Last time, factionless everywhere!
ONE OF THE factionless started a fire so we could heat up our food. Those who want to eat sit in a circle around the large metal bowl that contains the fire, first heating the cans, then passing out spoons and forks, then passing cans around so everyone can have a bite of everything. I try not to think about how many diseases could spread this way as I dip my spoon into a can of soup.

And this is after the Abnegation started passing out food. This is what Edward is talking about when he says they’re flush with supplies.

Even more depressingly, looks like factionless is indeed a particular hat and we won’t be seeing any diversity there.

Edward asks about who the new guys are and Tris lies to say her brother also stayed in Abnegation with Susan.

“You ditched your family to become Dauntless?”
…
“You sound like the Candor,” I say irritably. “Mind keeping your judgments
to yourself?”
Therese leans over. “He was Erudite first, actually. Not Candor.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say

THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU RESPOND WITH “WTF YOU LEFT TOO YOU ASSHOLE!”

Therese says that she’s also a former Erudite.

“I didn’t get a high enough score on my initiation intelligence test. So they said, ‘Spend your entire life cleaning up the research labs, or leave.’ And I left.”

So basically no one but Tris has the better dead than factionless hangup. I was assuming Erudite might be dumping people for not being smart enough, but apparently anyone can stay. But she didn’t want to be a janitor, so she left for…the faction who can only get jobs as janitors. I guess being a vital part of helping research new things was more degrading than cleaning toilets.

Are many of you from Erudite?” I say.
Therese shakes her head. “Most are from Dauntless, actually.” She jerks her head toward Edward, who scowls. “Then Erudite, then Candor, then a handful of Amity. No one fails Abnegation initiation, though, so we have very few of those, except for a bunch who survived the simulation attack and came to us for refuge.”

“So…yeah, there are a lot from Erudite, just less than Dauntless I guess.”

Also, since it’s apparently impossible to fail Erudite either, if there’s zero Abnegation prior to the attack, then the issue is just Abnegation don’t choose to leave like Erudite. Not clear if it’s possible to fail Candor’s initiation either, it’s just babble everything and get accepted. You can presumably get kicked out eventually if you start lying, but that’s post initiation. And while in theory Amity could stress-test their recruits to see who’ll fight back or argue, that seems unlikely, so again, presumably it’s kicking people out after initiation.

(If this kind of thing wasn’t incoherent, it could be interesting to show different faction’s views of the factionless: evidently, Erudite really don’t like being told they’re not smart enough, so if they flunk the IQ test, they leave in a huff regardless of the fact it means a slow and miserable death. And there’s friction of some kind in Candor, so is it that liars get kicked out or that people in Candor are more likely to get into conflicts and sometimes people end up leaving over it? And do Amity people leave or get kicked out? If they’ve got enough happy drug, it may be they just keep doping you up until you get get so sick of it you leave.

She then, being a blessed fount of info, explains that the Dauntless also kick out their old and sick, which, given we were assuming last book that they were just shoving Grandma off a train, barely even sounds evil now.

Incidentally, why don’t other factions get annoyed by a faction pushing lots of their people into what’s basically welfare? I mean, really crappy welfare, but enough that Erudite is frothing about wasted resources.

Oh, also Tobias says Edward provoked the attack and is really cold toward Edward.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “He was winning, that’s all, and Peter was jealous, so he just …”
I see the smirk on Edward’s face and stop talking. Maybe I don’t know everything about what happened during initiation.
“There was an inciting incident,” says Edward. “In which Peter did not come out the victor.

Details not given, thus leaving us no way of knowing if Edward actually didn’t deserve the knife in the face. Also, is this building toward redeemed Peter? Because I see no reason why we’re wasting time on precisely which reason the guy had for jamming a butterknife through someone else’s eye.

I remember the first time I realized I had never seen an elderly Dauntless. And when I realized my father was too old to climb the paths of the Pit.

While I don’t remember that at all, and mostly remember that fucking no one seems old in this in the first place. There have been no grandparents at all.

“Dauntless is split in half,” Edward says, talking around the food in his mouth. “Half at Erudite headquarters, half at Candor headquarters.

So Dauntless HQ itself, full of the weapons and computers and surveillance equipment, is empty. That makes so much sense.

Fuck, book, if you didn’t want to use it for some stupid reason, just say the two groups fought and the place is a pile of rubble now. Then we could focus on the other idiotic thing, the idea the faction split down the middle over if following the guys who turned off your brains because they view you as nothing but meat turrets.

