The Vortex || Character Bios :: Tobias

Tobias:
The Nothlit

Before he became an Animorph, Tobias wasn't exactly popular. He was a slightly wimpy little kid who was constantly picked on by bullies. Jake rescued him once and Tobias and he kind of became friends. This was why he was walking with Jake as the five kids took a cut through the abandoned construction site.

Not long after receiving the morphing power, Tobias stayed in red-tailed hawk morph past the two-hour limit, and as a consequence was trapped in it forever. This was a double loss for the group. The Animorphs, incredibly small as they were compared to the vast Yeerk Empire, were cut down by a person. Tobias was still useful in his hawk morph, as he was able to scout around, watching potential Controllers go in and out of places to find entrances to the Yeerk pool, but as he could not morph, he could not really fight.

This made him feel useless, since he couldn't go on many missions such as those that involved the ocean or very small creatures, and more importantly, he had to deal with his own identity -- was he truly human anymore, or just a sentient hawk?

Character Quirks:
Tobias is very thoughtful person, often caught in deep thoughts and brooding, and he obviously has more time to do so since he now lives the life of a red-tailed hawk, but he also was like that before he even met Elfangor. He probably didn't have much of a social life before the Animorphs, considering he knows lots of various odd things, indicating a lot of time spent reading or watching certain shows on TV. He also has a hard time coming to terms with his state of being, as it is often jumbled up by freaks of morphing and revelations about his parentage.

"The boy not really so trapped as a bird, but too gutless to resume life as a human."

--the Drode

Enemy Opinions:
Visser Three knows that Tobias (the human, not the Animorph) is Elfangor's son. Posing as a relative, he attended the reading of "Allan Fangor"'s last will and testament to see if Tobias actually knew about any of this. He figured that Tobias might be the link to the Andalite renegades. The strange thing was, Tobias was able to get Visser Three to think he was a normal street kid, yet his hunch was right, Tobias really is one of Elfangor's warriors. There are also the words of the Drode, which are more twistings of the truth than that of any of the others' insults: the words are strategically planned to hit Tobias in his weak spot -- his conflict over his identify and his role as a hawk or human. The Yeerks have also pretty much figured out by now that one of the "Andalites" seems to favor a red-tailed hawk morph, and whenever they see him they know it's an indicator of enemy activity.

Tobias was finally captured in a recent book, and his interrogation was handled by Visser Three's second-in-command, the sub-visser otherwise known as Taylor. She thought that Tobias had finally been trapped in his red-tailed form -- until she saw him morph "back" to Andalite and thought that he was an Andalite with strange powers of morphing or possessing a new technology unknown to the Yeerks.

Relation to the Group:
If anything, Tobias is the balancer of the group. Whenever there is a dispute or debate, he often tends to be somewhat in the middle, often the one who actually resolves the arguments since Cassie has a side -- the moral, ethical live-and-let-live-love-your-enemy side.

Jake:
Jake was the first of the Animorphs that Tobias knew. Since he saved him from some classic "class bullies," Tobias was hanging around him, though staying a little separate. It almost seemed as if Tobias was hanging around Jake because he had no one else to hang around, and Jake didn't really consider Tobias his friend, but he was a friend to him even though he probably secretly wished he'd hang around someone else. Now, though, they seem to be a lot closer.

Rachel:
If you asked Tobias and he had to be honest about how he felt concerning Rachel he'd definitely say that he loved her. But it's more of a crush type of love; he frequently comments on how beautiful Rachel is, he admires her warrior spirit, and the two of them frequently go flying together on "dates" of sorts. Though the way he acts in respects to her while the two are in battle would suggest something deeper. He will poke fun at her now and then, though.

Cassie:
He seems to get along pretty well with Cassie. Since he lives in the woods behind her house, she's usually there to help him whenever he needs someone to talk to. The two of them tend to take the same sides on moral issues. They usually say that since Tobias is a predator, having to kill for his food everyday, he wants to hold on to whatever bit of humanity that he can -- by not letting battle erode his morals.

Marco:
These two don't seem to get along well at first. Marco is constantly making cracks about Tobias being a bird and catching mice for dinner, and Tobias will almost always make some kind of sharp remark back. My favorite line is something like "Come here, Marco. Stand under my branch." Although he doesn't admit it, Tobias highly resents Marco flirting with Rachel, and it makes him wish that he, too, were capable of such human interactions. However, the two of them are actually good friends, they just seem to have this little contest with each other as to who can get in the last word.

Ax:
Ax is undoubtedly Tobias's best friend. The two of them live in the same area, with Ax in his makeshift scoop or running around to feed, and Tobias, of course, is usually out hunting. Ax is the first person Tobias goes to when he has something to talk about -- especially when it's something he doesn't want to discuss with Rachel. These two have the closest connection because they both feel the same way -- extremely different from anyone else, alienated from their people.

Fan Opinions:
Most everyone seems to like Tobias at least a little. It's hard to go on an Animorphs message board without seeing someone declaring to the world how much the love Tobias, and his enigmatic character seems to be generally appealing. Some people say his books are boring, because they're often deep and full of detail, having a character conflict side by side with what seems to be a regular mission. Plus, the cover model (and many say, Christopher Ralph) is very cute. ^_^

TV Tobias:
Christopher Ralph is probably the best actor of the five. He actually manages to convey a sense of being a loner, a little wistful about life and the future. He has been trapped as a hawk (a Harris' Hawk, according to one fanpage, not a Swainson's) with no sign of any changes in that coming. Sometimes he appears as human again, like in the episode of book #7, or in the alternate future episode "Not My Problem," or one called "Tobias." However, he often seems shoved to the side, and there is even talk of him quitting the show. Going a little into the "personal bias" area, I think that while he has the best hold on his character's personality, there is just something missing in the portrayal. He has much of the analyzable things about Tobias down pat, but Tobias's real personality -- not his unusual circumstances or past, but just his personality, his unique voice, the way he thinks and acts -- seems to be absent.

Personal Bias:
Tobias is one of my three favorite characters, along with Cassie and Rachel. His situation is fascinating: I've read a lot of books that centered on character conflict, but never have I read one, even a good fantasy or sci-fi, that actually dealt with the humanity of a person who has been changed into an animal, and I think it's fascinating. He has that feeling of destiny about him -- being Elfangor's son and everything. You've probably read me comparing him to Aragorn from LotR: he's similar in many ways. But there's also his personality, like I said in the TV thing, not anything about him or anything that happened to him, but just his own unique voice that makes me like him. He's just an overall cool character.

Latest Character Development:
In book #33, Tobias offered himself to be captured to make the Yeerks think that the AMR doesn't work, and to help the other Animorphs find it and destroy it, he acquired Ax and pretended to be a renegade Andalite. His experiences with the memories the pain machine stirred up have definitely made a mark on him. He remembered his troubled childhood, the burden of the lives he striked out, and even those of his dead father Elfangor. If anything, this has strengthened him, but it raises the question that he may never really come to terms with his dual identity.