Recap / Animorphs: The Capture

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Narrator: Jake

A mission to shut down a hospital that turns its patients into Controllers ends with Jake being infested by a Yeerk.

Tropes:

• Adapted Out: The comic book adaptation leaves out the towering red eye that Jake sees as Temrash dies in his head.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Jake's narration calls experiencing Temrash's death the strangest thing he's gone through since becoming an Animorph and the saddest. At the end, Jake's mind is flooded with Temrash's memories and emotions as well as those of his previous hosts. The dying Temrash also doesn't flinch from Cassie holding Jake's hand at the end although the gesture of comfort is meant for Jake and not him.
• And I Must Scream: The first narrated view of what being a Controller is like. Jake can still think and feel, but the Yeerk is in complete control of his body, leaving him unable to even scream in thought-speak. To make matters worse, the Yeerk can review his memories, fantasies, and dreams, leaving no room for privacy in his head.
• Anonymous Public Phone Call: At the end of the book Jake morphs just enough to warp his throat and disguise his voice, then calls Tom and tells him to never give up. ...He uses Cassie's dad's cell phone for this. Fortunately, nothing comes of it, though in a later book the Yeerks trace a call made from a pay phone.
• Ant War: Temrash tries escaping as an ant, only to encounter the same problem that the Animorphs narrowly survived in the previous book.
• As You Know: When Temrash tries morphing into a falcon, he is attacked by a great horned owl, which neither he nor Jake knows is a morphed Cassie. Jake explains that the owl is far more adapted to hunting in the dark and that Temrash can’t hide from it. Temrash points out that since he knows all of Jake’s memories, Jake doesn’t need to explain things to him. Justified as Jake is explaining things to antagonize Temrash and distract him so he makes more mistakes.
• Contrived Coincidence: Tom's Yeerk was getting a promotion and moving up to the most highly-placed target in the hospital operation, and happened to be in the small Pool in the hospital waiting for his chance when the Animorphs arrived and turned on the heat and jets. Out of the hundred or so Yeerks dying in the warming, turbulent pool, Temrash 114 is the one who manages to infest Jake when he falls face-first into the water. Crayak may or may not have tweaked the odds.
• Cover-Up Clone: Ax acquires Controller Jake's DNA and morphs him to provide cover during the three-day period of starving Temrash 114 to death. It's not a perfect impersonation (see Hugh Mann below), but it does the job.
• Creepy Cockroach: The cockroach morph isn't anywhere near as bad as the ant, but it's still considered gross by the kids. Ax wonders why humans are afraid of roaches. However, they all rather enjoy some aspects of roach morph, primarily the sense of being able to move really fast for their size.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Temrash attempts to use Jake’s Peregrine falcon morph, Cassie ambushes him while morphed into a great horned owl. Her owl morph can see in the dark and the falcon morph can’t, so she inflicts a beating on Temrash. The Yeerk doesn’t even initially realize what is attacking him.
• Defiant to the End: Subverted. Jake notes that Yeerks with nothing to lose will surrender against impossible odds, whereas a human in the same position may fight to the end. This saves his life, as Temrash is unable to force the Animorphs to kill Jake.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Temrash gleefully reveals that Tom used to be just as defiant as Jake is now, but ended up broken by months of mental torture. Ultimately, because Tom dies without ever being freed, we don't know how honest he was and if the moment he showed Jake was how he always is now or a particularly painful moment, as being entirely broken doesn't seem to be the fate of any long-term hosts who are freed.
  • Also the fate of any Yeerk that dies of Kandrona starvation. While in the fugue state, Temrash loses his ability to keep his memories from Jake, stops talking altogether, and dies with no hope that he'll be rescued.
• Didn't See That Coming: Infested Jake is confident of his friends' ability to keep him contained until Temrash dies, until he realizes that Temrash's control of his body and mind includes control of his ability to morph. He immediately berates himself for his stupidity and fears for the other Animorphs. However, they did see that coming. After all, Visser Three can morph too.
