#3 The Encounter

Narrator : Tobias.

Personal Ranking : A.

Review

Lots of things to say for this one.

First, immediatly we can see that Tobias perceives himself as an "inbetween" when he presents himself. Jake and Rachel had until then described themselves as normal girls or boys, but Tobias describes himself as a "caprice de la nature, unique en son genre" (translated as : "a freak of nature, one of a kind") (chapter 1). He's outside the binary already ; and when he tries to remind himself that he's a human, he repeats that he's a boy (chapter 9). To me, it's an indication that Tobias could be trans (maybe if he didn't turn into a bird ?). Outside of the transidentity analogy, there's a lot of emphaties on the fear of forgetting how to be a human, a fear of the degradation of his consciousness. There's even a comparison between being a nothlit and being the host of a Yeerk (chapter 17), which reinforce the fear that Tobias can feel.

This internal duality is materialized with a dilemma, between the female hawk tail and Rachel. Though there was a bit of foreshadowing to know how this dilemma would end with the geese dying while flying against the ship (chapter 4) : it felt like an omnious sign of Tobias's future if he decided to reject humanity. Rachel is really the link to humanity to Tobias : « elle avait paru tellement sûre de qui et de quoi j'étais » (« She had seemed so sure of who and what I was. ») (chapter 15). There's a bit of contrast in there as well : while Tobias struggles with his own identity, Rachel doesn't seem (at first glance) to feel the same struggles, she's sure of what Tobias is or isn't (which is sometimes patronizing, but it's explored in other books).

Something that we often see in Tobias's books is repetition : the chapters seem to loop on themselves at some point. It's probably an indication of stagnation on this character's part, as he struggles with his dilemma.

We already saw that bodies were the central point of Animorphs. In this one, it's rather bodies as their consummable form, as food.

Books 1 and 2 were about the reasons to fight, but book 3 is about the risks : the risks of morphing (turning into a nothlit or almost not being able to go back to their bodies), the risks of their missions (death is always near) and the psychological risks for the characters. They all seem already pretty traumatized, even though it's only the third book.

It is also a much more personal book than the previous two, centered around identity, and the cycle of life between preys and predators.