Divergent

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Divergent is a Young Adult dystopian thriller, the debut novel of Veronica Roth.

In a dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions: Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Erudite. Every year, sixteen-year olds must select a faction to be a member of for the rest of their life, lest they become factionless.

Beatrice grew up in Abnegation, unable to think of herself. But when she takes an aptitude test to decide what faction she fits in the most, her result is that she is a Divergent, qualifying for more than one faction. Therefore, she rejects her heritage and joins Dauntless, renaming herself Tris. As she takes the highly competitive initiation test, the conflict that threatens to rip apart the society gradually unravels before her.

The second book in the trilogy, Insurgent, was released on May 1, 2012. The third book, Allegiant, was released on October 22, 2013. A related book, Four: A Divergent Collection (2014), is a collection of five short stories.

A film trilogy based on the novels was made, released from 2014 to 2016, distributed by Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate.

Tropes used in Divergent include:
  • A Fate Worse Than Death: Becoming factionless, who live in poverty and are ostracized, is considered this by most of the characters. Subverted in Insurgent, when Tris gets to interact with them.
  • Abusive Parent: Tobias's worst fear is his own father who used to beat him as a child. Which is why he transferred.
  • Action Mom: Tris's mother.
  • After the End
  • Ambiguous Disorder: Fernando in Insurgent, who seems to be ruled by logic more than the average Erudite.
  • Ambition Is Evil: The viewpoint held by Abnegation. This puts them at odds with Erudite.
  • Asshole Victim: Anytime something bad happens to Peter.
  • Ax Crazy: Most of the Dauntless characters at the end, though they were under mind control.
    • Except for Peter, who was awake during the simulation because the Erudite figured he was homicidal and wouldn't mind killing a few hundred people while awake.
  • Battle Couple: Tobias and Tris.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Tris's mother shows up to save her from being executed.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Tris manages to stop the mind control device and rescues her boyfriend. Unfortunately, many members of Abnegation and Dauntless have been needlessly killed, both of Tris's parents (as well as Will) are dead, she has little chance of befriending Christina again, and Jeanine is still out there.
  • Brutal Honesty: The Candor faction is all about this.
  • Butt Monkey: Poor, poor Al.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Tobias mentions early on that he is good with computers. Not surprisingly he uses this in the end.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Tris quickly learns that people are more willing to share information after they've been shot.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jeanine, the representative of the Erudite faction, uses her power and intelligence to create the mind-control revolt against the Abnegation-controlled government.
  • Creepy Child: Peter, YMMV.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Tris, at the end of the book.

Tobias: "I might love you. I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."
Tris: "That's sensible of you. We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."

  • Death by Childbirth: This is how Tobias' mom and only family member besides Marcus dies, years prior to the beginning of the novel.
    • Not really.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Peter does whatever he can to get rid of potential rivals in the initiate ranking, from stabbing Edward in the eye to trying to throw Tris into the chasm.
    • Also Molly, who feeds lies about Tris's father to Erudite because Tris beat her in a fight and ranked higher than her.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: As are result of shooting Will, Tris develops a gun-phobia.
  • Driven to Suicide: Al, after Tris refuses to forgive him.
  • Expy: Peter is a knife-wielding, green-eyed, dark-haired enemy of our protagonist with a violent, murderous streak. Sound familiar?
  • Evil Genius: Jeanine. She has the highest tested IQ in all of the Erudite faction, and she's not a nice person.
  • The Evils of Free Will: There are shades of this in Abnegation. Basically, any part of free will that serves the self is prohibited.
  • Eye Scream: Edward is on the receiving end of one via a butter knife because he ended up first on the initiate ranking.
  • Face Your Fears: A major component of Dauntless initiation.
  • Fail O'Suckyname: Molly nicknames herself "The Tank."
  • Genki Girl: Marlene.
  • Hufflepuff House: From all of the factions, Amity gets the least mentioned in Divergent. None of the transfer to Dauntless are from it, and only one named character is a member of it. They have a slightly more important role in Insurgent.
    • Candor also has a minor role in Divergent, although they get elevated in Insurgent.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Said word-for-word when Tris confronts Tobias while he's under the effects of a mind-controlling serum.
  • Insufferable Genius: Erudite, and their leader, Jeanine.
  • Jerkass: Peter, Molly, and Drew.
    • Special mention goes to Peter. He goes out of his way to make Tris's life miserable, from throwing petty insults to outright sexually harassing her and trying to kill her.
    • Molly's no pushover either. To get back at Tris for wounding her pride, she feeds lies to the Erudite about Tris's father and Abnegation.
    • With his extreme teaching methods, Eric comes across as this sometimes.
  • Knife Nut: In Insurgent, Tris can't bring herself to use a gun, but has no problems using a knife.
  • Living Lie Detector: Some people from the Candor faction. Tris is worried that Christina, who transferred from Candor, will be able to tell that Tris killed Christina's boyfriend Will.
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin: Averted with Tobias.
  • Mind Control Device: The "tracking" chips placed in every Dauntless member controls them and ultimately leads to the Dauntless members, aside from Divergents, being controlled into attacking Abnegation.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Part of the Dauntless initiate training. Peter utterly serves Tris in one fight, but Tris delivers total ownage to Molly in another.
  • The Power of Love: Tobias, under Jeanine's mind-control, becomes horribly close to shooting Tris, but the sound of Tris's voice makes him snap out of it.
  • Sacrificial Lion: Both of Tris's parents.
  • Psycho for Hire: The Dauntless are implied to be this. The Erudite use them to fight their physical battles in a war, even agreeing being put under mind control so they could do what they do best: killing!
  • Sherlock Scan: While nowhere near the almost superhuman level that this trope is often used, Tris is much more perceptive than average.
  • Shoot the Dog: Tris has no choice but to shoot Will, who, under mind control, was trying to kill her.
  • The Sociopath: Peter, Eric, and Jeanine all have shades of this, but we see the most of Peter.
  • The Spock: What the Erudite aim for, especially Jeanine.
  • The Psycho Rangers: Peter, Molly and Drew.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Tris's character development. She begins as a pleasant, timid youth, but as the story goes on she becomes callous and jaded.
  • Training from Hell: Dauntless initiate training. From fights to knife-throwing to fear simulations, it's not pleasant.
  • Truth Serums: In Insurgent, Candor uses truth serum for interrogations.
  • Waif Fu: Tris.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Tris's dad calls her out for shooting Peter in the arm. Though to be fair, the bastard deserved it. Even more importantly, innocent people were dying, and every moment Tris delayed would result in more deaths. Also, the observant Tris is aware that Peter, despite being Dauntless, is cowardly and borderline psychopathic, and not truly brave. She knows he will give in quickly once he is in pain.
    • In Insurgent, Tobias calls out Tris multiple times of being suicidal.
  • Who Names Their Kid "Four"?: Subverted. His real name is actually Tobias. He's called Four because he only has four fears.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: The second round of testing consists of this.
  • You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Tris shoots both Peter and Eric, but they doubt she'd do it since she's a Stiff. Both end in some non-fatal injury.