*This post has several SPOILERS, but not enough to ruin your reading. It is dedicated to anyone and everyone who has ever considered reading the Divergent series and to the hope that they will, against all odds, choose to do so.*
Divergent is NOT The Hunger Games
This is the absolute, #1 quote that I hear about the Divergent series. “It’s basically The Hunger Games,” they say. “It’s a spin-off of The Hunger Games. If you’ve read The Hunger Games, you really don’t need to read Divergent. It’s exactly the same.”
All the time.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but after the first book alone, it was clear to me that Veronica Roth’s utopian world is a far cry from Suzanne Collins’s dystopian one. It’s all about the vocabulary…
Dystopian – an extremely miserable society
Utopian – a society which strives for perfect life
Wait… what? Doesn’t that mean that Divergent and The Hunger Games are… opposites?!
Not totally. Everyone has their own idea of what “perfect life” would look like. When those ideas get caught in the judgment filter, they go one of two ways. They are (Here we go!)… they are (Yeah, baby!)… they ARE (SO READY!)… Divergent or The Hunger Games (When did I become so predictable, anyway?).
Both Divergent and The Hunger Games blame human nature for society’s issues. “Let us fix your genetics!” becomes a utopian process. “We’ll wipe anyone who disagrees with us off the map!” becomes a dystopian process. But “fixing” people so that they can be “perfect” is bound to irritate someone who believes there’s nothing wrong with their gentetics (*raises hand*). That causes civil war. And being told that you’ll need to sacrifice one to two children per year as a reminder–to you–of–your own–statist government simply can’t be taken with a grain of salt. That causes civil war.
So, maybe the messages are the same. Maybe perfect life can’t be achieved.
But let’s be honest. Katniss and Tris are so utterly different, one huge similarity is essentially drowned by differences big and small. In the end, it comes down to what each of them is willing to sacrifice. And I haven’t even started on that yet…
Tris is an Original
I have never read a character so unique and not for reasons you might think. In her society, Tris is normal. She has her own irritations, but that first chapter doesn’t scream, “Hey! HEY! I’m totally against my perfect society! I’m going against the grain! I want to be different!” Actually, like any 16-year-old, Tris just wants to fit in with anyone who seems to have their life figured out better than she does her own. And that’s what made her special from the first page.
In today’s world, everybody wants this “perfectly flawed” protagonist. I’ve heard Tris win the title many times, and, unlike with Katniss, I can see it. Tris is a mess. She wants to be selfless, and brave, and smart, and kind AND honest, and she’s not allowed. She wants to fit in with everyone, but she can’t. She wants to love people and trust people, but she can’t.
And–let’s be real–Tris is smarter at the end of Allegiant than Katniss was on page one of The Hunger Games. And we all know what happened to Katniss after page one.
Everybody Hates Allegiant… Almost
Are you screaming at me yet?
I did not hate Allegiant!
I did not like it either.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with a more depressing ending note or a cliffhanger that I wanted resolved more. Also, though I eventually understood the necessity, I didn’t need to get all up inside Four’s head. I never expected him to be so whiny, I guess.
But there were good parts. Hopefully, by now, you want to know what they are. If not, convince them or confuse them, right?
I may be opinionated, but I enjoy listening to other people’s opinions! If you have one to share, I’d love to hear it through the comments [below] or the contact form [above].
Aquinnah
Photo Credit: Fear doesn’t shut you down. Emilie. 2015. We Heart It. Web. 29 September 2015. View photo.
