Last time, she was taking a confusing test! This chapter…that was it? Seriously? That’s the whole test?

Beatrice is wallowing in guilt about the previous scene, but I’m feeling confused and annoyed. What sort of personality test was that?

Meanwhile, her tester is looking weirded out.

What if they tell me that I’m not cut out for any faction? I would have to live on the streets, with the factionless. I can’t do that. To live factionless is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.
My mother told me once that we can’t survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

Okay, first, aren’t the factionless by definition a group of their own? Also why do they live in poverty what are you guys even doing?

Back to tester lady who says the results are inconclusive.

“Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions

What. Seriously. So all it takes is someone doing something from a motivation you don’t expect and the whole thing fucks up. Have we learned nothing from videogames?

I mean, let’s just look at the opening. Abnegation is selflessness – so you might refuse to take a basket because it’s wrong to take things for yourself. OR, you might get the cheese so you could give it to someone else. OR you might take the knife so you could prevent someone else from having it and hurting someone, it’s only videogame logic in the first place that picking up a weapon means things appear for you to stab. You might pick up the knife precisely because you don’t want to harm anyone and if the simulation’s next part is someone spawning and picking up the knife that’s going to be difficult.

Consider Pottermore and the sorting questions. I got Slytherin in part because I said stuff like how I’d rather be remembered as Great than Good, so clearly I just want power. But being remembered isn’t the same thing as what your actual accomplishments are. If you asked if I’d take being remembered as anything over actually accomplishing good, you’d get a completely different answer. But I’d rather have the power to accomplish good and be remembered for my power than to be known as the nice one who didn’t necessarily do anything lasting. Especially given what history does to historical figures! Would you rather be remembered as communist scum for what you did believe or beloved as a platitude propping up the very system you spent your life fighting? If I could choose my legacy, I would choose that it be something significant enough to be undeniable. To me, saying you want to be remembered as good isn’t about being good, it’s about vanity.

All that gives you a decent look into my personality. And these tests are supposed to be taking place inside her head, so you’d think they could chart why she’s picking an option as well as just picking it.

in your case, only two have been ruled out.”
I stare at her. “Two?” I ask. My throat is so tight it’s hard to talk.
“If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity.

I’m not sure what happens if the next scenario doesn’t confirm it, since from what she’s saying it doesn’t do anything else. If you like cheese, you’re Amity. If you think hey, maybe I should take the cheese so I’ll have food to offer someone else, you’re Amity. If you just figure that you want the pick that isn’t the giant scary knife, Amity.

This makes no sense. Being offered two choices should lead to branches off of that, especially when one is an innocuous as cheese – you’d think the majority of kids would pick that, especially after a lifetime of being told to not be brave or aggressive because that’s for Dauntless kids only.

The only thing I can think is that what I thought was a psychotic break in refusing to pick either is in fact how most kids react. It might even make sense – they’ve been indoctrinated to NEVER EVER act outside their faction, so they’ll only pick a choice if they’re sure it’s the right one and freeze up otherwise.

If that’s true, then this test might be measuring stuff other than the primary trait but how well you fit the culture that’s formed around it. If you’re honest but don’t like debating, sorry, no Candor for you, they have to be shouty. But that means that you’d get a huge bias for the faction people were raised in, and would again mean the kids should have grown up experiencing all the different factions instead.

That didn’t happen, which is why Amity is out.”

So Amity is apparently the Cheese for the Cheese God faction.

“Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made didn’t even allow Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus.

Which explains why she jumped to the testing room and had to walk out of it. I did think that was odd given the test initially warped her to the right location.

But how was she supposed to transition to the bus normally? It doesn’t seem like anything much can happen after jumping on the dog. Maybe that short little thing is supposed to be a complete route that somehow gives you a full personality result normally and the tester jammed her into the end of another route to try to get more data.

And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor.” She half smiles. “Don’t worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth in that one.”
One of the knots in my chest loosens. Maybe I’m not an awful person.
“I suppose that’s not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Candor…and the Abnegation,” she says.

So Abnegation are in fact insane, or else the author didn’t write the scene very well.

