Tris Prior

Tris is a small girl with a calm look and enormous willpower. Raised in Abnegation, she learned to think of others before herself, but senses something wrong in that. Shailene Woodley plays her with a restrained tone that erupts when needed. Tris feels fear, and that is what makes her interesting: she isn't fearless, she just learns to act despite the fright. Being Divergent means her mind resists what society expects, and that trait puts her in danger and makes her unique. In Dauntless she finds a strength she never knew she had.

Beatrice Prior lives in Abnegation, where thinking of yourself is wrong. On the aptitude test her result points to more than one faction, and the examiner, Tori, tells her to hide the truth: she is Divergent. On Choosing Day she leaves her parents and her brother Caleb, who stays with Erudite, and jumps into Dauntless, taking the name Tris. Initiation is brutal. She takes a beating, nearly quits and learns from Four to face fear. When Erudite attacks Abnegation, Tris loses her mother and father and, with Four, manages to stop Jeanine's plan.

Soon after the attack, Tris tries to move on but carries guilt over killing a friend. On the run with Four, Caleb and Peter, she passes through the Factionless and Candor, where a truth serum exposes what she was hiding. Jeanine declares martial law and hunts the Divergent. Tris decides to give herself up to stop the killing. In Erudite's simulations she faces ever tougher tests and, with an unexpected ally's help, opens the founders' box. What it reveals changes everything.

Outside Chicago, Tris learns the city was an experiment and she is seen as a success. The Bureau of Genetic Welfare welcomes her, and its leader David shows her memories of her mother. Four distrusts the place. Tris wants to believe what she hears and parts from him to work with David. The film ends on her choice and on many unanswered questions, because the second part was never made.

Tris narrates the first two Veronica Roth novels, Divergent (2011) and Insurgent (2012), and shares the narration of Allegiant (2013) with Tobias. In the books her ending differs from what the cinema showed, because the film did not adapt the end of Allegiant. Details in the "What changed on screen" tab of the books saga.