Allegiant by Veronica Roth

"To them, the people in our city are just containers of genetic material --just GD's valuable for the corrected genes they pass on, and not for the brains in their heads or the hearts in their chests."

The final novel in the Divergent trilogy picks up right where Insurgent left off. Tris, Christina and Cara are prisoners inside the Erudite headquarters from where Evelyn now rules the city. Tobias (Four) Eaton is not a prisoner but his mother (Evelyn) suspects him of being a traitor. The story is now told by Tris and Tobias.

Tris now knows that an ancestor on her father's side, Edith Prior made the video that revealed the origin and purpose of the factions in the city. She states that the inheritance her ancestor passed on to her is "...freedom from the factions, and the knowledge that my Divergent identity is more important than I could have known. My existence is a signal that we need to leave this city and offer our help to whoever is outside it."  Tris needs to see what's outside the fence.

Tobias visits Tris, Christina and Cara and tells them that Evelyn has the city on lockdown and doesn't believe that they should help the people who put them in the city. He warns the three women that Evelyn will be using truth serum and if it works, they will be convicted as traitors.

 After questioning under the truth serum, which she knows how to manipulate, Tris is set free by Evelyn. Cara and Christina are exonerated.

The factions are now dismantled, citizens are encouraged to mix the clothing of all the factions, no more than four members of a faction may live together, and the boundaries of the city are patrolled by the factionless to ensure no one leaves. Former faction members must move closer to the Erudite building. Evelyn tells Tobias that they have learned that there is a rebel organization within the factionless that wants to leave the city. This rebel faction is called Allegiant because they believe that people should live in factions and that they are allied with the original purpose of the city to send Divergent out to help.

Tobias is uncertain as to his mother's motives for telling him about the Allegiant but he tells her he will find out who the Allegiant are. Tobias and Tris meet and discuss the issues they have with honesty and trust, promising each they will do better. After a deadly brawl, Evelyn institutes a curfew with guards patrolling the streets. There will be no more factions and everyone will learn and do the jobs the factionless did on a rotating basis.

Tris is asked to meet with the Allegiant at the abandoned headquarters of Candor. She tells Uriah and Christina that she needs to leave the city because she needs to know who Edith Prior was and she needs to know what is outside the city. At the Allegiant meeting Tris learns that Cara and Johanna Reyes are the leaders of the rebel Allegiant which also includes Susan, Robert, Peter, Uriah, Zeke, Tori, and Christina along with her mother Stephanie and her sister Rose as well as many others.

Cara and Johanna believe in the factions and the Divergent mission directive of Edith Prior to send people outside the city once there is a large Divergent population. They want to overthrow Evelyn and the factionless to re-establish the factions and they also want to investigate outside the city. It is decided that Johanna will attempt to overthrow Evelyn, while Cara will lead a group that includes Christina, Tris, Tobias, Tori, Peter and Uriah to explore beyond the city limits. Tobias rescues Tris's brother Caleb who is slated to be executed in two weeks time as a traitor and they take him with them outside the city.

Traveling in two trucks with Tris, Tobias and Johanna in one with the Christina, Uriah and Caleb in the bed of the truck, while Robert, Peter and Susan travel in the other truck. Johanna reveals that Amity patrolled the outer limit beyond their farms and anyone who traveled past that was given the Abnegation serum to reset their memory. Robert and Johanna drop the others off and return to the city. They don't travel far before they meet up with two people, Zoe and Amar in a large black truck. Amar was Tobias's mentor when he first came to Dauntless but he thought Amar was dead. 

They are taken to a United States government compound, which used to be O'Hare Airport but is now the headquarters of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. There David, the leader of the Bureau tells them that they have only part of the information. A few centuries early the United States government wanted to encourage certain desirable traits in its citizens, eliminating certain trains like cowardice and dishonesty. They attempted to do this through genetic manipulation but this only created more damaged genes. For example, by eliminating aggression, motivation was removed. 

