Divergent

Check out our episode here! Divergent by Veronica Roth

Beatrice is getting a haircut, looking at herself in the mirror that she is only allowed to see a few times a year. She wonders why her mother, who would be beautiful if she didn't have to be so plain as to be forgettable because they are Abnegation, doesn’t reprimand her for being so vain and looking at herself, but her mother just smiles at their reflection. Today is the aptitude test that Beatrice and others in her school year who are 16 will take to assist in tomorrow's Choosing Day to determine which of the five factions, Abnegation, Erudite, Candor, Amity and Dauntless, they should decide to live in. She and her brother Caleb will both be participating in the ceremony because he's still 16.

Beatrice and Caleb ride a bus over the cracked and rutted streets of what was once Chicago to their school. Beatrice thinks Caleb is better than she is, more selfless than she is, a better Abnegation than she is. She didn't even think to give up her seat on the bus to a perfectly fit stranger but of course Caleb did. They get to school and Beatrice gets bullied in her plain gray outfit and called a Stiff. It seems that the students from the other factions are being meaner than usual to the Abnegation, but that's probably because of the articles the leader of Erudite, Jeanine Matthews, has been releasing lately. Beatrice stares at the Dauntless as they arrive, jumping off their train.

It's finally time for testing to determine which of the five factions the 16 year olds are best suited to live in for the rest of their lives. They are led to ten rooms where they will be individually tested, but no one knows what the test is going to be like. A Dauntless woman called Tori administers Beatrice's test. She is strapped up with electrodes, connected by one to Tori, and made to drink a strange liquid. When she opens her eyes after her drink, Beatrice has entered the test. 

In a nondescript room, Beatrice sees a table with a knife and a block of cheese and a voice says choose. Cheese or knife? Beatrice chooses by not choosing either, but then a snarling dog appears. Beatrice wishes she would have chosen in the first round as she thinks about how to approach a strange dog. Eventually the dog comes to lick her face, so she must have done the right thing. A little girl appears then and startles the dog by shouting excitedly at it and the dog runs to attack her. Beatrice tackles the dog to save the girl. Next, Beatrice is on a bus. A creepy man on the bus is reading a newspaper and asks her if she knows a man in an article who is a murderer. She does know the man, but she lies and says she doesn't, even when told her telling the truth will help the creepy man. Her test is complete.

Tori leaves the testing room and returns, concerned, with inconclusive results. Beatrice didn't choose the cheese in the first test, so she's not Amity, but she also didn't choose the knife either, which would have been a Dauntless trait. She worked out what to do with the dog, which is a trait of Erudite, and then she saved the girl from the dog which is a Dauntless and Abnegation trait. She lied to the creepy guy which ruled out Candor. Beatrice has aptitude for Abnegation, Erudite and Dauntless which makes her Divergent. Tori tells her to never tell anyone and sends her home early.

As she walks home, Beatrice is accosted by a Factionless man. The Factionless have failed out of their initiations to their chosen factions and don't belong anywhere and are left to live near-homeless lives doing tasks that no else, not even the Abnegation, will do, like being janitors and garbage collectors and bus drivers. 

At home, it is Beatrice’s turn to prepare dinner. While they eat, the children are not allowed to speak unless asked, but Beatrice questions her father's bad day as he complains and is gently reprimanded by her mother. When they go to bed, Caleb tells her they should think of their families before going to his room, but also said they should think of themselves. Caleb is always selfless, but not this time.

The next day, the Abnegation walk up 20 flights of stairs instead of just waiting for the elevator and then it's time for the Choosing Ceremony. Marcus, one of the Abnegation leaders who some think is not a good leader because his son left Abnegation for Dauntless, gives a speech about the five factions and how they came about to oppose all the things wrong in the world before they choose by cutting their hands and bleeding into bowls. The factions are Erudite, who value knowledge and oppose ignorance, Abnegation, who value selflessness and oppose greed, Dauntless, who value bravery and oppose cowardice, Amity, who value peace and oppose aggression, and Candor, who value truth and oppose dishonesty. The candidates choose their factions in reverse alphabetical order and Caleb chooses Erudite before Beatrice chooses Dauntless. Beatrice feels extreme guilt that their parents and Abnegation lost two that day to other factions.

