Hendrick Chapman
I think that Chapman is probably one of the most interesting of
the minor characters in Animorphs. In no way my favorite, but he's still a very intriguing
personality. Why are you so fascinated by the Controller vice-principal of the Animorphs'
school, you might ask?
We learn Chapman, the vice-principal, is a Controller right in Book #1. Okay, no big deal. In book #2, though, there's a little character development. Rachel discovers that Chapman is a voluntary Controller, but he volunteered because he made a deal with the Yeerks, and mainly Iniss 226, (the guy who controls him) that they could have him if they stayed away from his daughter. The Yeerks were like "Ah, one girl versus the person pretty much in charge of a whole collective of young people . . .no competition." So he essentially sacrificed himself. Later Melissa became a "nuisance," even though her parents, both Controllers, were pretty much neglecting her, and Visser Three asked that she be taken in for infestation. Chapman defied him (again?) and although he was really worn out from resisting his Yeerk, he swore he'd make so much trouble that all the free humans remaining would lock him up in a mental institution (or something to that effect) that Iniss wouldn't be able to do much of anything. So Melissa went free.
The really interesting part comes in the Andalite Chronicles. A teenage Hendrick Chapman, along with Loren, are abducted by aliens. Really. They were rescued by Andalites though, who were after the fabled "Time Matrix" that the Skrit Na had taken along with their human captives, not to mention a Mustang and a few other interesting items (it's a good thing, because otherwise Loren and Chapman would be become the newest exhibits at the Intergalactic Zoo). Loren makes friends with the Andalites, Elfangor in particular, but Chapman resents them and usually sulks in a corner somewhere. At one point he even said he'd rather join the Yeerks because they were winning, though it seems that he's just saying that because he hates the Andalites. Because of a new turn in their war against the Yeerks, (namely they were trying to get their hands on the Time Matrix) the ship is forced to stop on the Taxxon homeworld right in the middle of the Taxxon Rebellion. After going through a series of adventures (mainly various experiences with Taxxon cannibalism) and meeting a Hork-Bajir sub-visser who it doesn't take too much brains to guess he's really everyone's favorite future Visser and Andalite-obsessor.
When Elfangor and the others returned to the ship, they found that Chapman had betrayed them -- the Andalite ship, but also his entire race. He offered to trade for "a whole planet full of these," showing the tied and bound Loren. The Andalites managed to drive the Yeerks away and escape into space, though they found sub-Visser Forty-Two hanging around. Alloran dumped him out of the air lock, much to Elfangor's distaste. However, he seemed to be getting slightly crazy, so Chapman knocked him out. Elfangor got a sedative to keep Alloran cold for a while. When he came back to see him, he discovered that he was Alloran no more, but a Controller. The Abomination.
It turned out that while the Andalites were gone, the Yeerks had infested the human passengers of the Jahar. Sub-Visser entered Chapman and his former host was taken by some other Yeerk, who was forced to sacrifice himself. Sub-Visser used Chapman to take over Alloran, but then left him. The strange thing was, even after being taken over and getting a taste of how horrible the Yeerks really were, Chapman didn't change his views. He continued to follow instructions that Sub-Visser had given him, advising Elfangor to use the Time Matrix because that would alert Yeerk ships in the sector.
The reason this is strange is, how is this twisted, power-hungry youth the same person who voluntarily, but not willingly, sacrificed himself for the sake of his daughter?
For one thing, even though nothing really personal about him was shown, Chapman seemed to be kind of a loner, maybe considered a geek where he went to school. He would often say things to the Andalites that revealed some deep thoughts, suggesting lots of time alone to himself, even if they weren't the most healthy and friendly views in the world, and he was very quick-witted. He also apparently had an insecurity problem, shown in his frequent cutdowns at Loren on many things including her age (even though she was probably only a few years younger than him) and her father, who had post-traumatic stress from Vietnam. There was a resentment at her in particular because of on the Skrit Na ship, "Who was standing there with the gun, and who was cowering in the back begging for mercy." Chapman didn't feel strong by himself. And that was his weak point with the Yeerks.
Chapman wanted their favor because they were "the winning side." This, to me, suggests more than anything his desire to be a part of something. He also likes having power over other people, which would make the Yeerks definitely appeal to him. He turned himself over to them, and apparently let sub-Visser infest him, probably in return for his own eventual freedom, maybe political power. Of course the sub-Visser would have never given it to him, but the prize was probably too much for Chapman to resist. And how he calmly handled it after the Yeerk left him and entered Alloran? How did he cope with his brain being infested by a malignant alien being who used his body as a tool? Apparently he didn't see anything wrong with that, as long as he didn't remain that tool for any longer than necessary. In fact, he probably like the idea of loosing individuality, though he probably didn't put it into those terms, because that meant being part of a group.
Fortunately, Eflangor gained the upper hand, leaving Visser Three in the dust (though how he survived we'll never know) and ignoring Chapman's "advice" on what to do with the Time Matrix. Chapman didn't figure too much into the story after that, though he may have been subject to Ellimist intervention -- the guy supposedly got sucked with a ship into a black hole. However, when Loren and Elfangor, aged by the Time Matrix, went into the future to live a life on Earth, they found Chapman at Loren's university -- with absolutely no memory of what had happened. It could have been because of the "creating another world" aspect of the Time Matrix that put the Chapman in his proper place where he should have been. Or it could have been that Chapman was meant to stay there on Earth and grow up and become a vice-principal in the same way that Loren was meant to marry a human man. Either way, without those memories, he was a totally different person.
So, assuming that predestination involves the way personalities act in a given situation and those situations must occur because of the personalities of those who cause it (e.g. Chapman was always going to turn traitor because he would be abducted, and he would always be abducted because the Skrit Na used what ever random people-chooser they have to pick him and Loren, and they were there in the first place because they were after the Time Matrix was buried there, whew) the change that Loren and Elfangor made when they created the "new world" of the future, was that the Skrit Na had never abducted Chapman. They had to have abducted Loren, as well as taken the Time Matrix, or else the Time Matrix would disappear and re-appear wherever it was supposed to be on earth, and Loren would encounter a never-been-there version of herself. So the aged Loren-from-the-past took the place of the empty spot where Loren was supposed to be, and Elfangor just added himself in to the picture.
But I'm wandering a little from the point here. The thing is, the only thing that happened differently with Chapman (at least with my theory) is that he was never abducted by aliens. He just led a normal, boring, peaceful life. He was probably still a loner at school, but maybe he got over it. He fell in love, got married, and had a daughter. When he found out about the Yeerks (probably via his wife), he didn't like the idea, but he agreed as long as they spared Melissa. He turned out to be a pretty decent human being. And this shows how much difference one event can make. If he had been taken by Skrit Na and gone on an interstellar adventure, he would have sold out to the Yeerks. Proof of that is in the fact that Visser Three still discovered Earth and sent scouts out to analyze it, because he was immune from the time warp (this, too, might be Ellimist, or who knows, even Crayak, intervention). But in this timeline it never happened for him. Although it didn't save his life or make it any better -- he's still a Controller, after all -- it shows the importance of opportunity in a person's actions, a theme that probably played in the fact that Hitler ended up a typical truck driver just because of a few seemingly unrelated wars altered in MM3. We also saw in that book that even the Animorphs were, in the right situation, easily capable of evil.
Who knows what Chapman might have become?