Visser Three
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Visser Three, born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later known as Visser One, is a fictional character from the sci-fi book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate. He is the leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, having inherited the planet from Edriss 562, who was Visser One at the time. Sadistic and cruel, with a penchant for torture, he is the only Yeerk to have ever infested an Andalite body for an extended period of time. Throughout the Animorphs series, he is the major antagonist and the one that the Animorphs must constantly battle and thwart.
Visser Three has a personal feud with both Visser One and Elfangor. Several stories in the series feature the Animorphs using the Yeerk political situation to their advantage. However, they try to not let Visser Three look overly incompetent, fearing that he would be replaced by the far more dangerous Visser One. The Elfangor feud is revealed and ended in the first Animorphs novel, and backstory is given in The Andalite Chronicles.
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[edit] History
Visser Three is a Yeerk who was born as Esplin 9466 Primary. He has a twin named Esplin 9466 Lesser. During his time on the Hork-Bajir world, he begins studying everything he could find about the Andalite race, knowing that, as an Andalite expert, he would be invaluable for promotion—and would be given a host body. Esplin had fallen in love with the sense of sight, not possessed by Yeerks in their natural form, so desired a host body. Learning all he could about Andalites, he becomes obsessed and driven to infest one. His caution and reasoning are not appreciated; when the Yeerks are about to murder an Andalite family studying the Hork-Bajir, Esplin 9466 urges them to wait until the fourth Andalite comes into view. His superiors ignore him and blow the family up, leaving Aldrea alive. This mistake would lead to a stubborn and ingrained resistance from Aldrea and her fellow Hork-Bajir allies. During his time, Esplin 9466 becomes Sub-Visser Seventeen, but aims higher and ambitiously seeks to infest an Andalite. His first attempt to infest Aldrea ends in failure.
After the Hork-Bajir world, he was sent to the Taxxon world, where he was the leader of a major space-port; at the time he had a Hork-Bajir host. Sometime between The Andalite Chronicles and his time on the Hork-Bajir world, Esplin 9466 is promoted to Sub-Visser Seven. During this journey, Elfangor defies his prince, Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, by refusing to kill roughly ten thousand helpless Yeerks. This sudden rebellion allows Esplin 9466 to infest Alloran; due to this victory and the information it gives the Yeerk Empire, he is promoted to Visser Thirty-Two. Elfangor, stricken with guilt, is horrified. However, the ship that Elfangor and Esplin 9466 are on has lost all power and is slowly drifting towards a black hole. Both work together to use the Time Matrix to escape. However, as the two of them, along with the human Loren, all attempt to use the Matrix, it sends them to an invented world created from their own minds, based on a combination of their memories of Earth, the Andalite homeworld and the Yeerk homeworld, which soon collapses shortly after Elfangor and Loren escape. Elfangor assumes that Esplin 9466 is dead, but the Ellimist later reveals that he is alive.
Later, Elfangor runs away from the Andalite-Yeerk war and settles on Earth via the Time Matrix, marrying Loren after becoming a human nothlit. However, he was eventually approached by the Ellimist and reluctantly agreed to restore the damaged timeline. Elfangor is transported back into a major battle, surprising the Andalite fleet with his sudden presence. He opens communications with Visser Thirty-Two and bravely rams his fighter into the bridge of the Blade Ship, turning certain defeat for the Andalite fleet into victory. The maneuver gives Andalite reinforcements enough time to rush in and prevents the Yeerks from winning the battle.
Sometime between the Time Matrix battle and the formation of the Animorphs, Visser Thirty-Two is promoted to Visser Three. In the events of #1: The Invasion, the first Animorphs book, he confronts an injured Elfangor. He morphs and eats him, but Elfangor has already secretly given the morphing power to five kids: Jake, Marco, Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie. Although Elfangor was uncertain of his choice to break Seerow's Kindness, these five children would eventually prove to be a major obstacle in Visser Three's attempt to infest Earth. Throughout the entire 54-book series, the five Animorphs again and again thwart Visser Three's plans. Visser Three believes that they are "Andalite bandits" who survived the destruction of the original Dome ship, and grows increasingly frustrated as the book series wears on. The Council of Thirteen becomes unhappy with his lack of progress in the war on Earth.
Visser Three also has a fierce political rivalry with Edriss 562, who is Visser One for the majority of the series; in particular, he flaunts his superiority over her due to his Andalite form when compared to her human body, although Visser One feels that her host gave her an excellent insight to human culture. In #5: The Predator, Visser One arranges to have the Animorphs released from Visser Three's captivity, in order that they should continue to hamper his attempts to conquer Earth. In #30, Marco uses their rivalry in an attempt to kill them both by apparently arranging to hand the free Hork-Bajir colony over to Visser One, but this is unsuccessful. During the events of Visser, both Visser One and Three are on trial for crimes that could result in the death of both. Visser Three releases a starving tiger and bear to convince the Council of Thirteen that he has killed the "Andalite bandits." Visser One knows this is a trick and contacts Marco to make a show. The Animorphs invade, upsetting Visser Three's cover and uncovering his attempt to deceive the Council of Thirteen. Both Vissers are sentenced to death by Kandrona starvation, but the Council of Thirteen suspends both sentences. Instead, they order Visser Three to conquer Earth, and give Visser One another opportunity, this time to conquer another planet.
