Tone
Though fantastical, Seeker’s tone is punctuated with the meretricious joy of novel sex. While the world through which we travel is exciting and glorious, Kem’s reaction to it is often understated, and not only because he’s lived here his whole life. Even when he sees something that is unusual or magical to him, Kem appears nonplussed, always ready to be disappointed. He knows the gilding is of paper-thinness, that he may be approaching his death, that even if he does defeat Queen Mara, it will mean that he’s lost his only direction in life. Yet the world is fantastical and colorful! All the pageantry of this world at times seems made to thrill him, but Kem reacts like Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, American Psycho, 2000) visiting Disneyland. This world truly is wondrous and the grayness of Kem’s soul is what alienates him.
Genre
Seeker is a dirty movie and a fantasy film (obviously) in the same way that Bojack Horseman is a drama. I.e. there are layers of pessimistic satire, nihilism, and despair beneath a whimsical and alluring setting. Seeker is a story about the terror of freedom, in that Kem is set free from obligations, scruples, and even purpose. However, the denouement shows us that even this freedom is in fact a childlike delusion; Kem remains his wicked mother’s plaything, now and forever.
It’s always been important to me that Seeker be animated, partly to do justice to the special effects and partly to help ensure the inclusion of the superior acting that is so often missing from rushed adult productions. However, the medium is also a metaphor for the above message: though we think we’re free in our maturity, here we sit, indulging our basest, most trivial, most adolescent desires in a dirty cartoon.