August 26, 2024
This post contains spoilers for the book Divergent by Veronica Roth.
Reading is something that I don’t really have any stong opinions about. It’s something I pretty much only do when I’m assigned to do it for school, as I really don’t find time in my day otherwise.
That being said, throughout my life I’ve probably read at least thirty chapter books, most of which I’ve ended up enjoying. My favorite series is probably the I Am Number Four series, but I’m not gonna recommend you read it unless you’re in middle school or something as that seems to be the books’ target audience. Which yes, I did read that series in middle school.
Something about me is that I’m not good at telling when things are bad. Whether it’s bad music, lyrics, writing, plot, acting, or anything else really. I’m just not able to notice the awfulness unless it’s extremely bad. I actually see this as a huge positive in my life, as it means I can enjoy basically any creative work I consume without noticing the flaws.
A series that I did not read in middle school but instead in high school was the Divergent series. My English III teacher assigned us to read a narrative book of our choice throughout each semester, and she used the book Divergent as an example of one to read. I remembered right then that I actually had that book at home already, and since I currently wasn’t reading any other books I felt it was the perfect choice.
Like I said before, I’m not an avid reader and I’m not good at detecting bad writing. So, to me, the Divergent book and series are fantastic. I’ve seen book reviewers talk about all the tropes that it has: good-looking character in a leadership role obviously gets with the protagonist, a dystopia that has separated groups and is set far into the future, the main characters are part of a group of rebels that don’t conform to the norms of the society they’re set in particularly because they were born with some sort of condition that the higher-ups want to investigate, and many more. The thing is, since I’ve read so few young adult dystopia novels, all of these tropes are pretty much brand new to me. The series probably also has many other flaws and confusing plot holes, but I’m too dumb enough to notice these nor let them break the entire story.
A great objective review of the book and movie is from this video, and if you want some brutally honest opinions about the story, just head to the comment section.
This is where the spoilers are, but I assume you probably don’t care based on how I’ve described the book so far lol
So since the book was read for an english class assignment, I had to talk about various plot points it had along with finding examples of various story elements and figurative language we talked about in class. One of these was to find an example of foreshadowing, and I decide the best way to do this is to flip to the early chapters of the book and look around for something that comes up later. I casually scan a few pages, looking for anything, and I end up catching a stray name: Tobias.
If you’ve ever read the book, you’ll know that the name is very important. Tobias is basically the second main character behind Beatrice, the POV of the story. What’s noteworthy here is that you only find out Tobias’ real name well into the book (page 329 out of 487 for me). Tobias goes by the name “Four” for the entire time before this (not to be confused with Four of the “I am Number Four” book series, coincidence I know). Beatrice actually figures out Four’s real name without him saying it to her through finding out Marcus is his father. She knows Marcus had a son named Tobias who left his faction behind two years ago, the cause rumored to be abuse, which is also confirmed at the same time Beatrice learn’s Tobias’ name.
The thing is, almost all of this is mentioned 295 pages earlier on page 34. Here’s an excerpt from the book of where this happens. The context here being that Beatrice is sitting at dinner with her family:
This is the stuff that Beatrice remembers for her to figure out Tobias’ real name. However, if you thought these sentences were important and kept them in mind while reading, I believe you could have figured this out well before she does.
A good example of this is how, mentioned above, Tobias left two years ago. Early into the story on page 68 when Beatrice hears a conversation about how someone keeps wanting to meet with Four (Tobias), he responds with “I haven’t been interested for two years” implying that’s how long he’s been a part of his faction, which of course is confirmed later.
There’s a few more quotes that also subtly push the idea of Four being Tobias:
Standing alone at the railing is Four. Though he's not an initiate anymore, most of the Dauntless use this day to come together with their families. Either his family doesn't like to come together, or he wasn't originally Dauntless. Which faction could he have come from?That’s on page 180, where Beatrice proposes two possible reasons for Tobais being alone, both end up being correct and in line with the foreshadowing much earlier.
From page 315, an implication Four is a faction transfer.
And of course, you could go full meta and just assume that the other main character in the book probably came from the same faction as the protagonist, and that it’s going to be some sort of twist-revelation somewhere in the story. Additionally, if you happened to remember the kid mentioned near the beginning of the book, you could connect this prominent character to him just because.
As someone who isn’t really into books, especially in looking into their deeper meanings and whatnot, finding this little detail made me lose my mind in the middle of english homework. I thought back to examples like those described above, and of course used the moment as an example of foreshadowing on the assignment.
Is this the craziest piece of foreshadowing in a book/series? It’s probably nowhere close. I’m sure any book worm reading this post is probably quite angry at me, calling out such a mundane moment as if it’s worth writing about. But c’mon, I found it myself without anyone telling me and that’s what I’m focused on lol. Though, if you have any moments of foreshadowing that you need me to see in order to understand what foreshadowing really is, feel free to let me know!
Overall, discovering moments like this always nudges me in the direction of liking stories more and more. My fifth grade teacher really pushed us to annotate stories and stuff, but I hate doing that. I just wanna enjoy a book with all the characters, events, and environments the author writes about. I wonder how many books I’ll have to read before I admit I’m a fan of them?