Scythe Dalí is a Scythe of the FrancoIberian Scythedom and one of the main scythes in The Persistence of Memory.
Biography[]
Scythe Dalí always had an appreciation for art, whereas his parents didn't. This was a point of contention.
Scythe Dalí had a wife and daughter before becoming a scythe.
They went on a hike, but a storm caused a fire, rendering them deadish. This was while the Thunderhead was still learning to influence weather. Only Dalí’s body could be recovered for revival, taking eight days, as drones kept melting in the fire trying to recover his wife and daughter.
The trauma of that event led him to spiral, with the Thunderhead even offering to supplant him. He met Scythe Miró, and was determined to send people to the afterlife to keep his wife and daughter company.
Scythe Dalí was 28 when he began his apprenticeship, years older than other apprentices. Still, he passed all the tests, and was ordained.
Pre-Gleanings[]
At some point, he took up residence in La Sagrada Familia cathedral to spite Scythe Gaudí, his rival. His gleanings were designed to inject madness into a world without any--throwing a pilot from a roof covered in gold feathers, for instance, or guillotineing a genetic heir to FrancoIberia's monarchy. Both of those were foiled by Gaudí, who gleaned them because he felt Dalí was making a mockery of gleaning.
Dalí was feared, but was afraid of being forgotten--why he didn't self-glean even in his darkest moments. He threw lavish balls, but no one truly respected or cared about him.
Persistence of Memory[]
In The Persistence of Memory, Scythe Dalí intends to glean a couple of newlyweds by incinerating them in a grand ceremony. However, his subjects run away when the power malfunctions, causing him to glean their parents. He flies into a rage, because he knows that Scythe Gaudí was behind it.
After Scythe Gaudí gleans his subjects, he confronts Gaudí and declares that he is going to go into Gaudí’s park and glean people with a pitchfork but quickly loses the desire to after stomping off.
After he learns that Penelope is actually a ward of Scythe Gaudí, he plans to glean her out of spite.
However, when he sees that Gaudí won’t misalign the crossbow, he tries to take the bolt to self-glean instead of kill, but it hit him in the shoulder and not the heart. So he takes Penelope on as an apprentice to annoy her uncle instead.
Pre-The Toll[]
A few years before The Toll, his yacht sank. Jerico Soberanis, a young salvager, stole diving equipment to rescue Dalí. They were reprimanded, but as a reward, Scythe Dalí promised to reward them with their own ship, gleaning the previous captain and replacing him with Jeri.
Gleaning Method[]
Scythe Dalí thinks that gleaning is a sacred act and should be respected, he makes all of his gleanings spectacles, such as gleaning a newlywed couple with a combustion gun, a tribute to the volcanic winds of Pompeii. Scythe Dalí does this to immortalize his gleaning subjects, despite ending their lives. Before he gleans them, he gives them their last meal, which is mostly his favorites since he doesn’t know theirs.
Appearances[]
- The Toll (first mention)
- The Persistence of Memory (first and only appearance)
Trivia[]
- In Gleanings, the character's name is written as "Scythe Dalí," with an accent on the "í," while in The Toll, it is written as "Scythe Dali" without the accent. He is the only character in the series whose name changes spelling without having an in-universe nickname (IE: Jerico Soberanis goes by Jeri) or name change (IE: Citra Terranova becomes Scythe Anastasia)
- The title of his story, “The Persistence of Memory”, is based off a painting by his patron historic of the same name.
- He is a big fan of Mortimer Ong, holding his painting in high regard.
- He doesn’t like Goddard, viewing his gleaning style as ham-handed and tawdry.
- Dalí had many parallels to Goddard despite this--unusual circumstances of apprenticeship, loved ones being killed in a chain of events leading to said apprenticeship, showy styles of gleaning, lavish events, rivalries with more austere scythes, and being easily riled up. It