Sylar

Template:Heroes character box Gabriel Gray, more commonly known by his assumed name of Sylar, is a fictional character and one of the main antagonists on the NBC drama Heroes. Portrayed by Zachary Quinto, he is a super-powered serial killer who targets other superhumans in order to steal their powers. Sylar serves as the primary antagonist of the first season of the series.

Concept and creation

The original concept of Sylar was that he killed the victim, ate their brain, and "digested their power"; however, in order to avoid the potential silliness and zombie associations, producers decided to deliberately make this fact vague in the series. However, in the series premiere of Season Three, he appears to gain Claire Bennett's ability by looking inside of her head and analyzing the brain. When Claire asked if he was going to eat it, he simply replied with, "Claire....,that's disgusting."

Prior to Quinto's first appearance in the episode "Seven Minutes to Midnight", the role of Sylar is played by stunt doubles, with the character's face being obscured by shadows. Sylar's voice during a telephone conversation is that of voice actor Maurice LaMarche.

Personality

Sylar was raised as the son of a watchmaker, but he always felt that he deserved more in life and that he was special. These desires and the "evolutionary imperative" to acquire new abilities are what drives him to kill the victims with powers. Taking the name Sylar from the brand of watch that he wears, he has shed all connections to his previous life as Gabriel Gray. He takes this to the point of becoming angry when called Gabriel with the exceptions of when he visited his mother and when he temporarily loses his powers. Quinto has said of his character, "The sad part is, he's initially well-intentioned. He wants to improve his life. He wants to make a difference. He wants to matter. Through the process of realizing how to do that, he gets blinded and loses himself in the pursuit of it and goes a little crazy—'a little' being an understatement."

Quinto has also stated that "He's definitely somebody that has been overcome by a hunger and overcome by a pursuit for power and for importance that did start a little more innocuously than it evolved into." When asked if he thought Sylar was irredeemable or not, Quinto responded, "I think there's a certain point at which you cross a line and it's sort of irrevocable.... I don't know what the writers have in mind, but it would probably be kind of a challenge at this point, you know?"

Character history

Genesis

File:Heroes Sylar2.jpg

Sylar was originally portrayed by stunt doubles before the casting of Zachary Quinto, as evidenced in his appearance during "One Giant Leap".

The episode "Six Months Ago" reveals that Sylar's real name is Gabriel Gray, a highly talented watch repairman. He encounters Chandra Suresh, who tells Gabriel that he may be an evolved human with superhuman powers. Gabriel eagerly submits to testing. After being rejected by Suresh because the test results are indeterminate, Gray contacts another person on Suresh's list, Davis. Gray discovers that he himself has the power of intuitive aptitude, and murders Davis for his telekinetic powers. After returning to Suresh, he becomes "Patient Zero", and continues to work with Suresh until Suresh realizes that Sylar is murdering the people that they meet. He kills Suresh soon after.

Sylar is first mentioned in the series as a mysterious serial killer sought out by the FBI, whose existence is completely speculative. Appearing as shadowy figure, he attempts to obtain Molly Walker's power after failing the first time, obtains the power of Charlie Andrews, and attempts to obtain Claire Bennet's regenerative abilities, but is stopped by Peter Petrelli. He is greatly injured and is captured by Eden McCain and the Haitian to be experimented on. After various experiments, Sylar manages to escape, but he is again repelled from an attempt to obtain Claire's power.

Remembering Suresh's list, Sylar makes his way to Zane Taylor, and by posing as the person Zane was expecting, Mohinder Suresh, he kills him and obtains his power. After Mohinder arrives, Sylar poses as Zane, and convinces Mohinder to take him to help convince other people with special abilities that Mohinder’s research is real. After meeting and obtaining enhanced hearing from a woman named Dale, Mohinder discovers Sylar's identity and manages to incapacitate him with drugs. After experimenting on Sylar to create a new list of people with special powers and attempting to kill him, Mohinder is captured. After Peter shows up and is temporarily killed by Sylar, Mohinder knocks him out, but ends up leaving Isaac Mendez's address on the ground.

After meeting Isaac, and being told that his fate is to die at the hands of the other heroes, he takes Isaac's power to paint the future. He soon finishes a painting depicting himself about to kill and acquire the power of the radioactive Ted Sprague, and believes himself to be the "exploding man". Believing that only those that "don't deserve" their powers are the ones that need to die, he doesn't want to kill innocent people. After attempting to confide in Mohinder, he returns home to his mother in the hope that she will tell him that it is fine not to be special and live as a normal watchmaker. She tells him that he can be anything, including the president, causing him to demonstrate his powers and accidentally injure her. This causes her to panic, which eventually leads to her death, and Sylar deciding that his path is correct.

File:Final Fight.jpg

Sylar being impaled by Hiro Nakamura.

After acquiring the radioactive powers of Ted, Sylar paints a picture of himself facing off against Peter Petrelli at Kirby Plaza. Realizing Peter is part of his final destiny, Sylar prepares to hunt him down. Before he can leave, Ando Masahashi arrives to kill him, though Ando is easily thwarted. After Sylar discovers the comic depicting his death at the hands of Hiro Nakamura, Hiro appears and rescues Ando. Sylar sets off for Kirby Plaza to wait for Peter. After a struggle involving Sylar, Peter, Matt Parkman, and Niki Sanders, Peter begins the process of exploding, showing Sylar that he is not the exploding man. Soon after, Hiro arrives and stabs Sylar as the comic depicts, which causes him to collapse.

