Insurgent Chapter 30
If you forgot what happened in chapter 29 of Insurgent, so did I. But I remember it ended with Four turning himself in too because…why not? And Peter tells Tris to fuck off when she asks him to check on Four for her.
We open this chapter with Tris giving us her scientific explanation on why people cry:
I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity. Because inside me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and, above all, toward life.
But don’t animals also cry? There may not be a clear, scientific reason for crying, but this explanation isn’t doing it for me as profound as it’s supposed to sound. [Matthew says: Also, I think “we cry because we need to snarl and growl” doesn’t really sound like the same thing to me.]
Tris is taken to Jeanine, and tries to find out where Four is:
“Tobias,” I say anyway. My hands shake, but not from fear this time—from anger. “Where is he? What are you doing to him?”
“I see no reason to provide that information,” says Jeanine. “And since you are all out of leverage, I see no way for you to give me a reason, unless you would like to change the terms of our agreement.” I want to scream at her that of course, of course I would rather know about Tobias than about my Divergence, but I don’t. I can’t make hasty decisions.
If only Tris had had this realization all those other times she only made hasty decisions. Like that one time she decided to come here to give herself up to Jeanine in order to save anyone, when really it can only lead to everyone’s death and/or enslavement.
“Aren’t you supposed to be running a faction and planning a war?” I say. “What are you doing here, running tests on a sixteen-year-old girl?”
“You choose different ways of referring to yourself depending on what is convenient,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Sometimes you insist that you are not a little girl, and sometimes you insist that you are. What I am curious to know is: How do you really view yourself? As one or the other? As both? As neither?”
This is part of Jeanine’s Big, Evil Master Plan? Understanding that Tris can have a multifaceted view of herself? Jesus fucking Christ I really thought there was no way this book could get dumber, but I was wrong. [Matthew says: We’ve learned nothing!] Doesn’t Jeanine understand that Tris describes herself in whatever way is most useful to her in the moment? Or maybe however she feels in the moment? [Matthew says: If the reason why she does this is “because she’s DiVeGeNt!” and not “fucking everybody does that”, this book needs to stop.]
Tris somehow finds a way to take the book to new and stupider heights:
“I make my voice flat and factual, like hers. “I see no reason to provide that information.”
I hear a faint snort. Peter is covering his mouth. Jeanine glares at him, and his laughter effortlessly transforms into a coughing fit.
“Mockery is childish, Beatrice,” she says. “It does not become you.”
“Mockery is childish, Beatrice,” I repeat in my best imitation of her voice. “It does not become you.”
Veronica Roth really was running out of things to write at this point, much like me with blogging about this book!
Finally, Jeanine allows Tris to inject herself with the serum (as opposed to her or Peter doing it, which would have at least given Peter a vague sort of reason to be in this scene), and she’s suddenly with her mother headed to Erudite headquarters. It reads like an awful dream sequence because Tris keeps sensing that things are off, like she feels like something bad happened to her dad but can’t figure out what it was *yawn*.
But then after her mom says a bunch of mysterious stuff about how important Erudite is and how Tris “needs to remember”, Tris breaks out of the simulation, and Jeanine is like, “THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE OBNOXIOUS, DULL SIMULATIONS!!!”
[Matthew says: No, seriously. I know that to regular readers, that probably sounds like Ariel for “I am mocking this”, but it’s real. This is dialogue that really needs to be read lest it cave in under its own emptiness.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I say to Jeanine.
At what?
She says, “That was only the beginning.”
OF WHAT?]
Seriously, I saw a preview for the Insurgent movie, and the entire preview was just a dumb simulation where there’s a floating house that’s on fire, and Tris’ mom is in it and Tris tries to rescue her or something. My boyfriend leaned over and smugly said that because he reads this blog he knew it was a simulation and wasn’t confused as fuck by the preview. We’re here to help.
I know this chapter was super short and that feasibly I should do another one right now, but I’m exhausted and personally I think we can all do with a short Insurgent post today.
My question is what is your favourite kind of muffin? I just baked some banana cinnamon walnut ones that are scrumptious! Would love more recommendations.