At a glance, the '90s book series Animorphs was simple and fun. But for a kids' series,
this was way darker and traumatizing than advertised. From genocide to existential nihilism,
the heroes of this classic YA novel series went through a lot. Let’s take a look at
some of the darkest aspects of Animorphs.
As the series begins, we’re given no information on the kids at the center of Animorphs, because
they have to protect their identity from the Yeerks . What doesn’t sink in until much
later is that these children have just been handed the responsibility of protecting the
whole planet. The Yeerks are a species of alien brain slug that invade their hosts through
the ear canal and wrap around the brain to control their victims. It makes them hard
to detect, and is the main reason why the kids are so adamant about maintaining their
anonymity. One of the themes that becomes apparent as
you read on is that the protagonists are essentially child soldiers, drafted into a war they didn’t
start. There are a few clues throughout the story as to their actual ages, but given the
kids featured on the covers, they look pretty young. Really, they can’t be much older
than 14. Can you recall what you were doing at that age? Not fighting an interplanetary
war against parasitic aliens, we bet.
Given that the entire series is about an intergalactic war focused on preventing mass invasion and
colonization, one would expect a series marketed toward kids to water down the ugliness of
war. Not Animorphs though. Over the course of the series, we gather more information
about the brain slugs, and how long their war has been going on. All told, decades have
passed since the fighting began. "I mean, we're dealing with some serious stuff
here. It's a little more drastic than fighting a zit."
Earth isn't the first stop on the Yeerks' colonization list. They’ve succeeded in
conquering many other species, and we're just another notch on their victim checklist. They
are so swift and effective at conquest, that their main nemesis, the Andalites , were willing
to wipe out an entire host species in order to stop them. They also attempted to wipe
out humanity before the Yeerks could infest us.
It gets worse. The Andalites are no strangers to using genocide to prevent a successful
invasion of the Yeerks. There was an entire book in the series dedicated to explaining
what led up to the fiasco that put the Hork-Bajir , a peaceful, herbivorous species, on the
endangered list, after being delivered into the grasp of the Yeerks.
Genocide is one of the central moral dilemmas of the entire series as the scope and scale
of the war expands beyond Earth. It seems that time and again, the Animorphs are faced
with nasty decisions like this, to the point where it nearly tears them apart. A prime
example is that it seems the kids are okay with killing Yeerks in a battle, but flushing
out unhosted Yeerks into the vacuum of space to cull their numbers? That’s crossing the
line.
One surprising turn in the series was the introduction of the Taxxons , a species that
practiced cannibalism. From the descriptions in the book, Taxxons are essentially 10-foot-long
centipedes with a three-foot circumference. While being akin to giant centipedes is gross
in and of itself, their description gets worse. Their mouths are just big round holes filled
with rows of teeth. Upon meeting Taxxons, it's pretty clear they're carnivorous. Not
only that, but we find out that they’re very squishy.
Most Taxxon battles end quickly, with the Animorphs dispatching them in single blows,
tearing the creatures open with little effort. This has unwanted side effects, as Taxxons
have an impeccable sense of smell, and when blood and guts are exposed, more come crawling.
This makes it difficult for the Yeerks to control them, as the unending hunger of the
Taxxons is unstoppable. Taxxons will eat any kind of meat, even each other, Yeerks in their
brains or not.
As things heat up and get progressively worse, the Animorphs are forced to take drastic measures
to turn the tide of the war. For quite a while, five kids and an alien teenager were doing
a bang-up job keeping the Yeerks on their toes all by their lonesome. However, their
streak of victories comes to an end, and the Animorphs find themselves looking to recruit
more soldiers. Jake, one of the leaders of the team, has the bright idea to recruit physically
disabled kids. They become known as the Auxiliary Animorphs, or the even less appealing Auxiliarymorphs.
To the Yeerks, disabled kids are "useless" in the war and considered disposable. Turns
out the parasitic aliens are apparently quite ableist, and they only want able-bodied humans
to control. The Animorphs see this as a golden opportunity to use the physically disabled
kids as a trump card. In their battle morphs, the heavy-hitting animal and alien forms they
take, the Auxiliary Animorphs were great on the field. They helped significantly bolster
the numbers of the original child soldiers. However, the sinister side of this is that
the Animorphs had no issues using them as cannon fodder during a crucial mission. Spoiler
alert: The death toll rises.
As the Animorphs series expanded and gained a cult following, several special edition
books started exploring the more philosophical side of war. The end result was that several
characters began suffering from deep existential crises. But it didn’t stop there. As the
stories progress, things go from weird to absolutely insane, and some of the characters
get a little dark. When a character called the Ellimist is introduced
early in the series, we are given a brief peek "behind the scenes" of the entire universe.
In the sequence, two beings are playing a strategy board game. Only, the board is the
entire galaxy, and the game stakes are the lives and existences of entire species.
We learn that the Ellimist is indirectly responsible for major events in the series, including
the reason five junior high school kids were given cool powers and are shouldered with
the burden of fighting an intergalactic war. The kids eventually find out that, for all
his power, the Ellimist can't offer them any assistance. This causes the Animorphs to become
disillusioned with the entire concept of a higher power, and aliens in general.
The best part of getting a new installment of the Animorphs books was that the cover
art would always feature the book’s narrator morphing into an animal of some sort, usually
the animal they morph into for the featured mission.
The cover art was always super detailed, highlighting each stage of the shapeshifting process. Antennae
sprouting from a forehead, arms turning into fins, face rearranging to become the compound
eyes of an insect. They even featured the morph on each page in a flip-book style animation
that allowed you to see the transformation in motion. It was cool, but after watching
Jake morph into an overdrawn fly, Rachel morphing into a giant bear, or Cassie turning into
some weird creature, it got to be overwhelming. We guess that's why Scholastic updated the
covers when they reprinted the series.
The Animorphs series enjoyed such a lofty tier of popularity in the mid-to-late '90s,
it was adapted into a full TV series on Nickelodeon's evening segment of shows called SNICK .
The show toned down the books significantly. In fact, if that show is all you know about
Animorphs, you'd likely never imagine this could be anything close to a traumatizing
series. However, we'd say the awful CGI, terrible prosthetic costumes, and animatronics reminiscent
of a malfunctioning Chuck E. Cheese were scary enough on their own. There wasn’t a need
to add the blood, gore, screaming, and terror that became staples of the books.
Still, Animorphs was a great series and a cultural staple of the Scholastic book fair.
We'd definitely recommend it for older crowds looking to laugh at the dated pop culture
references, the quintessentially '90s insults, and a lot of mentions of stores that were
popular at the time. "My Name Is Jake: Part 1"
"What is it?" "I don't know, but it's definitely not from
my hood." If Animorphs doesn't traumatize you, it'll
at least give you flashbacks. Check out one of our newest videos right here!
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