By #45, Visser One (Edriss 562) has failed in her mission. The Council of Thirteen orders her execution, and Visser Three is promoted to Visser One. With this power, Visser Three declares all-out war on Earth, as opposed to the subtle infiltration that had been carried out up until this point. However, this is turned by the Animorphs, who use a masterful strategy to capture the Pool Ship. Esplin 9466 is forced to abandon Alloran, and detained by the Animorphs as a prisoner of war, and subsequently handed over to the US government--although a few of the Animorphs wanted to extra-judicially execute him. The Andalite military had failed to take the trophy prisoner from the victorious human guerrillas.
Two years after the Yeerks are defeated, Visser Three is put on trial in a special United Nations court, convicted of numerous counts war crimes and crimes against humanity and is sentenced to life in a specially constructed prison—as a hostless Yeerk, deprived of the sense of sight (the ultimate punishment for Visser Three).
[edit] Character
Visser Three is a cruel and unforgiving character. He has a short temper, and often shows extreme arrogance. At times, this works as an advantage to his enemies, as they can exploit this weakness in his character by predicting his actions.
Due to his lack of tolerance for what he sees as insolence, Visser Three's subordinates often fear opposing any of his orders or requests. Early on, some of his subordinates believed that the "Andalite bandits" (the Yeerks' term for the Animorphs) may in fact be humans, due to such clues as a pair of jeans floating in the sea after a confrontation by a beach. However, due to their fear of the Visser's intolerance and possible wrath, they choose not to question his beliefs, which possibly prolonged the time that the Animorphs were able to pass undetected in plain view as their human selves. Visser One once commented on Visser Three's reputation for killing subordinates, saying that he had killed them "by the poolful."
Visser Three is also a vastly ambitious character. From the very beginning as a Sub-Visser he dreamed of perhaps one day becoming Visser One, or even having a spot on the Council of Thirteen. He was the only Yeerk to have taken an Andalite host, which resulted in his inevitable rise through the ranks as he became best known as Visser Three. His ability to manipulate his superiors and survive any situation gave him the power necessary to achieve his ambitions.
Visser Three can be very aggressive, blindly running into battles, while alternatively being very passive and thoughtful. As Sub-Visser Seven, he studies the Andalites in meticiulous detail. When the Yeerks are hovered over Seerow's house on the Hork-Bajir homeworld, Visser Three tells them not to fire until the fourth Andalite (Aldrea) is within the vicinity, knowing from his studies that Andalites never stay inside structures unless they have to. The impatient Yeerks fire, however, leading to Aldrea's resistance that ultimately infuriates the Yeerks' invasion of the planet. He has been known to work with his enemies when the situation calls for it. However, Visser Three underestimates the humans, often favouring brutal force instead of a careful and studied approach, which ultimately leads to his downfall and the loss of the Earth invasion.
Visser Three is highly arrogant, believing in his own power and constantly using new morphs to somewhat "show them off" when he battles the Animorphs when he already has plenty of other useful morphs for combat. He also has shown some respect for the Animorphs, complimenting Jake in particular on his tiger morph and enjoying the simultaneous beauty and lethality of the creature. When the Animorphs attack an Inspector reporting on Visser's Three invasion of Earth, Visser Three challenges the Inspector to kill them himself, and watches patiently as they kill the Inspector and makes no attempt to stop them as they escape.
At the end of the book series, Visser Three accepts his defeat with relative grace, deciding to let the Animorphs capture him ("any punishment you inflict would be nothing to what the Council of Thirteen would do"). He cooperates with their demands and does not deny their accusations, abandoning his host and submitting to a trial by the United Nations and hostless incarceration in the United States.
[edit] Brother
Visser Three has a brother named Esplin 9466 Lesser. The 9466 indicates they are twins. Since Visser Three is the dominate one, however, his twin gets a low-ranking host, Joe Bob Fenestre. However, Esplin 9466 Lesser uses his Yeerk knowledge to create Web Access America and becomes a multi-billionaire. Enraged, Visser Three cuts off his twin's access to Kandrona rays. However, Esplin 9466 Lesser discovers a way to survive without Kandrona rays; he becomes a cannibal, consuming a fellow Yeerk every three days. Esplin 9466 Lesser is the centerpiece of #16 The Warning and makes a minor appearance in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles.
[edit] Esplin 9466's morphs
- Antarean Bogg
- Vanarx
- Mardrut
- Human (Unclear whether he acquired and impersonated a single human or carried out a Frolis Maneuver combination of DNA, similar to Ax's creation of his human morph)
- Anteater (Acquired along with the Animorphs when shrunk by the insect-like Helmacrons)
- Unknown alien with bladed tentacles
- Kafit Bird
- Luminar
- Bievilerd
- Lerdethak
- Lebtin Javelin Fish
- Dule Fansa
- Human (Aria) (Again, unclear whether Aria was acquired from a specific human or from multiple humans via a Frolis Maneuver combination)
- Taxxon (Alloran morphs one in The Andalite Chronicles)
- Hork-Bajir (Alloran also morphs one in The Andalite Chronicles).
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