#4 The Message

Narrator : Cassie.

Personal Ranking : B.

Review

Until then, Cassie had a minor role in the story, so it's nice to see her side.

I am not a huge fan of the moral judgement that the books had over different animals. Cassie explicitly thinks that dolphins are better than other fishes, comparing immediatly their minds to human minds. It's the type of anthropomorphism that can be annoying when it's used to "compliment" an animal - I don't really think it's a good approach to think that an animal is better than another because it's similar to us.

It's even more frustrating when you compare how the book represents sharks : they are seen as diabolical beings, even compared to Taxxons in their cannibalistic ways. I don't really understand why the kids decide to protect the whale from being eaten from the sharks : it's not a moral decision to them, they just want to eat ! Honestly, this fight felt unecessarly dangerous and could have been avoid.

But the whales really made me roll my eyes. They are described as literal angels, who can talk to humans... I don't think at any other points in the series do we see an animal directly talk to the Animorphs. This is honestly very weird, and it kinda feels like a deus ex machina to have the whale tell Cassie where the Andalite Dome is.

Outside of the animals, there are really good character relationships in this book. To begin, it feels like it's the first book to caracterize Rachel as someone who loves to fight, showing that Cassie knows her friend better than the rest of the group. Second, Cassie and Jake's relationship is really cute, based on their ability to feel comfortable with one another in silence. It feels like their relationship is older than what we see in the books, since Jake has been invited at Cassie's home for Thanksgiving. And Marco and Cassie have such a good relationship in this book, mostly through the moments where Marco tries to be honest with her.

Also, we get introduced to Ax in this book. Though his secretive and guilty sides are shown, we can note that the first thing he does (once he understand who the kids are) is to show them his Dome, which is really cute. You can sense the inspiration from Tolkien from the way that each aspect of nature has a name. One sublte thing that I like is the fact that Ax's first morph is a shark, while the rest of the group are dolphins. Symbolically, it's a very effective way to show that Ax is not yet a part of the group, that he might even be a menace to them (an idea that is explored in #8).

In general, this tome is dedicated to make the reader understand that the Yeerk invasion isn't just about humans, but about the whole Earth, linking ecological motivations to the fight. But I do think its way of conveying its message is clumsy. There's too much anthropomorphism as well as too much moral hierarchy in the treatment of the animals, which makes the ecological message feel silly. It could have been more subtle.

Also, even though it's Cassie's book, she doesn't have much character development, as her relationships and the appearance of Ax are the main focus. However, those elements are really well written.