I walk from tie to tie, Tobias balances on the rail, wobbling only occasionally, and Caleb and Susan shuffle behind us. I twitch at every unidentified noise, tensing until I realize it is just the wind, or the squeak of Tobias’s shoes on the rail. I wish we could keep running, but it’s a feat that my legs are even moving at this point.

Nothing contradictory in this passage, no sir.

Tris hears the vibration of a coming train and decides they should hitch a ride.

“Even if it’s run by the Erudite?” says Caleb.
“If the Erudite were running the train, they would have taken it to the Amity compound to look for us,” Tobias says.

But Erudite confirmed they controlled the trains when they stopped the trains for the zombie Dauntless to get on. I guess the alternative is that the Dauntless control their own damn trains and Erudite only gains control if they control the Dauntless, but that means if the Erudite don’t have control of the trains, then Dauntless won the power struggle and at most, there’s a handful of Dauntless who went over to Erudite but none of the power structure.

Hm. That wouldn’t contradict Erudite making a last ditch effort to finish off Abnegation – eliminating the current rulers entirely will put them in a better position to say they’re still needed, and it means no Abnegation will be left to give the orders to wipe them out in response. If the movie’s bit about Dauntless being people who follow orders even when they’re horrible and wrong is the author’s idea, the Dauntless may not be the sort to do things on their own, so they won’t just kill the Erudite anyway.

“I think it’s worth the risk.

Hello there, Reason Why Dauntless Should Not Be In Charge. Are you guys even capable of saying something is not worth the risk?

Caleb gives Susan step-by-step instructions for getting on a moving train, the way only a former Erudite can.

So they’re confirmed as the teacher faction, in addition to controlling the media? They should really have not needed overt mindcontrol to get control of another faction.

Anyway, Caleb should be leader. Tris and Tobias clearly have more information that he does, but if they tell him, he’d be better positioned to make an actual risk assessment with his smarts and his not suicidal crazy risktakerness.

Eyes glitter in the darkness. Dark shapes sit in the car, more numerous than we are.
The factionless.

Huh. So something’s happened and they’ve hopped on trains? It seems like this is new because it’s never been mentioned before. It can’t even be that the factionless avoid the Dauntless because Tris has hopped on trains at random times the rest of the faction wasn’t around and in those cases they were just empty.

A factionless man with an eye patch has a gun pointed at Tobias. I wonder how he got it. Next to him, an older factionless woman holds a knife—the kind I used to cut bread with. Behind him, someone else holds a large plank of wood with a nail sticking out of it.

So the factionless are Backup Dauntless, which I guess would kind of be inevitable when your life is considered worthless. Makes Erudite’s plan to murder them all that much dumber, though.

The factionless are surprised to see armed Amity, but in a “wow how weird” sense and not “fuck, Erudite’s killing you guys now too?” sense. There’s such a lazy conflating of people’s tendencies and the faction’s official goals here, like it’s impossible someone could like living in a hippie commune but also arm themselves and run when people showed up to order everyone against the wall. It’s weird – I think, after everything, the most nuanced perspective on factions is the first few chapters on Abnegation. Like I said, Tris makes it clear the faction charter is something they try to live up to, she explains they behave differently in different contexts and shows that all the way down to her dad making a typical dad person angry grumble at the dinner table. Then we get to Dauntless and really, the conflict we see is about the two sides of the official faction behavior, and now Amity are a pack of robots.

He wears tattered clothes in different colors—a black T-shirt with a torn Abnegation jacket over it, blue jeans mended with red thread, brown boots. All faction clothing is represented in the group before me: black Candor pants paired with black Dauntless shirts, yellow dresses with blue sweatshirts over them. Most items are torn or smudged in some way, but some are not. Freshly stolen, I imagine.

Okay, so we have three options here.

A) The factionless are given used clothing from the other factions, but only ones that are beyond repair. If they don’t want stuff with holes in it, it’s gotta be stolen.
B) The factionless are given their own official factionless rags, as featured on Factionless Guy Who Menaced Tris In Chapter Four Or Five of Divergent. If you want to wear actual clothing, you have to steal it, and this is difficult enough that the resulting clothes are worn almost to rags themselves. The torn and smudged stuff is just older stolen goods.
C) The factionless are given used clothing from other factions. Some bits are in better condition than others. Tris just reflexively assumes theft because she’s prejudiced.

