The Great Animorphs Re-Read #38: “The Arrival”

Animorphs #38: “The Arrival”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, February 2000

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Ax’s people have arrived on Earth, and they want Ax back on board with them. Ax is torn. Should he join his fellow Andalites? Can he desert the Animorphs?

Narrator: Ax

Plot: Oh thank god, a return to sanity as far as these books go. Not only is our narrator blessedly in character, but we once again have a team that is capable of rational thought and pulling off complicated (and, importantly, NECESSARY) plans.

The story starts off with the Animorphs already in the midst of a mission: rescuing Mr. King from where he’s being held by the Yeerks. In their battle morphs, they succeed in breaking in to where he is being held and fending off the few Controllers there. But before they can leave, things get bad. This is a trap and Hork Bajir warriors begin pouring out of all the doors into the room and even falling in through the ceiling. Of course, Visser Three is there as well. Very beaten up, the Animorphs struggle to escape. It doesn’t look good until suddenly a small troop of Andalites show up and start kicking butt. Ax ends up fighting alongside a young female warrior who he immediately admires. As they escape, she tells Ax that her name is Estrid and that they will find him.

Back in the barn, they all meet up to discuss what’s happened. Ax is thrilled to see his people again, but the others are skeptical, given that their last experience with the Andalites resulted in Ax’s abandonment to a traitor Andalite on Leera. Ax reassures them that he knows who is Prince is.

The next day, Tobias and Ax decide to go to the mall to get some tasty food. Once there, they realize a commotion is going on in the food court: some woman has gone crazy and is eating all of the jelly beans. They quickly realize that this is one of the new Andalites in morph. They nab her and manage to get her out of the mall and arrange a time to meet with her leader.

Jake and Ax make their way to the designated meeting place. Once there, they are introduced to the other Andalites: the commander of the mission, Gonrod, an assassin named Aloth, and a high-up intelligence officer named Arbat who also reveals that he is the brother of Alloran, the Andalite host body of Visser Three. Gonrod blusters about leadership, but Jake doesn’t flinch, stating that he is in charge on Earth and he and his team don’t take order from them. Ax agrees and remains with Jake. Enraged, Gonrod orders the others to fire on Ax but before they can get off a shot, they realize that cobra!Marco and snake!Cassie are poised to strike and poison each of them. Everyone calms down a bit, and they reveal that the larger Andalite forces are not coming, that they are away in another sector dealing with problems there. This small group has only come to assassinate Visser Three, as his remaining in control of an Andalite body is a shame the Andalites can no longer tolerate.

Back in the barn, the team discuss what they have learned. They are all disheartened and demoralized to learn that the Andalites aren’t coming. One by one they begin falling apart under this new reality. Marco takes one of his cynical jokes too far and Rachel gets in a fight with him. Tobias announces that he is out of the fight and flies off. Rachel says that she’s going to take out as many as she can before she dies and leaves as well. Cassie agrees that if there is no hope of winning without Andalite reinforcements, there’s no excuse for killing innocent Hork Bajir hosts. Marco throws his hands in the air and decides to spend his remaining time on the beach. Alone, Jake releases Ax from his vow to follow him as it looks like the Animorphs are through. After they are all gone, Ax calls out to Estrid and points out that Earth rabbits don’t typically follow larger animals into barns full of yelling humans, but that it’s ok, he’s decided to join the Andalites.

On the Andalite ship, Ax begins to notice strange things about these Andalites. Estrid doesn’t seem to follow orders from the leader. And, in many ways, it seems as if Arbat is calling the shots more than Gonrod. They ask Ax where Visser Three is most likely to be found and Ax points them to the Sharing, then the Community Center, and as a last resort, the Yeerk pool. While the first are more obvious choices, Arbat presses about how to get to the Yeerk pool, but Gonrod insists that the Sharing meeting will suffice.

Later Ax and Estrid go on a “date” to the Gardens where they morph humans and eat more candy and practice the odd human custom of kissing. As birds, they begin to fly back but Ax says he wants to see his friends once more. As they pass a McDonalds they see grizzly!Rachel destroying the parking lot. They see owl!Cassie fly off and follow her back to the barn. There, they watch as Cassie tries to convince Jake and Marco to do something about Rachel. But Marco is supremely uninterested in getting involved and Jake is too busy hiding from Tom who has been picking on him. Sadly, Ax says he has seen enough and they leave. Estrid crows that Andalites would never behave so poorly in defeat. As they fly back, Estrid points out that she’s seen a certain fierce looking bird near them before. Ax waves it away saying that there are many such birds.

