Arc of a Scythe is a novel trilogy by Neal Shusterman. It’s set sometime in the future when humanity has achieved immortality through technology, no one feels pain, and the world is run by a Benevolent A.I. known as the Thunderhead. However, to avoid overpopulation, humanity has created the scythes, people chosen to kill people (though they call it “gleaning”). When a person becomes a scythe, they take the name of a historical figure, and receive a special ring which, if kissed, will grant a person immunity from being gleaned for a year. Scythes are split up by region, each of which is overseen by a High Blade and meet three times a year for an event called Conclave. Above the High Blades are the Grandslayers, who oversee the world's scythes from the floating island of Endura. The series follows Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch, two teens chosen to become scythes by one Scythe Faraday and who are forced to deal with Scythe Goddard, a sadist who wants to corrupt the Scythedom to be as evil as he is.
Who is Scythe Faraday and what does he do?
Faraday is one of the primary Big Goods of the series and a member of the “Old Guard” faction of scythes combatting Goddard’s sadistic “New Order” faction. Faraday runs into Citra and Rowan separately while out gleaning people and decides to take both of them as apprentices, though only one will actually become a scythe. Under his tutelage we learn about the perspective of the Old Guard, gleaning people with compassion and purpose, with Faraday himself choosing people based on statistics of deaths from the “mortal age” and using a different method of gleaning for each person to help remember them all as individuals. While training the teens both physically and mentally, Faraday also has a number of tests of their character, making an extremely reluctant Rowan choose his next gleaning victim, and ordering them to perform a gleaning themselves (which is actually a Secret Test of Character which they pass by refusing) among other things. In one memorable scene, a person forcibly kisses his ring to get a year of immunity, to which Faraday responds by promising to visit the man the day the immunity runs out, though he says in private he probably won’t follow through on the threat and was just trying to scare the guy straight. We also see that he is very compassionate, when a man attacks him and Citra in an attempt to avoid being gleaned (which by scythe law would force Faraday to glean his family as punishment), Faraday instead pretends that Citra had attacked him in order to spare the family.
However things change after their first visit to Conclave where Goddard uses his influence over scythe Xenocrates, the High Blade of their region, to change the rules of Citra and Rowan’s apprenticeship so whoever is chosen will be forced to glean the other. This horrifies Faraday, who fakes his suicide hoping that his death would release both of the teens from their apprenticeship. Unfortunately this fails and Xenocrates instead has Citra become the apprentice of Faraday’s friend Scythe Curie, while Rowan is apprenticed to Goddard. Goddard subsequently frames Citra for Faraday’s murder, forcing Citra to go on the run to South America where she discovers that Faraday is alive and living under his birth name of Gerard Van Der Gans. At the end of their apprenticeship Citra is chosen to be a scythe but she manages to help Rowan escape and Rowan goes into hiding with Faraday.
However Rowan, who had snapped and supposedly killed Goddard, became driven to kill more New Order scythes and became the scythe Serial Killer scythe Lucifer, to Faraday's disappointment. Faraday, fearing the New Order will soon take over the Scythedom and decides to look for a hidden contingency created by the first scythes to replace the scythedom if it became a problem. He travels to the library where the journals of all scythes are held, recruiting one of the curators named Munira as his aide, having read up on her history and knowing that she would be the most amenable to helping him out of the curators there. Eventually the two discover an island which is hidden from the Thunderhead which they travel to, hoping to find the contingency. There they discover that the contingency can only be activated by using two scythe rings, which they don't have.
In the third book Faraday and Munira are followed to the island by agents working for the Thunderhead as part of its own plans, with Faraday learning that Citra and his beloved friend scythe Curie have died in another of Goddard's schemes (in reality Citra secretly survived). This causes Faraday to give up on activating the contingency, though he still has the wherewithal to organize the agents under a capable leader named Loriana (while giving an incompetent blowhard nominal authority to keep his quiet) and has Munira befriend her to keep aware of what happens in the rest of the world.
Who is Scythe Curie and what does she do?
Curie is a formidable and respected scythe who was trained by Faraday when he was still young. After becoming s Scythe, Curie wasn’t taken seriously both because of her being a new scythe and because of Faraday’s age when he trained her. As detailed in the companion book Gleanings, this was shortly after humanity had gained immortality and before the Thunderhead had completely taken over running the world, and some countries’ governments still tried to hold onto their power. Wishing to eliminate the last bits of opposition to the Thunderhead's benevolent rule Curie decided to glean the president of the US and his cabinet in order to help the world move on from old power structures. This action emboldened scythes across the globe to also glean the last remaining government officials and gained Curie a reputation which would grow into the nickname “The Grand Dame of Death” (though Curie herself later grew to regret the brutality of this act). In the trilogy proper Curie enters the plot when Citra and Rowan go to Conclave and administers a test to the apprentice scythes by asking them questions to test both their character and knowledge of scythe protocol. At the end of the Conclave High Blade Xenocrates decides that whoever is chosen between Citra is Rowan to become a scythe will be forced to glean the other.