The most dickish of the options is B, but that seems to fit best with how the factionless wearing faction clothes hasn’t been mentioned, Tris didn’t make any connection to the way they were dressing in a mix of clothing back at Amity just like the factionless despite actually going on about them not having a faction, and how she makes a big deal here about the factionless wearing faction clothes.

No matter what, Abnegation is clearly a bunch of assholes and their removal, though not their slaughter, was utterly deserved.

I also like B because it would be a way of marking out different camps within the factionless – the ones who play by the rules wearing rags and living off handouts, and the ones who arm themselves and take. I mean, the factionless are defined by the fact they’re not a hive mind. Here at least there has to be at least lip service to diversity.

Eyepatch guy is Edward who knows they’re Dauntless, but they are actually only 50% Dauntless.

“Whatever you are,” the woman says, “you’ll have to get off this train if you want to stay alive.”

So the factionless are also regularly committing murder for what seems like stupid reasons. They really are Backup Dauntless! Maybe they get on trains all the time when the main group of Dauntless don’t use them and just kill any individual Dauntless who stumbles on their secret. Maybe that’s how the divergent murdering could go off so easily, these guys have been making sure there’s a steady amount of background noise “train accidents” so a few more aren’t noticeable.

Susan starts to cry about how hard things have been for them.

I get the strange urge to hit my head against the wall. Other people’s sobs make me uncomfortable. It’s selfish of me, maybe.

Beating your head against the wall isn’t uncomfortable, it’s annoyance. If you’re going to be a jerk, own it.

And Caleb uses reason, to say that the Erudite are trying to kill them and they need to get into the city before that happens.

“Yeah?” Edward tilts his head. “What have you ever done for us?”

This sequence doesn’t make any sense. There’s no mention of why it’s an imposition for non-factionless to be on the train or even Tris wondering about why that might be. It’s just threats and demands they justify themselves. Also, what?

All four of the people were Abnegation, and while their handling of the factionless overall leaves much to be desired, all the individuals ever did was hand them food. Also, the leadership at least voted Dauntless out, and furthermore apparently at least one other faction wants them flat-out murdered and Abnegation stood in the way of that. Plus Tris did in fact rush over to help when his eye was poked out! And Tobias at least tried to keep Eric from murdering them for shits and giggles. Plus she, Tobias and Caleb helped turn off the Dauntless sim so they couldn’t go to phase two of the ethnic cleansing and kill all factionless.

Tris reminds him of the fact she personally did help him, the ungrateful dick, but sadly not the fact it’s also stupid in all the other ways, and he’s all yeah but what about the rest.

Why is he even talking? It’d make sense for the other factionless to assume the four are all Dauntless and to hold a grudge just because they’re Dauntless and they still remember when the Dauntless were around “patrolling” their area with big sticks, but Edward makes no sense. He’s acting like they’re asking him to personally carry them across a minefield covered in angry sharks, not shut the fuck up and let them sit down on the same free ride he’s illegally using.

Tobias does not point out anything about how stupid this is. He just says his full name and everyone’s all HOLY SHIT IT’S EATON. Come to think of it, why do they even have last names when faction before blood at all that. Then Edward, who will not shut up is there seriously no one else in the train who’s more important, adds But when we get to the city, you’ve got to come with us.” Then he smiles a little. “We know someone who’s been looking for you, Tobias Eaton.”

Except that’s probably exactly why he gave his name! If he gave his name because he’s known to someone important, why would you be cagey about who that is to him?

This is the sort of stupid bullshit usually confined to the lower grade of TV show where they drag everything out and misrepresent stuff to get people tuning in again next week. Then, to combine it with the worst aspects of standard novel filler bullshit, Tobias and Tris then talk about how he totally knows who “someone” is but he can’t explain because he has so much to explain and they’re soooo busy riding a train for hours.

Tris doesn’t even speculate about it until they jump off the train.

I’m not sure who could know Tobias among the factionless. It could be Drew or Molly, who failed Dauntless initiation—but they didn’t even know Tobias’s real name, and besides, Edward probably would have killed them by now, judging by how ready he was to shoot us. It must be someone from Abnegation, or from school.

This would appear to be Tris running through all the people she knows rather than considering it could be anyone Tobias met at Dauntless before she showed up. There’s also the possibility he met up with anyone of any other faction or factionless at some point, possibly related to him being in charge of internal security.

The factionless lead us down the street and left into a grimy alleyway that stinks of garbage. Rats scatter in front of us with squeaks of terror, and I see only their tails, slipping between mounds of waste, empty trash cans, soggy cardboard boxes.

