1:17:18 It's in the Ellimist Cronicles. He goes to our solar system and finds a younger Earth and a Mars with life on it. Crayak was trying to destroy it, but the Ellimist stopped him.
Oh, hey... chapter 28. Thank you! I thought to search the text for 'Mars' but not 'red planet', which would have found this passage. I guess that means in this universe, Marco is right about the fossils. If you don't mind I'd like to add your comment text to the video description as an update.
I just realized how obsessed I was with this book series, I literally knew about everything you talked about, this was a really fun and funny video that I will never be able to share with anyone else because of how lore heavy it is
I've gotten several variations of this comment. It's the sad plight of the Animorphs fan that we often have few people if any to share content with. At least we've got each other...
"The Andalites are more like if the Jedi Order was made up of Klingons." That alone makes the whole video worth it. That is so beautiful and elegant and... TRUE.
That entire Viagra/anti-aging commercial was GREAT writing. "Only your guide tree will know the difference"?! Dude. So many underrated moments in this. 😂
Animorphs was my childhood, and there is NOT enough attention on it in modern times. The way it ended was such a fucking ball kick. It ended on a cliffhanger that the author declared would never be explored, with the life of Ax hanging in the balance, and this was the same book where Rachel _died_ polar bearing the fuck out of a space ship, and Tobias fucked off into the woods basically forever because she was all he had to live for and Cassie gave up fighting forever.
@@kellywilliam3708 That's nice to hear, but at the time, that was just it. Animorphs is over and done, I'm done, read my new book about the people who survived earth being hit by a meteor.
Just burned through all of the Animorphs content on your channel, and I've just gotta say I love your style! Super informative and so hilariously sarcastic. I'm here for whatever's coming next!
I read animorphs as a kid, got up to 11 and couldn’t find 12 so i stopped. I’ve only recently finished them and I am shocked by how little content there id
The message Jake wants you to know: "This fight is personal". Sorry, couldn't find another post with the answer & it took me way longer than I'd like to admit to solve. Perfect sound clip, reason I needed to solve it.
I know you were joking about the Australian releases, but I can provide some details about them. We got all of the books (54 main, 4 mega, 4 chronicles, 2 alterna). All of the front covers looked like they did in the USA, fonts and everything. Book 5 had a gorilla morph on the cover. We definitely got got the six cover options for In the Time of Dinosaurs, and the later reprint with the seventh cover. We got Visser in hardback. I found the two-part version of Megamorphs 1 exactly once. This was a second hand copy long after the series had ended, so I can't be sure about it. I've totally found books that never came out in Australia in secondhand bookstores before. I have no idea if we got Meet the Stars.
This is an awesome comment. Do you recall if they localised the books to not use American spelling or were they just the American prints distributed in Australia?
I don't recall unfortunately. Australia officially uses UK spellings - but we import so much media from the US and UK that we're totally used to alternate spellings and terminology. I don't think I'd have noticed either one. I think they were *probably* straight imports of the US editions. If they were UK-spelling variants, then they were made by the same printers as the US editions, for a sort of general 'rest of the world' market. I don't think there's any chance they were locally printed for Australia specifically. No one was doing that with kid's books in the 90s. Pretty much all of them had either a UK or US price on the back, and no Australian price. Animorphs books had US and Canada prices. @@torren5950
I wasn’t an Animorphs kid, but I remember looking at the weird covers in the stores when they came out. I missed out on something big never getting into this as a child.
Hi Torren, this is a really cool video. You hit the nail on the head with people out growing the series and not wanting to finish lol. Something that really caught my attention was the base 14 thing. I am sure others have chimed in saying this before, but 90_14 is 126_10 which imo supports the rounded down theory and it supports what happens in The Encounter. I know the number 90 is comfortable to my human brain but it's almost head canon for me that andalites would use the 90 minute timer too.
I get home from work and the first thing I see is Torren spoiled me by actually doing the iceberg video. Yep, 2024 is starting off amazing for me. Well here's my joke entry in any future Animorph Icebergs. Animorphs predicted C.M. Kosemen's book All Tomorrows.
animorphs and avatar the last airbender hold the same position of awesomeness for me. consuming them as a kid/teenager, these are just cool stories about kids adventures to save the world; I was totally oblivious to how dark/heavy most of the themes are. Revisiting them as an adult with a more mature lense makes them totally new experiences.
To comment on the 'furry??' entry, I've had an andalite as my main fursona for ages now. They're a brick shithouse-sized stoner that the military doesnt want (which is fine- they live on an Earth colony somewhere in the PNW). There's just a lot of cool stuff in the universe to play around with!
Thank GOD someone else subscribes to the idea a dying Rachel gets the choice to be sent back in time with her memories wiped to eventually take place as the governor who tries to steer the state through the crisis of an alien invasion, I thought I was going crazy for some time.
I could see andalites having base-12! Some cultures use base-8 due to counting the spaces between the fingers instead, with 7 fingers each hand that is 12 spaces.
Small correction at 1:04:36: _The Weakness_ was the only book written by Elise Smith. _The Reunion_ and _The Deception_ were written by a different ghostwriter, Elise Donner.
I started writing a quick "mea culpa" and was going to edit the description, but then I started wondering how I made that mistake in the first place and it terns out... I'm still not sure if they're meant to be the same person or not. Seerowpedia combines them both under the "Donner" moniker, which of course may not be reliable. I found posts going back to 2010 on Richard's Animorphs Forum doing the same thing. Poparena's review on The Weakness asserts that Smith is a different person from Elise Donner, and also says Smith ghostwrote for Remnants, but I don't know what his source is on that because there seems to be much less written about Remnants than Animorphs. We have a new mystery it seems...
