Also the way Erudite is handled is really weird to me, but I can't quite put my finger on why
Because everything about them is way more unrealistic than everything else and by no means should there have not been a single person in erudite that didn't figure out what Janine or whoever was doing and have enough of a moral problem with it to interfere at all? That they were seemingly no divergents who picked Erudite and were like holy shit the things you're doing are not okay? That by all accounts, everyone should have sided with Erudite over Abnegation when they said they should be in charge because they had an argument and things to offer that weren't "we're nice to the homeless uwu" and only lost because of plot convenience? Or one of the fifty other reasons? Or am I just not getting what you mean?
Hate to interrupt, but wow, i sure do love my family (: (that's sarcastic, by the way). I just love how as soon as the shouting starts my hands start shaking and I get scared that someone is going to shout at me or throw something at me again. Sure do love it, it's my favorite thing ever
that's the worst feeling, i'm sorry. it absolutely sucks when the people who are meant to be your safe haven make you feel completely unsafe. shouting is such a massive trigger for me and it's awful
Can completely relate, whenever someone yells or shouts at me, I completely shut down and start crying, its terrible.
Especially when your parents like refuse to listen to your POV at all and just keep talking over you as you try to defend yourself.
I was gonna respond last night but went to bed, woops. But yeah. The thing is, they weren't even shouting at me this time, they were shouting at my brothers bc they (the brothers) were fighting again
Hate to interrupt, but wow, i sure do love my family (: (that's sarcastic, by the way). I just love how as soon as the shouting starts my hands start shaking and I get scared that someone is going to shout at me or throw something at me again. Sure do love it, it's my favorite thing ever
that's the worst feeling, i'm sorry. it absolutely sucks when the people who are meant to be your safe haven make you feel completely unsafe. shouting is such a massive trigger for me and it's awful
Can completely relate, whenever someone yells or shouts at me, I completely shut down and start crying, its terrible.
Especially when your parents like refuse to listen to your POV at all and just keep talking over you as you try to defend yourself.
I was gonna respond last night but went to bed, woops. But yeah. The thing is, they weren't even shouting at me this time, they were shouting at my brothers bc they (the brothers) were fighting again
Also the way Erudite is handled is really weird to me, but I can't quite put my finger on why
Because everything about them is way more unrealistic than everything else and by no means should there have not been a single person in erudite that didn't figure out what Janine or whoever was doing and have enough of a moral problem with it to interfere at all? That they were seemingly no divergents who picked Erudite and were like holy shit the things you're doing are not okay? That by all accounts, everyone should have sided with Erudite over Abnegation when they said they should be in charge because they had an argument and things to offer that weren't "we're nice to the homeless uwu" and only lost because of plot convenience? Or one of the fifty other reasons? Or am I just not getting what you mean?
YES THIS
Also it just felt like it had a weird anti-intellectualism vibe and Abnegation should never have even been a candidate to be in charge.
Yeah, they're Smart and do Research
I mean I guess on some higher level it's about valuing self-education and the pursuit of knowledge (which makes the demonization even weirder) but it's not really ever presented like that.
Contrast to Ravenclaw, which has intellectualism, creativity, and wit as opposed to just book smarts
you heard it here folks veronica roth supported the brainwashing of kids into believing that learning was bad unless it was done in a rigid controlled format
i'm like convinced it was just a random addition last minute for plot twist purposes. didn't her brother end up going there? roth was writing her first draft and was just like 'wait…what if he…ditched his family to go work for smart people who are inherently evil?'
The book: learning for fun is bad
The target demographic:
Like. By villainizing an entire group of people who love learning in your book, you're villainizing the majority of your fanbase, which is primarily 5th grade to 8th or 9th grade kids who love reading and learning. Why would you do that???
STOP MAKING IT SEEM LIKE YOU THINK YOUR YOUNG, IMPRESSIONABLE READERS ARE BAD PEOPLE, HOLY SHIT
what if….i want to be evil….misunderstood anti hero vibes babey
I haven't read Divergent, and this conversation isn't convincing me to, but I have read another series that Roth wrote. Carve the Mark?
what if….i want to be evil….misunderstood anti hero vibes babey
Alright Victor Vale, let's take it down a few notches-
Please read Vicious it slaps so hard and it's got an ace lead!! although that's not confirmed til the sequel
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc she framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yeah, they're Smart and do Research
I mean I guess on some higher level it's about valuing self-education and the pursuit of knowledge (which makes the demonization even weirder) but it's not really ever presented like that.
