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Most Notable Inconsistencies
There are quite a few mistakes and inconsistencies throughout the books, and wherever they show up I have noted them in the individual books here. But for those who are doing a more superficial glance through this site, I'm summarizing the most glaring problems with the series (in my opinion). After all, how can I be a science fiction geek if I don't pick apart the things I love?
- Narrators usually open their book by describing their inability to reveal names or identifying personal information because it would help the Yeerks find them. The problem is, they keep up this "we can't tell you who we are" schtick throughout the series until open war is declared late in the game, and despite that even from the beginning there are multiple details that could have easily identified them. This breaking-the-fourth-wall bit is poorly conceived, because it also reveals that the Animorphs are human, and that's a detail they try to keep secret from the Yeerks (and succeed at keeping for over half the series).
The books aren't a journal or diary (but sometimes they act like it), and they aren't told as if the characters know what happens in the end (except sometimes they do hint at knowing the ending before the book starts), and it's unclear what exactly these books are supposed to BE since the characters recording them appear to be aware that they have readers (from whom they must hide certain details lest these important bits of information fall into the hands of their enemies, though other important secrets like the fact that the Animorphs are not Andalites is revealed freely). The books have a confused level of awareness of future events which is often inconsistent, and if a reader thinks about it too much it makes the story less enjoyable.
Just finding any five kids with their names and descriptions at a school in a known area (near The Gardens) would be a pretty easy afternoon's work for a Controller with data processing experience, but since they give even more information (siblings' and parents' names, specific recognitions the kids have gotten, etc.), it would have been cake to track the kids down if these books were actually released into the same world they're trying to hide in. Especially since a biological relationship exists between Visser One's host and Marco. Obviously, Visser One knows who her host body's son is. Which would mean that any Yeerk on Visser One's side could find him immediately. It would have been better for the books to not break the fourth wall and pretend they're talking to people who are in the same universe as they are.
- Similarly, Erek King's full name (with its unusual spelling) is revealed, and yet even at the end of the series the Chee androids are trying to stay under the radar, hoping to continue to pose as humans without their android identities being discovered, caring for dogs like they did for their original Pemalite masters. If these books are withholding information from the reader because they don't want it to fall into Yeerk hands, BUT they think regular humans might be reading them, the Chee ought to be a bit angry about being outed.
- The Animorphs are based in one California city. On the few and far between instances in which they must travel to another city for a mission, it's very inconvenient and represents a major part of the plot. But strangely enough, most of the action and most of the plots they have to foil happen right in their city. This seems especially strange when in one book they have to help the Chee with something very time-sensitive and only two of them are in trouble--of course, right in their town, even though the Chee are positioned worldwide. If only the Yeerks had moved a portion of their headquarters to some other city--even somewhere else in the same state!--they would have escaped the Animorphs' ability to spy easily, considering they're children and don't have any control over where they move.
- Morphing "rules" are very inconsistent throughout. Morphing into another creature and then morphing back into one's original body is said to heal injuries and reconstitute the body to its original form--even healing very old injuries in some cases. This is supposed to be because the original body is reconstituted from its DNA. Practically speaking, if that were true, there would be no way to preserve such superficial details as haircut/hairstyle, piercings, and tattoos--aspects of the physical body that, if erased, would cause major problems. Theoretically, Rachel (who has pierced ears) shouldn't have piercings anymore when she morphs back, and it's also unclear whether a person's health at the time of morphing is preserved. Morphing has cured Marco of rabies in one instance, but did not cure Jake of yamphut in another instance, so it's unclear whether issues like high cholesterol or other lifestyle-related illnesses would be cured through morphing. Would a smoker have healthy lungs after morphing? Would a person born with a faulty body part who'd undergone surgery to fix it suddenly suffer from it again? Would people get their tonsils and appendixes back? And if they'd exercised and become very fit, would they retain their stronger muscles? (In book 50, a child who'd been in a wheelchair because of an accident since age four fixed his handicap by demorphing for the first time, and his legs were described as strong and muscled. Is there a mid-line of health/functionality built into the morphing?)
But considering the Animorphs are repeatedly said to be able to incorporate some skintight clothing into their morphs, it's very clear that non-organic, non-DNA-specific material can be reconstituted on the original body when demorphing, so there's pretty much no sense to the idea that it could cure rabies while preserving bike shorts.
