Animorphs •
Jake: Jake Berenson is the leader of Animorphs. His battle morph is a
tiger, and his flight morph is a
peregrine falcon. Despite being a natural leader, he's reluctant to accept the role. The war takes on a deeper meaning for Jake when he finds out that his older brother Tom has been taken over by a Yeerk; this is one of his main motivations, preventing him from cracking under the pressure of making life-or-death decisions throughout the series. He is the only member of the team to have some relationship with all of the other human members prior to the war: Jake and Rachel are cousins, he and Marco have been best friends since early childhood, he is one of the few people who treats Tobias kindly, and he and Cassie have always had an attraction to each other. Jake and Cassie share their first kiss in book 26 and are in a relationship throughout the second half of the series. •
Rachel: Rachel has the most bloodthirsty nature in the group, earning her the nickname of "
Xena, Warrior Princess". Her battle morphs are an
African elephant and
grizzly bear, and her flight morph is a
bald eagle. She is also good in gymnastics and has an interest in fashion. She is Jake's cousin and Cassie's best friend, although her warrior nature often conflicts with Cassie's pacifist mindset. She and Tobias develop an attraction for one another during the series. She also has two younger sisters, Jordan and Sara. In the television series adaptation, her morph is a male
lion as opposed to this being the battle morphs of David and James. •
Tobias: Tobias has low self-esteem and was often bullied in school before becoming an Animorph. An orphan, he lives with his aunt and uncle, who share custody of him. Tobias becomes trapped in a
red-tailed hawk form in the first book. During the series, he regains the power to morph, but with his natural form remaining a hawk. Even though Rachel wants him to morph back into a human permanently, he keeps the hawk form in order to retain his morphing powers and continue fighting the Yeerks. Tobias admires Jake because Jake always showed him respect and kindness when no one else did. Also, Tobias develops a close friendship with Ax. •
Cassie: Cassie lives on a farm with her parents, who are veterinarians. Her battle morph is a
wolf, and her flight morph is an
osprey. She is African-American and the most knowledgeable about animals; also, she is an environmentalist. Her best friend is Rachel, despite the disparity in their personalities and lifestyles. Cassie loves nature and animals. She is also an
estreen, the Andalite term for someone who is naturally talented at morphing. •
Marco: Marco is the source of comic relief in the series and Jake's best friend. His battle morph is a
gorilla, and his flight morph is an
osprey. He is Latin-American, and he also coined the term "Animorphs". Marco often proposes the most direct solution to any problem, even if it involves sacrifice. He lives with his father, who is depressed about his mother's apparent death in a boating accident. At first, he does not want to fight the Yeerks because he fears his father will not survive without him. He changes his mind when he discovers his mother is still alive as the host body for Visser One, the leader of the Yeerk invasion. In the television adaptation, his morph is a wolf rather than Cassie. •
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill ("Ax"): Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is an Andalite who is thought to be the only survivor of a bloody battle that took place in outer space. His flight morph is a
Northern harrier. His ship has crash landed on Earth. He is the younger brother of Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, who gave the Animorphs their morphing ability moments before dying. He considers Jake a prince and is a strong friend of Tobias. The human Animorphs call him 'Ax' for the sake of easily pronouncing his name.
