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"'Wait!.. It was me. I pushed her.'"
Here, Grover stuns Percy by trying to take the blame for Nancy Bobofit landing in the fountain. As the novel progresses, we learn that Grover here is attempting to protect Percy by not drawing attention to the fact that he accidentally used his powers to manipulate the water in the fountain. Grover does not want anybody, especially monsters, to witness Percy’s gifts because it will make him a bigger target. His dedication to Percy reveals Grover’s bravery and highlights the lengths to which Grover is willing to go in order to keep Percy safe.
"'A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she’d befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill.'"
Grover is speaking about the satyr assigned to protect Thalia as if it is someone else, but we soon learn that he is telling his own story. He was able to get Luke and Annabeth to safety but was unable to save Thalia in the end. As a result, Grover is consumed with guilt. His adamant belief in his own failure explains why he is so desperate to protect Percy and then later Annabeth—he does not want to fail in his duties for a second time.
“‘No. This makes me sad.’ He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. ‘And the sky. You can’t even see the stars. They’ve polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr.’”
The above line occurs when Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are lost in the woods after their fight with Medusa. He is dismayed to see all the litter on the forest floor and complains to Percy that humanity does not have any respect for the earth anymore. Here, Riordan uses Grover to comment on pollution because, as a satyr, Grover is able to speak on behalf of the natural world. His outrage on behalf of defenseless plants and animals also anticipates the moment later in the text when he frees the zoo animals that are being abused by the illegal animal transport company.
"'The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago…A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, ‘Tell them that the great god Pan has died!’ When humans heard the news, they believed it. They’ve been pillaging Pan’s kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep.'"
Here, Grover tells Percy about the satyrs’ two-thousand-year-old search for Pan, the god of the wild. He explains that satyrs can apply for a searcher’s license to help look for Pan, which is what Grover intends to do if the trio is able to complete their quest. Grover desperately wants to be a searcher despite the fact that no satyr has ever returned from their search. While it might sound absurd for Grover to want to join the ranks of all the searchers who have gone missing, this brief speech showcases why the mission is so important to him: Grover and the rest of his species truly believe that Pan can save the world from its current path toward destruction.
