Errors, “Errors,” and Animorphs
So in a different post I ranted about how a tiny non-distracting unfixable difference between two shirts is not an error in Jurassic Park. IMHO, a continuity gap is only an error if:
It draws attention to itself and distracts the audience
It could’ve been fixed pretty easily in-story
It makes character, plot, or setting nonsensical
Animorphs has continuity gaps of its own. And I have opinions about what we readers do and do not count as “error.” First, an example that’s clearly an error:
I wondered if Tobias had heard my thought. I concentrated. Tobias, can you hear me?
«Yeah,» he said, «I hear you.»
“Did you hear my thoughts before that?” I asked.
«No, I don’t think it works that way. You have to think at me for me to hear.»
Tobias briefly hearing Jake thought-speak in #1 breaks the rules of the setting; several other books (#2, #23, #31, #33, #46) clearly state that it’s impossible to thought-speak if one is human and not in morph. It’s an easy fix: the re-releases and audiobooks delete this moment, and the graphic novel makes Tobias unable to hear Jake. It distracts the audience: I’ve gotten 5 or 6 separate asks over the years of people going “I was rereading #1, and the weirdest thing...” It’s an error. I can’t say what happened behind the scenes — K.A. Applegate toyed with a thread that was later dropped, or decided to introduce a limitation for plot fuel at a later time. But it’s an error.
Second, an example that I don’t think counts as an error:
I returned to my life, feeling strange and out of place. That night Jake came over. We went outside.
"I tried morphing the Tyrannosaurus," he said. "Nothing. Didn't work."
"You could ask Ax. He may know why."
Jake laughed. "Yeah, but even if he explains it, I still won't understand it."
—MM2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs [Cassie’s narration]
The kids not being able to morph dinosaurs outside of the Cretaceous Era makes a lot of sense in context. The whole book series would fundamentally change if they could use T. rex — that would become heavily a favored morph for many of them. It kicks off all kinds of plot questions that demand answers: Where do the controllers think the “andalite bandits” got dino DNA? What anti-dinosaur measures would they be forced to adopt? Would the Animorphs’ whole strategy change around having those morphs? How would Rachel feel about everyone but Tobias suddenly having a much stronger morph than her? Would they even bother with contemporary animal morphs afterward?
If the kids are morphing dinosaurs all the time after ~#18, then the series loses a lot of its uniqueness. Applegate has said that most of the inspiration for the series was about trying to help kids understand what it would really be like to be inside an animal mind, with as many animals as possible. That’s part of why so many of the plots hinge on giving the Animorphs an excuse to learn a new morph (e.g. #4, #17, #27, #47, #52) so that we can experience the coolness right along with them. That’s why the war is explicitly about fighting for Earth, nonhumans and all (#7, #23, #53). If it’s not a menagerie of six different critters — including one immigrant from space — rolling up to battle, then it’s not Animorphs. No, it makes no dang sense that sario rip morphs stop working once the rip gets unripped. But the series acknowledges it, and it allows us both to have a unique animal-based story (dinosaurs! Heckin dinosaurs!) without ruining its own premise.
Third, one that I find fascinating because it’s kind of right on the margin:
"What I don't get is why I have to be a girl wolf," Marco grumbled.
"We had one male and one female," Cassie explained for the tenth time. "If two of us morphed into the male, we'd have two males. Two male wolves might decide they had to fight for dominance."
"I could control it," Marco said.
"Marco, you and Jake already fight for dominance, and you're just ordinary guys," Rachel pointed out.
Later, Tobias’s narration uses the word “alpha” to describe Jake’s morphed behavior — howling and peeing to mark territory, challenging another wolf pack to protect his own.
There is scientific consensus right now, as of the 2020s, that the term “alpha” is an inaccurate descriptor of pack-lead behavior, and that dominance fights between adult males are almost nonexistent. That although wolves usually run in a phalanx-like shape with one middle-aged male and female at the point, this isn’t the result of dominance fights but rather an effort to have the physically strongest wolves absorb blows from rogue prey animals or rival predators. That the dominance fights observed in captive wolves in the 1970s were the result of an ecology error, putting wolves from rival packs into single enclosures. Fox (1972, 1973) gave a reasonably accurate description of how wolves behave if you put a bunch of adult strangers in a zoo together: the young adult males fight, the winner of that fight wins first access to food, and the mate of the winner gets the most resources for her puppies.
However, time rolls forward, and advances like hidden cameras (and the resurgence of wild wolf populations) allow us to watch wolves without needing to capture them first. Mech (1999) follows some such wolves around, and quickly realizes that dominance and submission aren’t nearly as important among wolves who chose to make a pack. Stahler et al. (2002) figure out a better way to introduce stranger wolves in captivity, and get full cooperation among young adult males. Nowadays drones and radio collars get 1000s of times the wolf data Fox had to work with, and reveal intense cooperation with little more than play-fighting among puppies.
The Encounter comes out in 1997. Mech publishes the first big take-down of the alpha concept in 1999.
Did an error occur anywhere in this process?
No, in that Applegate presumably doesn’t own a Time Matrix and published a book based on the scientific consensus at the time about how wolf social dynamics worked.
Yes, in that the error is pretty distracting — I get drawn up short by it every time I reread #3, and I know others have too.
No, in that the error was corrected in the graphic novel adaptation.
Yes, in that the error is still present in the audiobook, and Michael Crouch delivers the moment about Jake being backed into a dominance fight with all of Tobias’s exasperated humor.
No, in that the error allows for some character moments, both silly (Jake peeing on trees) and sweet (Jake being ready to take on an entire rival pack alone, over a rabbit he doesn’t want).
Yes, in that the error takes away from one of the series’ most fundamental purposes, to educate kids about animals.
Anyway, books are great, science is imperfect, and I think the more we all engage with amateur criticism the more we’re all going to learn about what counts as an error in fiction writing with inspiration in scientific reality.
