Last time, Tris has a nightmare and doesn’t have a sex.

Tris’ wakeup in Tobias’ room goes fine.

I am reluctant to leave, but I am supposed to work in the laundry rooms, and I don’t want the Amity to say I’m not fulfilling my part of the deal they offered us.

The book seems to have immediately jumped to the conclusion that Amity are rules lawyers, but my way or the factionless highway doesn’t seem like it makes any sense for the people supposed to be working as therapists and counselors. Even going on the idea Amity’s got a lot of safeguards in their faction creed to avoid being taken advantage of, their whole thing is getting along. Even the selfless might rationalize away kicking people out as being necessary, but people who value getting along should give people as many chances as possible to fall in line.

And let’s face it, it’s highly unlikely the limiting factor on Amity’s resources is human labor, to say nothing of the fact they’re the only productive faction so they were already supporting all of Abnegation before this. The only difference is that now there’s fewer Abnegation mouths to feed and some of them are closer by so you don’t need to worry about shipping or preservation. (Admittedly, still unclear why a couple hours drive requires you to freeze everything, but whatever.)

Point is, they really have no reason to demand work so if someone doesn’t show up for work, the conflict-avoiding way of handling it is to passively ignore this fact. Again, I’m sure they’ve got ways to avoid being taken advantage of, but this isn’t getting taken advantage of since they don’t need any of that help to keep things running. Amity’s default state should not be rigidness. They’ve managed to deal with the other factions in a counseling role this long.

(Also a good case can be made that Tris and Tobias aren’t seeking asylum at all. Amity appears to be handling the certainty more violence will come by burying their heads in the sand, but that makes no sense – they interacted with Dauntless daily and seem to have had no problem with them. The obvious point of tension would be that they might be uncomfortable with Tris and Tobias attacking first should Erudite show up, while being Dauntless, Tris and Tobias are uncomfortable waiting for the obvious psychos to make the first move.)

But I digress terribly, because what’s important is that Peter is searching her room for the harddrive I don’t remember her ever flashing around in the first place, but he knows about it and I can’t be assed to check if this is a retcon. Apparently he’s been seeing her stalking Marcus, and this lets him know there’s something up despite her being on record as hating the guy and wanting to murder him.

I don’t know why you get to keep track of that hard drive,” he says. “It’s not like you’re particularly stable these days.”

Firstly, the fact she’s not exactly calm and collected just proves my point that her behavior stalking Marcus and such wouldn’t be notable. An Erudite would be doing it because Marcus had info, and a Candor might be doing it because they could tell they were being lied to and wanted the truth. An unstable Dauntless is just plotting how the murder will go. Surely Peter knows this given he plotted her murder.

Second, Peter plotted her murder then helped in the murder of her birthfaction and families via brainraping her new faction and friends. Why would she give a fuck about anything he says?

“I’m unstable?” I laugh. “I find that a little funny, coming from you.”

But for some reason she does enough to argue. Dammit, Tris, why would his opinions even register? Why are you having a conversation with someone who is not only a murderous psychopath but one who your friend introduced as a skilled liar? Either he’s stalling for time or he’s just babbling in the hopes you don’t punch him. Ultimately, it just doesn’t matter what words he’s saying.

Narratively, though, the book demands they converse. Personally I’m not clear on why he’s even still alive. This scene seems like it should be Marcus, in that he’s the one who can get under her skin and whose opinion she still cares about in the indirect way of being outraged he thinks anything of himself when he used to abuse her boyfriend.

Tris thinks he wants the drive to rejoin Erudite, and he says fuck that because no one gets to control me, especially not the Erudite despite the point of contention for Tris being that he was one of the special kids picked to not be controlled. I assume he’s objecting to the mind control being on the table as a looming threat, which would make him the only one in the book so far to identify the real issue with what Erudite has done, but “I hate mind control!” would be a hell of a lot more convincing than what he said, which comes off more mad dog than anything.

Blah blah he’s already got the drive.

“Give it to me, or so help me, I will kill you in your sleep.”
He smirks. “If only you could see how ridiculous you look when you threaten people. Like a little girl telling me she’s going to strangle me with her jump rope.”

You know, the movie thing with her being baffled people don’t get that she totally will shoot them was funny, but this isn’t. She has by this point proven she will murder her way through anything that opposes her. She has already shot him once for simply delaying her. She has an existing grudge against him.

At a certain point, insisting everyone interacts with the character as a girl first and trained killer second turns into reinforcing sexism by saying the world inherently works this way, and even when drenched in the blood of your enemies no one will ever take you seriously so enjoy having your entire life being a futile battle for respect, girls!

