I was musing over Sylar's change of heart in this episode, and it suddenly occurred to me that he's had a few, recently. I wonder if his problem is not so much that he lacks empathy, but that he has too MUCH empathy?

Think about it...His mother wanted a nice obedient boy that she could dominate...And Gabriel became exactly that. Then Chandra needed someone special to validate his research...and Gabriel became that. Angela wanted him to be her strong,loving, heroic boy...Sylar became that. HRG didn't believe he could control himself around other specials...and so he couldn't. Peter needed him to save him from his father...and so he did. Arthur needed him to be the ultimate son that he couldn't get from Nathan or Peter...and so Sylar became that. Elle needed someone she could punish, and who would accept and forgive her...and so Sylar did. Now Elle wants him to be as wild and lawless as she is..and thus he changed for her, yet again.

I wonder if Sylar's quest for acceptance has made him entirely too mutable and easily led...Which makes me wonder who Sylar, or rather Gabriel, really is?

What do you think?

That makes some sort of sense. The transformation from Gabriel Gray to Sylar was in part due to the fact that he didn't have a strong sense of self as Gabriel so Sylar was much more strongly developed as he worked actively at maintaining that identity. So probably Gabriel is much closer to Peter in personality than we originally believed, which is fitting for the theme of this volume.

That's not empathy, that's a desire to please and be loved.

This is the Merriam-Webster definition of Empathy:

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 ; also : the capacity for this

Yes, but without such a perfect empathy, he would never be able to move so quickly and naturally into various modes of behavior. He feels and understands and...copies, if you will the other person's needs/desires. I don't think he's really pretending to be what those other people want or need...he becomes it.

He didn't feel, understand and copy. Else he wouldn't have killed so many people.

The only person he has true empathy for is Elle.

Empathy isn't only understanding others. If that would be the case we could have estimated: empathy=IA.
Empathy is about feeling what others feel, about being able to experience that, as Rebel wrote.
Sylar shifts so easily because he's been observing people, he knew how it worked when you're supposed to be abitious/good momma's boy, sadistic killer or obedient agent. It's his gift and he uses that.

The idea of channeling too much via empathy kind of reminds me of this short story about an Empath by Ursula LeGuin "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow". The Empath gets annoyed and tries to explain to his crewmates:
"Can't you see why I dislike you and you dislike me... I retransmit every negative or aggressive affect you felt towards me since we first met? I return your hostility, with thanks. I do it in self-defense... it's the only technique I developed to replace my original defense of total withdrawl from others. Unfortunately it creates a closed circuit, self-sustaining and self-reinforcing."

Anyone else think something similar is going on with Sylar and Peter?

No IA does not equal empathy. IA is cognitive. Intellectual. Understanding "How things work.". Empathy, emotions and cognitive functions are located in different areas of the brain and are therefore not the same.

We experience them differently.



I disagree. Peter are not the same kind of Empath's. Its not like Peter and Sylar are transmitting emotions between them as if they were radio static and they are annoying each other. In fact, we've seen that Sylar likes Peter now that knows he's his brother. Especially now that they share having to control "the hunger" that IA gives them an impetus to re-inforce each other.

That is until next week's episodes.

Eh, that's not exactly what I meant. Just the whole feedback loop thing. (More to do with Sylar than Peter) i.e. picks up on negative and aggressive emotions so feels compelled to do negative / agressive things (like murder) which leads to more negative / aggressive emotions coming his way etc. I'm not saying it well.

I think Elle saw Sylar was being manipulated as well, that's why she gave him the choice.."what do you want?"

Yeah, I was picking up on that, myself. It seemed very deliberate on her part. I think she's realizing that he's changed, to please Arthur and she wants to give him back himself, somehow...

Yeah, that wasn't empathy. He was molding himself to blend in with what was called for to please or get ahead. Clearly he was someone not comfortable with himself...or even what the idea of "Himself" was supposed to be. His father and mother pretty much impressed upon him what they wanted him to be, and he followed as some children will do. I think that is why when it came time to release himself...he exploded out and got a little..you know..crazy. And now we know that a lot of it was due to his power and the hunger that comes from it.

But, again, I don't feel it was empathy that made him that way, it was (As was stated) his want to please.

Same thing. The Empath in the story receives and transmits emotions from and to others. He tries to take himself out of the loop to stop the receiving and transmitting. But that's not what's happening between Peter and Sylar.

What causes the conflicts between them and everyone what else on the show is what they do.

I guess my thought is, is that Sylar would never be able to pull off these changes so flawlessly, if he couldn't empathize. It's his empathy that he's using in order to fit in as well as he is. Maybe it's a kind of 'Intuitive Empathy" I AGREE that it's driven by his need to be accepted and fit in, but he's not just 'trying to fit in' he's pulling it off PERFECTLY. You know? It's like some sort of chameleon power. Like when he took ol' melting man's power? He put on his clothes and spent the next week (or however long it was) being that guy, to fool Mohinder.

It was the complaint that I had with Elle in these past few episodes...they'd established in season two that she doesn't HAVE any empathy...she's a sociopath. And suddenly she's behaving like a sympathetic, caring person. If she were truly as off kilter as she'd been in season two, she couldn't have pulled that off.

I think a lot of Elle's current behaviour is due in part to her seeing a bit of herself in Sylar. And remember she's come a long way since we first met her - I think with everything that's happened to her she's learned to grow up a little and stop being so impulsive, especially after her father was murdered and her powers went haywire.

She's obviously still a BIT off-kilter, but I think there's a glimmer of sense in there somewhere now, too.