Back at the ship, Ax takes the first shift to stand guard. He tries to access the computer files, but is denied access. Aloth catches him at it, but Ax talks his way out of it. Aloth then reveals that he and Gonrod were each in prison before this mission. Aloth for illegal organ sales from dead soldiers and Gonrod for cowardice on the battlefield. They were each chosen for their unique skills as an assassin and a skilled pilot, respectively.

The next day, they attack the Sharing meeting. Visser Three is there in human morph. They manage to get in quickly, but Arbat, who insisted that he would be the one to take the shot on his “brother” (another weird question for Ax who thought Aloth was there as the assassin), misses an easy shot. Ax and Gonrod also take shots and miss, but by this time Hork Bajir are pouring into the building. As they flee, Aloth is hit and injured. Ax tries to help carry him out, knowing he could survive, but Arbat shoots and kills him. They run out and find Gonrod already at the helm of the ship; he had fled.

Arbat hastens through any mourning and insists that now their only option is the Yeerk pool. Gonrod resists, and Arbat takes over leadership and locks Gonrod away. They all decide to rest before their next mission. Ax sneaks out and returns with Mr. King. Again, they break into the computer, but are successful due to Mr. King’s better tech abilities. There they discover the truth: in the records, Aloth, Gonrod, and Arbat are already listed as having died on their ship in some other sector and Estrid isn’t listed at all. This is a suicide mission.

Ax sneaks off to find Estrid and confront her. He discovers her in a new part of the ship and sees her conducting some type of science experiment. He grabs the vial she is holding and she panics. He forces her to tell him the truth or he will drop it. She reveals that she is not an aristh, but a science student who was recruited by Arbat. She has developed a virus that is deadly to Yeerks. However, it also mutates and can become deadly to humans as well. Ax realizes that Gonrod and Aloth were dupes and that Arbat was in charge the whole time. He doesn’t care about taking out Visser Three but instead wants to release this virus in the Yeerk pool. Arbat arrives and confirms this all.

Arbat admits that he was looking for a science student, any science student, to pull of this mission and Estrid can’t live to confirm what’s been done here. Only high level intelligence will ever know of this mission. He pushes a button, and Ax and Estrid become trapped in a laser cage. Arbat leaves with the virus to complete the mission, and Estrid despairs, regretting that she allowed Arbat to convince her that the humans were a sacrifice worth making because they are weak and easy to give up. She reveals that Arbat was also in the barn that day when the Animorphs broke up.

Ax replies that they knew that just as Marco walks in. Around the room, the rest of the Animorphs demorph from bugs. Estrid accuses him of lying to his people, but Ax replies that the Animorphs are his people.

They make their way to the Community Center and down into the Yeerk pool. Their they all morph/demorph to human and spread out trying to find human!Arbat. Ax realizes that Arbat has little experience with a human morph, so he is able to spot him just as he reaches the pool due to the fact that he turns his head often, not used to not having an extra set of eyes. Arbat spots them and fires a Dracon beam at them, creating chaos. The others all morph battle morphs and Estrid and Ax return to their regular forms.

The battle quickly goes badly with many Hork Bajir converging around them. Estrid begins to panic and starts to think that maybe just using the virus is better. But they continue to fight, with Ax making his way towards Arbat. He realizes that he is not going to make it, but Estrid manages to fire a Dracon beam and destroy Arbat’s hand and the vial. But the Animorphs are still losing and Ax prepares to die in battle. At the last minute, Gonrod shows up in his ship, having blown a hole down through the roof of the McDonalds (Tobias had seen things going south for his friends and retrieved Gonrod and the ship). They all run for the ship and Arbat calls for them to take him with them. They do not, and he becomes the Taxxons’ dinner.

The next day, Estrid and Gonrod prepare to leave. Estrid tries to convince Ax to join them, but he refuses, and they leave. Ax and the Animorphs go to get burgers, but only Cassie realizes how hard this has been for Ax and holds his hand as they walk.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: This is the kind of book that is again almost so full of action that we miss out on some of the character building beats. I mean, we get a lot of “fake” character building that is exploring how Ax is feeling about all of the fake scenes that he and the Animorphs are putting on. But we don’t get to see the real scene where he agrees that the Andalites aren’t to be trusted initially and that this whole plan is worth trying. Here and there we get a few insights into how he is coping with the continued steep descent of the morality of his people, but I have to imagine it hits harder than we see here.

I do like the fallout with his crush with Estrid. That entire storyline felt very real the entire time, from his initial crush, to their date where he wishes they could just fly away (he doesn’t say it here, but part of this has to be because he’s putting on a whole show that inherently speaks to the fact that he can’t trust his own people. No wonder he’d want to escape before getting any real confirmations either way), to his reaction when he finds out that she was playing at least a partially willing role in the planned genocide on Earth. He tells her in the end that she is beautiful but that he doesn’t think he likes her very much. I’m sure she makes up for it some with her shot on Arbat, but probably not fully.

