Summary
H.S. Curie’s gleaning journal documents the 10 Scythe Commandments, including #10: “Thou shalt be beholden to no laws beyond these.” There are no scythes still alive who were there when the commandments were drafted, and as she’s gotten older, Scythe Curie has seen the commandments become flexible.
Shortly after a businessman takes seat 15C on an airplane, the plane is boarded by four scythes, led by a scythe who looks to be in his late thirties, wearing a royal blue robe covered in diamonds. A flight attendant runs away when she sees them. The scythe announces that the flight has been scheduled for gleaning, and that anyone who runs—like the flight attendant—will have their entire families gleaned as well. The scythe tells the businessman in seat 15C to decide the order of how the people on the flight will be killed, but the businessman refuses, encouraging the passengers to kill themselves rather than let scythes who enjoy killing glean them. The businessman throws himself on the scythe’s blade, choosing death to defy the scythe.
At Scythe Faraday’s, Citra and Rowan are trained in every kind of fighting, from ancient weapons to modern guns to Black Widow Bokator, a martial art developed for the Scythedom. They also study history, mental acuity, chemistry (for poisons), and write daily entries in their apprentice journals. Citra doesn’t get used to watching gleanings, and for the first time in her life, she aspires to fail.
Rowan’s feelings are mixed—he thinks he could be a good scythe, and he’s inspired by Scythe Faraday’s ethical framework, but he still feels like an accomplice in a crime. He struggles to journal, since he wants to do it correctly or not at all. Scythe Faraday breaks his strict no-family rule for Citra to attend her aunt’s wedding, where she’s treated as an outsider even by her brother; she leaves early, and though Scythe Faraday acts surprised, he’s already set her place for dinner.
One day, Scythe Faraday goes out to glean alone. He leaves Citra in charge of cleaning his large weapon collection, and he asks Rowan to choose the next person to be gleaned, using the Thunderhead’s extensive database. Scythes aren’t allowed to ask the Thunderhead’s intelligent algorithms for help choosing—punishment for that would be severe—so Rowan narrows his search using Scythe Faraday’s requirements: living by water, being a strong swimmer, owning a dog, and having a history of nonprofessional heroism (to reflect how many people died trying to rescue their pets in the Age of Mortality). He narrows it down to four people, and when Scythe Faraday returns (covered in blood) he yells at Rowan to just pick one, which Rowan does, feeling awful.
The next day, the three of them glean Bradford Ziller, an event which is told from Bradford’s point of view. Rowan delivers the news, and Citra sedates his three dogs, getting bitten in the process. Bradford chooses to be alert while Scythe Faraday drowns him, rather than sedated. Citra is impressed by Rowan’s composure, and she finds his modesty both maddening and endearing.
A fourth-grade girl named Esme waits for her pizza to cool at the Fulcrum City Galleria food court. Four scythes in glittering robes begin gleaning everyone in the food court, and though Esme hides, the leader in blue robes finds her. He says that she’ll be coming with them—he granted her mother immunity. The woman in green robes gives Esme her pizza. Esme goes with them. Who is she to fight something that rings so clearly of destiny?
Rowan plays basketball with Tyger, whose popularity at school has skyrocketed, since they all think he’s friends with a scythe who hates them. Rowan can tell that Tyger is letting him win, and when other guys join the game, they do the same. Rowan invites Tyger to see Scythe Faraday’s house, even though he knows the scythe would hate it; he’s been so obedient, it’s time he does something he wants to do. Tyger is amazed by the weapons den, and to make him put a machete down, Rowan uses Bokator. Citra coming home gives Rowan an out—he tells Tyger it’s Scythe Faraday and forces him to leave secretly.
After three months of apprentice training, Citra can’t deny that she wants Scythe Faraday to choose her for the scythe ring. She excels at Black Widow Bokator with Scythe Yingxing, who has taken a vow of silence and never uses weapons to glean. Citra and Rowan spar during training, and Citra finds herself wanting physical contact with Rowan—which annoys her to no end.
In early May, one week before the upcoming Vernal Conclave, Scythe Faraday takes Citra to a gleaning that goes wrong. It’s supposed to be a peaceful bloodletting, but the man fights back, breaking Scythe Faraday’s jaw and challenging Citra’s Bokator skills (real fighting is different from practice in a dojo). Scythe Faraday cuts the man’s throat with a hunting knife. The punishment for resisting gleaning is killing the entire family, but Scythe Faraday tells the family that he didn’t resist, granting them a year of immunity instead. He commands Citra to tell no one about this, even her apprentice journal. Citra admires Scythe Faraday for choosing compassion over obligation, understanding when the law must be broken.
Scythe Faraday has Citra bring him a glass of milk before bed every night (“even an agent of death would have guilty pleasures,” she thinks). One night, he’s asleep by the time she brings the glass. Out of curiosity, she touches his scythe ring. She sees that Scythe Faraday is actually awake, and he encourages her to try the ring on; in only a few seconds, her finger becomes intensely frostbitten, and even though she throws the ring off, she would have lost her finger in the Age of Mortality. Scythe Faraday explains that he added this safety feature himself, and that Rowan will bring his milk from now on—though he adds with a conspiratorial grin that it’s not a punishment; her curiosity was tested, and now they’ll see how long it’ll take Rowan to go for the ring.
Analysis
In this section, the reader is introduced to some non-protagonist point-of-view segments: the businessman in seat 15C, Bradford Ziller, and Esme. This allows Shusterman to introduce the reader to Scythe Goddard before Citra and Rowan meet him; these non-Citra/Rowan point-of-view segments also function to expand the reader's worldview beyond Rowan and Citra's perspectives, allowing the reader to question them more. The reader now knows far more than Citra or Rowan, and by the time Rowan starts watching Scythe Goddard, we as readers already know what we're looking at, which both engages and empowers the audience.
The parallels between Citra and Rowan's experiences continue in this section, as both of them have experiences with the "outside world" now that they are apprenticed to Scythe Faraday. Citra goes to her aunt's wedding, where she can't stand to linger after the ceremony because of how awkward it is. Rowan plays basketball with Tyger, who's his usual, bragging self, but Rowan can tell that Tyger is letting him win the game. When other boys join them, Rowan has to force them to play, and even then they aren't really playing against him, and Rowan ends the game. Tyger's rise in popularity due to Rowan's apprenticeship seems especially perverse, after Rowan was completely ostracized, which just emphasizes that Rowan is removed from society for real now. Citra and Rowan each return to an aspect of their old life that used to comfort them, but which is now alien and uncomfortable—it's hard to believe that either one of them will be able to return to "normal life" after this apprenticeship.
Rowan is obviously adept at reading people, and he predicts that Citra will try to get the scythe ring even if she doesn't want it. He's proven right, when after three months she realizes that she truly wants to win. Though Rowan's perceptiveness is highlighted in the novel, Citra is clearly observing Rowan in return. She admires his composure during Bradford Ziller's gleaning, imagining Bradford's experience and recognizing that Rowan's behavior must have brought him comfort. She also admires Rowan's modesty, though she finds it infuriating. At this point, it's clear that Citra's anger flares up when she doesn't understand something (namely, how she feels about Rowan).
On a related note, this section includes the first indication of a reciprocal romantic interest between Rowan and Citra. During Bokator training, Citra finds herself lingering in ways that don't progress the match, so that she can enjoy the body-to-body contact with Rowan. This, of course, makes her annoyed. These flare-ups in temper don't disappear as Citra becomes Scythe Anastasia, but they certainly become less frequent...possibly because she and Rowan spend time apart, so she doesn't have to get angry about her feelings for him.
The most important relationship-building in this section is done in the bond between Citra and Scythe Faraday. Scythe Faraday shows a deep understanding of her experience at the family wedding, setting her place at the table before she even knows she'll be returning. They share two secrets, one of which is comedic and intimate, as Citra brings him milk before bed every night and often finds him sleeping. When she picks up his ring, she breaks his trust, but it's revealed that this was a test of her curiosity—and now she gets to be a participant in testing Rowan's curiosity, initiating Citra into the joke and making her a co-conspirator. Citra is made Scythe Faraday's co-conspirator in a more serious sense by their other secret—refusing to glean the family of someone who resists—because that breaks the scythe commandments and could result in serious punishment. In a way, Citra is Scythe Faraday's confidante. Though Citra was the more reluctant of the two about becoming Scythe Faraday's apprentice, this section puts heavy emphasis on their relationship and shared secrets—these provide the impetus for Citra's secret investigation, later in the novel, into Scythe Faraday's supposed self-gleaning.
