I Did

Excerpt from Animorphs #54 The Beginning.

"...by the way Alloran, thanks for standing up for Ax. And all of us."

Alloran turned his main eyes to me. He gave me a strange look. <I never hoped to be free again. You freed me. I have done what I have done in my life. I am what I am, though I may have gained at least some wisdom through the years of enslavement to Visser One. Just the same, I will always be Alloran, the Butcher of the Hork Bajir. Alloran, the only Andalite to be taken alive by the Yeerks. But, disgraced, even despised, for whatever I am worth I am yours to command.>

The speech was delivered in a low thought-speak tone, all emotion severely controlled. But then Alloran whipped his tail blade over his head, so fast it cracked like a whip. He smiled the subtle Andalite smile and yelled. <Do you know who did that? Do you know who moved my tail? I did. I did. I did it.>

I've been reading through my old Animorphs books and, surprisingly, Alloran has somehow become one of my favorite characters.

Technically Alloran is a main character in the entire series because he's Vissor Three/One aka Esplin 9466's host body. But we only see Alloran as himself a few times and he has quite a character arch.

We see him in the Hork Bajir Chronicles, when he is a powerful and respected Price in the Andalite military. He realizes that the Hork Bajir are (Due to good, old fashioned Andalite arrogance and underestimating their enemies) lost causes. He's fighting a battle he cannot win, watching his comrades die all around him, and he knows when they inevitably loose, HE will be blamed.

We see him choose to use a virus to wipe out the Hork Bajir so at least the Yeerks won't have them either, it fails.

We see him years later in the Andalite Chronicles, when he has been disgraced for loosing the Hork Bajir and using the quantum virus. He's a Prince in name only and his military career is pretty much over. He's angry and bitter and a little crazy.

Then he gets taken over by Esplin.

After that, as best I can remember, he only makes two more real appearances. One in book 8 (Maybe around 20 years after the Andalite chronicles) when his body is poisoned by Ax and Esplin runs off to save himself. For a few seconds he is free and he begs Ax to kill him, and when Ax tells him he can't he asks Ax to tell his family he still loves them.

The final time, I think, is in the final book. The Animorphs have beaten the Yeerks and stopped them from taking Earth. They take Esplin prisoner, and Alloran is freed from the Yeerks control forever.

It's one of my favorite moments in the entire series (I know that's totally weird.)

By this time he has been through a torturous existence as a controller, seen and done horrible things under Esplin's control. But he's learned humility. He's a very different person from when we saw him in any of the other books and the calm way he handles the situation and helps the Animorphs to get the Andalites to back the hell off is glorious.

I really love this character, and with all the terrible things that happen in the last book, I'm glad I can be happy about something.