We also get a few references early on to the fact that Ax still feels terrible for abandoning his friends on the escapade in Leera. So it’s also nice seeing him here so fully loyal to his human friends and Jake as his Prince.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake’s showdown with Gonrod in the very beginning is a really great scene. It’s awesome seeing him in these types of scenes where he has fully embraced his leadership role and is facing down someone else.

“Now we stop playing games. You’re not the Andalite fleet. And I’m not going to snap a salute and say ‘yes, sir!’ We deal as equals. Which, to be honest, is generous of us under the circumstances.” 

The clearest giveaway that something is up is when we see Jake “hiding” from Tom in Cassie’s barn because Tom is picking on him. Every part of it is ridiculous for those who know Jake. He’s not only hiding in the barn, but is actually crouched down in a horse stall as if Tom is going to appear at any moment on Cassie’s farm to bully him. Right.

Xena, Warrior Princess: In the fake scene, Rachel’s response is pretty accurate to what we’d expect. She’s clearly stressed and a stressed Rachel is an angry Rachel so when Marco pushes it too far, she goes after him. It also makes sense that her approach would then be to go out fighting. Probably the most honorable of them all if this was a real scene, as the rest of them seem to be “out” in the sense that they’re going to just wait around for the end. But her destroying the McDonalds in the second scene was also kind of a give-away as it doesn’t seem like that’d be what she’d choose to do, go after one little Controller at a fast food place, when she could go out in a blaze of glory at the Yeerk pool trying to get to Visser Three or something.

A Hawk’s Life: In the fake scene, Tobias is the first to quit and really gives no reason for it, he’s just out of there. Probably the first sign that something’s off as Tobias has always been the most gung-ho about sticking with the fight and is the only one who is continually sacrificing himself (remaining a bird) to do it because it matters that much to him. He also follows around Estrid and Ax, getting spotted by Estrid at one point. And then in the end, he’s the one to fetch Gonrod and get him to bring in the ship to rescue the rest of them.

Peace, Love, and Animals: As it was all a fake scene, we can’t really take anything that any of them said here at face value. But at one point, Cassie is going on and on about how immoral it is for the Andalites to be there to take revenge on Visser Three because “revenge is wrong.” But wait, wasn’t it literally just two books ago that Cassie’s whole motivation for going after the Yeerks was in revenge for what they did to the Hork Bajir and Marco had to actually call her out on it? We’re just going to have to assume that this was part of the act, but a small part of me also wouldn’t have been surprised if this was her actual outlook, again conveniently adjusted for how others should behave vs. herself. But that scene at the end where she holds Ax’s hand is quite sweet, showing the one consistent strength of hers: to understand when others are feeling pain and to try to comfort them.

The Comic Relief: Marco has some good lines in this book, especially in the barn scene when he’s highlighting just how hopeless the whole scenario is if the Andalites aren’t coming. Makes me want to see the real scene where they discuss the fallout of this new situation. But Marco’s reaction is also out of character for where he is at this point in the series. Sure, the early version of Marco would have been all for beach days while you wait for the end of the world. But this version of Marco has been coming up against some of the hardest scenarios in the entire series with the interactions with his mom/Visser One. I think at this point that he’d likely follow a similar track to Rachel in going out swinging rather than waiting. Of course, his “going out” would likely be better planned than hers and have a greater chance of success, too. I could even see the two of them ganging up for something like this, though.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: There really weren’t many in this book. At one point Ax describes morphing human and how the flesh “flowed down to cover the bones” which is a pretty icky way of thinking of it. He also talks a bit about the non-pain of morphing and how knowing that it should hurt is its own kind of pain anyways.

Couples Watch!:  Awww, Ax goes on a date. I had completely forgotten this bit of the series and had been fully prepared to never really have much to include for Ax in these sections. But he goes on a full-on date here, more than we’ve seen from the other two couples really. There’s an event/location with the Gardens. There’s food with the candy. And there’s kissing. Of course, Ax and Estrid are just “practicing” a “strange human custom.” But alas, it all goes south fairly quickly and Ax ends up disliking Estrid quite a bit for a while there due to her role in things. He does come around a bit in the end, but I think his tears at the end were more for the loss of his people once again than Estrid specifically.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three only makes a few brief appearances in this book, though Ax does note that he seems to be learning that bigger is not always better. When the Andalites attack at the Sharing meeting and begin shooting at him, he wisely chooses to morph something small and hard to hit.

