Breakdown of Seyirci, sihirbaz onları kandırmış gibi bakıyor.
o
that / he / she / it
bakmak
to look
gibi
like (similar to)
sihirbaz
magician
Questions & Answers about Seyirci, sihirbaz onları kandırmış gibi bakıyor.
How does kandırmış gibi work here to mean 'as if he has fooled'?
This uses the pattern -mIş gibi (as if). By adding the suffix -mış to the verb root kandır (fool/deceive) and following it with gibi, you express that an action appears to have happened in the past. It literally acts as an adverbial phrase describing how the audience is looking.
Why does the sentence use bakıyor (is looking) instead of görünüyor (seems/appears)?
In English, 'looks' can mean both physically using your eyes and giving off a certain appearance (seeming). In Turkish, bakmak strictly means the physical action of looking. The sentence means the audience is physically looking at the magician with a specific expression on their faces. If you just wanted to say they appear a certain way without the physical act of looking, you would use görünüyor.
Why is it onları (accusative) instead of onlara (dative)?
The verb kandırmak (to fool or deceive) takes a direct object, which requires the accusative case in Turkish. Since the magician is fooling 'them', the pronoun onlar takes the accusative suffix -ı to become onları.
Seyirci is singular here. Can it mean multiple people?
Yes. Seyirci literally means 'spectator' or 'viewer'. While you will often see the plural seyirciler (spectators), using the singular seyirci as a collective noun to mean 'the audience' as a single unified group is very common and natural in Turkish.