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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Scythe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Mortality and Life
Surveillance, Corruption, and Justice
Morality, Compassion, and Choices
Summary
Analysis
Scythe Curie writes in support of the rule that scythes can't glean each other, as well as the rule that scythes can glean themselves. She admits that she's considered it several times, but she decided not to when she wondered who might replace her.
Curie's choice to not glean herself shows that as a scythe, what keeps her going is knowing that she has a huge responsibility to make the world a better place—something that someone else, like Goddard, might not take seriously.
Themes
Citra and Rowan wake up after midnight to the sound of pounding on the front door. They see that Faraday is still gone, which is unusual but not concerning. Rowan suggests that Faraday forgot his keys, but a pair of BladeGuard officers are on the doorstep. They ask for Citra and Rowan to come with them, but Citra says they won't go. High Blade Xenocrates steps out of the shadows, asks Rowan and Citra to follow him, and says that Faraday gleaned himself.
That Xenocrates is here at all flags for Citra, Rowan, and the reader that this is an extremely serious matter, given that it seems he takes little interest in apprentices unless they're in front of him at conclave. This also opens up the possibility that Xenocrates has something to gain by involving himself, showing again that politics is alive and well in the Scythedom.
Themes
Rowan, Citra, and Xenocrates take a private hypertrain to Xenocrates's home in Fulcrum City. He lives in a cabin situated on top of the city's tallest building. He tries to comfort Rowan and Citra, but they can't decide if they can trust him. Xenocrates explains that Faraday threw himself in front of a train and says it makes perfect sense: self-gleaning by a mentor scythe frees apprentices, so Faraday gleaned himself to spare Citra or Rowan from killing the other. Rowan suggests that this was Xenocrates's fault, offending the High Blade. Xenocrates refuses to look them in the eye as he says that two scythes have offered to take over the teens' training. Scythe Curie will take Citra, while Scythe Goddard will take Rowan.
Rowan's brashness and unwillingness to respect authority figures like Xenocrates suggests that he could either be a fantastic scythe and stand up to corrupt scythes like Goddard, or he could be an awful one and turn his issues with authority on the Scythedom as a whole. Scythes Curie and Goddard taking over the training reinforces that the issue of Citra and Rowan is becoming a battle between good guys and bad guys, with the apprentices acting as pawns.
Themes