This resulted in a civil war, called the Purity War, with the loss of almost half the country's population. The Bureau was then formed and "designed experiments to restore humanity to its genetically pure state" The genetically healed humans were called Divergent. Their city was one of these experiments and the most successful one. David relates that "The factions were the attempt to incorporate a 'nurture' element to the experiments." They did not expect the Erudite leader to hunt down the Divergent or for the Divergent to come to the outside world. He also explains that with the use of cameras, they monitored the experiment and watched everything that unfolded in the city. This last revelation shocks all of the Allegiant members but especially Tris because it means they watched while the Dauntless went about under the attack simulation serum murdering people to save their experiment.  

They soon realize that the Bureau is involved in a series of wide-spread sinister experiments which are supposed to repair the genetic damage of the population as a whole. The level of manipulation and deception is so great that the Allegiant who have left the city - which they now know is called Chicago, realize they must act quickly to stop the next step. Will they succeed and what will be the cost?

Discussion

Allegiant is the final book in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. The story in Allegiant is told by the alternating narratives of Tris and Tobias. Unfortunately there isn't much difference in the style of the narratives, meaning that it's easy to forget who is telling the story. Roth devotes a great deal of the novel to explaining the history of the city and the new society that Tris and Tobias encounter in order to set up the shocking climax of the novel. While many readers will not like what happens at the end, the dystopian genre is about a dangerous world where all does not necessarily end well.  In this way, Roth has stayed true to the dystopian genre.

Allegiant is an exploration of the themes of identity, forgiveness, and sacrificial love. It also explores the nature of scientific experimentation, asking readers to consider the purpose of scientific experimentation, specifically experimentation on humans and what can happen when the experiment becomes more important than anything else. At the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, Tris and Tobias learn that their city, which they now know is called Chicago, is part of a widespread genetic experiment to create genetic purity with the goal of eliminating wars. The scientists at the Bureau believe that wars are the result of genetic damage and that repairing this damage will lead to genetically pure humans, called Divergent, who are not predisposed to war. This has resulted in a new class system in the Bureau of genetically damaged (GD) and genetically pure (GP) individuals. The GD do the menial tasks while the GP are the scientists and researchers. 

However, it becomes apparent that not everyone believes in this narrative. Matthew who works on the serums for the Bureau tells Tris, "Some of the people hear want to blame genetic damage for everything...It's easier for them to accept than the truth, which is that they can't know everything about people, and why they act the way they do."  Juanita (Nita) demonstrates that the premise of the Bureau's entire experiment is incorrect and she proves this with archival footage showing poverty and war from centuries before the Purity War when the population was supposedly genetically pure. Tris immediately has reservations when she learns of the history of the Bureau and the experiments and this is only further solidified when she visits the Fringe and sees the tremendous poverty there. She confronts Amar about war existing before the Purity War, but he tells her that if this were the case the Bureau would know about it. This tells Tris that he is either being lied to or misinformed. When she asks if they ever help the poor people in the Fringe he replies that such help is only a band aid solution and "that the best way to help our world is to fix its genetic deficiencies."  To Tris the Bureau's focus on fighting genetic damage in the face of such poverty is immoral. 

It becomes clear to Tris, when the Bureau's Council discusses the Allegiant uprising in Chicago, that their entire experimentation has become grossly unethical. David, leader of the Bureau decides to use the "memory serum virus" to reset the experiment; this means widespread memory erasure for everyone in the cities. Tris is horrified at this plan. "...They want to stop a revolution, not to save lives, but to save their precious experiment...why do they believe they have the right to rip peoples memories, their identities, out of their heads..."  Earlier, when Nita was explaining  the reality of the experiments, she tells Tris and Tobias,  "their entire lives erased, against their will, for the sake of solving a genetic damage 'problem' that doesn't actually exist." Tris remembers what Johanna told her that when a person's memories are removed, this changes who they are. David sees the people in the cities as "damaged" and that, without considering other alternatives, he is willing to harm them. It is clear the scientists in the Bureau have lost sight of the goal of science, to be in the service of mankind, and not to enslave it. Instead of working to help those impoverished and to stop crime they are working on a problem that doesn't exist. 

