How was Sylar able to get Elle's power w/o seratting her head?

Arthur was telling him he had empathic abilities like Peter before he put him in the room with Elle. I don't like that though. I'm sure SArmy members are eating it up though.

Ahhh, so that's what that means. Ok, I get it now.

The father can probably do the same thing, except eh chooses to take from them..

He does have the ability to know a persons history by touching them. That plus IA could mean he doesn't need to slice people head's anymore. I'm sure when Arthur told him he was empathic, he meant just like himself and Peter, Sylar too can adjust his body to new abilities.

However he did it, it looked painful...whereas Peter does it with love, Gabe seems to have pulled it off with pure anger/forgiveness...

It's the latest trend this season...RETCONNING!

The scenes between them were so well acted and shot in this episode. It's a shame that the writers ruin scenes like this by not caring at all about character continuity. It's a serious problem that actually makes Season 3 worse than Season 2, IMHO.

Yeah, well it's kinda new for him, to be empathic! It must be harder for him the first time, I guess!

Man...

I'm not sure what to think of Sylar anymore. He used to be totally awesome and ruthless (as well as a complete outsider), but now he's turned into the heroes equivalent of justin timberlake.

That power only works with inanimate objects, not humans

I have to disagree. I think season 3 is WAY better than season 2. They're working new story elements into these character's lives vs. having them be totally 1-dimensional. i.e. Peter is good, Gabriel is bad (too predictable and could get boring after a while). I like the show now - it's more balanced.

This is the one part of the episode I didn't like. The acting was fantastic, but I don't know why the writers have decided to change everything about Sylar.

It was so much simpler when we knew he was the son of a watchmaker and Virginia Gray, and he was a monster- an unstoppable, power-hungry killing machine with no remorse for his victims, taking their power because they were "undeserving."

Now all these random questions and changes about the true nature of his power are just confusing and annoying.

/2cents

Actually, in Angels and Monsters, he claimed that he felt the pain that he had caused Claire when, he sliced her head and took her ability.

this is more along the lines of what HRG said last week " the ability to transfer powers ". now through empathy he can transfer them from others to himself. this is more similar to what peter does. my guess is that both peter and sylar can take the powers away like Arthur has been doing, but that is more of a future manifestation of the ability along with giving them back to people.

I don't know how I feel about this...

I am not sure Sylar is going to be like Peter as far as copying powers goes. From a storytelling point it makes little sense having two empaths running around (Arthur doesn't count, if he ever was one an empath prior to stealing Peter's, since I am sure he'll be dead soon).

Either Sylar's power copying is different from Peter's, or Peter doesn't get his empathy back when he regains his powers.

Simplicity is usually boring! I like complex stories in which I can try to think and figure out those answer! So to me, it's a +! But I understand that some may think the opposite!

But it's true they kinda change stuff with few explanation. Like, now, what about his I-understand-how-things-work skill? Ok, I've got a theory about that, too, like I always have: There is always a solution to a problem! But I can sense that some people will complain a lot about this, and I won't try to stop time: For once, I'll understand their complaint!

Still trying to wrap my head around this one. We've understood Gabriel/Sylar's base power to be intuitive aptitude, an ability to understand how things work. And he's used this ability to understand how a power works by observing the brain of the person who had the power. Now Arthur said that Gabriel has empathy. I'm taking this to be an aspect of the intuitive aptitude. Sylar can understand how people work, their feelings and such. Perhaps from paying enough attention to really understand someone, perhaps involving observing the ability enough, Sylar is able to get to the knowledge he needs to learn the ability. A less direct way at the ability information than the brain.

Or maybe empathic mimicry was his base power and he picked up the intuitive aptitude from someone else. This seems a bit unlikely to me, though. Anyways, it seems Gabriel's "empathy" works a bit different than Peter's. Peter would pick up up abilities just being near people. Seems Sylar has to come to understand, really empathize with the person. This is actually a bit similar to what Peter had to learn to do to use his abilities away from the original owner of the ability.

