Last time on Dauntless, a momentary break in the beatings and the discovery the Dauntless are just standing around the fence doing nothing.

This time, more beatings!

She was paired with a girl named Myra, who I don’t think has been mentioned before so she’ll probably be one of the factionless. She won because Myra really sucks at fighting.

couldn’t throw a good punch if someone was controlling her arm for her. I got a good hit in during the first two minutes. She fell down and was too dizzy to get back up.

And by sucks at fighting, I mean holy shit she’s got a brain injury and should be in the hospital look at this! Her coordination is shot and a single blow to the head triggers incapacitating dizziness. Is this how they pick kids, by whichever ones are still able to stagger around in a mostly straight line by the end?

When she tries to lie down that night Antag-Eric pops in to order them all out for a fieldtrip. Stress and sleep deprevation can be used for good effect when indoctrinating people, but this doesn’t seem to be done in a very organized manner.

Oh, and Christina sleeps half dressed but isn’t intimidated by having to get up like that and Tris is super impressed.

Anyway, they’re supposed to shoot paintballs in capture the flag so they hop on the trains.

Each team will have an even mix of members, Dauntless-born initiates, and transfers.

Tris, who has been offended by every suggestion she’s not good enough, does not seem to notice the implicit slight here.

Four also says this is TRADITION and a big deal, so I guess the rest of the stuff that’s been happening is new.

“What do we get if we win?” someone shouts.
“Sounds like the kind of question someone not from Dauntless would ask,” says Four, raising an eyebrow. “You get to win, of course.”

Bravery being the same thing as being obsessed with not failing, of course. If anything it seems like the Dauntless shouldn’t care who wins, but they do seem oddly into ranking everything.

Antag-Eric and Four will each get a team. Tris angsts about how she’ll be picked last, but:

“I want the Stiff.”

Continuing to be an on and off slur, I guess. Anyway, Love Interest is loveinteresting it up.

To be fair to him, he’s actually being pretty tolerable, maybe because he’s actually being subtle and restrained with all this. Aside from the simming undercurrent of rage issues, he seems reasonably like someone who likes Tris but, as the person in charge of her initiation, isn’t making any move in that direction because it’d be fucking creepy. If he can keep doing that without punching Tris’ face (or punching only for general insane Dauntless reasons and not specific abusive boyfriend reasons) he’ll be one of the better love interests!

“Got something to prove?” asks Eric, with his trademark smirk. “Or are you just picking the weak ones so that if you lose, you’ll have someone to blame it on?”
Four shrugs. “Something like that.”

Take notes here, Tris, bravery doesn’t mean blindly charging at every slight.

Angry. I should definitely be angry. I scowl at my hands. Whatever Four’s strategy is, it’s based on the idea that I am weaker than the other initiates. And it gives me a bitter taste in my mouth. I have to prove him wrong—I have to.

God dammit Tris you’re supposed to be an Erudite quality divergent stop being so stupid.

Anyway, he also picks Christina, Will, and Drew, which the only member of her current social circle he missed was Al, and Drew’s the least objectionable of the evil trio as a does what he’s told thug.

Once they’re halfway through the Dauntless-born initiates, I have an idea of what it is. With the exception of Will and a couple of the others, we all share the same body type: narrow shoulders, small frames. All the people on Eric’s team are broad and strong. Just yesterday, Four told me I was fast. We will all be faster than Eric’s team, which will probably be good for capture the flag—I haven’t played before, but I know it’s a game of speed rather than brute force. I cover a smile with my hand. Eric is more ruthless than Four, but Four is smarter.

Arg. So close. So painfully close.

If thin people are the objectively better choice, then yes, it makes Eric look stupid to be picking bruisers instead, and it doesn’t make Four smart, just average. Now, if Four had a particular plan to exploit thin people with cleverness, that’d be another thing.

Just before I jump, someone shoves my shoulder, and I almost topple out of the train car. I don’t look back to see who it is—Molly, Drew, or Peter, it doesn’t matter which one.

Not a word is spoken, so apparently attempting to murder your teammates in plain sight is considered fine, because bravery.

Instead of realizing she should just murder them back and win her way into Daughtless by making sure there’s only ten initiatives total by the final rankings, she jumps out and is super proud she’s no longer falling.

A Daughtless-born girl tries to charm Four into giving them a hint by telling where his winning team put the flag, even though that’s a terrible idea because Antag-Eric would check there. Four brushes her off and Tris is thrilled by his lack of interest in a different girl.

Then another kid just says where it was put and, I guess figuring out he tried his best to prevent this stupidity, Four says nothing further. So they head into the mandatory ancient carnival.

toward the marsh that was once a lake. When I was young, I tried to imagine what it would look like as a lake, with no fence built into the mud to keep the city safe.

This seems to be suggesting that it really was filled in on purpose.

