History Animorphs / TropesAToH

* CantStayNormal: [[spoiler:Cassie]] is a sub-temporally grounded anomaly. When the Drode reworks reality so that the kids never got the morphing power, allowing them to stay normal kids, [[spoiler:Cassie]]'s mere ''existence'' causes the new reality to go haywire, with people randomly teleporting between locations and coming back from the dead. Depending on how you look at it, [[spoiler:Cassie]] either can't stay normal, because having animal morphing powers from alien technology is the the true reality and any attempt to deviate from that will end up breaking reality, or she can't stay ''abnormal,'' if you postulate that "animal morphing powers from alien technology" is her normal.

** In ''Back to Before'', a side-novel that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Animorphs never got their powers, Rachel grabs a baseball bat and beats "Tom" unconsciousness with it when he's trying to take Jake to the Yeerk Pool. Sounds bloody.

** Marco also does this after his dad discovers Z-space, trying to see if his dad's a controller by pointing out that the trip his dad wants to take would mean they'd be gone more than three days, the amount of time a Yeerk can go between feedings.

* BorrowedWithoutPermission: The main characters are occasionally forced to steal things from innocent civilians in their guerrilla war against PuppeteerParasites- most often clothes, since their shape-shifting abilities only work in thin leotards, which aren't great for blending in. They do try to later pay back what they took. Their SixthRanger David, however...

* BoysLikeCreepyCritters: Inverted. In ''The Change'', Marco, having just learned that the terrifying Hork-Bajir aliens have males and females, idly wonders how you tell them apart, like looking for [[TertiarySexualCharacteristics bows on their head]] or "getting weird around bugs and snakes". Since this is taking place in [[FriendToAllLivingThings Cassie's]] barn, she throws a garden snake at him. He panics.

* BreakTheHaughty: Alloran was an arrogant, ruthless, bitter, snobbish war criminal who was sure that everything he did (including trying to commit genocide against the people he was trying to save) was right and everyone who disagreed was foolish and naive. Then he was enslaved for years by one of his greatest enemies and forced to murder and murder indiscriminately. In #8, he begs for Ax to kill him; in #54, he gives himself up to Jake's command.

* BringHimToMe

* ButterflyOfTransformation: ''The Departure'' heavily features the theme of a caterpillar, and later a butterfly. It is not a coincidence that this is where Cassie meets a surprisingly sympathetic [[PuppeteerParasite yeerk]], one willing to give up her host body [[spoiler:if Cassie is willing to experience the rest of her life as a Yeerk... or the closest thing at hand: a caterpillar]]. This, along with Cassie's continued realisation that the world isn't as [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white]] as she thought, signifies change. [[spoiler:It also brings up the fact that natural metamorphosis can somehow undo the ShapeshifterModeLock of remaining more than two Earth hours in morph, something Cassie willingly did to make the Yeerk free her host.]]

* AssholeVictim: Book 25 has an extinct alien race known as the [[AnIcePerson Venber]] being cloned back into existence by the Yeerks to serve as slaves in cold climates. At one point Ax is telling the story of how the Venber went extinct: an alien race known only as "The Five" hunted them to extinction (despite them being sentient) as their bodies make a highly effective coolant when melted. He then explains the Five went extinct too, and while he says no one knows why, it's heavily implied that the Andalites were so disgusted by what they did to the Venber that they wiped them out as well.

** A couple of books in the' series take place on the Hork-Bajir planet, where several deep chasms open down to the molten planetary core. The Arn, a winged species, have cliff dwellings extending partway down these chasms, with very thin walkways. In two separate instances, Andalites have concluded that there is no need to worry about the magma, because the body would ''probably'' be disintegrated in mid-fall.

* BadassAdorable: All the human Animorphs at least. At the start they are at most 13 or so.

** In ''Back to Before'', a side-novel that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Animorphs never got their powers, Rachel grabs a baseball bat and beats "Tom" with it when he's trying to take Jake to the Yeerk Pool.

** There are several Yeerks that suspect that the "Andalite bandits" may actually be human. But none of them are crazy enough to tell him he's wrong. If he wasn't like this, the Visser would have won fairly early on.

