“Then he slipped on his ebony robe and went out into the night to take on yet another scythe who didn’t deserve the pedestal he had been set upon.”

In Chapter 1, Shusterman establishes two important facts: Within the scythedom, there are corrupt scythes who abuse their power and there is a vigilante scythe who wants to destroy them. Rowan has been operating as Scythe Lucifer for nearly a year at the beginning of Thunderhead, and he has successfully killed 13 scythes. Although Rowan shows mercy in the case of Scythe Brahms, he comes to regret this decision because Brahms proves that once a corrupt scythe, always a corrupt scythe.

“I have always had a preoccupation with those who have a high probability of changing the world.”

The Thunderhead is the protector and parent-figure of mankind, and as such, it knows the temperaments of every single person on Earth. The Thunderhead might be limited to certain parameters when it comes to accomplishing its goals, but it knows that there are people it can use to make things happen. The Thunderhead focuses on Rowan, Citra, and Greyson in Thunderhead, and it tries to influence their choices and their paths to further its own agenda.

“Their minds and bodies had spent a year being trained to be society’s perfect killers. Ending life had become a part of who they were.”

Following the dramatic events of Scythe, Rowan and Citra went down two very different paths. While they were both trained as scythes, Citra was the one chosen to become an ordained scythe. Rowan became a criminal on the run, but over the past year, they have both continued to take life.