Recap / Animorphs: The Sacrifice

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Narrator: Ax

The Animorphs and the military make a plan to blow up the Yeerk pool.

Tropes:

• Adults Are Useless: This book is the single time post-reveal that the Animorphs' parents (aside from Loren only in the Andalite Chronicles and The Revelation, Eva, and Peter to a degree) aren't The Load and actually contribute, going with the kids to try and steal explosives from the military. They got found out, but Naomi backs Jake, so Captain Olston gives the Animorphs anything they need. This is also the book where they have the best grasp of the situation and what their kids have to do, saying tearful goodbyes to their children as the Animorphs set off. In the next book, they'll be back to trying to order their kids not to take dangerous action and getting excluded from a meeting as a result.
• Aliens Speaking English: After meeting Toby, Captain Olston complains about aliens speaking better English than some of his troops.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: The Yeerks did damage control after the governor's broadcast, meaning a lot of humans believe the Yeerk invasion is an elaborate hoax.
• Artistic License – Geography: This book puts subways in California, a state with minimal public transport and an earthquake problem. It's always possible the Sharing sponsored them wanting to put them to the use they're given in this book - receiving host bodies roused from their beds and herded into subway cars, then shuttled to the Yeerk Pool.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ax, Cassie, and Marco are cornered by three Blue Band Hork-Bajir Controllers in the train as it heads for the Yeerk pool. James had the foresight to send one of the Auxiliaries in red-tailed hawk morph to bail them out.
• Bittersweet Ending: Well. An ending where the Animorphs, achieve their objective - blowing up the Yeerk pool, the most significant blow they'd ever struck in all their time fighting - and don't die in the process, but none of them feel any triumph or joy. As they look at the crater and sinkhole where half of their hometown had been, Marco says "This is our greatest victory. And I’ve never felt more depressed in my entire life."
• The Cavalry: The battle at the subway is somewhat undecisive, but Ax in particular is about to be crushed by the Controller morphed as a polar bear. Then Captain Olston and his men arrive and shoot all the Controllers.
• Collateral Damage: Massively. Detonating ten thousand-pound bombs in the Yeerk Pool makes the cavern collapse, taking a good chunk of the city with it. Cassie warns people in the Pool complex and no one except Yeerks without hosts is in the cavern itself when the bombs go off, but they don't have a lot of time to run and it's stampeding pandemonium as overwhelming heat rushes up the tunnels and parts of the roof fall in.
• Commonality Connection: Ax feels suddenly for both Rachel, when he sees her crying in her mother's arms, and for Jake, standing alone like Ax is as the others say goodbye to their families.
  Rachel is one human for whom I had never felt pity. But now, I felt an odd sense of kinship. Perhaps Rachel, like me, suddenly realized that the gulf between the present and her childhood was an abyss of loss.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Ax has been privately communicating with the Andalite fleet because he's been noticing the Animorphs breaking down. It's only when he concludes that the Andalite fleet plans to blow up Earth once enough Yeerks have gathered there does he remember where his loyalties lie.
• Crushing Handshake: When Ax is introduced to Captain Olston, the captain shakes his hand with a very strong grip that has Ax, with his more delicate and sensitive Andalite hands, forcing himself not to cringe.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: Ax notes that lawyers are very intelligent, but use said intelligence for arguing. He also notices that lawyers aren't very popular even if humans find them necessary, and after spending time around Naomi, he understands why.
• Dirty Business: Cassie sees bombing the Yeerk Pool as this, and Ax comes to agree with her. Marco, seeing the destruction, says this is their greatest victory and he's never been so depressed in his life.
• Heads or Tails?: Cassie and Marco introduce Ax to this method of decisions. He finds it explains so much of human behavior.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Wanting to hold on to some sense of ethics, when several human-Controllers start to transform into battle morphs Jake prevents Rachel from attacking while they're mid-morph and vulnerable, saying it has to be a fair fight.
  • Marco suggests setting the timer for their bomb early to reduce risk to themselves. Cassie objects and Ax backs her up, saying it would be dishonorable and inhumane not to give people at least some chance to escape.
• Humans Are Flawed: Ax's thoughts on humanity at the end of the book:
  Humans.
  Violent but peace-loving.
  Passionate but cerebral.
  Humane but cruel.
  Impulsive but calculating.
  Generous but selfish.
  Humans. Altogether a contradictory and deeply flawed species.
  And yet... And yet, somehow I knew that they represented the best hope of the galaxy.
  Perhaps the only hope.
• Impersonation Gambit: James uses his peregrine falcon morph to blend in with some Controllers in the same morph, allowing him to back up Ax and Rachel before they get cornered.
• Internal Reveal: The rest of the team learns that Cassie let the Yeerks get away with the morphing cube, causing a schism between her and the rest.
