K.A. Applegate: Animorphs

ENEMIES Here are the characters who are the Animorphs' most major antagonists throughout the books. VISSER THREE (later Visser One): The most ever-present and active villain the Animorphs have to fight, Visser Three is a Yeerk with an Andalite body to control. The body belongs to Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, and with it he got the Andalites' morphing power. Visser Three is a not-very-subtle, unhinged Yeerk who yearns for open war against the humans for most of the series, but cannot implement such plans because of his superiors' preference for a covert invasion. He is known for killing underlings just to make a point, and his reign of terror certainly motivates Yeerks that might not otherwise be loyal to the Empire. Visser Three's individual Yeerk name is Esplin 9466 Primary (which means he is a twin; Esplin 9466 Lesser is a human-Controller, and is evil in a different way). Visser Three has a huge number of dangerous alien morphs which frequently serve him well when the Animorphs attack. He is later promoted to the rank of Visser One after his superior perishes, and that is when open war begins on the Earth. VISSER ONE: Born as a Yeerk called Edriss 562, Visser One was the Yeerk who found Earth and decided the planet's humans would make excellent hosts. She took various hosts along the way but ended up living long-term as the controller of a human named Eva . . . who happens to be Marco's mother. He'd thought she had just died in a boating accident, but really she's hosting the leader of the Yeerk invasion. Visser One and Visser Three hate each other, and frequently worry more about hurting each other's reputation than about winning the war. After repeatedly having to fight the son of her host body, Visser One is found guilty of being a traitor and is sentenced to starvation, but before she actually dies, Marco and his friends manage to liberate Eva and kill Visser One. Visser Three rises to power in her place. Her life story is told in The Chronicles book Visser. CRAYAK: The Ellimist's "evil" counterpart, Crayak is a super-powerful creature who wishes to stamp out civilizations instead of encourage them. He and the Ellimist are engaged in an eternal game of galactic proportions, operating within rules to battle each other. Crayak is the creator of the Howlers, a race that destroyed the peaceful Pemalites and threatened the Animorphs before Jake found a way to destroy them. Crayak has a seething hatred for little human Jake. He is usually represented by a single red eye, and was chased out of his galaxy into ours, where he found the Ellimist and began to destroy what he loved. The Ellimist's first encounters with Crayak are described in The Ellimist Chronicles. THE DRODE: A servant of Crayak, this creature sometimes comes in Crayak's place to bother the Animorphs, manipulate them, or taunt them (especially Jake), and it really seems to like hounding Rachel by telling her that it'd make more sense for her to be on their side due to her violent nature. Not much is known about the Drode or why Crayak uses him. He plays within the rules of the Ellimist/Crayak game and appears to have some ability to manipulate reality. DAVID: He was lucky enough--or unlucky enough--to accidentally find the Escafil device, or the morphing cube. The Animorphs ended up making him one of their team when the Yeerks wrecked his life and stole his parents, but David had a sociopathic streak and began to turn against the Animorphs. He used psychological warfare, threats, lies, and exploitation to manipulate the Animorphs, and seemed to think it wasn't "really" murder if he were to kill one of them while they were morphed. When they finally realize he's done something terrible to Jake's cousin and they can't trust him, they have to figure out what to do with him . . . and rather than kill him outright, they hatch a plan to trap him in a rat morph. David hates Rachel because she was hostile to him and assisted personally in his sentence, but little does he know Cassie was behind the plan to trap him. During his run, David gets the following morphs: Cockroach, golden eagle, flea, lion, rat, seagull, and orca, as well as three human morphs: Jake's cousin Saddler, a human security guard, and Marco. CHAPMAN: Hedrick Chapman is a Controller who allowed himself to be infested in return for a promise that his daughter Melissa would not be. Chapman's Yeerk is of high rank and deals intimately with the running of the Yeerk front organization, The Sharing. Interestingly, Chapman himself was also an antagonist at one point, as he was abducted into space as a teenager and betrayed his own species during The Andalite Chronicles. TOM: Tom is Jake's brother but he is a Controller. He was originally infested by Temrash 114, but that Yeerk ends up dying after it accidentally infests Jake and the other Animorphs stop him from accessing Kandrona rays until he starves. Tom ends up controlled by a different Yeerk after this Yeerk is killed, but that Yeerk has no name in the books. He doesn't end up being too important until he steals the Escafil device and gets a major advantage over the Animorphs. Since he becomes morph-capable, the two morphs he can do revealed in the book are jaguar and cobra. TAYLOR: She's a Controller, but she's actually in league with her Yeerk to some extent. Taylor was very beautiful until she was in an accident, and then all of a sudden all the people who liked her when she was popular thought she was disgusting. Disillusioned, she became a voluntary Controller when the Yeerks said they could mend her physical deformities. They gave her access to the artificial limb technology and reconstruction surgery, but as a Controller, she's sadistic and somewhat insane. She has an interesting relationship with Tobias, as she became his torturer in one book and later cooperated with him to some extent (though she was trying to betray the Animorphs). ESPLIN 9466 LESSER: Also known as Joe Bob Fenestre, he and his human created Web Access America, and he uses his own network to try to find Yeerks to prey on. He's Visser Three's twin and isn't well-liked by his brother, so he had to find another way to get sustenance since he isn't allowed at the Yeerk pool. He can cannibalize other Yeerks to get his nutrients, and though the Animorphs know that's a bit of a help to their cause, they find it unforgivable that he's destroying humans with the Yeerks. VISSER TWO: A Yeerk with a human host, this guy makes the Animorphs react to his attempt to start World War III. Under orders, this Yeerk used his host's military connections to get it to look like China attacked the United States, but the Animorphs foil his plans. Ax is able to convince him that if he doesn't call off orders, the Yeerk pool will get bombed. This is a very fanatical and sort of psychotic Yeerk. VISSER FOUR: A Yeerk whose human host is John Berryman. He steals the Time Matrix and makes the Animorphs chase him through time, trying to stop him from changing history to make the human race easier to conquer. They eventually succeed and make it so John Berryman never existed to be infested. Visser Four was actually no longer a visser when he committed these acts; the Animorphs' interference in a Leeran war had caused him to lose his position.