@@torren5950 If both Elise's are truly one and the same person, then this leaves us with only two possibilities: Either Elise Donner was briefly married to someone called Smith and divorced them between the release of _The Weakness_ and _The Deception_ , or one Elise is secretly a transcendent being of cosmic origin that assimilated the identity of the other Elise. Somebody better put this on the next iceberg.
I'm thinking more about the writing style... 30 and 46 both range from 'competent' to 'quite good' and it seems unlikely to me that the same person did 37. Then again, maybe it says more about the quality of the outline and their grasp on the characters. I would love if I could somehow trace the origin of the confusion, though... knowing it goes back at least 13 years know.
I was born in 1994, in Australia, and I've heard Animorphs was marketed and pushed on elementary school age kids in the US. My memory is hazy but I don't remember it being pushed too much here. It was definitely in my primary school's library and in my town's library. I wonder if any of the adults realised how dark it was lol. I think I read a lot of the series when I was younger than 10? I definitely read the Ellimist Chronicles when I was like 13 and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Cool iceberg, very nostalgic.
I am probably one of the younger people on here. And I remember seeing this series on my way to a goosebumps books and clowning them and moving on. Thanks for this
Thank you for this video. It has inspired me to try and buy all of these books, as I have never read them before. I was always a Goosebumps guy, I'm glad to see another 90s series of books worth reading.
Frenchy here ! Yeah, in France we're missing 6 books from the main serie, as the fourth megamorphs and Visser. A few years ago very dedicated fan translate, and get #47 to 52 printed, with the exact same style/cover than the French edition, and selling them on demand at cost price, all of that with the blessing of Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate. They were working on megamorphs #4, but it is in pause, since a baby arrived.
I had so many thoughts to share about this extremely long and extremely rich video, but they were all blown out to Z-space at that ad for Andalite Viagra
omg I loved these books and had all of them through the scholastic book club as a kid. I can still vividly recall stuff from the andalite chronicles but completely forgot about the megamorphs stuff haha.
I'm afraid I've got some good news and bad news for you. YES, I am a Beast Wars fan. But... That is literally the only Transformers content I have any familiarity with. Never seen the original show or Beast Machines etc.
That matches the impression I've gotten about Beast Machines. Hearing about what they did with Rhinox immediately after the real high that BW went out on soured me on the whole premise. Fun fact: as a kid I discovered BW by accident simply because it was on WB right before Pokemon, timed to start right when I got home from school (in retrospect, 100% intentional on the part of the network). I missed the series finale because I was 12 and my mom called me out to vacuum the house. Didn't get to see it properly until I got it on DVD well into my 20s. These are the kinds of anecdotes that should go into a video if I ever make one...
@@torren5950 The development of BM was really strange and corporate meddling reared its head in a VERY odd way. I used to watch it at night before going to bed. Primal was my personal fave, but David Kaye as Megatron... there's a reason he was cast as Arishem in the Eternals.
I guess I'll leave multiple comments as I watch through, hopefully the algorithm is nice about it. Anyway, I had no idea that 'vecol' was pronounced 'veckle'- in my head, it's"s more 'vee-koll'. Glad we agree about the official audiobooks pronunciation of Elfangor though- they can take El Fang-gore from our cold dead hands.
On the one hand, the audiobook narrators all seem to use pretty consistent pronunciation with the made-up words, which makes me think they're following a guide. On the other... they only started making the audiobooks relatively recently and I don't think Katherine or Michael are directly involved... meaning, if there is a guide, it's probably by somebody at Scholastic. Anyway, I have a pretty cowboy attitude with it and go with what sounds "right" to me...
You go on to say how the Andalites being xenophobic is a bad thing only in the next sentence to say the Hork were too trusting which was their downfall. Heh.
I don't actually agree with any of them, with the possible exception of the last one, and even then I flip-flop. The challenge with a video like this is I feel like I need to present the most common discourse from the fandom as a whole before I embellish with my personal takes.
From all the things in this iceberg the the trans allegory part was the one that made me pause. Don't get me wrong it's great to hear that the authors seem to be supportive of the LGBT+ community but it was unexpected. Then again Torren videos are my only point of contact with this series but hearing about Tobias' story and being trans myself I see where this is coming from. Nice to hear that people got that much value out of this.
Thanks for sharing! I'm still amazed whenever someone not already familiar with the series manages to watch one of these videos. I didn't engage with the series from about 1999 - 2020, and when I came back as an adult, I remembered a lot of the narrative but I was also completely in the dark as to how closely aligned the fandom was with the trans community.
I'll have to find the exact book it's in, but your point about there not being any directly worded representation of gay people isn't exactly correct from what I recall. I distinctly recall in one of the later books when Tobias was worked up and ranting, there was a line to the effect "if people won't stick up for the gay kid why would they xyz". It's s been years, and I'll have to see if I can figure out what book that was in
I thought about that after the video was up. It's in book 23, when Tobias is pondering the long term future of Hork-bajir living on Earth: "Hard to imagine humans welcoming seven-foot-tall goblins into the local Boy Scout troop when they couldn’t even manage to tolerate some gay kid." There's also two even more oblique (and tragic) references: in MM3, "gays" are on the list Rachel rattles off of "people Nazi Germany killed"... this is in the same sentence where Rachel confirms on page that she's Jewish (or rather, that her father is); and in MM4, alternate-timeline Tobias is narrating about how The Sharing truly accepts everyone, including "gay or straight". I'm not sure if this counts as representation because there aren't on page characters; rather they're just vague concepts alluding to the fact that gay people do exist... sadly only in the context of them being victimized. But I'd definitely yield my opinion there to someone who knows more than me.
Fun fact, you'll never guess where internet music producer and video essayist Patricia Taxxon's last name comes from. It also ties into the parts about trans and furry fans of the series.
