MovieChat Forums > Allegiant (2016) Discussion > difference between damaged and pure?

difference between damaged and pure?


I'm so confused. What makes a person damaed? And why is tris considered pure?

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Basically human got into genetic modifications. People were given certain traits however there were side effects. Too strong/aggressive and you're cruel. Too intelligent and you're indifferent to the suffering of others. Too kind and you're passive. Basically you ended up with people with strongly pronounced character flaws. This is why they are damaged.

The pure are people without the severe flaws. Tris is the first born pure from damaged stock.

The experiment was too see if they could correct these flaws. The divergent are proof that it was working.

I hope that helps.

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People were given certain traits however there were side effects. Too strong/aggressive and you're cruel. Too intelligent and you're indifferent to the suffering of others. Too kind and you're passive. Basically you ended up with people with strongly pronounced character flaws. This is why they are damaged.


Yes, they enhanced people to make them more brave, for instance, and that came with a side effect of being too cruel, aggressive. For every virtue they enhanced they increased an associated negative trait. So to correct these negative traits they stuck them in factions to ... enhance the virtues that created the negative traits in the first place? If an emphasis on bravery leads to a corresponding increase in cruelty, how are they going to correct the cruelty with a faction that emphasizes bravery all over again? Methinks the author wasn't paying attention when she pulled this explanation out of her butt at the last minute.

The pure are people without the severe flaws. Tris is the first born pure from damaged stock.

The experiment was too see if they could correct these flaws. The divergent are proof that it was working.


And I'm not sure how or why this experiment would actually work to correct the things they said. Aside from the factions serving the purpose of doing the exact opposite of what they need to do, how exactly are they going to repair or evolve away from "damaged" genes by locking a population of damaged people in an isolated environment so they're forced to breed with only each other for 200 years? That would just make it worse. And even better, let's force everyone into factions according to their specific type of genetic damage and discourage intermingling between groups so everyone marries and reproduces with someone with the exact same type of damage they have. That'll fix our problem! Again, this is what happens when you try to come up with the logic and explanation for your story world after the fact and try to retcon it in to fit everything you've already written. A big giant plot hole of stinky nonsense.

To address the OP's question: The difference between damaged and pure is that the damaged have genes that still retain the effects of the genetic manipulation of their ancestors and therefore are considered "damaged" and the pure are the ones whose genes show no sign of manipulation and they are, well, pure. Tris is considered "pure" because the story said so. In reality, there is no more difference between the pure and the damaged than there is between a person with blue eyes and a person with brown eyes. They're just different and it means nothing, which is kind of the moral of the story so to speak but since there is no actual problem it's kind of hard to give a crap about the alleged conflict surrounding it.




>>>>>Happy dance!

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AMEN! I watched the movie last night and couldn't get over how stupid the whole thing is.


Being brave won't make you cruel. Being brave will reduce your fear and that means you have less of survival instincts.

I.E Lead you to do more dangerous things and ignoring safety measures which most likely will lead to danger to you or others. That is not cruelty.



Moreover, if the whole thing was about removing the genes, then selective breeding would have been best and that would mean to mix people around - not shove them to homogeneous groups.


Even beyond all of that, the dumbest thing in this entire movie (and that says a LOT) is that basically the people running the experiment wanted to see a pure born of damaged. Okay... Tris is born. So... Experiment is over? Just take her as a baby and call it a day. Why on earth have they waited all these years?



Now, if we go by the second movie, we could assume something like the experiment is a closed box and only after getting that message in the box, they outside people are alerted that Tris is pure.


However, this movie tells us that they knew about her all along and were constantly watching her... So... They did know about her all this time? They could take her out? Why wait? If it's about genetics, she has DNA as a baby...

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The experiment was too see if they could correct these flaws. The divergent are proof that it was working.

Except they werent. Tris mother was born in the real world and supposedly she was the only person with "perfect" genes they'd ever seen. She then had Tris who also had perfect genes and Caleb who is 100% flawed like his father (originally Eurdite, but who switched to be with TRis mother and somehow hide his intelligence even though his genes were flawed?)........thereby not getting any of his mothers DNA. This book didnt make any sense...

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Furthermore, if Natalie Prior actually was born outside of the experiment in the "real world" and was placed in the experiment (another of the author's insultingly obvious retcons), then the experiment has been tainted and any associated results from this are invalid. Tris cannot be proof of the experiment's success because she (and Caleb) was born to a "plant" in the experiment and her existence is a spoiler.


>>>>>Happy dance!

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then why put them into factions -- why not mix them up? wouldn't putting them into their category exacerbate their "flaws" over time and not give an accurate or fair way to getting better?

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don't think about it.

the whole concept is nonsense

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