Foundation
Isaac Asimov (1951)
“A mathematician predicts the fall of civilization — and spends his life building the library that will survive it.”
Character Analysis
Seldon appears physically only in Part I, dying before the Foundation is a generation old, but his presence pervades the entire novel through holographic recordings and the inescapable fact of his predictions. He is less a character than a force — a mind so far ahead of its time that its effects outlast its body by centuries. Asimov deliberately makes Seldon somewhat unknowable: we understand his methods better than his motivations. The ethical question he embodies — is it acceptable to manipulate free people toward a predetermined good? — is never answered.
Precise, unhurried, always three steps ahead. His language is that of a professor who has already graded your answer.