History Literature / ArcOfAScythe

* SnarkToSnarkCombat: Rowan's interactions with Rand and especially Goddard are non-stop snark fest with a lot of harsh jabs at each other.

* EmpathicEnvironment: Due to having control of the weather in most circumstances and places, the Thunderhead can invoke this at-will. [[spoiler: It most-notably does it in the third book after Greyson decides to severe his connection to the Thunderhead, [[MeaningfulEcho declaring it "unsavory" to him]]. The Thunderhead accepts this, but still expresses its deep sorrow by making it rain almost everywhere.]]

** Goddard himself has a few moments of Hypocrisy. He claims that his Gleanings are a "gift" to his victims, but also calls himself "generous" for giving out mass immunity. [[spoiler: He calls our Rowan for killing Chomsky and trying to kill him and Rand but also kills the World Scythe Counsel and all of the Scythes on Endura. The third books has him claiming that his actions are for the betterment of the Scythedom but Rand points out that he's really just trying to gain more personal power, and is willing to kill anyone, Scythe or not, who gets in his way.]]

* ShoutOut: The 35th chapter of Thunderhead is named "The 7-Percent Solution", which is the [[Franchise/SherlockHolmes exact cocaine solution that Sherlock Holmes used to use]]. The 7-Percent solution of Thunderhead is different, however.

* AmbiguouslyBi: Greyson is attracted to Citra and the Gender Fluid Jerico.

* CannotKillTheirLovedOne: At the end of ''Scythe'', it's revealed that the final test before becoming an official Scythe is being forced to kill a relative. The reasoning is that it will weed out the apprentices who don't have the resolve to kill a loved one. Of course, since it's a futuristic society where humanity has all but conquered death, the victims will be revived within a few days. [[spoiler:Rowan is made to temporarily kill his mother and Citra her younger brother, while two other apprentices are said to have been unable to go through with it.]]

* AGodAmI: Goddard and his followers believe that Scythes are gods and should be treated as such.

* {{Jerkass}}: At the end of the day, this is what Goddard ultimately is, he's spiteful, petty, cruel, and beneath his mask of charm, lies arude, egotistical monster.

** A more traditional example occurs in the first book when [[spoiler: it is revealed Scythe Faraday didn't actually kill himself, but faked his suicide in an attempt to free Citra and Rowan from their apprenticeships]]. It also happens in the second book with [[spoiler: Scythe Goddard, whose severed head was preserved until Scythe Rand could have it grafted onto the body of Rowan's friend Tyger]]. The third book has [[spoiler: Goddard killed and then revived with Tyger's memories, effectively bringing him back to life.]]

In the far future, humanity has successfully eradicated all diseases. There is no war. All governments are under the control of a benevolent AI called the Thunderhead. There is no social or economic inequality, and mankind has even managed to [[LivingForeverIsAwesome conquer death itself.]] But with humanity no longer constrained by time, someone has to keep the population under control to avoid overcrowding the world and using up Earth's finite resources. Enter the Scythedom, an order of warriors whose sole purpose is to kill people for the long-term survival of humanity.

* ColdBloodedTorture: Xenocrates threatens Citra with [[ItIsPronouncedTroPay tor-turé]], to get more information out of her. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted as he doesn't go through with it.]]

* ItIsPronouncedTroPay: Scythe Xenocrates calls torture ''tor-turé''. He's unfamiliar with the word because torture, like most forms of violence, is very rare in the post-mortal age.

* DownerEnding: The second book [[spoiler: Scythe Curie, the World Scythe Counsel, and everybody on the island of Endura are dead, Citra and Rowan are trapped at the bottom of the ocean, Goddard has ensured his position as High Blade of Mid-Merica. On top of that the Thunderhead has marked everybody on earth except Grayson as Unsavory, cutting off communication with all of them.]]

* DropTheHammer: [[spoiler: Rowan kills Chomsky with a tone cult hammer, even comparing it to the hammer of Thor.]]

* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: An odd example [[spoiler: Rowan is more than willing to kill Goddard and his cronies but he doesn't get the opportunity after the first book. In the end [[TheDragon Scythe Rand]] is the one to kill [[BigBad Scythe Goddard]], [[SlimeBall Scythe Brahms]] (by tricking Goddard into killing him), and [[SinisterMinister Curate Mendoza]] for various reasons]]

* PetTheDog:
** Faraday decides to lie about a man who resisted his gleaning and spared his family.
** Scythe Curie allows the families of her victims the opportunity stab her without consequence.
** As a reward for his hard work and the TraumaCongaLine he endured working as its proxy, Greyson is the only one the Thunderhead allows to talk to it directly after [[spoiler: it labels the rest of humanity as Unsavory in anger over the Scythedom's corruption]]. [[spoiler: It also restores the records of his real identity so he no longer has to use his cover story]].