This choice causes Faraday to fake his suicide in the hopes of releasing the two from their apprenticeship, this fails and instead Rowan is apprenticed to scythe Goddard and Curie takes in Citra to save her from also being apprenticed to Goddard. Here we learn about how Curie gleans people, she walks the streets looking for people who have grown “stagnant” and swiftly stabs them through the heart without warning. This horrifies Citra, who’s used to Faraday’s method of informing his targets beforehand, and when she yells at Curie, the scythe immediately shouts her down in front of the nearby civilians, and declares that she’ll be punished, but when they get inside a car Curie explains that she’s actually impressed by Citra’s compassion and that she only admonished her to keep up appearances. That night Curie invites the family of her victim to diner (since scythes are obligated to give immunity to the families of their victims) and has them talk about the dead man, listening intently in order to understand who he was and at the end of the night, Curie offers the family the opportunity to stab her as payback, which they refuse, touched by the offer and Curie’s genuine interest in their dead relative. This focus on bringing peace to the grieving families of her victims impresses Citra.
Further into her apprenticeship Citra is accused by Xenocrates of murdering Faraday, with Xenocrates using a journal entry written by Faraday expressing fear that his apprentice is watching him sleep as evidence. Curie helps Citra escape Xenocrates and his scythes, spiriting her away to South America and even blowing up a pair of cars so Citra can’t be pursued at one point. Citra, using Curie’s connections and following her directions, tracks down Gerald Van Der Gans, who Citra believes murdered Faraday but in fact is Faraday hiding out under his birth name. Curie reveals that the journal entry was actually written about her when she was Faraday’s apprentice and that she had a crush on him and was bad at expressing it, clearing Citra’s name. By the end of the book, Citra is a scythe, and Rowan is on the run from the scythedom for seemingly killing Goddard and his follower Scythe Rand.
In the second book Citra and Curie are targeted by a secretly alive Rand, who is plotting to assassinate them because they will be the greatest threat to Goddard once Rand revives him. After they are saved from Rand’s first assassination attempt by Greyson, a person the Thunderhead is using to help them, the two go mobile, moving around as much as possible so as not to be attacked again. After dodging a second assassination attempt the two travel to Conclave where they learn that Xenocrates has been chosen to become a member of the Grandslayers and a new High Blade must be chosen for their region, with the election being between a revived Goddard and Curie. However Citra calls Goddard's legitimacy into question since he was revived with a new body, meaning the Grandslayers must weigh in on if he can become High Blade or not. Everyone travels to Endura, the massive floating island where the Grandslayers live. The Grandslayers ultimately disallow Goddard from becoming High Blade but he enacts a backup plan by sinking the entire island and having the populace eaten by sealife so they can't be revived. Curie, realizing that escape by normal means is impossible, leads Citra and Rowan (who's there for other reasons) to the vault where all scythe rings are stored, and stays outside to close the vault with them inside. As the island continues to sink Curie end up on the roof with a crowd and several scythes and leads them in mercy killing the grateful civilians before they all take their own lives.
This isn't Curie's final appearance though, the last chapter of the companion book Gleanings reveals that the Thunderhead saved her memories and revived her in a different person's body as part of it's plan to establish colonies on different planets, with Curie taking the name Susan Wildblood a combination of her birth name and the surname of the person who's body she now inhabits, and deciding to live a peaceful life on the new planet as a chef.
Is she a bastard?
This was the point that made me not propose her years ago when I first read the books (same with two of my other candidates) since in the somewhat skewed morality of the setting she and the other Old Guard scythes are generally framed as good people and them gleaning people is a necessary thing to keep humanity's population under control. However the series does ultimately come down on the side of all scythes being amoral and the series ends with the scythedom being completely abolished in favor of an impartial system of population control. Even besides that her method of gleaning people out of nowhere is still framed as a fairly brutal method, even if she shows compassion to the families afterwards.
Is she magnificent?
She admittedly does do as much as my other candidates but I think her wiping out the last of the American government to put the world in the far more capable hands of the Thunderhead, doing much of the legwork in keeping Citra safe when she's framed for Faraday's murder, and her actions during the sinking of Endura are enough for her to count. My only concern is her attitude towards Tone Cultists, the only religion left in the world, who she greatly dislikes due to her brother joining one and dying due to their practices. This pops up when she and Citra talk to a Cultist and she's extremely rude and disparages their beliefs, however she still (in her own words) "respect[s] their right to exist" to the point that Citra has never seen her glean one. Her dislike is very specifically directed at the beliefs and practices rather than the members of the Cults, shown best in Gleanings when she learns that she was revived in the body of a Tone Cultist she still decided to take part of her name out of respect for who she was.
Who is Citra Terranova and what does she do?
At the start of the story Citra is an average teenage girl until one day Scythe Faraday walks into her family’s apartment and asks for a knife with which to glean their neighbor. Citra, unlike her family, is standoffish towards Faraday and impresses him enough to select her as his apprentice alongside Rowan. Under Faraday Citra sharpens her mind and body while learning about how to glean with compassion from Faraday. Unfortunately everything changes when High Blade Xenocrates declares that whoever is chosen between her and Rowan to become a scythe will be forced to glean the other. Faraday responds by committing suicide, hoping that the two would be released from their apprenticeship but Xenocrates decides that they will instead finish their apprenticeship under different Scythes. While Rowan is taken in by Goddard, Citra becomes the apprentice of scythe Curie, an old friend of Faraday’s.
