Divergent Discussion 2: Which Faction would you choose? #INSURGENTUK #CANDORUK

This post is part of the Team #CANDORUK campaign for #INSURGENTUK. Click on the picture above for more information.

As part of the Insurgent release week madness I thought it would be fun to have some discussion posts about Divergent. I got the ideas for these topics from the HarperCollins Divergent Discussion Guide that can be found online here. These posts will contain spoilers for Divergent but I'd like to keep them spoiler free for Insurgent so please keep that in mind when you're commenting. I'll be welcoming members of Team #CANDORUK here every day to answer a different question so please give them all a warm welcome!

Taking part in today's discussion we have:

Carly - Writing from the Tub

Keren - Gothic Angel

Jo - Once Upon A Bookcase

M & Little M - We Sat Down

Caroline - Big Book Little Book

Today's topic:

Yesterday we talked about the values that the five different factions stand for (Abnegation = selflessness, Amity = kindness, Candor = honesty, Dauntless = bravery and Erudite = knowledge) and which ones we feel are most important. Today I’d like to ask you about which faction you think you think your family would be in. Which faction fits best with your family values? Is it the same faction that you would pick at your choosing ceremony? Do you think 16 is the right age to be making such important decisions that will effect your entire future?

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My Thoughts:

To be honest I don't think my family would fit 100% into any of the factions, but probably Amity or Erudite would be the best fit. I'm definitely close with my family and we all look out for each other. I'd say we're all reasonably intelligent and like to discover new things about the world. I know I wouldn't last 5 minutes without my books lol.

I like to think I'd be a good Dauntless candidate but I know for sure I'd fail the initiation test! I've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie - I love roller coasters, I did a bungee jump on my 21st birthday and I love tattoos and piercings so you'd think Dauntless would be a logical choice. My problem is that I don't think I'm brave enough, I'm pretty sure I could face some of my fears but I doubt I'd make it through my fear landscape in one piece. I'm also not ruthless enough for the earlier tests.

In reality I'd probably be Divergent but if I had to pick one faction then I'd probably be happiest in Amity. If I'd been forced to choose factions at 16 I have no doubt I'd have picked Dauntless though and ultimately ended up factionless after failing initiation. I think that's the problem with having to make such a massive decision at such a young age - I was a very different person then to the one I am now. In fact I think my answer to this question would have been different at 16 to at 20, and then different again at 25 or 30 - I'd probably have chosen several different factions over the years depending on when you asked me the question!

I'm not sure that there is a good age for people to make a decision like this. Some people would be able to make a choice at 16 and be happy with the faction they chose forever but I'd imagine many more would regret their decision at some point in the future. I think you'd have the same problem if the age was 18 or even 21 though and I don't know how you can get around that.

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Carly's Thoughts:

Amity, I think. My family very, very rarely argue and never publicly. I've never been in that situation at a family reunion where some part of the family can't be invited because of an old grudge. When I get married I would have to think twice about the seating plan for my family, in case somebody is sat with somebody they don't like. We all get on and that's something I love. Of course, I do argue with my mum from time to time - with is very un-Amity like! What can I say? We're too similar. Generally, though, we are a peaceful family so I definitely think Amity would be our faction.

In terms of what I'd choose? I wouldn't pick Amity, I don't think. I'm not the most peaceful person in the world, although I have concealed things about myself to keep the peace, especially when I was younger. Of course I'm not hungover, don't be so silly! No, no, he's just a friend, he totally just slept on the floor! Etc etc. You get the picture. Sex and alcohol, folks, sex and alcohol.

But I digress.

Amity has been ruled out, I definitely couldn't be Candor - I tell farrr too many little lies, as you can see from the paragraphs above. I think anybody who's spent more than five minutes talking to me would laugh if I suggested I might be a good fit for Abnegation - selfless I am not! So that leaves Dauntless and Erudite. I think I could fit into either faction. I am brave and I value bravery. I might not be physically kick ass but I feel like it's something I would embrace. I do take risks. But... I can't help thinking of those times I've used little white lies to get myself out of trouble rather than owning up to something. I'm not talking big ass lies here, I'm talking pretending I got confused about my timetable if I skipped a class at uni because I was hungover (only when I was a fresher, of course!).

