Last time on Dauntless, everyone gets the shit beaten out of them. Today on Dauntless, Tris is a beaten wreck.

I wake to Christina shaking my shoulder with one hand and tapping my cheek with the other. She already wears a black jacket zipped up to her throat. If she has bruises from yesterday’s fight, her dark skin makes them difficult to see.

Bear in mind that Christina’s face was pummeled into a bloody mess two days ago. Also why only bruises from yesterday’s fight, do you think bruises disappear completely after more then 24 hours pass?

Today’s nightmare was again about her being divergent. Peter beat her up while demanding if she was until she said yes, which tells us absolutely nothing new.

I look at my reflection in the small mirror on the back wall and see a stranger. She is blond like me, with a narrow face like mine, but that’s where the similarities stop. I do not have a black eye, and a split lip, and a bruised jaw. I am not as pale as a sheet. She can’t possibly be me, though she moves when I move.

Hey, remember how Abnegation doesn’t look into mirrors all the time in the first place? The author’s forgotten the first time she’s been allowed to study herself in a mirror was three days ago and she doesn’t seem to have looked in one since.

Christina just passes me a muffin and crouches in front of me to tie my shoes. Gratitude surges in my chest, warm and a little like an ache. Maybe there is some Abnegation in everyone, even if they don’t know it.

I guess this is maybe where the book will end up going with all this? Maybe?

The muffin is banana-flavored, with walnuts. My mother baked bread like this once to give to the factionless, but I never got to try it.

So they believe happiness is based around having little so you don’t want more, and they’re just deliberately trolling the factionless by occasionally giving out goodies to give them something to want?

Four stands at the front of the pack, so close to the tracks that if he shifted even an inch forward, the train would take his nose with it.

I’m going to guess that they cannot possibly have a universal justice system at this point. No one could possibly investigate murders among the Dauntless.

I jog next to the car, wincing, then grit my teeth and grab the handle on the side. This is going to hurt.
Al grabs me under each arm and lifts me easily into the car. Pain shoots through my side, but it only lasts for a second. I see Peter behind him, and my cheeks get warm. Al was trying to be nice, so I smile at him, but I wish people didn’t want to be so nice. As if Peter didn’t have enough ammunition already.

I can’t figure out what’s going on here. Is she just motivated by her concerns about Peter, which is stupid because he’s already singled her out so it doesn’t matter at this point, or does she resent needing help? She seemed okay with it a minute ago, but maybe the distinction is she didn’t want to have to tie her shoes but she’s not sure she even could have gotten on the train so she feels weak.

Four turns back to the car’s opening. He holds the handles on either side, his arms stretching wide, and leans forward so his body is mostly outside the car

So yeah, in addition to the deaths by accidents there’s also deaths by “accidents”. How is anyone left alive to pass on their crazy to the next generation?

She says that they’re passing a sea of crumbling, abandoned buildings that get smaller as we go so I think this means the boundaries of the city have collapsed severely and they’re only living in the center. What happened to do that? And why haven’t they moved the fence closer in?

Tris finally asks someone what’s beyond the fence. Farms. If there’s so much space why not try to farm inside the fence?

“Yeah, but I mean…past the farms. What are we guarding the city from?”
She wiggles her fingers at me. “Monsters!”
I roll my eyes.
“We didn’t even have guards near the fence until five years ago,” says Will. “Don’t you remember when Dauntless police used to patrol the factionless sector?”

So they’re guarding nothing. Their job was to menace the factionless and when times changed the people in charge had to make something else up.

This might explain why the faction’s gone nuts. They don’t need to keep their members up or avoid losses. They’re purposeless.

(And apparently they never patrolled the other sectors at all because everyone else handles their own problems I guess?)

Incidentally Tris did know about this since her dad was one of the voters (so they do retain democratic bits!) and yet it has never come up in her wonderings about what the Dauntless guard them from that there was nothing that needed guarding before now.

He said the poor didn’t need policing; they needed help, and we could give it to them.