Tris, incidentally, does not think to simply yell for Amity to deal with theft, which I’m sure they have rules against being anti-conflict. I think the book was trying to set up how difficult it’d be for her to avoid resorting to violence, but I just don’t feel it.

I guess the problem is that it’s generally frustrating to see a character make the wrong choice, and you need really good characterization to pull it off. I like Tris’ characterization much more than usual, but this is still a book where stuff just happens because it happens – again, this whole conversation makes little sense because Tris has no reason to talk to Peter or pay attention to any noise he’s making. She’s shown in other instances she’s extremely good at playing along, from the early chapters where she doesn’t fight back because she’s Abnegation and behaves as Abnegation should; to the middle section where she endures Eric, fakes weakness to get Peter off her back, and manages to keep control in the fear landscape; to the end where she marches lockstep with the zombie Dauntless.

Tris likes being Dauntless and having the option of striking out rather than enduring. She loves it. But the author’s failed to set her up as someone who actually can’t control herself. Tobias, if we ignore the godawful sidestory from his POV, is set up as someone with control problems who tries to redirect them as a coping mechanism. He’s now lost that outlet because the Amity don’t want to see any aggression, and lost it while he’s in a far more stressful situation. The bigger issue to him would obviously be his dad, but clearly he can’t strike out at his dad, and that makes it all the more likely he’d explode into violence at any other target that pushed him.

Failing all that, even a moment of “he thought I would just take it because I’m a Stiff but I’m fucking Dauntless” fueling her punches would be an improvement. I would also accept “man fuck this Amity niceness shit we’re taking off for the city tomorrow and anyway I signed up with the punch people faction for a reason” though it would mean reducing the glorious flawedness of a character with a temper.

But so yeah Amity comes running.

One of the Amity grabs me by the arms and half lifts, half pulls me away from Peter. The wound in my shoulder throbs, but I hardly feel it through the pulse of adrenaline. I strain toward him

These are clearly people who can handle the concept of conflict. They don’t like it, but they understand it’s a thing that happens and can take understandable measures to deal.

Tobias comes running and is all wtf and she says Peter’s stolen the hard drive, having not thought to do so as soon as the Amity appeared, so Tobias recovers it from Peter’s groaning body.

Tris, meanwhile, is SHOCKED that after the violence, they want her to come somewhere in accordance with Amity protocol on violence. Tobias is all whatevs go and chill.

A label on the door says CONFLICT ROOM.
“Are you putting me in time-out or something?” I scowl.

Good god Tris you were Abnegation not Candor, and you supposedly qualify as Erudite for cleverness. Shut the fuck up, calm down, move on.

Instead, she mocks the whole idea of Amity teaching people to be calm, despite the fact she should recognize that being able to keep calm and hide her feelings is what kept her alive through Dauntless initiation. She was willing to play along in the face of Jeanine, she can’t do it here? They’re not even being annoying about it! For all we know they have a punching bag in there.

Admittedly, they don’t. It’s some guy who wants her to sit and Tris continues to have her inconsistent oppositional issues where fuck you not sitting fight’s done that should be enough.

“What are you doing?”
“I am making tea,” he says.
“I don’t think tea is really the solution to this.”
“Then tell us,” the younger man says, drawing my attention back to the windows. He smiles at me. “What do you believe is the solution?”
“Throwing Peter out of this compound.”
“It seems to me,” the man says gently, “that you are the one who attacked him—indeed, that you are the one who shot him in the arm.”
“You have no idea what he did to deserve those things.” My cheeks get hot again and mimic my heartbeat. “He tried to kill me. And someone else—he stabbed someone else in the eye … with a butter knife. He is evil. I had every right to—”

That’s right. Tris does not say that he started the fight in the sense of stealing from her or verbally provoking her about (and about the conflict that they’re specifically told not to discuss, no less). She could also lie and say he attacked her first but she’s the better fighter so she won anyway, which given she was top ranked in Dauntless initiation, successfully defeated the Erudite AND personally crippled and dragged Peter off as a prisoner is pretty damn believable.

But no, Tris, Eruite-qualifying, decides the smart thing to do is ramble that he stabbed some guy in the eye at some point. Amity has had enough of her nonsense and injects her with yet another colored serum. I don’t know why you’re even surprised by this, Tris, all the factions are bugfuck insane and you decided not to even give lip service to this one’s obsession. If this was Dauntless you were acting like toward, you’d already be dead in a ditch.