What’s left of Abnegation is with us.

So yes, the city Abnegation are just about dead, in no small part because Tris and Tobias hightailed it out of there to sit around and be useless with the hippies rather than trying to rally Dauntless during the initial confusion. I’m kind of sorry for them, but apparently no one in the group considered going to Candor, who are a) an actual faction that b) has no rules against violence that’ll make them completely useful as far as refuge goes.

Tris is just happy only 50% of her group are both evil and stupid.

They go to sleep, and she wakes up to hear Tobias talking to his mom, who’s saying that Caleb got one thing wrong – the numbers on the board are of their divergent members.

“Before the simulation attack, part of the Abnegation aid effort involved testing the factionless for a certain genetic anomaly,” she says.

So divergence is now a specific brain disorder. Nurture is irrelevant, it’s all in the genes.

Huh, this renders moot the fact apparently Abnegation kids are more likely to get inconclusive results. It’s just a sign their founding population happened to have a higher ratio of the gene.

“Obviously those who can’t confine themselves to a particular way of thinking would be most likely to leave a faction or fail its initiation, right?”

Except we’ve seen no sign that’s what divergence is. It seems to actually amount to, well, what Abnegation said they were testing, a gene that makes the test itself not work right. Also, there’s no sign it has any impact on initiation – Tris out-Dauntlesses the Dauntless, and obviously, it helps you ace the Dauntless initiation.

Part of why this isn’t a revelation is how shitty a job’s been done of tying the faction to their virtue. However brave you are, if you’re physically weak, you’ll get kicked out of Dauntless. Abnegation’s test can’t be failed, Erudite doesn’t kick anyone out, and Candor presumably doesn’t fail anyone either. A divergent kid should have a better chance of passing because if they have tendencies toward more than one, they can pick the best fit one. Admittedly it was a crapshoot for Tris because she had no idea how any other faction worked and happened to pick the most psycho, but then again, Tris in actual fact only ever displays Dauntless characteristics. Even her periods of selflessness are only performed in a Dauntless manner prioritizing fearlessness. And assuming she actually is divergent and able to switch gears, the only real time she manages that is pretending to be cowed by Peter, which, given how hard she had to be pushed into it, means that a non-divergent Tris would’ve been even more likely to refuse and end up crippled/killed by Peter in further attacks.

Leave the faction later, I’ll grant you may be an issue. But divergence has shown nothing but benefits when it comes to actually passing the initiation. In theory, I could see problems where, say, different concepts of what bravery means results in the kid picking the choice they think is brave but the guys in charge view as cowardly – for example, they evidently don’t see standing up to authority ordering you to do stupid things to be brave. But we don’t see that at all. And even then, a divergent kid ought to be better at shifting to fit whatever hole they’re getting hammered into. If the book admitted that people could actually have different views and divergent were people who just didn’t share the same values, it’d be a problem, but they’re just people with the capability to be more flexible.

Tobias says he doesn’t see why she cares, and she says that Erudite will annex the factionless into their army next. Tobias does not say that actually the plan was to kill them all. That’s kind of relevant. Jeanine didn’t sound like she was the sort to change her mind about the icky factionless, and even if she hypothetically would, they seemed to have a really good idea of who was divergent and who wasn’t. Yet you’re expecting Abnegation’s ongoing research project cataloging the divergent factionless to have flown under the radar?

They naturally have no idea why Abnegation was doing this, by the way, because Abnegation won’t explain anything to anyone. Yeah I can’t see how that’d cause problems in the government at all. For now, I’ll just assume Abnegation was planning the zombie thing and Erudite found out then beat them to the punch.

“Perhaps you should ask your father about it,” she says. “He was the one who told me about you.”
“About me,” says Tobias. “What about me?”
“That he suspected you were Divergent,” she says. “He was always watching you. Noting your behavior. He was very attentive to you. That’s why … that’s why I thought you would be safe with him. Safer with him than with me.”

So divergence is something noticable. And…this ties into the child abuse how? Was Marcus trying to beat the gay divergence out?

(Yet again our series of unspecified disasters appears to have caused the gays to migrate to saner climes.)

Anyway, Tobias doesn’t care that his mom apparently did consider taking him and actually had pretty good reasons not to, because she’s still terrible. Also, she plans to take over the government.