I still have no idea who the guy was, why telling the truth would get her hurt and why it’d help him. Given the setup of telling him you know = bad thing and this having no connection to him being saved by the truth, I’d just assume he was lying to try to make me admit it, not that it’d actually save him. Especially when he’s so aggressive.

If the Abnegation are expected to sacrifice themselves as soon as anyone, no matter how suspect, says that it’ll help them somehow, the Abnegation faction should be extinct.

Context would help. Like, refusing to testify at a trial because you’re scared of getting killed in reprisals, but if you don’t the killer goes free. That would make sense for Abnegation.

“On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather than let it attack the little girl, which is an Abnegation-oriented response…but on the other, when the man told you that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not an Abnegation-oriented response.” She sighs. “Not running from the dog suggests Dauntless, but so does taking the knife, which you didn’t do.” She clears her throat and continues. “Your intelligent response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the Erudite.

Throwing herself on the dog also seems like a good Dauntless thing. They’re supposed to be the city’s defenders, not Abnegation. And we know she wanted to run from the dog but didn’t only because she thought it wouldn’t work, and so far Dauntless has not been the “cool head during danger” but more the crazed berserker type of bravery. And crazy berserker must be what they’er assuming, because bravery shouldn’t have anything much to do with taking the knife. I’d associate that with aggression or fear, because you either want to use it or you’re scared you’ll need to use it. In fact the more Dauntless response was being willing to kneel down and get her soft biteable face closer to the dog – knowing something’s the best option and forcing yourself to go through with it aren’t always the same thing.

And apparently despite the simulation taking place in her mind, it still can’t distinguish between not running because you like danger and are an idiot vs not running because running is actually the more dangerous option.

Actually, she seems a good fit for Erudite, in so much as the test is useful at all – she doesn’t pick because she wants more information, she doesn’t run because she looks at her surroundings and sees it’s not a good idea, and she seems to consistently try to solve her problems by thinking. If you think about it, even her interest in Dauntless seems like it’s fitting with Erudite – the Dauntless are the most mysterious group.

This also underlines how they need to know why she’s making the decisions, because she knows barely anything about dogs so she could have easily thought that the dog was territorial and if she just ran away fast enough it wouldn’t hurt her, rather than that kneeling down was the answer. This seems to be confusing actual knowledge with valuing the trait.

Which might be part of why Abnegation and Erudite are on such bad terms, Abnegation faction must be ignorant of all sorts of things.

I have no idea what to make of your indecision in stage one, but—”

Arg, there goes my fanwank. So yeah, everyone is supposed to pick the cheese or the knife, the cheese shunts you into Amity and the knife…is fine for Abnegation and the rest, I guess? So 4/5ths of their kids grab the knife. Something is wrong with you people.

Also, the test underlying their whole society can’t even handle a kid refusing to pick a choice, so I guess that’s just never happened before.

“Wait,” I interrupt her. “So you have no idea what my aptitude is?”
“Yes and no. My conclusion,” she explains, “is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite.

No she doesn’t. You said yourself that lying when the guy said it’d save him was something Abnegation didn’t do. (Her ability to do so in the face of intimidation seems somewhat Dauntless – again, that scene just really didn’t make much sense.) And you guys are obviously able to handle someone hitting a faction response once but not twice or you wouldn’t say the Amity scenario had a second choice for confirmation. Meanwhile she did one Erudite thing (two if you were’t incompetent and figured out why she didn’t run – if not running is supposed to be the Dauntless choice the room should’ve been set up so running was viable) and two Dauntless – facing the dog rather than running in fear and jumping on the dog rather than holding back. If I wasn’t pretty sure the Dauntless run on peer pressure I’d also suggest that refusing to take the test properly seems rather Dauntless.

So MY conclusion is this book is already screwing up. If the author wanted to present her as having multiple tendencies, she should have worked harder on the scenarios and also had more of them instead of trying to say the scenarios are built to rule out a faction in every choice.

Or hell, say the purpose is to read your mind about what you think when put in stressful situations, so her reasoning is included.

I wonder if part of the problem is it’s easiest to write a thinker character when the author wants Dauntless? Similar to how she can’t write Beatrice as resenting the constant selflessness and has to resort to Beatrice just forgetting her faction’s belief.

