Tris's goals change constantly in a world where the goal is both survival and some kind of moral upheaval. The lack of a central, forceful narrative makes it easy for the books to lose momentum, and even easier for Roth to become enchanted by subplots that turn into plot twists but have very little impact on the story.
As in the movies, Roth's characters have an uncomfortable habit of announcing their intentions before they move. It's a stance that pulls the reader out of the story and forces them to ask why, why isn't now the time for a debate about ethics?
And it's those little mistakes by Roth to add mystery and suspense that completely break the world she has created. As far as trends go, the run of teenage dystopias hasn't been all that long.
It only seems that way because Hunger Games and Divergent have been running series at almost exactly the same time. We've spent about the same amount of time with dystopias at this point as we did with vampires and werewolves in the wake of Twilight.
As such, the teen literature landscape is due for a change. Two potential crazes are just now emerging in young adult fiction. There are a slew of John Green-esque books about quirky characters living in emotionally tumultuous lives. A Fault in Our Stars was such a beloved, high-selling, and gripping novel that it's no surprise that imitators are starting to pop up. Bring on the bold teenage cops, forced to choose between two incredibly mysterious and sexy robbers. If you haven't read the books or seen the first movie, definitely not.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for Insurgent is only at 33 percent. As my colleague Alex Abad-Santos wrote in his review:. It's as if the movie doesn't trust its talented ensemble cast to portray basic emotions or convey the characters' ambiguities The movie's writers clearly don't trust the audience to remember these cribbed SAT words.
Instead of letting an Erudite or Abnegation action speak for itself, those actions must also, like the characters' plans and feelings, be explained. That said, audiences do seem to be enjoying the movie giving it 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes , so if you're already a Divergent superfan, there are worse ways you could spend your Saturday than with Shailene Woodley.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Everything you need to know about the Divergent series. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior in the first Divergent movie Lionsgate Author Veronica Roth was still in college when she sold the story of a dystopian Chicago and a girl finding her place in a world that tried to tell her who she was. Here's a primer to the series for those who haven't had time to read it just yet.
What is Insurgent? What is the Divergent series about? We can summarize this in two sentences: Divergent is a series about a society divided among assigned factions and and a girl who doesn't fit into any of them.
What are the factions? OK, OK. I know how this genre works. Who's the love interest? Kate Winslet plays the Erudite villain in the movies. Lionsgate What's the conflict in this series? Is this like The Hunger Games at all? Pretty popular. In both the movie and the book, when Tris realizes David plans to wipe the memories of her hometown using a gas version of the memory serum, she springs into action against him.
However, the way the action plays out is different in the third movie. Peter Miles Teller then gets involved in a way that puts Evelyn in grave danger. When this scene was shown at the New York City premiere of the film March 14, there were audible gasps from the audience. Major spoiler ahead for non-book readers. Many fans have expressed a desire for Tris to live in the films, a change that would be quite controversial. The changes in the third movie do not necessarily mean that the fourth movie will result in a completely different end for Tris ; however, it opens the door to new plot points and twists that were not in the third novel.
While the book is split into two, we felt like we had a really great opportunity in this one to tell a very compelling story outside of what has been told in the first two movies. But, what happens?
He has Major Issues. However, I knew that about him already. We already watched this struggle with the need to do something to make the world better and also the need to protect Tris and be a good man in the face of incredibly difficult choices.
We spent a book watching him deal with his feelings for his mother and father, even if we never watched him deal with those things from this point of view. It was wrenching, but it made him grow. This Four is broken. He has lost all of the defining elements that made him Four. He is weak and indecisive and insecure and, most surprisingly of all, irrational.
Here, his decision makes no sense. He barely knows Nita. Why is he not working with Cara and Christina and Tris?
Why is he not asking that they be involved? It made no sense to me, even in context of losing his identity. And then, his actions and his part in this plan are ignored? There are no consequences aside from the fact that Uriah is unconscious and ultimately dies. That entire plot point just seemed pointless. Tris is going to be plenty mad about Four being so stupid already; Four is going to feel plenty guilty about acting like a completely naive hayseed without Uriah having to eat it.