Not sure if I should engage with this because I"m not sure if it's in good faith... but for the benefit of others who may read this, sure, I'll bite, what the hell: I am not in favour of sexually explicit depictions in childrens' media. However, a character merely having a sexual orientation is not explicit. Most kids figure out their orientation around the time of puberty, and in something like 8-15% of people, they experience same-sex attraction. In Animorphs, all six main characters (even the alien!) at some point deal with or address opposite-sex romantic feelings... nothing beyond a hand hold or a brief kiss. It would not be inappropriate or damaging to children in any way if about 1-10 of the time it were the same situation with a same-sex attraction. You could even divorce on-page romantic feelings entirely--some school friend or teacher could mention a same sex partner or something (this is the route studios like Disney have been taking lately, in part because they can cut or re-dub the line for foreign markets... not great). I really don't like shouting slogans at people because I think it shuts down conversation rather than foster it but after all this context... "gay people exist"
@@torren5950 actually, statistically across the entirety of the LGBT bandwidth, it's more like 6%, a little bit less actually. And sure, "gay people exist", that doesn't mean every single piece of media absolutely HAS to have gay characters in it, otherwise the creators must face scrutiny or be criticized. Especially not media marketed towards third graders.
Ah yes, "ALF," in tribute to the original Alien Life Form, TV's A.L.F. And then "Ang," pronounced "Ong" in tribute to Shyamalan's magnum opus "The Last Airbender"
and then Rachel just goes "his family ended up finding the body later and were shocked at how their miraculously healed son was injured and dead again." But none of the future books, especially Jake books where his family is involved, ever bring this plot point up again lol.
Aussie Animorphs fan here; actually had to stop the video and check whether my copy of #44 was an AU or US edition (it was US). But can also confirm that it didn't bother me, as 12yo me loved to see my country's animals represented in my favourite media, and did not yet realise that said country is a meme
Just realized that Elfangor driving a yellow Mustang specifically in the Andalite Chronicles is likely a reference to the original Gone In 60 Seconds from the 70s, which just adds another layer of awesome to an already memorable scene imo
it sounds like andalites are facultative herbivores, which are essentially what practically all earth herbivores are; horses have been heavily documented both killing and eating birds, its very common for cows to accidentally eat invertebrates while grazing (such as snails!), pandas are fed meat such as fish in zoos, etc. i think some of the only obligate herbivores on earth are koalas and sloths, i cant think of any other animals that only eat plant matter- so it sounds like andalites arent actual omnivores (like humans, hippos, racoons, etc), but just are ok with the extra nutrients and might go out of their way for it when they need it (such as during the winter or in poor captivity)
Low key want to have my husband watch so he can understand my feeble attempt at explaining these books when I did my first re-read last year (since I read them as a kid).
Watch it together. Pause and explain your favorite categories in more depth or correct things you think I'm wrong on. It'll be a bonding experience (or a real test of the relationship... either way)
Love it! Follow-up question (if you have time- no worries if not) @@torren5950 If you had to recommend a single book for non-fan to read what would it be? My vote was Ellimist because it's so bonkers and like Toomin my husband is also a filthy casual gamer.
Happy to give my perspective. Please note I'm very bad at guessing what other people like so my advice might be spectacularly bad. Ellimist is a good suggestion -- it's strengths are its imaginative world building, and its isolated enough from the main series that it should work as a standalone. Its shortcomings involve it not really having a climax--it just sort of fades to the present with Toomin talking to the "unknown" dying Animorph. That's great if you're already invested in the series but without it I'd be concerned it would just seem to fizzle out. Also the 'wink-nudge' moments like creating the Pemalites and living among pre-evolved Andalites would lack the punch they're meant to have. My pick for a standalone would be Visser. As mentioned in the vid, it's the only book where all the central characters are adults; it sets up the motivations and tactics of the antagonists and sufficiently explains itself. When the Animorphs show up for a few critical chapters near the end it's like getting to watch a morally questionable superhero team at work, from an outsider's perspective. The biggest downside is it spoils most of Marco's arc. Now if you want to cheat: Animorphs books are usually ~25k words. The first novels in the Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Twilight, and HP series average out to ~90k. So, 4 main series titles is equivalent to the first book of one of those big YA series. So do books 3-6... and then try to persuade him to do 7 with the promise that things finally go well in that book. Book 1 is poorly paced IMO and summarized in almost every book; book 2 is completely nonessential and Rachel's character is soft-rebooted in book 7. Book 3 is where KA found their voice and the famous coded suicide attempt tends to hit for adults really well. Finally, the audiobooks are shockingly good and you can easily listen to one book in the time of two moderate-length podcast episodes, and I think that's an easier way to draw people in vs. sitting down reading.
A grand effort! I was just talking about the "Rachel using her own arm as a club" thing today, and you're exactly right about it: upon re-reading, it's disappointing. I think it's a Mandela Effect that most fans had; that it was actually something was saw happen in the book
I think all of my long form Animorphs videos need to come with a special thanks to Lord Ravenscraft's trilogy of Animorphs vids. His breakdown of how exactly that scene plays out (or rather, doesn't play out) in the book was essential. I've tried not to subconsciously repeat any of his observations verbatim but it accidentally happened at least once in an earlier video. So far no one's called me out on it... *shhhhhh*
I just re-read it... it's the second half of chapter 24. Rachel slashes open a Hork-Bajir with her still very much attached paw. After Marco blacks out and wakes up afterwards, Ax says he lost an arm but Erek re-attached it. I wonder if those two bits were confabulated?
Wow... wondering how I could pull something like that off. In the meantime, the last 15 minutes of this video are about the closest I'm likely to get for quite awhile. Fun connection: A24's Backrooms movie currently in development in being co-produced by Shawn Levy, who directed 5 episodes of the Animorphs TV show, including possibly the most analog-horror like episode: The Leader, where the Pool Ship looks like a garage and they destroy the Kandrona with wrenches in a room that looks like a different garage.