Eventually Xenocrates (likely influenced by Goddard) accuses Citra of murdering Faraday, using the fact that camera footage of the event was erased and that several witnesses were given immunity by someone using Faraday’s ring, as well as a journal entry written by Faraday expressing fear that his apprentice is watching him sleep and may kill him, as evidence against her. Citra is brought to Xenocrates’ penthouse and questioned and Citra escapes by jumping over the ledge, knowing that she’ll be brought back to life by the Thunderhead in a few days. While she’s still being revived, the Thunderhead (which normally can’t talk to anyone connected to the Scythedom or interfere in their actions) contacts her and tells her to seek out a man named Gerald Van Der Gans who it says is responsible for what happened to Faraday. Citra, with the help of Curie, goes on the run to South America, dodging scythes until she reaches a region which is hostile to influence from other regions and is willing to protect her. She tracks down Van Der Gans to an address given to her by Curie, believing him to be Faraday’s murderer, she instead discovers that he is Faraday, who had faked his death in a failed attempt to save Citra and Rowan and was hiding out under his birth name.
Citra returns to North America, where Curie has revealed that the journal entry was actually from her apprenticeship under Faraday and that her watching him sleep was actually because she had a huge crush on him, which has cleared Citra’s name. Not long after this Rowan snaps under Goddard's brutal tutelage and decapitates him and seemingly burns him and his followers to ash so they can't be revived. Citra is chosen to become a scythe but when she is meant to glean Rowan, she first puts on her scythe ring and punches him in the face, which is enough to give him a year of immunity from gleaning and she covertly directs him to an exit where Faraday is waiting to spirit him away (an act of trickery so clever that even Xenocrates compliments her on it).
In the 2nd book Citra, now known as Scythe Anastasia (though I’m still calling her Citra) has been a scythe for several months, and is still working and living with Curie. As a scythe Citra has chosen a unique way of gleaning, injecting her targets with a poison and giving them a month to get their affairs in order before she gleans them in a method of their choice, with the poison killing them if they try to run away or if they don’t contact her by the end of the month. She and Curie are the targets of an assassination attempt by scythe Rand, Goddard’s follower who secretly recovered his head and is planning to revive him with a new body. They are contacted by scythe Constantine, who is trying to locate their assailant and Citra realizes that her method of gleaning can be used as a trap to lure in the assassins and convinces Constantine to go with the plan. With the help of Greyson Tolliver, a young man who the Thunderhead is using to protect Citra and Curie, the assassins are all gleaned.
Shortly after this, it's revealed that Xenocrates has been chosen to become a Grandslayer and a new High Blade must be chosen. The decision comes down to a vote between Curie and Goddard, who is using his miraculous reappearance to ensure he is elected. However Citra realizes that she can delay the vote by questioning Goddard's legitimacy as a Scythe because of his new body, which puts the election on hold while the Grandslayers make the ultimate decision. The Grandslayers ultimately take Citra's side, thwarting Goddard's plan. Unfortunately Goddard had a backup plan which is to kill everyone present by sinking the island they're on and having sealife eat everyone. Citra is reunited with Rowan and Curie sacrifices herself to lock them in a vault where they'll be safe.
Who is Scythe Constantine and what does he do?
An enigmatic scythe who doesn’t pick sides between the New Order and Old Guard factions, instead currying favor with both for his own gain. He first appears in the 2nd book as the lead investigator into the actions of scythe Lucifer, the name Rowan took when he decided to start killing evil and sadistic scythes (a process which began with him seemingly killing Goddard and his followers). When someone tries to kill Citra and scythe Curie, who were saved by Greyson Tolliver, Constantine interrogates Greyson by threatening to torture him, claiming that he wasn't going to follow through when Citra shows up and is pissed at Constantine's methods. Now, Citra’s way of gleaning involves giving people a month to put their affairs in order and letting them choose how they die, Constantine realizes that this could be used to trap them and has everyone marked tracked down and gleaned while also temporarily allowing Citra to go without gleaning until the problem is resolved. However Citra realizes that one of her targets is still alive and convinces Constantine to use it as a trap for the assassins. Citra's plan works and the assassins are all gleaned with Constantine's help. Shortly after this it's revealed that High Blade Xenocrates has been chosen to become a Grandslayer and a new High Blade must be elected. Constantine realizes that the assassination attempts were to keep Curie from becoming High Blade and nominates Curie for the position. However it is then that everyone learns that Goddard and his follower Scythe Rand are alive and Goddard is also nominated for High Blade by a New Order Scythe named Brahms. Constantine, after questioning Xenocrates, quickly deduces that Brahms discovered that Xenocrates was about to become a Grandslayer and that he and Rand were working together to make Goddard High Blade.