Like the rotting apples that I bet are there because the author’s only familiar with pick-your-own affairs, I suspect this is because the author is picturing this as the homeless in a modern city, not an entire class of starving people in a self-contained city where even the better-off are apparently having some food issues.

You wouldn’t have vast quantities of waste. The factions should be cleaning their plates and the factionless scavenging much of what’s thrown away before the rats get to it. The fact we waste enormous amounts of food doesn’t mean they would. Hell, they don’t even seem to have entertainment or much of a grasp of fresh food, so no restaurant waste and virtually no spoilage once food gets into the city. Maybe the communal groups like Dauntless chuck their leftovers each night (it’d fit with Tris throwing away soiled clothing) but otherwise I’d expect people to be cleaning their plates.

And given the factionless are starving and have nothing better to do, they should be eating whatever rats are left. (Plus, I’d expect at least a few of them to have pet dogs or something, and they’d need to be catching something to feed their dog because you know Abnegation wouldn’t help them in the least.)

Finally, cardboard boxes? Where exactly are you getting all this wood and where are you planning on throwing it away? There’s been no mention of digging a landfill in the city itself, and no mention of extensive logging going on to generate new paper to replace the old. They have no reason to be using disposable boxes in the first place when they could be using something reusable. Just because Americans do things doesn’t mean it actually makes sense.

This makes me think of Matched. Aside from the romance, the author made a pretty good effort at a world. It all went to hell in the second book, but in the first, they eat out of tins, then wash and reuse them all. Why? Because they’ve obviously a resource-poor society and can’t just dump it in a landfill. Divergent’s world is likely less strapped overall, but they should be struggling with certain resources, like the plants that seem to be having so much trouble growing. Possibly Amity runs a tree farm, but then that’s another thing taking up their eleven trucks, and then more trucks are needed to transport the garbage away again, and all that garbage does is attract pests and disease.

Anyway, they arrive and Tris is shocked.

the factionless, who are supposed to be scattered, isolated, and without community … are together inside it. Are together, like a faction.

This could’ve worked, if it’d been built up in the least, if we’d seen Tris express this idea before. But without that, it’s telling us things are exactly like any reader would expect then adding that this is supposed to be a surprise.

“What’s going on here? Why are you all together like this?”
“You thought they—we—were all split up,” Edward says over his shoulder. “Well, they were, for a while. Too hungry to do much of anything except look for food. But then the Stiffs started giving them food, clothes, tools, everything. And they got stronger, and waited.

Okay, so apparently the moral is that you shouldn’t feed homeless people because that makes them stronger. What the fuck.

We then have more blather about how Tobias knows who they’re going to and no one else does but he won’t explain. Caleb keeps making noises for some reason Tris doesn’t understand.

“You know who she’s going to get, don’t you,” says Caleb to Tobias.
“Caleb,” Tobias says. “Please shut up.”
To my surprise, my brother suppresses his Erudite curiosity.

This is not Erudite curiousity. This is having a functioning brain.

A middle-aged woman stands behind the table. She has curly black hair and olive skin.

Incidentally, what’s the word on “olive skin”? It seems to be popping up more and more as an alternative to white, but in what feels like a wishy-washy way, since in practice it seems it can mean anything from slightly tan to moderately dark. And whatever it is, we’re reminded it’s not dark enough to compromise her son having love interest blue eyes.

This is Tobias’ mom, who is not dead. She’s glad he’s decided to join her. Tobias is cranky and says that no they’re there for other reasons.

She must have made him angry somehow. But I can’t help but think that if I discovered my mother was alive after thinking she was dead for so long, I would never speak to her the way Tobias speaks to his mother now, no matter what she had done.

Tris. I know you hate Erudite but can you please focus a second. We have just spent half the fucking chapter on Tobias going on about how he totally knew who he would meet and just wouldn’t tell you because it was a long story. Now he’s meeting his mom. Think about these two facts.

On the table behind Evelyn is a large map with markers all over it. A map of the city, obviously, but I’m not sure what the markers mean. On the wall behind her is a chalkboard with a chart on it. I can’t decipher the information in the chart; it’s written in shorthand I don’t know.

You’re doing this just to spite me, aren’t you.

They snappishly exchange names for no reason:

“Prior,” she says. “I know of several Priors, but none of them are named Tris. Beatrice, however …”
“Well,” I say, “I know of several living Eatons, but none of them are named Evelyn.”
“Evelyn Johnson is the name I prefer. Particularly among a pack of Abnegation.”

