I SHIFT MY hand back, centimeter by centimeter, so the soldier pointing a gun at me doesn’t notice.

So in the last chapter Tris was so dangerous that you had to have a gun literally jammed into her neck at all times, but in this one, eh, no one’s really looking all that closely and she can reach for the knife in her pocket?

If someone was standing close enough for neck jabbing, wouldn’t they feel her moving, too?

A Candor boy who can’t be older than eleven sits to my left. He’s braver than the woman to my right—he stares at the Dauntless soldier in front of him, unflinching.

The woman in question has done nothing but whimper so far.

Tris does not consider the option that the boy might just be in shock, and that when push comes to shove the whimpering woman is still fully capable of reacting because fuck you “stoic” =/= “brave.” They are literally two separate things, and I’ll thank you and all books everywhere to stop pretending like “stoic” is literally anything except for “stoic.”

Also could we stop demonizing stereotypically “feminine” traits like whimpering (or crying, or really any signs of distress)? Not only are they genderless reactions and yet I rarely see anyone but women doing them in fiction, but they’re just like stoic, they don’t have an impact on anything except how you express emotions. If I squeak when I’m scared of something (because I do) but then also lash out and try to hit it (because I do), then you still gonna get a broken nose for your ill-conceived prank, and my outward expression doesn’t change that fact. I can whimper and look for an escape route. I can cower and then take advantage of an opening. I can sit there silently and be scared shitless.

Outward expression =/= ability.

Tris tries to stay calm while waiting for a chance to stab Eric, because she figures she can only do one thing here and she wants to do the most damage by hitting a leader. (Do we even know how much relevance Eric has to the Erudites? I’m still struggling to think of anything real he does besides just exist and say smarmy stuff. Is he making decisions? He can’t be; he was away from his faction while in Dauntless and they were planning shit without him.)

Eric says they only need two people to experiment on and they’re supposed to kill all the rest of the Dauntless. Then he starts taunting Tris in front of all these people because…reasons?

“Most of the Divergent get two results in the aptitude test. Some only get one. No one has ever gotten three, not because of aptitude, but simply because in order to get that result, you have to refuse to choose something,” he says, moving closer still.

So…basically you’re admitting that your test is broken and full of bullshit?

She stabs Eric, and that makes all the Dauntless go “oh shit” as they try to swap out their dart-shooting guns for actual lethal guns.

Sigh. So these people were guarding a crowd of Divergents while holding guns that said Divergents were immune to? Even though they had regular guns on hand? And they just…didn’t switch out yet for some reason?

And none of them were standing close enough to ‘so dangerous’ Tris to just fucking grab her? Hell, what happened to ‘jab a gun in her neck’ guy? Where did he go? Was he holding a dart gun to her neck?

Some of the Divergents pop up to fight back, and then Tobias shows up with a bunch of awake Dauntless to join the fray. After all the traitors are scared away, Tobias fills her in on what went down from his end. Turns out one of the traitors was a double traitor and ran off to warn a group of Dauntless about the attack so they could counter-attack.

Wait, no, the traitor was an Erudite person, except I went back to check and this is the first mention of anyone except Dauntless-traitor-Erudites even being there? Eh, at this point a lack of plot holes would be the surprising part. Anyway, her name is Cara.

Tris finally has a moment to look at what she was shot with, and it turns out to be a small flat disk with a very long needle on the end. Zero word on how “flat disk” got through her clothing to rest right next to her skin. Also, it’s apparently very difficult to pry off and very painful, despite the fact that literally the only thing on the underside is one needle. Just…regular hypodermic needle. Not even like a fishhook with barbed end. Just a needle. Damnit, book, those things practically want to come out of you, they don’t hold on without being designed to do that.

Uriah comes by to report that Eric isn’t dead, is being interrogated, and everyone’s waking up and very confused by what just happened. (Were there no other captured Dauntless-traitors? Every one of them was 100% either dead or able to run off? No injured?)

