Citra and Rowan are found by Scythe Pousselo and they are hidden. Citra begins to investigate the space disasters and realizes that the scythedom, Xenocrates and Goddard before the latter was a scythe, intentionally ruined them all so that the scythedom couldn’t continue. Minora and Scythe Faraday make it to the land of nod and spend three years there. The thunderhead sends people to the island to build rockets so that they can escape to inhabitable planets.
Goddard becomes crazy and tries to get other countries scythedoms to side with him. He basically goes crazy as he bans the immunity rule and you can only request it and some groups can’t be gleaned and others can. The Tonists are one unprotected group. Their bodies are put on the ships where they will have the memories of famous people uploaded into them. The thunderhead also made a kind of split personality physical body named Cirrus Alpha who is to help in the space process. Greyson becomes the Toll and has a sort of cult dedicated to him with Scythe Morrison becoming his close friend. He eventually decides that the thunderhead isn’t to help him anymore and so leaves him. Although there is the implication the thunderhead might forgive mankind one day. Goddard gets Rowan but Rowan escapes him when they were going to burn him on a pyre in a stadium of 10,000 people and in anger he has everybody there gleaned. Goddard is killed by Rand and has Tyler’s memory uploaded into him and so the two are together. The fail safe is not immortality doesn’t exist but the scythedom doesn’t anymore. Every twenty years, there will be plagues that kill off 1/5 of the population. The scythes, Faraday, becomes assisted suicide helpers. Citra and Rowan get on one of those rockets and 150 years later citra wakes up on a new planet with Rowan.
Themes
“Scythe Morrison had to admit this was the last way he had expected this day to go, but all things considered, he couldn’t complain. And he didn’t. For more than two years” (277).
This was my favorite quote because life is full of unpredictable outcomes. You never know what path you are going to take until you take it. The most unexpected things can happen and the most unexpected things can make you the happiest. In the end do what makes you happy no matter what it is.
Argument Life without death makes everyone ordinary and makes life meaningless.
Essay: A Life Without Meaning Dying is inevitable, but what if it wasn’t? In the Toll society, death by natural cause is impossible. Death has essentially been eradicated. Now only scythes can kill people or fires. Neal Shusterman argues that we have to have death to give life meaning. Although we all want to live forever, death cannot ever be fixed or else we’re all just living with no purpose.Living without death allows people to do anything without any repercussions. Anybody can jump off the Empire State Building and you’ll be back walking a couple days later. It also creates a massive overpopulation of Earth (yes, even bigger than the one we already have). In this society, overpopulation is not a problem yet, because the smartest computer ever made is created and knows to solve any problem anywhere on Earth. This computer is known as the Thunderhead. The Thunderhead controls every aspect of life. Creating a uselessness amongst humans. They don't actually do anything but live. They all give into society equally because nothing is more important than something else. The Thunderhead also gives people jobs based on what they are like and what they like. Not what they love. “And like most everyone in the world, she didn’t hate her job, nor did she love it. Her feelings lingered somewhere near the center” (147). Nor do they ever excel above this center area. All people (other than scythes) do the same thing every day. Scythes are living gods amongst society. They can kill people they are walking past for no reason other than they are looking at them wrong. It’s power. Power within people creates corruption. Hardly anything ever different in today’s world. “That wasn’t unusual- he was like most people. He simply lived. His existence had neither high-lights nor low points” (105). Nothing exciting ever happening. There is no fun. You can do practically whatever you want whenever. Yet there is not enough entertainment in the world to allow you to be surprised for all of eternity. The only people who have any special job or excitement is scythes. They can kill whoever, whenever, for whatever reason they want. Sound familiar? Yeah Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper came to my head too. This is how Shusterman shows how important death is. Without it being relevant in this society, every person lives the same life. Everyone is different in their own ways right? Not if dying doesn’t exist, because without dying existing, love doesn’t exist and neither does the purpose of living. You are “simply living” just like your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend, your spouse. You all have the same purpose, which is absolutely nothing except taking up space.Everything we work for usually has a specific purpose or meaning. Going to college can help you make more money and find jobs you love (If you finish it). Finding the love of our life can give the feeling of being more complete. These things are non-existent in the society of the Thunderhead. “Of course, since all the world’s information had long ago been digitized and catalogued by the Thunderhead, a degree in informational science, like most other degrees, served no practical purpose. It would be a piece of paper framed on her wall. A permission slip to befriend others with similar functionless degrees” (147). Here is where Shusterman exposes the message through writing. This librarian is working in a library even though all writings have been “digitized and catalogued by the Thunderhead”. She has a degree in informational science and “ like most other degrees, served no practical purpose.” The degree is not needed to have this job. Making sure books are in good shape and checking them out and in, does not need any specific degree. anyone can do it. The degree serves no purpose and she honestly wasted the part of her life that it took to get it. Shusterman even goes as far as referring to a degree as “a piece of paper framed on her wall” and after that says “functionless degrees”. “Functionless”, “served no practical purpose”, represent the satire of it all. A degree for today’s society can mean the difference between getting a job with good income or not. In the Thunderhead it’s just paper. It gives no extra value. Everything you earn, like a degree, is a participation ribbon. These ribbons say “participation for living”, let us all clap it up for Karen. Life without death is meaningless. The entire Scythe society continues to prove just as much. They have something that is basically a government. It became corrupted and fell out. Along with this is every action has a consequence. With every good decision made comes a bad part about it down the road. It’s unpredictable. Perfect decisions are not possible. Perfect anything is not very possible. Being selfish will not make you anymore perfect. Instead it makes you a worse person. COVID-19 has been bringing people together and nearly everyone is benefitting from it. Imperfections are what make us human. Accept your imperfections and work to make your imperfections, no longer. As we continue to advance our livelihood and our technology, we cannot get rid of death. If we do we might as well become robots as well, because nobody will feel, do, or become anything other than ordinary