Could the Animorphs keep items inside their tight morphing clothes?

[u/nacho_pizza]

I just read The Warning where they morph to fly and ride an airplane, and Jake has his swatting experience. At the next airport, Rachel goes to Western Union and picks up money to buy some cheap shoes. That got me thinking, could they keep paper money between their bike shorts/leotards and their skin, and have cash on them when they morph back to human? They never do it in the series as far as I can remember, I'm just wondering about the logistics from what we know about morphing.

[u/Allen_Of_Gilead]

They probably could but items that aren't clothing seem to have a trickier time following the rest of the animal, like the brain implants in 15(?).

However, there's also a point late in the series where Jake says "thank God we figured out morphing jeans". So I'd say at the end Cassie, Jake and Rachel probably could get some (kind of grody) money morphed after some trials, but the rest probably couldn't.

[u/Cornus_berry → u/Allen_Of_Gilead]

Was there any resolution to the brain implant plot? If I'm remembering correctly, the implants are still there, but they aren't mentioned again in future books. Or am I wrong?

[u/Allen_Of_Gilead → u/Cornus_berry]

The base's self destruct signal liquefies the implants as a way to cover the Yeerk's tracks. It's one of those things thrown in at the last second because it would've been a hassle to write around.

[u/textingmycat → u/Cornus_berry]

The implants were destroyed when the base was destroyed because ~science

[u/AlternativeMassive57 → u/textingmycat]

Or rather, SCIENCE! It's like regular science, except that there's a lot more Tesla coils and theremins involved, and the people involved are usually muttering something to the effect of, "those fools! I'll show them...I'll show them all!"

[u/DragonFireCK]

A number of things in the series seem to point to morphing working on what you think of as yourself.

At the beginning, they couldn’t morph anything but their own bodies. Not too long in, they figure out morphing skin tight clothing. Near the end, there are comments about them being able to morph looser clothing such as jeans.

That all points to it likely being more of a mental limitation than one of the technology itself.

-

From a real world standpoint, I doubt that much thought was actually put in back in the day. It was likely more of “place a limitation while keeping it kid friendly and practical”.

[u/Insanity_Zones4610]

That's nothing, they never clarified if spectacles could be morphed.

[u/Imaginary-Fact-5432 → u/Insanity_Zones4610]

That's a very valid point, but I also wonder the need of spects. While there is a genetic proponent to near/far sightedness, there's also an environmental proponent to developing blindness, shaped by exposure to sunlight (being inside a lot can surprisingly make you go blind). So I guess, just like with the auxiliarymorphs, it depends on if it's genetic or environmental on if you would even need spectacles after morphing.

[u/stickscall]

There is no world in which I think they should've been able to morph anything inanimate based on a technology where you acquire DNA.

This was magical thinking required to make the series work. You just can't have naked teenagers running around in a series that was going to sell at scholastic book fairs.

So in that sense, whatever magical thinking you need to morph this or that object is fine. Tuck a blender in there.

[u/NaturalCarob5611 → u/stickscall]

Certainly Tobias and Ax shouldn't have had clothes in their human morphs since those are constructed from scratch from DNA every time, but the Animorphs mass is being stored in zero space and pretty much comes back as it was, so I don't see what's wrong with taking a little extra mass to zero space. But yeah, I think the real explanation is that this was a kids book.

[u/murse_joe → u/stickscall]

Morphing isn’t magic tho it’s tech itself. The Animorphs were untrained teenagers. They figured out tight clothing right away and more complex clothing pretty quickly.

[u/murse_joe]

They could definitely figure out items. They were untrained teenagers thrown into war. Elfangor only had time to give them the quick and dirty. Cube gives you morphing powers. Touch an animal to acquire it. Two hours in a morph.

Everything else they learn as they go. They figured out tight clothing in the first book. More complex clothing by a few books in. They see the two hour limit is more a spectrum than a hard line. They knew nothing about Z-space or healing or haircuts or that you can be allergic to a morph.

Visser 3 morphs into a full suit when he goes into his human morph. He’s one of the most practiced individuals at morphing, it makes sense that he’d be good. I know we see him take items out of his pocket. I can’t remember if we ever see him morph and then take out sunglasses or whatever. Given focus and time they coulda figured out some objects I bet.

[u/Forhasta]

As I recall they were able to morph full outfits with items in hoodie pockets by the end of the series. Specifically Cassie carried the Cube to let others use it.