(Also the issue that she sure didn’t seem to be making odd choices at all, barring her initial fuck you all you can’t make me pick.)

People who get this kind of result are…” She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. “…are called…Divergent.”

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

So I know the pitch for this is that there’s someone who doesn’t fit into the faction boxes, but that only sounded reasonable until we got to the point where she says that also you can pick whatever faction you want. So who cares if she fits a bunch of factions?

Note also how very much isn’t getting explained here. She doesn’t say if the problem is her getting tied results instead having them ranked, if the problem is her qualifying for three factions when you’re only supposed to be between two max, or if getting any result but THIS FACTION ONLY makes you divergent. And really, unless it’s the last one this doesn’t work, as the difference between fitting two and fitting three is not a big deal, but if you’re supposed to clearly qualify for one then there’s no point in letting kids pick later.

Her tester says she must never reveal she’s divergent or unknown horrible stuff will happen.

Anyway she goes home early? even though it seems like there’s no point in keeping the kids after the test, and says she can’t take the bus because then her dad will know she was home early thanks to the security system so she just walks the whole way.

I walk in the middle of the road. The buses tend to hug the curb, so it’s safer here.

I think this means there aren’t any sidewalks. Why aren’t there any sidewalks?

Sometimes, on the streets near my house, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be. We have no use for them now that there are so few cars.

But your friend Susan’s dad has a car. Dammit book why did you mention that if you won’t explain?

We don’t need stoplights, either, but in some places they dangle precariously over the road like they might crash down any minute.

EEEEE why aren’t you taking them down then! Especially since you seem to be lacking in resources so you could probably get some good parts out instead of leaving them to rust away and eventually smash down.

Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones.

Okay, so it’s not that you guys don’t have the resources you’re just kind of incompetent.

Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago.

…So, like I said, this is FUTURE Chicago. Chicago does indeed have a lake nearby. You may have heard of it, what with it officially one of the Great Lakes. And while America does tend to be pretty arrogant, Lake Michigan is actually a legitimately huge lake, fifth largest in the world.

How does that turn into a marsh? What the hell happened here? I’m not sure if the author was just thinking that global warming = dry therefore lake = marsh but unless the lake is very shallow you would have a huge depression with some marshy bits at the bottom. This is sounding more like it was filled in somehow. How did they fill in the entire lake? Was there some sort of Unwind-style compromise with the Appalachians where they’d keep carving mountains flat but they had to stop dumping it in the local rivers so they trucked it out here to ruin the water in another state for a change?

Considering it’s Lake Michigan I feel this must be an intended wtf moment but it really needs her to throw in a line about how it actually happened because I just can’t think of anything.

The Abnegation volunteer agency my mother works for is responsible for most of those renovations.

But is volunteer standard or not! Where is the money coming from? Does Abnegation work double shifts to pay for themselves and then save up for volunteer work, or does everyone get a set amount of funds and Abnegation puts their surplus toward volunteer stuff while Dauntless buys up ink for tatoos and Amity buys cheese. Piles and piles of cheese. All the cheese will be theirs.

She then says that Abnegation is actually very nice and apparently isn’t just a bunch of joy-hating Puritans. They have dinner parties that are all nice with everyone helping with cleaning up.

It’s only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine.

So basically every bit of angst here could’ve been avoided if only her parents had told her being selfless is a choice you make and not innate wiring.

She goes on to say that by the way, if she picks any other faction she can never see her beloved family again! But no pressure.

Also Abnegation lives in the ass end of nowhere because she has to get through a stretch of building skeletons and broken sidewalks and places where the road has completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty subways that I have to be careful to avoid, and places that stink so powerfully of sewage and trash that I have to plug my nose.

…Why isn’t this top priority to fix?

(Also, it seems this means the subways no longer work. Why? Subways would be better than buses!)

This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do.

Okay, I don’t care how much you want to shit on these people, when you involve literal open pits of shit that’s a health risk for everybody. Also, why the hell isn’t this Abnegation’s top priority?

Anyway, apparently the work no one else wants is janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses.

So they do everything important but make food.