** In ''The Stranger'', the Ellimist transports the Animorphs to Earth in the future where the Yeerks have conquered the planet, and all of them are either dead or infested. However, some errors that future-Visser Three makes when speaking to the Animorphs convince them that this is a ''possible'' future, not the definitive future, and they resolve to avert it.

* BearsAreBadNews: Rachel, always on the edge between ActionGirl and BloodKnight, loves her grizzly morph. The characters consider their polar bear morphs to be their most dangerous -- even more dangerous than Rachel's grizzly bear -- with good reason. [[spoiler:Rachel was killed by a Yeerk in polar bear morph.]]
** This is another example of ScienceMarchesOn, to an extent; it is now known that in over 70% of the encounters between a wild grizzly bear and a wild polar bear, the polar bear comes out on the losing side.

* BenevolentMonsters: The Hork-bajir are fearsome looking creatures with blades sticking out in almost every direction, but when they are introduced, Elfangor stresses that they are good people when they don't have a Yeerk in their brain. The blades are actually for slicing apart the plants they eat on their homeworld.

** At one point in the series, when Jake and Controller Tom are talking (which they do often, being brothers, obviously), "Tom" lies to Jake to cover his status as a Controller, and, if only for a second, Jake notices Tom's face twitch strangely. Jake suspects that Tom is trying so hard to fight against his Yeerk that he momentarily wrestled control of his body away from the Yeerk, which is pretty much established as impossible.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The Yeerk invasion is defeated, but Rachel, Tom, and several supporting characters die in the process. Jake and Tobias suffer from depression and find themselves unable to adjust to life after the war. As if that isn't enough, Ax gets captured by a new enemy and the rest of the Animorphs try to rescue him, only to result in a BolivianArmyEnding. Cassie survives, since Jake knows she's never been a warrior at heart and doesn't take her on the rescue mission. Despite Jake's suggestion of marriage in #53, they drifted apart afterwards and Cassie is dating someone else. That's both official couples torpedoed, since Rachel is dead. Tobias has Rachel's ashes, and unless he traps himself in a morph that lives longer than a red-tailed hawk, he may get to be TogetherInDeath with her soon afterward. The ''Animorphs'' universe apparently has ''some sort'' of afterlife, as Rachel's spirit got to talk to the Ellimist for a few moments before continuing on its ghostly way to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence or whatever.]]

** He's affected by other things. In "The Pretender," when he watches Rachel transform into an eagle, he gets waaaaay too into it, even adding that "the pair can't mate since Rachel's eagle morph is male.
** He also seemed interested in a female red-tialed hawk in book 3, although this is primarily because he's stuck in the body of a maturing red-tailed hawk who is feeling mating instincts for another hawk, and as a thirteen year old boy he struggles to deal with these urgers.

** #11: The Forgotten has Jake experiencing an alternate timeline where the Animorphs are stranded in the Amazon rainforest.

** Yeerks: Literal brain-slugs who control your mind. But the Yeerks were largely pushed towards conquest by a hatred of their standing in the galaxy. In their natural state, they're 2-inch slugs, doomed to a blind, drab existence while cursed with the sentience to understand just how awful such a life is unless they take host bodies. Most, at least the ones we see on Earth, have embraced conquest, but there are a few who cooperate with the host rather than completely controlling it, and even fewer who are actively against the invasion. They're [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Often Chaotic Evil]], but not always. Even those who have embraced the imperialist philosophy don't see themselves as evil, just doing what they naturally do (you don't think of yourself as evil because you kill and eat pigs, do you?); this mindset has been drilled into them with Yeerk Empire propaganda since birth.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Gafinilan and Mertil. They either have a very close and important friendship or the most well-written romance in the whole series. We don't get definitive evidence either way.
** [[WordOfGay Confirmed]] [[https://medium.com/@MichaelGrantBks/on-diversity-fa3cefb0e0a7 by Michael Grant]]

** Jara Hamee later names his daughter [[GenderBlenderName Toby]]. Justified because she's named after Tobias.

* AndIMustScream: If you're infested by a Yeerk (like Tom and Eva), then your memory and body is completely at his command... And it leaves your mind and intelligence intact, completely unable to do anything other than watch your "guest" do all sorts of horrible things, at least while they're not going for a swim in the Yeerk Pool. The Yeerks themselves suffer this in their natural state, being blind, mostly deaf slugs who just happen to be sentient.
** In order to get rid of David (who impersonated Jake's and Rachel's cousin Saddler after he died from injuries), the Animorphs trick him into transforming into a rat, lock him in a cage so he can't demorph, and then wait two hours until he becomes a [[ShapeshifterModeLock nothlit]], before sending him to an island along with many other rats.

