"Divergent" is Alarmingly Anti-Vax, Whether Intentional or Not

First, an important disclaimer: I do not know if Veronica Roth is anti-vax, nor am I trying to imply she is. This is an analysis of the text, not a deep dive into Roth’s personal life. And while this is based on the first book only, it does reference the end of the series, so this is a spoiler warning. If you haven’t read Divergent yet, just don’t. This will still make sense, though.

In case you need a refresher on the plot, Divergent follows Tris Prior, a 16-year-old girl living in an unnamed dystopian Chicago. In this society, everyone is divided into five factions -- Dauntless the brave, Abnegation the selfless, Amity the kind, Candor the honest, and Erudite the knowledgeable -- and they chose these factions around their 16th birthday. When she does the test to see what faction she belongs to, Tris discovers that she is Divergent, which means she doesn’t fit cleanly into just one faction, and she is more resistant to the various serums that are used. At the Choosing Ceremony, Tris decides to leave her home faction (Abnegation) and join Dauntless. As she’s there, she realizes that Dauntless is a lot more risky than she was expecting. Throughout the first book in this trilogy, Tris must navigate the trials to become Dauntless without revealing her Divergent identity, at the risk of death.

Despite being somewhat familiar with the plot of Divergent, as it has been many years since I read the books or watched the movies, discovering its underlying anti-vax beliefs completely threw me off guard. I was expecting weak storytelling and characters, and I was not disappointed. I was not expecting a pretty overt anti-vaccine plotline that holds a scary amount of similarities to the rhetoric we see today.

I did know to be on the lookout for anti-science messaging. Again, I don’t know anything about Roth’s beliefs, but I did realize pretty early on that she’s Christian. Knowing what I know about Christians nowadays and that I’m pretty sure scientists are the bad guys in the final book, I was a little suspicious of what other messages would be present in the books. But I wasn’t expecting it to punch me in the face.

It’s established that part of being Divergent is being resistant to the serums that you’re given -- you know you’re in a simulation, and you act as such. After Tris’ trials to join Dauntless, she is given a shot that she’s told is a precaution (Eric, a Dauntless leader, says it’s “a tracking device that will be activated only if you are reported missing” on page 398). She wants to refuse, but knows that he might hurt her if she tries to resist. As it turns out, this injection is the mind control serum from Erudite that triggers the final conflict. The Dauntless are acting without autonomy, and Eric explains that “they receive commands from [Dauntless/Erudite leaders’] computers in the transmitters we injected them with,” pointing to where Tris was given her shot (423). It didn’t actually hit me until Jeanine called Divergent people -- the only ones able to resist the serum -- “God-fearing.” Oh, I wish I could properly relay how I felt the moment I realized what was going on, because that was a better plot twist than anything actually in this book. I had to actually pause and regather myself before continuing.

In case you’ve been living under a rock since late 2020, a lot of people that oppose vaccines (generally, but especially in regards to COVID) are Christian. Some are worried about the “Mark of the Beast” from Revelations, some just outright don’t trust it. So to recap, in Divergent, we have the smart faction (full of science fans) giving an injection to everyone that cannot be refused without concerns of being killed. The only people able to not be controlled by this shot are the “God-fearing” Divergents, and they have to go on to save everyone else. Sound familiar yet? How about when Tris’ mom, Natalie, says about Divergence: “We can’t be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can’t be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them” (442). In summary, the Divergent people are scary to the government because they are unable to be controlled. I mean, come on, throw in a simile about how the mindless dauntless soldiers are like sheep and you have the perfect anti-vax Facebook post!

In case I still haven’t convinced you, let’s take a minute to listen to Roth herself. This part might be mild slander, but I’m just quoting her. When asked which faction she would pick for herself, she says that she thinks she would choose Dauntless because “I believe in freedom and justice over comfort and safety.” I will concede that this is about being Dauntless, not Divergent. But come on. Freedom over safety? Who else believes that nowadays? I have seen Christians say out loud in the height of the pandemic that they would rather keep church open and die than close the building because then they would at least be leading people to God. Regardless of whether or not Roth intended to have an anti-vax message, it’s not a crazy leap to make. Between the direct parallels to modern anti-vaccine propaganda as well as Roth’s own admission that she personally values freedom over safety, I am not willing to overlook this aspect of Divergent.

I suppose it’s fair at this point to question why I’m talking about this. Divergent is not holding onto the hype that it had back in the 2010s, so what’s the point of fighting against this book that no one cares about anymore? I would be very happy never talking about this book again, to be honest. But unfortunately, this isn’t some random hidden indie book with a niche audience.

I don’t know if the average person is aware of the impact that YA dystopian books had on my generation (or maybe just the older half of us). If you read, those were the books you were reading. Even if you didn’t read, most of them got movies that did really well in the box offices. The Hunger Games, the Selection, the Maze Runner, Divergent, and so many more books. Usually paired with books like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, these books defined our teenage years. Even though Divergent lacked the longevity of some others (it kind of ended up killing the genre, but that’s a discussion for another day), it still had a massive influence in its prime. It got three movies, people were sorting themselves into factions, and I can’t properly put into words the widespread outrage that existed around The Plot Twist at the end. The point I’m trying to make here is that it’s very alarming to find out, in hindsight, that one of the biggest book series in the world has such dangerous messages. Maybe we didn’t fully pick on it at the time, but that didn’t mean we weren’t subconsciously internalizing it.

I will be the first to admit that back in 2011, there were probably very few people who thought opinions on vaccines would ever matter this much. But now we’re in 2022, where there is widespread distrust of a vaccine that is necessary to save lives. When I first realized how much the ending of the book sounded like anti-vax propaganda, I went on a hunt to see if Roth had said anything since COVID began about either the disease, masks, or the vaccine. I wasn’t able to find anything from her, but I did find multiple real tweets from people about how Veronica Roth’s books show that vaccine mandates are dangerous. And if you want something more official, Brian Mast (a representative from Florida) said the exact same thing. Which means I am not the only one to make the connection here. While I don’t have statistics to tie a direct correlation between widespread distrust of the COVID vaccine and the Divergent series, it’s worth acknowledging that we spent years propping up a piece of media that showed millions of children just how dangerous a vaccine could be.