Then the issue became about Uriah instead of why on earth he made this ridiculous decision and what he was feeling. After this incredibly boneheaded and uncharacteristic decision?
I did not understand his motivations. I did not understand the personality he suddenly exhibited. It felt like he was simply moving forward the plot instead of being Four. Plus, he spends all of Allegiant being broken down and we never really see him built back up. The Plot This plot was repetitive.
In Insurgent , we have to overthrow the tyranny of Jeanine Mathews. In Allegiant , we have to overthrow the tyranny of Jeanine Mathews 2. It is the same struggle. Of course, on one level that makes sense. Tris is chasing this problem up the chain. I did appreciate that aspect. The pacing was an issue. It was slowed considerably by the excessive amount of info dumping and also the dual points of view.
It also felt formulaic. And yet, even with the repetition and the predictability and the deus ex machina moments, this plot was a confused mess and most of it was completely unnecessary to where we went. And good lord the ending of no sense. The holes in this plot were insane.
Tris wants those people to know the truth and be free. Her grand solution? Wipe the memories of the bureau instead. Erase their memories of genetic prejudice. We know there are antidotes to basically every serum, from the death serum to the truth serum. If they inoculate the people in Chiacago, then David and the Bureau can't wipe their memories. At the very least, this seemingly obvious solution buys them time to figure out what the hell to do. The memory serum is intended to allow the two groups in Chicago to come to an agreement.
How on earth does giving Marcus the serum help that goal? Evelyn will still remember that he beat her. Evelyn will still remember that he beat Tobias. Marcus is just a power hungry dickwad, that's fundamental to him like knowing how to breathe. Of course, knowing this, we also know that Four is never going to give his mother the memory serum. What is completely unbelievable in the end is that Evelyn - the same Evelyn who has proven herself to be a dictator and a tyrant, who abandoned Four, who lied to Four, who tried to push away the only person who has ever supported Four and believed in him in his entire life, the same person who has been motivated by nothing but hate of the factions with seemingly little thought to her son - is magically made reasonable by love of her son.
And, of course, they go out and shake hands with Johanna and Marcus gets his just desserts because everyone knows he is an evil scumbag bent on power and everything magically works out fine despite the fact that people were rioting in the first chapter and the rest of the factionless are just going to forget their anger because they love Tobias Meanwhile, back in the compound The Message?
But still, I hoped I was wrong. I wanted to be wrong. Every single book Tris goes off to do some sacrificial act to save the people she cares about. That is basically all she does in Insurgent. And what is her lesson at the end of Insurgent? She wants to live. We know she is. I hated it. Oh, so Tris points a gun to your head to make you give you the backpack?
And you believe her? When he lets her have the backpack - when he lets Tris walk into that chamber? I was disappointed in Tris too, because she stole Caleb's redemption. Maybe he lives and redeems himself in some other way, though considering he was an accessory to the slaughter of an entire faction, betrayed his sister, and is generally of weak character, why would anyone believe that he can redeem himself in any other way?
So at gunpoint, she steps up to make this sacrifice and we all knew she was going to do it all along and how did Tobias not? I think, when handled correctly, they are touching scenes that teach the reader something. I think about Dumbledore dying and my chest aches. I think about so many other deaths in books, from Rue in Hunger Games to Bridge to Terebethia, and I know that deaths of characters you love can matter and make a book beautiful and better and teach you things about yourself and the world and love and all of it.
But the death has to matter. In the very rushed end, we find out that people can depend on each other? Can mend each other? Is Peter right? Tobias is young. But I needed so much more from Tobias at the end to make his loss of Tris worth that message. Because what was Tris doing? If anything it makes it less so. We saw that already with Christina and Uriah. This book didn't have a hopeful ending because nothing really changed. This is the foundation of rebuilding and stability upon which these characters and this world can grow?