Or maybe it's just a case of one of those multiple-power abilities like the Haitian.

That was before he took Bailey's power.

Ummm, Im sure that just because he can aquire abilities without opening up the head doesnt meen he wont go back to slicing people open. He couldnt control the abilities as well by absorbing them empathically. He needs to open their heads to master the ability. He still knows this. His hunger is for power, and without someone to "save him" he will go back to craving power. If Elle dies without producing Noah then Gabriel will go back to being Sylar. IMO anyway.

OK, throwing this out there...

Sylar's IA manifested itself through his watch repair mentality, i.e. take it apart to fix it. Only you can't rightly put a human back together...so they all died...

But if he now relies on fixing someone with empathy, than maybe that's how he can mimic new powers...

I hope that is the route the show takes. But they could go either way with it.

Who's Bailey? Do you mean Bridget?

That was in Episode 3 - One of Us, One of Them where Sylar take her ability. Than he touched Claire in Angels and Monsters, Episode 4.

Actually, my theory is the opposite: Intuition is, for Gabriel, the natural evolution of Empathy. Let's put it this way: When he was young, he had Empathy and all, etc. Then he becames a lonely watchmaker, caring more about the mecanisms of clocks than those of human souls. He was surely quite a lone wolf back there. Now, thanks to evolution, his power evolved into something more suitable to his way of life: Instead of understanding souls, he understood mechanical (and even biological) systems. But Empathy was still in there, hiding...

Well, my theory, like I sais!

This is a route I wouldn't mind seeing used. It makes sense, is flavorful and would flesh-out Gabriel a bit more.

Empathy isn't a super power. Everyone has a certain degree of empathy. I assume that Gabriels psycho foster mother drained most of his away.

Peter was a hospice nurse. He had a high degree of natural empathy, as his speech to Simone proved, on his first day working for Charles. He naturally knows how people feel. Sylar doesn't.

I think their power is the same, they just accessed it differently. Now Sylar can access it, through his empathy.

That does bring up the question: Why did Peter try to slice Angela if he could already sap her powers empathically?

Sylar said it was the hunger...now Sylar's hunger won't have an outlet other than to suck powers. Meh.

What is Sylar without slice 'n' dice? In the first season we were on the edge of our seats because we worried about Claire, Charlie...everyone potentially getting the slicer. Now we just have to worry about Sylar being in the same building? Meh.

Meh.

My bad. I remember the line, now. The way your point was worded, I thought that you were saying that he felt Claire's pain when he was in the process of attacking her.

The other character's name is Bridget Bailey.

In a normal world, that's true!

In a normal world, everyone has a certain speed (Daphne)
In a normal world, everyone has a certain degree of memory (Charlie)
In a normal world, everyone has a certain degree of intuition (Sylar, well, before his empathy thing)
In a normal world, everyone has a certain level of agility (Mohinder)
In a normal world, everyone has a certain strenght (Niki)

Shall I continue?

My point his, Empathy, along with the personnality's characteristic, is also a power. Throught empathy for one with a power, the empath can learn what he does. And Sylar is just learning (or re-learning, in my opinion) to be and Empath, both in his personnality and as a power, as he needs the first one for the second one.

This is my thought, as well.

And by "knowing how people work" on an emotional / empathic level, he can "empathically intuit" a person's power.

It seems to not be very different, in effect, than how peter "empathically absorbs". You'll notice that Peter never had mastery over the powers he absorbed unlike Sylar having mastery when he "stole" directly via the brain. But you'll notice that Sylar didn't have mastery when he "empathically intuited" Elle's electricity power.

It seems that Peter's power is "always on" and he can't control what powers he absorbs (at least not yet, if he gets his power back). I'd say that Sylar's power is likewise always on, can be used for any facet of life and is a driving force, hence "the hunger". However, he can now choose how to get others' powers... either directly via the brain or through "empathic intuiting".

