Steel_Wind
Legend
By the way, there was a very interesting Q & A on Sylar's powers on the CBR interview with the show's producers.
This is, admittedly, plainly some out and out ret conning, but they've tried to show it to us this year earlier during vol 3 Villains, if we've been watching carefully.
Sylar's REAL power - his natural primary gift, is not to steal other people's powers by ripping open their skulls and seeing how things work.
That's his father's power. That's Samson Gray.
Sylar's native "first" power is empathic mimicry. Sylar is very similar to Peter's original "primary power". Except Sylar only can get the power of someone else if he sees someone use that power.
But it requires some sort of conscious effort on Sylar's part now. It may not have originally - but now it does.
This is the explanation of how Sylar got Elle's power of electricity. He got that from Elle using empathy (empathic mimicry), not ripping open her skull (the way things work). The fact that Arthur Petrelli knew this is never explained during Villains, but that is not an accident. Someone in the Company messed with Sylar's memories and was aware of his original power - and what Gabriel had probably acquired from Samson Gray.
So the question of how it is that Sylar's power is the same as his father's is answered for us in vol 3: no, it isn't a fluke like Mat's power. Instead, it's a consequence of Sylar seeing his father use it at some point in his childhood and he absorbed it.
It has since come to be the power he has chiefly relied upon ever since, as that power brings with it a complete understanding of the stolen power - unlike his mimicry, where the power which is taken is not intuitively understood. (Remember again Sylar's awkwardness using Electricity as Elle tries to teach him how to use it).
Another gem which emerged was that the original intention of the scene in the diner with Sylar and Luke in Ep 18 was not supposed to come off as a pure "memory flashback". The point was that Sylar goes to the diner and being in the diner, he can sense what happened there by using his power of object reading. He remembers something on the outside when seeing the diner - but has no recollection. When inside, he remembers more - the power at work. Last, he finds the toy car, and has an immediate recall of the object's history and what happened to him.
Sylar was not "remembering" what happened as a revived memory that was in his brain. He was experiencing a memory he simply no longer had at all by using his power to read objects and know their history. Unfortunately, that aspect of the scene does not come out well. Nevertheless, that was the intent of the writers.
The viewer is meant to recognize this by the implausibly advanced age that Sylar is at when he is turned over by his father. Earlier hints and explanations as to when he was given to his Aunt and Uncle suggest he was much younger. He remembers them and only them as his parents. He has no memory of his prior childhood at all.
It seems highly implausible that Sylar, given the age he was during the scene in the diner, could have forgotten those events as most people forget their early childhood memories before turning four or five years old. Sylar appeared to be 7 to 8 years old in that scene. Old enough that he should never have forgotten a day like that - nor every event in his life that transpired before that day.
The viewer might buy initially into a "suppressed memory" explanation. But that's not the truth. The memories Sylar experiences are not suppressed memories that have been recovered, but are those restored through external object reading. That intent of the writers was not an accident, and was built into the season from Sylar's first encounter with Angela. Angela deliberatelty feeds Sylar a hero with the power to ultimately restore Gabriel's key missing memories. She is doing this vile act for a reason. She knows what was done to his memory.
It follows that *someone* deliberately removed those memories from Sylar as a boy. Someone knew about him and had a reason and motive to specifically remove the memories. And that happened at a time when both Arthur Petrelli and Angela Petrelli were aware of it and most likely the reasons for it.
My guess is that is that the mind surgery was undertaken to remove "the hunger" from the boy Gabriel Gray or otherwise suppress the power he had absorbed from Samson Gray. As we know, subsequent events undid that deed and turned Gabriel into Sylar.
Or so the ret conning goes...
Anyways, those were some interesting points that emerged in the interview concerning episode #18.
This is, admittedly, plainly some out and out ret conning, but they've tried to show it to us this year earlier during vol 3 Villains, if we've been watching carefully.
Sylar's REAL power - his natural primary gift, is not to steal other people's powers by ripping open their skulls and seeing how things work.
That's his father's power. That's Samson Gray.
Sylar's native "first" power is empathic mimicry. Sylar is very similar to Peter's original "primary power". Except Sylar only can get the power of someone else if he sees someone use that power.
But it requires some sort of conscious effort on Sylar's part now. It may not have originally - but now it does.
This is the explanation of how Sylar got Elle's power of electricity. He got that from Elle using empathy (empathic mimicry), not ripping open her skull (the way things work). The fact that Arthur Petrelli knew this is never explained during Villains, but that is not an accident. Someone in the Company messed with Sylar's memories and was aware of his original power - and what Gabriel had probably acquired from Samson Gray.
So the question of how it is that Sylar's power is the same as his father's is answered for us in vol 3: no, it isn't a fluke like Mat's power. Instead, it's a consequence of Sylar seeing his father use it at some point in his childhood and he absorbed it.
It has since come to be the power he has chiefly relied upon ever since, as that power brings with it a complete understanding of the stolen power - unlike his mimicry, where the power which is taken is not intuitively understood. (Remember again Sylar's awkwardness using Electricity as Elle tries to teach him how to use it).
Another gem which emerged was that the original intention of the scene in the diner with Sylar and Luke in Ep 18 was not supposed to come off as a pure "memory flashback". The point was that Sylar goes to the diner and being in the diner, he can sense what happened there by using his power of object reading. He remembers something on the outside when seeing the diner - but has no recollection. When inside, he remembers more - the power at work. Last, he finds the toy car, and has an immediate recall of the object's history and what happened to him.
Sylar was not "remembering" what happened as a revived memory that was in his brain. He was experiencing a memory he simply no longer had at all by using his power to read objects and know their history. Unfortunately, that aspect of the scene does not come out well. Nevertheless, that was the intent of the writers.
The viewer is meant to recognize this by the implausibly advanced age that Sylar is at when he is turned over by his father. Earlier hints and explanations as to when he was given to his Aunt and Uncle suggest he was much younger. He remembers them and only them as his parents. He has no memory of his prior childhood at all.
It seems highly implausible that Sylar, given the age he was during the scene in the diner, could have forgotten those events as most people forget their early childhood memories before turning four or five years old. Sylar appeared to be 7 to 8 years old in that scene. Old enough that he should never have forgotten a day like that - nor every event in his life that transpired before that day.
The viewer might buy initially into a "suppressed memory" explanation. But that's not the truth. The memories Sylar experiences are not suppressed memories that have been recovered, but are those restored through external object reading. That intent of the writers was not an accident, and was built into the season from Sylar's first encounter with Angela. Angela deliberatelty feeds Sylar a hero with the power to ultimately restore Gabriel's key missing memories. She is doing this vile act for a reason. She knows what was done to his memory.
It follows that *someone* deliberately removed those memories from Sylar as a boy. Someone knew about him and had a reason and motive to specifically remove the memories. And that happened at a time when both Arthur Petrelli and Angela Petrelli were aware of it and most likely the reasons for it.
My guess is that is that the mind surgery was undertaken to remove "the hunger" from the boy Gabriel Gray or otherwise suppress the power he had absorbed from Samson Gray. As we know, subsequent events undid that deed and turned Gabriel into Sylar.
Or so the ret conning goes...
Anyways, those were some interesting points that emerged in the interview concerning episode #18.
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