Allegiant (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth

With Evelyn and the factionless in control of the city, Tris and Tobias realise they’ve just exchanged the very limited choices of the factions to no choices at all. They quickly become involved in the new rebellion – only this time they are driven to find the truth. What is outside the city

They leave and discover the real truth of the world, the size of it, the history of it – and why their city, why Chicago, even existed. In doing so they learn everything they once knew, everything they once treasured is a lie – it’s meaningless, a manipulation for a completely alien goal.

But as they spend time outside the city with the Bureau, they find both some shocking revelations about their identity – and a new set of lies spread by a new dominant, governing force.

I have a huge problem with the writing of this book – it is told from the point of view of both Tris and Four/Tobias, each chapter topped with their name. This is essential because without that name there is no way to tell who is speaking. Tris and Four have exactly the same voice – which is terrible for two such very different people. There was actually a moment when I thought Tris was revealed as bisexual because it talked about her girlfriend before I realised we’d had a character shift. 4 pages ago. I read 4 pages assuming Tris was the protagonist when it was actually Four/Tobias. That’s… not good.

There’s also another whole load of names that I can only vaguely remember who they actually are

Equally, I found Tris and Tobias’s romance to be… so unnecessary. I can’t say, unlike the last book, that it was badly done. There is some interesting conflict there – I particularly liked the conflict over whether Tobias trusts/respects Tris; it not only analysed Tobias not listening to her or keeping things from her but also raise the counterpoint that “not doing what you say” is not the same as “not listening to you” and Tris’s habit of conflating people not agreeing with her as not trusting her.

I did like a lot of the personal revelations – like these people who have only known the city realising just how vast the whole world is and the culture shock of that. Or of finding out how so many of their precious ideals are just complete fabrications –it’s nicely done.

The meat of the plot, which I found the romance a distraction from, though was the rebellions. In Chicago Tris was rebelling against the Erudite take over in Divergent. Here she starts rebelling against the Factionless take over that happened in Insurgent. She ends up outside the city, learning the true, deep and fascinating history behind the lies she has been taught all her life and why Chicago and the factions even exist.

And there she finds another dominant faction and another rebellion. The dominant faction is “kind” in a patronising way, but over and over again it’s clear that the dominant faction abuses the weaker one, controls them and even while apparently having “kind” agendas to “help” them, is very much keeping them down – in part by destroying their own self worth. It’s also interesting in that it shows this, shows the blatant discrimination, the patronising dehumanisation, the lack of the weaker faction in any places of power, while at the same time having the legal fiction of equality – showing the limits of such legal equality, even while it is important.

Divergent (Divergent #1) by Veronica Roth

The city is divided among five factions: the selfless Abnegation, the brave Dauntless, the intellectual Erudite, the compassionate Amity and the honest Candor. Every child chooses their faction at the age of 16 after being guided by their test which shows where their tendency lies.

Abnegation-born Tris’s test was inconclusive. She has the traits of more than one faction; she is a Divergent, something she is urged to keep hidden for the sake of her life.

She joins the Dauntless and has to struggle with the vastly different culture there and hope to pass their rigorous, dangerous and arduous tests to earn her place among them – all while concealing her difference.

But in the city tensions between the factions are flaring and the very thing the factions were created to prevent – war – is looming.

At first glance, the world setting for this dystopia seems quite ridiculous to a level of parody. The factions take their “virtues” to such extremes that not only would it be nearly impossible to live according to their principles – but it wouldn’t be advisable to do so either. The factions themselves are ludicrously simplistic, have a ridiculously narrow view of humanity and frequently twist their “virtues” to mean things that are completely nonsensical (like the Dauntless apparently conflating “courage” and “cruelty” to say nothing of “suicidally reckless”); the whole concept of factions ignores the sheer complexity of humanity and the impossibility of dividing people down such simple lines. Even the test they all take is laughable in its simplicity (they picked up the cheese! That means they’re Amity… or hungry… and the poor lactose intolerant would-be Amity are out of luck).

This world setting doesn’t work – cannot work. This society is more than a little ludicrous. The flaws are huge, there are far too many people who fall through the cracks (and there are so many, huge cracks) and it would be a deeply terrible way to try and actually run things.

But I think it’s supposed to be. While the story focuses on Tris’s story and why she doesn’t fit into the world (with a heavy dollop of super-chosen-one-specialness), in the background there’s an ongoing theme that this society doesn’t really work – and that the steps that are taken to make it work are dubious to say the least. We have an entire group of people, the factionless, who are just jettisoned from the system, ignored and regarded with contempt by much of the rest of society (even if it is pitying contempt). We see how much the Dauntless faction has completely twisted and warped what it means to be Dauntless to create a twisted parody of what it once was. It’s shown repeatedly – and even told – that the reason most people fit into these simplistic factions is because they’re basically brainwashed from birth. Of course they’re going to choose the appropriate, simplistic choices on the test because that choice been hammered into their heads from the moment they’re born – hence the rarity and remarkability of faction transfers. The “Divergent” are less people who have aptitude in more than one virtue, but are more reasonably people who have resisted or avoided their familial brainwashing (then with a dollop of Chosen One on top). We see how people exploit the system – an Abnegation abusive father gets away with it because how could one of the selfless do such a thing? A Candor manages to cause all kinds of trouble without consequence because no-one believes he could possibly be lying. And, yes, the Erudite may be up to naughty shenanigans, but the fact that no other faction has a say in government other than Abnegation is deeply flawed and questionable.

