But they are also intentionally uncomfortable. Moreso than the early series, even. The kids have to make desperate, horrible choices as the war becomes more open (such as the human morphs without permission and Ax and the nuke here). As a kid it was a lot.

I wondered before the reread if maybe it was because when I first read through I was getting to an age where I could better understand the darker elements of the books around this time that I didn't notice before. On the reread, though? I think it's just that the stakes escalate so much once Esplin is promoted to Visser One that the protagonists end up fast-tracked into their endgame spiral in a way that crept slower before. It's the shift to open war that moves their character arcs into hyperdrive and the choices get darker and weightier by the same measure.

This says some concerning things about Andalite ethics and advancements that we have seen implied at times. But given Ax's horror at Estrid and Arbat's plan in #38, this is an... interesting opinion he's expressing here. Tonally he's saying that thinking about the implications of your actions is illogical, which seems to fit pretty well with his heavy reliance on a chain of command to think for him (something I've only ever experienced as an anxiety response).

Do you see what I mean? Yes, sometimes overthinking something can slow you down and sometimes two parties reach... not an ethical standpoint so much as a point at which their views are so alienated from each other that neither party will give way. I know that there isn't always a way to reach people and make them see things your way, and that people who don't believe in compromise are unlikely to make them. But progress without ethics gives you things like medical experiments on human beings that the person making advancements considers lesser. As a matter of fact, progress without ethics and views that will not align held by powerful people are things that happen in, and cause, war.