Divergent Thinking

by Leah Wilson

  Hold up, though. We’ve seen how lying and deception abound in the Divergent-verse, even at the hands of our heroine, Tris. Does that mean that, gasp!, Candor was the way to go, all along? Was Ms. Roth pulling a fast one on us? Should we all tattoo the Candor manifesto on our bodies and read it to each other every night before bed?

  CANDOR: BRUTAL HONESTY FOR THE WIN, OR JUST PLAIN MEAN?

  The Candor faction was formed by people who blamed all the world’s problems on deception and dishonesty. They believe the root of war lies in duplicity. They even say, point-blank in their manifesto, that “Dishonesty makes evil possible.”

  Does that hold up to scrutiny within the pages of the books? On a macrolevel, yes. In terms of government and big lies, Candor might just be on to something. The biggest evil in the book seems to center around the corruption of power, and that corruption is without fail linked to duplicity. But does that mean that Candor is always right, even in regard to smaller-scale interactions? Because the Candor have a lot to say there, as well.

  Candor is the faction responsible for such gems as “politeness is deception in pretty packaging” and “lying to spare a person’s feelings, even when the truth would help them to improve, damages them in the long run.”

  That latter sentiment might sound noble in theory, but who gets to decide which truths help people improve? Isn’t it possible that some truths are just hurtful?

  What Candor is basically saying is that the greatest moral good is honesty. That truthfulness is more crucial than anything else—even causing others pain. Does the series support this claim? Not so much.

  Candor might be honest, but they’re also often seen as cruel. There’s a reason their workplace is dubbed the “Merciless Mart.” A reason they’re always bickering. A reason people in their faction are seen as a little abrasive.

  Plus, their motto that “honesty leads to peace”? That sounds a wee bit oversimplified. So, if the Bureau had just fessed up to the folks in Chicago that they were the lucky participants in a massive experiment in Faulty Genes, everything would have been a-okay? Doubtful.

  What is the series’ final position on lying, then?

  By the end of Allegiant, I think a clear case has been made that lying is not the worst sin you can commit in Divergent-land. There are too many instances when lying is supported by positive outcomes. Granted, this type of dishonesty in the book usually only comes guilt-free when employed in life-and-death scenarios, like when Peter lies to save Tris from Jeanine, or when Tris lies under the truth serum to save Cara and Christina from being labeled as traitors, or when Tris lies to David to save the people in Chicago. If dishonesty and deception were being depicted as the scourge of all mankind, then Candor would have ruled the day at the conclusion, case closed.

  Of course, the converse—keeping the peace at all costs, even if it means lying—is not shown in a necessarily flattering light, either. Amity’s ease at lying isn’t really portrayed as the be-all and end-all of faction manifestos, either.

  Instead, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and different factors necessarily weigh into decisions to lie or not to lie. Self-serving lies are possibly shown to be the most damaging—like those of the leaders to the citizens, or when Tris lies about shooting Will. But lies to protect yourself or others from danger? There we are, back in that gray zone. There’s no easy answer, which makes this dilemma a more compelling one for discussion. I don’t think the books suggest that lying is always the worst thing you can do and telling the truth is always the best—or vice versa.

  Ultimately, I think the trilogy makes a case that sparing others unnecessary pain can tip the scales in favor of lying. But the scales are just that—tipped. While Candor’s manifesto might not be the ultimate truth, their symbol proves to be far more on the mark: unbalanced scales, always in motion, always weighing the virtue of truth against the necessity of lies.

  In the end, it appears that lying and honesty are both a ratios game. Or perhaps a balancing act. Maybe every deed is weighed, like on that Candor scale. When little lies are small and innocuous—like, “yes, your butt looks good in those jeans”—they amount to the mass of a flea. Whereas the big, painful whoppers are more comparable to an elephant. But even the big lies appear to be lightened by intent. Did the person lie for selfish reasons? Or to spare others pain? I think that the actions and consequences we see in the series persuade us that all of these things matter, that lying to spare others doesn’t necessarily mean ruining relationships, so long as the balance remains tipped toward the truth—and as long as, in the end, the one person you never lie to is yourself.

