Tobias Eaton, more commonly known as Four, is the deuteragonist of the Divergent trilogy. He is the son of Evelyn Johnson and Marcus Eaton. Alongside Lauren (instructor of Dauntless-born initiates), he is the instructor of the transfer initiates. He becomes the love interest of Tris Prior later on in the first book of the trilogy.
Tobias was born to Marcus and Evelyn Eaton in the Abnegation faction. His father was said to have noticed his Divergence at a young age and became observant of him since then. Evelyn supposedly died when Tobias was young, leaving Tobias alone with Marcus. Tobias became a victim to his father's cruelty. During his aptitude tests he got an Abnegation result, but chose Dauntless as his faction at the Choosing Ceremony to escape his father. During his initiation training, when he went through his fear landscape, it was discovered Tobias only had four fears, with the average being between ten and fifteen. As a result, his instructor, Amar, started calling him "Four." Tobias accepted it so he could escape his past. He finished first in his initiation class, and chose to work in the intelligence sector of Dauntless, but also decided to train the initiates.
Four is first seen helping Tris get out of the net after she jumps through the hole into the Dauntless compound. After all the initiates have come in, he introduces himself as the instructor to the transfers.
Four supervises their training, showing them how to fight with weapons, as well as hand-to-hand combat. Tris' fellow initiates, Christina and Will, both comment that Four seems like someone to stay away from. Four tries to help Tris out with her combat abilities, though Tris is wary to trust him, initially. During Tris' first fight, against Peter Hayes, when Tris starts being beaten badly, she notices Four leaving the room. When she comments to him about this, he says it "wasn't something I wanted to watch."
Four is next seen when the initiates gather at the tracks to play a Dauntless game of capture the flag. On the train, Four and Dauntless leader Eric are the two captains under which initiates will be split up into two teams. Four surprises Tris, as well as the rest of the group, by choosing her as his first team member. Tris later notices that all the members Eric picked have bigger builds compared to Four's picks. Eventually, they come to the amusement park, and Four tells them to come up with a strategy before the other team picks their spot. While the other members start bickering about a strategy, Four notices Tris sneak off toward the ferris wheel.
He follows her, and she says she's "seeking higher ground" to find the other team. Four climbs with her, and Tris later realizes he has a fear of heights. They're able to climb high enough to find the other team's flag, but on the way down, Tris loses her footing and is dangling in midair. Four climbs down and turns on the wheel, helping Tris ride down and safely land. They come back to the group, and Tris devises a strategy to go into two groups, with half distracting the team while the other gets the flag. The strategy works, and Four's team wins. Though Christina is the one who captures the flag, Four tells Tris "well done," acknowledging her role in their win.
The next day, the initiates are shown how to throw knives by Four and Eric. After they start throwing, both Eric and Four notice that Tris' friend, Al, hasn't hit the target yet. Eric tells him to go get his knife when he misses again, but Al refuses because he's afraid of being hit by a stray knife thrown by the other initiates. Eric has them stop, and tells Al to stand in front of the target. Eric calls Four over, and tells Al to stand in front of the target while Four throws knives at him. If he flinches, he's out. Just as Four is getting ready to throw, Tris stops him and voluntarily takes Al's place. She manages to stay composed while Four throws the knives. He throws a knife that nicks her ear, and she later calls him out for doing it on purpose. Four admits it, saying if he hadn't, Eric wouldn't have let her go. When she yells at him for "taunting" her, he angrily tells her that if he wanted to hurt her, he would've by now. He storms out before she can ask what he means.
Tris is paired up against Molly, Peter's sidekick, in her following fight. She defeats Molly, but almost beats her to death until Four pulls Tris away, shocked by her show of rage. During Visiting Day, Tris introduces Four to her mom, Natalie Prior. Natalie comments that Four looks familiar to her, as well as 'handsome', though Four dismisses it, saying he doesn't care to be associated with Abnegation. During the second stage of initiation, Four supervises the initiates as they go through their fear simulations while under a serum. Four figures out that Tris is Divergent, and though she denies it, he tells her to find a way to conceal it or she could end up dead. Tris wonders if he's Divergent, as well.
When rankings for stage two are posted, Tris finds herself ranked first. Soon after, she's attacked by Peter, Drew, and Al, when they try to throw her into the chasm. Four hears her screams and rescues her, severely injuring Drew in the process. Four brings Tris back to his room.
