Heroes (TV series)/Headscratchers/Sylar: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

Here be spoilers, read at your own risk.

********** No, it was not. It was shown that Kaito was trying to stop them but it was clearly shown that the Company was working with Linderman. Candice and Thompson, both Company employees, were explicitly shown to be aware of Linderman's plans and perfeclty happy with them. Bob was most likely in on it to, but avoided mentioning that around Nikki and Nathan so as not to implicate himself.

****** The Twelve founded the Company. This was made clear in 1x20, ".07%", in the scene in the diner where Matt reveals the connection in the Burnt Toast diner to HRG, in 1x21, "The Hard Part," when Nathan and Thompson discuss the plan to blow up New York, and in 2x10, "Truth and Consequences," when flashbacks to Adam, Kaito and Victoria Pratt show that they were all heavily involved in it at that time. Kaito eventually left The Company, as far as we know, and Bob rebooted it after Linderman died and he took over, but they were very much in on the plan to destroy New York.

* As I write this, Season 3 has just begun and we now know ''exactly'' why the Company wanted Sylar alive. Well played!

** Or rather, why a certain individual ({{spoiler|Angela Petrelli}}) with a lot of political pull wants to keep Sylar alive.

* Sylar may be exagerating. Just because he knows something doesn't mean he'll tell the whole truth to anyone who asks. He may even be, for some reason, trying to lull her into a false sense of security. We've seen in the past that something sticking into the brain will stop people with that power from regenerating, and we were told that a bullet in the brain would lay Adam low. In addition, he seems to have done ''some'' lasting damage to Claire, as she can no longer feel pain. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that in the S1!Future storyline, Sylar was rushed and, while he managed to get her power, he messed up her brain enough to kill her.

** In Season One didn't he completely remove the brain of his victims? I believe when Hiro accidently teleported into the FYG universe the first time one of the cops asked him what he did with Isaac's brain, implying that it was nowhere to be found. If Sylar did remove the brains of his victims at that point one would think that this would actually kill Claire.

* A lot of the powers seem to take some time to develop fully. Peter originally wasn't able to copy a power unless he was close to a person with a superpower. Matt was only able to read minds before developing mind-control powers. Hiro's ability to teleport reliably was originally very limited. Who is to say that Claire's ability to heal quickly didn't need some time to become full-fledged invulnerability?

----

** Now along comes along Season 3, and the writers are retconning the retcon. Let's recap: Suddenly Sylar's not hunting and killing powered people because he choses to do so, but because using his inate power turns him into a kind of vampire addicted to brains? And this compulsion is not even linked to Sylar's screwed-up inferiority/superiority complex, but linked solely to Sylar's superpower of intuitive aptitude, so that when Peter acquires ''that'' he also gain "the hunger"?? That's reminiscent of the writers of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' suddenly claiming that magic is like an addictive drug, and if you work too much magic you get black eyes and a terminal case of flaying people alive in anger, but it's OK since you were not responsible for your actions. Sorry, what? I'm pretty sure the writers of ''Heroes'' only introduced this stupid idea so that Sylar could be redeemed (because saying "I don't want to be a killer anymore, I regret what I did and will work to make amends" apparently never suffices in American TV, see Spike on ''Buffy'') and to inject some fake drama into Peter's decision to take on Sylar's ability. Oooh, will Peter be able to control the urges? But that means, instead of the character of Sylar being a psychologically screwed-up psycho watchmaker with an interesting ability who lives out his own dark phantasies of being "special" and powerful, we now have the story of Gabriel Gray having fallen victim to a dark insanity inherent in his ability itself. They transfered the evil from Sylar's personality to his ability.

*** Sure, saying "I don't want to be a killer anymore, I regret what I did and will work to make amends" suffices just fine on American TV. But then you damn well go to jail for the rest of your life -- which makes it hard to remain part of the series. (They had to break Faith out to keep using her.) That's why writers have find some way to absolve the character of blame, or else resort to [[Redemption Equals Death]]. When they don't do either of these, the character escapes the consequences of his actions, and some viewers (I'm one of them) can't get behind the [[Heel Face Turn]]. It's not as big a deal with lesser crimes, but murder is one of those lines you just ''do not cross''.

 

----

 

== This is a really old problem, but in the first season Sylar was extremely upset when Mohinder took the list of powered people from him. Shouldn't he have been able to remember the names of everyone on it due to having Charlie's eidetic memory power? ==

** What gave you the idea Hiro had Charlie die of natural causes? Hiro didn't change anything, except to make Charlie happy, he did nothing to stop Sylar from getting her at all. We found out she would've died naturally had Sylar not gotten to her, but it doesn't change the fact that Sylar killed her. Because [[You Can't Fight Fate]].

*** In fact, The Heroes novel ''Saving Charlie'' outright says that all Hiro did was give Charlie a good life for the six months leading up to her eventual death at Sylar's hands. At least they both lost their virginity to one another in one romantic evening before Charlie went to work, knowing she was going to die and playing dumb about knowing who Hiro was when his past self showed up with Ando.

----

 

* He had to take the head off Claire and the other people he got powers from because the thing they had that made them "special" was unique to them. The part of the brain he was focusing on was normal to humans, which means he already knows all about out it works and what to do with it. It is apparently easier to diagnose a normal brain than it is to study the special portion of a special brain.

 

 

== Sylar's "I moved my weakpoint trick" ==

* On a somewhat related note: '''HUNDRED BUCKS''' says Sylar put his weak point in his wrist, right under his watch. Besides him being just arrogant enough to do it, it provides for poetics when someone eventually thinks to nail him there (which, lets face it, is likely to take a damn long time considering the characters). Of course, if you want a more practical reason, it ''is'' the only part of his body that has any real kind of shielding capacity, being effectively a hunk of metal and all.

== Did the writers just forget about Sylar's ability to detect lies? ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Headscratchers]]

__NOTOC__