Anyway it’s happy drugs. So that’s now two factions that have the capability to enforce their chosen answer by just dumping it in the water supply. I wouldn’t be surprised if Erudite had a smartness drug and Dauntless lace everything with steroids (those also enhance healing, remember). Maybe the only ones who don’t are Abnegation, and they’re of the others being able to actually enforce their solutions so they say nobody gets to dump drugs into the water suppy at all.

She’s all yay I love everything I feel great do you feel great cuz I do where’s my boyfriend.

He’s handsome, isn’t he? I don’t really know why he likes me so much. I’m not very nice, am I?”
“Not most of the time, no,” the man says. “But I think you could be, if you tried.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s nice of you to say.”

Yeah unless the drug also causes memory loss they’re really not living up to being good counselors. There are far more positive, diplomatic things to say. Even going on Tris’ shitty, shitty nonsense justification, he should be able to tell that Peter hurt people and her and she feels he’s a danger to people, in which case her actions were well meant – her faction’s MO is to throw themselves on the grenade to protect everyone else, and even if you don’t agree that’s necessary or a good idea, you should be able to understand the individuals doing so are trying to do the right thing. You don’t convince anyone of your own system’s superiority by assuming the worst of them like this, because Tris will come down from her drugged haze and remember the asshole said she wasn’t very nice when she nearly died several times over to save people just because she punched Mr Eyestabby.

“I think you could be, if you tried,” was really all he needed to say. Encouraging and positive reinforcement are a lot better at making people shift their behavior progressively over time, while “Not most of the time,” tells her you’ve judged her current behavior and found it wanting, so why even bother trying to please you?

Arguably you can see this as just more of the factions being fuckups, but this seems like it’s stepping on Abnegation’s toes, since they’ve the ones who view everyone else as not good enough and supposedly Amity is currently working as counselors and valued for it, rather than their patients punching them in the face every time.

I laugh a little. “The fight. What a silly thing …”
And it does seem like a silly thing, slamming your fist into someone else’s body. Like a caress, but too hard. A caress is much nicer. Maybe I should have run my hand along Peter’s arm instead. That would have felt better to both of us.

So this drug appears to be completely useless at actually reducing conflict. Tris can’t remember why she did it and anyway is in too good of a mood to feel any sense of regret. You’d have to follow her around drugging her prior to any conflict to have any impact. If the drug’s not addictive, it’ll have no real effect but causing empty periods, and if it is addictive then I’d expect her brain is treating this yet further reinforcement of how great punching people works out – in fact, minutes ago she was talking about a headache from coming down from the fight, but now everything’s awesome again.

She also can’t walk straight, because this drug, like all drugs, appears to be basically super-alcohol with a dash of LSD because DAMN HIPPIES. Balance is gone, reaction is gone, giggly and boy does she want to fuck someone.

Tobias continues to be a good boyfriend in recognizing that no, she is not meaningfully consenting here and drags her to Johanna to yell about this instead.

“You really shouldn’t cover up your scar,” I say. “You look prettier with your hair out of your face.”

More interesting question – so, is this related to the truth serum? Could even be the same thing. Christina didn’t describe the truth section of initiation as being full of giggling, but it seems factions hide a lot of the details from their initiates. Also, it’d better explain why Candor at least wasn’t pushing for mass release if the only way they have of guaranteeing truth at the moment also makes you a giggly idiot. Doesn’t fit with the fact Amity is supposed to be Candor’s opposite and distrusted because they’re willing to lie to keep the peace…maybe Amity’s sitting on the formula for the opposite reason, because they want a version that doesn’t result in blurting out every thought?

You know what’d have been a good detail last book? Erudite having their own water treatment plant. It could be presented as a red herring where Tris thinks it’s part of their master plan but that turns out to be the injections, then this book we find out there’s a giggly idiot drug that could cripple Erudite if it was released.

Johanna frowns at me. “They must have given her too much. She’s very small; they probably didn’t take her height and weight into account.”

You’d think they’d have this down a bit better than that. If anything she’s half muscle at this point and should weigh more than she looks.

Incidentally, a better explanation would be metabolism differences. Some people just process drugs faster even accounting for body mass, and on top of natural differences, Tris’ metabolism is probably going extra faster from the training and muscle, plus there’s that injury + healing goo that causes your cellls to multiply like mad. This would also give an excuse to have it wear off extra fast so we don’t waste too much time on it without making it seem like it can’t work too well in general.

Johanna identifies it as “peace serum” and that its only normal side effects are dizziness, which bullshit, it obviously makes you happy in part by disconnecting your ability to remember your problems or focus on anything. The intended effect and the problems with it are intimately linked.