There's no time to worry about it though. The Dauntless run off, whooping raucously down the stairs that the Abnegation selflessly climbed up before the ceremony. They run to the train tracks and have to jump on or else be left behind and Factionless. Only one initiate doesn't make it on the train. Beatrice jumps on and a transfer initiate from Candor helps pull her all the way on board. She introduces herself as Christina.

Beatrice and Christina ride the train with the rest of the new Dauntless initiates, most are Dauntless-born, but a few are transfers like them. The ride to Dauntless headquarters doesn't take too long and soon enough they are jumping from the moving train onto the roof of a building, Christina needing to hold Beatrice's hand in order to make the jump. One initiate refuses to jump and another falls to her death on the ground below.

No time to grieve! It's time to jump again, this time from the rooftop into the unknown. Max, a Dauntless leader, greets them and tells them they have to jump and Beatrice, called a Stiff by one of the Candor initiates, strips off her gray robes, throws them at the jerk boy, and jumps first. She lands on a net below and is helped down by a young handsome Dauntless guy. He asks her name and, not thinking Beatrice is accurate anymore, she calls herself Tris.

The transfers and Dauntless-born initiates split up here. The handsome guy, called Four, yes like the number, leads the transfers on a tour of the Dauntless compound, which is underground, hidden beneath the old city of Chicago. At lunch, Tris eats food she's never seen before… something called a … burger? Christina enjoys that Tris doesn't know what a hamburger is, but soon the enjoyment is cut short when Eric, a Dauntless leader that transferred from Erudite, sits next to Four at their table. Eric questions Four about not meeting up with Max for a new job, probably as another leader, but Four is content where he is. Eric is a dick.

At the end of the day, Eric takes over the tour and tells the transfers that their training starts the next day and that only the top ten of the initiates will become Dauntless. There are nine transfers and eleven Dauntless-born and only ten make it? Those are not good odds, but Tris is determined to be one of them, and three already didn't make it, one by literally dying, so that's something. That night, sleeping in a shared dorm room with the other nine transfers is tough for Tris, but it's worse when all she can hear is another person crying all night. She should want to comfort them, but she's not Abnegation anymore and doesn't have to. 

Tris struggles a bit on the first day of training which involves shooting guns and learning fighting techniques because she's easily the smallest of all the initiates, but Four gives her some tips that help. After the long day of shooting and punching and kicking, Tris, along with Christina, Will, a former Erudite, and Al, another Candor, all go get tattoos and/or piercings because that’s what you do as a Dauntless. At the tattoo shop, Tris sees Tori, the Dauntless that administered her test and told her she was Divergent. Tris wants to talk to her about that, but that's not a good idea. She gets three birds tattooed on her collarbone to represent her family. 

The next day is physical fights between the initiates, but since there are only nine transfers, one person gets to sit out. Luckily for her, Tris is the one who doesn't have to fight. Christina sees that she has to fight Molly, another Candor, who is much bigger than she is. Will and Al fight each other and since they've become friendly, they don't really want to fight, but Eric insists. Al punches Will and knocks him out almost immediately because he's a big, hulky guy, though he's also the person Tris heard crying the night before. 

When it's time for Christina to fight Molly, Christina fights hard but ultimately concedes. Eric, in addition to being a dick, is also very controlling and petty and treats the initiates like shit. When she concedes, Eric, because he’s a dick, makes her dangle from the railing over a chasm with an underground river for five minutes to prove she's not a coward. Though difficult, Christina manages to hang on with Al and Tris cheering for her.

The next day, Tris has to fight and unfortunately she's against Peter, a Candor transfer, who is maybe literally the worst. That morning, he spray painted Stiff all over Tris’s bed while she was in the shower and while that is bad, it can be cleaned up. Their fight is much much worse. Needless to say, Peter wins. As Tris is getting the shit beat out of her, she sees Four leave the training room in disgust. That night, Tris is in a recovery ward and Al tries to comfort her but she doesn't want comfort from a whiny baby like Al who pretended to be knocked out in his fight. Maybe Al isn't cut out for Dauntless. Tris thinks he is a coward.