  What it all boils down to is this: maybe I was on to something with this whole Fifty-plus Shades of Grey thing. In fact, I can imagine the Fifty Shades of Divergent spin-off now.

  Sorry, Veronica . . . but if I’m being totally honest, the idea of Four in a tie is just too much to resist.

  Debra Driza is a former physical therapist who much prefers torturing fictional characters over live humans. She’s particularly fond of sweets, adding random colors to her hair, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and teen TV. Please don’t ask her to locate anything in her purse, aka “the black hole of doom.” While she likes to think she’s Dauntless sometimes, she’s pretty sure the faction members would chuck her into the chasm over her impromptu singing and dancing. MILA 2.0 is her first novel, and the first in a YA sci-fi thriller trilogy from HarperCollins.

  Factions are a fact of life in the Divergent trilogy, and I’m not just talking about the five Tris details at the story’s start. The word faction, as used in our world, could technically describe the group of Dauntless loyal to Jeanine, or even the factionless, united as they are under Evelyn’s leadership and against the faction system.

  So it should be no surprise that, almost immediately after learning about the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, we are introduced to another, opposing faction: the GD rebels. And as with Jeanine and Evelyn, neither side turns out to be especially honorable. Faced with a choice between less than ideal options, how do you decide? Dan Krokos has a few ideas.

  BUREAU VERSUS REBELS: WHICH IS WORSE?

  DAN KROKOS

  Warning: Below you will find many spoilers about Allegiant. Turn back now if you haven’t read it. Are you still here? Are you sure. Let us be Erudite-sure before moving forward.

  Okay. Now that those losers are gone, I’d like your help in deciding something. In Allegiant, we are introduced to two “factions” outside the city limits. In one corner is the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, a government agency that has been around for at least seven generations. Its purpose: to rid the world of genetic damage once and for all. In the opposing corner: the rebels, a group of genetically damaged (GD) individuals who live in the sparsely populated “fringe” areas between cities.

  Both sides are terrible, responsible for death and destruction inside and outside of Chicago. Both operate in a way that results in the deaths of innocent people.

  But which side is worse?

  In our world, we’re forced to choose between the lesser of two evils every day, and the world of Divergent is no different. Tris makes her choice in the end, aligning herself with the rebels’ cause.

  But was she right?

  A BRIEF DIGRESSION ABOUT OTHER TERRIBLE PEOPLE

  I thought about including Evelyn and the factionless in this debate, as they make up what feels like the third major player in Allegiant, having an even larger role than the Allegiant themselves, it seems, but the why of their struggle is much less interesting to me. Evelyn, while clearly sincere in her quest to end the faction system, mostly wants to control everything. In this, she’s much more like the major players earlier in the trilogy than like the Bureau and the rebels. Marcus Eaton and Jeanine Matthews also just want to control everything (although functionally Jeanine’s more like a mad dog given the tools for chaos, not so different from the Joker). None of these power-hungry maniacs are as cool as the two sides who feel deep down they’re on the right side o
f things.

  I knew Evelyn couldn’t really be someone I took seriously when she said, “The factions are evil. They cannot be restored. I would sooner see us all destroyed” (Allegiant). Thank you, Evelyn, for opening your bag of marbles and showing us you have none. Someone should tell her that in her quest to destroy the factions, she nearly became the two people she hates most.

  IN THIS CORNER: THE BUREAU

  When the Bureau is first introduced, it’s after Tris and friends finally leave the city that has caused them so much pain but has, at the same time, been the only thing they’ve ever known. Literally. Like, they don’t know what airplanes are. Or that their city was called Chicago once upon a time, just a few centuries back. While that sounds nuts, I kind of envy their ignorance and the simple life their isolation led to. The city clearly held thousands of people, but through the factions, I think it was possible for most of them to find a fulfilling place in the world that they knew. (And I do mean world; many characters in Allegiant are startled to find out just how big the world outside the fence really is.)