Other main characters •
Visser Three: Born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later promoted to Visser One, is the leader of the Yeerk forces on
Earth and the primary antagonist of the series. He believed the planet was his inheritance from Edriss 562, his predecessor as Visser One. Sadistic and cruel, Visser Three has a penchant for
torture and possesses the body of a full-grown
Andalite warrior, Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. Esplin 9466 is the only Yeerk who has an Andalite host. Therefore, Visser Three also has the Andalite's ability to change their form by morphing. Throughout the series, Visser Three shows his acquisition of exceptionally powerful forms from many different planets, which he morphs into. During the final arc of the series, he is promoted to Visser One, when his predecessor is sentenced to execution. •
Ellimist: Seemingly all-powerful, a supernatural being which intermittently helps the Animorphs, including giving Tobias the ability to morph again. He acts to avoid direct involvement in the war to escape antagonizing Crayak, his evil counterpart, because that combat would cause galactic destruction. He subtly orchestrated many events which are key to the series. In
The Ellimist Chronicles, it is revealed that Ellimist was once simply a member of an avian race, which by adaptive selection became a drastically different being. •
Crayak: Ellimist's arch-enemy which seeks absolute control over all intelligent life. He develops a personal vendetta against Jake after Jake ruins his species of soldiers, the Howlers. Ellimist claimed that Crayak originated in another galaxy, from where a greater power drove him out;
The Ellimist Chronicles details Crayak's early conflict with Ellimist prior to the evolution of both beings to acquire seemingly limitless power.
Secondary characters •
Andalites: • Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan – Aldrea is the daughter of Prince Seerow, a main character in
Animorphs #34:
The Prophecy and the heroine in
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles. She has a strong personality mixed with a desire to do the right thing, not necessarily what is easy. Born an Andalite, her father Seerow gave the Yeerks' technology that they used to leave their home planet and begin their quest to dominate the universe. Her family was eventually sent to the Hork-Bajir home planet, where she bonded with an unusually intelligent Hork-Bajir named Dak Hamee. Aldrea obtained the ability to morph shortly after the technology was developed, and used it to fight the Yeerk invasion of the Hork-Bajir world after her family was murdered. She and Dak led the resistance, and a strong bond developed between the two of them. She eventually, though accidentally, became a Hork-Bajir female permanently, and she and Dak fell deeply in love, married and had a son named Seerow. Despite their resistance efforts, they were both eventually killed and their son was infested by the Yeerks, though his line later gave rise to the leaders of the free Hork-Bajir on Earth. A copy of Aldrea's memories and personality made before her death was later temporarily implanted in Cassie in order to gain access to a cache of Yeerk weapons stolen and hidden by Aldrea and the Hork-Bajir resistance on the Hork-Bajir homeworld. • Alloran-Semitur-Corrass – Andalite host body of Visser Three. Alloran was an officer under Prince Seerow, who relieved his superior of duty after a force of Yeerks stole Andalite ships and left their planet thanks to technology provided to them by Seerow. Years later, having been promoted to the rank of War Prince, Alloran was placed in command of the Andalite forces sent to fight the Yeerk invasion of the Hork-Bajir homeworld. Unfortunately, the desperate situation on the planet led Alloran to decide that wiping out the Hork-Bajir with a virus was a better alternative than allowing them to be enslaved, and countless members of the species died as a result. Alloran was subsequently disgraced, and ended up serving on the crew of the same ship that Elfangor was assigned to as a junior officer. A mission that the pair went on with Elfangor's peer Arbron and a pair of humans led to Alloran's infestation by the Yeerk who would become Visser Three, who used Alloran's morphing abilities for many vile purposes throughout the years. After an attempt by Ax to kill Visser Three, Alloran was briefly left free to communicate with him, and encouraged him to continue the fight. Eventually he was freed from his infestation. • Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul – Elfangor is the first alien the Animorphs meet in the series. He gives them the power to morph minutes before his death. His adventures are highlighted in the book called
The Andalite Chronicles, which takes place before the main
Animorphs series. He was a war prince, and the older brother of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. He was the sworn enemy of Visser Three, and – due to time spent as a human – the father of Tobias. •