But his power is still intuitive aptitude, or a "super intuition".

Word to your whole post.

The scene was definitely well-acted. I don't think that Kristen and Quinto have a lot of chemistry on screen, but they are a couple of great actors. They make it work despite the writing.

It's a shame that Elle is now this sweet girl with barely a shred of psychopathy and Sylar this misunderstood monster who didn't really WANT to kill anybody, though. =/

Oh no, they're turning Sylar into... Peter!

I don't really know what to make of Sylar now. All the villains in this show seem to be motivated by lack of love, instead of for the sake of pure evil.

Nope he felt her pain after he took Clairsentience.

I'd have to disagree to this. I feel like they're really really trying hard to incorporate new story elements into character's lives, but it feels really forced. How do we throw a monkey wrench into the gears of peter's goodness/sylar's evilness? Why make them switch places on the good/evil spectrum!
What do we do with nathan's storyline? Show him coping from living where he should have actually died! Again. And hows about this season, we don't have peter go through his power discovery again, instead, let's mix it up and let HIRO re-discover his powers. It's for reasons that this that I'd just call this season on par with season 2... however, I didn't hate season 2 nearly as much as a lot of people did.

But anyways, I digress. I find this whole thing about sylar now being able to empathically take powers really lame, weather or not it's in the exact same maner as peter. If it is like peter, that would be a situation that would never, never, never sit well with me, because then it would mean that intuitive aptitude either doesn't exist, or it's part of empathic mimicry, meaning that the I am Become Death storyline would have been pointless because as part of his natural power, peter should have learned to use IA loooong before he had to ask F_Sylar for help.

But the biggest reason why I don't like this decision is because it takes away exactly what made sylar's leaf-turning somewhat interesting. Now I wasn't ever really a fan of being able to blame "the hunger," but one thing is for sure, for a newly reformed sylar/gabriel, the hunger served as an excellent character flaw. It was like the heroesverse version of a drug addiction. Now with that taken away, it makes sylar's character a lot more flat, which makes me really disappointed, because i was a long time fan of sylar as a villan. I was (and even a little bit am) still pulling for him to be playing everyone to take out the one person who can stop his ascent to power (arthur). But at the same time, I would have at least accepted him as a hero, as long as he still had his flaws such as the hunger. Now he's become a lot more... uninteresting of a character.

sorry for the rant.

It's funny that everyone used to complain that Sylar was becoming a boring character because all he did was slice and dice people with powers to take their power. Now, people are complaining because he isn't THAT character anymore. The irony.

For the record I was always happy with slice and dice sylar. Never disappointed me once. Powerless sylar was also a cool little twist, because he still had the desire to kill and take power, but he realized it wouldn't work.

On that note, other recycled plot this season that goes with sylar and peter switching positions:
After peter becomes evil (or at least consumed by the hunger), he then loses his powers, much like sylar did in season 2.

I never liked this idea, but I'm willing to live with it for now.

It seems to me like they're just trying to make Sylar completely good just because the audience responded to him so strongly. Of course, that also presents a problem when you completely change everything the audience liked about him. No more hunger, No more wanting to be special, No more head slicing, etc. Eventually you're left with another Peter, practically.

I liked the idea that Sylar took a seemingly docile power (figuring out how things work), and turning it into a completely deadly and unique trait (stealing powers by figuring them out). I mean, sure, it's cool when you get a guy who can shoot fire or lightning from his hands, but it just becomes totally awesome when they use their brains to work outside the initial boundaries of a "useless" power.

Now that idea's kind of been Claire'd out the window. I'll cope with this change, but it certainly didn't leave me with a big grin when it happened.

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand;



Agree with this post 110%. And Claire'd out the window made me snicker.



This too makes sense. In I Am Become Death, right before he goes nuclear, Sylar/Gabriel seems to understand the workings of Knox's power without having to slice his head open. He tells him "Your power feeds on the fear of others" or something along those lines before he proceeds to pound the Claire out of him.

