Scythe characters

Appears from the start

A sharp, combative teenager in MidMerica who lives with her parents and younger brother. When a scythe arrives at her family's door she assumes he has come to glean one of them and confronts him rather than pleading, and that flash of defiance is what draws his attention. She is stubborn, quick to argue, impatient with the comfortable passivity of the post-mortal world, and entirely unwilling to want the job she is offered.

First appears in chapter 2

A high school student in the same city, one of many children in a large family and used to being overlooked. When a scythe gleans a classmate during a school event, Rowan stays with the boy and holds his hand while he dies, something no one else will do. The act makes him an unlucky figure at school and also brings him to the notice of the scythe who performed the gleaning.

Also known as Honorable Scythe Michael Faraday

Appears from the start

An old-guard scythe of MidMerica who treats his office as a solemn duty rather than a privilege. He lives plainly, refuses the luxuries and deference other scythes accept, and selects the people he gleans so that his choices mirror the patterns of death in the age before immortality rather than his own preferences. He takes an unusual interest in two teenagers, on the principle that the only people fit to hold the office are those who do not want it.

Appears from the start

The global artificial intelligence that grew out of humanity's networks and now administers the world: it ended war, hunger, poverty, crime, and death itself, and governs with a patience no human institution ever managed. By law it has no authority over the Scythedom, may not interfere in gleaning, and may not speak to scythes or their apprentices at all. It observes everything and converses with almost everyone.

First appears in chapter 4

Rowan's closest friend, a reckless boy who throws himself off buildings for the sensation and the attention, confident that a revival center will put him back together within days. He treats the safety net of a deathless world as entertainment and cannot understand why his friend would want anything more serious out of life.

First appears in chapter 13

A young, magnetic scythe of the new order who rejects the humility of the old guard. He gleans in large public sweeps rather than one person at a time, keeps a mansion, a retinue of junior scythes, and a permanent court of admirers, and argues openly that scythes should enjoy the power their office grants. A rising faction follows him; the older scythes regard him with alarm.

First appears in chapter 13

The High Blade of MidMerica, who presides over the Scythedom's quarterly conclaves. Heavy, ceremonious, and fond of his own dignity, he is more a manager of scythe politics than a moral authority, and he prefers arrangements that keep the order's factions from open conflict to arrangements that are right.

First appears in chapter 13

A quiet, unremarkable girl spared during one of Scythe Goddard's mass gleanings and afterward kept in his household, where she is fed and indulged but never explained. Goddard's junior scythes treat her presence as ordinary, and no one tells the apprentices why she is there.

Also known as The Grande Dame of Death

First appears in chapter 19

A senior scythe with long white hair, known across MidMerica by a nickname the public gave her. She is one of the most respected figures of the old guard, remembered for gleanings early in her career that were meant to make a point about power, and she lives alone in a celebrated old house built over a waterfall. Like Faraday she keeps a spare, disciplined life, and she holds the new order in open contempt.

First appears in chapter 20

One of the junior scythes in Goddard's retinue, small, quick, and outwardly the friendliest of the group. Ordained very young, he has grown used to the parties and the privileges, and he is the only member of the household willing to talk honestly with an apprentice about what the work costs the person doing it.

First appears in chapter 20

A junior scythe in Goddard's retinue, sharp-tongued and openly delighted by the freedom the ring gives her. She is loyal to Goddard's vision of what scythes should be and impatient with anyone who treats gleaning as a burden to be carried carefully.

First appears in chapter 20

A junior scythe in Goddard's retinue, large and blunt, who favors fire as his method and takes plain satisfaction in the scale of the group's gleanings.