There was a lot of making out. Though I wanted more from the ending, Four's pain was certainly poignant. View all comments. I may never be happy ever again. The fun and laughter is over. I have finally read Allegiant, and I feel empty inside. Empty but accepting, and understanding. This book makes Mockingjay feel like Dr Seuss. I had a few problems with it mainly that it spelled out a bit too much for the reader, lacked finesse with the handling of themes, and was sometimes pretty predictable but the character development was breathtaking, the plot was heart-pounding and since it's a young adult novel, I think Veroni I may never be happy ever again.
I had a few problems with it mainly that it spelled out a bit too much for the reader, lacked finesse with the handling of themes, and was sometimes pretty predictable but the character development was breathtaking, the plot was heart-pounding and since it's a young adult novel, I think Veronica Roth did a pretty damn decent job: Most readers are going to love it. You know what? Who gives a shit about the technicalities. We're all here crying read: sobbing our eye sockets dry because of that ending.
But it's like half of me wants to worship this majestic object and the other half wants to fling the beast into the faces of my enemies. Just like the characters in the book, the grief wipes away any deep philosophical mulling I might have about what happened in the plot. All that matters is the grief and the death in the end. Veronica makes that point pretty damn clear.
War is never romantic. Going against your government? Because the subsequent grief I'm still crying. To all those currently reading the book, see you in hell, comrades. And to those crying and limp on their beds now, welcome my friends. This part is for those who have read the book. I disagree with a hell lot of complaints made about this book, and this is why: view spoiler [ Okay, straight up, I know most of us are upset read: brutally slaughtered by the character death at the end.
However, I don't think that just because we hate the death doesn't mean that this book "totally sucks". Veronica Roth, unfortunately, does not owe us a HEA. Because of this, I just want to put my thoughts out there about what some people are saying. The genetic project that created the genetically damaged people is legitimate A dystopia is the complete opposite of a utopia, which is a perfect society. More fundamentally, dystopias form as a result of utopian societies gone wrong.
Looking at our world right now, it's easy to see the flaws in people. We look at the government and see selfishness. We look at people around us and see pride. In fact, everywhere we look, we see the flaws in humanity.
And most of us are not at peace with it. We as a society see that selfishness, that irrationality and pride and it makes us angry. This is our real life response. It is not difficult to see a society dedicated to getting rid of these traits. In fact, it's shockingly, astounding easy to. That's Veronica's point. That's her utopia going bad. The failure of the genetic experiment is her commentary on human beings non acceptance of human nature.
We do not accept selfishness, stupidity, pride, as part of us. We want to get rid of it. We vilify it. And when faced with the chance to be rid of it, we would probably take it. And by essentially playing God, in our rejection of the darkness in each and every one of us, we created bigger monsters.
The forming of the factions were a perfectly valid solution to the problem caused by the genetically damaged. This is absolutely crucial to understand.
Doesn't it just breed MORE genetically damaged individuals? It doesn't make any sense! Put yourself in the shoes of one of those who were not genetically damaged. Who were still perfectly imperfect. The government is going to close off those twisted human beings and basically breed them in large labs, letting them multiply? Why not just kill them all? After all, they aren't actually human.
They aren't God's intention. They are unnatural. Or are they? As a result of human's tampering, human beings have have created unnatural versions of themselves. The reason why the genetically damaged are prejudiced against and disadvantaged in this society is because they are regarded as less human.
All those people in those factions, in the eyes of everyone else who knows of their unnatural state, are considered nothing more than experiments gone wrong to so many. The Civil Wars were to eradicate the experiments. However, human beings have a conscience.
Most of us know, deep down, that the genetically altered deserve a chance to make their own choices. Society had made a mistake in playing god once, and suffered horribly for it. Society would not make the same mistake again. The American Government in Allegiant would not make two wrongs in hopes of getting a right.
And eradicating an entire generation of living breathing beings is most certainly playing god, and most certainly on par as wrong. And if they could not kill the genetically damaged, they sure as hell would try and find a way where the genetically damaged could survive, thrive and find their own humanity.
These subsequent projects involving factions were society's grappling apology. They are trying to fix what they have done. You do not get to erase the past. Correlating with this thread, society would NOT try and correct these genes again.