But they’re not “the poor”! Why does this book keep acting like the factionless map on to poverty in our world? They’re deliberately given next to nothing by the government. All it takes to help them is stop actively working to ruin their lives!

It’s one of the many things Erudite gives as evidence of Abnegation’s incompetence.

Why? Was there a sharp jump in crime afterward? Why didn’t Dauntless fight the change, why does Erudite even care?

Incompetence should mean the change was bad, in which case you also need to say why the change wasn’t undone.

“What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?” says Christina.
“Yes,” says Will, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you?”

So apparently knowing where the six sections that make up your entire culture are located is weird knowledge only the Erudite bother with.

Anyway, they’re now well past the buildings and into open fields. Why aren’t there farms on this side of the fence?

In front of me is a chain-link fence with barbed wire strung along the top.

That’s it? She doesn’t even note it as being particularly tall. Beyond is a bunch of trees, most of which are dead. The field grass is yellow as well. If I knew what time of year it was, I could make a guess if this was meant to mean the area is toxic (and maybe that’s why the fields are so far out) or if it’s just fall.

Milling around on the other side of the fence are Dauntless guards carrying guns.

They’re not even pretending this is real work, are they?

She sticks by Christina because she knows her friend will defend her, then starts thinking about how this is all cowardice, she shouldn’t be worried about insults or unable to speak up against them herself. Finally.

Four shows them a gate in the fence and she says that as a kid she road a bus to however far out the farms are, run by Amity. Presumably not more than an hour or so, because she says they spent the day helping pick tomatos. Actually…

where we spent the day picking tomatoes

…it doesn’t say they helped. Maybe they make Abnegation do the harvest. Farming, at least when done full time, isn’t that awful. It’s only at certain boom periods it gets exhausting.

Four says fence guarding is for the losers who don’t rank top five, which is to say the other half of them because only ten will be allowed in at all.

“Once you are a fence guard, there is some potential for advancement, but not much. You may be able to go on patrols beyond Amity’s farms, but—”
“Patrols for what purpose?” asks Will.
Four lifts a shoulder. “I suppose you’ll discover that if you find yourself among them. As I was saying. For the most part, those who guard the fence when they are young continue to guard the fence. If it comforts you, some of them insist that it isn’t as bad as it seems.”

So maybe what’s really going on is they’re trying to reduce their faction numbers down to sustainablility. Without the need to patrol the factionless quarter, there just aren’t jobs left, so they send people on makework patrols while encouraging them to kill themselves in stupid stunts over how meaningless life is.

It also seems like it’s odd they’d have almost the same number of kids retained as transferred – seems like that suggests they may have lost a good bunch. Perhaps a lot of Dauntless kids jumped ship to another faction already, and that’s why so many of their current initiates are made up of other faction kids who didn’t realize how bad things had gotten.

Anyway Christina thinks pacing back and forth holding gun still seems a millionty times better than driving a bus.

Four naturally was ranked first because he is so super awesome.

“And you chose to do this?” Peter’s eyes are wide and round and dark green. They would look innocent to me if I didn’t know what a terrible person he is. “Why didn’t you get a government job?”

What even is a government job? What’s “this”? Is it training them because that’s a once a year thing and he’s made it clear he has another job, plus they’re also getting trained by a faction leader so it’s clearly something they rank highly.

Tris goes on to elaborate that Four working in the “control room” is because the Dauntless monitor the city’s security. I guess I see why Abnegation decided to do away with the patrols, they were just there to make the factionless more miserable.

We learned about faction jobs in school. The Dauntless have limited options. We can guard the fence or work for the security of our city. We can work in the Dauntless compound, drawing tattoos or making weapons or even fighting each other for entertainment. Or we can work for the Dauntless leaders.

So do the other factions have more options? Are they the most limited or just more limited than some?