Talk about a small world. I've actually had a more than few ideas for a potential series, my favorite being Thoughtspeak being able to be recorded on film but as a terribly spooky noise. But I'm still trying to figure out how photoshop works so that's a looong ways off.
58:05 well MM2 didn't get undone. The Animorphs were responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, the broccoli survived, and the Nesk became ants. The Animorphs just hitched a ride on a nuke back to the present day.
Less undone, more stable time loop which effectively means nothing narratively changes. They even lose their dinosaur morphs, which would've been fun but probably too OP.
The "Our Ellimist is not the original Ellimist" I think is usually cast over the ambiguity in the earlier books as to whether he is one being, or a race or beings, based on Ax's people's understanding. It's meant to be explained in the EC that Toomin absorbed many beings, and made mental clones of himself into various bodies, notably an Andalite at one point. The original Toomin body is lonnnnngggg gone, and the Ellimist's existence is too unfathomable by our puny minds, but that's what that claim refers to. I think the "many versions of himself" concept went over a lot of peoples' heads as to an explanation for the Andalites thinking they're a race of beings (a la the Q)
Never read this series as a kid, but I read them as an adult over the past 2-3 years. As a middling aged man, this nearly had me in tears and left me traumatized on multiple levels. By far one of the greatest contributions to literature ever produced. That said, thanks for such a spectacular look back.
1:25:28 it me! I defend the return, it is in fact my favorite book in the series bc Rachel slurps Visser 3 like soup. ((Also I thought way too hard about it see my Tumblr))
Personal fan theory: The entity that chased Crayak out of his original galaxy is the reason for the strict rules in the game with the Ellimist. Whatever it was, when it got wind of Ellimist and Crayak going full Super Saiyan God x100 and destroying a tenth of the galaxy and messing up the fabric of space-time, it jumped over and slapped them both like naughty little children and told them to behave and play by the rules, OR ELSE. Also, my god dude, what a 10/10 video. Excellent work, very, very well done.
Animorphs'll do that. I was away for 20 years and only made it halfway through as a kid--when I started re-reading I thought I"d have to re-learn every bit of lore. Nope... to use a cliche, it all comes back like no time has passed.
Hey Torren! Awesome video! It brought back a ton of memories! i do have one request! At around 17:50 you use a screen grab from the Animorphs Anonymous interview with Michael Grant. Do you mind putting a credit to them in the description? I know Alex and Kaycie would appreciate it!
Added. Fair point that a clickable link is good... I did have an on-screen caption imploring folks to check the interview out with the video title and channel name visible but a link is even better.
Please explain Mega Man's 'Flame Hyenard' iceberg. There is a hyena somewhere in the robo-genes, but where does the "nard" come in? Also, Spark Mandrill or whatever he is called. Is a mandrill a drill from the isle of Man? Also, please help gather more visitors to my Cookie Monster erotic fanfiction page: {redacted}
This was my first time watching an iceberg video & I gotta say, thoroughly engaged. Well done! also yeah while the books mostly are pretty good with showing acquired morphs, the owl morphs are a good point. the wiki treats it as everyone minus Cassie and Rachel acquiring them "off page" in book 9, and I see the validity of that, they gotta link the acquisition to some book, but everyone minus Jake acquiring them in book 6 in a solid counter-theory
1:17:18
It's in the Ellimist Cronicles. He goes to our solar system and finds a younger Earth and a Mars with life on it. Crayak was trying to destroy it, but the Ellimist stopped him.
Oh, hey... chapter 28. Thank you! I thought to search the text for 'Mars' but not 'red planet', which would have found this passage. I guess that means in this universe, Marco is right about the fossils. If you don't mind I'd like to add your comment text to the video description as an update.
Don't mind at all!
I have never in my life been so excited to watch a video with 13 views.
I just realized how obsessed I was with this book series, I literally knew about everything you talked about, this was a really fun and funny video that I will never be able to share with anyone else because of how lore heavy it is
I've gotten several variations of this comment. It's the sad plight of the Animorphs fan that we often have few people if any to share content with. At least we've got each other...
"The Andalites are more like if the Jedi Order was made up of Klingons."
That alone makes the whole video worth it. That is so beautiful and elegant and... TRUE.
And the Protoss! Don't forget the Protoss!
That entire Viagra/anti-aging commercial was GREAT writing. "Only your guide tree will know the difference"?! Dude. So many underrated moments in this. 😂
Thanks! The last 20 minutes was really fun to put together... made up for the more tedious bits for sure.
Animorphs was my childhood, and there is NOT enough attention on it in modern times. The way it ended was such a fucking ball kick. It ended on a cliffhanger that the author declared would never be explored, with the life of Ax hanging in the balance, and this was the same book where Rachel _died_ polar bearing the fuck out of a space ship, and Tobias fucked off into the woods basically forever because she was all he had to live for and Cassie gave up fighting forever.
They didn't declare it'd never be explored, and Grant has asked several times trying to gauge interest in revisiting the older surviving Animorphs.
@@kellywilliam3708 That's nice to hear, but at the time, that was just it. Animorphs is over and done, I'm done, read my new book about the people who survived earth being hit by a meteor.
The howlers are basically really really destructive cats. They play with their prey.
Well that's how I'll always think of them now. Thanks!
The majority of the series definitely doesn't take place in Santa Barbara. In the last book, Jake explicitly states that he moved TO Santa Barbara.
Just burned through all of the Animorphs content on your channel, and I've just gotta say I love your style! Super informative and so hilariously sarcastic. I'm here for whatever's coming next!
