I feel like Divergent started life as an AU Draco/Hermione fanfiction tbh.

I don’t like feeling, in reading books, like they started life as fanfiction, even though I understand that tropes and archetypes and stuff exist for a reason.  But I don’t know, Divergent sort of rubbed me the wrong way with it.

I didn’t enjoy the first book at all, but I sort of liked parts of the second book until like a quarter from the end, and then I was unimpressed again?

All the same, I have to respect any series/author that inspires as much fan devotion as Divergent has, and I give mad respect to Veronica Roth for actually addressing the criticism she received for using rape-as-plot-device and giving what I felt was a genuine apology with evident hard work at correcting the problem in the next book.  That — her being mature and respectful and willing to unlearn/learn and work on improving — is what made the second book better for me, and frankly the only reason I read Insurgent at all.  Four for you, Veronica Roth.

lovethroughthedarkdays replied to your post: ““Wow this makes me nervous. Her hair is…

well, i think the author just tagged the race thing on as a sidenote to seem ~*~oh so cool~*~ and didn’t really care about it all that much and let the whitewashing occur. sad, but true.

It doesn’t honestly matter if she did it to seem “cool” (which doesn’t really make sense? Having an interracial main relationship in your series is not generally seen as a cool pathway to having bestseller status?) but she DID let the whitewashing occur.  (As did Suzanne Collins for The Hunger Games and a whole slew of other writers whose books are adapted.  Like, pretty much all of them.  The only two I can actually think of who didn’t allow for whitewashing are Cassandra Clare and Stephenie Meyer, and THAT SHOULD SAY SOMETHING BUT I’M NOT SURE WHAT.)

Do people not care about how much it says, positive or negative, about the Divergent world that the de facto leader of the Dauntless faction, in Chicago, is a man of color?  That he’s also one of the apparently-few people in this world who can be brave AND smart AND logical AND honest AND selfless? 

(No, they don’t, because I’ve never seen Divergent fans discuss this ever.)

Of course, being PoC also opens Four up to stereotypes that wouldn’t be there if he’d been a white character.  (Violent/impulsive/masculinity issues/’Dauntless is like a gang’/fearless/hypersexual/emotionally unavailable/etc, blechhh.) So, yeah, I want to know why Roth made that choice and how she used it in developing Four’s character.   It could be super racist. 

But in the end, it doesn’t matter WHY she wrote Four as a PoC love interest.  It matters that she did, and that in the end, the films (and fandom) ignore that.

““Wow this makes me nervous. Her hair is definitely darker than expected.” This is how the Divergent fan’s mind works.”

And yet no peep about Four being white.

I see.

Because the entire Dauntless social structure is fucking abusive, and he alternately verbally lashes out against Tris and then provides her the only semblance of her childhood/normalcy that she can find, training her to be emotionally dependent on him.  It’s Stockholm Syndrome.

And he catches her in the midst of an attempted gangrape and murder and uses it to get her in his bed, and I cannot like him or any character after something like that. 

Especially when her literal greatest fear is sex.  With him.

stillwannabefree:divergentheadcanons:

requested by - throwmeinthechasm

…

He did not “make fun of her.” He sexually assaulted her, beat the shit out of her, and then tried to kill her.

epicreads:

Who do you ship?

julianffineman:

Trilogies and series

everybodysbadintentions:whereismeg:

Divergent Fancast

[from l-to-r]

Lucy Liu, Lucy Liu, Lucy Liu, Lucy Liu, Lucy Liu, Lucy Liu.

just read divergent. was underwhelmed. best fancast.

whitergent:

Wasp: Well the fact that every actor being considered for Four is WHITE, yet Four is a PERSON OF COLOUR, seems to have completely flown over the Divergent fandom’s heads. Well done, fandom.

risarodil:

Divergent Factions

6/365

risarodil:

Another one for Insurgent.

2/365

©risarodil

likeicouldnttakeyou:

reverseracism:

I mean seriously?

What’s the point?

fuck this damn series if this is true

“Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” Divergent

raptorific:

Hey, so I’ve been seeing a post going around that’s, to put it politely, just plain wrong. It says that whitewashing is just when someone described as a person of color is cast with a white actor. 

While that is whitewashing, it is not the only thing that is whitewashing. Whitewashing also includes:

• Taking a character whose race is never specified and assuming they are white
• Casting just about every character as white except characters who are specified as not being white

Really, any casting decision that assumes white is the “normal” or “default” race is whitewashing. Basically, if it takes the characters and paints them white with a broad brush, it’s whitewashing. 

Incidentally, the OP (who will remain nameless, since I know for a fact they have a habit of sending anon hate) asserted that it’s not racist since the characters who were specified as people of color were cast as such (even though almost every other racially ambiguous major character was cast as white). The implication in this is that since the characters were never directly specified as “not white,” it’s totally not racist to assume they all are white (and totally ignores the casting calls for many of these characters that only asked for white actors to audition).

So y’all know, this implication is super racist, even if it’s not intended that way, and it’s disgraceful that the OP would imply those of us bothered by it just need to “shut up” when so many of the people who are “complaining about nothing” are personally, directly affected by this problem in Hollywood.