Choose One Thing

Last night, at the insistent urging of my sister, I went to the movie theater and bought a ticket for Divergent. I have not read the book and knew next to nothing about the story and characters. Which, if you know me at all, it kind of a good thing because then I don't have any expectations. When you have no expectations, then you're very rarely disappointed.

Anyway, the story takes place sometime in the future in a rundown Chicago. Everyone is separated out into one of five factions. When you are 16 (or so, as the main character and her brother do this at the same time and it's not mentioned that they're twins; maybe the book explains this) you take a test that tells you what faction you belong in, however you don't have to pick that one. But once you choose, you have chosen for life. Many end up in the faction they grew up with, but some don't. Our main character, Beatrice (later known as just Tris), was raised as Abnegation (selflessness), her test shows she's Divergent (meaning she excels at three of the factions) and ends up choosing to join Dauntless (bravery) because she feels like that is the right choice for her. She leaves her family and will never see them again.

(Side note here: Remember how everyone and their grandma was reading into Frozen and it's deeper meanings? Do you want me to do it too, but with Divergent? I could say that the movie is just one long advertisement for going against your parents and hanging out with the "cool" kids because they're more fun. They get to jump out of trains and wear black and get tattoos and police the city and be all around reckless and fun-loving, while the other faction lives in box-like homes and have to wear brown frocks and not look in the mirror and have to help people. Man, how boring is that?! Of course this is a little bit ridiculous. We can get messages out of any movie if we try hard enough, and it's usually personal to just us.)

At the Choosing Ceremony everyone recites the mantra "Faction over blood." This just seemed really sad to me. The whole concept of having to choose one way of life to be stuck with forever, and not get to be with your actual family, was really depressing. What I love about my life is the opportunity to be eclectic and like lots of things and do lots of things. I can help people, or I can be smart and go to school, I can showcase bravery or honesty whenever. I like knowing that I can love transit and bikes and watching sports and eating ice cream and traveling and reading and going to church and not having to fit into one description until I die.

In the movie, the faction system supposedly makes things easier to run because people know their roles and don't stray. But if we don't interact with other people with different views and ways of thinking then we'll never have new ideas. It would be a very sad to world live in.

And now I've read too much into the movie. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it enough.