I read animorphs as a kid, got up to 11 and couldn’t find 12 so i stopped. I’ve only recently finished them and I am shocked by how little content there id
The message Jake wants you to know: "This fight is personal". Sorry, couldn't find another post with the answer & it took me way longer than I'd like to admit to solve. Perfect sound clip, reason I needed to solve it.
Good lord, the kid who picked up the books in the 6th grade would've gone ballistic for a Power Rangers crossover.
I know you were joking about the Australian releases, but I can provide some details about them.
We got all of the books (54 main, 4 mega, 4 chronicles, 2 alterna). All of the front covers looked like they did in the USA, fonts and everything. Book 5 had a gorilla morph on the cover.
We definitely got got the six cover options for In the Time of Dinosaurs, and the later reprint with the seventh cover. We got Visser in hardback.
I found the two-part version of Megamorphs 1 exactly once. This was a second hand copy long after the series had ended, so I can't be sure about it. I've totally found books that never came out in Australia in secondhand bookstores before.
I have no idea if we got Meet the Stars.
This is an awesome comment.
Do you recall if they localised the books to not use American spelling or were they just the American prints distributed in Australia?
I don't recall unfortunately. Australia officially uses UK spellings - but we import so much media from the US and UK that we're totally used to alternate spellings and terminology. I don't think I'd have noticed either one.
I think they were *probably* straight imports of the US editions. If they were UK-spelling variants, then they were made by the same printers as the US editions, for a sort of general 'rest of the world' market.
I don't think there's any chance they were locally printed for Australia specifically. No one was doing that with kid's books in the 90s. Pretty much all of them had either a UK or US price on the back, and no Australian price. Animorphs books had US and Canada prices. @@torren5950
I wasn’t an Animorphs kid, but I remember looking at the weird covers in the stores when they came out. I missed out on something big never getting into this as a child.
Hi Torren, this is a really cool video. You hit the nail on the head with people out growing the series and not wanting to finish lol. Something that really caught my attention was the base 14 thing. I am sure others have chimed in saying this before, but 90_14 is 126_10 which imo supports the rounded down theory and it supports what happens in The Encounter. I know the number 90 is comfortable to my human brain but it's almost head canon for me that andalites would use the 90 minute timer too.
Wow... so that gives credence to headcanoning a 2:06 morph clock? I like it!
I get home from work and the first thing I see is Torren spoiled me by actually doing the iceberg video. Yep, 2024 is starting off amazing for me.
Well here's my joke entry in any future Animorph Icebergs. Animorphs predicted C.M. Kosemen's book All Tomorrows.
animorphs and avatar the last airbender hold the same position of awesomeness for me. consuming them as a kid/teenager, these are just cool stories about kids adventures to save the world; I was totally oblivious to how dark/heavy most of the themes are. Revisiting them as an adult with a more mature lense makes them totally new experiences.
As a hardcore Warrior Cats and Animorphs fan who even wrote a crossover in middle school,
yeah I've got nothing.
That's a relief... some of the entries were duds it seems
When Tobias says he's going to get thermals, he isn't actually going to get thermals. He's just going to where the thermals are.
To comment on the 'furry??' entry, I've had an andalite as my main fursona for ages now. They're a brick shithouse-sized stoner that the military doesnt want (which is fine- they live on an Earth colony somewhere in the PNW). There's just a lot of cool stuff in the universe to play around with!
I always assumed the freed woman from the first book was the freed controller who'd gone insane in the megamorphs where Rachel lost her mind.
Thank GOD someone else subscribes to the idea a dying Rachel gets the choice to be sent back in time with her memories wiped to eventually take place as the governor who tries to steer the state through the crisis of an alien invasion, I thought I was going crazy for some time.
I'll be honest I have no idea where I first heard this, so if you've ever posted about this online, I might be stealing it from you...
@@torren5950 if you were in the Facebook page you might have been stealing it from me but outside that, I am sure it is just a coincidence
This is one of my favorite book series.
I could see andalites having base-12! Some cultures use base-8 due to counting the spaces between the fingers instead, with 7 fingers each hand that is 12 spaces.
Yesss more animorphs content I love to see it, I’m working on a mega analysis of the tv show bc there’s not enough animorphs content on yt
Small correction at 1:04:36: _The Weakness_ was the only book written by Elise Smith. _The Reunion_ and _The Deception_ were written by a different ghostwriter, Elise Donner.
I started writing a quick "mea culpa" and was going to edit the description, but then I started wondering how I made that mistake in the first place and it terns out... I'm still not sure if they're meant to be the same person or not. Seerowpedia combines them both under the "Donner" moniker, which of course may not be reliable. I found posts going back to 2010 on Richard's Animorphs Forum doing the same thing. Poparena's review on The Weakness asserts that Smith is a different person from Elise Donner, and also says Smith ghostwrote for Remnants, but I don't know what his source is on that because there seems to be much less written about Remnants than Animorphs. We have a new mystery it seems...
@@torren5950 If both Elise's are truly one and the same person, then this leaves us with only two possibilities: Either Elise Donner was briefly married to someone called Smith and divorced them between the release of _The Weakness_ and _The Deception_ , or one Elise is secretly a transcendent being of cosmic origin that assimilated the identity of the other Elise. Somebody better put this on the next iceberg.
I'm thinking more about the writing style... 30 and 46 both range from 'competent' to 'quite good' and it seems unlikely to me that the same person did 37. Then again, maybe it says more about the quality of the outline and their grasp on the characters. I would love if I could somehow trace the origin of the confusion, though... knowing it goes back at least 13 years know.
I was born in 1994, in Australia, and I've heard Animorphs was marketed and pushed on elementary school age kids in the US. My memory is hazy but I don't remember it being pushed too much here. It was definitely in my primary school's library and in my town's library. I wonder if any of the adults realised how dark it was lol. I think I read a lot of the series when I was younger than 10? I definitely read the Ellimist Chronicles when I was like 13 and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Cool iceberg, very nostalgic.
