Crayak
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Crayak is a fictional character and villain from the science-fiction book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate.
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[edit] Description
Crayak is a nearly omnipotent entity appearing in the form of an armless cyborg creature with massive limbs and nothing but a blood-red eye for a head. The Ellimist, upon first viewing him, contrasts his appearance with The Ellimist's own appearance as a winged humanoid and conjectures that Crayak evolved from a burrowing species in an underground ecology rather than a winged, aboveground species as the Ellimist did, wondering what effect this has had on his psychology. When he first meets the Ellimist, he wields vast technological powers similar to his, commanding a huge fleet of ships. But, while Ellimist loves to create and protect, Crayak prefers misery and destruction, and has no regard for the rights and desires of others. While the Ellimist is a distributed intelligence who exists within all the ships he commands, Crayak's mind is housed within a huge, central flagship crafted from an asteroid, with the rest of his fleet directed by races he has enslaved. Crayak and the Ellimist directly oppose each other several times, and whenever their differences break out into open war the resulting battles are described as enough to destroy whole worlds and civilizations. This goes on until the Ellimist falls into a black hole and finds a way to embed his consciousness within it, becoming a true deity able to control time and space; Crayak soon duplicates this feat, and the two godlike intelligences, unable to harm each other, must now pursue their goals indirectly.
For several millennia, Crayak has been locked in eternal combat with his foe, The Ellimist, in an age-old "game" with the galaxy's creatures as their gamepieces. Neither of them have dared assault the other directly, fearing that the very structure of spacetime would collapse under their immense power, crushing them both along with everything they have worked to accomplish over the course of their millennia-old game.
Crayak's history is largely unknown, but the Ellimist says he was expelled from another galaxy hundreds of millions of years ago by a greater power than him, and he wishes to venture back there one day to destroy this power once he has become great enough. This greater power could refer to The One, whom the Animorphs encounter in the final book of the series. This vague origin may be inspired from the biblical account of Lucifer being expelled from Heaven.
[edit] The Great "Game"
At the end of the Cretaceous Period, Crayak attempted to destroy Earth. He failed, thanks to the Ellimist, who from afar, manipulated space and time, causing Crayak's violent attacks on the helpless planet to miss. Realising that the Ellimist was almost impossible for him to destroy directly, Crayak agreed to play a "game" with him. In this game, neither the Ellimist nor Crayak would use their power directly, but would instead manipulate forces smaller than themselves to alter the course of the game. Crayak's greatest assets include the Howlers and the Yeerks; the Drode serves as his primary servant.
[edit] Mode of play
Crayak plays his game of destruction by toying with insignificant characters and civilizations throughout the galaxy, having them destroy each other. He hopes that by repeating this process over and over again, the galaxy will become void of life, and will be left to be ruled by him through his creations, the Howlers. Crayak's Howlers have succeeded in wiping out many races such as the Pemalites and Graffen's Children. Apart from using his mindless shock troops, Crayak has also manipulated natural forces to destroy numerous species, such as altering their climate or sending plagues to destroy their crops and plantations. Crayak also has a minion named Drode, whose name means 'Wild Card'.
Unlike the Ellimist, Crayak rarely personally appears in avatar form to speak with the Animorphs; when he does do so, his appearance is described as an enormous and terrifying vision, and he speaks in barely-comprehensible rants that are represented in capital letters as though screaming uncontrollably. This hints at the disturbing implication that the central intelligence of Crayak is now incurably insane; all "rational" communication with Crayak, negotiations with Crayak's side, and even most of Crayak's plans seem to originate instead from the Drode, who is the figure most commonly shown directly opposing the Ellimist.
The Yeerk invasion of Earth and the Animorph resistance to it constitute a small part of Ellimist and Crayak's game. Crayak, while not responsible for the creation nor (as far as is known) the actions of the Yeerks, would rather that they absorbed humanity and be absorbed in turn by an even more aggressive species. The Ellimist would rather that the Animorphs win.
[edit] Animorphs
The first time Crayak was portrayed in an Animorphs book was in The Capture (book #6), when Jake was controlled by a Yeerk, which the other Animorphs managed to kill by depriving it of Kandrona rays. As the Yeerk died, Jake had a vision of Crayak peering around like a lighthouse; Jake had a sense of horror when Crayak saw him, before the vision ended. The Ellimist would later explain that with the Yeerk dying in Jake's head, he had been able to see through life and death to glimpse Crayak.
In The Attack (#26), the Ellimist explained about Crayak's existence, and explained that the two powers were having a fight over a species called the Iskoort, and drafted the Animorphs and the Chee Erek to fight against a team of Howlers over the outcome. In the process the Animorphs---particularly Jake---managed to contaminate the Howlers' collective memory, in effect making them useless to Crayak. As a result Crayak had a permanent hatred of Jake, and would even arrange for him to be killed (temporarily) in Elfangor's Secret.
Crayak also had a particular interest in Jake's cousin and fellow Animorph, Rachel. Rachel was known as the most "enthusiastic" Animorph---out of all the Animorphs she was the only one to really enjoy battling evil, and though good, she had a bloodthirstiness that Crayak thought he could work to his will. He recruited the ex-Animorph David to his side and attempted to turn Rachel into one of his servants. He ultimately failed.
[edit] Names and Titles
Unlike the Ellimist, who has several names, Crayak only has one known title, though the Drode sometimes refers to him by honorific, and often ironic, titles such as "Great Crayak" or "Compassionate Crayak." He is also sometimes referred to as the Big Red Eye, a term started by fans before Crayak was named and used a few times in the books themselves.
[edit] Cultural references
Crayak's manifestation as a single eye is reminiscent of the Eye of Sauron from JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The character also bears similarities to the character Lucifer of Paradise Lost by John Milton. Milton's depiction of Lucifer was cited by Tolkien as an inspiration for the character of Sauron.
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