before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again” (p. 441). Do you
agree or disagree? Why?
I, sadly, must agree. When we look out on human history, there have been many instances where we have proclaimed that "This is it! This is the time it all sticks! The time we're peaceful and STAY THAT WAY!" World War One, for example, was called the War to End All Wars because it was believed that nobody would ever go to war again after seeing those horrors. But greed and malice slipped back into the hearts of men, and the dictatorships of the era rose, and the Second World War began. I would love if this type of cycle didn't exist, but it seems persistent. Even good intentioned things seemed doomed to sour, such as Karl Marx's model for Communism, which is now a negative buzzword, because human greed and selfishness corrupted it. Is it any wonder a woman from Abnegation is the source of this quote?
What is the difference between being fearless and learning to control
your fears? Do you believe anyone can be truly fearless? What does Tris
mean when she says that “half of bravery is perspective” (p. 458)?
Let me start with saying it is impossible to be truly fearless if you have a lick of sense about you. Only fools lack fear. That is the key difference between "fearless" and "controlling fears". When you are in control of your fears, you are willing to do something in spite of that fear, that's courage/ When Tris says that "half of bravery is perspective" she means that part of being brave in a situation is considering what's going on, considering the consequences to those around you if you don't act, and then taking control of the situation to change the outcome for the better.
Tris says about Candor, “It must require bravery to be honest all the
time” (p. 62). Do you agree? Which do you think is a braver faction,
Dauntless or Candor? Would you like to live in a society like Candor,
where everyone tells the truth no matter how hard it is to hear?
If one is raised to think that way, it no longer requires bravery. It's all perspective. Had Tris joined Candor rather than Dauntless, it would have taken all of her bravery to learn to tell the truth. Oh look, overlap of the virtues; what do you know? Anyhow, I think they both require their own types of Bravery. Dauntless requires bravery of the physical kind, as they keep the peace as the police force and armed forces. Candor are the judges. That requires a mental and emotional bravery. They have to be prepared to put anybody they know to a punishment if they know they committed a crime, they have to be willing to administer the proper justice to the proper criminal. I already try to live in a Candor society, and I acknowledge that I have no filter. If I think something, I say it. Tact is something for special occasions.
What was the reason behind the creation of the factions? Do you think the
factions are working “toward a better society and a better world” (p. 44) as
they say they are? What about the structure seems to be working for Tris’s
society? What doesn’t seem to be working at all?
The Factions were created to do away with conflict in the world brought about by that pesky notion of free-thinking. I mean, if you can get away with thinking however you feel, all willynilly, who know's what you're going to do. The factions most certainly are not working toward that goal, they are working for their own gain, in some fashion or another, except maybe Abnegation and Amity. Nothing seems to be working for it. They all seem fragmented in the way they progress, Erudite is EXTREMELY advanced, while Amity seems stuck in typical agrarian ways.
What does it mean to be factionless in Tris’s society? How does a person
become factionless?
To be factionless is more than to be homeless, or to be without a faction. It is to be worthless, less than worthless. It is to be unable to think, to possess no virtue. It is to lack selflessness, courage, intellect, kindness, and honesty. A person becomes factionless by failing to join a faction by failing their one specific virtue, in whatever manner that may be.
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