What Is Divergent, And Should You Start Caring About It?

During yesterday’s MTV VMAs, the first official trailer for the upcoming blockbuster Divergent aired. It was a very unhelpful trailer.

Uh, so some kids in ugly grey clothes get yelled at by Kate Winslet and then throw daggers at each other’s ears… ’cause they’re in love? Yeah, not exactly. Unless you’ve actually read Veronica Roth’s 2011 debut YA novel of the same name, that trailer would not have made any sense at all. So let’s attempt to clear it up!

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The shtick

The series is set in a dystopian post-war Chicago, where society is divided into different fancily-named groups based on personal attributes: Abnegation (selflessness), Dauntless (courage), Erudite (intellect), Candor (honesty) and Amity (peace). Each of these ‘factions’ have their own rules and roles in the society: for example, Erudite are involved with designing new technologies and run the universities, Dauntless work as security, Amity are the carers and teachers… Yeah, you get the idea.

When a kid turns sixteen, they’re forced to take a test that suggests which group they best belong in, and then they must decide whether they want to stay home or leave to join another faction.

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The Tris

Tris is the novel’s main protagonist, played in the film by up-and-comer Shailene Woodley. Tris is a special kid who doesn’t  belong, and all that. As you might expect, it’s her 16th birthday at the start of the novel. She takes the test, and because she’s the self-loathing misfit type, she decides to leave her family and home (Abnegation) to join another faction (Dauntless)… And let the hazing (er, initiation rites) begin!

With Dauntless, the process is particularly hard and all the initiates have to do a bunch of Hunger Games-y style, dangerous hand-to-hand combat things, involving guns and knives. The initiates get ranked and the top 10 get to stay, whereas everyone who fails gets kicked out and becomes homeless.

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The potential 

If the film stays true to the novel, which hopefully it does, here are some highlights that you can look forward to:

Gore! The novel features a good ol’ butter knife to the eye moment, including profuse bleeding!

Evil Kate Winslet! The beloved actress plays Jeanine Matthews, the super-intelligent leader of the Erudite, and a COMPLETE ASSHOLE. (Although, most of that happens in the sequel, Insurgent.)

Heroic Maggie Q! The star of Nikita and endless bit roles plays badass Tori, a tattoo artist. And she’s got dreads!

Teenage violence! There are many games of ‘Capture the Flag’, which is always a fun bonding exercise. Only in this case, they also include guns and stuff.

Weird romance! Specifically, lots of eye-f**king! And, more specifically, between Tris and her instructor, Four (played in the film by young Brit, Theo James).

Cool friends! Lenny Kravitz’s kid Zoe plays Christina, one of Tris’s fellow transfer teens and closest friends.

An amazing catfight! There should be an amazing catfight, where someone ends up with a black eye and someone else loses a few tufts of hair, all in the name of passing a test.

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The summary

In a nutshell, Divergent plays out like Amish Harry Potter went off to take part in the Hunger Games, complete with an added touch of Twilight-y angst and forbidden love. You’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months as the trilogy’s final installment drops in October ahead of the film’s release next year. So, consider yourself caught up… Hopefully that wasn’t ridiculously confusing?

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Andy is currently studying Communications (Writing and Cultural Studies), and interning at Junkee. She is mostly harmless.