Generations

Sylar is rescued by Candice Wilmer, who uses her powers of illusion to make Sylar disappear. After undergoing eight surgeries, he eventually awakes and realizes that he cannot use his powers. Though Candice promises that they will come back eventually, he kills her and attempts to acquire her power in order to start over. After realizing that it also doesn't work, he attempts to leave, though he realizes that he is in the middle of a dense jungle in Mexico. After wandering for three days, he is rescued from the brink of death by the passing by Maya Herrera and Alejandro Herrera. He introduces himself using his real name, and eventually finds out that they are in search of Chandra Suresh to help control Maya's power. He tells them that he knows Suresh, and that he will take them to him.

He continues to travel with them, and while Alejandro becomes more distrustful of Sylar, Maya becomes more trusting of him. After teaching Maya to control her powers, he convinces her that her brother hates her and that in her heart she wanted to see his wife dead. Convincing her to send Alejandro away, Sylar is eventually confronted by Alejandro, he kills him, but states that he would have let Alejandro go had he not come back. Soon after, Maya confesses her love for Gabriel, and they reach Mohinder's apartment. Sylar attempts to obtain a cure for his condition, later revealed to be the same strain of the Shanti Virus which Niki was infected with. Upon finding that Sylar cannot use any of his obtained abilities, Mohinder attempts to kill Sylar, causing Maya to find out Sylar's true intentions. Sylar then takes Maya, Mohinder and Molly hostage, later forcing Mohinder to give Sylar the cure. He escapes with the cure, however injured due to an attack from Elle.

Villains

At the start of Volume Three: "Villains", Sylar injects himself with the cure, healing his wounds and apparently regaining use of his powers. He tests out his telekinesis by summoning a can to his hand, ominously remarking, "I'm back."

Sylar soon makes his way to California and not only takes Company files on several high level superhumans, but also gains Claire's ability of regeneration, though he does not kill her in the process. He remarks that Claire's ability is different from other superhumans, saying that "I couldn't do it, even if I wanted to." He is later confronted by two nameless Company agents, but easily disposes of them.

Sylar later manages to sneak into the Company headquarters, killing Bob Bishop and acquiring his power. He also maanges to surprise Elle and Noah Bennett after Elle releases Noah to hunt down Sylar. Though Noah manages to kill Sylar, Sylar regenerates and mocks Bennett before throwing him away telekinetically. Sylar then attempts to steal Elle's power, but is blown back and knocked unconscious by a searing electrical outburst due to Elle discharging electricity in pain, leading to Level 5 security crashing and several superhumans escaping the complex.

Sylar is currently held in a Level 5 prison room, visited by Angela Petrelli and an implication that Angela may be, in fact, his mother. Whether this is true, or Angela is attempting to manipulate Sylar remains to be seen.

Powers, abilities and skills

When Sylar first meets Chandra Suresh six months prior to the series' starting point, Sylar is described as having "intuitive aptitude", the ability to know how things work by looking at them. This ability to see and manipulate patterns within complex systems made him an expert at restoring time pieces. He is able to discern any problems, with any given watch, almost instantly. He later uses this ability to locate the source of the power in the brain of his victims, enabling him to steal their abilities. Mr. Bennet mentions that Sylar's powers are a product of using foreign DNA to alter his own. While the original concept was that Sylar ate the brains of his victims to acquire their powers, it was later changed, and it was left intentionally ambiguous as to what Sylar does once he removes a victim's brain. When Tim Kring was asked if Sylar eats brains, he stated that "that's the popular speculation. There is a connection between the powers and the brain - and Sylar has found it." In the first episode of season 3, when Claire asks him the same question, he replies "Eat your brain? Claire, That's disgusting!". Instead apparently he only requires to "read" the brain and after finding the connection he can immediately use the power himself. This is shown after he comments on Claire's brain, finds what he needs, touches it, then standing up reveals he gained Claire's powers

Of all the powers Sylar has acquired, his most prominently displayed power is telekinesis, which was the first power he acquireed. Compared to the limited abilities Davis displayed, Sylar's skill with telekinesis is much more advanced. He has demonstrated fine enough control to smoothly cut open the skulls of his victims and can exert enough force to flip a police van. When tested by Bennet's associate Hank, Sylar shows no overt signs of any power besides telekinesis. In "The Hard Part", Sylar is shown to be able to use at least two of his acquired abilities at the same time.

A list of Sylar's known powers includes:

Ability	Character obtained from
Telekinesis	Brian Davis
Cryokinesis	Molly Walker's father
Enhanced memory	Charlene Andrews
Liquification	Zane Taylor
Enhanced hearing	Dale Smither
Precognition through painting	Isaac Mendez
Radiation manipulation	Ted Sprague
Cellular regeneration	Claire Bennett
Transmutation	Bob Bishop

Sylar attempted to take Candice Wilmer's power of illusion, but he was unable to use it because he was affected by the Shanti virus; it was confirmed in an interview that Sylar did not acquire the ability and that he won't be able to use it even after curing himself. Sylar also appears to have lost all but his intuitive aptitude and his telekinesis after he cured himself.

Reception

Sylar was named one of the best new villains on TV by Entertainment Weekly. Sylar was also named the best villain of 2007 by IGN.

Other Media

Zachary Quinto reprises his role of Sylar in the Robot Chicken episode "Bionic Cow." He steals a man named Uncle Glen's powers which turn out to be his explosive diarrhea.