The day after Tris’s fight against Peter, Eric and Four take the initiates on a field trip to the fields where the Amity live and work on the farm. A job of the Dauntless is to patrol the fencing around the city, but what are they keeping out? Or are they being kept in? There are more fights the next day and Tris fights and wins against a girl called Myra. Before the fight starts, Four tells Tris that she's fast and would win more fights if she struck first. She takes his advice and is successful, though she questions how he would even know that she's fast since he left during her fight with Peter. He says that fight was not something he wanted to watch.

The next day, they head out into the city for a game of capture the flag and split up into teams. Four chooses Tris, Christina and Will plus some other Dauntless-born initiates and Eric chooses the meaty douchebags. While everyone is bickering on where to hide their flag or how to capture the other team’s, Tris climbs up the rusty ferris wheel at Navy Pier to spot the other team. Four follows and Tris realizes he's terrified of heights, but he goes with her anyway, probably, she thinks, because he thinks she can't do it on her own. Tris sees the other team’s flag and after a harrowing climb back down, she directs her team on what to do next. Christina comes with her to the flag and pouts at Tris when they find it because Tris already showed off for the day. Christina claims the flag. On the way back to the Dauntless compound, Dauntless-born initiates Uriah and Marlene warm up to her while all the meaty douchebags glare at her schemingly.

Since Tris is getting braver, during knife throwing the next day, she stands up for Al against a bullying Eric and is then made to stand in front of a target while Four throws knives at her head. He taunts her the whole time as if trying to get her to give up and make Al take the punishment instead, but she won't, so he purposely hits her ear with the last throw. She’s upset, but doesn't realize that Four actually saved her from being tormented by Eric. 

After a shower the next morning, Tris realizes that because she’s getting so buff and muscly with all the training, her pants no longer fit, so she heads to the dorm to get something to wear while only wrapped in a towel. Peter, Molly and Drew are in the room when she enters, which is the exact last thing she wanted. Peter whips off her towel and they all laugh at her mercilessly, mocking her small naked body. Luckily Tris has learned some self-control and grabs some clothes and leaves, making herself not cry. When she arrives in the training room for another day of fighting, she sees that she's paired against Molly. She was hoping for Peter, but Molly is good enough. Tris beats the absolute shit out of Molly, kicking her mercilessly in the ribs and face when she goes down. Four has to pull her off.

Visiting Day comes and Tris nervously wonders if her family will come see her and what they will think about how much she has changed, but she shouldn't care about that. Her mom, Natalie, comes to see her and tells Tris about the tensions between the factions. She wants Tris to go see her brother in Erudite and tell him to research simulation serums because Abnegation are not allowed to visit Erudite anymore. That is an odd request. A Candor woman asks them if they've seen her son, Al, but Tris can't remember seeing him at all that day. Christina and Will then invite Tris and her mother to meet their families, but Will’s sister is terribly rude to Natalie and spouts a bunch of Erudite rumors about Abnegation hoarding supplies for themselves. Natalie pretends to not be bothered by this. 

Natalie then drags Tris off to a hidden hallway and asks her about the rankings and how she's holding up in the fights. Tris is surprised that her mother knows so much about Dauntless initiation. Her mother then asks her what her aptitude test results were and Tris reveals they were inconclusive, which Natalie was expecting. She tells Tris to be careful in the next stage of initiation because she is probably already being monitored. With that cryptic information, Natalie leaves, but on her way out, she tells Tris to have a piece of chocolate cake for her because it was her favorite. Tris realizes that her mother transferred to Abnegation from Dauntless.

In the dormitory later, after Tris finds a sad embarrassed mopey Al who awkwardly hits on her and she dismisses him as politely as possible by slipping out from underneath his arm around her shoulders, it's time to see the rankings after the first stage of initiation. Four explains that the next stage’s rankings will weigh more heavily than the first round, but that these numbers are still important and people will be cut. A boy named Edward who has been studying combat training since he was a kid and beats everyone but isn't a meaty douchebag is ranked first, Peter is second, Will third, Christina fourth, Molly fifth, Tris is sixth, which she is shocked by, Drew is seventh, Al is eighth and another non-meaty douchebag Myra is last. Four people will be cut after these rankings and unless all the Dauntless-born initiates do really bad, it doesn't look good for Al, Drew and Myra. Tris could also be cut.

