Scythe
- After Citra is falsely charged of murdering Scythe Faraday, she is taken to see Xenocrates and Mandela, who pile on the accusations and try and coerce her into signing a confession. However, she manages to escape from them by jumping off the building and rendering herself deadish. This allows for a loophole where the Thunderhead is able to converse with Citra. Although the Thunderhead is still bound by its own laws and is limited in what it can tell Citra, it does take the time to tell her how influential she'll grow to be:Thunderhead: Nevertheless, I've been running algorithms on the possible future of the Scythedom, and found something very curious. In a large percentage of possible futures, you play a pivotal role.
Citra: Me? But they're going to glean me. I have less than four months to live....
Thunderhead: Yes. But even if that future comes to pass, your gleaning will be a crucial event in the future of the Scythedom. However, for your sake, I hope that a different, more pleasant future comes about.
Citra: Please tell me that you're going to help me get to that different, more pleasant future.
Thunderhead: 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. - Faraday self-gleaning himself as a means to free Rowan and Citra from their apprenticeship, after it was decreed that one must eventually glean the other. Even if it didn't achieve the desired result, it was still compassionate of Faraday to go to such lengths to try and get his apprentices off the hook. It becomes more heartwarming later on when Citra discovers that Faraday is in fact still alive, and even moreso still when Citra finds a loophole at the end to spare Rowan.
Thunderhead
- The reunion between Rowan and Citra early in the book. Despite having since gone their separate ways and not seeing each other for many months, and despite their differing ideologies, it is shown that the two of them still deeply care for each other. In particular, Citra tells Rowan about the time the Thunderhead spoke to her and informed that she was "important." She follows it up by saying that she thinks, had he been in her position, the Thunderhead would have spoken to him as well. She tells Rowan that she's convinced he's important too, and urges him not to let himself get caught by the Scythedom.
- Much later on, at one point when Rowan is deadish, the Thunderhead does indeed contact him. By this point, both Rowan's father and his friend from high school have been murdered, he is imprisoned and helpless in Goddard's clutches, and is probably at the absolute lowest point of his entire life. Yet the Thunderhead encourages Rowan and tells him not to lose hope, letting him know that there is still a chance he will go on to have a profound impact on the world:Rowan: Really. How much of a chance?
Thunderhead: Thirty-nine percent.
Rowan: What about the other 61 percent?
Thunderhead: My algorithms show that you have a 61 percent chance of permanently dying in the near future, without having any effect of note.
Rowan: I don't feel comforted.
Thunderhead: You should. A 39 percent chance of changing the world is exponentially greater than most people can ever hope to have. - Even after being abandoned by the Thunderhead (in his mind), Greyson is STILL willing to further put himself at risk, and sabotage his relationship with the one person who still loves him, to keep Anastasia and Curie alive by thwarting the theatre assassination attempt. Goes to show that the Thunderhead made the right choice in choosing him.
