Just finished the Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. And my thoughts is full of their story.
Their community is different from ours, they are divided into five groups called factions. When you reach the age of 16, you need to choose your faction. Either you choose the one where your family is or choose other faction where you can start a new life, a new you. After choosing, it is already faction before blood.There are five factions in the series: Abnegation where their character focuses on being selfless, the Candor where they value honesty, the Amity where they value kindness, the Erudite where knowledge is power and the Dauntless where brave people go.
The story focuses on Tris and Four who is both from Abnegation and transferred to Dauntless for some reason. Four transferred in Dauntless first and ranked first in his class. Tris transferred two years after Four transferred to Dauntless. While Tris is initiate in Dauntless, Four became her instructor. Tris started as a weak initiate but because of persistence and courage, she started to move up in her class. Four noticed Tris along the way because of this. Tris is not ugly or pretty as said in the book, but Four likes him because of her courageness. Four discovered that Tris is divergent, a term called for people whose mind or character doesn't fit in any faction and is a threat to the faction system. Since Four knows this, he helped Tris to hide her divergence and that makes her successful in the final test.
After the initiation, Tris becomes an official dauntless member. But the Dauntless and Erudite created an army of dauntless people by injecting to them an Erudite serum so that they can fight Abnegation Faction. Since Tris is divergent, she was not affected by the faction but she tried to hide it by copying the actions of dauntless. When she found Four, she went beside him and they both held each others hand. That moment, Tris knows that Four is also a divergent. They both fought against Erudite and Dauntless until the end of the book. The story continues to Insurgent and Allegiant. But I wont tell the story of those two books here.
It is just after reading it, I realize:
That we cannot be grouped according to what the society dictates us to be. We are unique human beings, we have our differences no matter how many common values we have. We can never a candor, abnegation, amity, dauntless and erudite alone. We are always divergent.
That there are people around us who is willing to sacrifice for the people they even don't know just to save humanity.
That forgiveness is also a choice. To forgive, we need to decide. There are also people who are willing to forgive us despite the hurt we have caused them. These people should be treasured for the rest of this life.
That to have fears doesn't mean it is being coward. To hace fears means being human. And we need to face these fears for life to go on.
That we don't need to erase the past for it made us become who we are now. Our memories with the people we love most will always be treasured even if thinking of them sometimes brings back the pain. Because we know that the pain it brings to us is too little compared to the joy they bring to our lives.
That it is not faction before blood as said in the series nor blood before faction as dictates by humanity. It is always love before blood or faction.
That Four and Tris has a great love story. Both of them shows their selfless love to each other. Both of them faces their obstacles with braveness and so much courage. That despite the differences in their personality, they still love each other.
The story does not have its typical ending, you wouldn't expect it. But after reading, you know that no matter what happened, life must move on.