  There’s a reason the Allegiant are ready to fight against Evelyn to preserve their way of life—it worked. Maybe not as well as it could have, but Divergent’s Chicago was a self-sustaining community that enjoyed long stretches of peace, probably much longer than the ones we experience out here in the real world.

  Then David, the Metamucil-y leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, has to ruin everything. He tells Tris and friends the truth: the city is an experiment. The goal? To cure genetic damage.

  Tris and friends naturally don’t like the idea that they’ve been human guinea pigs, or that almost everyone they know is genetically damaged (including many of them)—who would? Christina makes a wonderful point when Tris asks her what she thinks about the idea of being genetically damaged: “No one likes to be told there’s something wrong with them, especially something like their genes, which they can’t change.” Too true.

  But David talks about the experiment like it’s a good thing, and he has proof. Chicago is not the only experiment. Other cities, like Indianapolis, didn’t have the faction structure (based on the five varieties of genetic defects) that Chicago has. And the result? Complete destruction within three generations.

  It must be jarring to learn your community isn’t really real, but think about this—before Jeanine decided to be the second coming of Genghis Khan, life in Chicago wasn’t all that bad. Yeah, being factionless was a real bummer, but the majority of people—thousands and thousands—enjoyed life in their factions. They had food and fellowship and shelter: all the key ingredients for happiness. If the Bureau hadn’t put them there, they’d be on the street in the outside world, scraping by with the other people in the fringe, living hour by hour in search of food.

  When Tris and friends arrive at the Bureau, David spells out exactly what genetic damage is: “Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation.”

  As David explains, a few hundred years ago the government attempted to “fix” certain people by tampering with their genes, trying to take away their fear, stupidity, dishonesty, aggression, or selfishness. They didn’t know what the ramifications would be, and it resulted in the greatest disaster ever manufactured by humans.

  Genetic damage is not an opinion; you can see it at work in the factions. If the damage was just a made-up thing, everyone would be Divergent. Kids would grow up in Abnegation and be like, “Why the EFF can’t I look at myself in the mirror?” as Tris is almost scolded for doing on page one of the series. A Candor man might suddenly want to add a few shades to his wardrobe, or to stop blurting out the “truth” like some kind of insane person.

  (Only the Amity faction seems to have nothing wrong with them. “Peaceful but passive,” Tris describes them in Allegiant. There are worse things to be than a bunch of hippies who want to dance around in their orchards and smile at each other.)

  Now imagine people like this mixed in with the general population, with no faction to make them feel like they’re a part of something. No real explanation for why they feel the way they do. They are not less or more than human, not one bit, but you can see how their differences would give rise to conflict. Also known as the Purity War.

  Here is where I think David is full of crap. He describes the Purity War as “a civil war, waged by those with damaged genes, against the government and everyone with pure genes.” As if. David, we know what happens in America when citizens are confronted with people unlike them. The year is 2014, and we still won’t allow certain people to marry each other, simply because some other people don’t like it. That’s it.

  I’m sure the GDs, especially the volatile ones like the Candor-types and Dauntless-types, were capable of aggression, but the Bureau’s claiming the conflict was one-sided should’ve been a red flag for Tris and friends right from the start. Think about it: (almost) every conflict can be traced back to one group not liking what another group is doing, or wanting whatever that group has. We didn’t like communism in Vietnam. The British didn’t like that we weren’t paying enough taxes. Iron Man doesn’t like that Captain America is kind of an officious douchebag.

  Conditions in America had to have been pretty bad for the war to start in the first place, considering there is no outward way to tell if someone is genetically damaged. We know the government didn’t keep a record, since GDs were asked to come forward when the experiments first started. So maybe the city experiments aren’t such a terrible thing after all.