You know, I wonder if this is a white collar sneering thing, because the things on this list? Everything but fabric is well paid. Maybe the author knows this and is assuming sufficient social control can force people into these jobs anyway, and that might work for janitors and garbage collectors, where failures are easily caught and corrected, but you’d better keep a sharp eye on your construction workers and be ready for the occasional bus/train driver killing you all.

They aren’t paid for their work, just given the minimum food and clothing, which I guess is why they can’t fix their own area despite being the ones who handle the entire infrastructure.

Why would you deliberately create a class of people who hate you and have nothing to lose?

I mean, it’d be one thing if these were the regular lower class, doing crappy jobs as opposed to the awesome jobs you can get in a faction. But they’re living on top of open sewers in return for starvation-level food.

And indeed, there’s one guy there in ragged clothing who asks her for food.

I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says, Duck your head and keep walking.
No. I shake my head. I should not be afraid of this man. He needs help and I am supposed to help him.

Then whose voice is that in your head? This apparently happens all the time, because her parents give her food to carry around for exactly this reason (if Abnegation cares why don’t they send their volunteer construction workers in?), so she should be used to dealing with the factionless.

Why isn’t her impulse to ignore him and the voice in her head yelling at her not to? Why so backward?

It’d be one thing if despite dealing with them she told us that she was always scared of them anyway, maybe because they’re violent and nasty due to being so thoroughly fucked over by the system, but that wouldn’t fit with her supposedly being Dauntless.

Then he grabs her wrist and starts talking about how she’s got good eyes.

“It’s a shame the rest of you is so plain.”

So…is this normal? If the factionless tend to be aggressive and resentful of the charity they’re forced to take, then it makes sense she’d want to avoid an encounter. But she refuses to explain if this is unusual or not. She just freaks out at it and tries to pull free, but he won’t let go and starts talking about how she’s too young to be out on her own and she says nuh-uh she’s sixteen!

His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark pit in the side.

So do they not get health care either?

Anyway, she flips to what I guess is her secret Dauntless alignment:

“Let go of me,” I say. I hear ringing in my ears. My voice sounds clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. I feel like it doesn’t belong to me.
I am ready. I know what to do. I picture myself bringing my elbow back and hitting him. I see the bag of apples flying away from me. I hear my running footsteps. I am prepared to act.
But then he releases my wrist, takes the apples, and says, “Choose wisely, little girl.”

And that’s the end of the chapter.

In chapter four, she’s finally made it to Abnegation’s block and explains that watches are the only thing Abnegation people can wear.

The houses on my street are all the same size and shape. They are made of gray cement, with few windows, in economical, no-nonsense rectangles. Their lawns are crabgrass and their mailboxes are dull metal. To some the sight might be gloomy, but to me their simplicity is comforting.

It sounds kind of uncanny valley to me.

If you guys don’t want lawns, why the hell even have them?

The modern American lawn is actually a community minded concept. By having each person maintain the front of their property in the same way, the result is a stretch of unbroken grass for everyone to enjoy.

If your community ideals are to not maintain one, why monopolize all that extra space anyway? That’s pretty selfish.

And why mailboxes? Why can’t it just be delivered to the house? Are you guys getting lots of packages that can’t fit through a mail slot? People here shouldn’t even lock their doors. I mean, even assuming they can’t keep the factionless out so there would be break-ins, preventing people from taking their stuff doesn’t seem very Abnegation.

She explains it’s not that they hate uniqueness…they just hate anything that makes them stand out because that gets in the way of ignoring themselves.

If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one.

Okay Beatrice that’s actually a separate concept there.

Your faction obviously isn’t about equality and not wanting stuff in general, because you’re supposed to give up what you have to other people, which isn’t compatible with the idea the way to happiness is to not have stuff and for no one to have more than anyone else.

It’d be one thing if the idea is to always be willing to help one another, but your examples keep coming back to giving someone else what you have.

After a minute I see gray-robed forms walking down the street. I hear laughter. At school we try not to draw attention to ourselves, but once we’re home, the games and jokes start.

See, this just furthers that problem!

It seems like Abnegation is built around serving outsiders, to the point where they’re allowed to have fun but not around anyone else. Why is it okay here but not there? The factions seem built on the idea of one thing being a universal good – I mean, are the Candor allowed to lie a little when they’re among themselves.

