Divergent vs. The Hunger Games: a Varying View

[Reddish Mage]

So after seeing the Divergent movie I have noticed that the series is always compared to The Hunger Games to Divergent's detriment, generally by claiming that much about Divergent is just too hard to swallow. I find this very odd on its basic points of the societal premise, plot, and what makes the heroine special.

1. Unbelievable Premise:

Which sounds more fantastical, a teenager as a coming of age rite: 1. has to take an aptitude test and afterwards make a choice that will determine their place in adult society or 2. be forced to participate in a lottery to take part in gladiatorial survival battle?

There isn't anything about Divergent's test that puts a blip on may B.S. radar, except for how they play up the irrevocability of the choice.

In contrast, the Hunger Games struck me as impossible from the first. You cannot just put children into a deadly televised death trap, without any dehumanization of their population or ethnic separation, and expect the mothers and fathers of the capital to just watch and be entertained.

2. The heroine and what makes her special:

Divergent does try push through this notion that someone who gets equal scores on a couple of personality indicators are somehow extremely threatening to society, but note however: people jumping birth-faction or even picking a faction they don't have top aptitude for is perfectly reasonable. This is explained very well but it goes...something something... divergents mind have some sort of "special" way of working that's supposed to be inherently unpeggable, thus this is supposedly dangerous to the core society built on caste er faction. It sort of works. Especially because wasn't the whole thing a ruse all along and what really bothered blonde erudite girl was that she could turn everyone into mind-slaves except the divergents?

Katniss, however, is only a problem because of what she represents: hope. How she came to represent this is in many ways a tale of how she was allowed to represent this. Basically, crayon-beard guy did his job in an enormously crappy manner, as this President Snow guy made clear. Of course, President guy has been similarly slow to destroy the one thing that could take him down, and instead consistently acts in a manner to help magnify her status as the face of rebellion. Are you telling me no one could have done a character assassination, or a real one, or both, at any time?

3. Plot:

Which plot is more relatable to that young adult audience: a story of of a teenager leaving her home to participate in: a battle royale or an educational environment where she will have to survive, thrive, and make new friends, while struggling to succeed while learning under tough standards far more rigorous than anything she faced before?

What is so unusual about a new student worried about failing and getting kicked out? Here, as on every other level, Divergent offers an extreme version of what is basically college, while the Hunger Games is something completely in its own world of fantasy.

[pita]

The thing that truly separates Divergent from The Hunger Games (in my opinion) is this:
The girl from Divergent is told she's special. Because she's special she has to hide. Her being special drives the plot, essentially. There's nothing that she actually does that makes her very special, but the fact that she's special means she's special
Katniss is special because of her deeds. There is nothing incredibly remarkable about Katniss (She's a good shot) and she makes herself special. She volunteers to die instead of her sister. She perseveres and games the system and gets things to work.
You're right about The Hunger Games being in more of a ridiculous world than Divergent but for the wrong reasons. Book 3 really shows a brilliant side to Divergent, explaining the world in a way I found believable. But up until then the entire notion of the society and what makes the main character a Divergent looked really nonsensical and bizarre. The explanation was awesome. Divergent was worth it because of book 3.
Also, you can expect people to be dehumanized on TV, as we watch it all of the time. When Simon Cowell looks at someone who was told their whole life they can sing and has made singing her life, and tells that someone they're terrible in a completely objective manner, we laugh as the person cries and has a mental breakdown. Big Brother is a ridiculously successful show in which we watch people have meltdowns and cheer. The Hunger Games is extreme but it's based in something very true in our society. Divergent is a fantasy.
I concede to the logic of your third point.

[Talakeal]

I personally found Divergent to be much closer to Harry Potter than the Hunger Games.


Also, as pita mentioned, the setting of Divergent seems really nonsensical at first glance. I haven't read the books, and when I saw the movie I thought it was incredibly stupid until my brother explained the hidden backstory from the third movie to me.

[Reddish Mage]

Katniss is special because of her deeds. There is nothing incredibly remarkable about Katniss (She's a good shot) and she makes herself special. She volunteers to die instead of her sister. She perseveres and games the system and gets things to work.

I agree Katniss's deeds are a big reason as to why she becomes "special." Without having a bigger plan in mind, her efforts, and those of her team, to turn the games into their own narrative, and (partly on purpose) becomes huge raised finger to President. However, as amazing of a person like Katniss is, mostly by acting as a normal decent person under stress. Her transformation into the mockingjay happens because of blundering by an ineffectual President Snow, who really, really needs to read the Evil Overlord List

Did it not cross your mind that this guy couldn't have had more of his own people, closer to Katniss? He couldn't use his control over the media to make Katniss look like another messed up teenager with lots of issues or something? He couldn't just kill her and make it look like an accident? Especially because we are given the feeling that Snow has nothing better to do than to fixate on the threat Katniss presents from the very moment she volunteered.

you can expect people to be dehumanized on TV, as we watch it all of the time. When Simon Cowell looks at someone who was told their whole life they can sing and has made singing her life, and tells that someone they're terrible in a completely objective manner, we laugh as the person cries and has a mental breakdown. Big Brother is a ridiculously successful show in which we watch people have meltdowns and cheer. The Hunger Games is extreme but it's based in something very true in our society. Divergent is a fantasy.
I concede to the logic of your third point.

