They call me the seeker
I've been searching low and high
And I won't get to get what I'm after
'Til the day I die
I've been searching low and high
And I won't get to get what I'm after
'Til the day I die
— The Who, "The Seeker"
A seeker quests for the truth, uncovering mysteries, lies, deception and gaining knowledge about themselves and the universe. They may sometimes consider themselves Above Good and Evil, being purely interested in facts and information, and not care about its meaning. The protagonists may need them to gain information, but this character may have become so distanced from humanity that they're reluctant to give it. At the same time, they may be searching for truth for its practical use — whatever it may entail for them. This could produce a character like the Intrepid Reporter, who will do anything to get to the bottom of a mystery.
A list of subtypes can be found on the Seekers page.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- From Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, both the title character and the imperial mage Denken have this outlook when it comes to magic. Neither are interested in having magic handed to them,, they believe it should be pursued. That said, Denken makes an exception for a spell from Serie that will help him face the most powerful Sage of Destruction and free his hometown from its fate.
- In Wild Rose, Kiri grows tired of his small world and leaves his family to find out for himself the truth of things.
Comic Books
- Tim Hunter in The Books of Magic. In early drafts, his name was actually Tim Seeker.
- The Further Adventures Of Cyclops And Phoenix portrays Nathaniel Essex as a brilliant researcher who is undergoing some steep Sanity Slippage after the death of his infant son Adam.
- Chip Zdarsky's Howard the Duck introduces Scout, nicknamed that since childhood because of her tendency to search and find things. In adulthood she seeks a way to satisfy Galactus' hunger forever, leading her to steal some power cosmic and become a knockoff Herald. She comes into conflict with Howard because he recently bonded with the Nexus of All Realities, providing a way for her to provide Galactus with infinite worlds.
- In Superman storyline The Killers of Krypton, Z'ndr Kol is devoted to explore ancient ruins and discover lost lore of extinct civilizations.
Literature
- Liza from Bones of Faerie, who lives a pretty ordinary life until she finds out she's having visions and has to flee her family, then realizes that there is far more to the war between humans and faeries than she thought.
- Simon in Equal Rites from Discworld. He has an innate desire to know and understand everything, but especially magic. Unfortunately, this attracts the wrong sort of attention, and he gets kidnapped by magic-eating monsters and has to be rescued.
- The Sword of Truth series centers around the Seeker of Truth. It's The Seeker's job to be this trope. Notably, in that respect Richard wasn't the Designated Hero - in fact, most of the previous Seekers were only politically-appointed, and the latest was only appointed because he deserved to be. It turns out he had good upbringing and approximately thirty kinds of inherited or conferred destiny, so being qualified to be The Seeker is probably the least of his accomplishments, although it becomes more and more useful over the course of the series.
- The protagonist of pretty much any novel by Janusz Zajdel is a guy (always), aged between thirty and fifty (except for Tim Warnel, who's fifteen) and either stumbles upon a mystery or is assigned to investigate something that turns out darker than expected. He always goes on to discover more.
- The Truthwatchers of The Stormlight Archive are said to be a whole order of these, as their first vow is to seek the truth. There's also the Willshapers, who are often explorers and travelers.
- Navani Kholin becomes this when she starts working as a scholar, neglecting food and sleep in her search for the secrets of Investiture. She knows she's being watched by the enemy, but she can't stop herself from finding new discoveries. Sure enough, her discovery of anti-Light is found and weaponized by both sides.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: Discussed in the episode "Grail"; an old man named Aldous arrives on the station in search of the Holy Grail, the last member of an order dedicated to searching for it that has taken the quest to the starts after scouring Earth for centuries. While the human cast finds the idea, at best, eccentric, Delenn and the Minbari see his quest as sacred. For the Minbari "True Seekers" are revered as holy people and afforded great respect. It doesn't matter if the thing he's looking for actually exists or not, the quest itself is a thing worthy of reverence. For Aldous himself, the quest gave him a reason to live again after losing his family, and he's never suggested to be anything other than a Cool Old Guy, and borderline saint. At the end of the episode, the young man he befriended takes up the quest in his stead.
- Many characters from Criminal Minds.
- Gil Grissom on CSI.
- The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Part of why Brea's a Badass Bookworm is her endless search for answers and knowledge. After her Broken Pedestal moment with the Skeksis and her mother on tithing day, she becomes dedicated to learning and exposing what the Skeksis really are. In her own words, "I seek only the truth."
- Richard Cypher from, oddly enough, Legend of the Seeker. He is the Seeker of Truth, armed with, incidentally, the Sword of Truth.
- Locke on Lost.
- Both Alva Keel and Paul Callan from Miracles.
- Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote.
- The Science Club in Strange Days At Blake Holsey High, especially Lucas Randall (who, like Spence from The Zack Files, was played by Michael Seater) and Josie Trent.
- Fox Mulder of The X-Files. The truth is out there.
- Spencer Sharpe in The Zack Files.
Myths & Religion
- Odin of Norse Mythology. Many of the myths about him involve a search for knowledge and wisdom of some kind or another, with him doing such things as owning a pair of ravens that do reconnaissance for him, obtaining wine that allows the drinker to speak entirely in rhyme, trading one of his eyes with Mimir in exchange for a drink from his fountain of wisdom, and even hanging himself from a tree as a sacrifice... to himself!
- The tale of Oedopus Rex. Sophocles warns of the danger of seeking truth in Oedipus the King:
Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!
Roleplay
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Ivan is hungry for knowledge about the empowering incident that gave him and a bunch of other children their superpowers, and pinballs between various leads while trying to discover the truth.
- Rhys works for the school newspaper, and gets himself roped into the main plot because he's determined to get to the bottom of the strange incidents happening around school.
