Scythe by Neal ShustermanIn the first part of this book we meet two characters, Rowan and Citra who are chosen by Scythe Faraday to both be his apprentices. Normally this would not be allowed by the high scythes, but Scythe Faraday allows it anyway. In this Utopian society based in the far future, humanity has cured all of their problems. This takes place on Earth, though they did attempt to make a Mars colony at one point. There is no war, no disease, no poverty, terrorism, etc. They have achieved a monumental amount of knowledge all stored in the ThunderHead which is the world's limitless computer government. It replaces politicians and replenishes humanity with all the things they may need, feeding the hungry, increasing stock in food and items, and recording information. It is in charge of everything, except for the scythes. Because humanity has beaten death and now people can turn back the clock and have immortality and speed healing, nobody dies. However, the natural order has to be kept so there are people above the law called the scythes. They are responsible for taking lives according to the statistics of deaths from the mortal age. They keep the world's population at a good number because though people can now be immortal there has to be death so that they can still supply for others. Scythe Faraday has met Citra and Rowan separately before he chose to train them, deeming them morally worthy of being his apprentice. I have read a couple Utopian novels before so I have an idea of how books of this genera are, however this particular book is different than the ones I have read. The story is very original and has a very interesting moral aspect to it. It really hooks the reader because the story is about people who are in charge of administering death and those who do have to have a certain moral code as to not be taken as murderers. The whole questions of it is, should they really be in charge of who lives or dies? Is that too much moral responsibility for a person? Which I think makes this book so interesting, to see the characters so morally challenged. Some similarities that I can see is that everything in this world is entirely possible, which in my opinion makes it more interesting to read. The technology advancement, the social advancement, is all similar to what we're only beginning to understand and develop now. I have commented on Joseph Guyse and Henna Hall's Digital Portfolios.
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What do you think made these two characters so morally righteous? Do you think it was something with the way they were born, or was it the way they were raised? It seems that Rowan's family ignores him a lot; do you think this was something that added to or took away part of his moral righteousness? And how do you think Citra's more close family played a part in her moral righteousness? Do you think many people have that same moral righteousness and the Scythe only noticed them because he happened to encounter them? Or are they more special characters in this certain universe?
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6/8/2018 09:49:27 am
You asked if it was too much moral responsibility for the scythes and I would love for you to expand on that. I totally see where you are coming from but they make people who don't want to glean into scythes because you do not want a scythe who wants to glean. That would make it morally incorrect. It would be like making serial killer legal in a sense. So isn't it better to have people who don't want to glean be in charge of it? It is, in my opinion, a much better way to do what they are doing because the scythe then has a more morally correct mind. You didn't talk about the way that scythe's choose who they glean and I'd love to know your opinion on that. I think it's interesting the way that they use the percentages of possible deaths to find people to glean. What do you think?
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AuthorSavannah Frank |