As someone who doesn't watch much reality TV, the obvious analogy could be missed. However, at best Survivor: The Logical Extreme Edition is quite a bit more extreme than anything I've seen or heard (I don't know what sort of reality shows you watch).

I personally found Divergent to be much closer to Harry Potter than the Hunger Games.


Also, as pita mentioned, the setting of Divergent seems really nonsensical at first glance. I haven't read the books, and when I saw the movie I thought it was incredibly stupid until my brother explained the hidden backstory from the third movie to me.

I'm no stranger to people saying the setting of Divergent is nonsensical but I just don't see it, especially in relation to The Hunger Games.

A society based on "factions" or castes or social classes really doesn't seem unusual. Plenty of societies are based on relatively rigid social hierarchy, and determining people's place in society by testing rather than birth is an old idea explored in other science fiction (not to mention actually present in contemporary society, most notably in Japan, but clearly a mild form is part of the middle-class American teenager's experience). The idea that teenagers take a test to determine their place in society, then give them a irrevocable choice to accept the test, or choose whatever else they want, strikes me as odd but not ridiculously implausible for a made-up post-apocalyptic society.


In contrast: premises from Star Trek episodes include planets where war is by videogame but with real death consequences legally enforced, where every crime is punishable by death, where women rule society with an iron fist and keep men around as subservient pleasure-things, and so on.

Harry Potter's hidden world premise isn't unusual either, though its presented in a fairly whimsical manner. Reminds me quite a bit of Men in Black. I take it the comparison to Divergent is meant to suggest that Divergent's premise is mood-shattering.

[Talakeal]

In the real world people are not put into easy categories though. Almost everyone in the real world would be "divergent" in that they would not cleanly fit into any one faction. On the surface it looks like a world full of stock characters made to make the protagonist (and through her the reader) feel more special and unique. Of course the later books reveal that this is exactly the case and there is a very good reason for it, but judging based solely on the first one it just seems like lazy writing.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I actually find Hunger Games to be interesting as an analysis of a hero cult. Heroes are frequently ordinary people who did something extraordinary, and they get idolized for it. Katniss' hero cult winds up being what gets her used as a pawn in a major power struggle. I'm not familiar enough with Divergent to compare, but Hunger Games is filled with commentary on how society consumes media and is driven by media; the Capitol is a prime example of this.

Plus, well, heavy-handed parallels to the Roman Empire.

[Reddish Mage]

In the real world people are not put into easy categories though. Almost everyone in the real world would be "divergent" in that they would not cleanly fit into any one faction. On the surface it looks like a world full of stock characters made to make the protagonist (and through her the reader) feel more special and unique. Of course the later books reveal that this is exactly the case and there is a very good reason for it, but judging based solely on the first one it just seems like lazy writing.

I just saw the movie but from the way it was described at first I got the impression only that: 1. everyone took a test to determine their faction based on their highest aptitude score 2. you were given a choice to join any faction regardless 3. the heroine didn't know where she really belonged, but then neither did anyone else really, that's why they were taught to trust in the test.

The only thing that gave me the impression everyone had only one trait and anyone who had more than one talent is divergent was that this is what I heard people say about this movie and then there was this test from the website which marks everyone who takes it as divergent regardless of your results (incidentally the bars also marked me as equal parts erudite and candor ).

The heroine got a divergent result, which sounded like it was as if she took the SATs and got the same math and verbal score, only it apparently involved mirrors and LSD and something about this being something incredibly dangerous.

I actually find Hunger Games to be interesting as an analysis of a hero cult. Heroes are frequently ordinary people who did something extraordinary, and they get idolized for it. Katniss' hero cult winds up being what gets her used as a pawn in a major power struggle. I'm not familiar enough with Divergent to compare, but Hunger Games is filled with commentary on how society consumes media and is driven by media; the Capitol is a prime example of this.

Plus, well, heavy-handed parallels to the Roman Empire.

This is also how I read the Hunger Games. Katniss is an ordinary girl who doesn't even have a clue of the bigger picture who gets turned into a heroine because that's what people were looking for. If anything I find Katniss ordinariness and naivety frustrating. Clearly, Tris isn't a hero with her own cult yet at the end of book one.

Plus, Tris figures out what's going on, takes charge, and is hardly a naive flower that's afraid to pull the trigger!

