Sylar- The Good, The Bad, & The Heroes

Do you all remember the show Heroes? A show that premiered in the fall of 2006 and ran for 4 seasons on NBC. It was about a group of characters, some born, some given special abilities unique to each individual. Names that most likely ring a bell include Matt Parkman, Peter Petrelli, Nathan Petrelli, Claire Bennet, Mohinder Suresh, and Noah Bennet. But there is one character I want to dissect- Gabriel Gray also known as Sylar. 

Besides Noah Bennet, I would say that Sylar is arguably the most complex and well-developed character on the show. The actor who portrayed Sylar did such a good job, you gotta wonder if Zachary Quinto is like that in real life and anytime he’d as much look at ya you’d wonder if he’d slice your skull off.

Which brings me to my next point- let’s compare the powers of a few characters in Heroes. Some people’s unique powers allowed them to do more than one ability such as Matt being able to do more than simply reading minds and being able to influence thoughts and giving them commands or casting mental illusions or Hiro being able to teleport and manipulate time. 

I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like the writers of Heroes really favored Sylar above everyone else. Anytime he came close to dying or actually did die he’d always narrowly just miss it or come right back. He must’ve died or almost died more times than I can count. The idea behind Sylar is ingenious however. Never before have I seen, I think, a villain whose base power was intuitive aptitude (being able to understand how things work) and the first power that he obtained was, quite conveniently in fact, telekinesis which he obtained from digging into the brain of Brian Davis after he murdered him because the hunger to understand his power was too strong. 

Like an addict who gave up all course for rehabilitation (he felt guilty after his first kill and nearly committed suicide had it not been for Elle Bishop’s intervention), he embraced his new nature and essentially killed Gabriel Gray until he resurfaced again at the conclusion of the show before it was axed. There were moments when Sylar had tried being his former self again, such as in Season 1 when he visited his mother Virginia and in Season 3 when Arthur and Angela Petrelli lied about being his birth parents. He relapsed however when Virginia saw him as a freak of nature and when he discovered the Petrellis lied to him.

There is no such thing as absolute evil. No good vs evil in fiction. Everything falls under a gray area and every major villain in fiction feels he is in the right in accordance to what they’re trying to acheive. In their eyes, thry are the ones doing good. The Sith believe the Jedi are the corrupted ones, Voldemort is basically just a magical Hitler who believes pure-blooded wizards should conquer the world (his view most likely shaped by being raised by a line of pure-blooded Slytherins), Agent Smith believes humans are a virus and must be extinguished, and Thanos believes the universe can only be correctly balanced by extingusihing half of all life in the universe. In Sylar’s eyes, he believes that those who have powers don’t deserve it and he’s doing the world a favour by taking it from them. Murder had become a game to him and that was his justification. 

Now clearly, Sylar was put on such a high pedestal. I get he’s a got a cool factor and what better ability to give him than telekinesis. He could literally incapacitate and immoblize anyone he wanted. Telekinesis is a deadly ability when used at such an advanced degree of use and clearly Sylar was a fast learner. Telekinesis has been used in various fiction but in the world of superheroes, the best example would be Jean Grey’s use in the X-men comics and in fiction overall, the Jedi and Sith of Star Wars lore. The most common use of telekinesis is focusing on an object and controlling it any which direction with your mind. We see Jean do this in the X-men movies and comics and the Jedi levitating heavy objects but it’s also been used to push and pull things as well as choking people. If you want to step it up another level, watch Chronicle, where telekinetic abilties are used to fly, crush things, break bones, and even used as a bullet-like force to kill. Now obviously Sylar’s abilities are not at that level but he always seems to have the upper hand on whoever he kills or they barely get the chance to fight back.