“That’s what you expect me to help you with. Overthrowing one corrupt government and instating some kind of factionless tyranny.”

THE OPPRESSED MUST NEVER RISE AGAINST THEIR OPPRESSORS. STAND BY THE TYRANTS YOU HAVE!

His mom says that uh no they just want to get rid of the evil government that is currently being evil at them. While they’re there, they plan to remove the batshit faction system. Tris is horrified while Tobias gives negative fucks.

“Sometimes drastic change requires drastic measures.” Evelyn’s shadow lifts a shoulder. “I imagine it will involve a high level of destruction.”

And thus we lose the possibility that maybe Tobias’ negative fuck giving was just because he’s messed up from his horrible childhood. No, Evelyn is totally evil for planning to harm the people currently committing massive amounts of harm. She’s going to burn the world, and that’s why all revolutions are bad and the underclass must stay starving in the muck.

And Tris goes on and on about how it’s tempting but it’s an evil tempting

Somewhere in the darker parts of me, I crave destruction, as long as it is Erudite being destroyed. But the word carries new meaning for me, now that I have seen what it can look like: gray-clothed bodies slung across curbs and over sidewalks, Abnegation leaders shot on their front lawns, next to their mailboxes.

Dauntless thrown off moving trains is just business as usual, so it’s more acceptable. Factionless kids dying of food poisoning or shitting themselves to death thanks to the ruined sewers? Looks fine from here. Abnegation are actual people, they’re not supposed to be killed.

“As for why we need you,” Evelyn says. “In order to do this, we will need Dauntless’s help. They have the weapons and the combat experience. You could bridge the gap between us and them.”

Or you could ask the dozens upon dozens of experienced Dauntless, who surely have surviving younger friends and family, to ask.

But the point is, Tobias must become FACTION LEADER to save the world! It’s kind of like one of those romantic fics where everyone’s pushing the two characters together, only instead it’s everyone telling Tobias he should totally be leader.

Tris goes to get washed and it’s all open, but Susan comes over to hold up a towel for her. Tris, it was cute last book but aren’t you over this yet? At least afterwards she holds it for Susan, but really, she should’ve just done it for Susan without needing to be prompted by Susan’s consideration.

Tris says she never thought they’d find themselves in a situation like this, and Susan blurts out that she thought they’d all stay and grow up together and have kids who’d grow up together too.

It is my fault, of course, that that was never a possibility, because I chose another faction.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she says. “I just regret that I didn’t pay more attention. If I had, maybe I would have known what you were going through. I acted selfishly.”
I laugh a little. “Susan, there’s nothing wrong with the way you acted.”

What’s interesting is what isn’t said here, which is that Tris also wishes they could’ve stayed together. I’m assuming the eventual moral of the book is the faction system is wrong and current America is the one true way, so maybe the author is just trying to make that more of a surprise, but the result is that the faction system actually seems fine – being torn from family and friends is just a non-factor for all major characters. It’s only been a consideration when Tris was thinking about her family being upset, and even then it was mostly that it doesn’t look good for Abnegation kids to lose rather than never seeing them again. Susan is the only one to suggest losing everyone you know might be upsetting, and she’s also a side character.

When they rejoin the main group, the factionless are setting off with paint to vandalize set points to pass information in code.

I am not sure why she would choose to tell me something about the factionless codes until I turn around. I see a familiar look in her eyes—it is the same as the one Jeanine wore when she told Tobias she had developed a serum that could control him: pride.

So there’s this balance. On the one hand, it’s annoying when villains are all men, because villains are generally the people with the most power and this ends up feeling like women are always weaker. On the other, it’s annoying when villains are always women, especially when they’re underrepresented in the non-evil side, because it ends up feeling like it’s saying women are just evil by nature, doubly so when it seems to be tying female evil to having any power at all.

Sometimes, having villains of both genders helps, but Divergent fumbled there by spending a while establishing the male villains as actually people and doing evil stuff while Jeanine mostly just sinistered at us and cackled evilly at the end.

You may think I’m jumping the gun to assume that we’ve now on our second woman who’s evil while being in charge. To which I say:

“Clever,” I say. “Your idea?”
“It was, actually.” She shrugs, but I am not fooled. She is anything but nonchalant. “I was Erudite before I was Abnegation.”

