Messenger

by

Lois Lowry

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Messenger makes teaching easy.

Seer Character Analysis

Seer (who is named Christopher in Gathering Blue) is the blind man that Matty lives with. He arrived in Village years before Matty was born after being injured and left for dead by men in his and Matty's old settlement. In Village, Seer is a beloved and integral part of the community. Though blind, he knows everyone, and he walks the lanes daily to check on the wellbeing of everyone in Village. He's also a skilled cook who tries his best to teach Matty the finer points of cooking, and teases Matty when Matty expresses no interest. Seer somewhat cryptically tells Matty at one point that Forest is an illusion and that he's not afraid of Forest, something that, by the end of the novel, shows how wise Seer is and how tuned in he is to the negative changes moving through Village (in other words, he sees that Forest's danger is the same danger that trading and selfishness pose to Village). Matty is like a son to Seer and the two are extremely close. Seer also has a daughter, Kira, who still lives in the village where Matty and Seer came from. Following the vote to close Village to outsiders, Seer becomes distraught and tells Matty to go to his old village and bring Kira home.

Seer Quotes in Messenger

The Messenger quotes below are all either spoken by Seer or refer to Seer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Selfishness vs. the Collective Good Theme Icon
).
Chapter One Quotes

"Were you scared of Forest?" Matty asked him. So many people were, and with good reason.

"No. It's all an illusion."

Matty frowned. He didn't know what the blind man meant. Was he saying that fear was an illusion? Or that Forest was? [...] Maybe, Matty thought, everything was an illusion to a man who had lost his eyes.

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 5-6
Explanation and Analysis:

But here in Village, marks and failings were not considered flaws at all. They were valued. The blind man had been given the true name Seer and was respected for the special vision that he had behind his ruined eyes.

Related Characters: Matty, Kira, Mentor, Seer
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three Quotes

"And so we would give up—or maybe even trade away—reading, and music, in exchange for the extreme excitement of pulling a handle and watching sourballs spit forth from a mechanical device?" he asked.

Put that way, Matty thought, the Gaming Machine didn't actually seem such a good trade. "Well," he said, "it's fun."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker), Ramon
Related Symbols: The Gaming Machine
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

"It's not the fish or crops," he said. "They'll use that, of course. They argued dwindling food supply last time. It's..."

"Not enough housing?"

"More than that. I can't think of the word for it. Selfishness, I guess. It's creeping in."

Matty was startled. Village had been created out of the opposite: selflessness. He knew that from his studies and from hearing the history. Everyone did.

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker), Mentor
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven Quotes

"Well," said Matty slowly, "when she was leaving, walking and talking with the other women, and her husband behind trying to keep up, she whirled around suddenly and scolded him for being slow."

"Slow? But he's all twisted. He can't walk any other way," the blind man said in surprise.

"I know. But she made a sneering face at him and she imitated his way of walking. She made fun of him. It was only for a second, though."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Gaming Machine
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eleven Quotes

"She's quite lovely, isn't she?"

Matty shrugged. He understood that Leader was referring to Kira but the blind man's daughter was older than he. She had been like a big sister to him. No one in the old place had thought her lovely. They had been contemptuous of her weakness.

"She has a crooked leg," Matty reminded Leader. "She leans on a stick to walk."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Leader (speaker), Kira, Seer
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

Matty glanced over and saw that she was standing in front of the tapestry Kira had made for her father. Even from where he stood, he could see what Jean meant. The entire forest area, the hundreds of tiny stitches in shades of green, had darkened, and the threads had knotted and twisted in odd ways. The peaceful scene had changed into something no longer beautiful. It had an ominous feel to it, a feel of impenetrability.

Related Characters: Matty, Kira, Seer, Jean
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-One Quotes

He saw Forest and understood what Seer had meant. It was an illusion. It was a tangled knot of fears and deceits and dark struggles for power that had disguised itself and almost destroyed everything. Now it was unfolding, like a flower coming into bloom, radiant with possibility.

Related Characters: Matty, Leader, Kira, Mentor, Seer
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
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Seer Quotes in Messenger

The Messenger quotes below are all either spoken by Seer or refer to Seer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Selfishness vs. the Collective Good Theme Icon
).
Chapter One Quotes

"Were you scared of Forest?" Matty asked him. So many people were, and with good reason.

"No. It's all an illusion."

Matty frowned. He didn't know what the blind man meant. Was he saying that fear was an illusion? Or that Forest was? [...] Maybe, Matty thought, everything was an illusion to a man who had lost his eyes.

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 5-6
Explanation and Analysis:

But here in Village, marks and failings were not considered flaws at all. They were valued. The blind man had been given the true name Seer and was respected for the special vision that he had behind his ruined eyes.

Related Characters: Matty, Kira, Mentor, Seer
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three Quotes

"And so we would give up—or maybe even trade away—reading, and music, in exchange for the extreme excitement of pulling a handle and watching sourballs spit forth from a mechanical device?" he asked.

Put that way, Matty thought, the Gaming Machine didn't actually seem such a good trade. "Well," he said, "it's fun."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker), Ramon
Related Symbols: The Gaming Machine
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

"It's not the fish or crops," he said. "They'll use that, of course. They argued dwindling food supply last time. It's..."

"Not enough housing?"

"More than that. I can't think of the word for it. Selfishness, I guess. It's creeping in."

Matty was startled. Village had been created out of the opposite: selflessness. He knew that from his studies and from hearing the history. Everyone did.

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker), Mentor
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven Quotes

"Well," said Matty slowly, "when she was leaving, walking and talking with the other women, and her husband behind trying to keep up, she whirled around suddenly and scolded him for being slow."

"Slow? But he's all twisted. He can't walk any other way," the blind man said in surprise.

"I know. But she made a sneering face at him and she imitated his way of walking. She made fun of him. It was only for a second, though."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Seer (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Gaming Machine
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eleven Quotes

"She's quite lovely, isn't she?"

Matty shrugged. He understood that Leader was referring to Kira but the blind man's daughter was older than he. She had been like a big sister to him. No one in the old place had thought her lovely. They had been contemptuous of her weakness.

"She has a crooked leg," Matty reminded Leader. "She leans on a stick to walk."

Related Characters: Matty (speaker), Leader (speaker), Kira, Seer
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

Matty glanced over and saw that she was standing in front of the tapestry Kira had made for her father. Even from where he stood, he could see what Jean meant. The entire forest area, the hundreds of tiny stitches in shades of green, had darkened, and the threads had knotted and twisted in odd ways. The peaceful scene had changed into something no longer beautiful. It had an ominous feel to it, a feel of impenetrability.

Related Characters: Matty, Kira, Seer, Jean
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-One Quotes

He saw Forest and understood what Seer had meant. It was an illusion. It was a tangled knot of fears and deceits and dark struggles for power that had disguised itself and almost destroyed everything. Now it was unfolding, like a flower coming into bloom, radiant with possibility.

Related Characters: Matty, Leader, Kira, Mentor, Seer
Related Symbols: Forest
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis: