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The scythe sighed. He didn’t have to say anything—he was, after all, a scythe, above the law in every way. He owed no one an explanation. But he chose to give one anyway.
In Chapter 2, Rowan describes Faraday in this way after demanding an explanation for why Faraday selected high school student Kohl for gleaning. Though Faraday’s honest explanation doesn’t provide the mercy or comfort Rowan had hoped it would, Faraday’s decision to engage with the random teenager who questions him says a lot about his integrity and introduces the power of choice early in the narrative. Rather than targeting or ignoring Rowan, Faraday instead chooses to engage with him. Being a scythe, Faraday has all the control in the situation but is willing to cede some of it momentarily to a stranger. An essential element of being a good scythe is recognizing that being above the law is not always a good thing. Faraday’s behavior also mirrors Rowan’s own in this scene. As a classmate who barely knows Kohl, Rowan doesn’t have any obligation to be by his side during the gleaning, but he chooses to do so. Ultimately, this scene shows that making the right choice is not always the same as making the easiest or most convenient choice, and Rowan and Faraday both endeavor to make the right choice despite its challenges.
“That’s the problem," said the scythe. "It’s not what I want, it’s what you want. Where is your passion? You attack like a bot!”
In Chapter 24, Goddard subjects Rowan to this lecture when he is disappointed with how robotically his apprentice performs killcraft training on dummies. In this scene, Goddard distorts Rowan’s choices by insinuating he only wants to unleash Rowan’s inner desires, rather than forcing him to act out Goddard’s own twisted sadistic fantasies. Essentially, Goddard pretends to have much less power in the situation than he truly does, framing Rowan’s discomfort with what he’s forced to do as unreasonably denying himself the pleasure of a primal thrill. Goddard simultaneously removes Rowan’s actual power to choose while manipulating him into believing that he actually does want to enjoy what he’s doing. This quotation demonstrates how subtly Goddard convinces people like Rowan and Volta to act against their natural inclinations as he grooms them to commit acts of violence. In so doing, he also exposes how dangerous choice can be without ethical restraints. Even if Rowan had genuinely enjoyed inflicting pain on others, as Goddard does, that doesn’t mean choosing to follow through on those desires is a good, moral, or acceptable thing to do.
I cannot. That would be interfering with scythe matters. My purpose here is to make you aware. What you choose to do with that awareness is entirely up to you.
In Chapter 30, the Thunderhead offers this explanation to Citra when she demands further assistance from it to move against Goddard. The Thunderhead redirects control of the situation back to Citra, insinuating that what happens next entirely depends on her choices. Though choice connotes an active decision to do something, the Thunderhead leaves open the possibility that Citra could ultimately choose to do nothing. Passive inaction is a choice, too, though not one Citra ultimately exercises. This conversation with the Thunderhead empowers Citra, for she ultimately chooses to do many radical things after this talk, from hunting down the person she thinks killed Faraday to sparing Rowan at the Winter Conclave. Still, Citra exercises her own form of restraint in the process. She holds back from illegally gleaning the man she believes killed Faraday and chooses to obfuscate her role in Rowan’s escape. Like the Thunderhead, which takes the initiative to contact her via a loophole, she chooses to act, but she does so within her own limits.