We see the flaws in the system – mainly in Dauntless who, even without the twisted sadism and bullying, seem to think that “courage” means “strength” and “bravery” is synonymous with “recklessness”. Even Tris herself has moments of “bravery” which reap more like being a thrill seeker.

Divergent

Spoilers Ahead

After an apocalyptic war, the world is divided into factions: Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Amity, Candor, Factionless and Divergence. There is a wall separating the group of factions for what lays outside.

Dauntless is the faction who work to protect society. They value bravery above all and demand that their members face their fears and push their way through them. Abnegation is dedicated to selflessness and devoting oneself to others. Abnegation is in charge of the government because they are peaceful, neutral and calm. Erudite is dedicated to knowledge, intelligence, curiosity and astuteness.  They are the librarians, doctors and teachers and are responsible for all record keeping. Amity is dedicated to peacefulness, kindness, forgiveness, trust, self-sufficiency, and neutrality. Amity value peace of all and are not adverse to twisting the truth to maintain it.  They function as providers in this world and grow all of the food. Candor value honesty, and their symbol is a set of unbalanced scales bound by a circle. Candor members value honesty and forthrightness above all and function as the makers and maintainers of law in this society precisely because they are honest to a fault. The Factionless are those who are not wanted by any faction and they live on the outskirts of society because of it, often scrounging refuse for anything useable. Finally, the Divergent are people who fit into two or more categories on their aptitude test.  They are largely made up of people from Abnegation and the Factionless.  They are feared precisely because they don't fit into a box and cannot be as easily molded into a way of thinking.

Our protagonist, Tris is born into Abnegation.  As a young girl she greatly admired the Dauntless for their fearlessness and often ran behind them. When Tris takes her test she gets a Divergent response and is rushed out of the testing room and told to lie and say that the serum made her sick. When Tris questions what Faction she should choose, she is told that because of her result, she has to know her own heart.  The problem is that should she choose Dauntless she will be removed from her family because society values Faction above blood.  It is further complicated because Abnegation, her faction of origin is under suspicion by Erudite who believe that Abnegation is not as selfless as they appear to be.  There has already been an issue with one child of Abnegation origin leaving the faction based in rumors of abuse. While it does happen that children do leave their faction of birth, a full 95% of them choose to stay where they are born.

The next day both Tris and her brother choose to leave their clan of origin.  Tris heads to Dauntless and immediately finds herself out of her element.  Though she is very fast, she is also substantially weaker than everyone else and risks failing to make the Faction because of it.   Tris ends up working while the others are sleeping and pulls her way from the bottom of the ranks to the very top.  The real challenge however still lies ahead because she still must past the psychological tests.  Not really being Dauntless, Tris solves things in her own manner unintentionally revealing her true nature. With observers coming to review the final testing and tensions rising between the factions, Tris knows that she cannot afford to fail. The very stability of the world that has grown up in, depends upon it.

This movie is based on a trilogy written by Beatrice Prior.  Having not read the series, I cannot discuss if the movie follows it closely, or takes artistic license due to time constraints. What I can however say is that it reminded me very much of The Hunger Games but is far less compelling of a story.  Tris is the girl who does not fit into her society because of her inability to conform and her decisions on how to negotiate this post apocalyptic Chicago become pivotal to the functioning of the world. The problem with Tris is that I cannot take her seriously.  She knew from the very beginning that she did not fit in Abnegation but at the same time never wondered about the make up of the world she existed in despite seeing the Factionless all around her.  Further, Tris didn't really express any kind of disatisfaction with the world itself until she was informed that she simply didn't fit into any category.  I hope that at least some of this was covered by internal monologue in the book itself because it certainly did not translate to the screen.

Divergent is also another in a long list of story's which kill of the parents of the protagonist.  Natalie, Tris's mother lives long enough to save her daughter and then die in her arms.  Natalie lives just long enough for Tris to have a moment of pain and then quickly move on. Andrew, the father lives long enough to pull the most ridiculous Dirty Harry routine before going down in a blaze of glory. By the time Andrew dies, Tris is so set on her path of stopping Erudite from annihilating Abnegation, Tris barely stops long enough to register that her father is dead. So not only is Divergent unoriginal it's trope laden.

There is an undercurrent of romance flowing through the movie.  Four, who also originated in Abnegation and is himself Divergent ends up becoming Tris's trainer.  Theo James, who plays Four is truly a beautiful young man and functions very much like eye candy in the film. My issue with their relationship is that during testing, one of Tris's deepest fears is to be raped by Four.  It simply does not make sense to me that she could or would romanticize a man she fears would rape her.  Four does not actually do anything predatory to Tris throughout the movie and in fact shows that he cares for her deeply, so the fear does not make sense to me either.  I am not sure what the purpose of that scene was. It seemed to be dropped into the film with absolutely zero context and was never really explained.