This isn’t a very hard thing to fix. If the factions are meant to be recruiting, you could have pressure to always be on in public, showcasing why your way is the best way. My happyreligious cousin, for example, went off to do good works in someplace foreign as part of witnessing, which is like being a missionary but lower key so the country doesn’t tell you to fuck off. The idea is you show how happy and fulfilled and helpful and confident you are, and someone says, “How can I feel that way?” and you say, “By accepting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!”

But Beatrice isn’t interested in elaborating. Instead she tells us that even now she’s still the odd one out because My natural tendency toward sarcasm is still not appreciated. Sarcasm is always at someone’s expense. She is really whiny.

She continues to waffle about if maybe she can force herself into being a good Abnegation, despite the fact she sucks so much it isn’t even a nagging voice in her head and she has to be explicitly prompted to remember she’s supposed to behave a certain way.

Her brother comes by with Susan and Robert, who are apparently also siblings.

I skipped over this, but she and her brother aren’t twins, which I appreciate because it’s always twins. Instead, they were just born close enough together that they ended up in the same year of school. Reasonable.

But the same being true for another set of kids? Unless Abnegation deliberately tries to have two pregnancies right next to each other for some reason, that’s really unlikely. And why would they, considering it’s hard to do and dangerous to the mother?

Maybe it’s part of the equality thing, they don’t like kids growing up as the only kid. But in that case it’d be easier to have some sort of adoption system to dole the kids out than have two pregnancies nine months apart, assuming you even can.

“You’re welcome to come over later, if you’d like,” Caleb says politely.
“Thank you.” Susan smiles at Caleb.
Robert raises an eyebrow at me. He and I have been exchanging looks for the past year as Susan and Caleb flirt in the tentative way known only to the Abnegation.

Well, that’s cute, but you’re saying no other faction does this? Candor and Dauntless, sure, and maybe Amity arranges marriages by who can give a bigger gift of cheese, but this seems right up Erudite’s alley, since slow and careful courtship would be a good fit for knowledge and given Dauntless called dibs on reckless we know Erudites must be cautious.

She thinks yet again her brother’s such a good fit for this. Except of course for the fact whatever his test results were they freaked him out.

Hm. What if divergent kids happen all the time? I mean, the test was obviously garbage. Maybe they just tell everyone that it’s unheard of and that they must never ever mention it. Maybe that’s part of making sure no one goes against the factions, even – hearing there’s something wrong about you means you’ll try extra hard to fit in for fear someone will find out.

Assuming the kids are properly brainwashed, which it sure seems like from the fact they act out their proper stereotype even when they’re not supervised, you wouldn’t even have to worry about one kid ruining it by telling the truth, because the other divergent kid would immediately rat them out hoping to keep their own flaws hidden. Maybe you’d get really close friends telling the truth, but they’d be more likely to assume that they were friends because they were similar this way and not that their entire system is built on a lie.

This obviously wouldn’t work for Candor-aligned kids, but it seems like the Candor test is something you legitimately will not pass unless you’re crazy for honesty. Not only that, but when her own test wasn’t getting good results, it was the Candor section the tester jumped her to, then stopped once she was disqualified for Candor (specifically by being willing to lie to save herself) and then said 1) you’re divergent 2) never tell anyone or you’ll die.

Anyway, her brother really wants to know the result, and she says asking and telling is against the rules, and he’s all since when do you care about rules so much?

Though his words are accusatory, it sounds like he is probing me for information—like he actually wants my answer. I narrow my eyes. “Will you? What happened in your test, Caleb?”

Dammit, Beatrice. He’s obviously upset about his own test but doesn’t want to say anything before you.

Now, I can understand that you’re in a really bad situation here, so it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to say anything regardless. But you don’t need to react with anger, and you could try to talk to him about his own test, maybe give him a vague answer about how you weren’t perfectly Abnegation or just that you got a Dauntless score because that’s what you seem to care about.

I hear a train horn, so faint it could easily be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to them.

See? It’s just Dauntless Dauntless Dauntless with you.

