Divided Kingdom

I like talking about books. Discuss them. So here we begin.

First book of the list is Divided Kingdom (read about it here) and a list of things about it:

• Interesting idea, of course. I went to the website and found that there is the assignment test, which would send me straight to the Green Quarter, with the melancholic lot. Quite appropriate, I must say. It was also helpful so I could see how the whole system would work, because after all I did answer a few things tending towards the sanguine, rather than the melancholic. But I'm a predominant "green", and I could say that I wouldn't be a phlegmatic (too nervous!) nor a choleric (though my brother would definitely be assigned there, no doubt whatsoever). Talking to a friend, and outlining the main idea of the reassignment, he asked an interesting question: what if you are classified a green but as you grow up you become a blue? Which is a correct question, especially for children, isn't it? I guess I would have classified a sanguine, like many children, but then I turned a melancholic due to the experiences of my life. Then again, as the book puts it, when you are assigned to a quarter you become what you were expected to become, unless you show some switch to another mood that urges a change, like Jones does in the book. Thomas too becomes a melancholic when he's reassigned to the Blue Quarter; he doesn't spend enough time in the Yellow Quarter to become a choleric, although he acts like one when he has to cross the border. But then, it wouldn't have been in him, to act as a choleric, i.e. an aggressive person. I wonder if with time he would have become one, if only to survive.
• Which leads to the idea that basically the reassignment system shapes the personality: your answers tend to a choleric mood, so off you go. But maybe if I had been put in the Blue Quarter I would have calmed down, adjusted my aggressiveness, wouldn't I? Or spending some time in the Yellow Quarter, me being a phlegmatic, would have made me develop a little aggressiveness, a little confidence, maybe. In the end, spending some time in each quarter would have been a useful idea. Which leads to the final thought, that you cannot divide people this easily, for we are lots of things at once and this is what makes us unique.
• The time Thomas spends with the White People is very interesting. They are the clandestine people, the immigrants (illegal or not) of our time. They are feared of (although for different reasons from our fear of immigrants - practical reasons, I mean: the WP are feared of because they are said to have psychic powers or such; but in any case the reason people fear and end with hating them is ignorance, diversity), and hated, to the point of being attacked and mistreated even by those who should protect them (police &Co.). But it's interesting to notice the changes in the main character when he travels with them, almost becoming like them, not only because he interrupts the usual means of communication, but because he understands what they feel and why they behave that way. Which is the main thing with people from other places, isn't it? Only we are too lazy or too scared to go deeper into these subjects and we (almost always) prefer stereotypes. I'm not being moralistic here, because I know it is not that easy. But the idea is, the White People have not formed a personality yet, and this is a risk that must be avoided: to put a possible choleric personality in the Blue Quarter, or a Melancholic in the Red would bring to no good. (However, it seems that the problem would arise only with a mingle of these three colours: the Red Quarter is virtually invincible, although the book shows that even a sanguine personality can be corrupted). Anyway, being unclassifiable makes them scary because you never know how to treat them, and what to expect of them: which is the thing with people from other cultures. You cannot be sure that a smile, a glance, a gesture, will be understood this way or that, not to mention the linguistic problem: irony, kindness..it's hard enough, sometimes, to be understood among your own "people".
• The White People, on the other hand, can be so multifaceted that every colour of the world is inside them; that's why they don't respond to the rigid set of questions that would define them; that's why they don't talk. They have no race or colour because they don't belong anywhere, they belong to the Universe, if I can put it this way. Maybe in another story they could be thought of as sacred figures, rather than outcasts.
  
  Well, this is just a list of some things that have gone through my mind during and after reading the book. Of course there could be much more. But I'm still waiting for that phone to ring and my boss to say "Come on, and take all the papers with you", and I'm dreading that moment...