What Is It About a Scythe?

Sometimes a photograph or a work of art inspires a character in my work -- sometimes I am looking specifically for them, (I have notebooks filled with images for almost every character I have ever written) and sometimes, they simply appear and demand to be included. This guy did just that -- muscled his way into my imagination the moment I saw it. The caption read "Hungarian reaper, 1930." My first thought was is he a good guy? or a really, really bad guy? He's scary -- but only because he is captured in this frozen moment, head turned toward something, a handful of wheat in one hand, while resting that terrifying scythe on his shoulder. But what comes next?