She’s not just getting compared to Jeanine, she’s now confirmed as hailing from Evil Faction. She does add that Tris’ dad also hailed from Evil Faction, but the gist of the reveal is Tris thinking that yeah, Dad didn’t always live up to Abnegation standards, so it doesn’t look like it’s going the direction of Evelyn using Erudite stuff for good. Plus, we finish her flashback realization with

“I’m sorry, Beatrice,” Evelyn says. “I didn’t mean to reopen closing wounds.”
I frown. “Yes, you did.”
“What do you mean—”
“Listen carefully,” I say, lowering my voice.
…
“I’m not stupid,” I say. “I can see that you’re trying to use him. And I’ll tell him so, if he hasn’t figured it out already.”
“My dear girl,” she says. “I am his family. I am permanent. You are only temporary.”
“Yeah,” I say. “His mom abandoned him, and his dad beat him up. How could his loyalty not be with his blood, with a family like that?”
I walk away, my hands shaking

This also serves to do some side shaming of women who leave abusive husbands. You’re only allowed to do that if you take the kid, even if you fear the kid will be killed if you do that and even if you think your husband won’t harm the kid if you leave them. You’re evil, end of story.

Tris then exposits about peanut butter, because the author knows it’s a filling food and doesn’t seem to realize greenhouses require a lot of effort so it’d make more sense to focus on staple foods that can handle their current climate. Also, I guess we can add another allergy Amity doesn’t approve of. Peanuts will judge the heretics.

Then she explains she doesn’t want to tell Caleb their dad was Erudite because I don’t want to make him
think that he has Erudite in his blood because they are evil evil evil people.

Caleb says she should rejoin Abnegation, saying he’s sure they’d accept, and Tris tells us the Abnegation don’t hold grudges except for when kids leave and they resent it for all time as we say last book. I mean, I can believe they’d let the kids back in and forgive them, but they sure as fuck can hold grudges.

Weirdly, Tris’ decision is not that hello, Dauntless, it’s that she doesn’t want to be reminded of her parents or she’ll die of grief. Instead, she plans to check out Candor. Why haven’t the factionless checked out Candor already? It seems relevant. If nothing else, they should want to be clear their allegiance is with the Candor+Dauntless power block and not the Erudite+Dauntless provided Candor+Dauntless aren’t also planning on wiping them out now that Abnegation’s gone. And if they are, the factionless should be trying to provoke the two groups into wiping each other out before they wipe out the factionless.

So they go! The headquarters is huge, so perhaps Candor is second largest.

It is a wide cement building that overlooks what was once the river. The sign says MERC IS MART—it used to read “Merchandise Mart,”

So…you build brand-new buildings, but can’t fix a sign. Quality worldbuilding!

For the first time, it occurs to me that we don’t have to do anything. We could hole up with the factionless and let the rest of them sort through this mess. We could be nobodies, safe, together.

Literally the second thing on Jeanine’s list was killing all factionless. At best, the loss of half of Dauntless means that Evelyn’s right and Jeanine will also try to mindcontrol them all and kill the divergents, which is to say you. Furthermore, the factionless’ life currently sucks and we can assume that any new leader who doesn’t just kill them outright will stop feeding them again since all the other factions hated the idea and Abnegation is currently too extinct to have opinions.

What’s even the point of this? Is it just mandatory that girls don’t want responsibility and have to be forced into heroism? Last book Tris was fighting for everyone – for her old faction and her new one and herself. This book she’s been doing barely anything, but I’m supposed to believe that now she’s exhausted by all the effort of sitting around ignoring hippies and sitting around ignoring the homeless?

I don’t know why I walk through the doors. Maybe I decide that we’ve come this far, we might as well see what’s going on. But I suspect it’s more that I know what’s true and what’s not. I am Divergent, so I am not nobody, there’s no such thing as “safe,” and I have other things on my mind than playing house with Tobias.

Would you see a guy saying this? Would one of them need to justify why they’re allowed to act?

They enter to find the front is full of Dauntless. The book tries to justify no one recognizing Tobias by them being the wrong age, because apparently only kids Tobias’ age knew the guy who ran the computers and was constantly being talked up by their leaders. They identify themselves, and the Dauntless arrest them. Well, it’s cliffhangery, but I’m too busy being pissed off we’ve yet again got no one explaining anything. At least they haven’t talked for pages yet about how they can’t talk about why, so let’s hope the next chapter immediately goes into the actual reasons why events happen.