Scythe: Idioms 4 key examples

The idiom refers to a folktale by Hans Christian Andersen in which a vain emperor is convinced to buy an "invisible" suit. He walks around naked while "wearing" the suit, but none of his subjects or advisors is willing to tell him that he embarrasses himself with his nudity. Thus "the emperor has no clothes" refers to how powerful people do ridiculous things because no one is willing to warn them otherwise. Curie uses this idiom in a more expansive way when referring to the Thunderhead, indicative of the acerbic, deadpan tone she often takes in her journal entries. She describes how the Thunderhead revealed that all the "time and money wasted on political posturing" was "suddenly insignificant." All of these political arguments were only the ridiculous things powerful people engage in when no one is willing to speak to power.

But Curie goes further than this. The Thunderhead also showed that the emperor "had no testicles either." Apparently politicians were not especially confident or brazen when confronted with such an incontrovertible force as the Thunderhead. Here Curie reminds the reader that the Thunderhead is not a person, has no testicles, and wears no clothes. Because of this it is able to use the "full sum of human knowledge" and remove all biases and emotions. The Thunderhead's lack of humanity shows how human the politicians and other powerful people were and how fallible that humanity made them. Curie shows this transition of power elegantly through the manipulated idiom.

The passage above ends with a twisted version of the common English idiom, "the method to one's madness," which refers to how even seemingly absurd actions are often done for a reason. Here the idiom takes a more literal turn: the businessman has no ability whatsoever to deny Goddard his method, gleaning everyone on the plane. The businessman understands that this is Goddard's right and responsibility as a Scythe. But by killing himself, the businessman can prevent Goddard's madness, the sick joy he seems to get from killing. 

In a book that deals with suicide in multiple forms, the businessman's suicide is particularly moving and instructive toward the moral framework of the book. A man who is functionally immortal decides it is better to kill himself than to be gleefully killed in cold blood. The businessman's suicide shows the respect that most MidMericans have for the laws and customs of the Scythehood. On the other hand, this also shows just how evil and subversive is Goddard's madness.

With his usual dramatic flair, Goddard justifies Rowan's beating with what he calls a "very old expression": "to be painless is to be gainless." This is a humorous misremembering of the idiom, "no pain, no gain." This phrase has clearly gone away and become meaningless in a world that is painless for most people. Goddard thus only has a vague idea of what the idiom was and states it incorrectly. 

In addition, Goddard is remembering this idiom in another language. The people of MidMerica mostly speak "Common"; this language is presented in the novel as English and probably descended from it. But given that the novel takes place nearly 300 years in the future, the language has likely changed significantly. (Put another way, Goddard might struggle to read English from the mortal world, just as readers in the 21st century might struggle to read Shakespeare or Milton.) Thus perhaps "to be painless is to be gainless" is Goddard's attempt to render this "very old expression" in a more contemporary way. 

For most scythes, there is no strong relationship between their Patron Historic (their namesake) and their character. Curie, however, thinks that the literature of Cervantes in fact does describe the scythe who took his name. Cervantes was a Spanish author who, in 1605, published Don Quixote, which is widely considered the first modern novel as well as one of the premier achievements in the history of world literature. The novel describes Don Quixote, a hapless knight, who goes on a series of quests to prove his chivalry.

In a famous scene early in the novel, Don Quixote sees some windmills in the distance and takes them for giants. He charges over to attack them, piercing one of the windmill's wings with his spear; the windmill keeps turning, pulling the knight up and off his horse before he tumbles clumsily to the ground. The common idiom "tilting at windmills" refers to this scene and describes fighting too hard for a meaningless cause. Curie uses this idiom to describe how Scythe Cervantes will administer the test—it will likely be some physical challenge, and likely not very thoughtful, just like Don Quixote's attack on the windmills.