- And speaking of inconsistent morphing rules, it's supposed to be impossible to go straight from one morph to another, but in rare instances it happens (like with Rachel's issues with DNA allergy in book 12 and Marco's stress-based issues in book 35). But when someone is morphing under normal circumstances and is not suffering from a serious problem, it's not supposed to be possible to start another morph without returning to the original. But in book 34, Cassie morphs from a bird to herself to a whale and kept the wings from the bird to slow her descent when she was falling from the sky. At that point she'd never even tested it, but seemed sure she could do it, and it's just accepted because she has a morphing talent. There doesn't seem to be an Andalite science-related reason for this.
- Ax is repeatedly identified as "not being an Animorph" since he is an Andalite, and the backs of the books usually say "the Animorphs and Ax" as if he is not one of them. But since the title stands for "animal morpher," it does seem it should fit him. In any case, he's usually mentioned separately if "Animorphs" is said, and when the Yeerks think they're "Andalite bandits" it's true he's the only one they're right about, but then in book 37 he is included when "Animorphs" is mentioned because Jake and Rachel refer to there being six Animorphs.
- In the first book, in several instances, humans were able to project their thoughts, once to Elfangor and also Jake was able to send his thoughts to Tobias while Tobias was morphed but Jake was not. This is not how the thought-communication works in later books; normally they can only direct their thoughts while in a morphed form, and at that point they can direct thoughts to one person or many however they like. But no one can just hear them thinking when they are human (as Prince Elfangor does at the beginning of this book). Ms. Applegate was asked about it in an interview, and she replied that she could make up some kind of excuse if she wanted, but in all honesty she'd just made a mistake and hadn't worked that out fully before incorporating it. I've heard that this inconsistency was corrected in the series re-release.
- In Ax's early narration, he often suggests that he no longer has the powers of thought-speak when he is in human morph. He claims "And since I was in a human body, I too was restricted to spoken language." It makes sense that humans can't do it when they're not in a body made possible by Andalite science, but it seems ridiculous that if a morph can speak, the thought-speak ability goes away. It's also contradicted later in the series, when Tobias and Ax start thought-speaking while they're human.
- On rare occasions in the series, Yeerks have access to morphing powers because of taking morph-capable hosts. Visser Three often makes use of this, but usually only morphs large battle creatures. But at one point, Jake gets infested, and the Yeerk tries to morph two birds and an ant. Morphing to an animal with a skull below a certain size should prevent a Yeerk from being able to continue existing inside. They can't infest creatures who are too small for them to fit inside the skull, so if a Yeerk can make a morph-capable person shrink smaller than a Yeerk's physical body, something transformative that makes no sense must be happening to the Yeerk. Yeerks are said to be about two inches long, so fitting inside a bird skull might be possible, but an ant? No.
- Yeerks are suggested to have gender and sex. A Yeerk in book 8 refers to a female he cared about and assigned her female pronouns even before she was in any kind of human body, and the narrator of Visser refers to when she "became female." This sort of contradicts other parts of the canon because Yeerks' mating and reproduction is nothing like humans; Yeerks don't have parents, and it seems unlikely that they'd mate for life. It appears they're very affected, mentally, by the gender of their hosts when it exists, but it's not explored whether they change their understanding of their own gender if they switch hosts.
- Yeerks' naming conventions aren't clear. The name that comes before the number seems to be used as a personal name (like "Esplin" or "Aftran"), but there are lots of Yeerks with similar names since it's suggested that every Yeerk from the same group of three Yeerk parents is assigned the same first name and a number. But other places, that number acts like it's a rank; not just with vissers, but with Yeerks such as Tom's first Yeerk, Temrash 114, who said he used to be Temrash 252 before he was promoted. That would suggest that "Temrash" is a rank and not a personal name, but the way these names are used is not consistent, and even the vissers have original name-and-number designations, like Visser Three being Esplin 9466 Primary.
- It's odd that DNA can't be acquired from a dead animal, but it can supposedly be acquired from blood that's been removed from the source (as per book 18). Even a very recently dead Tyrannosaurus wasn't useful for morph acquisition in Megamorphs #2 either. It's not clear why that is or where the dividing line is between when a part of someone is a good source for acquiring DNA or when it's no longer useful because it's "dead."
- The beginning of the war with the Yeerks is suggested to have begun in the Earth year 1966 (mentioned in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles). These books were written in the very late 1990s, which suggests the wars started only thirty years ago. The narration usually makes it seem like the Andalites and the Yeerks have been fighting each other for generations, especially since the Andalites and Yeerks are described to have a nearly instinctive disgust reaction to each other. This space war that's spanned many planets sure didn't waste any time developing.
