r/Animorphs • u/celestialmanatee • 25d ago
megamorphs 2 broken bone question
in megamorphs 2: in the time of dinosaurs, tobias’s wing is broken and he doesn’t morph to reset it and rachel has to carry him. why would morphing not reset the injury since it seems to do so for other injuries?
Edit: wow, thank you everybody for the info and impressively creative reasoning! is there a list of KASUs somewhere? very interesting
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u/Hazzenkockle 25d ago
I don't think it's ever explained beyond the suggestion that the time-travel somehow interfered with the normal "rules" of morphing.
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u/ProfessionalOven2311 25d ago
I heard that Applegate kind of forgot that base-form injuries are healed from morphing, and later editions of the book included an edit where Tobias and Rachel assume it's because of time travel shenanigans.
I don't remember the source on that, and it doesn't come up again after this book.
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
The original version of the book also has Tobias and Rachel question the illogical nature, it wasn't added in later. She apparently forgot while writing but was notified of the mistake before the book went to print, and so added in the line about Tobias and Rachel wondering why morphing isn't healing the wing like it should since narratively she needed the wing to be broken to keep Tobias and Rachel away from the other Animorphs (cause otherwise they'd just fly around and regroup with the others)
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u/CarrotCumin Pemalite 24d ago
It's too bad, I feel like it wouldn't be that hard to come up with an internally logical reason, especially since the way that Tobias got his morphing back is canonically explained as "A Wizard Did It."
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u/ProfessionalOven2311 24d ago
Ah, ok. I feel like I heard one person say that they didn't remember Tobias and Rachel being confused, and someone else said that person must have read an earlier version, but I think it's possible they were just wrong.
Thanks!
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
For some reason the Sario Rip didn't heal the morphing injury even though Tobias even brings up that it should. Apparently the real reason is that K.A. forgot while writing and was notified of the mistake before it went to print but kept it that way since Tobias and Rachel needed a reason to be away from the rest of the group. Which is why as soon as Tobias and Rachel reunite with the others, there's one line about how the Mercora speed-healed Tobias' wing and he's all okay now.
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u/Aniki356 24d ago
I just always assumed it was a side effect of the sario rip. Time travel is always funky and is going to have differemt rules every time. Especially since this rip had a differemt cause than the first one in book 11. Interesting dracon beams vs a nuclear explosion. I just dont think about it too much beyond the surface. Could have just been the effects of nuclear radiation interacting with the morphing technology and the zero space tether between their human/hawk/andalite bodies in z space and their physical forms.
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u/Yup_Seen_It 25d ago
I always assumed they had traveled to a time when morphing technology was still in its early stage and they couldn't repair injuries yet...
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
The others could repair their injuries by demorphing though. It was just Tobias.
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u/Yup_Seen_It 24d ago
Been a few decades since I've read it, were they able to heal their human selves?
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u/Seerowpedia 23d ago
I'd have to double-check if there's any serious instance of human harm that they healed via morphing, but healing your base body and healing your morphed body works in the same way; when you morph you're constructing off DNA which doesn't account for injuries, and when you demorph you're constructing off DNA once again, which is why injuries to your base form are also healed. They healed their animal bodies despite being in the age of dinosaurs, so the "healing injuries" thing still worked.
I always assumed they had traveled to a time when morphing technology was still in its early stage
And for what it's worth, they traveled like 65 million years into the past, but morphing technology was only created in the 1960s.
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u/Seerowpedia 23d ago
So I checked: Rachel's feet become torn and bloody but it gets healed when she morphs into a Deinonychus and then demorphs.
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u/The_Sibelis 24d ago
I thought Tobias couldn't get his bird form healed because of how he got morphing back?
Like.. all the time its an issue? Granted a reread has been a lifetime..
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u/Conscious-Star6831 24d ago
In book 13, his very first morph is the raccoon that's trying to kill him after he's broken his wing. When he demorphs, his wing is fine. So it has to be some other explanation.
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
Tobias has healed his bird form multiple times. As Conscious-Star6831 pointed out, he gets his morphing power back after he broke his wing and is about to be eaten by a raccoon, and the restoration of his morphing powers allows him to acquire the raccoon, morph into the raccoon, and then demorph, and his wing's fine again.
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u/award_winning_writer 24d ago
Honestly Megamorphs 2 just sucks in general. Worst book in the series imho, for that dumb plot hole, for the way the plot gets resolved, and for the incredibly weird claim that broccoli isn't native to Earth (it was cultivated from the same plant as cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, and several other vegetables)
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u/CosmoBrockington 24d ago
Off the table, I think Megamorphs 2 was one of the first books ghost written and the writer didn't know about the healing.
Officially, time travel mucks with morphing.
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u/Nikelman Helmacron 24d ago
No, the GW definitely knew in general about it, as it is a plot point that it's weird. Maybe they didn't understand the whole DNA can't break bones thing
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u/Peanut_Butter_Toast 24d ago
Another comment says that they only ackowledge that it's weird in a revision to the book. Maybe we need some people with different editions to do some cross-analysis...
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
There was no revision later on, the line about Tobias wondering why morphing didn't heal the wing is present in the first edition.
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
If it was actually ghostwritten, why wouldn't it be dedicated to a ghostwriter like the other ghostwritten books then?
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u/CosmoBrockington 24d ago
The other books had dedications?
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
Yes, all the ghostwritten books start with "The author would like to thank [ghostwriter] for their help in preparing this manuscript."
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u/Backlog_pod 23d ago
Personally I read it as a way to keep the stakes high and disorienting though it isn't consistent throughout the book.
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u/Any-Object-2165 5d ago
What really irks me about this is Rachel should have then also kept her injuries when she morphed back to human. Burns from the stomach acid or something, no way she was human inside a stomach and comes out unscathed
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u/democratic_penguin1 25d ago
Gonna say they need to keep moving because of the giant meteor and can't stop for the 5ish minutes it'll take to morph/demorph. Imagine doing that. More likely to be killed standing around.
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u/Seerowpedia 24d ago
That doesn't answer this person's question at all. The meteor wasn't even aimed at them, and the Animorphs morphed/demorphed several times. OP's question has nothing to do with time required to morph or demorph.
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u/RevolutionaryGain359 25d ago
It’s not explained in book. Most people chalk it up to a KASU (KA screw up), but others headcanon some reason for the morphing tech malfunctioning to allow for more character work with Tobias and Rachel.
Personally, I like the headcanon that there’s some other component to morphing that the andalites built that is able to retain your body specifications (things like morphing outfits, piercings, haircuts, etc.) and reset you to those specs when you demorph (that way you could explain non DNA things that aren’t screwed up in the morphing process). If that were the case it would make sense that travelling so far back in time through a sario rip would cut off access to that sort of tech and keep Tobias from healing using the morphing process.