Yes, where are the unrealistic characterizations when we really need it?

Because everyone knows that two-dimensional villains motivated by nothing but just being rotten people are simply the backbone of every fictional work. the ones that stick with you. You know, the ones with no dimension... Like that one guy... what was his name?

I have just have to point this out cause it bugged me.
Angels and monsters was episode 5. I am become death was episode 4. Just clarifying.

None of both are real Empaths so the poster you tried to rant on is actually right!
Both peter and sylar are mimes actually with a little personal empathy involved.
The major difference on both is that Peter automatically absorbs while Sylar has to do it the Arthur way.

The most ridicoulos path to take on a fans favorite character (definately not mine) to give it longelivity after it had actually meet its end and needed to be written off was and still is Sylar. Congratulations Kring and Co!

They really are ruining this Sylar character, don't like what they are doing at all.

He shows the same form of mimicry as Peter, through empathy.

Coincidence or twins?

I had said a while back in another thread that Arthur, peter, and Sylar were all Empathist.

Empathy is by Websters' definition = the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

Each has thier specific way of manifesting their Empathy

Gabriel Has Intuitive Empathy : By observing an object animate or inanimate he is able to fully understand how it works. With watches he learned what was wrong with them and thus instantly knew how to fix them (akin to Micah's ability to empathize with machines), with "the Hunger" was told that the powers were within the brain, so he used his empathy to understand what within in the brain allows these powers work, thus needing to slice open to discern what in the brain allowed powers, with "Mimicry" he has to understand how their emotions trigger their powers, and thus by understanding how that person feels he is able to instantly learn how to use their abilities.(hence why he had to specifically talk to Elle and actually get her to reveal her emotional state to him so he could understand)

peter has Empathic mimicy: without the need to understand or observe peter is innately able to be sensitive to how others manifest their powers through emotion, and thus is able to experience their abilities without having to first understand the person's emotions itself allowing for when ever his needs arise and powers already copied to manifest. The major flaw being that without knowing what a power is, he is unable to manifest it willingly, thus only able to use such powers when he experience the emotional trigger for them. (he could not use Intuitive Empathy because he did not know it existed and thus had to be taught what IE actually was by FGabe. He was able to manifest DL without knowing, by using the same trigger of having the need to escape a prision like DL did)

Its a nice idea,.. but I think its a bit overcomplicated and with the show already getting criticism for this, I don't see it happening.

But I did like the bit about DL and how Peter triggered phasing in Ireland. The guy was tied up and getting the crap beat of him, so his emotions are going to be all over the place.

but the show is already overly compicated when it comes to Sylar/Gabe isn't it?

they say he is not a killer, but in S2 he had over 4 month + with no power and still chose to kill. The hunger was not there at all, then out of the blue in s3 he beats it in less than a week?

Now without any real explaining Gabriel has Empathic Mimicry like Peter... uhm thats complicated in itself. I can believe Intuitive Empathy cause it fits his profile (understanding how things work to manifest powers) vs Empathic Mimicry (being sensitive to emotions of others to manifest powers)

Okay, I can see how Sylar's Intuitive Aptitude can work on humans through empathy. I can see his Season 1 personality was because of his power hunger. I can see the reason he was pushed to kill the other mutants was the desire to become special, because of Virginia Gray. I can see how his body learns to adapt to new powers and bond the proteins with the adrenal glands and all that psuedo-scientific cupcakes.

I totally fail to see how Sylar could take away Elle's pain of uncontrollable power which emerged after Sylar's first attempt to take Elle's power.

He didn't take her overload away, he helped her understand mentally why she was doing it. She was lashing out at ther craptastic life, subconciously overloading. He helped her understand that everything wil be fine if she just forgives herself. he helped her cope with her emotional problems as well as learned to empathise with her by understanding how she worked emotionally.