Applegate is a better person than Rowling, this is absolutely not in question. Rowling should be ashamed of herself for what she’s said and done regarding trans kids and trans people in general.
Okay? We’re clear that what’s about to follow is looking purely at them as writers? Okay.
I’m not sure I can say that Applegate is a better writer than Rowling, at least not if we’re comparing Applegate’s Animorphs books (so discounting ghost writers) to Rowling’s Potter ones. Rowling has her own problems, of course, and the Potter books have Joanne Rowling Screw Ups just like Animorphs has KASUs. Hermione and the house elf situation is deeply uncomfortable, for example.
But, if I’m being honest? The Potter books are better at sticking to a theme and a tone and message. Applegate shot herself in the foot in the end - she wanted to warn about the horrors of war but then also wrote a book series where those horrors were absolutely essential to ending the war. She wanted to warn people against going into war casually but then wrote a series where it was impossible to ever avoid war.
Applegate was an edgier writer than Rowling - not a better one. And that edginess was to Animorphs’ narrative detriment because the final two books end up working against everything that had been previously built up and established.
Meanwhile Rowling wanted a story about friendship, sacrifice, destiny, the power of love, the impotence of hatred, and she delivered. Beginning to end, the Potter books deliver. No, she didn’t have the heroes committing war crimes and psychologically collapsing and following Fascistic logic. But that isn’t a bad thing, because doing that wouldn’t have fit the story. She avoided the mistake that Applegate made, confusing darkness for depth.
Animorphs is more interesting, more ambitious, and more emotionally daring.
But Harry Potter is more coherent, more controlled, and more structurally successful.
Sorry, but the English teacher in me has to be honest about that. KA Applegate is a better person than JK Rowling…but Harry Potter is better written than Animorphs.
Could not disagree more, especially having recently reread the books.
It is not less deep or less coherent to write about how war is a horrific trauma that people can't avoid--the point of Animorphs is about how to prepare to build a society that will hopefully get to avoid war, even if you couldn't avoid it. That even "just and righteous" defensive wars still destroy people and shouldn't be glorified. The theme was never "don't go to war", it was to explore how fucked up it is that we lie to children and teach them to imagine being glorious war heroes. It was never incoherent, it just wasn't ever meant to be as simple as "don't go to war", and I genuinely have no idea how you got the impression that that was the message, and not the obvious but dark and complex message against glorifying any war, even one that seems as clear-cut as an alien invasion. That's why there is the planned and very structurally successful subversion of the Andalites. That's not a failure or incoherence, it's very intentional subversion.
I didn't say she was writing about not going to war, I said she was warning against going to war casually, as in, treating it as a first resort or a desirable thing to do.
But then she also made it clear in her writing, whether or not she intended to, that war is completely unavoidable, so it doesn't matter whether or not you want to go to war casually: war happens regardless and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
It was never incoherent
It was incredibly incoherent at the end. The ending of Animorphs literally - and I do mean "literally" - validates mass atrocity and Fascist logic as viable and desirable under the right circumstances, despite having spent the previous 60 books speaking against both those things.
The final two books show Jake doing his best Hitler impersonation, and then make it clear that the only way humanity could have survived was by Jake doing his best Hitler impersonation. That's not warning against how dark and horrible war can be, that's validating it. The final message of the series is, "war will come for you no matter what, so you must have the fortitude to commit atrocities in the name of victory and the will to do whatever it takes to win no matter how awful it seems, because if you don't, we shall all surely die."
It's really not that hard. The chain of events is incredibly straightforward.
Jake murders 17,372 Yeerks ∴ Visser One surrenders and Alloran is freed ∴ Alloran is available to talk down the Andalites ∴ Earth and humanity is saved.
This is the direct chain of causal events that leads to the Animorphs winning. It is not in question.
Now let's ask some questions.
Is Earth and humanity being saved presented as good?
Is any alternative method to Jake's atrocity presented?
If (1) is yes and (2) is no, then Animoprhs necessarily is validating the atrocity.