It might also be that they didn’t actually transform an entire Great Lake into marsh. Given her poor understanding about the fence and the world outside, it seems quite plausible that they just filled in Chicago beachfront, slapped a fence over the mud, and told everyone the lake was gone. For that matter, we don’t know if this was beachfront. Maybe the lake expanded into Chicago proper and that’s what they’re seeing here, but they don’t realize it because they’re only living in a fraction of Chicago’s original area.

They’re currently near the Erudite HQ, because when I think smart people, I think building on marshes in an area that may or may not be tropical. Nothing would go wrong doing that.

We walk across the bridge. We still need the bridges because the mud beneath them is too wet to walk on. I wonder how long it’s been since the river dried up.

So that’s a no on the lake expanding. Also, ask the Erudite transfer, I’d really like to know too! If he says he doesn’t know, we can assume it’s been quite a while and also that the transition to factions was a big enough disruption to mess up your history.

Once we cross the bridge, the city changes. Behind us, most of the buildings were in use, and even if they weren’t, they looked well-tended. In front of us is a sea of crumbling concrete and broken glass. The silence of this part of the city is eerie; it feels like a nightmare. It’s hard to see where I’m going, because it’s after midnight and all the city lights are off.

…would anything have been on before then?

I’m starting to feel a bit more sympathy for the faction system. It looks like something really bad has happened and they can’t fix it. I mean, most of the buildings were in use, and even if they weren’t, they looked well-tended. Their standards for not a decaying wasteland are that the many completely empty, unused buildings are still being maintained to a decent standard.

(Although this is further evidence the factionless are being deliberately abused, for them to maintain empty buildings but leave their area to rot.)

Maybe the problem is the farms.

While generally, having meat would seem like it’s a sign of surplus, careful farm management actually is to have animals live on the land you can’t intensively farm. Turning pasture into wheatfields can be a really bad idea, so cows aren’t necessarily a sign of excess. And chickens are actually really good at making food out of stuff you don’t eat.

(If it turns out they have no pork my hypothesis will be halfway to proven right there.)

We see the city is underpopulated but we’ve only seen two kids per household. Daughtless is flat out refusing to accept more than ten new people into it and seems to be doing their best to murder what people they do have. The factionless are kept near starving despite doing important jobs.

But if what’s really going on is there’s sharply limited areas that can still grow food, that would explain a lot about why no one seems to put any value on human life or even manpower – their limiting factor means they can never have more than a certain number of people.

It does seem like there should be plenty of land, from the sounds of it, but it’s quite possible to have soil that poisoned enough you shouldn’t eat anything grown on it without being so poisoned nothing will grow at all.

They don’t even have to necessarily be pushing the limit of their food supply – if they know it’s fixed, they may want to keep their population well below the max, because if anything goes wrong there’s nothing they can do to get more.

This would also explain why everything she eats is canned or frozen – the Abnegation leaders try to keep years worth of food stored, and rotate the oldest food out for people to eat.

The girl who tried to wheedle (had to look that up, thanks Pokemon for screwing up my spelling ability) info from Four pulls out a flashlight, and another kid mocks her for being scared of the dark.

“If you want to step on broken glass, Uriah, be my guest,” she snaps. But she turns it off anyway.

Because, as Tris explains, being scared of stepping on broken glass because of the dark totally counts.

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There’s nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything.

Which is terrible and insane.

I like that. Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready for it.

But luckily you’re insane too.

You know what the Dauntless need? Healing tanks.

The fact this should be crippling hasn’t been addressed. It’s like the author thinks as long as she doesn’t say anyone’s been maimed everything’s fine. But if you sever tendons running around on glass, you’re that much less ready for next time. Repeated head trauma means you go down more easily to future blows. Scar tissue leaves you stiffer.

Even broken bones, which can heal up perfectly, have two caveats that leave Dauntless in a bad position. One is that there’s a risk of it not healing properly and being left weaker, something that’s a problem if you plan to break it a lot. The other, which guarantees it’ll happen, is that immobilizing a bone to let it heal means that while the break is fixing itself, the rest of the bone is weakening from disuse. In normal life, people begin using their limb again and all returns to normal. But it’s clear the Dauntless don’t believe in recovery periods, so the moment the cast comes off you’ll be chucked back into action to break your now weakened bone in some different location.

The only way their whole trial by fire thing possibly works if if they have the capacity to fix what they’re doing to people.

But back to the carnival, which naturally involves a Ferris wheel and they discuss how the people from before must’ve been semi-Dauntless to ride it, but not real Dauntless because You would just hang on tight with your hands, and good luck to you.” rather than any wussy cars, because it’s not bravery if you aren’t physically able to do something.

All the buildings on my left are empty, their signs torn down and their windows closed, but it is a clean kind of emptiness. Whoever left these places left them by choice and at their leisure. Some places in the city are not like that.