* AnimalEspionage: Most of the team's non-combat morphs are for this purpose, and in time manage to get the hang of a morph's senses (especially [[LiteralSurveillanceBug insects]]) well enough to understand what's being said. The Yeerks [[TaughtByExperience grow wise about this]], and take great care to kill any insect or animal that enters their facilities.

** Cassie purposely chooses a [[NobleWolf wolf]] morph for combat, even after she acquires far more powerful animals, as she hates fighting and prefers not to seriously hurt her opponents. (Although out of the team's battle morphs, the wolf has ''by far'' the greatest stamina and endurance; this represented how Cassie was able to hold onto her morals, even to the end.)
** And obviously, Tobias is the [[NobleBirdOfPrey hawk]]. Even after he regains his morphing ability, he often goes into battle in his [[ShapeshifterDefaultForm now-default hawk form]].
** Ax also often goes into battle unmorphed, since Andalites are plenty dangerous in their natural state (''extremely'' sharp tail blades, remember?).
** David has the [[LightningBruiser lion]] and the [[YouDirtyRat rat]] - the lion represents his [[KingOfBeasts savage fighting style]], as even Jake in his tiger morph couldn't defeat him, while the rat represents his [[AmbitionIsEvil cunning and self-serving nature]].
** When [[spoiler:Tom]] acquires the morphing power late in the series, the only morph he is ever seen using is a [[ScaledUp cobra]]. This is incredibly fitting, given [[SmugSnake his role in the final story arc]].

* AntiHero: All the Animorphs are this as they do some rather unsavory things while fighting the yeerks.

** During an accidental mission in the Amazon, Rachel falls unconscious in bear morph on top of an army ant colony. Cassie starts ripping out bloody chunks from her and puts on a nearby ant colony so the ants start fighting each other instead of devouring Rachel, lasting long enough that Rachel can jump in the river to get rid of the ants.
* AntWar: In one book, Rachel falls unconscious on top of an army ant colony while in bear morph and starts getting eaten alive by them. Cassie rips out chunks of her to lure over a nearby ant colony so the ants will start fighting each other instead, buying time for Rachel to regain consciousness and jump in a river to get rid of the ants.

** {{Justified| Trope}}; the main characters are all teenagers, after all. Marco's interest in women is often brought up, and he does everything from [[GirlOnGirlIsHot trying to get Cassie and Rachel to make out]] to using the internet to [[TheInternetIsForPorn look up scantily clad women]]. Jake makes fun of Marco for it, but when Cassie's in a bikini, Jake [[MyEyesAreUpHere can't stop staring]]. Even Ax is portrayed as being a poor student because he's always thinking about girls (he's a teenager too, albeit an Andalite teenager). [[ChivalrousPervert Tobias is the only one unaffected, most of the time.]] During a trip back in time, Tobias' wing is injured,[[note]]Despite morphing being able to fix injuries, a side-effect of this particular Sario Rip leaves Tobias unable to fix his wing. It's basically to have a way to keep Tobias and Rachel from reuniting with the other Animorphs to soon, and as soon as they do reunite, Tobias' wing is quickly healed by the next chapter.[[/note]] forcing Rachel (who is wearing a leotard) to tear her outfit to create strips to mend his wing. She then mentions that she hopes Tobias doesn't break another wing, as she can't rip more material without having a wardrobe malfunction. Tobias tells her that if she did have one, he would not look, which Rachel promptly replies with a "Uh-huh."