That night, Peter, upset at being second, decides he’s going to take out some of his competition. He stabs Edward in the eye with a butterknife, removing him from the rankings, and from Dauntless altogether. His girlfriend, Myra, leaves with him, but she was probably going to be cut anyway. Tris slips into Abnegation mode and cleans up the mess. The next day is pretty weird what with Peter having stabbed someone in the eye and no one doing anything about it, but hey, at least Tris moved up in the rankings? Uriah, a Dauntless-born initiate, invites Tris to go ziplining with some of the Dauntless-born and their older siblings to make her feel better after seeing a guy get stabbed in the face. Tris feels more Dauntless than ever when they get back, but her transfer friends seem jealous.

Stage two of initiation focuses on the emotional aspect of being brave and the initiates have to face their worst fears under simulation and only calming the mind and body will release them from it. In the first simulation Tris faces, she is in a field being attacked by crows. The panic and anxiety of being covered by feathers and being pecked all over freaks Tris out. When she finally resigns herself to death by crow, she comes out of the simulation. She feels like she freaked out and failed, but Four tells her that she got out in nearly record time. He offers to escort her to the initiate dormitory but she refuses, not wanting to seem like a weak baby.

When she gets back to the room by her own volition, she walks in to Peter reading aloud from a newspaper. Molly has given an interview about Tris having nightmares about something her Abnegation father must have done to her, but none of that is true. The Erudite are trying to make the Abnegation leadership look corrupt and this interview doesn't help. Tris smashes down on Peter's foot and starts to beat him and Molly up, but Will grabs her and takes her from the room. They talk a little about the simulations as a distraction and Will goes very Erudite, talking about how they are just happening inside the mind through connections in the brain. Christina and Al join them and then they run into a drunk Four who quietly tells Tris she looks good.

The next day, they run through another fear. This time, Tris is in a glass box with water slowly filling it, her friends looking on but not helping. Instead of calming down her heart rate and resigning herself to die, Tris breaks the glass to escape the simulation. Four is able to figure out that she is Divergent because of this. Tris confronts the tattoo artist, Tori, who administered her aptitude test, about Divergence and its meaning. All Tori tells her is that Divergents die in Dauntless, like her brother. But why would being able to escape a simulation be so bad?

Tris deals with more newspaper stories about Abnegation and goes through more fear simulations, the worst of which is being forced at gunpoint to kill her family. She shows some weakness in front of Four about missing her family and asks if he misses his. No. No, definitely not. Stage two ends and when the rankings are revealed, Tris is shocked that she is first. Peter is second, Christina and Will are near the bottom and Al is last. Tris is about three times faster at getting out of her simulations than Peter, and everyone else is even slower, so much so that they think she's been manipulating them the whole time into thinking she's weak and small and deserving of pity. She can't help it that she's Divergent, but it hurts her that her friends don't really seem like her friends anymore. She tries to comfort Al even though she doesn't really want to, but he just wants to be alone.

Tris spends most of her time by herself after this since her transfer friends are so jealous of her until Uriah, Marlene and another Dauntless-born initiate Lynn spot her and invite her to come with them to watch as Uriah shoots a muffin off Marlene's head. She really feels Dauntless when she is with Uriah and the others who are proud of her ranking instead of jealous, even though she's better than them, too. 

Tris can't sleep that night and goes out into the hallway to get a drink of water. As she's out there, she hears Eric talking to a woman whose voice she vaguely recognizes. The woman tells Eric that he'll need to watch the fear landscapes very closely to try to discover who is Divergent. Just as the woman is about to walk into view and Tris discovers who is pulling the strings and wants Divergents dead, she is grabbed from behind, blindfolded and beaten up.

Three attackers take Tris to the chasm where Christina hung from and is forced over the side. She tries to fight her attackers off, especially when they grope her, but three against one is pretty unfair. She knows who they are and isn't surprised that Peter and Drew would attack her. The third though… the third attacker is Al. Just as she is nearly thrown over, Four arrives. Peter and Al run away, but Four catches Drew before he can flee. At least he gets to beat the shit out of one of them.