So that leaves me with Erudite. I love to learn. I always have. I've been out of education for three years now and it drives me crazy. I try to teach myself something new every day and if I don’t know how to do something, I figure it out. I don’t ever buy anything I can make myself and I can’t imagine a time when I’m not teaching myself some sort of new skill. So, yes, I think I would choose Erudite.

However, looking at the last question for today I’m not sure that Erudite is the choice I would have made at sixteen. At sixteen I was much more into being tough and bad ass, I’ve just come out of my goth phase and was at that awkward phase between childhood and adulthood where I wanted to prove I could manage on my own because I was sooo mature. At sixteen I think I would have picked Dauntless, if I’d had the choice.

I think at sixteen a lot of us would make more reckless choices than we would later on in life. This could be a bad thing; it’s easy to make impulsive decisions that you regret at a later date. But then again, I’m much more cautious as an adult and much more aware of what others think of me, much more aware of what the ‘right’ decision is. Maybe the passion of being younger can help. I’m not sure. It’s a tricky one!

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Keren's Thoughts:

In all honesty, I think my family is probably a mixture of them all. I don't think any of us would be happy being limited to only one of these values. I think if anything, I personally would rather be Divergent. As for the age thing, I honestly think that maybe 18 would've been a better age. At 16, I could never have made the kind of life-changing decision with the level of maturity needed. I'm not sure I could've made it at 18 either, but I would've stood a better chance.

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Jo's Thoughts:

To be perfectly honest, my family could fit in to any one of these factions. Being honest is very important to my family, as is treating others with respect and compassion. There are times when my family has had to be brave – I don’t think brave necessarily has to be limited to taking risks or being selfless, as said in Divergent, but also by being strong and facing things that aren’t so easy to face. As for knowledge, my brother and I getting a good education was always very important to my parents, and they made us knuckle down. We didn’t do too badly either.

If I was to pick a faction, from what I’ve read in Divergent, as risky as it all is, I think I’d probably pick Dauntless, simply because I feel I’d get bored in the others.

I know we aren’t considered adults until we are 18, when we can legally vote and drink alcohol. However, at 16, we are legally allowed to have sex. That means we are considered by law old enough to make decisions about having children – so we’re already “allowed” to make important decisions that will affect our entire lives then. The situations are different, but it’s already happening, whether I think it’s the right age or not.

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Little M's Thoughts:

I think we’d be in Erudite because we love reading. But I would choose either Dauntless or Amity because Amity is kindness and Dauntless is bravery.

M's Thoughts:

I think we’d be in Amity because we like playing games, I love red, we wear jeans, and we do a lot of sharing and helping. We also laught a lot. But at a choosing ceremony, I’d probably pick Candor and then admit I was Divergent and so end up factionless and start an uprising.

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Caroline's Thoughts:

Which faction do you think your family would be in?

I’ve had to think really hard about this. The faction’s ideals are impossibly hard to live up to not to mention that my family and I are all so different! The one thing that is clear to me is that my sister is totally Dauntless. Not that she is covered in tattoos and piercings(that would be my youngest brother), she certainly won’t be jumping out of a moving train anytime soon; in fact she has been known to faint at the sight of blood. But she has more courage than anyone else I know. She has had to fight long and hard; physically, mentally and legally to achieve the life she has and to become the gorgeous young woman she is today. Like most sisters, I suspect, we don’t always see eye-to-eye, but in this area at least, she has my total admiration.

Do you think 16 is the right age to be making such important decisions that will affect your entire future?

While our society isn’t as extreme as Roth’s Chicago, it does requests us to make important life changing choices about our futures while we are still young. It is around sixteen that we are encouraged to consider our future careers and working lives, whether or not we continue in formal education and what form that education will take.

At sixteen I was lucky enough to start on a career pathway, which has led to a job I still love today at thirty. Will I still feel the same in another fifteen years? Only time will tell.

Unlike in Tris’ society however these decisions are, however difficultly, reversible. Your university course doesn’t necessarily dictate you final career, you can return to education later or retrain in a completely new field. However for the majority of us the decisions we make at sixteen will have long term consequences for our futures.

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Thank you to everyone for taking part, I've really enjoyed reading all your answers! 

I'd love to know what you all think too so please join the discussion in the comments. A lot of the Candor team will be checking back throughout the week to see if you agree with them or not!