Sylar made for a compelling villain in the first season. How could any power stand up against that? Matt wasn’t as powerful as he was by the end of the series, sure Hiro could have stopped time to stab him with Kensei’s sword and call it an easy win but it would have been too easy to go out that way. I think the problem is that Sylar used his ability effortlessly while everyone else had to concentrate to use their ability with the exception of Claire who it just happened to on reflex. Another problem is that he appeared to his victims as a non-threat which gave him an advantage of his victims letting their guard down because they didn’t know who he was. It’s kind of unfair really, like Ted Sprague who was inside a prisoner transport and couldn’t use his hands and therefore power against Sylar. People like Luke Campbell or Maya Herrera or even Tracy Strauss, Meredith Gordon, Elle Bishop, and even Samuel Sullivan could have given Sylar a good struggle or even come out on top, only thing is most of those names were in positions of vulnerability, never crossed paths with Sylar, Sylar was too smart for them, was just faster at using his ability, was always 1-vs-1, or had Claire’s abiltiy of regeneration so their efforts were moot anyway. 

Sylar’s use of his telekinesis defensively and offensively were miles ahead of everyone else. The minute he knew he was cornered he knew just what to do. The only ones who could literally stop him were Hiro, Matt, and Claire which she even did when she impaled him when Primatech burned down. But lo and behold, the mighty Sylar could not be brought down nor could he ever again because of inheriting Claire’s regeneration ability.

Which brings me to my next point- Sylar became too powerful for his own good while everyone around was dumbed down, even the main protagonist (or so they had us belieiving, Peter Petrelli). In season 1, the whole concept of Sylar was about gaining more and more powers and becoming seemingly unstoppable. Who would stop him? The comic book 9th Wonders foretold that Hiro would finally bring him down which he did but we all knew that Peter Petrelli was being set up as Sylar’s equal. Now I, personally, had no problem with Peter and Sylar losing their powers and starting from scratch but for Sylar to amass new powers while Peter stayed powerless save by gaining one ability at a time by touching a powered individual which he was able to do from an injection was ludicrous! Now there was literally nobody who could stop him. Sylar lost his abilities from a strain of the Shanti virus that was injected into him while Peter lost his when his father Arthur sapped them out of him permanently. Sylar was left but with his intuitive aptitude and the first ability he ever obtained- telekinesis, again conveniently. This one ability was a catalyst in being able to focus it and cutting off people’s heads and reaching the part of the brain that held the secrets of people’s powers. As if this enough wasn’t already helpful, can you help but believe that he also has empathic mimicry! Talk about making Peter Petrelli non-unique! Some part of Sylar that felt empathy for the first victim resided within him and through this empathy he was able to gain powers alternatively such as Elle’s powers of electrokinesis. By the time Sylar had added Claire’s regeneration and Elle’s electrokinesis to his already daunting telekinesis, Peter was sucked dry by his father. He never regained his true ability again but get this guys…….what about Toddler Touch and Go? That’s right I’m talking about Matt Parkman Jr.

Hiro had lost his ability when Arthur took it, who travelled into the past (using Peter’s time travel ability). He was brought back into the present by Daphne Millbrook’s super speed which was supercharged by Ando’s newfound red electricity power. After coming in contact with Matt Parkman Jr., who can turn things on and off including abilities, Hiro gained his abilities back- permanently. Don’t you think it would’ve been nice if the plot had Peter gain his powers back too?

In the 4th Volume of Heroes titled Fugitives, Syalr added yet another ability which put the odds in his favour and that was the ability to shapeshift. Sylar with telekinesis alone already owned everyone else in the series and yet the writers saw fit to keep making him more powerful. In what I consider an insult to the way Nathan Petrelli was killed off, Sylar put on this light show to make us think that something big was gonna go down when Peter and Nathan confronted him in D.C.. What did they think they were gonna achieve against someone who could create electricity, could heal, and had telekinesis. In the most insulting way to die possible, Nathan wasn’t killed off by any new ability Sylar gained but with a slit across the throat with telekinesis, a power he’s had since the start meaning that at any given time throughout the series, Sylar could’ve done that to any of the heroes. And to add more insult, Sylar ends up with Nathan’s ability…...CHECK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcRXtuoPs5o). Sylar single handedly destroyed the Petrelli and Bennet families in that one volume by killing Nathan and cementing a hatred from Peter so strong, as if he already didn’t highly detest him, and tricking Noah into thinking that Sandra filed for divorce and then once finding out it was Sylar attacks who he thinks is Sylar when it’s actually Sandra and she’s absolutely had enough.  

