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Summary
Part Three, Chapters 20-21
H.S. Goddard journal entry
Goddard is dismissive of mortal-age culture. He finds it profoundly silly that mortals considered the work of a scythe a crime. For Goddard, the fact that scythes have overtaken what was once nature’s job is a glorious thing worth celebrating.
Chapter 20: Guest of Honor
Even before officially starting his training under Goddard, Rowan has decided he will intentionally lose the contest so Citra can glean him. One of Goddard’s followers, a junior scythe named Volta, drives Rowan to Goddard’s home in a mortal-age Rolls-Royce. Volta is highly defensive of Goddard, though he trained under a more traditional scythe, Nehru. Rowan is surprised to find that Goddard has thrown a big, luxurious party to welcome him. When Rowan questions how Goddard owns such an imposing mansion and has so many worldly goods, Goddard claims people donated everything to him. Goddard insists that the Commandments never directly state that scythes must forego creature comforts, a traditional belief he considers outdated, and he rails against those he considers closed-minded, old-guard scythes. Goddard introduces Rowan to a girl named Esme, whom Goddard claims is the most important person Rowan will meet that day. Despite Rowan’s misgivings about Goddard, he decides to enjoy the party as he knows he will die at Citra’s hand in eight months.
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie notes that she prefers people who fear scythes rather than those who idolize them. She thinks those who place scythes on a pedestal do so out of ignorance or corrupted morality. Curie recalls stories of people who once pretended to be scythes. Due to the separation between Scythedom and the Thunderhead, doing so was not technically illegal, but scythes decreed the immediate and public gleaning of all imposters. Now, scythes rarely encounter people posing as scythes, but she wonders all the same what motivates those who do.
Chapter 21: Branded
Rowan continues to enjoy Goddard’s party, his enthusiasm only dimming when reminded about the eventual outcome of the competition. Eventually the party winds down and Rowan’s training begins. Rand uses a tweaker on Rowan, a device that looks like a cross between a gun and a flashlight and can regulate a person’s nanites and their physical and emotional responses. Rowan recalls receiving a similar treatment for depression when he was younger. He feels blindsided when Goddard’s followers start beating him viciously. He has never experienced such pain, and Volta informs him they turned off his nanites to ensure he felt it. Goddard believes the activity is beneficial because it allows him to feel pain for the first time in his life.
Volta tends to Rowan as he recovers and reassures him of the necessity for the brutal beating. Esme also comes to visit. She tells Rowan she believes he will be a better scythe than the others, but he admits he does not intend to become one. She disagrees, thinking he’ll change his mind. Goddard eventually visits and encourages Rowan to study his wounds in a mirror. As far as Goddard is concerned, the beating is a rite of passage for Rowan and, though he reactivates Rowan’s healing nanites, he does not activate the ones that dull pain.
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie notes that fire is the only remaining form of natural death and hence the only real competition scythes have. No matter how technologically advanced society has become, there is no treatment for death by fire. Therefore, the Thunderhead employs numerous safety measures to prevent fires.
Analysis
This section depicts a stark contrast between the old guard and the sinister new forces in Scythedom, as represented by the differences in Goddard’s approach to training versus Faraday’s and Curie’s, and sets up how the fate of Scythedom hangs in the balance. Goddard sharply contrasts with both Curie and Faraday throughout the chapters. Unlike them, Goddard dismisses mortal culture, though certain aspects of it still appeal to him, such as the old-school Rolls-Royce and the role of pain in training. Rather than sharing Curie’s concern about the public’s adoration of scythes, Goddard arrogantly believes that people should revere scythes. Even the luxurious lifestyle he enjoys is a stark contrast to the lean asceticism Faraday embraced and the well-reasoned moderation Curie practices. These differences in thought and practice further emphasize the divide that Goddard discusses when he talks about the new guard and the old guard within Scythedom. These distinctions are not merely a matter of differing interpretations of how to be a scythe. Rather, Goddard believes that his new ways will fully replace the old ones, in the same way that the Thunderhead and the scythes replaced mortal culture. Goddard is, essentially, anticipating a scythe revolution.
Rowan’s beating serves as a dark rite of passage, signaling his initiation into Goddard’s elegy of scythes and the start of the sacrifice of his own personal identity. Under Faraday, Rowan had the potential to develop his own individuality as an ethical scythe who uses the profession’s freedom to forge his own way within the boundaries of acceptable behavior and practice. If he had ended up as an apprentice for Curie, as Citra did, he still would have had the opportunity to develop individually. However, Goddard instead intends to usurp Rowan’s future for his own ends, with little concern for how it affects Rowan either physically or emotionally. The beating that Goddard subjects Rowan to viscerally demonstrates this reality. Goddard wants to shape Rowan into a scythe in his own image, grim, murderous, and corrupt. For all of Goddard’s disdain for mortal-age culture, his grand rite of passage for Rowan directly draws from gang culture. Goddard even uses gang culture language to describe what will happen to Rowan by telling him he’s being “jumped in,” a term for the gang practice of viciously beating an incumbent member. Regardless of Goddard’s justifications for his methods, the beating suggests that Goddard wants to train an obedient killer to help him massacre people, not an independent-minded scythe who will one day glean ethically. Goddard doesn’t want a scything apprentice so much as an accomplice to murder, and this is the focus of his training plan.
Rowan’s internal monologue in these chapters interrogates Curie’s oft-stated concerns about the impact of stagnation on people. Earlier in the novel, Curie had been preoccupied with the numbing effects of boredom on people’s will to exercise their creativity and experience life to the fullest. However, Rowan misses his previous life of boredom once he moves in with Goddard. To him, it would be infinitely preferable that the world ignore him as he plods through life. Now, instead, he is faced with the prospect of either killing the girl he has feelings for or dying at her hand. Life as a scythe may hold more meaning and potential for adventure, but that does not make it inherently better in his eyes. A middle ground would be far more preferable than either the state of affairs that Curie observes, in which the world so coddles people that they lose the ability to enjoy life, or what Goddard advocates for, in which scythes must make a living out of death to feel truly alive.