Contrast to Ravenclaw, which has intellectualism, creativity, and wit as opposed to just book smarts
you heard it here folks veronica roth supported the brainwashing of kids into believing that learning was bad unless it was done in a rigid controlled format
i'm like convinced it was just a random addition last minute for plot twist purposes. didn't her brother end up going there? roth was writing her first draft and was just like 'wait…what if he…ditched his family to go work for smart people who are inherently evil?'
The book: learning for fun is bad
The target demographic:
Like. By villainizing an entire group of people who love learning in your book, you're villainizing the majority of your fanbase, which is primarily 5th grade to 8th or 9th grade kids who love reading and learning. Why would you do that???
this is so true!!! i read it when i was 11 and that just made me feel…. Bad
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
Yeah, same. JKR sucks but the Hogwarts houses were more than just "what choice do you make in this VR thing?"
I've never really seen anyone be like "yeah, I'm Amity! Haha Amity squad!!" the way they do with Hogwarts houses or PJO cabins. Mainly because houses centered on your values rather than your reactions, especially your reactions under intense pressure.
I haven't read Divergent, and this conversation isn't convincing me to, but I have read another series that Roth wrote. Carve the Mark?
Ooh I read the first book of that one and enjoyed it, but that was over a year ago and I never picked up the second, so uh
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
Yeah, same. JKR sucks but the Hogwarts houses were more than just "what choice do you make in this VR thing?"
I've never really seen anyone be like "yeah, I'm Amity! Haha Amity squad!!" the way they do with Hogwarts houses or PJO cabins. Mainly because houses centered on your values rather than your reactions, especially your reactions under intense pressure.
I like Divergent. It's still about values, because your reactions under intense pressure SHOW your values.
I dunno about you, but when I'm under any pressure my personality changes
Plus I have zero values to begin with
Divergent is a fun enough popcorn read if you don't look too much into it, but it'll never be on the level of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or The Hunger Games :/
i will say though, jkr wasn't too much better about the way she treated her houses. she had obvious favorites and the slytherins were demonized, which is one of the funniest thing because how do you look at an eleven year old and say 'this one's to the bad house' like oh my god????
i saw something forever ago saying the reason so many people in slytherin graduated and went on to do evil things was because they were made to and honestly yeah that fits. if you tell a child repeatedly for seven fucking years of their life that they are nothing but evil, that they can never be good or the hero or anything other than scummy and a villain, they're going to act the part because at least then they fit somewhere. at least then they aren't pushing against society and so much.
it's also part of the reason that even if i could fit hufflepuff, because i share so many traits of the other houses(i am very far from hardworking though) i will never abandon that house. it's fictional, yes, but it's still important. imagine convincing a generation of kids that being quick witted, cunning, and ambitious is bad lmao
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
Yeah, same. JKR sucks but the Hogwarts houses were more than just "what choice do you make in this VR thing?"
I've never really seen anyone be like "yeah, I'm Amity! Haha Amity squad!!" the way they do with Hogwarts houses or PJO cabins. Mainly because houses centered on your values rather than your reactions, especially your reactions under intense pressure.
I like Divergent. It's still about values, because your reactions under intense pressure SHOW your values.
i mean, i feel like the way the factions work, they remove this element of self-determination that's present in other sort-us-into-categories type ya series. if you freeze up in one moment, will you always freeze up after that? and divergent can't ask that question, because anyone who freezes up in the moment is denied character development as the series progresses. i mean i see the appeal, and i understand how divergent just being a dystopian series lends itself to a sort of stricter classification system, but it's not my thing (or at least it wasn't when i was 11/12, because again, it's been a while)
I dunno about you, but when I'm under any pressure my personality changes
Plus I have zero values to begin with
^^^^^
You can theorize all you want about how you'd react in a situation, but when it comes to something like the whatever it's called, you don't have time to stop and think about what you think is the right answer. You just react. How you react to a split second situation doesn't dictate your moral code
I dunno about you, but when I'm under any pressure my personality changes
Plus I have zero values to begin with
^^^^^
You can theorize all you want about how you'd react in a situation, but when it comes to something like the whatever it's called, you don't have time to stop and think about what you think is the right answer. You react. How you react to a split second situation doesn't dictate your moral code
My immediate reaction to something jumping out at me is to punch it in the face but I'm certainly not a Dauntless
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
Yeah, same. JKR sucks but the Hogwarts houses were more than just "what choice do you make in this VR thing?"
