The Animorphs Vortex || Character Bios

Rachel:
The Warrior

Rachel is not what she seems. In fact, the person beneath what she seems isn't what she seems. On the surface, she seems a typical model-type girl. She's pretty, blonde, makes good grades and holds the title of current reigning Fashion Queen. She seems to have plentiful friends, as well as a best friend: Cassie. That was before Elfangor came. Walking home with Cassie and her cousin Jake and his two friends, she encountered all that she had never imagined; an alien invasion which she, along with her four friends, must fight, with the morphing power as their only weapon. It seemed that from the first sign of the paranormal, Rachel's warrior instincts, dormant inside her until that time, sprung to life.

From that time on, she became known as the fighter of the group. She was a little unsure of it all, but after visiting the Chapman house as a cat, the battle became one of her passions, and Marco began to call her Xena: Warrior Princess. In the beginning, she often has doubts about herself and what she's doing, but it only takes one little thing, a slight, a wrong, a burst of inspiration, and she's into battle mode. Soon the fighting begins to dominate her, and she admits that she even gets high on it all -- the adrenaline, the rush and power.

Lately Rachel seems to be going through a great deal of internal conflict. As illustrated by "the separation" in book #32, Rachel basically has two sides, the crazed, ruthless warrior, and the pretty, somewhat ditzy blonde who just wants to be a normal girl and separate herself from all this fighting (somehow that sounds familiar...). The real problem comes when these two sides can't be blended as one person, but both begin fighting for dominance.

Character Quirks:

Rachel is well known as being strong and a good warrior, but the thing that many people ignore is her inner conflict, the fight between the normal, restrained girl with the empathy and emotions that we usually take for granted and the ruthless, battle machine that is gaining more and more the upper hand.

"Rachel, my very favorite Animorph . . . You know, Crayak could use you, Rachel. Why stay with these weaklings? You're already more like us than like them."

-- the Drode

Enemy Opinion:
Because of Rachel's fighting method, she tends to be admired by her enemies, if feared. She the only one, besides Ax, who would directly speak to Visser Three. She has a thing for intimidating him. As for Crayak, as expressed in the quote above, they actually want to make Rachel one of them, and told her that they would save her if she was in the face of death, if she would only do something for them . . .

Relation to the Group:
This can easily be told from reading almost any of the books. Jake is the leader, but Rachel is the one with the motivation and drive, and when Jake was out in #22, she found herself instinctively taking the lead. There is even an upcoming book (probably #37) where Jake has to go away and Rachel is left in charge.

Jake:
Jake is her cousin, and in many ways they are much alike. They both like fighting and are very militant about their cause. The difference is that Jake is cautious, shouldering all the responsibility of leadership, while Rachel is more reckless. They sometimes are at odds about certain things, but are always there for each other when it counts.

Tobias:
Rachel and Tobias are very good friends. At least, it started out that way. When Tobias became a hawk, Rachel was really helpful to him, bringing him stuff like books to read. She often leaves her window open for Tobias to fly in to her room. She isn't as open about her feelings for Tobias in her narratives as Tobias is about Rachel. Perhaps the most open statement was in #27, where she said she didn't want to go out with some guy named T. T. because she would be disloyal to Tobias (she did however, make a rather verbal statement of her feelings in #23). Though she gets really fierce if anyone is attacking Tobias or is about to kill Tobias (which for some reason happens quite a lot), and when she thought he died in #22, she was just about ready to murder David.

Cassie:
These two are essentially opposites: Cassie is very conscious of the environment and animals and morality, while Rachel once said something like "This is the rainforest? Let it burn!" and has a basic philosophy of "First we save the world, then we sort out morals." Rachel loves the big power morphs and her predatory bear, and Cassie prefers smaller or more peaceful creatures; even her battle morph isn't particularly strong (though we know it can take down a Hork-Bajir . . .) But, differences aside, these two are best friends. Cassie wants Rachel to look at the ethical side of things, and Rachel just wants Cassie to have some nice clothes for once. When the two of them have common ground, though, such as a crush on a TV star, they are practically unstoppable.

Marco:
These two have an interesting relationship going on. Don't get me wrong, she's not two-timing Tobias: she and Marco are platonic friends, though I can't say that there isn't a little friendly flirting on both sides. Mostly they are on a contest to outwit one another and make the final, cutting remark that just can't be responded to. And Marco's complaining gets on her nerves, especially when it involves an unwillingness to fight. Lately, though, she's been more sympathetic to him as he had to deal with defeating Visser One and had the same problem with his own ruthlessness as she often has.

Ax:
Rachel doesn't really get along with Ax all that well. They always seem slightly at odds, with one of them insulting the other on occasion when stress gets to them. She's put-off by his seeming stupidity about human things, and he gets offended by some of the things she says about the Andalites. Though I bet she secretly wishes she could morph him to get his tail.

Fan Opinion:
Most people seem to like Rachel moderately well. They're drawn in by her complex personality and her character-driven conflicts. Some people don't like her, though, because they think she's too extreme and they say they can't relate to her.

TV Rachel:
Maybe Rachel is AniTV's example of poorest job at interpreting a character (and that's saying a lot). Sure, they got the "tough-girl" thing in --- partially. Because Rachel is the first to say "Let's do it," yet you often see her trailing behind and acting cautious about everything, with occasional bursts of recklessness. And although Brooke Nevin says she reads Rachel's books to get a feel for her character, we don't see any of the various layers of Rachel's personality that we know so well from the books. And the scripts don't help, either. I don't see any conflict within about her violence, and her relationship with Tobias is . . . well, you can tell from her voice she has a crush on him. She fawns over him. That's it. In the end, if it weren't for her strong resemblance to the Warrior Princess, I wouldn't be able to tell who she's supposed to be.
::rant mode off::

Personal Bias:
I happen to love Rachel; she's currently at the top of my character triad with her, Tobias and Cassie as equals (usually). I just think she's really cool (understatement of the year, but I'm running short on words) and the strange thing is, I can actually relate to her. Even though I'm nothing like Rachel, I can actually see how that would happen to me if a "gotta save the world" responsibly were dropped on me; getting more violent and vicious, until eventually she's probably going to be at that turning point where she wonders why she should even care.