I'm so sorry you had to read that part with The Backstreet Boys + Ax...
I legit was dreading that category, wondering what the hell I was gonna do for it... and then my wife and I re-watched Napoleon Dynamite.
@@torren5950 Godzilla bless her for helping you through this.
I am probably one of the younger people on here. And I remember seeing this series on my way to a goosebumps books and clowning them and moving on. Thanks for this
Thank you for this video. It has inspired me to try and buy all of these books, as I have never read them before. I was always a Goosebumps guy, I'm glad to see another 90s series of books worth reading.
Frenchy here ! Yeah, in France we're missing 6 books from the main serie, as the fourth megamorphs and Visser. A few years ago very dedicated fan translate, and get #47 to 52 printed, with the exact same style/cover than the French edition, and selling them on demand at cost price, all of that with the blessing of Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate. They were working on megamorphs #4, but it is in pause, since a baby arrived.
I had so many thoughts to share about this extremely long and extremely rich video, but they were all blown out to Z-space at that ad for Andalite Viagra
Thank you for your hard work. Best wishes from Poland! 🥰
omg I loved these books and had all of them through the scholastic book club as a kid. I can still vividly recall stuff from the andalite chronicles but completely forgot about the megamorphs stuff haha.
YO YOU A BEAST WARS FAN TOO? I'd be highly excited to see transformers content from you
I'm afraid I've got some good news and bad news for you. YES, I am a Beast Wars fan. But...
That is literally the only Transformers content I have any familiarity with. Never seen the original show or Beast Machines etc.
@@torren5950 Not missing much with BM. Beast Wars is and will always be unique.
That matches the impression I've gotten about Beast Machines. Hearing about what they did with Rhinox immediately after the real high that BW went out on soured me on the whole premise.
Fun fact: as a kid I discovered BW by accident simply because it was on WB right before Pokemon, timed to start right when I got home from school (in retrospect, 100% intentional on the part of the network). I missed the series finale because I was 12 and my mom called me out to vacuum the house. Didn't get to see it properly until I got it on DVD well into my 20s.
These are the kinds of anecdotes that should go into a video if I ever make one...
@@torren5950 The development of BM was really strange and corporate meddling reared its head in a VERY odd way.
I used to watch it at night before going to bed. Primal was my personal fave, but David Kaye as Megatron... there's a reason he was cast as Arishem in the Eternals.
I used to own the entire series but i moved and my parents never mailed me any of my stuff :(
The Italians were lucky. The ending of 52 is the closest the Animorphs get to a happy ending.
La traduzione non era completata?
The five kids didn't know there was a war going on with Yeerks controlling people heads.
I guess I'll leave multiple comments as I watch through, hopefully the algorithm is nice about it.
Anyway, I had no idea that 'vecol' was pronounced 'veckle'- in my head, it's"s more 'vee-koll'.
Glad we agree about the official audiobooks pronunciation of Elfangor though- they can take El Fang-gore from our cold dead hands.
On the one hand, the audiobook narrators all seem to use pretty consistent pronunciation with the made-up words, which makes me think they're following a guide. On the other... they only started making the audiobooks relatively recently and I don't think Katherine or Michael are directly involved... meaning, if there is a guide, it's probably by somebody at Scholastic.
Anyway, I have a pretty cowboy attitude with it and go with what sounds "right" to me...
I always said "vee-koll" and only starting thinking of it as "veckle" relatively recently, due to listening podcasts
I cant believe david mattingly did the covers. I highly encourage everyone to go look at his collecrion of wizard and fantasy paintings
New Animorphs content!
You go on to say how the Andalites being xenophobic is a bad thing only in the next sentence to say the Hork were too trusting which was their downfall. Heh.
Xenophobia exists for a good reason. We just need to rein it in to appropriate levels.
It's not a war crime the first time
I don't actually agree with any of them, with the possible exception of the last one, and even then I flip-flop. The challenge with a video like this is I feel like I need to present the most common discourse from the fandom as a whole before I embellish with my personal takes.
1:05:03 LMAOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK
WHAT THE FUCK
I'M ACTUALLY CHOKING
breathe
You made the Muppets meme on Reddit!
I made a* Muppets meme on Reddit!
From all the things in this iceberg the the trans allegory part was the one that made me pause. Don't get me wrong it's great to hear that the authors seem to be supportive of the LGBT+ community but it was unexpected. Then again Torren videos are my only point of contact with this series but hearing about Tobias' story and being trans myself I see where this is coming from. Nice to hear that people got that much value out of this.
Thanks for sharing! I'm still amazed whenever someone not already familiar with the series manages to watch one of these videos.
I didn't engage with the series from about 1999 - 2020, and when I came back as an adult, I remembered a lot of the narrative but I was also completely in the dark as to how closely aligned the fandom was with the trans community.
1:08:43 Oh my God I need that framed
I'll have to find the exact book it's in, but your point about there not being any directly worded representation of gay people isn't exactly correct from what I recall. I distinctly recall in one of the later books when Tobias was worked up and ranting, there was a line to the effect "if people won't stick up for the gay kid why would they xyz". It's s been years, and I'll have to see if I can figure out what book that was in
I thought about that after the video was up. It's in book 23, when Tobias is pondering the long term future of Hork-bajir living on Earth: "Hard to imagine humans welcoming seven-foot-tall goblins into the local Boy Scout troop when they couldn’t even manage to tolerate some gay kid."
There's also two even more oblique (and tragic) references: in MM3, "gays" are on the list Rachel rattles off of "people Nazi Germany killed"... this is in the same sentence where Rachel confirms on page that she's Jewish (or rather, that her father is); and in MM4, alternate-timeline Tobias is narrating about how The Sharing truly accepts everyone, including "gay or straight".
