both vets, her mother worked as a doctor in a zoo, while his father runs a wildlife clinic in their barn. Cassie often helped her father on taking care of the injured
animal. It can be assumed that Cassie unknowingly creates a bond toward the animal, that bond perhaps what makes her care greatly about other creature’s life.
Her habit of to taking care an animal may affect the way she saw the life of other creature. Several times in the books Cassie often angry or became
irritated if she saw animal is being endangered or mistreated by human. In book fifteen Marco commented that Cassie is not the type of person who likes to create
a plan which could endanger themselves, but if it is about saving a mistreating an animal she will do anything to save it.
It was Cassies idea, oddly enough. Normally shed be the last person to ever cook up a harebrained scheme. But this involved mistreating animals.
And you dont want to mess with animals when Cassie is around. Animorphs 15, 1996:2
In summary, Cassie is the type of person who cares greatly about the well
being of her friends. She likes to comfort her friend whenever she feels that her friend is in danger or in some sort of trouble both physically and mentally.
Unfortunately, her kind and caring attitude make it hard for her to control her self esteem. Whenever Cassie is involved in something violence, she cannot
tolerate that action and she will run away from it. This is shown in book nineteenth, when she along with her team slaughters an army of controlled Hork-
Bajir. She is terrified by her action of killing the Hork-Bajir that she decides to quit the team, in order to avoid the violence war.
5.The Description of Tobias’ Characteristics
As described by him and other characters Tobias is the type of character who tend to create a gap between himself and society or in other word Tobias is
an outcast. Tobias’ condition him being an outcast is caused by his family’s condition. Both of his parents are dead by the beginning of the story, Tobias live
under the care of either his uncle or his other relatives he moved from one relative to another and according to Tobias himself, none of his relatives did not
really care about him. In school Tobias did not have much friends, he often became the object of
bullying by other students. His lone wolf nature was further magnified when he was accidentally misused his morphing ability which caused him to become a red
tailed hawk for the rest of his life. Thus he was completely cast away from normal human life.
Asides from fighting the Yeerks Tobias also faced with the problem of his new life. In the beginning Tobias was having a difficulty in adjusting to his new
life, he was heavily devastated when he killed a rat for the first time because he was unable to cope with his new instinct. He is a human who have to live with a
body and instinct of a hawk. Tobias, at first finds it difficult to cope with his new condition. His first kill made him believe that his human mind was gone; he
believed that he was a hawk, so he began to stay away from his human friends and began to life as a red tailed hawk
The next few days were like a long, slow dream. I stayed away from Jakes house. I did not communicate with my friends. I disappeared.
I found a place for myself. It was perfect red-tail territory - the place where I had made my first kill. A nice meadow surrounded by trees. Not far off
there was a marshy area that was good, too. Although there was another red-tail who had a territory over there, so I couldnt hunt there often.
I spent my days hunting. Sometimes I would ride the high hot winds and watch the meadow. Sometimes I would sit in a tree and watch till some
unwary creature ventured out. Then I would swoop down on it, snatch it up, kill it. Eat it while the blood was still warm Animorphs 3, 1996: 50.
It is not until later in the same book that he was convinced by his friends that even though his body was a red tailed hawk, he still had human mind, he was
still Tobias. Tobias can be described as the lone wolf of the team; he is the type of
person who prefers to be alone rather than interacting with other people. Even though Tobias has a lone wolf attitude that he doesn’t mean he completely
secluded himself from people around him. Tobias only prefers to be alone especially whenever he is in distress. Before the series began, other characters
confess that they only know little about Tobias. His lone wolf attitude may have been caused by his family and social background.
Regarding how Tobias handles his self esteem, he has his own way of coping with his current situation. Whenever Tobias is faced with situations which
cause discomfort or even distress in his mind, he tends to hide into seclusion.
B. Terrors Faced by the Protagonists and its Impact to the Protagonists
The source of terror in this book is mainly the Yeerks and death. The fight against the Yeerks has pushed the mind of the protagonists to the limit. As stated
in terror management theory, human is the only species which is able to realize that death is inevitable. This combination of an instinctive drive for self-
preservation with an awareness of the inevitability of death creates the potential for paralyzing terror.
So when the Animorphs are put in a dangerous situation in which their life is endangered because of their fight with their Yeerks, it automatically creates a
terror in their mind. Have you ever watched those old war movies where the Americans would
be heading for some enemy beach? You know, theyd be in a little boat, riding through the surf, getting ready to jump out on a beach that was
going to be chewed up by machine-gun bullets and mortars? Thats what this felt like. Like we were pretty calm now, but in a few seconds it was
going to be life and death. Things would happen very fast. And none of it was going to be good Animorphs 10, 1997: 84.
