#ani 43

It's time for that morph. Tobias morphing Taylor.

Rachel chose the outfit, so I was dressed to kill. And I would have looked great in rags... I was a cover girl who could give even Angelina Jolie a run for her money.

That is a lot of confidence Tobias has from this morph. And it's not like the confidence is a Taylor trait. What he finds in her instincts are "gentleness, fear, and joy. Very little cunning. Almost no hate." Nothing about the sudden confidence boost Tobias gets from morphing a girl.

The kid turned to take my order. I smiled and he almost fell over. It was crazy to have such power. I'd been on the receiving end before. I'd never been the source. Is this what Rachel experienced? Was this part of what made her so brave?

I don't touch this one often because it's agonising. Tobias has been so broken by Taylor, everything's coming to the surface. As he says, Jake knows he needs to do this so he allows it but really he's obsessed.

I can't remember which book it was, but not too far back Marco was complaining about how Rachel always takes Cassie's side. She does, a bit, both Jake and Rachel rely on Cassie to tell them what's right, but what it is is that whether they agree or not Rachel will make sure Cassie's case is heard.

See, I'm not sure that's actually what happened. The Animorphs come to this conclusion because the yeerk peace faction was the target, but I honestly don't see Visser Three being subtle enough to use a plan like this. Yeah, he'd love to take out opposition quickly and wouldn't mind sacrificing his own, but V3 is not about subterfuge.

I think this was all "Taylor". A huge explosion killing a lot of yeerks right under Visser Three's nose would make him look bad and the peace movement yeerks and andalite bandits being taken out in the same moment would benefit her just as much if what she really wants is power.

It's also interesting to see Taylor as no longer cooperative with the yeerk - I think her trying to warn Tobias at Borders was real - the yeerk would have no reason to pretend to warn against her own plan. The yeerk being willing to let her host burn while she survives in the fortified skull is also quite a turn from the she/I/we thing of The Illusion.

Either Taylor and her yeerk have had a falling out or (crack theory time?) Taylor has a new yeerk since last we saw her. I could see V3 executing Sub-Visser Fifty-One but sparing the host the empire had spent resources rebuilding. A new yeerk would have access to all the memories of SV51's torture of Tobias so that could explain the differences in her relationship with the host she couldn't separate herself from before.

Or maybe Taylor went through a change of heart at seeing her own weakness reflected in a desperate yeerk willing to sacrifice her own for her own power and took new stock of her own choices and is not longer quite so voluntary anymore. Didn't think I'd come out of this wanting to see a Taylor (the host) redemption arc but here we are.

Rachel expressing doubts when thinking about how the plan will kill hosts too but arriving at the conclusion that she'd do it over the same because "With me, it's about instinct."