- It's unclear whether eating while in morph will sustain a person. In book 25, Ax and Tobias satisfying their hunger by drinking blood in flea morph suggests they can avoid hunger by doing so, but then in book 49 Rachel says she understands that Tobias has to eat a hamburger as a hawk in order to keep its nourishment. It's inconsistent.
- Sometimes it's unclear where the various aliens' planets are. The Hork-Bajir planet is claimed in book 34 to be in a different galaxy. Ax says so when they have to go through Z-space to arrive "somewhere in the galaxy of the Hork-Bajir planet," and when Aldrea awakens Cassie wonders whether she has any idea that she's on "a planet in a different galaxy." But in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, it's said over and over that the Yeerks, the Andalites, and the Hork-Bajir are from the same galaxy.
- In the first book, Elfangor is said to have a three-dimensional picture of "his family" inside the ship, and there were two that were children. Since Elfangor was an adult when Ax was born, it's unlikely that one of the children was himself, so this is suggesting that Elfangor was the father in the picture and that he had a wife and two children. But in later books there were never any references to Elfangor taking an Andalite mate or having kids. This, like several other issues that crop up in this book, is probably just a result of the author not having worked out all the details yet when she wrote the first book.
- In the first book, while in dog morph Jake can apparently smell something he relates to Visser Three when he gets the scent of his brother, Tom. This is because, unbeknownst to him at the time, Tom is a Controller. It seems odd that they don't use the dog's ability to smell Yeerks as a way to detect Controllers in later books.
- In the first book, when Jake turned into his dog, it was more like he was an exact copy of Homer than the same dog from the same DNA. He seemed to have Homer's memories (e.g., he knew a bunch of information, through scent, about another male dog that Homer knew). Also, he was apparently neutered just like his dog, and in a later book the kids acquire DNA from steer and end up morphing into uncastrated bulls, which makes them quite a bit more violent. This same "having the memories of an animal" experience comes up again in the next book, when Rachel in cat morph has memories of being carried by a mother cat when she was a kitten. Later in the series they mostly did not seem to have any information beyond instinct when they morphed animals, though all the way in book 49 Tobias seemed to have the discipline and responsibility of a blind person's guide dog innately.
- Ax acquires Jake's DNA at one point, and there is no mention of him experiencing the temporary sedation that normally happens when an animal is having its DNA acquired. In fact, he screams in anger during the process and doesn't appear to be affected by the sedative effect at all. In another book, a dolphin won't go into the trance for Tobias. Whether a creature goes into the trance is inconsistent.
- It's established in the first Megamorphs that Visser Three can get a visual lock on his Veleek while it is in business, so it seems a little risky for the Animorphs to be in close proximity to it while morphing. Since Cassie turns from cockroach to human to whale while the Veleek is targeting her, if Visser Three happened to remotely see the events then he would know who she was. It's strange that no one worried about this, and it's strange that no consequences came of it.
- In Ax's first full narration book, a prologue details Ax with his brother and an Andalite soldier named Captain Nerefir, and Ax's thought-speak is "overheard" when he's "thought-speaking a little loudly." In previous books it's been noted that thought-speak can be publicly sent to everyone in the vicinity like speech, but can also be directed privately like whispering, and it makes no sense that Ax would make a disrespectful joke about the Captain right in front of him and NOT do it in private thought-speak to Elfangor. Targeting thought-speak to a particular individual is not supposed to be difficult, as the humans with no experience grasp it fine.
- In Ax's first full narration book, Andalites are said to have three hearts, since Ax explains that his second and third hearts stop beating when he becomes human. It's contradicted in later books when Andalites refer to "both hearts" as though they have two.
- In Ax's first full narration book, Ax at one point refers to his world as being "about a billion Earth miles from my home world," and later in the story he says his world is "billions of miles away." And interestingly, Ax says "a billion" twice and says "billions" twice in this book. Which is it? "A billion" would make no sense. We have planets in our solar system that are more than a billion miles away.
- Ax tells his new friends that the Hork-Bajir "used to have a biological time clock that set them all warring every sixty-two years," which seems unlikely when we find out in a future book that they were created as peaceful creatures by a species called the Arn, and no warring tendencies were likely to have been built into them.