  Furthermore, where is the proof that the Bureau is actively oppressing people in the outside world? It sounds like they have their hands full with the experiments inside Chicago and across the Midwest. When they do venture into the fringe areas and go on raids, they don’t kill people. Instead, they pull children from the gutters and deliver them to orphanages (though we don’t know if these children are GPs, or GDs, and what ultimately happens to them; it’s hard to count this as a pro without more details).

  It’s no secret the fringe is a lawless wasteland. Sure, when Tobias visits the fringe, a guard explains why some people choose fringe life: “Here, there’s a chance that if you die, someone will care.” That’s not really comforting. Yes, the GDs inside Chicago were watched. Yes, they were controlled by the careful application of various serums. But I’d take that over living in ruins, waiting for someone to slip a knife under my jaw to steal whatever meager belongings I had acquired.

  On the flip side, the Bureau is all about reinforcing ideas that lead to societal oppression. They oppress in subtler ways than turning fire hoses on people: Nita, for example, is extremely intelligent and obviously capable, yet she isn’t allowed to progress beyond her station. The fringe exists because of the Bureau. If tomorrow someone proved that genetic damage doesn’t necessarily have a huge impact on a person’s actions, the Bureau’s purpose—and society as everyone knows it, divided between GD and GP—would be dust. It’s hard to trust an institution whose very existence depends on the idea they’re in charge of verifying.

  If only the Bureau had been able to evolve, to maintain the ideals of their cause without stooping to murder. If you’re trying to make the world a better place, it’s hard to be credible with blood on your hands. All the Bureau ends up illustrating is that genetically pure people are capable of immense destruction and oppression, too.

  At least with a GD, you can estimate in what way they may or may not be destructive. The Choosing Ceremony only confirms this—you really have to be predisposed to switch from the faction you’ve been raised in to another faction where you don’t know anyone. You’d have to truly believe you belong somewhere else.

  Tobias, for instance, says he has a great capacity for cruelty; he is aggressive and enjoys hurting others. We don’t know exactly how Tobias is da
maged, so it could be argued that he learned how to be cruel from his father, Marcus (a man who is supposed to be genetically pure, by the way). It would not be insane to argue that a boy grows up to be like the man who raised him. Either way, Abnegation—home of the selfless, those with no sense of self-preservation—is no place for him. It probably wouldn’t have been a place for him even if he hadn’t been trying to escape his father. And think of people like Peter, who fit the Dauntless model for aggression even more (and possess the defect the Dauntless are known for—lacking compassion).

  If we can agree that the factions are not pulled from thin air, and really do help GDs live in harmony—and as I stated earlier, Indianapolis and other failed cities are proof of this—then a GD in a faction system may be less dangerous overall.

  GDs are predictable. Meanwhile, who knows what a GP will do?

  IN THE OTHER CORNER: THE REBELS

  Now let’s look at Juanita and her band of merry rebels. Right away they get bonus points just for fighting against oppression, an oppression that perhaps GPs, in their sense of superiority, are too blind to see. But is that enough to forgive their tactics?

  Fighting the good fight only goes so far when your means to an end are downright evil. We already know Nita is a practiced liar, having worked her way up the Bureau’s ladder, but she’s also adept at subtler manipulation. Part of the power behind the rebellion sales pitch she gives Tobias is from the Bureau’s—and David’s—lack of specificity about Tobias’ genetic damage. When Tobias’ genes are tested, he is not told how they are damaged, or what it means, or how/if it affects who he is as a human being. He’s simply told that he’s damaged, that he’s prone to mess up. Of course he’d be more susceptible to Juanita’s offer. She knows just how to come at him, too. Her opening line, when she thinks he’s just vulnerable enough to be taken in: “See, I’m not really on board with being classified as ‘damaged.’”