David (Animorphs)

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David is a fictional character from the sci-fi book series Animorphs. He appears in #20: The Discovery, #21: The Threat, #22: The Solution, and #48: The Return.

The Animorphs first encountered David when Marco met him at their school, carrying the morphing cube. Revealing himself to be a new student, he explained to Marco that he stumbled upon the cube and thought he could sell it for some quick cash on the internet. David found a potential buyer -- Visser Three himself, which lead to an enormous battle that erupted inside his own home, and ended with the Animorphs taking him into custody after his name and face became known to virtually every Yeerk under Visser Three's command.

The Animorphs decided to make David the seventh Animorph, but not without some serious debate. Jake couldn't see himself abandoning the kid, Cassie was excited at the idea of expanding their forces, Tobias sympathized David's lack of anybody to turn to, and Rachel just went along with it, while Marco and Ax both believed it to be a bad idea. David was drawn to Cassie's trusting nature, but disrespected Jake's authority, formed a grudge against both Marco and Rachel, and distanced himself from Tobias and Ax. Being a bit too immature to handle his new responsibility, David created even more problems for the Animorphs while they were already in the middle of their most crucial mission yet, to prevent the Yeerk infestation of five country leaders.

Unable to handle the major changes in his life, David revealed a sociopathic side, betraying and waging war against the other Animorphs. Attempting to pick them off one-by-one, he killed a red-tailed hawk he believed to be Tobias, battled Jake's tiger morph while in lion morph, tied Marco up in his closet after acquiring his DNA, assaulted Ax's northern harrier morph with a baseball bat, and hunted Rachel while in lion morph; his reasoning was that it's not murder if he kills a morphed Animorph, because he's only killing an animal. Rachel and David developed a personal vendetta against each other - after Rachel mistakenly believed that David had killed Tobias, she swore she would destroy him. Later Rachel would threaten to kill David's family if he exposed their identity of the Animorphs. However, David wasn't simply a two-dimensional character. He didn't simply want to kill the Animorphs because he thought he could. He believed he could offer either the Animorphs or the morphing cube to Visser Three in exchange for the return of his parents and a promise of their safety as a family. At the core, David simply wanted to return to a normal life, going as far as to assume the life of Jake and Rachel's recently hospitalized cousin, Saddler.

Despite this, the fact remained: David could not be trusted. With the information he possessed, he could all too easily ruin any chances of victory. The Animorphs' couldn't bring themselves to kill him, instead sentencing him to a fate that many would consider crueler than death. David was to live out the rest of his life trapped in a morph, a nothlit like Tobias. Unlike Tobias though, there would be no positive sides to his trapped morph. David was tricked and trapped in rat morph, and left on a forsaken, barren rock off the coast. Surprisingly, the person who devised this plan was the only Animorph he had trusted -- Cassie.

David returned, with the help of Crayak, in an attempt at revenge against Rachel. Failing to do so, his fate fell into Rachel's hands. She could either take him back to the small island, or kill him, as he pleaded her to do. Rachel's decision, and David's ultimate fate, were never revealed.

[edit] Morphs

David tended to favor a more aggressive style of fighting. For example, when he was choosing a bird morph, he chose a golden eagle because it was the largest and most powerful bird that Cassie had available at the clinic, despite Tobias' warning that the biggest was not always the best. His main battle morph was a lion, which matched Jake's tiger in terms of speed and lethal ability.

When David turned against the Animorphs, his morphs came in handy. David first killed a red-tailed hawk while in golden eagle morph, while his lion morph gave him a matched chance against Jake's tiger when they battled in the mall (indeed, he actually had the advantage, as the lion's mane prevented Jake from slashing at his neck and doing the most damage). David also morphed an orca to battle the Animorphs; the Animorphs morphed into dolphins to both invade and retreat, and the orca gave David a massive advantage. A rattlesnake gave him the perfect morph to not only spy on the Animorphs, but threaten them while they were in smaller, more vulnerable morphs.

David also morphed other people without their permission, in violation of the Animorphs code of conduct to ask for permission first. He acquired and morphed Marco and stunned Ax with a baseball (while Ax was in harrier morph). He later assumed the identity of Saddler, Jake and Rachel's cousin, and the Animorphs thought that he morphed Saddler because he no longer had a family.

In addition to all of the above morphs, David had the usual transportation and infiltration morphs that the other Animorphs had, such as a cockroach, a seagull, and a flea. He also acquired a random male Human-Controller for one infiltration mission. David was eventually trapped as a rat nothlit.(nothlit is an anagram of hilton. Katherine applegate pointed out that she sometimes names things in her book in an anagram of where she is staying)