The paragraph above which is told by one of the protagonists, Marco, explains the situation of the war against the yeerks, the fight against the yeerks is
described as war where someone’s life is at stake at any second. The protagonists of the Animorphs are just junior school student, perhaps their age are around 15-
16, so it is safe to assume that the level of terror may be amplified because the victim of this terror is just a middle school student, perhaps their level of self
esteem is not really ready to handle such condition, whereas it is stated that self esteem is really important in maintaining the terror to our mind. So when the
terrors are attacking their mind, and their mind and self esteem is not up for the challenge just yet, especially at the beginning of the story.
“So what?” I shot back. You heard the Ellimist. Were doomed. Its going to be Yeerks one, humans zero. We lose. So who cares about anything?
Who cares if I skip school to go flying?” Animorphs 7, 1997:54.
The example above shows us how the condition has made the character
Rachel scared that she does not even care about anything. According to Terror PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
management theory, this phenomena may happen because the sufferer doesnot have enough self esteem when they were facing the terror, because they are not
ready with the condition and thus the condition shaken their mind. The condition of being scared or terrified will affect their daily life, like the
example above how Rachel was so terrified that it made her to skip school. The condition of being terrified caused different effect to the protagonists; this may be
related to how well they can manage their self esteem. In Rachel’s case we can see that the condition of being terrified has made
her ignorant to several other things like she did not really care about skipping the school because she believed that sooner or later she will die anyway. Probably
Rachel’s management toward her self esteem at that moment is not at good condition, thus causing her to panic and becoming ignorant.
The terror of the yeerks also greatly affected the protagonist’s daily life, it changed the way the protagonists lived their life. The terror changed the way the
protagonists do their daily activity, for example, in book four one of the protagonist, Cassie stated that even just for the sake of going to Rachel’s house
along with her friends, they have to go separately in order to avoid any suspicion that they intentionally gathering at Rachel’s house, in addition they even have
Tobias as surveillance to check whether there is anything suspicious around or not.
In a very short time we had all grown accustomed to a world of fear and danger. We had arrived at Rachels house separately. We had each checked
to make sure we werent being followed. We had planned the afternoon in advance to be sure that Rachels mom and her two sisters would be out.
We had even had Tobias fly over the area looking for anything unusual. Animorphs 4, 1996: 9.
This shows that the fight against the Yeerks has changed their lives from
normal ones into lives where they have to be careful when they are going somewhere, especially when they want to hang out with another member of the
Animorphs. Their condition not only changed how they do their daily activity, but also
made it difficult for them to communicate to other people. At the beginning of every book the protagonist who becomes the narrator of that book always tell their
current condition. From their narration we can learn that they were facing a situation where it is hard for them to reveal their full identity. Like in the
examples below “My name is Cassie. I cant tell you my last name. I wish I could. But I
cant even tell you what town I live in or what state. We have to disguise our identities, we Animorphs. Its not about being shy. Its about staying
alive.” Animorphs 4, 1996: 1 . Imagine a situation where someone has to be very careful when they want
to speak with other people, because if that person talks to someone, that person may put himself in danger. That is exactly what happened to the protagonists of
the Animorphs, They are unable to speak or interact freely with other people, because they didnot know if the person which they interacted with was controlled
by Yeerks or not. They did not want to make that person knew that they was involved in the battle against the Yeerks.
The condition of already knowing who your enemies are creates a barrier between you and your enemy, in the case of the story when the protagonists
already knew which person was controlled by the Yeerks, they knew that they have to be careful with that person, the best example for this is Jake’s older
brother, Tom. The protagonists already know that Tom is controlled by the Yeerks, so they already know what kind of measure that they have to employ to
avoid any suspicion from Tom. It is more difficult for you if you did not know which one is your enemy, and which one is not, the condition of not knowing that
will create confusion or even fear in our mind. Imagine if we wanted to talk to our parents yet we are uncertain if the parent that we are talking to is really our parent
or they have been controlled by your enemy. This is exactly what happens to some of the protagonists, they are unable
to speak freely to other people freely even to their closest friends or even their relatives. Because if they talk too much, especially if they talking about anything
which is related to the Animorphs, they may unintentionally reveals their secret to their enemy. This kind of condition will perhaps create two effects to their mind.
First it will create fear in their mind because if the person to whom they talking to is in fact have been controlled by the yeerks, it means that they’re talking with
their enemy, so they to be careful when they spoke to them, because if they made a mistake in communicating with them our life will be in danger. Second, it will
made us distraught and sad, because we cannot talk freely to people whom we loved in this case our parents, we had to lie to them in order to keep themselves
alive. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