Incidentally, it’d be nice for you to say why Erudite isn’t a consideration. I’m assuming it’s because your factions are opposed but it’d be nice to know if you personally hate the Erudites too or you wouldn’t mind the lifestyle but can’t imagine compounding leaving your family with going to their current enemies.

So she goes to make dinner, noting that every member of the family makes one meal.

The meal is peas and chicken, because they’re boring.

Most of what we eat is frozen or canned, because farms these days are far away. My mother told me once that, a long time ago, there were people who wouldn’t buy genetically engineered produce because they viewed it as unnatural. Now we have no other option.

What do these things have to do with one another? Food is processed because it’s far, therefore genetic engineering?

Also, no one in the future will recount the history of genetic engineering like that, because it’s about as rational as thinking cameras steal your soul. When was the last time someone said how back in the day, there were people who refused to get their picture taken but now you have no choice but to let people take one for identification purposes?

We learn her dad isn’t perfect because apparently he’s opinionated. No examples are given so don’t know if that’s actual opinionated or “asking a question??? you’re the most curious Abnegation factioner I’ve ever met!” opinionated.

Her mom knows something went wrong during testing.

Like my father, she works for the government, but she manages city improvement projects. She recruited volunteers to administer the aptitude tests. Most of the time, though, she organizes workers to help the factionless with food and shelter and job opportunities.

Really? Because before she was running the volunteer construction workers in particular. Editing, book, editing.

Also this makes no sense. Most of the time can’t possibly be spent on the factionless if the factionless have open sewers. What, did their area just suddenly disintegrate 4.9 years ago after the last big construction job and they’re totally next on the list?

And job opportunities, wtf? We’re not talking about poor people who need some help finding employment, they’re a deliberately shat-on undercast whose jobs you deliberately restrict. You decided they don’t have job opportunities!

Anyway, her mom doesn’t know she was the one with the problem test or what happened. Apparently the tester erased the data, pretended it didn’t record right, and then reported what supposedly happened. I have no idea what the report was, though – in part because we still don’t know what an acceptable result is. Did the tester eliminate one of the three options and only report an aptitude for the other two? Or are you only allowed to fit one category so she had to eliminate two? Because if the tester eliminated the faction Beatrice ultimately picks, it’s going to be a bit suspicious.

(I think. Unless kids pick factions randomly all the time, since we still don’t know how often it is or how often it follows the test results.)

Her dad does a prayer for the food.

Not every Abnegation family is religious, but my father says we should try not to see those differences because they will only divide us. I am not sure what to make of that.

There is nothing confusing about it.

I wonder if someone told the author she isn’t allowed to put in worldbuilding unless it’s followed by the main character expressing doubt or confusion about the subject.

We learn Abnegation doesn’t like people touching and even handholding is something to rarely do in front of anyone. Fitting my theory, Beatrice follows with so I have been wary of it since I was young.

Her mom wants to know what’s wrong with her dad and she thinks about how she sucks for not notice before now.

The city is ruled by a council of fifty people, composed entirely of representatives from Abnegation, because our faction is regarded as incorruptible, due to our commitment to selflessness. Our leaders are selected by their peers for their impeccable character, moral fortitude, and leadership skills. Representatives from each of the other factions can speak in the meetings on behalf of a particular issue, but ultimately, the decision is the council’s.

Well. I guess that explains how the faction’s managed to keep the resources flowing. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense to both be the ones in charge and to need special volunteer groups to try to keep the factionless alive, because they’re the ones who fucked them over in the first place.

Also dammit you mean the smart people aren’t drafting the laws? It seems those two factions would both offer a lot to the government. The Erudites think up the best way to do things, the Abnegation make sure they don’t try to enact anything just for personal gain.

And while the council technically makes decisions together, Marcus is particularly influential.

But they’re a faction that hates anyone standing out, wouldn’t there be backlash against standing out like this?

She explains this system was put in place at the beginning of the great peace, when the factions were formed so apparently the factions formed after a war, in defiance of everything we know about how society works. And she says no one messes with it because they won’t want war.

We then learn that Erudite is led by a woman, which is noteworthy because we now know two Abnegation leaders and they’re both guys. Because Erudite are that kind of smart faction, she was picked by having the highest IQ score. Anyway, she released a report. You’d think you’d want Candor in charge of the press.