Ominous. Even more ominous as you think about it – the city is still inhabited, so why would anyone have evacuated chunks of it in a haste?

Are they the original inhabitants?

Four tells them they’ve got ten minutes before the other team picks where they’ll be, so now they need a plan.

We may not be Erudite, but mental preparedness is one aspect of your Dauntless training. Arguably, it is the most important aspect.”

Will suggests splitting the team, then Marlene says fuck you transfer we don’t have to listen to you, Christina suggests waiting for the other team to arrive and beating them, “That’s the sissy way out,” Uriah says. “I vote we go all out. Hide the flag well enough that they can’t find it.” and that’s it, it’s just shouting chaos.

Tris realizes they’re lacking information to make the decision.

We can’t act until we know where the other team is. They could be anywhere within a two-mile radius, although I can rule out the empty marsh as an option. The best way to find them is not to argue about how to search for them, or how many to send out in a search party.
It’s to climb as high as possible.

Ferris wheel time!

The only good thing about its height is that it is built to support weight. If I climb it, it won’t collapse beneath me.

I’m really not sure why you’re so certain a Ferris wheel that’s been abandoned more than ninety years (since the evacuation here appears orderly, so it probably happened before the flight in other areas, which in turn must have predated the factions) is still safe. Especially one right next to a marsh. It was built to support weight, but that was much too long ago. She even notes it’s rusted.

Will I really risk my life for this—to win a game the Dauntless like to play?

She seems to have forgotten the factionless thing, unless she’s certain this won’t matter in the rankings in which case it should be explicit – that she wonders if she’ll risk her life even when it doesn’t benefit her.

I grab a rung. It’s rusty and thin and feels like it might crumble in my hands. I put my weight on the lowest rung to test it and jump to make sure it will hold me up.

That is some amazing amount of not worrying about the right thing you’ve got going on. What’s going to kill you isn’t the individual rung, it’s the whole thing toppling. Especially when the marsh/missing river bits suggest the water level in this area is probably not what it was when this was built.

“I came to find out what you think you’re doing.”
“I’m seeking higher ground,” I say. “I don’t think I’m doing anything.”

Still, she’s getting better at standing up for herself.

He says he’ll come along, she’s all offended because it means he doesn’t believe she can do it.

“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Undoubtedly,” he replies. I don’t hear the sarcasm, but I know it’s there. It has to be.

Getting heavyhanded here, book. Maybe shake it up a bit and have her thinking oh right, she knows he doesn’t care about her so that’s why he’s not concerned if she fails.

He asks what she thinks the point is.

“Learning about strategy,” I say. “Teamwork, maybe.”
“Teamwork,” he repeats. A laugh hitches in his throat. It sounds like a panicked breath.
“Maybe not,” I say. “Teamwork doesn’t seem to be a Dauntless priority.”

He tells her it used to be. It’s actually interesting that he’s a transfer, since if he wasn’t, it’d be hard to pin down how long things have been bad. Since he’s only a few years older than her, this shift must be extremely recent for him to be nostalgic about the Dauntless-that-was.

And, I guess, it also suggests that maybe this isn’t really an aberration. For all we know, the less psychotic Dauntless of his time was the unusual blip in their history of insane initiations. More likely it’s wobbled back and forth over the years.

She says the height’s making her dizzy, then that it’s not the height, she likes that, it’s being around Love Interest.

It’s him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.

Love making you dizzy and function at diminished competence seems like a real problem when you’re Dauntless.

My hand almost misses the next rung.

See?

He asks what this has to do with bravery.

“It…it prepares you to act,” I say finally. “You learn strategy so you can use it.”

Then she finally realizes that his breathing has gotten really stuttery and asks if he’s alright.

“Are you human, Tris? Being up this high…” He gulps for air. “It doesn’t scare you at all?”
I look over my shoulder at the ground. If I fall now, I will die. But I don’t think I will fall.

Though then some wind almost knocks her over and he grabs her to steady her and love makes her breathing get as stuttery as his.

They reach the platform. She asks how he functions being afraid of heights, and he says he ignores it.

I stare at him for a second. I can’t help it. To me there’s a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear, as he does.

That’s very profound but isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing for the last few chapters?

If Tris had spent any time at all on “I wish I was a proper Dauntless and just didn’t feel fear”, this would be a real revelation for her. But she just saw a Dauntless kid pull out a flashlight, get mocked, and turn it off, and then discussed how Dauntless training seems to be about being ready and willing to do anything. I think she’s reference the idea of Dauntless as actually fearless only in passing, if she has at all, and she’s never expressed that as a personal goal or how she looks forward to that being the result of training. She’s always looked at it as forcing yourself forward despite your feelings.