I'm not sure if this counts as representation because there aren't on page characters; rather they're just vague concepts alluding to the fact that gay people do exist... sadly only in the context of them being victimized. But I'd definitely yield my opinion there to someone who knows more than me.
Oh yeah this is the good stuff
injecting this content like it was an illsipar root
Fun fact, you'll never guess where internet music producer and video essayist Patricia Taxxon's last name comes from. It also ties into the parts about trans and furry fans of the series.
Lmao why would a book for elementary school kids have explicitly LGBT characters? Wtf
Not sure if I should engage with this because I"m not sure if it's in good faith... but for the benefit of others who may read this, sure, I'll bite, what the hell:
I am not in favour of sexually explicit depictions in childrens' media. However, a character merely having a sexual orientation is not explicit. Most kids figure out their orientation around the time of puberty, and in something like 8-15% of people, they experience same-sex attraction. In Animorphs, all six main characters (even the alien!) at some point deal with or address opposite-sex romantic feelings... nothing beyond a hand hold or a brief kiss. It would not be inappropriate or damaging to children in any way if about 1-10 of the time it were the same situation with a same-sex attraction. You could even divorce on-page romantic feelings entirely--some school friend or teacher could mention a same sex partner or something (this is the route studios like Disney have been taking lately, in part because they can cut or re-dub the line for foreign markets... not great). I really don't like shouting slogans at people because I think it shuts down conversation rather than foster it but after all this context... "gay people exist"
@@torren5950 actually, statistically across the entirety of the LGBT bandwidth, it's more like 6%, a little bit less actually. And sure, "gay people exist", that doesn't mean every single piece of media absolutely HAS to have gay characters in it, otherwise the creators must face scrutiny or be criticized. Especially not media marketed towards third graders.
Troll here: it's pronounced ALF-ANG-GOR-E 😂
Ah yes, "ALF," in tribute to the original Alien Life Form, TV's A.L.F. And then "Ang," pronounced "Ong" in tribute to Shyamalan's magnum opus "The Last Airbender"
Why are people heaps keen to pin sexual "identity" on kids.
Pretty strange.
I mean, four of them canonically date each other; they aren't exactly toddlers here. They're at an age where exploring your sexuality is natural.
The writers try way too hard to....twitter pander.
Indeed, revisionist bs
Don’t forget the whole thing with David dumping Rachel and Jake’s cousin down an elevator shaft to assume his identity
Maybe my mom was right to make me pause on reading these books lol
and then Rachel just goes "his family ended up finding the body later and were shocked at how their miraculously healed son was injured and dead again." But none of the future books, especially Jake books where his family is involved, ever bring this plot point up again lol.
I'm glad you're making videos that appeal to specifically me.
Aussie Animorphs fan here; actually had to stop the video and check whether my copy of #44 was an AU or US edition (it was US). But can also confirm that it didn't bother me, as 12yo me loved to see my country's animals represented in my favourite media, and did not yet realise that said country is a meme
Just realized that Elfangor driving a yellow Mustang specifically in the Andalite Chronicles is likely a reference to the original Gone In 60 Seconds from the 70s, which just adds another layer of awesome to an already memorable scene imo
it sounds like andalites are facultative herbivores, which are essentially what practically all earth herbivores are; horses have been heavily documented both killing and eating birds, its very common for cows to accidentally eat invertebrates while grazing (such as snails!), pandas are fed meat such as fish in zoos, etc. i think some of the only obligate herbivores on earth are koalas and sloths, i cant think of any other animals that only eat plant matter- so it sounds like andalites arent actual omnivores (like humans, hippos, racoons, etc), but just are ok with the extra nutrients and might go out of their way for it when they need it (such as during the winter or in poor captivity)
Low key want to have my husband watch so he can understand my feeble attempt at explaining these books when I did my first re-read last year (since I read them as a kid).
Watch it together. Pause and explain your favorite categories in more depth or correct things you think I'm wrong on. It'll be a bonding experience (or a real test of the relationship... either way)
Love it! Follow-up question (if you have time- no worries if not) @@torren5950 If you had to recommend a single book for non-fan to read what would it be? My vote was Ellimist because it's so bonkers and like Toomin my husband is also a filthy casual gamer.
Happy to give my perspective. Please note I'm very bad at guessing what other people like so my advice might be spectacularly bad.
Ellimist is a good suggestion -- it's strengths are its imaginative world building, and its isolated enough from the main series that it should work as a standalone. Its shortcomings involve it not really having a climax--it just sort of fades to the present with Toomin talking to the "unknown" dying Animorph. That's great if you're already invested in the series but without it I'd be concerned it would just seem to fizzle out. Also the 'wink-nudge' moments like creating the Pemalites and living among pre-evolved Andalites would lack the punch they're meant to have.
My pick for a standalone would be Visser. As mentioned in the vid, it's the only book where all the central characters are adults; it sets up the motivations and tactics of the antagonists and sufficiently explains itself. When the Animorphs show up for a few critical chapters near the end it's like getting to watch a morally questionable superhero team at work, from an outsider's perspective. The biggest downside is it spoils most of Marco's arc.
Now if you want to cheat: Animorphs books are usually ~25k words. The first novels in the Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Twilight, and HP series average out to ~90k. So, 4 main series titles is equivalent to the first book of one of those big YA series. So do books 3-6... and then try to persuade him to do 7 with the promise that things finally go well in that book. Book 1 is poorly paced IMO and summarized in almost every book; book 2 is completely nonessential and Rachel's character is soft-rebooted in book 7. Book 3 is where KA found their voice and the famous coded suicide attempt tends to hit for adults really well.
Finally, the audiobooks are shockingly good and you can easily listen to one book in the time of two moderate-length podcast episodes, and I think that's an easier way to draw people in vs. sitting down reading.
