I am amazed what they got away with for a 90s book series. The series showed ethical dilemmas with torture, genocide, the treatment of POWs, slavery, fighting an extraterrestrial invasion in the US, and dealing with traitors during wartime.
The main cast of Animorphs are literally terrorists who do terrorism to thwart a covert alien invasion, killing civillians along the way, and they have huge internal drama and strife over this.
Actual Spoiler
Tobias basically gets stuck being a hawk/falcon permanently, and basically just… becomes one, almost entirely losing any traces of having once been a human being, a fair analogy to a solider with massive PTSD just… never being the same afterward.
It really is amazing that these books didn’t get censored during the post 9/11 wave of propoganda and ‘patriotism’ that censored so many other things.
Also, random trivia: There does actually exist a single season of a TV adaptation of Animorphs.
It was poorly received, not renewed, and only got a VHS, not even DVD release at the time… but apparently it is on some streaming services nowadays.
Yeah it was a serious learning opportunity for me. I seem to remember one story where they went back in time to the Delaware crossing during the Revolutionary Era, except Washington ended up getting shot and killed… Unless I’m getting my childhood book memories conflated 🤔
Oh man that’s a callback. I haven’t read Animorphs since 6th grade…
I am amazed what they got away with for a 90s book series. The series showed ethical dilemmas with torture, genocide, the treatment of POWs, slavery, fighting an extraterrestrial invasion in the US, and dealing with traitors during wartime.
The main cast of Animorphs are literally terrorists who do terrorism to thwart a covert alien invasion, killing civillians along the way, and they have huge internal drama and strife over this.
Actual Spoiler
Tobias basically gets stuck being a hawk/falcon permanently, and basically just… becomes one, almost entirely losing any traces of having once been a human being, a fair analogy to a solider with massive PTSD just… never being the same afterward.
It really is amazing that these books didn’t get censored during the post 9/11 wave of propoganda and ‘patriotism’ that censored so many other things.
Also, random trivia: There does actually exist a single season of a TV adaptation of Animorphs.
It was poorly received, not renewed, and only got a VHS, not even DVD release at the time… but apparently it is on some streaming services nowadays.
Yeah it was a serious learning opportunity for me. I seem to remember one story where they went back in time to the Delaware crossing during the Revolutionary Era, except Washington ended up getting shot and killed… Unless I’m getting my childhood book memories conflated 🤔