. That is my master Crayak’s price: One of you must die.”``` dramatic, but obviously they wiggle out of it on SOME form of technicality ```“Why wasn’t I even in the group?” Rachel demanded. “You? A violence-prone sociopath like you, Rachel?” the Drode said with a happy laugh. “You were in a reeducation camp. This world has little room for bold, aggressive females. You were being taught your place.” “Say what? My what?”``` ouch. ```not for the first time I realized how smart Marco is underneath all the jokes. He knew we were going to do it. He knew his best friend’s life might be the price we paid. He also knew we couldn’t go into this hopeless battle thinking about nothing but that single, terrible fact. ``` ```They weren’t all buff like some Schwarzenegger action hero. Most were beefy, even fat. I doubted any of these guys had ever even heard the word salad. But they weren’t fat fat, they were like, “Ah-hah! Your blade merely penetrated my belly fat and one kidney! A flesh wound! Have at you, sir!”``` this one stayed in my head all these years, this descriptor of bodies. ```Then a foot came down on me. I heard the tiny bones in my back and wings snap. It hit me then: I was going to die. Not Jake, me. Mine was the life Crayak would take in payment. I was going to die almost 600 years before I was even born.``` bold of you to assume craysk wouldnt take someone on TOP oof whoever died in the fight ```high likelihood that a superstitious fifteenth-century soldier would almost certainly kill the weird, twisting abomination I would seem to be in mid-morph. ``` just in case we forgot the body horror ```We were in a church. I was a seven-foot-tall creature with horns and a spiked tail holding a pitchfork. And I was in a church. ``` tobias remains a history buff i also remember marcos rant about how georgia washington standing up while crossing the deleware is a stupid myth ```A hole appeared in Jake’s forehead.``` ....this is vaguely familiar. How do they get out of this . im suspecting that the time jump resets jake. that the agreement they have is that they are unaffected by thte time shit. ```“But, sir: Look!” The thing the lieutenant was being invited to look at was me. I was human, wearing an outfit that was definitely not appropriate, and standing on the open upper deck of a very large sailing ship. I had simply appeared. One minute I’d been in the woods behind the Hessians, having demorphed, getting ready to morph to grizzly. Then …``` you know , i suspect crayak and ellimist both get to pick specific places to place the animorphs each reset. sometimes they are in extremely useful spots. sometimes they are in the Worst Possible Place. ```Up and up, hand and foot, hand and foot, effortless. Visser Four was above me, heading higher. Then, he looked down and saw me. I enjoyed the fear in his blue eyes. I loved the fear in his eyes.``` oh Rachel she gets blown in half by a canon ball and it happens so fast she doesn't understand it till she's falling and sees half her body still clinging to the ship jesus ```Darkening eyes saw Visser Four crowing, laughing and -``` her finaly thoughts a live blog i'm following on twitter just reached the final book, with rachels death, and she gets cut off mid sentence there, too ```It was a history book. I whipped it open and scanned the contents. Revolutionary War. Revolutionary War. No listing. But there was a listing under “Rebellion, Colonial.”``` this isn't terribly different than their battle on the leeran homeworld, where one by one they kept rubber banding back (though for all they knew they were dying) so many losses. rachel is alive. doesn't remember dying. ``` Ax pointed out. Tobias said, “Wait a minute. You mean … you mean the rest of us can’t die?” ``` but i know jake ends up living. could be time bullshit (i.e. if visser 4 never gets the time whatever he couldn't have gotten jake killed)? lets see. ```Ax looked doubtful. “He got a death,” Tobias said. “Jake died. Is there a law that says he has to stay that way?”``` they agree still, i might think crayak already got exactly what he wanted. by placing this seed of mortality into the animorphs, they'll make different choices in the future. he didn't want a permanent death, he wanted a weakened animorphs, but not so weakened that the ellimist will sacrifice to buff them up again . ```As bad as my life had been at times as an Animorph, I’d seen real hard-core combat now and it was worse. The men who died in these battles had been like Jake. They’d had no chance. ``` exactly this i wonder how long these sorts of thoughts stick after this book. what choices they influence. ```D-Day. The smell alone would haunt me for the rest of my life.``` ```I thought I understood humans. I understood nothing. They were mad! Lunatics. Evil, violent, destructive, hate-filled creatures.``` ax isn't wrong ```In the passenger seat of the jeep, sitting with three machine-gun-toting German soldiers behind him, was Visser Four. There was a bloody cut down one side of his face, barely concealed by hastily applied bandages.``` you know, somehow i forgot htat only the animorphs heal easily. war of attrition, baby ```I wondered how it had come to Earth. And I wondered how my brother, Elfangor, had known it was on Earth. Because surely he had known. Visser Four was right: Elfangor had chosen the spot deliberately. It was no coincidence that he had landed, had died, within a few feet of this machine. ``` as far as i can tell, this is a plot hole? visser four never said anything like this. oh well, blame it on time shenanigans. ```Humans. I wondered, not for the first time, but now with renewed intensity, whether the Yeerks had any notion of the species they proposed to conquer. Humans seemed to exist across too broad a spectrum to even be considered a single species.``` ```Tobias lay bleeding. But then, to my amazement, he simply sat up. The bullet holes in his chest were gone! he whispered, touching his chest with a Hork-Bajir claw. ``` i mean, thats ONE way to make sure your minions absolutely definitely accomplish their task. thats right, history has diverged so much hitler is just a low ranking car driver. ``` Tobias said grimly.``` `````` ```The captain fired. Point blank at Tobias. Tobias jerked in reflex. His wrist blade cut deep. The driver - Hitler - fell to the ground.``` yup, tobias canonically kills hitler. ``` I said. Rachel demanded. ``` rachel killed those people in the tank, because they were nazis, because she wanted to feel good... and now she's not so sure. suddenly wondering if she had killed 'good guys'. their own war is so complex. yeerks went from evil enemies to just. people. people who could be allies. this book, i'm realizing, is a way to drive home the lessons they learned as applying to every day life as well. no one is just the ultimate evil. not even nazis. their IDEOLOGY should be fought at ever turn. even if it means killing those who have it. but no one is good because of who they are, not even jake. and no one is evil because of who they are. to think otherwise is to risk doing evil, evil things. animorphs wants you to fight evil, to work to do good, to always think about the humanity of what you fight so you don't become worse than them. ```I wasn’t going to kill John Berryman. John Berryman would never exist.``` WHY? wouldn't that have butterfly effects too? couldn't you just go back to like, the week before they found the time matrix and find it yourself and move it? why unerase a man. cassie! oh, i see. you can't go to where he found it because time diverged too much. but you know he must have been born because he exists now. i see. shit. ```“The Drode said our own timelines were buffered, protected. Maybe the Time Matrix did that for John, too,” Cassie suggested. “I mean, maybe while he was using it he couldn’t disrupt his own timeline. This is part of his timeline.”``` which means you should be able to NOT unalive him!!!!!! ```“We never travel back in time,” Cassie said. “Jake doesn’t die.” “Neither does a Hessian officer,” I said. “Or a tank full of soldiers.” “Or a Yeerk.” “Or Hitler,” Tobias added. “How can we do this?”``` each did a sin. complete.