But anyway, she’s not high enough yet, so she starts making her way up the Ferris wheel itself rather than the maintenance ladder. So now even if the supports are stable, she’s putting weight on the attachment between it and the wheel, so she’ll also die if that gives way. She remains oblivious to this and keeps insisting the only danger is her not climbing properly.

This is crazy, and I know it. A fraction of an inch of mistake, half a second of hesitation, and my life is over. Heat tears through my chest, and I smile as I grab the next bar.

Here’s another thing – why didn’t the test just mark her as Dauntless and call it a day? She’s really into this. I wonder if the original was just about a girl from Abnegation going to Dauntless and the special multi-faction qualifications were added because it’s mandatory for dystopias to say this person doesn’t fit in in some mysterious way.

I imagine my body plummeting, smacking into the bars as it falls down, and my limbs at broken angles on the pavement, just like Rita’s sister when she didn’t make it onto the roof.

Okay, so now every sibling pair we’ve heard of but one is in the same year. This goes beyond a culture-wide insistence on both pregnancies being together, because with a nine month pregnancy you should still end up with lots of kids having their birthdays on different cutoff dates for schooling. And the only kid who had a sibling in a different year had it so someone would know what happened in Four’s year, making it seem like that was the special exception for story purposes.

So what the fuck is with this? The author should’ve just said twins are really common. Maybe something about fertility treatments.

Anyway, she spots a light and now she knows where the other team is.

She tells Four to start down first, then when she tries to follow one of the bars breaks and she’s left dangling. Four says to hold on, then keeps climbing down. She doesn’t understand what’s happening until the Ferris wheel starts moving, because obviously you keep electricity hooked up for 90< years.

But I’m picking up speed. If I don’t drop at the right time, the moving cars and metal scaffolding will drag at my body and carry me with them, and then I will really die.
Every muscle in my body tenses as I hurtle toward the ground. When I can see the cracks in the sidewalk, I drop, and my body slams into the ground, feet first. My legs collapse beneath me and I pull my arms in, rolling as fast as I can to the side. The cement scrapes my face, and I turn just in time to see a car bearing down on me, like a giant shoe about to crush me. I roll again, and the bottom of the car skims my shoulder.

I’m suspicious this is in part to justify why it’s a good idea to hop on and off trains all day.

Anyway, they have a handholdy moment of not being dead together and he explains he didn’t know the Ferris wheel worked before now and that’s why they didn’t just go up normally.

Four hesitates for a moment and then takes my arm, his fingertips pressing to the inside of my elbow. In other factions, he would give me time to recover, but he is Dauntless, so he smiles at me and starts toward the carousel

You just took a moment to recover!

Four heads over to say Tris is cooler than all of them even though it ended up revealing their position because she also found out the other team’s position, then she gives them their plan.

“Split in half,” I say. “Four of us go to the right side of the pier, three to the left. The other team is in the park at the end of the pier, so the group of four will charge as the group of three sneaks behind the other team to get the flag.”

And everyone is super impressed and they split up.

As I run, I realize that only one of us will get to touch the flag, and it won’t matter that it was my plan and my information that got us to it if I’m not the one who grabs it.

She is certain of this for no reason.

The paintballs finally come out, and apparently Dauntless demand you be punched unconscious to end a fight but a single paintball anywhere is good enough to remove someone here.

The flag hangs from a tree branch, high above my head. I reach for it, and so does Christina.
“Come on, Tris,” she says. “You’re already the hero of the day. And you know you can’t reach it anyway.”
She gives me a patronizing look, the way people sometimes look at children when they act too adult, and snatches the flag from the branch.

Which turns out to work out for her great because now the evil kids’ laser hatred is trained on Christina.

Now that things are done, the rest of her team comes over to chat.

“Pretty smart of you. Like…Erudite smart,” Marlene says. “I’m Marlene.”
“Tris,” I say. At home, being compared to an Erudite would be an insult, but she says it like a compliment.

This suggests that Abnegation is broken in its own way. We’ve seen no sign they respect any of the other groups. Even Amity was dismissed by Tris as absolutely no, Dauntless are “hellions” (and wow, the context added by the fact we now know her dad voted them out of the city), Erudite are loathed, and they don’t like Candor. That’s bad under normal circumstances and worse when you realize that they’re in charge of everyone else. No wonder Erudites are so bitchy.

Anyway Marlene already knows her because she’s the first jumper! Everyone’s been impressed by that.

The other kid pops a paintball in her face, but in a friendly way, then accidentally sprays it in his own mouth.

I wipe my face with my sleeve, laughing so hard my stomach hurts. If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying day, I will be content. As Uriah scrapes his tongue with his fingertips, I realize that all I have to do is get through initiation, and that life will be mine.

How very optimistic of you. You do realize Eric will still be in charge, right? Are you still in denial about the fact he’s a sadist and probably jerking off to the memory of initiation fights?