• It Has Been an Honor: As the other Animorphs say goodbye to their families before they leave to destroy the Yeerk Pool, Ax seeks out Jake.
  "You are my prince. And whatever happens next, know that I am proud to have served you."
• Kill the Lights: Ax takes out the lights in the subway, allowing Rachel in great horned owl morph and James in lion morph to rain hell of the Controllers in peregrine falcon morph.
• Logical Weakness: The Yeerks are inexperienced in using their morphs, allowing the Animorphs one last advantage over them. Several remain in a diurnal falcon morph then the lights go out, allowing Ax, Rachel, and James to use more nocturnal morphs to defeat them. Another tries demorphing in the middle of battle, leaving him open to be killed mid-morph.
• Not Always Evil: Ax is furious with Cassie when he learns what she's done, but when he helps crash a train full of explosives into the Yeerk Pool he sees that in the utter panic that results a number of human-Controllers stop to free the people in cages. After regrouping, he reflects on them and how they curtailed their own chances of escape to save others.
  I suppose I had always known that Cassie was right. Always known but had been reluctant to admit that Aftran had not been the sole member of a Yeerk resistance movement. That there were many Yeerks who, given a choice, would choose not to conquer. Would choose not to kill. If they ever were lucky enough to be given such a choice.
• Opt Out: Back in Animorphs: The Test, Cassie opted out of a mission to route natural gas into the Yeerk Pool and blow it up. Here, nearing the end of the series, she's had to shed enough of her scruples that while hearing the plan to bomb it causes tears to streak down her face, she just says she'll go along with what the others say, opting out not of the plan but of giving input on it.
  Jake: That’s not good enough, Cassie. You’ve always had definite ideas about what we should or shouldn’t do. Don’t weasel now."
  Cassie: "Okay. Then it’s wrong. But let’s do it anyway. I’ll learn to live with my conscience. We all will. I don’t have a better plan. I guess this is as close as we’ll get to defeating the Yeerks without being the Yeerks."
• Police State: The Animorphs' hometown has become this now that the Yeerks can use police and military authority to arrest people and send them to the Yeerk pool.
• Properly Paranoid: With the morphing cube in the hands of the Yeerks, the Animorphs find that they're jumping at any animal near them. Given how effective it was for them, they have no doubt that the Yeerks could use their own morphs to spy on them.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Captain Olston, once he understands the situation.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!:
  • Ax finds that several Yeerks have trapped themselves in morph and left the war to be free. Hopefully, they were all only Yeerks in morph and not Yeerk infesting human hosts with the power to morph, or the unfortunate hosts would be trapped forever...
  • Once the Controllers are informed the train that just crashed into the Yeerk Pool is loaded with bombs, they understandably flee.
• Series Continuity Error: Timmy is called Tuan in this book. The only way you'd know it's him is that he's using the bobcat morph established as his primary battle morph two books ago
• Stupid Sacrifice: Discusses and defied. Marco refuses to let Cassie be the one to arm the bombs, as he doesn't trust her to not needlessly sacrifice herself as a form of atonement. She doesn't argue, suggesting he may have been right.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Controllers have always been a problem for this reason, but the war gets complicated because the Animorphs can't tell who's a human and who's a Controller when they see the military evacuating people at gunpoint.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Subverted. Ax feels this sort of sentiment when he learns that Cassie let the Yeerks steal the morphing cube, a feeling which extends to the others when they allow her to remain on the war council. But when he sees six wolf-Controllers gunned down, he fears one of them is Cassie and doesn't calm down until he sees she's alive. At the end of the book, he's left thinking that she was right.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Naomi is able to use her fast-talking lawyer skills to get the military to listen to the Animorphs. It helps that she already knew the captain from one of her previous cases.
• Trash the Set: The Yeerk pool is destroyed by the Animorphs, and quite a chunk of their hometown along with it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The plan to blow up the Yeerk pool inevitably results in the deaths of countless innocent hosts and people living above the Pool. While the Animorphs and their allies are generally reluctant to execute the plan, they've lost any chance at avoiding needless death. Unfortunately, this plan also costs them the alliance with the Chee.
  Toby: This is a war. There is no question that people will die. The only question is, who?
• Wham Line: Ax secretly communicates with the Andalite fleet, who decree that Earth will be quarantined once enough Yeerks have gathered there.
• Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Officially, the Andalite fleet is going to quarantine Earth. Ax tries denying it, until Tobias flatly asks if the Andalites are actually planning to blow Earth up.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Ax still isn't too fond of vecols, but James and the Auxiliaries have been proving their worth in his eyes.