The next day, Maxon comes to her room acting all nervous and saying he wants to explain before she gets the wrong idea from someone else.  He then proceeds to absolutely fail to explain and instead rambles on confusing everyone.  I hate, hate, HATE this trope in fiction, as it’s often just used as a cheap bid for extra drama, but I guess enough people do it in real life to grudgingly give it a pass.

He gives her a matching set of earrings and bracelet and says it’s tradition for him to give jewels to everyone to wear during “the Convicting.”

Ah, here we go.  After several pages of dithering, Maxon finally explains that her gift cost significantly less than what he spent on the other girls, but only because her tastes are so much simpler and therefore to get her something she would actually like necessitated that.  Why does he explain that but not what the hell “the Convicting” is?

And then we have more angsting about how they haven’t said “I love you” yet.  …really?  This is going to be our drama for the book?  It made sense before, as did putting it off since they were in rather charged situations and declarations of love are always kind of iffy in that case.  But they’ve both made it clear that the only thing keeping them from saying it is forgetfulness and circumstances.  Yet now, America is all “oh no, I can’t be the first one to say it” like it’s some great risk to do so.

I mean, good fucking god, the start of this book was literally them planning to get married, I don’t think it’s much of a risk.

I couldn’t believe that something this beautiful was mine to keep, forever. I vowed to myself that, even if I went home and all the money ran out and my family was absolutely destitute, I would never sell these or give them away, or the bracelet he’d gotten me in New Asia. I would hold on to them no matter what.

Well, we have always known that you prioritize stuff over family, so I guess that’s nothing new.

Later, we finally find out what ‘the Convicting’ is.  Each girl has to ceremonially send a criminal to jail, but America doesn’t want to do it, because only poor people go to jail.  (Apparently rich people buy their way out of punishment.)  America apparently fails to realize that she’s not actually responsible here, she’s just saying words in a ceremony, and if she doesn’t do it her guy is going to go to jail either way.

She remembers the time Aspen’s little brother got whipped for theft.

While I hated that, it was better than locking him away. The Legers needed him to work, young as he was

Okay, but, you do realize that people can DIE from being whipped, right?  And that the kid in question was like nine at the time, therefore upping his chances of serious and lasting harm?  And that recovering from being whipped isn’t exactly a small matter?  If these people can’t even get a proper amount of food, I doubt there’s socialized medical care in the country, so you’ve also got to worry about the very real risk of infection or other complications.  I’m not sure how much work is family is going to get out of him if he’s delirious with fever or DEAD.

America goes up to the queen after they all practice their ceremony and says she can’t do it.  And her reason?

Because she wasn’t personally hurt by the crime.

No, really.

She says she’d have no problem saying the words to someone who has personally offended her, but apparently if it doesn’t happen to America, then it’s not a real crime?

I’m sorry, I just can’t get over how stupid this is.  This is not showing America in a good light at all, because all she’s showing off is her complete misunderstanding of absolutely everything ever.  She doesn’t understand that criminals are sent to jail to uphold the law, not for petty revenge, and she doesn’t understand that this is all ceremony and she has no actual power here, and she doesn’t understand that you need to actually get in power to change things and pitching a fit right now isn’t going to help anyone.

The queen finally convinces her to do it, not by using any of the above reasons, but by saying that it’s the only way to stay with Maxon.  Because, as ever, all of America’s priorities begin and end with a boy.

When the Convicting finally comes, Aspen arrives at her room to escort her to the ceremony, and he berates her about how this is all so terrible. 

Really, it’s the hypocrisy of it all that gets to me.  No one seems to be especially concerned with people going to jail until they have to personally be involved in it.  The injustice doesn’t affect them, until it directly affects them.  Overall, it seems more like they’re concerned with personally getting their hands dirty than with any sense of justice.

America, rightly, points out that as a guard he’s delivered messages from the king that ended with people put in jail, then points out that if the king is willing to punish people for petty crimes he’ll do far worse to her.

But apparently Aspen got to her anyway with all his failure to understand what’s actually going on, and when she arrives America tries to convince the other girls not to go through with it.  They think she’s trying to trick them.

They go through the ceremony, and the criminals come in already knowing how long their sentence is going to be, making it even more obvious that the real judging has already happened and this is all a powerless show.  To be fair, it’s also obvious that these people are not just simple thieves, as their sentences are far too long and the king looks far too pleased.  They’re people who have directly opposed him in some way. 

Which just seems odd, because if you’re going to give someone 12 years for petty theft (+ other reasons) wouldn’t you do that on the sly, lest everyone watching this production start saying “fuck the what?”

Naturally, when it gets to America’s turn, she doesn’t do it right.  She asks her criminal about his theft and then she takes off all her jewelry and gives it to the man.  The ceremonial words she’s supposed to say are “Go, faithful subject, and pay your debt to the king.”  In this case, she says them like “go and give him earrings like they’re payment for a fine.”  So he does, and apparently this all works, because no one involved here knows how laws work.  It’s possible to substitute one punishment for another, but that doesn’t mean you can just do it willy-nilly!  And, also, this is all a ceremony.  Nothing is actually being decided here, it’s just bullshit and cameras.

Look, I understand that their country is shitty and people go to jail for terrible reasons and it’s all unfair and such.  But this whole scene hasn’t been about justice.  This has been about America not wanting to personally be involved in something distasteful.  She’s not changing any larger things by granting an out to one man, and she’s killing any chance she has of doing real good later on down the line.  She’s sacrificing the opportunity for real power in favor of keeping her hands clean, because her personal conscience is more important to her than actually fixing the problem.

I see this a lot in fiction, as well, and it never fails to piss me off.  You want to show me strength of character?  You want to show me someone committed to doing good?  Then show me someone who cares about that shit more than they care about themselves.  Show me someone who is willing to sacrifice their own feelings and their own comfort.  Show me someone who is willing to be hated, not someone who is so concerned with public opinion that all they care about is what’s going on right at this moment.  Because this shit right here?  This is narcissism masquerading as generosity, and worst of all, it doesn’t even get the job done.