** {{Justified| Trope}}; the main characters are all teenagers, after all. Marco's interest in women is often brought up, and he does everything from [[GirlOnGirlIsHot trying to get Cassie and Rachel to make out]] to using the internet to [[TheInternetIsForPorn look up scantily clad women]]. Jake makes fun of Marco for it, but when Cassie's in a bikini, Jake [[MyEyesAreUpHere can't stop staring]]. Even Ax is portrayed as being a poor student because he's always thinking about girls (he's a teenager too, albeit an Andalite teenager). [[ChivalrousPervert Tobias is the only one unaffected, most of the time.]] During a trip back in time, Tobias' wing is injured, forcing Rachel (who is wearing a leotard) to tear her outfit to create strips to mend his wing. She then mentions that she hopes Tobias doesn't break another wing, as she can't rip more material without having a wardrobe malfunction. Tobias tells her that if she did have one, he would not look, which Rachel promptly replies with a "Uh-huh."

* AbsurdlySharpClaws: Andalite tail-blades are incredibly precise and demonstrably sharp enough to cut metal and lop off limbs.
* AccidentalAdultery: Marco's mother Eva is thought to have died in a boating accident, but in actuality she was infested by the parasitic alien Visser One, who staged the accident as a cover. Marco eventually discovers this, but is forced to keep it and his double life a secret. However, his dad starts courting another lady, and Marco has trouble accepting her knowing that his real mother is still alive (that, and she's a math teacher). He ultimately lets them marry, deciding it's better that they move on, but shortly after Eva is freed, and Marco's dad reunites with her. They have some trouble reconnecting at first, but are later said to be "as in love as ever". (It helps that the new wife was infested, and Marco lied to his dad that she'd been a controller the whole time).
* AccidentalTimeTravel: Sario rips tend to send the Animorphs to random time periods when they get caught in them.

** Rachel is a beautiful, popular girl with an indomitable spirit, is recognized as having the makings of a world-class gymnast, and is a genius student (she gets a national award for academic excellence at one point). Unfortunately the war turns her into a violent BloodKnight until everything else disappears from her life.

* AlienAbduction: The Skrit Na abduct and experiment on humans for unknown reasons.

* AlienAmongUs: There's aliens all over the Earth, of course, but Ax is the only one who fits this trope as an Andalite stuck on the planet who has to learn human customs to fit in. The only other major alien races on Earth, the Yeerks and the Chee, are there by choice, have ships that would allow them to leave if they really wanted to, and have no problem at all integrating into human society -- the Yeerks because they can scan their host's memories, the Chee because they've been living with humans for millennia.

* AliensAreBastards: Fairly obvious with the Yeerks, but the Andalite case is far more interesting. In the beginning of the series, kids look up to their erstwhile saviors, the great and glorious Andalites, and are counting on them to swoop in and save the day. It becomes increasingly obvious, however, that Andalite military command couldn't care less about humans. In the end, their strategy for for winning the war was to ''bombard Earth from orbit'' to take out as many Yeerks as possible. Subverted though, as this only applies to the Andalite military. The final chapter reveals that Andalite civilians are nowhere near the [[{{Jerkass}} Jerkasses]] their military would give you the impression they are and get along with humans perfectly fine.

* AliensStealCable: And record every channel! The Andalites apparently show TV programs like the news and MTV in school as part of learning about humans. At one point Ax, apparently not content with free-to-air TV, actually does steal cable.

** {{Justified| Trope}}; the main characters are all teenagers, after all. Marco's libido is often brought up, and he does everything from [[GirlOnGirlIsHot trying to get Cassie and Rachel to make out]] to using the internet to [[TheInternetIsForPorn look up scantily clad women]]. Jake makes fun of Marco for it, but when Cassie's in a bikini, Jake [[MyEyesAreUpHere can't stop staring]]. Even Ax is portrayed as being a poor student because he's always thinking about girls (he's a teenager too, albeit an Andalite teenager). [[ChivalrousPervert Tobias is the only one unaffected, most of the time.]]

** He's affected by other things. In "The Pretender," when he watches Rachel transform into an eagle, he gets waaaaay too into it. He also seemed interested in a female Red-Tail in book 3.
*** Unfortunately for him, Rachel's eagle morph is a male.

