The Visitor

In today’s very special episode of Animorphs, Rachel escapes a rapist by morphing into an elephant. Turns out Yeerks aren’t the only slimy things that want to crawl inside you without consent. This is also the book where we discover that Assistant Principal Chapman did give his consent for the Yeerk Iniss 226 to crawl into his ear.

“This morphing thing would be so excellent if it weren’t for the whole thing with the Yeerks,” Marco was saying. “I mean, if it were just normal, we could really use these powers.”

Reading this line, I wondered what a more cynical take on the the Animorphs concept would look like. For all the series’s violence and moral ambiguity, it centres around a group of kids who are pretty unwaveringly Good People. Imagine if Elfangor had given morphing powers to the kids from Chronicle instead.

Nothing of enormous plot importance happens in this book, but it’s worth reading as an introduction to Rachel’s perspective and a deeper look at the varied motivations of different human controllers, something which gives a lot of nuance to the mind-controlling slugs plot. We’re going to need some nuance over 54+ books!