Why would a society which has already suffered the repercussions of playing god repeat the exact same thing again? And if they could not fix them, and they could not kill them, what other choice did they have? This entire book revolves around the question on whether the gentically damaged were less human, and it left YOU to decide for yourself. How could they expect the genetically damaged to just fix themselves by creating random divergents? This concept is more difficult to grasp because it requires knowledge in biology.
Populations can fix themselves as a result of natural selection and selective pressure. Basically, the genetically damaged are less likely to survive, while the divergent are more likely too. As a result, the divergents would be more likely to survive into adulthood, reproduce and eventually there will be a larger proportion of divergents as compared to the others. The Divergent themselves crop up as a result of genetic mutation or genetic healing. Your genes can change. The world didn't start with one basic template for every trait that ever existed.
The different hair colors, different physical traits today more likely began as mutations and then thrived under natural selection and selective pressure. This should have been explained better in the book, absolutely. The whole shebang with the memory serum raises a hell lot of important questions and are not supposed to be a pretty solution wrapped in a silk bow. The conflict Tris faced with the morality of the memory serum is real. Is it right to remove one's memory? Removing one's memory brings with it dozens of ethical issues.
Does it remove Free Will? Are the memory-altered the same people as they were before then? Can you convict a person who has done a crime even if they don't remember what they have done? Who has the right to alter someone's memory? Is it playing God? Has technology gone to far today, and should society limit what it could do?
Do the ends justify the means? And does the "Greater Good" even exist, or are things either just right or wrong? These questions are for all of us to think about. It's not just a problem-solution thing here guys. We cannot look at it simply, or we'll be missing the point completely. It's not about leaving them to kill themselves: It's about giving them a choice to make their own mistakes and staying true to who they are.
Personally I don't feel like Veronica Roth handled these themes with as much finesse as I would like, but for a YA novel I'll let it go. Evelyn's decision to choose her son over everything she's worked for was monumental. Again, if you look at it simply, you will not see what is trying to be said. For me, I think Veronica is trying to show you the power of maternal love a very strong theme in Harry Potter as well , the complexity of humanity, the ability to change your decisions and actions, the effect of abuse and how the abusee can turn into the abuser, and finally the sharp contrast between Evelyn and Marcus.
Both Evelyn and Marcus are genetically damaged people, aka deemed less human or inhuman altogether. For Marcus, he is the perfect example of how the genetic alteration experiment has created monsters.
Marcus is twisted and rid of humanity. He, we can easily deem as inhuman. But one man's twisted character does not determine those of his kind. Evelyn is just as genetically altered, and yet she overcame her genetic deficiencies. She made herself. Her genes did not determine her actions despite the fact that she was designed and made that way. Her decision to choose her son was not simply a cheesy act of love.
It was an epic bitchslap to her genetic makeup. Evelyn defied her supposed destiny and carved out another on her own. Actually, I was pointed out in the comments that Marcus was Divergent, something I completely forgot! That just draws an even sharper contrast between Evelyn and Marcus which better questions just how much control our genetic makeup has over our actions.
Evelyn, despite being inherently inhuman, was indefinitely more human than Marcus, who was altogether healed. This just shows us how evil can exist in any of us, just as good can.
This raises one more big question. Is Caleb's betrayal justified because he was genetically altered? Are any of the actions of the genetically altered justified? Or were they just as much their choices instead of simply their genetic code? More questions. And finally, Tris' death. Hell on roller skates, mop my tears for a sec. To be honest, I don't want to ponder too much about her death because its purpose feels highly subjective to everyone's personal interpretation to me.
However, I feel like it was right that she died as who she was and not a shadow of herself. Tris' ultimate sacrifice for love and the greater good was who she is. If we were to have our Happily Ever After, we would have with us a false caricature of Tris. This is who she is, and we cannot deny our loved ones their own choices and their very nature.
I felt that her seeing her mother at the very end was absolutely beautiful, and negates any argument that says that she died meaninglessly. She died still swinging and living life true to who she is, and she reunited with her loved ones. Hell, this means she probably reunited with Uriah too in the end, and that makes me cry all the more harder.