I look up. “A report?”
Caleb gives me a warning look. We aren’t supposed to speak at the dinner table unless our parents ask us a direct question, and they usually don’t. Our listening ears are a gift to them, my father says. They give us their listening ears after dinner, in the family room.

Dear writers:

STOP DOING THIS.

Stop having the character do something ordinary, then tell us about the fact doing so is unusual or wrong in this context. Instead, try having the character NOT DO THE THING.

I get that she’s feeling she doesn’t fit into Abnegation, but she could be thinking she was a bad fit because she wants to ask questions right now and resents that she can’t. Remember resentment? It’s that feeling she should have all the time but doesn’t for some reason.

Apparently it was a personal attack.

“that Marcus’s violence and cruelty toward his son is the reason his son chose Dauntless instead of Abnegation.”

But seriously this seems like exactly why you’d want Candor in charge of this.

She explains that Marcus’ kid Tobias leaving was a big deal because almost no Abnegation kids leave (…really?), also, it was for Dauntless in particular. So she’ll really be twisting the knife if she goes.

She adds that the guy pretty much avoided the whole community to the point she never even met him, so it doesn’t seem like it’s any mystery why he left.

“Cruel? Marcus?” My mother shakes her head. “That poor man. As if he needs to be reminded of his loss.”
“Of his son’s betrayal, you mean?” my father says coldly. “I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. The Erudite have been attacking us with these reports for months. And this isn’t the end. There will be more, I guarantee it.”
I shouldn’t speak again, but I can’t help myself. I blurt out, “Why are they doing this?”

That said…

The setup of the factions seems terrible. I mean, how would they know if this is true or not? They’re saying it isn’t but their faction hates knowledge and curiosity, so we know that’s not because of any actual information. Abnegation being secretly evil doesn’t seem too impossible to me – Beatrice seems to be looking at it from the bottom, where she just sees how she’s supposed to deal with things herself, but the society-wide system sure doesn’t look like it’s being run by people with everyone’s best interests in mind. And when the smart people faction is saying something, it seems like they might have a reason to.

And where’s the kid in all this? Why isn’t he speaking up?

Her dad says they’re doing it because Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places. which, no it doesn’t. Valuing knowledge above all else results in being in a lab living on grant money. Now, the smart people might feel they’d do a better job of running things, but that’s a simple matter of thinking their valued trait is more important than another faction’s valued trait.

Now, maybe valuing knowledge above all else makes you not care about anything but results and be all ends justifies the means, so that’s why they’re willing to lie to get there. Or maybe it makes you super arrogant (picking your leader based on IQ tests, really?) and that’s why their faction is so sure they should be in charge, or maybe it makes you not care about people so they’re sick of wasting their tax dollars on feeding the factionless instead of feeding the factionless into a meat grinder and using it to fertilize crops. But loving knowledge doesn’t make you want power unless someone just cut the funding to whatever you were studying, and even then you just want the power to get funding again.

We should be thankful that we know better.”

You’re doing a really shitty job governing.

I nod. I know I will not choose Erudite, even though my test results suggested that I could. I am my father’s daughter.

But thank you book for saying why she isn’t considering that faction.

Anyway, today she and Caleb don’t get to chat in the family room because you’re supposed to contemplate the test results alone. Still no idea why this is all set up this way. She even says her family would probably help if she could talk to them, and it’s implied she would if she hadn’t also been told that her test results were exta extra scary and no one could ever know.

While they’re alone, Caleb suddenly blurts out that they should think of their family but they also have to think of themselves and she still doesn’t take the hint that he wants to talk about his test results already and just stammers out the standard line about test results don’t have to change anything.

He smiles a little. “Don’t they, though?”
…
I wish I could tell him that we’re going through the same thing.
…
the idea of admitting that I need help is too much to bear, so I turn away.

Arg.

She then says that actually, whatever decision she makes will be the right one, because It will require a great act of selflessness to choose Abnegation, or a great act of courage to choose Dauntless but no word on how that’d fit how she displayed a selfish/cowardly combo there with ignoring her brother’s problem but being too much of a wimp to engage her own.