[LadyEowyn]

I don't find the setting of Divergent unbelieveable at all. In fact, in contrast to the dystopia of The Hunger Games, I find the society in Divergent to be pretty well-designed on the whole. It's arguably better-designed than our own:
- The civil service and government are run by people who are trained from birth, and inclined by personality, to be self-sacrificing, humble, unambitious, and primarily concerned for the well-being of others. Contrast that with our own society, where success in politics requires great wealth, public relations skills, and overwhelming ambition. Which is likely to produce a better government? At least in the first book, events bear this out: Abnegation really does do a good job of governing, and the film's central conflict is created by a coup against them, not by their own actions.
- The courts and legal systems are, likewise, run by people who are trained and personally disposed to be unfailingly honest. To avoid getting too deep into current events, I'll just say that this too is a stark contrast to the incentive systems present in most countries' justice systems, and is far more likely than our own to lead to guilty people going to prison, innocent people being released, and civil cases being decided fairly.

It's also good that there's flexibility built into the system: people don't need to join the group that their personality test finds them best-suited for. (This is a clear contrast with The Giver, another young adult dystopia where people's career paths are pre-determined.) However, Dauntless is problematic, since courage is far from the only quality needed in law enforcement. And the situation of the casteless is clearly messed up. But these come across as issues that are more in need of reform than of revolution. The movie's central conflict isn't caused by the system.

Spoiler

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It's caused by Erudite attempting to overthrow the system.

I think pita has hit the nail on the head: the problem with the film Divergent is that there's no clear sense of why Tris' divergent status is truly important or threatening. She's treated as special because the narrative says she's special; in terms of her actions and ideas she doesn't seem overly different from everyone else in society. The other trainees in Dauntless joke about how it takes a secure person to be friends with someone from Candour, indicating that they don't expect someone to shed all the behaviours and attitudes of that group simply because she's chosen to be part of Dauntless. And there's no reason why the society should need or want people to express no behaviours except the key ones associated with their chosen career path. In that way, both the narrative importance and uniqueness of the heroine, and one of the main conflicts she faces, feel very contrived.

I enjoy The Hunger Games - films more than books, as the writing quality and pacing of the books is quite weak - precisely because Katniss isn't the archetypal hero(ine) who chooses to lead a rebellion against an unjust system. She just wants herself, her family, and a few friends to survive, and she's not accustomed to thinking through the political implications of her actions. In the first half of Catching Fire, she's quite willing to go along with President Snow's plan that she should use her appearances to pacify the districts. The story is, among other things, an examination of how a symbol can become far more influential than a reality, and the conflict between Katniss-the-symbol, who has great power and is manipulated by people on every side, and Katniss-the-person, who is not a politician or a deep thinker and who mainly wants to preserve or avenge people she cares about.

However strange the setting is, Katniss' reactions to it are far more realistic representations of a largely apolitical teenage girl thrown into a greater political conflict than it would be if she became a political leader of rebellion with a clear plan of action.

[Talakeal]

The only thing that gave me the impression everyone had only one trait and anyone who had more than one talent is divergent was that this is what I heard people say about this movie and then there was this test from the website which marks everyone who takes it as divergent regardless of your results (incidentally the bars also marked me as equal parts erudite and candor ).

Hey... that test said I was erudite :( What do you mean everyone gets divergent?


Anyway, my understanding of the backstory as given in the later books is that

Spoiler: Movie 2-4 Spoilers

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The story is set in a post apocalyptic future after something akin to Star Trek's Eugenics wars has devastated the planet. Humanity genetically modified itself into different sub species that were better suited to their roles and the resultant caste system tore society apart. The whole city is trying to "breed back" to regular unmodified humans, who come across as "divergent".

Of course, I could be very wrong as this is second hand from my brother trying to explain away the plot holes in the first film, I haven't actually read the books.

[Reddish Mage]

Hey... that test said I was erudite :( What do you mean everyone gets divergent?


Anyway, my understanding of the backstory as given in the later books is that

Spoiler: Movie 2-4 Spoilers

Show

The story is set in a post apocalyptic future after something akin to Star Trek's Eugenics wars has devastated the planet. Humanity genetically modified itself into different sub species that were better suited to their roles and the resultant caste system tore society apart. The whole city is trying to "breed back" to regular unmodified humans, who come across as "divergent".

Of course, I could be very wrong as this is second hand from my brother trying to explain away the plot holes in the first film, I haven't actually read the books.

Really? I couldn't fail to get divergent....hmmm. No one inform the establish power structure please.

Anyway it sounds like it gets more fantastic to me rather than less:

Spoiler: Divergent - the big secret in the last book

Show

If society is descendents of genetically engineered humans that are suited for only one thing, we are in a land that doesn't relate to ordinary humans, except for the divergent. This is rather like Gattaca, and there are very few instances were genetic engineered humans appear as heroes in sci-fi for a good reason. It's hard to relate to beings that are fundamentally altered so as to lose a fundamental part of what makes us human.

I much prefer to think the society tries to place ordinary multi-capable humans into strictly defined categories as a way to keep a well oiled social machine working, which I thought was all pretty explicit in the movie. The natural thrust of the novels is to show that such a machine strips us of freedom, and what makes us human. That message just gets muddied by a backstory were most everyone are genetically engineered one-trick ponies.