** [[spoiler: Scythe Rand is completely unpunished for the crimes she commits and is actually rewarded by being reunited with Tyger.]]
** Scythe Alighieri is left unpunished for his hand in [[spoiler: the destruction of the New Hope Colony]]

** [[spoiler: Scythe Brahms, a slimy coward who acted as a proxy for Rand's schemes just so he could get revenge on Rowan, is killed when Rand manipulated Goddard into killing him by framing him for Rowan's escape as revenge for Brahm's soliciting Rand for sex.]]
** [[spoiler: Goddard himself, a massively egotistical AttentionWhore with a desire for power over the Scythedom, is ultimately done in when his followers abandon him and his second in command kills him in order to boost her own reputation. He is then dismissed as one of the many victims of the plagues that replaced the Scyhtes, his reputation in shambles.]]

** The climax of Rowan's arc in the first book results in the deaths of [[spoiler:Goddard, Volta, Chomsky, and Rand]]. Although in the second book, [[spoiler: Goddard and Rand are revealed to have survived]].
** The second book kills off [[spoiler: Tyger, Curie, Xenocrates, the entire World Scythe Council, and everyone on Endura save for Rowan and Citra]].
** The third book kills [[spoiler: Tenkamenin, Curate Mendoza, and Goddard, but brings Tyger back....or at least the memory backup of him that was stored in the Thunderhead.]]
* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler: Curate Mendoza, a power hungry Tonist who manipulates and eventually betrays the Tone Cults in an attempt at getting more power, ultimately just sets himself up as a wet works operator for Goddard with little real authority and is completely powerless to stop Rand from killing Goddard and crashing his plane with Mendoza inside.]]
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: Captain Jerico Soberanis, Loriana Barchok, Sister Astrid and [[spoiler: Cirrus]] are introduced in the last book despite being major characters.

** Among the New Order Scythes introduced in ''Thunderhead'', Scythe Brahms is the most unlikable. He's a slimy, lazy, cowardly Scythe who kidnaps and psychologically tortures his [[DeaderThanDead gleaning]] targets by playing Brahms' Lullaby before gleaning them. When Rowan targets him and tries to force him to change his ways he instead goes on to be worse. He throws his lot in with [[spoiler: Scythe Rand and aids her in her plan to try and kill Scythes Anastasia and Curie in order to make Goddard the [=MidMerican=] High Blade]]. He gleans Rowan's father, forcing his whole family to listen to the Lullaby and it's clear that he will continue to glean his family. He lures Rowan into a trap so [[spoiler: Rand and Goddard can get their revenge on him by executing him in front of the World Scythe Counsel]]. This is all in tandem with him being a {{Jerkass}} who lets his dog crap on his neighbor's lawn and tries to solicit [[spoiler: Rand]] for sex under the pretense of comforting her over [[spoiler: Goddard]] rejecting her advances.
** Scythe Goddard slowly devolves into this as he commits more and more atrocities under the hypocritical guise of helping the Scythedom. [[spoiler: His revival and rise to Overblade of North Merica only make him less likable, loosing the charm he had in the first book and making him even more smug, petty, and cruel. His backstory doesn't make things any better, he murdered his parents and destroyed two space colonies because they made the Scythedom useless and he wanted power within the Scythedom.]]
** Curate Mendoza becomes this in ''The Toll'' where the narration emphasizes how much of an underhanded, power hungry, jerk he is. Uniquely unlike several other characters who the narration paints in a bad light, he never get's to show off any HiddenDepths or likable traits and instead becomes worse with the reveal that [[spoiler: He's behind the attack on Port Rememberance.]]

* HeelFaceTurn: In the third book [[spoiler: Scythe Morrison is recruited by Goddard to glean the Toll/Greyson, however, after Greyson spares his life he becomes his bodyguard.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Chomsky's preference for using fire ends up backfiring when Rowan kills him and the rest of Goddard's group and the fire he started ends up preventing them from being revived.]]
* HopeSpringsEternal: The final chapter of the second book. [[spoiler: Despite Goddard's victory at Endura, Citra and Rowan can be revived. Scythe Faraday and Munira are on their way to the Land of Nod to investigate a failsafe built by the founding Scythes. And after spending the entire book as an UnPerson and FakeDefector on its behalf, the Thunderhead rewards Greyson's perseverance and loyalty by ensuring that he is the only human on Earth not marked as an Unsavory.]]

* HyperCompetentSidekick: The more we see of them the more clear it becomes that Scythe Rand is this to Scythe Goddard. [[spoiler: She's the reason he ever had a chance of becoming High Blade, and after that is the voice of reason compared to Goddard's increasing insanity and paranoia.]]

* DisneyVillainDeath: Tyger, Rowan's friend, invoked several of these to make his family pay attention to him. Later on in the first book, [[spoiler:Citra invokes this to escape Xenocrates]].

* DeathOfAChild: While children benefit from some element of (literal) InfantImmortality, they aren't immune to being gleaned. Scythe Faraday breaks into tears at dinnertime after he gleaned a child. [[spoiler: Off-page, Scythe Volta massacres an entire classroom of Tonist children, which leads to his self-gleaning.]]

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: It's never revealed what happened to Loriana and Scythe Morrison or the other ships that Goddard didn't destroy at the end. It's likely that some of the ships survived, especially considering the one with the smallest chance of survival reached its destination but there are still many ways that the ships could have been destroyed.]]

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The Scythe Conclaves are full of these, with lots of power plays happening behind the scenes.

* FireKeepsItDead: Burning is one of the few causes of death that can't be reversed.