Four carries Tris to his room and takes care of her, and she stays the night on his bed while he sleeps on the floor. In the morning, after gently checking on her with touches that she feels swoony about, he suggests to her that she lean on her transfer friends and pretend to be weak so they will stay with her and keep her safe from Peter. She is disgusted by that idea but ultimately relents. Tris skulks into the cafeteria later and tells Will and Christina what happened. When they realize that she is “weak,” they are friendly to her again. Christina even apologizes for being shitty and jealous during capture the flag.

Four takes everyone to a different area of the Dauntless compound to prepare them for stage three of initiation. He describes the Fear Landscapes that they will have to go through. The Dauntless leaders will study their simulations and create landscapes that they have to escape. Unlike the simulations though, they will know they are in the landscapes, even though Tris already did, and they will have to either break out of their fears or calm down enough to overcome them. After this, Al tries to apologize to Tris and she tells him that he is a coward and that if he comes near her again, she will kill him. He kills himself instead.

The Dauntless quickly hold a memorial service for Al and pretty much everyone gets drunk. That is the way of Dauntless. Eric praises Al’s courage for jumping into the chasm and chasing the next unknown adventure. Tris can't think that way though. In Abnegation, she was raised to believe suicide is selfish, not brave. She leaves the funeral and runs into Four. She questions why she is the way she is and gets mad at him for believing the way Dauntless do about Al’s suicide when Abnegation’s seems more correct to her. He warns her that she's being watched. She asks if he is being watched too, thinking he is also Divergent, but he doesn't answer. Instead he consoles her.

Later, Tris, Christina and Will are at the chasm throwing down the Erudite newspapers about Abnegation. Tris asks Will about Jeanine Matthews, the Erudite leader, and though he hates her for what she's saying about Tris's dad and Abnegation, he kind of thinks she's right. Maybe if there were other people in charge instead of the selfless Abnegation, there would be more luxuries in life. Tris starts to argue but Christina stops their conversation and she and Will leave. Instead of going back to the dormitory with them, sure she's witnessing a relationship developing between them, Tris spots Four and follows him. 

Four invites Tris to go with him into his fear landscape. They have to jump from a great height, calm themselves enough to stop the room from shrinking around them, which makes Tris’s heart race, but not because of fear, shoot a stranger and, finally, face Four's worst fear, being beaten by his father… his father who Tris recognizes as Marcus, the Abnegation leader whose son left for another faction. Erudite newspapers alleged abuse, and it seems they were right. As Marcus brings a belt down on his son, Tobias, Tris blocks him and takes the strike herself. Now Tris understands why he is called Four. Tobias declares that he likes Tris, which she doesn't understand because he's 18 and she's 16 and she's not pretty, but he tells her he likes her because she's smart and brave, and then he kisses her.

The next day, Tris is giddy, but when she sees Tobias in the cafeteria and he doesn't even acknowledge her, she begins to have doubts. The doubts get worse as they go into another Dauntless leader’s fears. She explains that, on average, people have 10-15 fears, but they will only experience one of hers during this training session. Tris gets her kidnapping fear and it morphs into her being taken by Peter, Drew and Al and she freaks out. Tobias stops the simulation and rudely mocks Tris’s reaction, calling her pathetic. She slaps him and storms off.

Tris leaves the Dauntless compound and goes to Erudite even though she's not allowed to leave without Dauntless supervision. She needs to finally talk to her brother like their mother suggested. The headquarters for Erudite is of course the former main location of the Chicago Public Library. After yelling at some people to find out where Caleb is, he finds her. They go to the park across the street and argue about the Erudite and Abnegation leaders. Tris tells Caleb about their mother's request to research the serums that Erudite produces and he lets slip that he thinks something big is on the horizon, but then she is taken to see Erudite’s leader, Jeanine Matthews. 

Jeanine questions Tris about her aptitude test scores and about some of her initiation training scores and why they were reported manually, which is different from literally everyone else, and how she's so good at escaping the simulations. Tris realizes that Jeanine’s is the voice in the hallway who was talking to Eric about finding Divergents and knows she's got to play it cool. She tells Jeanine she's brave and the best of the initiates, so of course she's going to be able to beat the simulations. Jeanine then questions why she left Abnegation, and she has to pretend like she agrees with the Erudite news that Abnegation leaders are bad. She is dismissed and escorted back to Dauntless.