Well these are my thoughts, feel free to comment below on your own! We don't even know the title! And I'm so bloody excited! If done correctly, I should say. Allegiant was certainly the final book of a hype-copter of a series that left millions of readers invested.
Like a few other books this past year, it has left a feeling of doubt, anger, and a lot of crying. But for me, I was left with a sort of empty feeling. Some of the emptiness was filled by frustration, an 1. So if I leave my thoughts, I think I can at least pass on why this book has 1. I mean that's fairly easy to catch. Not nearly. Divergent, as you might of guessed, made me interested in the series because the pacing, while crippling and slow, left a snap to it that kept me incredibly invested in whatever the hell was going on.
The Factions were originally a stupid idea to me because it easily set up an opening for war. That could be any stretch of time that could amount to a century. An experiment to bring forth the Divergent, which is actually defined at last! Because…because purity is made by fucking around with Mendel Punnett squares! Just look at fruit flies! Thanks, you adorable squares! Anyhow, the writing for this is a lot of telling.
Is it really hard to change the voice of characters? There actually is no point to the serums except maybe give the heads in the cities some control. Like, why establish separation to that extreme and expect pure little genetic babies out of it?
Because I finally figured out what the hell she was doing with her life and her own decisions. She showed her change into the bravery that she originally wanted to have way back in Divergent. The main reason this irks me is because Tris, above anything else, had shown nothing in her arc to suggest that she had to go and kill herself when clearly Caleb had to redeem himself.
His reaction to the situation was great I think. TOBY, however, got infinitely worse in this book. He melted into a pansy. And he was the one to use similes as often as he could as he told other people about his character traits.
Positives for these two consist of their relationship. You win this round, you two. They have no arcs or situations, and the three people who came close to having such a thing were Christina, Uriah, and Peter. I would be okay with this if this was fucking present in the series at all. Erasing your memories is not a good change. URIAH was good, up until he just, you know, got blown up. If it felt necessary, again, I would be okay with this.
I feel like deaths for characters should have some sort of reasoning attached. I feel cheated when characters just DIE. Nicely done closure that I can appreciate. This also goes along with Christina. She had great building in Insurgent or at least at the start of it. This started with a decent jump to outside the fence and before we were a quarter way through the book, we knew what everything really was. That was nice! But then it just did a plateau and nothing happened until a little over halfway through the book.
This is like, Writing Come on now children. The closure for Tris was, in my opinion, the best part of the book and interestingly enough, not because it was finally over and done with. Uriah had a great close, Christina was a little better and there was actual friend bonding with her and Toby which like…never happened until just then in that moment.
The rest was just something I want to forget. The fact that I want to go back to the Factions as they were is a message in and of itself.
I feel like this book scarred me that way, but hey, guess what it did do. It made me get way into my own works to go and prove to myself that I can achieve more than what this did.
Holy fuck. Edit: Allegiant? But it I should snag a job as a cover artist. Needs more Comic Sans View all 44 comments. The book starts off with this epigraph from the Erudite faction manifesto: "Every question that can be answered must be answered or at least engaged. Illogical thought processes must be challenged when they arise. Allegiant was so chock full of plot holes, unrealistic situations, contrived character "development", laughable explanations, and a whole load of "wtf" moments.
And that's not even including the disastrous ending of this book. How this book manage The book starts off with this epigraph from the Erudite faction manifesto: "Every question that can be answered must be answered or at least engaged.
How this book managed to have an epigraph about being logical is a complete mystery to me. The narrative spends a few convenient moments agonizing over the factionless vs. Which, you know, is totally fine because we all assumed that at some point the narrative would come back to resolve that conflict in a reasonable way later on.
Behold, the moment we have all been waiting for. As it turns out, the world has apparently been so full of assholes that the government decided to eliminate the genes in citizens that caused dishonestly, selfishness, cowardice, stupidity, and aggression. Unfortunately, this backfired and just created more assholes that were more asshole-y than before. So how does a rational government fix this problem? Just construct gigantic city-sized behavioural experiments all across the country!
