Cassie (Animorphs)

Cassie is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of K. A. Applegate's Animorphs series. Her last name is never mentioned, although she referred to it as being "nice" in The Secret.

Biography

Cassie is an African American teenager, and lives on her farm with her mother and father, who are both veterinarians. Before the Human-Yeerk war, Cassie also wished to become a veterinarian. Her father runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, based in their barn; this barnhouse is the Animorphs' primary meeting place, due to its relative seclusion and the availability of various animals for possible morphs. Her mother is the head veterinarian at The Gardens, a big complex consisting of an amusement park and a zoo.

She is perceptive, clever, and often is aware of others' motives and feelings, sometimes even before they are. This develops into an ability to manipulate her enemies and allies as well as anticipate their actions, most notably with the Animorphs' traitor, David. Many of the other Animorphs also come to Cassie for comfort or advice, thanks to her empathetic nature. However, she often gives them her advice whether they ask for it or not. She is also the most knowledgeable of the group about animals, which supplies the Animorphs with important knowledge; she seems to have many qualities of an environmentalist and may be a vegetarian. She is best friends with Rachel, even though they are portrayed as being polar opposites, with Rachel being far more fashion and socially oriented than her, and lacking Cassie's sense of empathy and morality. Cassie maintains a casual romantic relationship with Jake throughout the series, but they end up parting ways.

Cassie is an estreen, a natural morpher, meaning that she is able to control the morphing process better than the other Animorphs, all of whom agree about her unique morphing talent. In The Andalite Chronicles, Elfangor mentions that on the Andalite homeworld there are professional estreens who make morphing into an art form.

In Back to Before, the Drode (representing Crayak) and the Ellimist make a deal which allows the Drode to change the past, so that the Animorphs had never met Elfangor. However, throughout the alternate timeline, Cassie senses something is wrong, and indeed soon the reality begins to fall apart. When the alternate timeline completely disintegrates, the Drode and Ellimist reveal that Cassie is a space-time "anomaly", and that as a result of this her very existence broke down the false timeline, as well as allowed her to see beyond it. It is revealed in this book that the Animorphs were unknowingly brought together by the Ellimist, as part of their intergalactic game. The Drode accuses the Ellimist of "stacking the deck", as the supposedly random group of humans contains "the freak of nature" (Cassie, the anomaly), Visser One's host's son (Marco), Elfangor's brother (Ax), and Elfangor's time-lost son (Tobias). From there the Ellimist added two other humans with strong traits of leadership, confidence, and fierce bravery to lead the pack; cousins Jake and Rachel. (Coincidentally, Jake becomes Crayak's most hated Animorph, and Rachel becomes the Drode's favorite.) After the alternate reality collapses, Cassie is the only one to remember the incident, albeit dimly.

Cassie is the moralist of the group and often worries, much more than some of the others, about the costs of the war. This leads her to many dangerous and sometimes hypocritical actions, such as when she convinces a Yeerk named Aftran to give up being the controller of Karen. This eventually leads to Aftran forming the Yeerk Peace Movement (composed of Yeerks who have a peaceful alliance with their human hosts). But this attitude also leads her to make what may be the most dangerous choice in the war: she lets Tom take the Escafil device in order to stop Jake from having to kill his own brother, even though it means their enemies would gain the ability to morph in the process. (However, this decision ends up being one of the main factors that ended the war with the Yeerks, although it is unfortunately an indirect cause of Rachel's eventual death, as well.) Cassie has twice morphed into an enemy: a Yeerk, and a Hork-Bajir. Cassie is largely a pacifist, and hates all the violence involved in the war; in Elfangor's Secret, the Drode accurately describes her as a "killer with a conscience." In The Departure, she finally gets fed up with all of the violence and quits the team after ripping the throat out of a Hork-Bajir Controller, but ultimately rejoins after the events of the book.