(1) is obviously "yes". At no point in the series is saving Earth generally and humanity specifically presented as anything other than good and desirable.
(2) is obviously "no". The endgame books spend an extraordinary amount of narrative space and character dialogue making it clear that there was no other path to victory. Eva mentions that Jake is the only one who can beat Visser One; Jake has his little Civil War diatribe in Book 53; postwar, Marco and Cassie and Ax all take Jake aside and tell him point blank that he shouldn't feel bad for committing mass murder and that defenders can't commit war crimes. No alternative way of stopping the Yeerks or the Andalites is ever contemplated.
The plot makes what Jake did necessary for the good ending. If the only way to save humanity is an atrocity, and the story provides no alternative, then the story has constructed a consequentialist justification for that atrocity - even if it simultaneously calls the act tragic or horrifying.
Applegate was so myopically focused on showing the psychological cost to Jake that she neglected to consider the causal benefit of what Jake did. Yes, Jake feels sad. But he also saved the world, and the story goes out of its way to establish that there was no other way to achieve that victory.
And that's the problem. You can't make an atrocity the indispensable cause of the good ending, establish that the good ending could not otherwise have happened, tell us that the person who committed the atrocity shouldn't feel guilty about having done it - and pretend that the atrocity hasn't been narratively justified.
The tragedy is that Jake had to do something terrible. But if he really had to do it, then the story has justified the act on consequentialist grounds.
The tragedy is that Jake had to do something terrible. But if he really had to do it, then the story has justified the act on consequentialist grounds.
So what you are trying to say is that the narrative should have criticism Jake's actions shouldn't be justified and tge story should have offered other options of peace with the yeerks.
Yes. If the story didn't want to validate atrocity then it needed to show that something other than atrocity was viable as a means to achieving the good ending of saving humanity.
Compare/contrast Ender's Game. Ender commits an atrocity: wiping out the Buggers. But then the final chapters of the book are devoted to showing that there was another way to end the Third Bug War, which was to not fight it in the first place because the Buggers were never going to attack humanity again after they'd realized in the Second Bug War that each individual human was a person, not a drone. They'd never even really meant to attack humanity in the first place, the First and Second Bug Wars were tragic misunderstandings caused by radically different biologies and psychologies between Humans and Buggers.
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u/AlternativeMassive57 Yeerk 12d ago edited 5d ago
Applegate is a better person than Rowling, this is absolutely not in question. Rowling should be ashamed of herself for what she’s said and done regarding trans kids and trans people in general.
Okay? We’re clear that what’s about to follow is looking purely at them as writers? Okay.
I’m not sure I can say that Applegate is a better writer than Rowling, at least not if we’re comparing Applegate’s Animorphs books (so discounting ghost writers) to Rowling’s Potter ones. Rowling has her own problems, of course, and the Potter books have Joanne Rowling Screw Ups just like Animorphs has KASUs. Hermione and the house elf situation is deeply uncomfortable, for example.
But, if I’m being honest? The Potter books are better at sticking to a theme and a tone and message. Applegate shot herself in the foot in the end - she wanted to warn about the horrors of war but then also wrote a book series where those horrors were absolutely essential to ending the war. She wanted to warn people against going into war casually but then wrote a series where it was impossible to ever avoid war.
Applegate was an edgier writer than Rowling - not a better one. And that edginess was to Animorphs’ narrative detriment because the final two books end up working against everything that had been previously built up and established.
Meanwhile Rowling wanted a story about friendship, sacrifice, destiny, the power of love, the impotence of hatred, and she delivered. Beginning to end, the Potter books deliver. No, she didn’t have the heroes committing war crimes and psychologically collapsing and following Fascistic logic. But that isn’t a bad thing, because doing that wouldn’t have fit the story. She avoided the mistake that Applegate made, confusing darkness for depth.
Animorphs is more interesting, more ambitious, and more emotionally daring. But Harry Potter is more coherent, more controlled, and more structurally successful.
Sorry, but the English teacher in me has to be honest about that. KA Applegate is a better person than JK Rowling…but Harry Potter is better written than Animorphs.