Chapters Twenty-Eight Through Thirty

At the start of reading, I assumed that this series would have more to do with what lies outside of the factions, as in the City of Ember. It seems to me, however, that the book is more concerned with internal issues amongst the dystopia such as the plot of The Hunger Games series. Even still, Tris continues question the outside world as when she wonders in regards to the train tracks: "where to they begin? Where do they end? What is the world like beyond them?" I have a feeling that although internal issues and civil conflict are the foci, the world beyond them may resurface at a later time.

Tris's excursion into Erudite territory provided some interesting insight into their lives. The very fact that Jeanine's own larger than life portrait hangs in the central building of the compound is very revealing. It appears as if a cult of personality is developing around Jeanine Mathews, with her daily harangues and multitudinous propaganda reigning as the supreme media source. Portraits of leaders are used in by many theocracies and tyrannous governments as propagandistic "guidance" by a supposedly gifted leader. Such examples are found in places such as North Korea and Russia's Chechnya, whose leaders glorify themselves as seen below.

Now it has become obvious that the factions are on the border of war, in light of the "war plans" that Tobias discovered. War between Dauntless/Erudite and Abnegation seems imminent, and downright unimaginable. If each faction had roughly the same amount of initiates as Dauntless, and the life expectancy stood around where it does today, the population of the entire factions couldn't possibly surpass 8,000, including the Factionless. I find it unlikely that modern, western medicine is readily available to the population and even less so likely available to the Factionless, so even with a life expectancy of 60, the population couldn't be a single person more than 6,000. Comparing this to a locality in your area (Eldridge, Iowa, for me), it is very odd to try imagining a full-scale conflict among such a small group of people. It will be interesting to see the conflict play out, particularly how violent and lengthy it may prove to be.

I am having some doubts that Tris will perform her top game in the fear landscape. Since she is Divergent, all this time she has known that the simulations are false, and therefore hasn't had much practice with a truly frightening situation, except for her experience in Lauren's fear landscape when she suddenly couldn't differentiate between reality and fiction. As Tris tells herself, "I just have to remember that I have the power to manipulate the simulations". If she fails to do so, all could end in disaster.

Also, in regards to the setting, I notice that there are many technological advances that aren't invented yet today or aren't readily used. The simulation exercises and the serum certainly aren't possible today, and the use of glass for the construction of almost every new building is a little odd as well, particularly the way it is used as a floor. Perhaps the erudite have invented all of these things over the years since the ways of the old world came to an end.

Now the fun part- Tris's fears. First off, I think it's odd that she had already experienced two of them in her previous simulations. I would think that they would be new as to make it more difficult. Rather than fears of physical objects, the fears that surfaced in her fear landscape were all intangible emotions. The fear of being pulled into the ocean and crushed on the rocks by waves is a feeling of powerlessness, same with almost each other fear, save a few minor additions. The one that seemed to scare Tris the most was the men abducting her and Tobias. Luckily, she was able to produce a gun to fight off the men, but she really didn't have a defense against Tobias. She can only laugh everything off until it all disappears. The final fear- shooting her own family- was also difficult, but she did have solution to escape the worst terror.

As I analyze Tris's final fear of shooting her family more in depth, I noticed something a bit odd. Tris notes, "the urgency making my heart race depends on one thing, and one thing only: the threat to my life." This isn't exactly an Abnegation-like response, and it's odd to think that this is the reason for her angst. One would think that the fact that she needs to kill her family is more worrisome, but perhaps she simply ruled out the possibility of even bringing herself to kill her own family, so now it was her own death that made her fearful.

The Russian text reads "Grozny City - our pride!"

I'm absolutely clueless as to what this one says... maybe some translation help? *cough cough Cheyenne*