- Narrator: Tobias
Tobias copes with being trapped in hawk morph while the others search for a Yeerk ship in the woods.
Tropes:
- Alpha and Beta Wolves: The book treats this kind of wolf hierarchy as fact, with Jake and Marco arguing over who gets to be the male wolf (Jake wins) because otherwise, they'd fight to the death once in morph. In the graphic novel, this is changed to Marco acquiring his wolf without realizing it's female, and Cassie explaining to Jake that the Alpha Wolf theory has been debunked.
- Body Horror: The Animorphs hit the two hour time limit while demorphing from wolves, and nearly get stuck in part-human part-wolf forms. It's only with Cassie's encouragement that they're able to force themselves to demorph.
- David vs. Goliath: When the others are trapped in the Yeerk cargo ship as trout, Tobias is the only one left who can do something about it. He manages to steal a Dracon beam from a Taxxon-Controller and uses it to fry the ship's pilot and control panel, which in turn causes it to crash land.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: The female red-tail, the representation of Tobias allowing his hawk instincts to take over and leave his human life behind, is killed when the Yeerks mistake her for Tobias.
- Driven to Suicide: Tobias tries killing himself by flying into the mall's glass doors and skylights after his hawk hunger gets him to kill a rat. He's saved first by the sight of Rachel, and then by Marco breaking the skylight with a baseball.
- Eco-Terrorist: In the first of several incidents when the Animorphs rescue normal animals, Tobias frees a female red-tailed hawk from being used as a mascot for a car dealership. Rachel distracts the humans around the cage by crushing several cars as an elephant.
- Love Triangle: A strange one. Tobias the human is attracted to Rachel, but he's stuck as a hawk and can't have a physical relationship with her. Tobias the hawk is attracted to the female red-tail he rescued, and his instinct to find her overwhelms him at times.
- My Instincts Are Showing:
- Played for Drama with Tobias. He feels like the hawk is taking over his mind every time he does something an actual hawk would do, like hunt for food, live in the woods, and chase after a female hawk.
- While in wolf morph, Jake feels the need to mark his territory and howl. The others follow suit, while Cassie explains wolf behavior to them. It gets even worse when they encounter an actual wolf pack, and Jake explains his battle for dominance with the other male wolf as though he is an actual wolf.
- Series Continuity Error: Marco is shown morphing into a bald eagle instead of the osprey he acquired before the previous book. This is fixed in the graphic novel release.
