Elgangor vs. Visser Three
To understand this article you probably should have read the Andalite Chronicles and the Hork-Bajir Chronicles. It contains minor spoilers for both, and it ties the two together.
Of course you know Elfangor and Visser Three. They are the
two legends of Animorphs. Like the personifications of Good and Evil, they face off
several times, even having to work together once, and in the end brought their battle to
Earth, where it all ends, both their personal conflict, and the entire war.
If you've read even a little Animorphs, you should know who both of these people are.
Elfangor was the Andalite prince who met five human kids on a last journey to Earth and
gave them the knowlege the danger that threatened their planet and the power to fight it:
the power to morph. He made the Animorphs. Visser Three is the Yeerk warlord, only
two in rank away from the ruling body of the Yeerk Empire. He initiated the Earth
invasion, and leads it, prevented only by a group of five "Andalite bandits."
They are in some ways opposites, representing the best and worst of their own sides.
Elfangor, of the usually "good-guy" Andalites is
the ideal hero; a young, ambitious arsith whose experiences evolved him into an
admirable warrior, both in combat and in upholding the Andalite ideals. His only faults
are being too idealistic and listening to his heart(s) instead of his head, which although
we would usually not like to admit it, is a fault sometimes. Visser Three, on the other
hand, is the powerful warlord of the "bad-guy" Yeerks. He takes on the role of
supreme villain, especially in the actual Animorphs series, where he has the formidable
body stolen from the powerful (yet rather ruthless and thus disgraced) Andalite war-prince
Alloran-Semitur-Corass. He commands a good portion of the Empire's resources, and one gets
the feeling that with Visser One out of the way, he could get anything from
the Empire that he wanted. It's kind of tough to find a book with Visser Three in it in
which he did not have some subordinate killed for reasons ranging from costing him a
promotion to bad dreams (If you havn't read #4, this may sound odd, but that's V3 for
you). Plus, besides commanding his army of Taxxon workers, Hork-Bajir fighters and
human-Controller insiders he has a vast array of "monster" morphs, hideous
creatures from out-of-the-way planets that he aquired, many remicent of the monsters of
Greek mythology.
Now why is it I could write more in the summary of the underrated Visser Three than the
great Elfangor? Oh well . . . But maybe I should lead this into a compare and contrast
segment.
First, how Elfangor and Visser Three are different. This at first seems really easy-- they're exact opposites, arn't they? Well, Visser Three is a lot older than Elfangor. He's at least ten years his senior, and you also have to take into account that Andalite years as far as aging goes are differnt from ours (Ax is like a teen or a pre-teen and he's only three!) and Yeerks seem to be fully developed physically shortly after they're "born," requiring only mental development, which is also pretty much brought on them, what with "training" and all. So Visser Three (I'm not going to confuse you by reffering to his different ranks throughout the years, thus he'll just be V3) was moderatly experienced in war and combat, while Elfangor was just a trainee who by all rights probably shouldn't be fighting yet anyway. This also means that the Visser, being older and having been there when the war started, had a better picture of what was going on, when the trusting Elfangor had mostly the knowlege that he had been told by his elders and had never questioned. Apparently the Andalites don't have free media distribution; their govornment gives them the news of things like the war, and according to them, they were on the brink of winning against the Yeerks, while actually the Yeerks were on other worlds, flourishing and manufacturing their own resources. More importantly, Visser Three knew Andalites and their ways (since he was obsessed with them and everything) and was quick to recognize an imposter Taxxon, while Elfangor at the time displayed more naive thinking, like his decision to leave the hundreds of disembodied Yeerks unharmed, or by not attacking Visser Three because he "had no weapons."
But they are the same in many ways, too. They were both young and relatively unimportant fighters when they first met up with their destiny, on a considerably minor mission. For Visser Three it was to eliminate the Hork-Bajir seer and find the remaining Andalite on the Hork-Bajir world. He did, however have his own ulterior motives for volunteering. Elfangor was sent along with his fellow cadet Arbron, led by Prince Alloran to investigate a Skrit Na raider which had had contact with the Yeerks. Because of an unexpected factor --the newly-made Hork-Bajir army for V3, Loren, Chapman and the Time Matrix for Elfangor-- their mission changed their lives and made them great. Both of them breifly gained -- then lost -- the one thing they had wanted most in life. Visser Three with his Andalite host, and Elfangor and his life on Earth with Loren. After that, they worked their way through, fighting the war and defeating enemies until they became war-prince Elfangor and Visser Three. The two of them had their own personal battle, starting from the time that they meet on the Taxxon homeworld.
Visser Three, though, had gotten back the Andalite host he had always dreamed of, this time the body of Prince Alloran, and through Elfangor's unwitting help. He became known to the Andalites as the Abomination, and all through his career it was Elfangor's secret burden that, like Seerow long ago, he too had unleashed a plague upon the galaxy. The only two times he gave this secret away was to his trusted friend and officer, and in his hirac delest, which could have either been recorded in the ship in a part that may have been preserved like the Escafil device was, or transmitted back to the homeworld. He returned to Earth one last time, maybe to see Loren, or maybe to check on the Time Matrix which he had buried in a forest. He landed in the construction site where the forest had been, and though he was wounded from a fight, he confronted Visser Three yet again. Injured, he was basically helpless against Visser Three and his small army, but he fought back with every weapon he had, from his only personal weapon: his tail, to the thought-controlled weapons on his ship to demolish the Yeerk ships which had also landed.
It would seem that Elfangor had lost the battle, though.
Visser Three did, after all, kill him. But all hope for Earth was not lost. Just before
the Yeerks arrived, Elfangor had managed to tell some humans about the danger they faced.
He had hoped they could inform their govornment, but they were five ordinary youths in the
end it would be impossible. So instead, he gave them a weapon: the Andalite power to
morph. Though he had, in his people's eyes, committed another transgression by sharing the
technology, commiting the very act that by Seerow had unleased the Yeerks, by that act he
gave Earth its only hope of resistance. And, as the Yeerks and Andalites well know,
because of all that could be lost or gained there, the fate of Earth could turn the tide
of the war for better or worse. By giving it a means to hold out until the Andalites reach
Earth from their distant homeworld, Elfangor was able to continue his legacy.
That, and his child. His son. Tobias. For even though as far as his friend and
later, wife, Lauren was concerned, he was erased out of time, somehow his prognency
survived. The son the two of them had during Elfangor's time as a human on Earth was put
by the Ellimist into the proper timeline, so he grew up as a normal human boy, never
knowing of his father's legacy, until he received the morphing power one night, and soon
after became trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk. A nothlit. Later, though,
he gained back his morphing abiltiy and learned his father's secret. Perhaps he is
destined to carry on his father's warrior tradition and play a great part in winning
victory for Earth.
So, in that sense, the battle between Elfangor and Visser Three is not over yet, for the two live on, if not in the flesh, at least by their past deeds and actions. And the outcome of their battle will also be the outcome of Earth and, in the end, the entire galaxy.