After the war, Cassie becomes something of an activist working for the free Hork-Bajir, along with her friend and love interest Ronnie Chambers; she is, at the age of nineteen, admitted to the president's sub-cabinet as advisor on the Hork-Bajir and resident aliens. She describes herself and Marco as the only two to really thrive after the war (and she is arguably even more successful than he, as his post-war life is portrayed as being rather shallow, and he admits to being bored out of his mind). She is the only Animorph who does not go to save Ax—but only on Jake's insistence that she does not do so, as he knew that she could do more good, and be happier, doing what she did best on Earth. At the end of the series, Cassie is the only Animorph remaining on Earth, and as the others' fate is not revealed, she may be the only Animorph to survive.

Relationships with the other Animorphs

• Jake: Jake and Cassie have crushes on each other right from the beginning of the series, and a romance slowly develops between them. They finally kiss in book #26; in later books they both acknowledge the love they have for each other in their narratives, though they have not stated in outright. Towards the end of the war, their relationship deteriorates, and Jake loses trust in Cassie after she lets Tom take the Escafil Device.
• Tobias: Tobias and Cassie interact rarely. He is the closest in attitude to her, and they generally side together on group votes. Cassie's house is physically close to Tobias' territory.
• Rachel: Cassie and Rachel are best friends, despite being complete opposites. Their friendship becomes strained in later books, as Rachel becomes increasingly drawn to her warrior side and becomes impatient with Cassie's strong ethical convictions.
• Marco: Although they are generally on good terms, Cassie and Marco are not close, and don't spend much time together. There is some personality conflict between them, as Cassie's morality is diametrically opposed to Marco's ruthlessness. However, at the end Cassie notes that she and Marco are really the only "true survivors" of the war and together they agree to try to break Jake of his depression.
• Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill: Cassie and Ax don't interact often, although she does comfort Ax after Estrid leaves him. Ax feels hatred for her after she allows Tom to take the Escafil device, although they appear back on good terms later on.

Family

• Michelle is Cassie's mother, and the head veterinarian at The Gardens' zoo. Cassie uses this connection to allow the other Animorphs to enter the facility in order to acquire their first battle morphs in The Invasion.
• Walter is Cassie's father who stays at home and runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic in their barn. In The Alien he makes his signature chili, which Ax wolfs down while in Jake morph. Walter owns an old, beat-up truck to pick up injured animals and run errands; this truck is later destroyed in The Andalite's Gift as the Animorphs use it in an attempt to outrun the Veleek dust-monster. The only thing he likes about the replacement truck is its CD player; Cassie mentioned in book #28, The Experiment that he "still cries" over its destruction.
• Cassie mentions in book #37, The Weakness (chapter 8, page 47), that she has a niece. This indicates that she might have an older sibling, whose existence is never otherwise implied in the series. Alternatively, the "niece" could be the daughter of an older cousin, or the daughter of a family friend.
• Cassie's family is Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or Eastern Orthodox - they are observed praying, and referring to their religious leader as "Father" in books 14 and 19, The Departure.

Cassie's morphs

Including unusable and unused morphs, Cassie has 47 potential morphs. Cassie used a wolf as her primary battle morph and an osprey as her primary transportation morph. Cassie is an estreen, an Andalite word that describes a person with a natural talent for morphing. As a result, Cassie often morphs faster and more beautifully than the other Animorphs, and gains control over the instincts of new morphs more quickly.

*Cassie became a nothlit trapped in caterpillar morph. However, she subsequently metamorphosed into a butterfly—a sort of naturally occurring morphing—thus resetting the two hour morphing clock. It is unknown if she can remorph either of these creatures

Books

Books narrated solely by Cassie include:

• The Message
• The Secret
• The Unknown
• The Suspicion
• The Sickness
• The Hidden
• The Unexpected
• The Ultimate

Cassie also takes part in the narration of:

• The Andalite's Gift
• In the Time of Dinosaurs
• Elfangor's Secret
• Back to Before
• The Departure
• The Prophecy
• The Beginning

Toys

In 1999 three different Animorphs toys of Cassie were made. The larger one sold in stores turned into a wolf, and the smaller one part of a Taco Bell children's meal promotion, and turned into an anteater. She was also a part of the set of combiner animorphs which turned into a dinosaur.

References

External links

• Cassie's official page at Scholastic's website
• Cassie at the Internet Movie Database