* AlphaAndBetaWolves: When morphing wolves for the first time, Jake is the only male because Cassie didn't want to waste time having two male wolves fighting for dominance, [[ScienceMarchesOn even though that isn't how wolves behave in the wild]]. It works out well (although Jake feels the need to pee against every tree they pass), until they meet a wild wolfpack.

** ''Megamorphs #3: Elfangor's Secret'' and ''Megamorphs #4: Back to Before'' both play with this. In #3, they follow Visser Four with the Time Matrix and experience him changing the outcome of battles and other historical events to his benefit. In #4, the Drode lets Jake see what it would have been like if they had never been given the morphing powers.
** #41 ''The Familiar'' is also an example: Jake goes to a potential future.
** Predating all these examples is #07 ''The Stranger''. Animorphs was fond of this trope.

* TheCretaceousIsAlwaysDoomed: In ''Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs'', a hole in space-time causes the Animorphs to accidentally arrive one day before the asteroid hit. They get into a tussle with several warring AncientAstronauts trying to colonize Earth, the losing species attempting revenge by diverting the path of a passing comet. The meteor's strike creates another hole that lets the kids return to the present. It was one of the weirder books.

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: ...because he was actually an alien warrior and there was some time travel involved... Sorry, [[spoiler:Tobias.]]
* DangerousDeserter: David in #22 ''The Solution''.

* DarkIsEvil: All of the yeerk ships are described as a very dark black color

* DeadManWriting: Aldrea's stored persona.

* DeadPersonImpersonation: David [[spoiler:morphing Jake and Rachel's dead cousin]].

** A whole list of [=KASUs=] can be found at this page: [[http://web.archive.org/web/20091027005821/http://geocities.com/sbsa01/kasu.htm "A List of Mistakes in Animorphs"]][[note]]Archive generated by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (dating back to October 27, 2009), due to the closure of Website/{{Yahoo}} [=GeoCities=].[[/note]].

* DidntThinkThisThrough: In ''The Android'', the Animorphs morph bats in order to navigate a pitch-black room rigged with tripwires and pressure sensors so they can recover a valuable alien crystal. it isn't until they reach the crystal that they realize they have no way to actually carry the crystal ''out'' of the room beyond one of the team carrying it in their mouth, which would render them unable to avoid the sensors.

** Another example of this from the eighth book is Alloran's revelation that Yeerks have infiltrated the Andalite home world. This bombshell gets a ''single'' payoff in the form of an uninfested Andalite traitor who appears in the eighteenth book, but after that it's completely forgotten.

** The cover morphs even have this as Jake's cover morph into a lizard on the first book is depicted in eight steps (Jake's human form, the final lizards form, and six middle stages in-between). The rest of the series from the second book onwards depict the cover morphs in only five steps (the viewpoint character's default human/hawk/Andalite form, the final animal form, and three middle stages in-between).

** In book #3, they need to catch fish to acquire them and sneak into an invisible Yeerk ship. Despite two of them (Cassie and Marco) having osprey morphs and Rachel having a bald eagle morph, they waste hours trying to catch fish with a line and hook.
** In book #22 Marco gets tied up and thrown in his bedroom closet and it takes all night for him to escape when he could have easily morphed into a small animal to get free.

* ForgotICouldFly: Sometimes they forget the different abilities their morphs have.
** There is something of a RunningGag with them forgetting that cockroaches can fly. Subverted once, where narrator remembers that cockroaches can fly and attempts to do so, only to remember that cockroaches can't fly ''well''.
** There's also a rather infamous incident in ''The Familiar'' where Future Cassie is thrown from a tower. Jake has to choose between saving her and saving the world, apparently because she's forgotten she can ''morph''.

** One of the perks of the morphing power. As long as you can survive the injury long enough to morph or demorph, you're golden. And since the morphs are based on DNA, not the physical condition of the target, a person can acquire a morph of an injured (though it still has to be living) animal and turn into it at full health. [[spoiler:Several of the Auxiliary Animorphs and Loren were crippled as a result of injury, not birth defects, so they were back in full health upon their first morph]].