How It All Goes Down
- Tris's mom's journal entries become letters to David. (Hey, Taylor Swift: "Letters to David" could be your next big single.)
- The letters pretty much talk about how not selfish Tris's mom is, so she's going to do what she wants to do, not what David wants her to do, and choose Abnegation, because that's what not-selfish people would do. Follow that?
- The last journal entry is a death certificate, so there go Tris's hopes that her mom might still be alive.
- Tris decides to go to Zoe to ask for more details about her mom.
- Zoe is watching Evelyn cam as if she's Julie Chen preparing for a live eviction on Big Brother.
- Tris and Zoe watch Evelyn for a bit (she's eyeballing the blue trinket she gave Tobias) before Zoe tells Tris a bit about her ma and pa.
- Turns out Tris's parents chose Abnegation because Tris's dad wanted out of Erudite and away from Jeanine.
- Too bad that Marcus, the leader of Abnegation, wasn't much better of a leader. Zoe blames it on the fact that he was surrounded by genetically damaged losers.
- Matthew thinks it's ridiculous how much weight Zoe puts on genes and whether they're damaged or not.
- Matthew gives Tris a human biology book, telling her that it taught him "what it is to be human" (22.63). Uhh, is that really the best place to figure out what it is to be human, Matthew?
- Tris goes to give Caleb the tablet with their mother's journal on it, and Caleb repays the favor by showing Tris the family records that are kept in the record room. On paper. How quaint.
- Tris and Caleb learn that Amanda Marie Ritter became Edith Prior, one of their dad's ancestors.
- Caleb says the records suggest she volunteered for memory erasure so that her family "could escape extreme poverty—the families of the subjects were offered a monthly stipend for the subject's participation" (22.101). Um, did he read that in the record room, or in a copy of The Hunger Games?
- After this exchange of info, Tris still can't forgive her brother, so she stomps out of the room.
- Tris meets her fellow stomper-out-of-the-room, Tobias, and they stomp into each other for a change and make out.