Divergent Factions: All Five Explained

Abnegation is the faction built on selflessness, and it is where Tris grows up. Its members run the city's government, which gives the faction public power even though its way of life is meant to be modest.

That role matters in Divergent (2014). The Erudite leader, Jeanine Matthews, stirs up public distrust of Abnegation, and the faction later becomes the target of the film's central attack. Tris's mother and father are both killed in that assault, so the faction she chose to leave is the one that suffers most. Because Abnegation is the government, its fall is also the fall of the city's civic order, which explains why Insurgent opens under martial law.

Tris never feels she fits in Abnegation, and that unease is the reason she leaves it at the Choosing Ceremony.

Amity is the peaceful faction, and its main job in the films is to give the fugitives somewhere to hide. In Insurgent (2015), directed by Robert Schwentke, Tris, Four, her brother Caleb and Peter shelter with the Amity after the attack on Abnegation.

The refuge does not last. Dauntless soldiers arrive at the Amity compound, and the group has to run, boarding a train. In the same stretch of the film, Tris carries heavy guilt over the deaths she caused, so the calm of Amity is a pause rather than a cure.

Candor is the faction of absolute honesty, and in Insurgent (2015) it is the stop where Tris and Four face a trial under truth serum, which leaves no room for a lie. They arrive after the train ride from Amity, where the Factionless leader Evelyn had asked Four to help her raise an army against Erudite. He turned her down, and the fugitives carried on to Candor.

The serum draws out the one thing Tris had been avoiding: she killed Will, a friend of Christina. Hearing it said aloud strains her closest friendships. Candor offers no lasting safety either. Dauntless forces storm the faction, and Eric and Max seize Tris because her test results mark her as someone who can open the box Jeanine's allies are chasing. Four gets her out, and Eric dies during the escape.

So the faction serves the story twice, first as a place where a secret is dragged into the open and then as the place where the hunters finally close in.

Dauntless is the faction that prizes courage, and because Tris picks it at the Choosing Ceremony, it is the setting for most of Divergent (2014). Its initiation is a ranking contest in which the weakest trainees are cut and become Factionless.

The instructor known as Four drives the recruits hard, while a rival called Peter singles Tris out. She starts badly, then gains ground in fear simulations, where she often reasons her way out of the scenario. That habit marks her as Divergent. Four spots it, helps her conceal it and turns out to be Divergent himself.

The faction she joined is soon turned against its own people. Members receive a serum that lets Erudite control them remotely, and Jeanine aims them at Abnegation. Four, under that control, almost shoots Tris before she reaches him. By Insurgent the Dauntless leaders Max and Eric have thrown in with Jeanine and pursue the Divergent, so the brave faction's command ends up serving the hunters.

Erudite is the faction led by Jeanine Matthews, and it is the one that drives the plot of the first two films. Its headquarters is where Jeanine oversees the attack on Abnegation, and where Tris and Four go to stop it in Divergent (2014).

Jeanine does not lose power at the end of that film. In Insurgent (2015) she takes control of the city, declares martial law and brands the Divergent as enemies. Her allies find a box marked with the symbols of all five factions, and learn that only a Divergent of exceptional ability can open it. Caleb, Tris's brother, sides with Erudite during this part of the story.

Jeanine is arrested after the box is opened, and Evelyn later kills her in her cell. Her arc is traced in the profile of jeanine matthews, and Caleb's divided loyalty in the one for caleb prior divergent.

The Factionless are people who belong to none of the five factions, and the films show how a person ends up there. In Dauntless initiation, the lowest ranked trainees are cut and left Factionless, so the status works as a punishment for failing to fit.

In Insurgent (2015), the Factionless are led by Evelyn, Four's mother, who wants Four to help her form an army against Erudite. Four refuses her plan. They later free Tris and Four, and once Jeanine is taken down and the faction system breaks, the Factionless gain power under Evelyn. Evelyn then kills Jeanine in custody, which marks her as a new danger.

In Allegiant (2016), Evelyn closes Chicago's wall and puts Jeanine's supporters on trial, and Johanna's followers rebel against her. The Factionless therefore go from the bottom of the system to its new rulers, and the story treats that change with suspicion. For Evelyn's own arc, see evelyn johnson eaton divergent.

Divergent describes a person who does not fit a single faction, and Tris is the film's main example. The aptitude test finds that she matches several factions, which is why Tori alters the record and tells her to hide it. So, is Tris all five factions? The test shows a match with several, not a confirmed five, and she then chooses Dauntless.

As for why Tobias is not Divergent: in the films he is. In Divergent (2014), Tris learns that Four is also Divergent. His name is Tobias Eaton, and Four is the nickname he uses as her instructor. Tris is short for Beatrice, the name she takes when she begins Dauntless initiation. The number nickname belongs to him, not to her.

The series has five factions, not four, and the Factionless live outside the system rather than counting as a sixth. Being Divergent shows up in the fear simulations, where Tris can often think her way out. The actors who play these characters are listed under divergent cast.

In my opinion, the faction system fails because it asks people to be one thing, and the story keeps proving that people are not. Perhaps the clearest sign is how often the plot is moved by a faction acting against its own virtue: Dauntless soldiers are made to attack Abnegation, and the Dauntless leaders Max and Eric hunt the Divergent alongside Jeanine.

The reveal in Insurgent (2015) gives the system its official explanation. Tris opens the box and sees a recorded message showing that the city was built as a controlled experiment, with the Divergent as its goal. That being said, Allegiant (2016) goes further. David, the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, says earlier genetic tampering led to the Purity Wars, and that the Bureau has since run experiments in isolated cities. Tris is the first to show the result it wanted. Her broadcast then tells Chicago and the wider world that their city was a genetic purity experiment.

The faction labels were therefore a tool, not a natural order. It could be argued that this is the weakest part of the trilogy, since Allegiant moves attention away from the factions just as they start to feel real. I find the faction material in Divergent (2014) the most convincing, because it stays close to one character's choice.

As for what comes next, no new Divergent film has been announced, and the fourth film, Ascendant, was never made (the latest on any revival sits under divergent ascendant). The books handle the factions differently, as divergent books vs movies explains. A first time viewer should begin with divergent 2014, then watch insurgent movie and allegiant movie.