Crayak

Crayak
Animorphs character
Artist's interpretation of Crayak's eye
First appearance	The Capture (glimpsed but not named) The Attack (full appearance and named) The Ellimist Chronicles (chronologically)
Last appearance	The Return
Created by	K. A. Applegate
Portrayed by	None
Information
Nickname(s)	Great Crayak, Compassionate Crayak, "the Big Red Eye"
Species	Unknown Semi-omnipotent Entity
Gender	Male
Occupation	Opponent to The Ellimist

Crayak is a fictional character and villain from the science-fiction book series Animorphs, written by K. A. Applegate.

Description

Crayak is a nearly omnipotent entity appearing in the form of an armless cyborg with massive limbs and nothing but what would resemble as a blood-red eye for a head. The Ellimist, upon first viewing him, contrasts his appearance with The Ellimist's original form as a winged humanoid and conjectures that Crayak evolved from a burrowing species in an underground ecology rather than a winged, aboveground species as the Ellimist did, wondering thus what effect this has had on his psychology. When he first meets the Ellimist, he wields vast technological powers similar to his, commanding a huge fleet of ships. But, while Ellimist loves to create and protect, Crayak prefers misery and destruction as his purpose of life, having no regard for the rights and desires of others. While the Ellimist is a distributed intelligence who exists within all the ships he commands, Crayak's mind is housed within a huge, central flagship crafted from an asteroid, with the rest of his fleet directed by races he has enslaved. Crayak and the Ellimist directly oppose each other several times, and whenever their differences break out into open war the resulting battles are described as enough to destroy whole worlds and civilizations. This goes on until the Ellimist falls into a black hole and finds a way to embed his consciousness within it, becoming an extremely powerful being able to control time and space; Crayak soon duplicates this feat, and the two intelligences, recognizing that their war between each other would be pointless and self-destructive, decide on what to do. The Ellimist suggests that they could become passive observers and watch life unfold and evolve, but the Crayak replies that he would choose his own destruction over that. The Ellimist then invites to join him in the final game, where they would pursue their own battle indirectly, by using sentient beings as gamepieces, and the Crayak agrees.

Crayak's history is largely unknown, but the Ellimist says he was expelled from another galaxy hundreds of millions of years ago by a greater power than he was.

The Final Game

At the end of the Cretaceous Period, Crayak attempted to destroy Earth. Before this, Crayak and the Ellimist had battled which resulted in the seeming destruction of the Ellimist as he fell into a black hole. However, the Ellimist became one with the space time continuum and was able to still foil Crayak's plans. When Crayak tried to destroy ancient Earth, the Ellimist moved the Earth halfway through its rotation around the sun to avoid the attack. Crayak realized that only the Ellimist could pull off this type of feat and set out to find him and soon also became merged with the space time continuum. Realizing that a renewed all-out war would bring their mutual destruction, and likely the universe, Crayak agrees to play a "game" with him. In this game, neither the Ellimist nor Crayak would use their power directly, but would instead manipulate sentient forces smaller than themselves to alter the course of the game. Crayak's assets include the Howlers and the Yeerks; the Drode serves as his primary servant.

Mode of play

Crayak plays his game of destruction by toying with characters and civilizations throughout the galaxy, having them destroy each other. Crayak's Howlers, a race that he created, have succeeded in wiping out many races such as the Pemalites and Graffen's Children. Apart from using his mindless shock troops, Crayak has also manipulated natural forces to destroy numerous species, such as altering their climate or sending plagues to destroy their crops and plantations. Crayak also has a minion named Drode, whose name means 'Wild Card'.

The Yeerk invasion of Earth and the Animorph resistance to it constitute a small part of Ellimist and Crayak's game. Crayak, while not responsible for the creation nor (as far as is known) the actions of the Yeerks, would rather that they absorbed humanity and be absorbed in turn by an even more aggressive species. The Ellimist would rather that the Animorphs win.

Animorphs

The first time Crayak was portrayed in an Animorphs book was in The Capture (book #6), when Jake was controlled by a Yeerk, which the other Animorphs managed to kill by depriving it of Kandrona rays. As the Yeerk died, Jake had a vision of Crayak. Jake had a sense of horror when Crayak saw him, before the vision ended. The Ellimist would later explain that with the Yeerk dying in Jake's head, he had been able to see through life and death to glimpse Crayak.

In The Attack (#26), the Ellimist explained about Crayak's existence, and explained that the two powers were having a fight over a species called the Iskoort, and drafted the Animorphs and the Chee Erek to fight against a team of Howlers over the outcome. In the process the Animorphs---particularly Jake---managed to contaminate the Howlers' collective memory, in effect making them useless to Crayak. As a result Crayak had a permanent hatred of Jake, and would even arrange for him to be killed (temporarily) in Elfangor's Secret.

Crayak also had a particular interest in Jake's cousin and fellow Animorph, Rachel. Rachel was known as the most "enthusiastic" Animorph---out of all the Animorphs she was the only one to really enjoy battling evil, and though good, she had a bloodthirstiness that Crayak thought he could work to his will. He recruited the ex-Animorph David to his side and attempted to turn Rachel into one of his servants. He ultimately failed.

Names and titles

Unlike the Ellimist, who has several names, Crayak only has one known title, though the Drode sometimes refers to him by honorific, and often ironic, titles such as "Great Crayak" or "Compassionate Crayak." He is also sometimes referred to as the Big Red Eye, a term started by fans before Crayak was named and used a few times in the books themselves.

Cultural references

Crayak's manifestation as a single eye is reminiscent of the Eye of Sauron from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The character also bears similarities to the character Lucifer of Paradise Lost by John Milton. Milton's depiction of Lucifer was cited by Tolkien as an inspiration for the character of Sauron. Additionally, Crayak bears a strong descriptive resemblance to The Overmind of StarCraft lore, as a central boundless entity manipulating other, mindless species (Zerg breeds) despite differing motivations. Both are represented by a single, blood red eye.