Divergent is a Young Adult dystopian thriller, the debut novel of Veronica Roth, a young author.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 book received favorable reviews, which is impressive for a debut novel.The second book in the trilogy, Insurgent, was released on May 1, 2012.
Examples:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 tokillher.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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