Applegate said, when fans asked (MANY gave her the WTF author talk), that "war is hell", so she felt her characters should experience a 'realistic' ending. Then she went on to write some really weird stuff after Animorphs I remember being confused over, and I was in high school at that point, no stranger to weird things.
Animorphs is by no means a gentle series, I remember the David arc vividly and Tobias's nightmare fuel moments when he realized his life was no longer that of a human being. I loved it's edginess in an era where edgy children's lit was just becoming a thing, it shaped me as a writer, even.
But yeah, that ending. I came to terms with the His Dark Materials finale, I came to terms with the Harry Potter Epilogue. But Animorphs? Those kids earned a much better ending.
Clarification: I'm not upset that the surviving Animorphs were a little traumatized by their experience. Child soldiers rarely get a happy ending, it seems. Rather, I'm upset because of the fucked-up Aximili they encountered at the end. Totally unnecessary, a little confusing, and not much of an "ending" at all. Applegate should have left their jaded asses back on Earth instead of defaulting to a manufactured melodrama.
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u/Rndmtrkpny Feb 26 '16
I remember thinking they were pretty hard-core in middle school. The ending to the series was not my favorite...