Podcasts
- Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives initially tries to act as an Agent Scully, but quickly becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind the Magnus Institute. Turning those who take up the Archivist role into this is the ultimate goal of the Institute, as a temple to the Eldritch Entity of These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Jon’s natural inclination to be Constantly Curious just makes him the ideal candidate.
Video Games
- Guile from Chrono Cross is always in search of enigmas. Even in his ending speech, he says that he will be searching for a new enigma.
- Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution; one of his more memorable lines in the game's trailer is "I'll never stop looking."
- This is very much Templar Assasin's (Dota 2) shtick.
- The Seekers in general in the Dragon Age universe, and Cassandra and Leliana specifically.
- Merrill also fits the mould, seeking to uncover the lost history of the elves and restore her people's greatness, even if it means cutting deals with demons to do so.
- The Player Character of the third game; whatever their methods, half their job description is finding the Hidden Villain responsible for triggering several wars and opening a Hell Gate.
- The Elder Scrolls series has the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, an Imperial order based around divining the information contained within the Elder Scrolls, using a ritual known as the Ritual of the Ancestor Moth, at the eventual cost of their sight. These "Moth Priests", as they are known, organize and care for the Imperial Library within the White-Gold Tower in the Imperial City, where the Elder Scrolls are traditionally stored. In 4E 175 (26 years before the events of Skyrim), the Scrolls mysteriously went missing from the Library and were scattered across Tamriel. The Order has taken to searching for them ever since.
- In .hack//G.U. Games, the fluff sometimes describe Hasseo and Ovan as "Seekers of the Truth". Hasseo is driven to figure out the mystery behind the PKer known as "Tri-Edge", and to save the coma victims (particularly Shino) he seems to leave in his wake; Ovan wishes to find "The Key of Twilight" as he is actually "Tri-Edge", or rather, his PC is infected with the malevolent AI that started the whole mess. He wants to find a way to purge it so as to save his little sister, who was the first coma victim.
- In Horizon Zero Dawn, the extremely clannish Nora tribe forbids its people from exploring ruins of the Metal World or going beyond the tribe's sacred lands. However, in times of extreme peril, they can anoint a "Seeker", who is sanctioned to do all of the above. Most Seekers are not this trope, but Aloy- an unusually inquisitive and pragmatic warrior who lived outside the tribe for a long time- fulfils it well. In fact, she's the first Seeker in a while to not get killed searching for a solution.
- Kingdom Hearts: Ansem has it in his job description, calling himself the Seeker of Darkness. He traces this back to his original incarnation Xehanort, who traces it back to HIS original incarnation Master Xehanort. It gets better. Dream Drop Distance tells us there will be thirteen Seekers of Darkness.
- Seeing as Persona 4 is one big murder mystery that constantly implores you to "Reach out for the truth", the Investigation Team could be considered Seekers (especially Kid Detective Naoto.) Even the Golden Ending is only gotten by continuously seeking to uncover the truth, even after the main mystery is solved.
- Takius from Ragnarok Online: The Animation.
- Starcraft II: Zeratul spends his time breaking into science facilities, exploring ancient ruins, communing with keepers of ancient knowledge, reading the mind of the dead Overmind, getting prophetic visions from The Old Gods, fighting an Apocalypse Cult, and, most importantly, getting the information he finds into the hands of people who need to know it, all in order to stop the apocalypse. This makes him both a seeker and the Big Good of much of Starcraft II.
- The Jedi Consular from Star Wars: The Old Republic:
A Jedi will always seek the truth. I will study the mysteries of the Force, and act with calm and clarity. I will expose the dark side's deceit... to unite our allies, and with the Force on our side... Justice Will Prevail!
- Neku from The World Ends with You; For 75% of the story he's trying to figure out how he entered the UG and how he was killed.
Visual Novels
- D-Man from Spirit Hunter: NG is an investigator who searches out information on the supernatural and shares it with other seekers of the 'untapped world'.
Webcomics
- In Holiday Wars, Tegan is seeking The Holiday Spirit to end a war between all of the Holidays. An example of this can be seen here.
Web Original
- Dreamscape: Melissa has the desire to know everything and craves knowledge, just like Melinda. This shared interest led to her becoming Melinda's apprentice. The biggest difference between the two of them is Melinda wants to use her knowledge for dark purposes.
- J of Marble Hornets does some rather stupid things in his quest to find out what happened to Alex. Until Entry #23, where he swears off the whole thing, due to having the living crap scared out of him by Slender Man. It doesn't last, by the way.
- Arthéon from Noob due to being The Roleplayer, is very interested in the story and general background of the fictional MMORPG that he's playing. Especially noticeable due to him being surrounded by Play the Game, Skip the Story types. He seems to have picked this up from his former guildmates in Justice, in which all known members are very much like him in this aspect.
- Shin of Sailor Nothing. Seriously, her name means truth.
- Luigi of There Will Be Brawl, along with Badass Longcoat and Private Eye Monologue. He drives the plot with his inquiries into the disappearance of Princess Peach.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender brings us two, both from the same episode. The first is an anthropologist from Ba Sing Se University who is desperate to learn everything he can about the world. While he's not too distanced, he cares about knowledge much more than his own life. Eventually he finds the largest library in the world, the one belonging to Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things. The owl-spirit is one who has stopped allowing people access to his information, due to how people always use it to hurt others.
- Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls. Even before Gravity Falls provided him with plenty of mysteries to uncover and solve, he had a love of researching the paranormal.
- Then he meets his long lost great uncle Ford who was this before him due to a combination of naturally high intellect and kinship with the weird due to having a sixth finger on each hand. Turns out by investigating the weird of Gravity Falls he was unknowingly following in his Grunkle's footsteps.