• Early-Bird Cameo: As Temrash 114 dies in his head, Jake sees a glimpse of Crayak.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Ax says it takes several minutes for a Yeerk to subjugate a new host, hence why Jake isn't taken over immediately but has control at first and then seems to go catatonic. Elsewhere in the series, Yeerks taking control of a new host don't normally do it instantly, but it's a matter of several seconds, not minutes. The process of the Yeerk burrowing into Jake's ear is also incredibly painful, while others always secrete a numbing agent. Sometimes handwaved as Temrash having been injured by the heat and jets of the pool turning on.
  • Temrash 114 claims to have previously been Temrash 252 before a promotion, indicating that Yeerks with lower numbers are higher ranking in their empire. This becomes inconsistent when considering that it's later revealed that Visser Three's real name is Esplin 9466, and Visser One's is Edriss 562, which would make them both lower-ranked than Temrash if this rule still applied, neither of their real names changes when they get promoted, and the double figure at the end of Esplin's name is specifically said to denote he's a twin. Temrash 114 also claims, when gloating about a promotion after delivering the Animorphs, that he will be an Under-Visser, implied to be the term for a Yeerk directly below a Visser. In later books, the term Under-Visser is never mentioned again, and the rank directly below Visser is called Sub-Visser.
  • At one point Temrash 114 brags about how the Yeerks are "conquerers of the Hork-Bajir and the Ssstram and the Mak." We never encounter any Ssstram or Mak-Controllers, and they are never brought up again.
  • In an escape attempt, Temrash 114 morphs an ant. Word of God later stated that this should not be possible, as 1: morphing would only affect the host body, not the Yeerk itself that has not personally been given morphing power, and 2: the ant body is far too small to accommodate the un-morphed Yeerk. invoked
• Eye Scream: The second time Temrash tries using Jake's falcon morph, Tobias catches him with his talons as soon as he shrinks and threatens to put out the falcon's eyes and see how far he manages to fly after that. Temrash is forced to give.
• Fantastic Racism: Used as an actual plot point. When Temrash first sees Ax, he can't help but let disgust and hate show on his face for a split second, which is just enough for Ax to recognize that he's a Controller. A little later, Ax touching him is enough to make Temrash scream "Get your hands off me Andalite filth!", convincing everyone else as well.
• He Knows Too Much: Tom followed a girl he had a crush on into a Sharing meeting of full members, saw Visser Three's Andalite host, and was subsequently dragged to the Yeerk pool.
• Helpless Observer Protagonist: Jake spends the last third this book mentally arguing with the Yeerk in his head. At first, he tries to fight back and warn the others, but he's completely unable and spends that part of the book only able to communicate with Temrash. Fortunately, Ax Spots the Thread, so his friends tie him up in the woods and constantly monitor him until Temrash dies.
• Hostile Terraforming: Temrash confirms Ax's comment in The Message about Yeerks destroying the natural ecosystem of the planets they conquer to make them more like their homeworld.
• Hugh Mann: Ax has to impersonate Jake for his family, and can't fully turn down his own quirks when doing so. Jake's parents and Tom's new Yeerk are weirded out, but not enough to suspect Andalites.
• Humanity Ensues: Visser Three reveals his human morph to his underlings and the Animorphs for the first time. Ax wonders why they're surprised, since they know Visser Three can morph and humans have DNA that can be acquired by morphers.
• I Know What You Fear: Temrash 114 gloats that, since he has access to every part of Jake's mind, he can torment him using his own deepest insecurities and fears. We see a first-hand example when Temrash tauntingly suggests that Cassie and Marco are the "weak links" among the Animorphs and thus the likeliest to betray the others, drawing on Jake's knowledge of their personalities and histories, and then later when he punishes Jake for mocking his promotion fantasies by replaying a sports star daydream that has Jake cringing in shame.
• Implausible Deniability: Temrash screams "Get your hand off me, Andalite filth!" at Ax, then tries going back to pretending to be Jake and passing his outburst off as having a bad day. None of the Animorphs are fooled.
• Inopportune Impersonation Failure: For a moment, it looks as if Temrash might have the opportunity to escape and hand the Animorphs over to Visser Three... and then Jake finds himself face to face with Ax. Yeerks aren't too fond of Andalites, and Temrash can't stop himself from letting his disgust show on his face - immediately revealing the truth to Ax. The rest of the Animorphs are dubious, but then Ax touches "Jake," prompting Temrash to let out an enraged scream of "Andalite filth." From then on, the Yeerk's attempts to continue the performance are all shot down by the various team-members. Jake, they know full well, would be annoyed in this position but would help as best he could.
• It's for a Book: In the comic, when Jake's mom catches him freshly demorphed, behind the fridge with part of a roach motel in his hair, his explanation is that he's collecting dust bunnies for a school project.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: As Temrash starves, Jake sees its own memories, from the first time it infested a Gedd, to the Hork-Bajir, and then Tom.
• No Body Left Behind: Temrash decays to dust seconds after starving to death.
• Not Even Human: This book has the first version of a recurring moral issue the Animorphs are forced to face: is it right to kill Yeerks in their helpless natural forms? Jake falls on the side of "yes", without question. The comic involves several panels of him lit from below and looking ominous and gleeful, gesturing at how it's not as simple an issue as he thinks.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: The Animorphs’ plan to stop Temrash’s escape initially appears to be to simply tie him up, and he easily escapes by using Jake’s morphing ability. As Temrash soon finds, the Animorphs knew he would morph to escape and slyly didn’t talk about it in front of him so he wouldn’t count on their plan to stop his escape.
• Ominous Owl: From the Temrash's point of view, a great horned owl begins attacking him in the darkness when he tries using Jake's peregrine falcon morph. The owl turns out to be Cassie in morph.
• Orifice Invasion: It's always part of how Yeerks infest their hosts, tunneling through their ears to reach their brains. Jake finds it extremely painful.
• Outgrowing the Building: Jake decides to test drive his new cockroach morph with a quick stealth inspection of his house, only to end up getting stuck in a matchbox-style roach motel while sneaking behind the refrigerator. His means of escaping is to simply demorph, allowing him to easily burst out of the matchbox, but unfortunately, it leaves him with the roach motel's sticky strip glued to his hair.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Temrash 114 lets its mask slip several times.
  • As Tom, he gives Jake a look of utter contempt when the latter refuses to join the Sharing.
  • In Jake's body, when he turns and Ax is right up close he curls his lip in disgust, giving himself away. Then he tries to refuse to be quarantined for three days, when given the circumstances Jake would be exasperated but cooperate.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Visser Three assumes that any animal nearby could be an Andalite bandit in morph. Killing any animal seen in a Sharing meeting would be seen as excessive if he was never right about it, but 10% of the time, he is.
  • The other Animorphs decide they need to quarantine Jake in case Ax is right and he has been made into a Controller. Temrash quickly proves Ax right.
  • The fact that "Jake" isn't this is the final nail in Temrash's coffin as they all know Jake would possibly annoyed but agree they all had a point given how responsible he tends to be about everything. Temrash just gets increasingly desperate in his pleas for them to forget the whole thing, understandable since he knows he'll die if they successfully restrain him for several days but that's what gets even Marco to agree Jake's definitely been infested.
• Race Lift: Maybe? Visser Three's human morph is never described in detail and Applegate rarely states the races of her human characters. In the TV series he's played by a white man. In the comic adaptation, his human morph is black.
• Sapping the Shapeshifter: The Animorphs themselves make use of this against Temrash. Because he'll die of starvation if he can't get to a Yeerk Pool within the next three days, he continuously attempts to escape his captors via Jake's morphing abilities... only to be countered each time by a series of traps set up for him by the other Animorphs, each one wearing him down through progressively more dangerous stakes until he's forced to surrender. In one case, he attempts to flee the area as an ant, only to blunder directly into a hostile ant nest and almost get ripped apart before he can demorph - whereupon he surrenders to the observing Animorphs. This works so well that Temrash ultimately gives up after nearly three days of failures and resigns himself to a slow death by Kandrona starvation.
• Sauna of Death: The Yeerks in the hospital jacuzzi die when Jake re-enables the default functions, increases the temperature of their pool, and turns the jets on, which isn't good for soft-bodied swimming slugs. Temrash 114 escapes this fate when Jake is knocked into the pool by a bullet's ricochet. In the comic, Jake's actually Hoist by His Own Petard - leaning over the pool to gloat instead of moving on is what allows him to be dunked.
• Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: It's unclear if Yeerks have to sleep, but Controllers can make their host bodies doze off while actually being awake and waiting. While Temrash is doing this Jake actually falls asleep and has his recurring nightmare. When he wakes up, Temrash has started morphing and comments on his dream.
• Smug Snake: Temrash 114 starts out confident that he can fool the Animorphs, then confident that he'll escape them, then confident that his Yeerk allies will come to rescue him, all while gloating about Yeerk superiority and mentally torturing Jake. It never happens, and Temrash dies of Kandrona starvation.
• Something Only They Would Say: Ax quickly realizes that Jake has been infested, but the other Animorphs are reluctant to believe him — that is, until Ax touches Jake to acquire his DNA. Temrash 114 immediately screams "GET YOUR HAND OFF ME, ANDALITE FILTH!", which confirms Ax's suspicions and convinces the others as well.
• Spot the Imposter: A one-man variation when Jake gets infested. Temrash 114 is unable to contain its hatred of Andalites, and blows its cover for good when it protests being tied up for three days (the maximum duration Yeerks can survive without soaking up Kandrona rays), which the real Jake would instantly have agreed to.
• Stumbling in the New Form: Visser Three in human morph walks weirdly at first, enough so that Tobias comments on it.
• Summon Bigger Fish: When Temrash tries escaping as a wolf, Marco uses his own wolf morph to alert the wolf pack encountered in book #3 to Temrash's location.
• Unexpectedly Human Perception: This book introduces fly and cockroach, the two insect morphs that the Animorphs use almost to the exclusion of any others (flea comes up decently often but dragonfly and wolf spider, despite their superior senses and mobility, are a footnote in comparison). They both have poor eyesight by human standards and human voices are incomprehensible vibrations in the air, but by hanging around as human Jake talks they're able to learn to understand what people are saying.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The rest of the Animorphs keep it a secret from Jake, and by extension, the audience, that they have a plan to stop Temrash from using Jake’s morphing ability to escape, since telling Jake their plan would lead to Temrash learning about it. As such, their plan to stop Temrash works without a hitch since he has no idea they planned for his escape.
• Villains Never Lie: Temrash taunts Jake with a memory of Tom's despair and tells him that Tom is always like that now, that all hosts become faint, shattered creatures longing for death as it fully sinks in that they have no control over their bodies and no one they care about understands anything's happened to them. This was clearly intended to disturb Jake and make him lose hope, though he clings to the possibility of rescue. Temrash's claim is manifestly not true. Certainly being infested is bad for hosts and Tom felt despair in the moment that Temrash showed Jake, but literally every freed host in the series tries to seize agency back the moment they have a chance, even if they've been infested for years or decades. Unfortunately for Tom, he's never freed and so doesn't get to demonstrate if he's like the others or not.
• The Voice: In the comic Temrash is never seen as a Yeerk, only Controller Jake, and appearing as a second Jake in a black turtleneck in a Battle At The Center Of The Mind situation representing Yeerk and host talking to each other. When Temrash dies, unlike in the original book his slug body isn't shown emerging from Jake's ear. No Yeerks-as-Yeerks are clearly visible at all, with there only being vague ripples in the tiny Pool. This is particularly strange since the cover of the comic does clearly show several Yeerks, and the preview of this comic at the end of the previous one did show Yeerks approaching Jake's submerged face.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Rachel excuses herself to barf when she sees Cassie morph into a fly.
• You Have Failed Me: One Controller is dumb enough to assume the cockroaches they saw are just normal cockroaches. Visser Three exasperatedly orders said Controller to be shot dead on the spot.