Tris is immediately greeted by a very displeased Eric. He questions her about leaving and threatens to punish her and her friends, making them Factionless, but then Tobias comes in. He covers his eyes, hinting something to Tris, and she realizes she needs to pretend to be weak. On the spot, they concoct a story about Tris trying to kiss Four, him shutting her down, her getting embarrassed and running away crying like a little girl. Eric believes the story and dismisses Tris without punishment.

Tobias finds her soon after and they reconcile. He apologizes for embarrassing her, not realizing that she would be so impacted by his trying to protect her by pretending to yell at her in front of everyone and calling her pathetic. She stands up for herself and calls Tobias her boyfriend, which he appreciates, and then explains about what she learned at Erudite. He asks her to meet with him late that night because he has something he needs to talk to her about. Back in the initiate dorm, Christina questions where Tris was all day and excitedly tells her that Will kissed her. Luckily Tris doesn't have to explain where she was or why she left because of all the like-like and kissing discussion. 

Later, near midnight, Tris goes to meet Tobias. They get on the train and head toward Erudite headquarters. It is lit up and it seems like the people there are working on something non-stop. Tobias reveals that he discovered what looks like war plans being developed between Erudite and Dauntless against Abnegation in his non-initiate-training actual job that involves a lot of computer work. They decide that the Erudite want to go to war but aren't trained to fight, so they have brought the Dauntless on board, but they don't understand how the Erudite will make the Dauntless fight for them.

It's Initiation Day and it's very different in Dauntless than in Abnegation. The initiates there have to complete 30 days of service and then they would have their feet washed by the Abnegation leaders. In Dauntless, everyone is drunk and the initiates have to go through their fear landscapes while being monitored by Dauntless leadership. Everyone can watch, able to see how the initiates react, but the leaders will see what the initiate sees. Tris will be the last to go through her landscapes.

When it's her turn, Tris faces her fears in the simulations and shockingly only has seven. She handles swarming birds by shooting them, escaping a water tank by breaking out, open water fear by scrambling on a rock, being burned at the stake by making it rain, being kidnapped by creepy men that turn into monsters by shooting a bunch of them and sneaking away, being intimate with Four by kissing him and killing her family by sacrificing herself instead. When she successfully escapes her last fear, she is greeted by Tobias and the Dauntless leaders. Eric congratulates her and injects her with a serum created by the Erudite to track her if she goes missing. Don't worry, everyone else will be getting them, too… 

There will be a party later where Tris and the rest of the initiates will learn their rankings, but for now, Tris goes with Four to his room. She reveals that he was part of her fear landscape, not him exactly, but intimacy. She knows she's not pretty or whatever, but she wants Tobias to know that she's not the kind of girl who is just in it for sex, and he laughs because he's not like that either. Maybe one day they will get there, but not now. Hopefully Tris will be able to overcome her fear of intimacy and then everyone will call her Six. Six and Four would make a pretty good couple. They look at each other's tattoos after this, and Four is pleased to see that Tris recently got an Abnegation tattoo in addition to a Dauntless one and the birds she got previously. He has the same Abnegation and Dauntless tattoos, plus all the rest of the factions because he wants to be brave and selfless and smart and honest and kind.

It's time for the big party to announce the top ten initiates that will become Dauntless. Tris is first! Christina and Will and Uriah and Marlene also make it, and Peter, too, and the rest of the Dauntless-born initiates. Molly and Drew are ranked 11 and 12 and are now Factionless. Christina and Will kiss and then Tobias comes up behind Tris. He asks if she thinks they can hug or if it will give them away and she kisses him instead. He brushes the injection bandage on her neck and then she finally realizes what that injection meant. It's how the Erudite are going to control everyone. Tobias notices her reaction and she promises to tell him later when they are not surrounded by partiers.

