Have you watch Insurgents? If you haven’t, it is quite a good movie to watch. But it’s not really safe for kids to watch it. I can’t really share other thing other than that, but I can say that there are some things we can learn. I hope I won’t spoil the movie as I will try to describe some common things on the movie or the trilogy for the background and some scene (probably) from the movie. From what I know, the background of the story is that the government divide the people into 5 group or known as faction. You can read here to learn about the factions. You can find out more about the synopsis too from here. There is a message that, I feel, they communicate strongly in the movie which is faction before blood. I think that is true even in real life when I think faction as character. You have similar character with your parents and probably different character that is stronger so that you seems like different from your parents.
Like I said, the movie itself is good. It taught me some things that I can ponder about life. I hope you can learn something from the movie too. It might be different and that’s okay, because we notice on different things. Here’s 3 things that I can learn from the movie
1. Grow in your dominant character
Factions are like character or temperament. Some people are more selfless (Abnegation), or more brave (Dauntless), or honest (Candor), etc. The overall idea is to simply live in a trait that is your strength. Don’t be afraid to be different than somebody else because each one of us have different trait. By growing in your dominant trait, you’ll be able to grow more and better, because you’re growing in your strength. It taught me to grow in my strength, because when you grow in that, you’ll be at your best in what you do. I remember to read or listen it in a seminar about something like this: When you try to strengthen your weaknesses, you won’t grow much. It’s your weaknesses, no matter what. You can be better a bit, but no much. It’s better to best at something compare to good at everything.
2. When you just focus on one (characteristic), it might lead to corruption.
You’ll learn from the movie that when you only focus on this rule, that everyone have to fit into one of the faction, you’ll see corruption. There’s a group that think that their group is the best. Some might not say it out loud, but they think that they are the best group to rule everyone. Just like the competition between the honest (Candor) and the intelligent (Erudite). each group think that they are more worthy to lead as the government because of the weakness that the other group has. It shows me that when you focus only on one factor, it will lead to corruption. You’ll try to overrule the other person just because he’s different. I know it’s easier to see other people weaknesses, but this has shown me to look at the strength of others. By doing that, It shows that we are unique so that we can take part to make a better world. We are helpless when we’re alone, but by working on different people with different strength, we can make a difference.
3. Don’t be afraid of change or find the right thing
There are 2 other groups that are so called out of the description of Faction: the Factionless, which is the one that feel that they don’t belong to any group. These two groups showed me that when you’re different, you can show the good or the bad. There’s a scene when the divergent point out the strength of the Candor and ask them to do different thing, and the candor agree. In the previous movie, Divergent, it shows that Tris’ father can show his brave side to fight alongside her daughter although he’s an Abnegation. Don’t be afraid to do the right thing. Even when it means you’re out of your comfort zone. I know it’s scary, but it will help you and me to do better and grow more in life. Some common thing that I usually hear is that only extroverts can be a leader. that means for you and me who are introverts, there is no chance. Is that true? Try read this. It shows that introverts can lead. It only means we can lead differently.
I’m sure there are more things that you can learn from the movie. One bonus lesson that I learn is that you need to forgive others and yourself. There are things that you can’t change. It might be that it haunt your feeling, but you still need to do that. As a Christian, I always hear about forgiving others. Less about forgiving ourselves. But this movie reminds me to forgive oneself. If you know that even the person who get offended by us forgive us, why can’t we forgive ourselves? I hope that we can learn and apply the lesson learned from this in the real life.
Question:
It might be out of the topic, but here goes: At the end of the movie, there’s a scene between Jeannine (the Faction leader) and Evelyn (The Factionless leader) show this conversation:
Jeannine: “It’s been 200 years. who knows what’s out there?”
Evelyn: “You’ll never know.”
What if you spent a lifetime knowing a lie? What will you do?
“See, to be Amity is to forgive; others, and yourself.
You’re hurting Tris.
And my heart goes out to you.
I know what it’s like to stand helpless
while you loose the ones you love.” – Johanna, Insurgents
Philippians 2: 3-4 – 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.