Stage two of initiation is starting and all initiates, transfer and born, are placed in a waiting room until it is their turn. They go one by one until it's Tris's turn. Four brings her into a room that looks just like the room from the Aptitude tests.
At this point I would be freaking out because the Aptitude tests didn't turn out very well for Tris.
She sits down and is told that the simulation basically pits you against your worst fears. The simulation only ends when you either face the fear, or you calm yourself down enough to slow your heart rate.
The serum accesses your fears by stimulating the amygdala, the part of the brain that holds your fears, and then induces a hallucination.
This seems like the coolest technology ever, but also highly weaponizable. If they could somehow get this serum secretly distributed in the public, since no wires are involved in the transmission of the data collected, the could know every fear of every living person on the planet.
"Be brave Tris. The first time is always the hardest." - Four
Long story short, Tris's fear simulation includes being attacked and suffocated by masses of crows. I'm guessing that fears can also be represented metaphorically as well as literally. I honestly don't think Tris is afraid of crows.
Tris wakes up freaking out and completely terrified. Four walks her out the back and she thinks she is a failure, when in all actuality, she made it out of the simulation three ties faster than the other initiates.
This just makes me think of hunger games because Katniss was an underdog and then started showing everybody up with her high training scores. It kind of bothers me that they are so similar.
"Six years ago Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to be more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength." - Four
Four and Tris start talking about how the Dauntless views changed when the leadership did. When Eric and somebody named Max came into power, they made being Dauntless more about being ruthless than about being brave.
I'm not quite sure why they used the same technology as the aptitude tests. Yeah, it gets to the point, but I also think it could be part of the reason divergent people can manipulate the simulations. If you're exposed to the same type of thing more than once, you're going to be able to sway it one way or the other. I don't know where you stand on it, but thats my thoughts
ReplyDelete