Unfortunately Tris falls asleep in the dorm room waiting for everything to quieten down instead of telling Tobias about the injection. She startles awake in the middle of the night to everyone mindlessly walking around AS IF THEY’RE CONTROLLED BY SOMETHING. A MYSTERIOUS SERUM PERHAPS? FROM ERUDITE?!! All the Dauntless are now soldiers in an Erudite army. Tris follows along with what everyone else is doing, pretending to be controlled, too. They all load onto a train and head into the city. Luckily Tris finds Tobias and he is also pretending to not be Divergent. They clasp hands.

When the train gets to the Abnegation part of the city, everyone gets off and marches, then they start shooting people. Eric sees Tobias and Tris and talks to another Dauntless leader about being second to Tobias, but not anymore. Eric holds a gun to his head but Tris stops him from killing Tobias by shooting him in the foot after he taunts that she won't shoot him. Tris and Tobias run but Tris gets shot in the shoulder and they are captured.

They’re taken to Jeanine who monologues her villainous plans for Erudite to take over. She complains that most of the Divergents she has encountered have come from Abnegation, making her takeover more difficult, but she is a problem solver and has created another serum that she is going to test on Tobias. Since Tris has been shot, she's too injured for Jeanine to use, so she declares that she will be executed. Tobias tries to kill Jeanine but her goons take him down and he is injected with the new serum that will alter what he sees, making him confuse friend and foe.

Tris is taken away and put in a real-life water tank. She tries briefly to break out but resigns herself to die. Just as she's about to take a big breath in and completely give up, thinking this is the bravest thing she can do while being studied on camera by the Erudite, her mom shows up and shoots her out of the tank. Tris asks her mom about her being Dauntless-born and how she knows about Divergence and Natalie reveals that she is also Divergent and her mother, a Dauntless leader, told her to go to a different faction to keep her safe and that's how she ended up in Abnegation. Natalie tells Tris that her father and brother are hiding in the basement of a building nearby and they run off, guns blazing, to get there. Unfortunately, Natalie decides to create a diversion for Tris and is gunned down.

Tris now has to go off alone and find her father and brother. On the way to find them, she encounters Will, under simulation, and she kills him before he can kill her. She gets to the building where her dad and brother and a bunch of Abnegation are hiding. Her father removes the bullet from her shoulder and she has to tell him that her mother is dead, but she is brave and she does it. Marcus, Tobias’s father, is also there and asks what they're going to do now. Tris explains that the Dauntless are being controlled by a serum, which Caleb learned about and made him quit Erudite. Tris decides that she has to shut down the simulation, so they head to Dauntless headquarters where Tris believes the simulation is being controlled.

Tris, her father, Caleb and Marcus go to the Dauntless compound and have to jump on and off trains and jump from the roof into the pit, just like her first day. Tris encounters Peter, who is not mind-controlled. Is he Divergent? No, he's just shitty enough that Jeanine and the Dauntless leaders thought they could use him so they didn't give him the serum. He pulls the same you're -not-going-to-shoot-me that Eric did and again, she is underestimated. Tris shoots Peter in the arm. He says that he will take them to the control room, but only if they take him with them when they leave. Tris reluctantly agrees. Tris and her father are the only ones that go to the control room because Tris insists that Caleb and Marcus stay behind with Peter. Unfortunately, her father is shot and dies along the way, but he went out as a distraction for Tris just like her mother.

Tris enters the control room to find it manned by Tobias. He of course doesn't recognize her and she knows that she won't be able to take him in a fight and she definitely won't kill him. They do fight a little and she disarms him, but then he comes at her, ready to kill her with his bare hands. Tris remembers that she is the most brave when she is selfless and she remembers her final fear landscape where she allows herself to be killed instead of killing her family, so she gives Tobias the gun, puts her hand on his heart, and says his name. 

Tobias hears Tris’s voice and snaps out of the simulation. They quickly shut down the other simulation, waking all the Dauntless just before Tris sees them shoot her brother on the security cameras. Tobias removes the hard drive from the computer and they flee the Dauntless compound along with Caleb, Peter and Marcus. When Tobias sees his father, Tris steps in between them, telling Marcus that the only reason why she hasn't killed him yet is in case Tobias wants to. They hop on a train and ride off into the sunset toward the Amity farms.