The 4th season of Heroes is the worst one and by worst I mean bad. The other two seasons after Season 1 are watchable but not ownable. I have the 1st 3 seasons on DVD but thinking, now I realize only Season 1 is worth Blu ray.

Come Season 4, Peter is still powerless and as pathetic as ever. Where he had a bit of a badass streak in Seasons 2 and 3 with confidence and a little arrogance even when he kicked the shit out of Sylar when he vehemently denied that they’re brothers (stupid subplot if you ask me), Peter is a little puppy who kisses ass to a deaf physician because he has a prophetic dream (Angela Petrelli’s power) that she’s gonna use her pretty sound colours to save the world. She as a deaf woman is not pathetic. What’s pathetic is her ability and how FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON, Peter won’t shut up about her and when the finale finally arrives, she’s there for like 10 SECONDS. This, the guy who had every power was reduced to this. Talk about wasted potential. And this was far from the only crime: let’s see here, there was the fact that they were teasing us about Hiro dying, the whole out-of-left field lesbian scene with Claire and Gretchen (who did absolutely nothing), Sylar developing a creepy-ass crush on Claire, and Samuel talking all big about destroying the world and the audience having to waste 18 episodes just for him to fail in about 5 seconds. There were some strong points in Season 4 like trying to establish Peter and Sylar as the yin and yang of the series and the whole Sylar trapped as Nathan story arc, but sorry Peter, Sylar has upstaged you big time. The carnival plot was a waste of time in my opinion, I feel like Samuel could’ve been done better in a different way had a different plot mechanic been used. It was all about Sylar. Season 4 should've been Volume 5: Sylar. Samuel could’ve died and I wouldn’t have cared. 

My biggest gripe is how Peter resolved his conflict with Sylar. Cmon this is the guy who killed your brother man! Because of a dream, Peter foresaw that Sylar would be a hero and somehow after his ordeal as Nathan Petrelli he found himself unable to kill and attracted to Claire and also wanting Matt to suppress his powers. The killer now had a soft spot. Heroes Season 1 seems like a dream now. I mean kudos to Peter for having a heart and saying let’s all be friends now, I believe in you but honestly, I would have loved to see Peter regaining his abilities, Hiro and Parkman not be such wimps, and taking Sylar down in one final showdown. Peter vs Sylar. A fitting end for a show that started with such promise. Even the conclusion of Volume 5 had me on the edge of my seat, with Claire jumping off the ferris wheel and showing the world that there are people with abilities. Only thing was, going forward, it felt awkward to me because you were now embracing the man who cut your head open and violated you, was bitter enemies with your adoptive father and uncle, killed your mother, almost killed your grandmother, killed your father, and alienated your adoptive mother. That, that just doesn’t sit right with me you know.

In conclusion, Sylar is a bad-ass. He’s a geniously creative concept. But he had no challenge. No protagonist to truly challenge him. He was wiping the floor with the protagonists left and right. No other character was at his level. Not in cunning or scale of power. Peter, the one true hero capable of challenging him was never redeemed. The show truly became about Sylar which isn’t necessarily bad but not necessarily good either. There’s only so long you can terrorize the protagonists, I mean they barely had a win against him. He outshines even the big bads of the show which is not saying much (cough cough Samuel). No ultimate conflicts save season 1 and then after that nada, it was just him making everybody’s life hell individually (Parkman, Petrellis, Claire). In my eyes, Sylar deserved to rot in the mental prison that Parkman placed him in. Sylar chose to kill those people- to kill Isaac, Charlie, Eden, and Chandra Suresh not to mention him terrorizing Janice and Matt Jr. Nah a fitting ending would be Peter and Sylar in one final showdown as it was prophesied to be in Isaac’s paintings, not all of them coming together to sing Kumba-Yah at a carnival.