Get volunteers who had their genes screwed with to have their memories wiped and stick them into a city and force them to choose a faction.
Eventually these people will reproduce enough times until they finally manage to have "genetically pure" a. Divergent babies that are free from messed up genes. I mean, duh. That's, like, the most logical thing ever. Because its not like bad genes pass down bad genes or anything! Silly science! In fact, this department is just so full of geniuses that they decided that instead of using the genetic engineering prowess they already had to modify the genes of the genetically damaged offspring, they were just gonna wait around for 8 generations until the problem just miraculously fixed itself.
Don't worry. Their efforts aren't wasted. From then on, the book actually gets worse. Instead of trying to resolve the old conflict between the factionless and the factions, the book tries to take on a whole new conflict between the genetically pure and the genetically damaged, making the plot unnecessarily convoluted and leaving little to no room for proper character development.
Tris and Four's switching POVs only disorient the reader further because as the book continues, the characters voices lose their distinctions and start to sound more and more like each other.
While Tris may have been tougher in this book than in Insurgent which is literally the only redeeming quality I'm willing to give this book , Four's character gets a complete top-to-bottom deconstruction. Gone is the tough, strong, badass we got to know in the previous two books.
Instead, Roth replaces Four with a bumbling emotional man child who fails to make rational decisions and think straight. His judgement is often clouded by his own insecurities and growing fears. Before we knew Four as being a character who would never let his fears control him. In Allegiant, Four's fears have his neck in a leash and tug him in any which direction and he willing goes without even putting up a fight.
Which now brings me to the disastrous ending of this book. Suddenly, tensions are rising between the factionless and the Allegiant the group who wants to re-establish the faction system and Evelyn decides she's going to use the Erudite death serum to wipe out her opponents. But the Department of Genetic Welfare is having none of her shit so they decide that they're just going to wipe out everyone's memory so they don't kill each other. Can I also point out here that they used this memory-wiping serum before to trick the general population into thinking that the genetically damaged are alone the cause of the world's problems?
So you know, there wouldn't be massive protests or anything when the government decided to deliberately waste money trying to solve a problem they knew was fucked to begin with. A race against the clock ensues where Four goes back to Chicago to try and wipe the memories of his parents to stop them from fighting while Tris stays behind to try and steal this memory serum and use it on the Department themselves.
The book gets a little preachy right before this part where the characters start talking about how erasing someone's memories is inherently evilunless you have good intentions, of course. The Department also has good intentions for using this serum on Chicago and saving the lives of thousands of people, but fuck logic. Our heroes would way rather just watch the people they love kill each other.
And how exactly does the book wrap up the supposedly exciting and suspenseful conflict between the factionless and the Allegiant that has brewing in the background this whole time? No need to rip apart all of Chicago like she's been planning to her whole life.
All she needs is her son. A few supporting characters die in the book, but you don't really care. If the author didn't bother spending enough time developing that character, why should readers even flinch when they drop dead?
Of course, the book makes these deaths a big deal but you're sitting there like Back in at the Department of Genetic Welfare, Caleb is picked for the suicide mission of breaking into the top-security vault to steal the memory-wiping serum. This is only fitting as Caleb is literally the only character who needs to be redeemed for his betrayal in Insurgent.
I mean, the tagline of the book is "one choice can define you" so if Caleb doesn't own up to this moment he's basically going to be a selfish, heartless, coward for the rest of the story. Oh wait. This book hasn't sufficiently fucked up already so instead of using a perfectly good opportunity for a back-stabbing character to redeem themselves, it's just going to unnecessarily sacrifice the freaking main character because life is cruel and heartless goddammit!
I could literally write another essay on why this particular ending sucked balls, but before some anon messages me saying "omgg it's veronica's book and her ending was so tragic but so byootiful don't you know you're not allowed to hate it??!
This is literally all I ask of any author of any novel. From just a character perspective, it makes sense that Tris would sacrifice herself for the greater good.
That's just what she, as a selflessly reckless person, would do. We already know that Tris is a character who's willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
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