Feature: What Faction are You, Fifteen Years Later?

If you missed the BookCon announcement, Veronica Roth is returning to the Divergent universe. The Sixth Faction is the first in a new duology, arriving October 6th, and it is not a sequel or a prequel or a spinoff. It is an alternate universe where Tris chooses a different faction at her Choosing Ceremony. Veronica has said the question driving it is who Tris is without Dauntless, and reader, I have not stopped thinking about that since.

Divergent turned fifteen this spring, give or take. I read it on my original Kindle, the one with the actual keypad (iykyk). I have taken the faction quiz more times than I can count. And that question is harder at this point in my life than it was when the books came out. Back then it was a personality quiz. Now it feels like a real question about how I have built my life.

On paper, I am Abnegation. I run a nonprofit that does mobile outreach with people experiencing homelessness. Service above self, show up, do the work, do not make it about you. That is the job description. But anyone who has spent real time in this work knows it is not that clean. You have to be Dauntless enough to walk into hard situations. You need Erudite instincts to navigate systems designed to grind people down, and Candor to say out loud what is actually happening even when nobody in the room wants to hear it.

So my honest answer is Divergent, possibly factionless.

And sitting with the books as an adult, that is the part that hits differently now. The people I work with every day did not choose to fall outside the system’s categories. They were pushed there by poverty, by policy, by a society that decided their lives were less legible and less worthy of protection. The faction system would have discarded them. The real world has tried to. And yet they are some of the most resilient and resourceful people I have ever known.

I think that is why Divergent has stayed with me this long. It was never really about aptitude tests or superpowers. It was about what happens when the system decides you do not fit, and what you do with that. Tris’s answer was to stop asking the system for permission. Fifteen years later, that still feels like the right read.

Did you take the faction quiz back in the day? Tell me what you got and whether it still holds up. I have a feeling most of us are more Divergent than we thought.

Preorder The Sixth Faction

Divergent (Divergent, #1)

by Veronica Roth
Published by: HarperCollins
on May 3, 2011
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An unmissable, hardcover deluxe limited edition of the first book in Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent series: the story that inspired a major motion picture and captivated millions of teen and adult readers worldwide.
This collector’s edition features a stunning, completely foiled case, shimmering unique endpapers, a metallic reimagined cover, gorgeous designed edges, and bonus exclusive content.
One choice can transform you.
Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions:
Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself.
But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden—because in this world, what makes you different makes you dangerous.
“A memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With brisk pacing and lavish flights of imagination, Divergent clearly has thrills, but it also movingly explores a more common anxiety—the painful realization that coming into one’s own sometimes means leaving family behind.” —New York Times Book Review