- The word for a person with a morphing talent is estreen in the Andalite language. Ax brings it up while watching Cassie morph, and claims it is an art form on his home planet. This is a bit odd because in later books the Andalite morphing technology is referred to as "top secret." Which is it?
- In book 10, Ax is said to have had his arm "reattached" by Erek after a battle, and he sports a scar. In order to heal physical damage inflicted by battle, a person with morphing powers can simply morph into something else, then regrow the original body without flaws; it seems odd that Ax would not have done this instead if it involved no scarring and no special procedure. This exact technique of repairing the body through morphing technique is explicitly used in later books.
- In book 13, Visser Three doesn't seem concerned that Hork-Bajir getting eaten by wolves would leave alien bones around. It's unclear whether this really doesn't concern him or whether he's just too ignorant to know that the bones would remain. Alien skeletons could be a major red flag for the media, so it probably should be of concern to Visser Three, especially since in a later book Visser Three suddenly retreats with his whole force because he doesn't want human helicopters to see evidence of their battle.
- In book 13, Tobias gets taken into the past by the Ellimist and is allowed to touch and acquire his human self. This is of course a paradox, but considering that Ax claimed in a previous book that having two of someone existing at the same place and time would cause annihilation of both, it doesn't seem the in-universe physics should allow this meeting.
- In The Andalite Chronicles, the narration says that Elfangor was "too weak to morph," which is a bit surprising since the Animorphs appear to have managed to morph themselves into life-saving alternate shapes in order to erase their injuries. Despite the fact that Elfangor can think clearly enough to give technology, information, and instructions to the Animorphs when he meets them, he's "too weak to morph" because of his injuries. It seems in previous books the Animorphs have morphed while practically unconscious and also mortally wounded, so it's unclear what kind of injury could have put Elfangor in that position.
- The narration of The Andalite Chronicles is peppered by such Earth references as comparing Yeerks to "slugs" or a ship to a "spider," a field measured in "miles," and a dome made of "plastic."
- In The Andalite Chronicles, Elfangor describes the Taxxons as "nauseating," which is odd because Andalites can't throw up.
- Toward the end of The Andalite Chronicles, the Time Matrix created a new world from the mental input of three characters' home worlds as they wished to go there: the Andalite home world, the Yeerk home world, and Earth. But this is a bit hard to believe since the Yeerk involved had never been to his own planet. Another Chronicles book states that the Yeerk who later became Visser Three was born in a tank on a ship, and that it was "all he knew." It's hard to imagine that a realistic Yeerk home world could have been created from his memories, with a full pool and the green sky, if he did not have those memories and should have been imagining someplace he'd actually been.
- In book 14, when Cassie is injured in a bomb blast that is thought to be just a "lost" bomb from the nearby military base, the theory that it's just an accident is accepted readily by Cassie's dad. I think most fathers would be so shaken and freaked out about their daughters being almost caught by a BOMB in an area deemed safe for civilians that he would at least start up an investigation of some kind. A military base causing bombs to go off outside the base which could kill civilians would be a massive scandal and news story.
- In book 15, when the Animorphs break into an aquarium to get hammerhead shark morphs, they attract Controller attention when guards notice them. Ax is in his natural form when this happens, and so of course the Controllers notice him. But despite the fact that kids are with him, they only seem interested in the Andalite. Even to the point where one of them says that the kids are "irrelevant." That seems excruciatingly ridiculous, since this can't possibly be a coincidence and they'd have to know the human children could be Andalites in morph (or some other explanation still implicating the kids). Visser Three sure is giving host bodies to some incompetent Yeerks.
- Marco did not kill a Leeran that knew he was human; he only knocked it unconscious with a punch. It's never said how much the Leeran learned about him (and the other so-called Andalite bandits); it's unclear whether it knew his identity or whether it only knew he was human. But since this Yeerk was not eliminated, it's possible there is a security risk here and no one seems to realize it; it was never assured that everyone in the facility was destroyed at the end.
- In book 16, Web Access America is introduced. But in book 20 and book 43, characters use America Online, which Web Access America was supposed to be a spoof of.
- In book 17, oatmeal (a specific flavor, instant variety) is said to "modify a Yeerk's brainstem," causing them to stop needing Kandrona rays. This may be science fiction, but that seems impossible. Kandrona is a Yeerk's food source and being deprived of it is frequently referred to as being "starved." It makes no sense that modifying an organism's brainstem would cause them to no longer need the food its body has always thrived on. It would make sense if the Yeerk needed to continue to be exposed to the agents in the oatmeal, but there shouldn't be a substance that permanently alters their physiology to not need their equivalent of food ever again, since it doesn't explain where the Yeerk's nourishment comes from after that point.