In many ways, the Andalites themselves are the villains of this story. At what point do you have to start fully questioning their whole “moral leaders of the universe” claim? The Animorphs’ initial skepticism of them is completely and utterly justified, and I’m sure it turned out even worse than they had suspected. At this point, other than Elfangor and Ax, the Animorphs’ knowledge/experience of the Andalites has been finding out about the genocide of the Hork Bajir, being betrayed by a high up Andalite traitor on Leera, and then here, watching the Andalites seemingly go all-in on genocide 2.0, this time taking out the humans. As readers we’re taught that the Andalites are the good guys, but at this point…The story never really gets back around to the Animorphs’ true feelings about the Andalite fleet not arriving, but, I mean, after all of this, it doesn’t necessarily seem like them showing up is much better than them not. If anything, the Yeerks are a known and understood enemy with clear motives and goals.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: You have to feel bad for Ax. Not only did his first crush turn out to be a willing participant in plans to commit genocide, but as a whole, the Andalites are really not putting a good face forward. Not only does this make it hard to face his friends, but the story never really gets into the existential crisis that must be going on to realize how low your people have really sunk. And really, they’ve already killed off one species and planned on a second. Who knows what other atrocities they’ve done? Kind of seems like a regular thing for them. All of this makes that last scene where they’re walking to get food and Cassie is hold Ax’s hand while he cries a pretty dark experience.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Hurrah for a return to the smart Animorphs who can spot a con early and pull off complicated plans of deception! I mean, after the David incident, they’re kind of old hands at this whole “put on a scene for the spies in the barn” thing. The one bit I do question is the necessity of the second little scene they put on, where Rachel is destroying things, Marco is supremely lazy, and Jake is bizarrely hiding from his brother. It’s the kind of things that just reads funny. For readers, we know something is up by several parts of this, but mostly the whole “Jake hiding from Tom because he’s being picked on.” Clearly, that’s not a thing. But, from a logical stand point, I’m not sure what the value was in putting on this performance. It seemed like none of the Andalites were questioning the original “break up” at all and Ax could have reported that that was the case. As it was, we later learn that Estrid had needed further convincing by Arbat that killing off the humans along with the Yeerks was ok. And he was able to do this by convincing her of how weak, pathetic, and easy to give up humans are. If anything, this extra little scene just reinforced this perspective and perhaps pushed Estrid even further over the edge on this thinking. The Animorphs couldn’t have know this, of course, but still, like I said, the Andalites seemed to already buy the first scene, so this was never necessary anyways.

Favorite Quote:

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think this quote shows some good insights into the problems of the last book too:

“Until we figure these guys out, let’s just hang loose,” Prince Jake said.

“Yeah. Like maybe not change our minds about who is in charge and who isn’t,” Rachel said bluntly.

I felt myself flush. In the Leera incident I had changed my allegiance from Prince Jake to the Andalite officer who betrayed us. I was still ashamed of this.

Rachel was one of the ones who came down the hardest on Ax when he abandoned them on Leera, and it is clear here that she is still the one to hold the most of a grudge on this subject, because she sees Jake as their leader. Her loyalty to Jake as leader has been clear for a long time, and both here and then she was the one to be most insulted by someone giving up on that. None of that makes sense with the Rachel we saw in the last book who was chomping at the bit to overthrow Jake and be the “hero” and “king” herself. Ugh. Sorry, I’m still bitter.

And one of Marco’s many good lines:

“In a world where slugs can take over entire civilizations, anything is possible,” Marco reminded me.

Scorecard: Yeerks 9, Animorphs 15

I’m not going to change the score on this one. Yes, the Animorphs prevent a catastrophe, but the enemy in this case was really the Andalites, not the Yeerks.

Rating: I really, really liked this book. Other than a few picky issues about their second little performance, the Animorphs had a lot of really clever plans in this book. All of the characters sounded like themselves, and the scene in the barn where they “broke up” read very true for how that could really have played out. Ax, as always, is a great narrator with his quips about his confusion about humanity, and there was a really solid through-line exploring the Andalites as a people and some of the problems that exist within their culture.

I didn’t really get to it anywhere else, but there was a really neat scene in the Yeerk pool when the Animorphs were getting their butts kicked where the humans in the cages formed a body shield to protect them from the Hork Bajir who could have just shot at them. We don’t really think about it much, but the humans who are being Controlled are fully aware during past attacks by the Animorphs. They, too, recognize this team and for them, we have to imagine that they’re seen as heroes whom they are rooting for silently in their own heads even as their Yeerk Controllers force them to fight against them. So it’s a nice moment for them to actually have the freedom to throw their support behind these heroes, putting their own lives on the line to protect them. It’s pretty cool.

Overall, like I said before, this book was a big relief after the disaster that was the last one. And it was a fun read on its own, regardless of what came before it.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!