Also yeah, it sounds like they’re a dying faction. Most of them “guard” the fence, with no promotions because there’s nowhere to promote them. Others do service jobs for the guards to spend the points they earned standing next to a fence, others make the weapons for the guards to hold while standing next to a fence, some fight for the amusement of their own faction, giving nothing back to the larger community at all, and there’s the city’s security and Daughtless leader underling, the latter of which is probably more busywork.

I’d expect Dauntless to dwindle down until eventually they’re replaced by Abnegation or an Abnegation offshoot – maybe Abnegation/Candor fusion where the greatest good is to uphold Law without consideration for your own feelings or biases.

But apparently they may not have the Abnegation population to do it…

See, an Amity truck comes in, driven by a smiling guy and with other Abnegation members hanging out in the open back, sort of like there is absolutely no danger. The crates are full of apples, suggesting it is in fact fall, and an Amity kid calls her name

Robert. I try to remember him at the Choosing Ceremony and nothing comes to mind but the sound of my heart in my ears. Who else transferred? Did Susan? Are there any Abnegation initiates this year?

Did Abnegation only have about four kids total this year? That’d suggest Dauntless is huge by comparison. Also, that it shouldn’t mean anything to have only one Abnegation in a group of transfers, because there flat out couldn’t be many.

Anyway, Robert hugs her, which is an Amity greeting. Oh god, Robert you have made the right choice this appears to be the only decent faction. He asks what happened to her and Molly starts in with the insults

“There’s no need to antagonize her,” Robert says softly. “I’m Robert, and you are?”
“Someone who doesn’t care what your name is,” she says. “Why don’t you get back in your truck? We’re not supposed to fraternize with other faction members.”
“Why don’t you get away from us?” I snap.
“Right. Wouldn’t want to get between you and your boyfriend,” she says. She walks away smiling.
Robert gives me a sad look. “They don’t seem like nice people.”
“Some of them aren’t.”
“You could go home, you know. I’m sure Abnegation would make an exception for you.”
“What makes you think I want to go home?” I ask, my cheeks hot. “You think I can’t handle this or something?”
“It’s not that.” He shakes his head. “It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you shouldn’t have to. You should be happy.”

But the fact she responds to sympathy with the same FUCK YOU CAN SO does suggest Dauntless is the right fit for her.

Is it true Abnegation would make an exception? Can they do that, even? Because in that case they and Amity should be taking back their failed kids as just a standard thing, but if it always happens it isn’t an exception, so if they don’t let kids back normally why would Tris in particular get an exception?

But he seems pretty confident it’d happen since going back home and begging to be let back in would undoubtedly make Dauntless kick her out regardless.

Maybe he’s thinking there’s a grace period if she heads back home and asks before she fails initiation? That might make more sense. Well, not from the point of view of what Abnegation claims to believe, but a way they could allow kids back into the fold sometimes but not other times. It could be that you’re branded factionless you’re officially not worthy of any faction, but changing your mind midway through is more accepted.

She says she picked Daughtless, dammit, and anyway the point of life isn’t happiness for her.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if it was, though?” he says.

You tried, Robert. They’re all mad here. Stick with your sane hippy people.

Speaking of hippies one of the girls starts strumming a banjo and singing.

again I see another possible life in my mind’s eye. I see myself in the back of the truck, singing with the girl, though I’ve never sung before, laughing when I am off-key, climbing trees to pick the apples, always peaceful and always safe.

Except that for no reason you said they weren’t an option at all.

Erudite Tris pops up a moment to observe that the lock to the gate is on the outside and that’s a pretty odd place to have it if you’re trying to keep something out instead of everyone else in.

Four pops over to bitch at her for talking to another faction, then suggests that she’d do better in a fight if she made the first move, since she’s fast.

“I’m surprised you know that,” I say quietly, “since you left halfway through my one and only fight.”
“It wasn’t something I wanted to watch,” he says.
What’s that supposed to mean?

Goodbye, Erudite Tris, hope you reappear soon.

Anyway, the next chapter is ungodly huge so splitting this up after all.