“No idea,” I say. “The only use I see for [the weird needles + knockout gas] is that it helped them figure out who’s Divergent and who’s not. But that can’t be the only reason they did it.”

…why not?

I mean, you could say you don’t see why they needed to shoot everyone in order to have knockout gas, but you also called the stuff a ‘serum’ instead of just knockout gas, and you know serums have to be injected. (Unless they don’t, but that would be nice to know, since we have so few rules for this major concept and it’s hard to keep track of anything about it.) And if that’s the case, then figuring out who is Divergent or not when they’re particularly concerned about Divergent people seems like it should be enough of a reason for that little escapade.

Bigger question on your plate should be: “Why do they want to find all the Divergents? Does that mean they’re going to do more mind-control?”

“I don’t get why they have it out for us. I mean, when they were trying to mind control themselves an army, sure, but now? Seems useless.”

…omg you are stupid beyond my ability to comprehend it.

“But the simulation only lasts for a certain period of time,” he says. “It’s not useful unless you’re trying to accomplish something specific.”

“Right.” I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t get it.”

First: what? Time limit? Since when?

Second: OMG so the only reason to mind control someone is for a specific purpose, but you have no idea why should want to mind control someone? I mean, it can’t be because she’s got some specific task in mind, no, that’s just unpossible!

Yet again we have a book that forgets what things are supposed to look like from the character’s POV, not from the writer’s. The writer needs to inject some confusion in here so that we realize we’re supposed to be curious about these shooty needle things, that way we can have the big reveal about what they do. They need to be oblivious so that the plot can work. Therefore they can’t make any wrong guesses, even when all the evidence points to some very logical assumptions in the wrong direction.

Except, oh wait, of course they can guess wrong and still have the plot make sense. “OMG Jeanine must be gearing up for another mass mind control to do X, we have to figure out what X is” doesn’t really stop whatever her real plot is, and you can still reveal the truth. Otherwise, you need to actually set up the situation properly, which means that the rules of how things work have to be consistent so that going outside them actually does look odd. As is, with the rules as loose as they are, I can see half a dozen options in here that our ‘smart’ character should at least be considering.

I am awake all night removing needles from people’s arms. After a few hours I stop trying to be gentle. I just pull as hard as I can.

…because only Tris has the magical ability to yank straight needles out of people’s arms?

I still don’t understand why they’re stuck in the first place. Are they, like, imbedded in the bone, maybe? Would that do it?

Caleb finds her the next morning, and reports that Marcus is here, too. And Peter also survived the great ‘run away from Amity’ thing from so long ago I kind of forgot about it, but he went back to Erudite.

“Erudite,” I say. I shake my head. “What a—”

I can’t even think of a word strong enough to describe him.

What a…normal person? Wasn’t he in cahoots with the Erudite? Why would he not go back to the people he’s on the same side with?

Tobias shows up, and a bunch of Dauntless start openly mocking him because his dad is there and they ask if he’s going to run and hide from the man. Which…seems really forced. All Tobias did was change factions, and people do that all the time in this society. Sure, I can see some people harping on this, but to shout it across a crowded cafeteria just because you saw the guy? Kind of heavy-handed.

Tobias and Tris leave to talk in private, and after some relationship bitterness they turn to talking about why Erudite attacked the Candor building.

It’s not like the Candor are battle ready or anything—”

No, but they were housing all of the rest of the Dauntless?

“Well, think about it,” he says. “Think it through, like the Erudite.”

I give him a look.

“What?” he says. “If you can’t, the rest of us have no hope.”

You’re all doomed, then.

They start talking about the mechanics of simulations.

“It has a few parts, right?”

“Two,” he says, nodding. “The transmitter and the liquid that induces the simulation. The transmitter communicates information to the brain from the computer, and vice versa, and the liquid alters the brain to put it in a simulation state.”

Then how can Amity put happy juice in their bread?

I nod. “And the transmitter only works for one simulation, right? What happens to it after that?”