A grand effort!
I was just talking about the "Rachel using her own arm as a club" thing today, and you're exactly right about it: upon re-reading, it's disappointing. I think it's a Mandela Effect that most fans had; that it was actually something was saw happen in the book
I think all of my long form Animorphs videos need to come with a special thanks to Lord Ravenscraft's trilogy of Animorphs vids. His breakdown of how exactly that scene plays out (or rather, doesn't play out) in the book was essential. I've tried not to subconsciously repeat any of his observations verbatim but it accidentally happened at least once in an earlier video. So far no one's called me out on it... *shhhhhh*
Didn't Rachel also do this all the way back in book 10? During the big fight at the end just before Erek saves the day?
@@jacoboniaplay Not that I recall... Pretty sure it was just 32.
@@torren5950 Your secret is safe with me! ;)
I just re-read it... it's the second half of chapter 24. Rachel slashes open a Hork-Bajir with her still very much attached paw. After Marco blacks out and wakes up afterwards, Ax says he lost an arm but Erek re-attached it. I wonder if those two bits were confabulated?
Oh, we can request stuff? How about Animorphs Analog Horror series then?
Wow... wondering how I could pull something like that off. In the meantime, the last 15 minutes of this video are about the closest I'm likely to get for quite awhile.
Fun connection: A24's Backrooms movie currently in development in being co-produced by Shawn Levy, who directed 5 episodes of the Animorphs TV show, including possibly the most analog-horror like episode: The Leader, where the Pool Ship looks like a garage and they destroy the Kandrona with wrenches in a room that looks like a different garage.
Talk about a small world. I've actually had a more than few ideas for a potential series, my favorite being Thoughtspeak being able to be recorded on film but as a terribly spooky noise. But I'm still trying to figure out how photoshop works so that's a looong ways off.
@@torren5950 This is my fault!
You burdened me with glorious purpose
58:05 well MM2 didn't get undone. The Animorphs were responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, the broccoli survived, and the Nesk became ants. The Animorphs just hitched a ride on a nuke back to the present day.
Less undone, more stable time loop which effectively means nothing narratively changes. They even lose their dinosaur morphs, which would've been fun but probably too OP.
The "Our Ellimist is not the original Ellimist" I think is usually cast over the ambiguity in the earlier books as to whether he is one being, or a race or beings, based on Ax's people's understanding. It's meant to be explained in the EC that Toomin absorbed many beings, and made mental clones of himself into various bodies, notably an Andalite at one point. The original Toomin body is lonnnnngggg gone, and the Ellimist's existence is too unfathomable by our puny minds, but that's what that claim refers to. I think the "many versions of himself" concept went over a lot of peoples' heads as to an explanation for the Andalites thinking they're a race of beings (a la the Q)
Never read this series as a kid, but I read them as an adult over the past 2-3 years. As a middling aged man, this nearly had me in tears and left me traumatized on multiple levels. By far one of the greatest contributions to literature ever produced. That said, thanks for such a spectacular look back.
This is great dude. Tremendous work.
1:25:28 it me! I defend the return, it is in fact my favorite book in the series bc Rachel slurps Visser 3 like soup. ((Also I thought way too hard about it see my Tumblr))
Monicap! Been awhile. Um... link? Tumblr handle? I don't know how to find it, sorry.
Edit: NM I found your tumblr
Thank you for talking about Animorphs so deeply.
Personal fan theory: The entity that chased Crayak out of his original galaxy is the reason for the strict rules in the game with the Ellimist. Whatever it was, when it got wind of Ellimist and Crayak going full Super Saiyan God x100 and destroying a tenth of the galaxy and messing up the fabric of space-time, it jumped over and slapped them both like naughty little children and told them to behave and play by the rules, OR ELSE.
Also, my god dude, what a 10/10 video. Excellent work, very, very well done.
511 views and still found its way into the right hands
Good God this has dug up some DECADES buried memories but its coming back stronger than I'd have imagined
Animorphs'll do that. I was away for 20 years and only made it halfway through as a kid--when I started re-reading I thought I"d have to re-learn every bit of lore. Nope... to use a cliche, it all comes back like no time has passed.
Was taken aback when I saw my video. Thanks for the mention.
Loved this thank you for your time and consideration on this project!
Hey Torren! Awesome video! It brought back a ton of memories! i do have one request! At around 17:50 you use a screen grab from the Animorphs Anonymous interview with Michael Grant. Do you mind putting a credit to them in the description? I know Alex and Kaycie would appreciate it!
Added. Fair point that a clickable link is good... I did have an on-screen caption imploring folks to check the interview out with the video title and channel name visible but a link is even better.
@@torren5950 oh I must have missed that part! But awesome either way! Subscribing to see what else you have!
Please explain Mega Man's 'Flame Hyenard' iceberg.
There is a hyena somewhere in the robo-genes, but where does the "nard" come in?
Also, Spark Mandrill or whatever he is called. Is a mandrill a drill from the isle of Man?
Also, please help gather more visitors to my Cookie Monster erotic fanfiction page: {redacted}
I heckin' loved your coverage in the section of the trans representation/LGBTQ+ topics. Thanks bunches
I always said the audiobook version of Alfengor (forgot how to spell it) in my head. It was quite a shock when I heard you pronounce it the other way
This was my first time watching an iceberg video & I gotta say, thoroughly engaged. Well done!
also yeah while the books mostly are pretty good with showing acquired morphs, the owl morphs are a good point.
the wiki treats it as everyone minus Cassie and Rachel acquiring them "off page" in book 9, and I see the validity of that, they gotta link the acquisition to some book, but everyone minus Jake acquiring them in book 6 in a solid counter-theory
I never thought I'd get a comment about the part that was so boring I cut it and replaced it with a text card as a joke. Nice!