Scythe

Citra is one of the novel’s two protagonists and point-of-view characters. When the novel begins, Citra is a teenager having dinner with her family when a scythe visits to glean someone across the hall. Citra demands to know how he can do something so horrible, immediately establishing that she recognizes The Value of Compassion. The scythe, Faraday, likes her attitude and eventually returns to tell her that he wants her to be an apprentice preparatory to becoming a scythe: Citra is empathetic and headstrong, two qualities that Scythe Faraday feels that a scythe must have.

As Citra begins her apprenticeship, she finds that her competitiveness, curiosity, and tenacity serve her well in her training. As she trains, she begins to fall in love with Rowan, so conflict arises when Scythe Goddard orchestrates a competition between them that will result in the loser being gleaned. After Faraday’s apparent death, she apprentices to Scythe Curie while conducting a secret investigation into Faraday’s demise. By the end of the novel, she has become a scythe and has helped Rowan—with whom she has fallen in love—escape. She takes the name of Scythe Anastasia, treats her office with the solemnity it deserves, and no longer sees gleaning as an evil.