“It dissolves,” he says. “As far as I know, the Erudite haven’t been able to develop a transmitter that lasts for more than one simulation, although the attack simulation lasted far longer than any simulation I’ve seen before.”

The only way this makes sense is if the transmitter is made out of some biological material, and even then it’s kind of iffy. Mostly because it wouldn’t dissolve, it would be eaten by your body’s immune system. Generally speaking, stuff doesn’t like dissolving, it likes to stay as stuff, especially the stuff that transmitters are made of. You have to specifically craft things to dissolve, not away from dissolving.

But, hey, let’s save me some sanity and figure these people don’t know what words mean, so they call a “device made from jellyfish cells, because this is fiction and it’s like transmitters as we know them even work like this” a transmitter and “eaten by the immune system” dissolving. It’s not like they’ve had a great grasp of definitions so far anyway.

The next few pages…I can’t even describe, because the only way their conversation makes sense is if they straight-up forget about things they have already figured out so that they can figure them out again. Was there no editor at all for this book?

But eventually they also figure out that the needles injected a long-term transmitter. And by “figure out” I mean “pulled that straight out of their asses,” because really the only thing prompting them to figure out anything at all is the idea that “find the Divergent” isn’t a good enough reason to knock everyone out. And they have consistently failed to explain why they think that. It makes as much sense as half the Dauntless joining up with the people who mind controlled them for no reason. Everyone just accepts it as true despite there being literally no reason at all. And the only reason they got on the “long term” tract is Tobias mentioning that one limitation is the transmitters dissolve and Tris remembering that Jenine has been trying to advance simulation tech most of her career. But unless that’s the only drawback of simulations, that’s pretty weak. I mean, the least you could do is mention Jenine specifically working on long-term transmitters, instead of saying that her research was just broadly “make them better.”

This is why worldbuilding is important; you can’t have scenes like this where the heroes figure stuff out if the rules of the world don’t hang together or just straight-up aren’t there.

After that bit of…that, they switch to talking about Tris and how she’s still not over shooting Will + all the rest. Tobias says she’s putting herself in dangerous situations unnecessarily, even suicidally. He thinks she should have stayed in Amity, and Tris counters that she felt she was losing it in Amity and only feels sane out here in all the fighting.

Once again, if you take this in a vacuum, it’s not a bad subplot. I didn’t mention it while summarizing, but they’ve had quite a bit of bitterness and tension this entire scene, and it’s good interpersonal tension.

But why, in a faction where people get into traumatic accidents all the time and die from literally everything, does no one know what PTSD is? Like, I get most people in our society not knowing how to recognize or handle it, I get most people in their society doing the same, but the Dauntless? It’s not even that they don’t call it PTSD or have a perfect grasp on it; they have literally no idea how to handle any expression of trauma or distress. Tobais has no context and social mores to bring up when trying to get her to deal with her dead parents or talk about her feelings, and no one else does either. There’s no established method of processing grief, whether it’s “just throw yourself into your work again” or “chill in private for a while.” It doesn’t have to be perfect or right or anything like that, but you’d think stuff like this would at least exist. It doesn’t. They’re trying to make a support system from scratch, in a society of people who need this sort of a support system pretty much daily and I just can’t.

Later Tris is hanging out with Caleb and some others in the cafeteria, and Cara walks in. Apparently there are already some Erudite defectors in the room, but they dress like the Candor. But kept their glasses. Because it’s unpossible that anyone in this world would legitimately need glasses.

Uriah drops his tray on the table, scowling. “I overheard someone talking about Eric’s interrogation in the lunch line. Apparently he knew almost nothing about Jeanine’s plan.”

“What?” Lynn slaps her fork on the table. “How is that even possible?

…what makes you think it’s not? Has he really done anything that points to him being anything other than a peon?

I really just don’t understand this book. Half of the things I have problems with are just “you forgot a few steps and now I’m so fucking lost, how did you even with that logic, that isn’t logic, that is big gaping absence of logic. That logic is so absent that I can see the hole where it should be. I can see your lack of sense making.”

They make more small talk and then that’s it.