- In book 18, it seems odd that Ax is so perplexed at one point that Visser Three has a kafit bird in his morphing repertoire. After all, Visser Three's host body is Alloran, an Andalite military officer, and that guy probably had plenty of morphs before he was infested. Ax's own brother had a kafit bird to morph into because it was a morph offered in training; why would it be so odd that Alloran (and therefore Visser Three) had been exposed to it? However, Ax suddenly being obsessed with "what if the Yeerks have been to my planet?" seems a bit silly when considering that in a previous book Alloran used his brief seconds of freedom to tell Ax that the Yeerks had "infiltrated the home world."
- In Megamorphs #2, a nuclear bomb went off very close to the city in the ocean. It's a bit ridiculous to imagine that a nuclear bomb could have gone off right next to a populated area and this doesn't appear to have any repercussions, nor is it brought up in the series again that an event which would be heralded as a catastrophe happened right there in the water. (Being that this is science fiction and sometimes very silly with its scientific justifications, perhaps we can just ignore that nuclear bombs don't rip through the time/space continuum to send people back in time, but that's ridiculous too. The very few nuclear explosions we've endured on this planet did not cause time travel. The sub's crew and rescue team also inexplicably did not come with the Animorphs to the past. It's unclear why the Sario Rip "picked" them to go through it.)
- Also in Megamorphs #2, there's no reason their morphing abilities shouldn't work as they always did to heal wounds, but in this book, morphing doesn't heal them. This is never explained, and seems inconsistent because this is the second time they've experienced time travel by Sario Rip and during the first time they had no such problem.
- In Megamorphs #2, the morphs they acquired got "erased" from their repertoire. During the last time a Sario Rip happened, it makes sense that the morphs they acquired disappeared because that whole timeline was made to not exist based on Jake changing his mind about a choice they made. But in this book, the morphs getting erased doesn't really make sense because they did not undo anything they did and presumably they actually did have a lasting effect on reality. They should really be able to morph dinosaurs.
- It's unclear because of time paradoxes whether the Animorphs actually changed history or were always there/had always been part of it somehow. Their influence was what inspired the Nesk to aim a comet that wasn't going to hit Earth straight at the Mercora settlement. If that comet was the only one that hit Earth during that time and it wasn't actually supposed to, then the Animorphs influenced history before they were born.
- In book 19, Aftran tells Cassie that being a parasite is not morally inferior to being a predator because humans kill plenty of inferior creatures to live. She points out that at least Yeerks don't chop their hosts into pieces and consume them. However, being in a human host, don't they then have to engage in the predatory behavior that keeps the human host alive? They're both parasite AND predator if they do that. So it makes little sense for Aftran to try to argue the "morality" of being a parasite if being one requires directing the host to engage in predatory behavior. (Considering the Yeerks do not make any kind of mass conversion to vegetarianism, that is.)
- In book 19, it seems illogical that changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly would reset the morphing clock. It's not different DNA, and it's also not like Cassie only became a butterfly once she emerged. At what point did the clock start ticking? It seems like a very weak justification for letting her actually think she was making this sacrifice and then giving her a cheap cheat (though of course it's wonderful that she got to do it).
- In book 19, it seems odd that a Yeerk was planted strategically in the daughter of a powerful banker in order to watch him, and then when Aftran defected and decided to "set the girl free," no one seemed to worry that she would be missed. Wouldn't they wonder why Aftran never reported on Karen's father's activities, or why the little girl never reported to the Yeerk pool anymore? Seems odd that Aftran could just go back to the Yeerk pool unnoticed, even for a short time.
- In book 20, it's unclear why David thinks he's playing it smart by having a time-delay on his e-mail. Sending out his address to a person who wants to come over and see his mysterious blue object only a little before he gets home from school "so the guy can't just rip him off while he's at school" makes no sense. If someone wanted to rip him off, they could wait until the next day to come over if they wanted to, so who does he think he's fooling? There also seems to be a contradiction here in how e-mail works. Marco repeatedly refers to yanking out the phone cord as a way to stop David's e-mail from going out, so they must be on dial-up. But from context, it seems whatever ISP they use couldn't have been signed on for the e-mail to go out; if David has AOL, it's unlikely he has some alternate way to get online during the time this was written. (The phone was also used for a phone call during the time Marco was trying to access the AOL software, but it's possible the family had two phone lines.) How did the e-mail go out if nobody was signed on?
