#kandrona

I’m gonna be honest, off the top of my head, I do not remember a single thing about this book. Rachel’s my fave, as always, so I know I’ll enjoy it. But which one is this? No idea. So let’s get into it.

I appreciate the recap being less than a page long.

I don’t think about Rachel’s dad that often, probably because he’s mostly absent. But he really does have a major impact on Rachel. She openly admits how alike they are, and it’s the first time she gives positive connotations to her own skills and qualities. (See my last report on a Rachel book where she compares herself to Cassie). But when comparing herself to her dad, she strives to be like him and to do things that he would approve of. (Also, a news anchor, olympic level ex gymnast? Who gave Rachel her genetics? As a kid, I just Knew he’s hot. But as an adult? He gives up custody of his kids and moves to a different city. He’s a fuckboy. And we all deserve better).

More ecoterrorism.

“It’s not about cheap thrills. It’s about feeling like I am involved in something very important.” This is what Rachel will cling to for the rest of the series (her life). No matter what she does, what acts she commits, no matter how grey they become. She’s on the good guy team, so she must be good. Right?

Oh wait, now I remember the plot. This is them deciding after having one and a half good plans that they’re ready to try and destroy the yeerk kandrona. This was also a plot point in the board game I believe. I loved that game.

I think I forget about Rachel’s home life from time to time. But eldest daughter of divorced parents, lives with the emotionally distant one and resembles the absent parent? She was me. Of course I didn’t want to think about her home life. It was my home life. And I read these books to Not think about my home life.

“I just left. Let him feel what it’s like” okay girl.

I take it back, he’s worse than a fuckboy. He’s moving away from his daughters to a different state. And because he’s afraid of being lonely, he asks his 13 year old daughter to decide to move with him. He doesn’t give up the new job to stay more in his daughters’ lives. He doesn’t go to court to get an official ruling (although let’s be honest, he could never beat Naomi in court). He puts it on Rachel to decide. He tells her about a possible big time gymnastics opportunity, and about all the fun sports games and activities they could go on together. He’d be a terrible parent. He just wants his friend to go with him. But she’s not his friend, she’s his daughter.

On reread, I think this is the beginning of Rachel’s downward spiral. The way she considers a normal life for an hour, but then immediately feels guilty by comparing herself to Tobias. She buries herself further by doubling down on the idea that she never gives up a fight. She had plenty of things in her life, but she’s just decided that she’ll give up anything and everything for the fight. And she will continue down this path until she’s killed by a polar bear morph.

Rachel’s instinct is to run and hug Tobias because for the first time she can. And Tobias’s first instinct is to cream and try to fly away. I’m crying and laughing at the same time.

Also, the kids meet god. Marco cracks jokes, and Rachel yells at him.

And now I’m stressing that they just demorphed to HUMAN in front of a cafeteria full of controllers. Even if we suspend disbelief and consider that all of the controllers missed it and thought they morphed INTO human form- is no one suspicious that one of the bandits remained andante while the others morphed? And does no one recognize these human children? 

Is this the first time Rachel’s lost control and gave into the blood lust? She blames it on being new to the grizzly morph, but she admits that she mixed the grizzly anger with her own. The parallels to beginner drug use are eerie. And for his part, Jake helps bring her back to herself, but he immediately admits that the grizzly -that Rachel using the grizzly- saved their lives. Can we count this as foreshadowing score- 5?

This book does a really good job of using the juxtaposition of the kids’ normal lives against their animorph problems. Having to go to school and raise my siblings had me walking in a daze. This shit is zombifying.

Can confirm that Keanu Reeves was very cute in 1997.

“I wasn’t brave. I was just blind.” Very symbolic. As Rachel slips deeper into warrior mode, she looks less and less. She thinks less because looking inward starts to scare her. She starts feeling less because it makes her job harder. 

They also made god laugh.

Me and my host wanted to ask how you've been getting along without a pool, as we've yet to find one in our area. Would you happen to know about one, or have you been using alternatives? Best of luck to your fanfic as well Crea, we hope ideas come freely and quickly.

-May the Kandrona Shine and Strengthen You, Magnolia

Hi Magnolia (such a beautiful name, I love it <3),

Thank you for your message, and sorry to have taken so long to reply.

To be completely honest, I live in a region where there aren’t any other Controllers. It can feel lonely sometimes…

Regarding the Kandrona issue, my solution is simple:

Okay, I admit it’s anything but a good solution. But:

1/ It’s delicious. 2/ I’m already completely crazy by nature anyway.