Holy shit why do any of you care shut up and move on with your lives.

“Those are population counts?” says Caleb from behind me.

THANK YOU CALEB.

And … what? Factionless safe houses?” He points to the first line on the chart, which reads 7………. Grn Hse. “I mean, these places, on the map? They’re safe houses, like this one, right?”

I would question why “safe house” and not just “house”, especially when we’ve been told the only pressure on the factionless was removed. But hey, at least we know what she’s keeping track of!

Evelyn refuses to discuss this, but that actually makes sense unlike all the other bullshit. She also tries to talk to Tobias about not understanding why he’s mad at her, to which Tobias explains that it’s because haha no he’s just silent. Maybe next he’ll be all YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID because that’s sure productive.

“I will extend my invitation again. We could use your help here, and I know you are like-minded about the faction system—”

Since when? His main problem with Dauntless seemed like it was because Dauntless was all evil. I guess there was some of that in wanting every tattoo, but the faction system doesn’t actually mean you can’t also be selfless/smart/honest/CHEESE FOR THE CHEESE GOD DRUGS FOR THE NONBELIEVERS. Past initiation factions seem more about what job you want than only being one thing.

Really, the problems all keep spiraling back to the fact the Dauntless shouldn’t have been set up as evil and on Erudite’s side. That makes it seem like the problem is that Dauntless have perverted the true nature of their faction, not that the whole thing is a bad idea. If the Dauntless were exemplars of bravery and then we saw Tobias having issues with that because he wanted to be more, this would be less out of left field. And if Tobias’ selflessness/bravery connection had been about more than just that you could use one to substitute for another, maybe something about how the Dauntless were held back because they didn’t teach that? Also would’ve helped if we saw Dauntless put down traits from other factions more. So far, all the factions seem to get along except for Abnegation’s mutual hateoff with the rest.

“You really don’t get it,” he says. “You don’t have the vaguest conception of what you’ve done to me.”

Tobias then continues not to explain, because this chapter is all about Tobias not explaining anything for no reason.

“I don’t want to join up with your little band of factionless. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“My little band of factionless is twice the size of Dauntless,” says Evelyn.

Presumably this means the factionless as a whole, but it’d make more sense for it to be literal – Evelyn is head of a subgroup with particular goals.

Twice the size of Dauntless. When did they become so large?

Apparently when Abnegation started feeding them, because the homeless are like rats or cockroaches and all charity just lets them build up their numbers to overwhelm you. I’m not sure why but I feel like this is building toward something about killing the Jewish bankers. Maybe it’s just how old-timey it is to oppose feeding starving people lest they not die.

We find out that Tobias only learned about his mom a year ago, because earlier Tris just knew that his mom being alive had to be a surprise so he can’t have known for longer. It was because she had an affair.

“And no wonder, since my father …” He shakes his head again. “Well, let’s just say Marcus wasn’t any nicer to her than he was to me.”

This is not really an answer. I mean, if she’d had an affair and then left before Marcus killed her, that’d sort of make sense, but it’s just she didn’t like Marcus, so she had sex with someone else, so she had to leave. It also makes all this into something that just happened to her.

On the brighter side, at least the book’s sexual mores continue to be pretty progressive:

“Is … that why you’re angry with her? Because she was unfaithful to him?”
“No,” he says too sternly, his eyes opening. “No, that’s not why I’m angry.”

No, it’s the obvious of being left with his abusive dad, which, unlike her leaving, was totally a distinct choice she made.

“But did she think of taking me with her?”

Also Tobias, thoughts are not actions. She could have thought of that a lot and then realized that either she wouldn’t get away with it or she didn’t want to risk you starving to death.

They sit together for a bit, then suddenly:

“It seems to me,” he says, “that the factionless are better friends than enemies.”
“Maybe. But what would the cost of that friendship be?” I say.

Why are you against this? What cost? They want to be friends because his mom is running their leader, and otherwise you’ve got no idea what their plans and goals are.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But we may not have any other option.”

No shit you don’t. Also, it seems like until recently the factionless’ numbers were kept down either by starving them to death or some combination of hunger/exposure/disease, and asking for that to be changed isn’t unreasonable. (And with Abnegation gone, they may just want assurances things aren’t going to get worse. Plus the only two factionless who’ve actually gotten names are both people who pass the tests but chose to leave – they’re presumably not the majority, but as presented, the factionless being factionless is unrelated to actually not fitting a faction, which in turn removes the justification for treating them differently.)