I've never really seen anyone be like "yeah, I'm Amity! Haha Amity squad!!" the way they do with Hogwarts houses or PJO cabins. Mainly because houses centered on your values rather than your reactions, especially your reactions under intense pressure.
I like Divergent. It's still about values, because your reactions under intense pressure SHOW your values.
i mean, i feel like the way the factions work, they remove this element of self-determination that's present in other sort-us-into-categories type ya series. if you freeze up in one moment, will you always freeze up after that? and divergent can't ask that question, because anyone who freezes up in the moment is denied character development as the series progresses. i mean i see the appeal, and i understand how divergent just being a dystopian series lends itself to a sort of stricter classification system, but it's not my thing (or at least it wasn't when i was 11/12, because again, it's been a while)
Also if you get judged as not brave/selfless/smart/nice/honest enough, you're cast out and left on your own
Which is kiiiind of a bad message to send about people who, for whatever reason, are on their own, homeless, etc.
i will say though, jkr wasn't too much better about the way she treated her houses. she had obvious favorites and the slytherins were demonized, which is one of the funniest thing because how do you look at an eleven year old and say 'this one's to the bad house' like oh my god????
i saw something forever ago saying the reason so many people in slytherin graduated and went on to do evil things was because they were made to and honestly yeah that fits. if you tell a child repeatedly for seven fucking years of their life that they are nothing but evil, that they can never be good or the hero or anything other than scummy and a villain, they're going to act the part because at least then they fit somewhere. at least then they aren't pushing against society and so much.
it's also part of the reason that even if i could fit hufflepuff, because i share so many traits of the other houses(i am very far from hardworking though) i will never abandon that house. it's fictional, yes, but it's still important. imagine convincing a generation of kids that being quick witted, cunning, and ambitious is bad lmao
that's a really good point, i think the harry potter fandom was enough of a massive cultural phenomenon that the "taboo" of being a slytherin was sort of removed in fanon, but jkr definitely had her biases (and then tried to pretend she didn't after the series was over iirc, but she said a lot of shit after the series was over so who can keep track lmao)
i'm late to the party and i read divergent like 9 years ago, but i think erudite was weird to me because iirc they framed it like "each faction thinks [insert one thing here] is the root of all evil in society," which is an inherently flawed concept to me first of all, but she made erudite "the root of all evil is stupidity" whereas imo it would have made may more sense for them to say like "oh the root of all evil is a lack of education/access to education" or "the root of all evil is willful ignorance" but she made it so that erudite is just super elitist and one-dimensional, and yeah it does read as really anti-intellectual
Yes, this! All of the other ones have things like "the root of evil is dishonesty/selfishness/cowardice/cruelty" and then Erudite's like "lol dumb people bad"
Also the setup for Dauntless kinda bothers me too because it puts so much emphasis on on physicality and being able to fight being signs of bravery, and you can be brave without being physically strong (or, y'know, being physically abled at all)
Idk it bothers me that there's really no way to be disabled and still be considered Dauntless due to how fighting is literally the entire first part.
yeah i think there's a lot of blindspots in the worldbuilding of the divergent series that i don't see in other popular ya series, it's very simplistic. part of the reason i never got into it was honestly because it just wasn't fun to sort yourself into factions like it was with hogwarts houses or godly parents (which i think is part of why hp and pjato have so much staying power, regardless of my personal feelings about jkr at the moment lmao. there's so much less consideration for the audience in the divergent series, and so much less opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the story world)
Yeah, same. JKR sucks but the Hogwarts houses were more than just "what choice do you make in this VR thing?"
I've never really seen anyone be like "yeah, I'm Amity! Haha Amity squad!!" the way they do with Hogwarts houses or PJO cabins. Mainly because houses centered on your values rather than your reactions, especially your reactions under intense pressure.
I like Divergent. It's still about values, because your reactions under intense pressure SHOW your values.
i mean, i feel like the way the factions work, they remove this element of self-determination that's present in other sort-us-into-categories type ya series. if you freeze up in one moment, will you always freeze up after that? and divergent can't ask that question, because anyone who freezes up in the moment is denied character development as the series progresses. i mean i see the appeal, and i understand how divergent just being a dystopian series lends itself to a sort of stricter classification system, but it's not my thing (or at least it wasn't when i was 11/12, because again, it's been a while)
Also if you get judged as not brave/selfless/smart/nice/honest enough, you're cast out and left on your own
Which is kiiiind of a bad message to send about people who, for whatever reason, are on their own, homeless, etc.
yikes i didn't even remember that part!!
