Purpose of each of the five factions

[Gynxie_Masters]

I actually love the IDEA of the faction system. I believe the 5 factions, in a perfect world, do a great job of exhibiting balance. There are great reasons provided as to why each faction is created. From simple observance of a failed society, they were able to see where they failed and could improve. It also gave the characters something simple to focus on rather than spreading themselves to thin on all areas of life; improving their factions with a team of like-minded individuals.

The conflict, the divergents, also gives it's own balance. The characters in the story are human, with human emotions and array of likes and dislikes. The one problem in the whole story are the humans. You can't fix something that happens naturally. So again I say, in a perfect world, it's a great solution to a society that is in need of being rebuilt.

[NanoWasabi]

I've been thinking about what would have happened if each of the factions was it's own separate country. Think about how hard it would be to keep a world like that from fighting! It would have been completely counterproductive to endorse honesty, or selflessness, or whatever your country stands for. How long do you think that kind of system would last?

[mrsallen7114]

There are the five factions dividing by character types: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (happiness), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (brave), and Erudite (knowledge).

I also agree with the prior statement that they were sorted into factions based on personality type to assure that everyone had a 'life purpose' and stayed within the lines clearly outlined for them.

[mkostecki11]

Abnegation - purpose it to live a life in the service of others
Dauntless - purpose is to be able to face your weaknesses and overcome any obstacle with courage
Amity - purpose is to promote goodwill through harmony and happiness
Candor - purpose is to create a realistic world of sincerity and faith in one another's reliability through their honesty
Erudite - purpose is to expand intelligence through knowledge and learning

[FAHenfrey]

The factions seem to have been created for the purpose of bringing order and stability to society by separating each person according to what the value most. Although you can see how stability can form by having rigid structure with everyone dedicated to their individual goals to me it seams to hinder progress. If each of these separate traits aren't shared between groups it would be impossible for society to progress as what good is knowledge if those who posses it do not wish to help others or spread truth, and what use is bravery except in the defence of others. By isolating different values they sacrifice progress for stability which is an unsustainable approach.

[hollirm]

I believe that the original people that started the five factions, their purpose was to find peace, to co-exist with people what are different than you, to prevent, what happened to the rest of the world, from happening again. But I think that this vision that the original people had for the factions was lost along the way and slowly corrupted. When looking at present day in the book, the factions are there to keep like-minded people together, but also apart from people that are different then themselves. Its a way to control people and keep people from getting together and getting different ideas in each others head and then over throwing the government.

[Valyria26]

The 5 factions are: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite.

I think these five factions are only 5 examples of the many qualities that are present in people, in fact, the author (Veronica Roth) could not put them all in the story because it would be difficult to develop together.
The creation of these 5 factions has led the peace because the virtues are enhanced and the defects have been removed from every person. But, every person is perfect with its strengths and weaknesses. In Divergent, we understand that you can not create peace by subduing the bad qualities, even in thi way, it ends up to create a lot of disorder and caos more easily.
The Divergents are normal people with a lot of positive and negative qualities like us. They are the strongest, in fact, they are revealed to be killed.

I finished reading this book yesterday, I like it so much.

[csimmons032]

The people who want to be brave and fearless and act sort like the police would go toward Dauntless. The ones who are selfless and don't believe in doing things for themselves would go for Abnegation. The people who think that honesty is always the best way to go will choose Candor. People who have a kind and peaceful attitude and want to share that attitude with others choose Amity. The ones who are smart and value knowledge and education go for Erudite. Obviously if you are Divergent like Tris, you choose the one that appeals to you the most or the one that is more likely to keep you safe. I honestly can't think of another faction that I would add. Everything that I can think of pretty much covers every personality I can think of. Brave, stubborn, kind, smart, honest, and selfless. All of these qualities are good to have, if they are used in the right way.

[kalynn briles-moore]

I believe there are many different purposes for the 5 factions and a overall purpose like money you sell/earn it for different purposes but the overall purpose of money is to help our economy much like money is the five factions the people outsides the cities purpose was to see if this (experiment) they designed would produce divergents the people inside the cities purpose was for it to create lasting peace but in the real world you aren't all of one thing and you don't have to be.

[gatorgirl_823]

It would be really hard to categorize an entire population into just five factions. So of course there were people who were factionless because of this rigid categorization. It might have worked better if the people could choose to be more than just one thing. It was set up to promote peace and keep the citizens in line, but was just not a realistic idea. Rebellion is an inevitable thing in a society such as this.

[spablo_94]

Each factions represents a certain vitue. Abnegation stands for selflessness, Dauntless for bravery, Amity for peacefulness, Candor for honesty and Erudite for knowledge.

Moreover, they have different purpose. First, Abnegation is the leader among the five factions because it is expected of them not to be greedy when it comes to power or control. They are also responsible of feeding the factionless. Dauntless,on the other hand, is responsible for security. They can be considered as the military force. Amity's role is to preserve peace and manage agriculture. While Candor is similar to our judicial system. They are responsible in determining the truth.Lastly, Erudite is the brain among the five factions. They handle the technology and find ways to improve it.

In my opinion, these five virtues are not enough to represent and fulfill all the basic needs of people. We can't just divide people into groups and expect them to behave similarly or have the same exact personality. I don't think that it's a good idea to divide people into factions. The second and third installment of Divergent clearly show why. It will only leads to more trouble because people are forced to behave like how their faction is expected to behave.

[Crimsonsky 749]

If the factions were made to find peace by putting people with the same characteristics as you in the same group. Why is there conflict? In the book there are lots of conflict between factions, but why is that? If you are next to people with similar personalities to you, why do you fight?

The reason is because the faction that you are in is just one part of your personality. And when you get rid of it, you can have two majorly different people. People who, if they didn't have that characteristic, would have been mortal enemies.

I don't know why they decided to only have 5 factions when there are so many other factors in your personality. They are the main personalities sure, but if you were only just smart, brave, honest, selfless, or kind. You wouldn't be able to do anything. If you were kind and saw a dying person and you could help them, would you? If you were just kind and nothing else would you? If you think about it for just one second you would probably say yes right? But what if that person is dangerous? Is it worth the risk to heal him/her if they could potentially harm you in the future? You have to brave and smart to consider those facts and then still decide to heal him/her.

I am not saying that the person wouldn't have healed her/him this is just one possible outcome that could happen. However the point is that we don't just have one factor in our personality, or else all the people in the same faction would act exactly the same. What makes the people in the same factions different. Is what's left of their personality once you take away the factor that put them in that faction.

[The_Venturas]

Well the purpose of the factions is to keep apart different personality types in order to maintain the peace. Each faction represents different personality types, feelings and believes.

There are the five factions dividing by character types: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (happiness), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (brave), and Erudite (knowledge).

I do not think that these five factions fit all personality types. Some people, like Tris, are not just one personality type. I would create a faction for people who are mixed personalities and another faction for those who failed the tests.

Anyway, people are too complex to fit into molds (and factions).

I agree
Maybe there are many people out there who have mixed personalities like Tris, so there must be a special faction for them. Also, I think no one could fit into a faction with only one personality in real world

[generalzod]

I guess the idea is that, different personalities clashes. so the author wants to separate them to keep peace.

[Mallory Whitaker]

I think that the fact that Divergents exist prove that they don't fit all personality types. It's very limiting by making people choose one thing that's more important than the rest - and they make you do it when you're 16. People grow and develop in ways that change their interests and priorities, so I think there must be a lot of unhappy people in these factions.