Four shows the transfers the fear landscape room, where they'll try to conquer their fears as their final test. Tris later notices him going alone toward the room, and follows him. Four realizes she's following him, and reveals he wanted her to come. Tris goes through his fear landscape, and finds out his true identity. She protects him from Marcus when he shows up in his landscape, preventing him from hitting Four with a belt as he usually did. He's amazed afterwards by her actions, and credits her for helping him get through his fears. They later make their way next to the chasm, where he opens up to Tris. They share their first kiss during this time.
The next day, the initiates go through Lauren's fear landscapes as preparation for the final. But when Tris goes in, facing Lauren's fear of being kidnapped, the fear morphs into her own, and Tris panics. Tobias shuts down the simulation, and yells at her for being "pathetic." Tris hits him, and tells him off before running away. She goes to Erudite to visit her brother, Caleb, before being driven back to Dauntless compounds after getting caught. Tobias later helps her get out of trouble with Eric. He talks to Tris alone afterwards, who scolds him for yelling at her. Tobias insists he was trying to protect her so no one would know their relationship and accuse him of choosing favorites; Tris understands, and they reconcile.
Tobias has Tris meet him later that night, and the two of them get onto the train. He brings her to Erudite headquarters, where he shows her that their lights are on throughout the night even though it's against city rules. Tris makes the connection between the lights and the recent articles Erudite have written, slandering Abnegation city leaders. She also figures out what Tobias has: Erudite are planning to use Dauntless to overthrow Abnegation and take over the government. Tobias doesn't know how, and Tris admits she doesn't know, either.
On Initiation Day, Tobias is monitoring the initiates, but he can't see the simulations. After Tris goes through her test, Tobias brings her back to his room, where they start making out. Tris, though, pulls back and reveals to Tobias that he was in her fear landscape because she's afraid of being intimate with him, thinking he only wants her for her body. Tobias insists that's not what he thinks of her, and she says he's probably not going to be in her fear landscape anymore. At the dinner, Tris is ranked first, and accepted into Dauntless. Tobias comes up to congratulate her, and she kisses him, not caring what others think, but she pulls back, realizing how Erudite are going to use Dauntless, insisting she'll tell him later.
Tris' assumption is proven correct, as Erudite activate a tracker serum put in every Dauntless member, making them sleepwalking soldiers, that night. Tris sees Tobias next when she gets onto the train, and is afraid she was wrong about him being Divergent, as well. He grabs her hand, though, revealing his Divergence to her. The two get down with the other soldiers at Abnegation, where the leaders are rounded up to be killed. At one point, Eric decides to shoot Four to get rid of his competition, thinking no one will notice, but Tris stops him, shooting him in the foot. She and Four run, but don't make it far because Tris is shot, and Tobias refuses to leave her. The two are brought before Jeanine Matthews, leader of the Erudite, who decides to use Tobias to test out her new simulation serum for Divergents, and leaving Tris to die since she's wounded. Tobias tries to attack Jeanine to prevent this, but fails and is injected with Jeanie's new serum which is effective on him even though he is Divergent. The first thing he does is try to strangle Tris, but Jeanie's guards pry him off her. Jeanie then sends him to the control room to run the simulation.
Tris is saved, and comes to Dauntless headquarters with her father, Andrew Prior along with his father, Marcus Eaton, and Caleb Prior in order to shut down the simulation. She comes to the control room, where she finds Four under simulation monitoring the other Dauntless soldiers on the screen. The two of them start fighting against each other, until Tris manages to get Tobias' gun and points it at him. Not able to shoot him, she puts the gun in his hand and he points it at her head knowing (hoping) he'd be too afraid to shoot her. However, her voice comes through to him, and he breaks out of the simulation. After shutting down the simulation he removes it from the Erudite files by putting the code for the simulation and what was done with the Simulation on a hardrive which he gives to Tris. They then go down to regroup. Marcus gives him a hug and he goes rigid with fear of his abusive father. Tris comes to his rescue and separates Marcus from him. She lets Marcus know that she thinks Tobias has the right to shoot him, though she might do it herself. They jump onto the train with Peter, who helped Tris get into the control room after she shot him, and head towards Amity headquarters.
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