We administer it to members of our community who have trouble keeping the peace.”
Tobias snorts. “I’m not an idiot. Every member of your community has trouble keeping the peace, because they’re all human. You probably dump it into the water supply.”
Johanna does not respond for a few seconds.

…well then! I think we have a good answer on why they seem to have some weird water filtration stuff going on. A lot of drugs are passed through the system rather than actually degrading, so if this stuff is tricky to manufacture, it might be easier to recycle as much as you can.

Although I can’t see why you’d be putting it in the showers at the same time as telling people five minute showers only – if the amount you have is limited, it’s just easier to not put it into water that’ll have little effect.

Johanna then says if it was in the water supply this conflict would not have occurred but I have faith that anything short of Tris’ current drugged stupor would not stop Tris from beating Peter into a groaning heap of bruised flesh.

whatever we agree to do here, we do together, as a faction. If I could give the serum to everyone in this city, I would. You would certainly not be in the situation you are in now if I had.”
“Oh, definitely,” he says. “Drugging the entire population is the best solution to our problem. Great plan.”

But…it is, assuming you’re Amity and view the problem as conflict existing.

So: why aren’t they? Either they can’t manufacture sufficient amounts or they’re not allowed to do it. I think answering the question of why they haven’t yet is of much higher priority than bitching about how you think the whole idea’s stupid. And that’s before considering that last book we had a similar situation where the answer for why they hadn’t yet was they didn’t yet have the technological ability to do so but they were working on it, and then they did it and your faction got turned into automatons and used for a coup.

You should really, really want to know if all that’s stopping them from their own coup is that they can’t yet produce it in sufficient quantities. Especially when you’re all about privacy and self-control!

Johanna adds that she’s sorry but also Tris may have to leave soon, and Tobias says already going to.

“Good,” she says with a small smile. “Peace between Amity and Dauntless can only happen when we maintain our distance from each other.”

So is this just a not in my backyard thing? Because if they do accept that Dauntless has a right to exist as a faction, they should have a better way of handling things than for everyone who comes to them to be Amity. The whole setting would seem more plausible if they had set out rules for the Dauntless that were to avoid initiating conflict, rather than demanding their weapons and banning all conflict ever. They could even be glad someone else was here in the event conflict followed after them, since they could just hand it over to the Dauntless and not dirty their own hands.

After all, the fight that happened is obviously going to violate Amity values. There’s no need for them to be set up as inflexible idiots who can’t possibly function beforehand. They could easily have allowed the Dauntless in and respected the need for them as inter-faction police only to be horrified at how Dauntless handle their intrafaction conflicts.

Tobias says well I guess that’s why you’ve decided to let the Erudite kill them all. Not sure how he knows that, but apparently it’s on the ball.

“It is for the sake of peace that we remain uninvolved—” Johanna begins.
“Peace.” Tobias almost spits the word. “Yes, I’m sure it will be very peaceful when we are all either dead or cowering in submission under the threat of mind control or stuck in an endless simulation.”

…well. Yeah, it will be.

Amity is actually the faction least opposed to the coup – they’d be upset at the bloodshed but it really doesn’t oppose their core values like Candor, and they aren’t in power and don’t seem to want it so a change in power shouldn’t matter. From what we’ve seen of them here and their lack of presence aiding the factionless last book, they may view the factionless as too full of conflict and be okay with their murder/mind control. It’d be a nice callback to Candor’s accusation that they’ll do anything to minimize conflict.

Given Amity’s only way of handling conflict currently is to drug people until they don’t feel it any longer, simulations probably seem like a perfectly good idea. The biggest concern is being used by Erudite for conflict-y sorts of things, but if we assume Erudite’s endgame is everyone in a simulation, there’ll be no one to be in conflict with.

In conclusion, why the fuck did they leave the city.

“The decision was not mine to make. If it was, perhaps we would be having a different conversation right now.”
“Are you saying you disagree with them?”
“I am saying,” she says, “that it isn’t my place to disagree with my faction publicly, but I might, in the privacy of my own heart.”
“Tris and I will be gone in two days,” says Tobias. “I hope your faction doesn’t change their decision to make this compound a safe house.”

So…they haven’t decided to let Erudite kill everyone yet, except for how they did.

Also, why are they waiting just leave already. I don’t think there’s even anything left to learn about Amity, while the situation in the city is a complete unknown.

Johanna asks about Peter, despite it being clear they hate him, and he reminds her that they hate him and don’t give a fuck. We end by discovering that the serum is in the bread and not the water, because REASON NOT FOUND. But it is set up properly with Tris noticing the bread tasted weird. It’s just seriously putting it in the food which you bake at hundreds of degrees seemed the best idea for distribution really?