Auxiliary Animorphs: These are seventeen teenagers recruited from hospitals and rehabilitation centers where they are being treated for chronic diseases or learning to live with disabilities, the expectation being that the Yeerks would not want their bodies as hosts. The ability to morph restored some of the teenagers' bodies to perfect health, but failed to when the diseases or conditions were genetic. They are all killed in the final conflicts, providing a distraction for the main Animorphs. •
David: A boy who joins the Animorphs after learning their secret. The Animorphs trust him at first, giving him the ability to morph and fight with them rather than allow the Yeerks to take him, but he betrays them. He comes to reason that it is morally okay to attempt to kill the Animorphs while they are morphed, as they are not humans during that time. Ultimately, they are forced to trick him into morphing into a rat and trap him permanently in the morph, leaving him stranded on an island only inhabited by rats. He returns later in the series, eventually asking Rachel to kill him. Whether Rachel kills David or not has never been established. •
Drode: The Drode is an alien creature, described as being similar to a very dark purple dinosaur with wrinkled, pruny skin, and an oddly humanoid face. Little is known of the Drode, but it serves Crayak and usually shows up when he does. •
Erek King: Erek King is a member of the Chee, a pacifistic android race created by an alien race called the Pemalites. After the destruction of the Pemalites at the hands of the Howlers, Erek, along with the rest of the Chee, escaped to Earth. They have lived on the planet for thousands of years, using incredibly advanced holographic technology to pass as human. •
Hork-Bajir: • Toby Hamee – Leader of the Free Hork-Bajir on Earth; a Seer or exceptionally intelligent member of the Hork-Bajir race. • Jara Hamee – Toby's father and the descendant of Dak Hamee, a Hork-Bajir Seer, and Aldrea, an Andalite-turned-Hork-Bajir who led the Hork-Bajir resistance against the Yeerks. He was killed in action during the final battle. • Ket - Toby's mother and Jara Hamee's wife. •
Howlers: A race of killers artificially created by Crayak and deployed as shock troopers against the inhabitants of various worlds. Seven of them were selected by Crayak to be pitted against the Animorphs and Erek the Chee in a contest between the Ellimist and Crayak concerning the fate of an offshoot of the Yeerk race who had found an alternative means of living. Jake eventually discovered that the Howlers were children, too young to understand what they were doing and seeing it all as a game, and the Animorphs managed to infect their collective memory with a flashback of Jake and Cassie kissing. The Howlers were thus ruined as a soldier race. •
The One: An alien being who assimilates other beings; he makes a deal with the defeated Yeerks. He is the final antagonist of the series. •
Tom Berenson: Jake's older brother, a Controller. His original Yeerk is promoted and meant to receive another host early in the series, but ends up in Jake instead; it subsequently dies, while Tom receives another Yeerk. This Yeerk eventually stole the cube that provided the morphing power to the Animorphs and delivered it to his fellow Yeerks, and was later subsequently killed by Rachel. •
Homer: A
Golden Retriever who is the family pet of Jake and his also his first morph. •
Hedrick Chapman: Vice-principal of the Animorphs' school and a Controller. •
Yeerks: The main antagonists, described as small, slug-like parasitic aliens that enter various organisms' brains through the ear canal to control their behavior. They are dependent upon Kandrona rays to survive, and must leave their hosts every three days in order to enter a Yeerk pool where they may absorb these rays. • Edriss 562 – Edriss 562 is a Yeerk that controls Marco's mother Eva. For most of the series, her rank is
Visser One. She is the subject of the novel
Visser, which describes her rise to and dramatic fall from power. She is the highest ranking of all the Yeerks in their military, and is only surpassed in importance by the Council of Thirteen. She is killed by Marco after being forced to leave Eva's body. • Aftran 942 – Aftran 942 is a Yeerk that initially controls a young girl named Karen until Cassie learns of her secret. She believes that it is unfair that Yeerks should be forced to either live in the mind of a host or nearly senseless in their own bodies and, after briefly controlling Cassie to prove that her intentions are pure, agrees to no longer take host bodies and work for peace. She founds the Yeerk Peace Movement and is to be executed until she is rescued by the Animorphs. Rather than die of Kandrona starvation, she is given the ability to morph and agrees to trap herself as a
humpback whale. == Publication ==