- In book 21, the plan is really convoluted and made little sense. At one point the Animorphs have a plan that involves three of the guys--Ax, Jake, and David--acquiring and morphing human-Controllers. They planned to snag world leaders invisibly, explain to each temporarily abducted world leader that there's an alien invasion going on, and have Ax demorph to show them. Why would they do that when a) there were other ways to prove it with other people's morphs and b) they'd bothered to put Ax in a tuxedo and tie his tie?
- In book 22, it's not said what happened to the real Saddler's body. It seems odd that David could get rid of it as easily as he did.
- At the end of book 22 Rachel's narration says "We never heard from David again," with a qualifier about how some people heard ghostlike thought-speak coming from where David was stranded. But if you look at a much later book, that most certainly shows that this was NOT the last they heard of David.
- In The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Aldrea describes the height of a tree in feet. Human measurements.
- If the quantum virus mentioned in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles could be calibrated to kill all of a certain species, why was it not leveled at the Yeerks rather than the Hork-Bajir?
- In book 24, some of the Animorphs have been shrunk to nearly microscopic size, and Cassie figures out that acquiring DNA from an animal after she's been shrunk will enable her to morph into that animal at the size it's supposed to be. After they're returned to normal, it seems that if the shrunken DNA resulted in small versions of the animals, the anteater DNA would now be prepared to turn them into colossal anteaters if they used it. This isn't explored.
- In book 28, the Animorphs take great pains to sneak into a field at night and acquire particular steer to morph. If part of their plan rested on becoming specific animals--to the point where they tagged themselves to specifically replace those animals--it seems unlikely that Ax would accidentally acquire a cow first, then not have to seek out a particular steer to become. It seems sloppy. Especially since they could have just all hidden inside cows' noses in fly morph if that's what most of them were going to do. Having two of them in the morphs of animals that could easily get slaughtered in that environment seems so pointlessly dangerous that it reads like it was a situation deliberately created to induce suspense.
- In book 33, while Tobias is experiencing Elfangor's memories, several phrases are used to describe his experiences which sound like things humans would say, such as "making a retching noise" (Andalites don't have mouths, so they can't "retch"), "expelling" breakfast (they can't vomit) and experiencing "nausea" (which seems like an odd way to describe it if they can't vomit).
- In book 39, a buffalo accidentally comes into contact with the Escafil device and acquires morphing power, and so does an ant. Both end up acquiring morphs unconsciously and morphing without meaning to. It makes no sense that an animal like a buffalo or an ant could "accidentally" morph since it's been said many times that both acquiring and morphing take concentration and intent.
- In book 45, Marco and his dad have to fake being killed by Controllers at one point, and it's surprising that even though their cover is being legally dead, there are never any reactions from anyone--Jake was his best friend, and people had to wonder how he was taking losing his best friend. The book didn't go into whether there were any funeral arrangements or how many people really knew Marco was supposed to be dead.
- In book 49, the group uses their Hork-Bajir morphs and pretends to be elite guards, and they aren't recognized as impostors. It's obvious from previous incidents that the Yeerks can tell Hork-Bajir apart pretty easily, as Visser One (previously Visser Three) knew certain Hork-Bajir at a glance. Considering that, it seems fishy that the Animorphs assume they can just slap on blue armbands and no one will question them. It's like assuming you could morph any human and put on their clothes and everyone would accept you as that human.
- In book 50, when James decides to sign on to the group, one of his conditions is that his bedridden roommate Pedro should get to acquire a morph. Pedro is never mentioned again after seeing his roommate and some others leave the facility in their new morphed bodies. It's not explained why Jake didn't give Pedro a morph or what condition he has that would prevent him from being recruited for the first wave. It became impossible to give Pedro a morph once the Animorphs lost the morphing cube, but it seems inconsistent that Pedro wasn't given a morph to start with, given that James so often goes to bat for his less capable friends.
- In The Ellimist Chronicles, the Speaker says that the home crystal and another crystal passing this close to each other is an event that happens only once every nineteen years. Question is, how long is a year for Ketrans? It's unclear whether he's literally saying it's the length of time it takes for their planet to orbit their sun--which could be anything--or whether this is supposed to be basically a translation to humans' understanding of time.
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