Oh, and 3/ It annoys my host, especially when she ends up writing or drawing at 3 a.m. I enjoy teasing her.

That said, it’s obvious I don’t recommend resorting to such a solution, even to survive. While it has no effect on human hosts, it’s still a drug for us.

I’d be curious to know your own solution to this problem.

I’ve always kinda hypothesized that the Yeerk homeworld’s rotation is rather slower than ours, and so what we think of as every three days would be every day for a Yeerk.

No idea if this holds up in practice, but it’s a thought

Yes, that works! Because we know that kandrona is their homeworld's sunlight. So maybe they evolved near the pole of their homeworld, and can survive months-long periods of only having an hour of sunlight per (72-hour) day.

That's also an interesting twist on the question of how hungry any given yeerk is at any given time. Like, a human can get by eating once a day — we might've done that for millennia, depending on how anthropologists interpret it — but that's probably not optimal for us. Two meals a day (e.g. ancient Egypt), three meals a day (e.g. modern U.S.), or continuous grazing (e.g. 1600s Haudenosaunee) seems to be better for our digestion. But there's some evidence eating once a day might be better for circulatory health.

There's also evidence that a human who eats once a day can get by for longer on less food than one who eats thrice a day. I'm a "miss one meal, pass the fuck out" type of modern human; my homeostasis demands that I eat every ~6 hours if I don't want to be unconscious. One meal every 72 hours sounds monstrous to me. BUT we know it's possible for humans to be happy/healthy with one meal a day if that's how they grow up. So I think "yeerks are constantly hungry" and "yeerks are comfortable, as long as they don't go 70+ hours without an hour in kandrona" are both valid interpretations of canon.

I think that in a world where yeerks need kandrona every two hours, the invasion can't happen like in canon. We know a kandrona generator is "the size of a small car" and that yeerk pools don't work without it (#7). The yeerks might have to take a few decades and improve kandrona technology (i.e. #41) and then invade Earth, because an invasion would be too risky without that tech.

That said, the yeerks are fleeing the andalites as much as they are colonizing planets — the andalites control their homeworld, part of why they're stealing everyone else's. So maybe the yeerks try to make do, for lack of time. Probably they'd equip humans with thermoses of kandrona à la AniTV, and then help controllers create excuses to slip out every two hours. The thermoses might have to be refilled often, but there's a system for that in canon.

However, as anyone who's ever raised an infant can tell you, humans do not function well if their sleep is constantly interrupted every two hours. So lots of tired/confused controllers. And all kinds of other issues — work shifts with an "on" component, long tests, driving really far, needing a security team 24/7, being in hospital, etc. It'd preclude taking most important people as hosts, including anyone who regularly flies on airplanes. Animorphs can go for weeks without morphing, and can pop briefly out of morph in a pinch (even underwater and in the yeerk pool as needed). Yeerks literally die without kandrona, and they can't leave their hosts unattended for even a second; Mr. Pardue gets like 10 seconds of freedom in #8 makes a huge mess.

My headcanon is that yeerks eat not like humans, but like snakes. Snakes eat huge meals — they get those food bulges after swallowing a rat or bird that's twice their own diameter — and they only eat about one meal a week. It's not healthy for them to eat more often because they digest really slowly and can end up with serious health problems if they outgrow (and then have to shed) too many skins. The internet is full of vets begging people not to feed their pet snakes too often, even though one meal a week seems like that "gorge then starve" pattern to us humans.

This theory fits what you're saying that we don't see yeerks' behavior slipping as they get closer to that three-hour limit; they're not that hungry. Obviously the snake-yeerk parallel isn't perfect, since the yeerks' margin for error is "miss a single meal by a few hours and starve to death", but I also think it would've come up more (in #19) if most hosted yeerks are in poor health due to crappy diet.

I also wonder how firm the three-day limit is. The most in-depth we see it is in #6 with Temrash 114, but it's not clear to me if:

Temrash infests Jake late on Day 1, spends Day 2 and Day 3 in the cabin, and dies near dawn on Day 4, OR

Temrash infests Jake early on Day 1, spends the rest of Day 1 and all of Day 2 in the cabin, and dies near dawn on Day 3

Yes there is one! The Animorphs can't feed her. There's only one kandrona source in the area, in the yeerk pool. As Aftran herself says: "We both know I will be dead in three days no matter what you do" (#29). She can't go back to the yeerk pool now that she's a known traitor, and she can't eat without the yeerk pool. Morphing doesn't prevent starving (#49), but becoming a nothlit can permanently switch you to a different food source.