All of this sets up Tris, Tobias and the others to make the difficult decision between two terrible choices; to allow the Bureau to erase the memories of those in Chicago and elsewhere, or to erase the memories of the scientists in the Bureau and give them the truth about humans,  "that human nature is complex, that all our genes are different, but neither damaged nor pure." It means doing to the Bureau what they know is wrong in order to achieve a greater good. They rationalize their choice as the only way to stop the evil that the Bureau is doing, because as Tris states, "... this would be so much easier if we were dealing with a completely different set of people who could actually see reason. Then we might be able to find a balance between protecting the experiments and opening themselves up to other possibilities."  One may not do an evil act in order to prevent another evil, even if it is a greater evil.  Unfortunately, there are not always easy solutions.

Allegiant explores the theme of identity. After the reveal of what their city was, a long-running genetic experiment, Tris notes, "Just after my mother died, I grabbed hold of my Divergence like it was a hand outstretched to save me. I needed that word to tell me who I was when everything else was coming apart around me. But now I'm wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, "Dauntless,"  "Erudite,"  "Divergent," "Allegiant," or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us. " 

In the Bureau, people are divided into genetically damaged and genetically pure. For Tobias, who is now labelled genetically damaged, he struggles with his self worth but Tris tells him this doesn't matter as it doesn't change who he is. 

Tris Prior is the central character in the Divergent trilogy. Roth has crafted an intelligent, courageous character who is also vulnerable. As her world devolves into conflict, Tris finds herself struggling to find her place of belonging as she doesn't fit into any of the factions and therefore, her identity.  It is a theme common to many young adult novels. She grows throughout the three novels, gradually maturing through her mistakes and in her relationships with others. She learns to forgive, and more importantly to love even if it means dying. 

When Tobias doesn't listen to Tris and sides with Nita, causing Uriah his life, she is angry that yet again he hasn't trusted her. However Tris begins to look at Tobias and try to understand how the abuse by his father Marcus and the abandonment by his mother Evelyn has affected him. "I was right to say that he was desperate, desperate for a connection to Evelyn, desperate not to be damaged, but I never thought about how those things were connected. I don't know how it would feel, to hate your own history, and to crave love from the people who gave that history to you at the same time. How have I never seen the schism inside his heart? How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts. Caleb told me that our mother said there was evil in everyone, and the first step to loving someone else is to recognize that evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them. So how can I hold Tobias's desperation against him, like I'm better than him, like I've never let my own brokenness blind me?"  Tris realizes that if she and Tobias are to stay together, they will have to forgive one another again and again. 

While Tris can find the empathy that leads her to forgive Tobias for his lack of trust in her, forgiving her brother Caleb for his betrayal is much more difficult.  It is only when she sees Caleb as the brother he is, "smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind." that she knows for certain she can't deliver him to his own execution in the Bureau. She has forgiven him for betraying her to Jeanine Matthews so completely that she offers her life in place of his. Tris recognizes that she doesn't belong to any faction but that she belongs to those she loves.  "I don't belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent....I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me -- they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever would."

Author Veronica Roth seems to have struggled to craft her characters fully until Allegiant. Readers were introduced to those characters in Divergent, but that novel focused on the world-building aspect of the story.  Insurgent was so action-driven, the reader never got the chance to feel invested in any of the characters, many of whom died. In Allegiant we finally get some depth to Tris, Tobias, Caleb, Marcus and Evelyn. It is this depth that makes Tris's death so tragic, because the reader has come to admire her courage and her determination to do what is right. It's not the ending the reader wants.

Allegiant is a lengthy novel, but definitely an easier read than its predecessor, Insurgent. The more linear story line, the filling in of the back story and the addition of only a few new characters make Allegiant a mostly enjoyable read with a truly heart-breaking ending.

Book Details:
Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Katherine Tegen Books    2013
526 pp.