A little debate my friend and I had tonight for those who watch Heroes. Spoilers below this point.

I believe Sylar had no actual power to begin with, and the telekinetic ability he stole from his first victim was his first power.

My friend thinks that Sylar's abilities as a watch maker, or his abilities to see how things work, is his power, while I see that as a kind of obscure human talent.

I also think that if it really is a power he has, then it contradicts the essence of his character in that he is pursuing and killing the "heroes" to take their power out of jealousy, because he has no powers of his own. If it suddenly dawns on him that he has a power, and its a super ability to see how things work, then why would he not try to put that power to good use, as he seemed to want to do before the elder Dr. Suresh told him that there was a mistake?

Anyway, make your mark on the poll.

I'd say that he has some kind of ability to see how things work, see how things are suppose to work, see how things are connected and then use that knowledge.

For example, the first guy that he killed, how could he just gain that guys power? he was able to read the way his brain was wired, see what was diffrent, see how his body was diffrent and then re-wire himself to produce the same effects.

I'd assume that he'd also be able to see or sense things that are wrong int he human body like he knew the doctors watch was slow and potentialy re-wire them and fix them.

dot

Although Peter's method is a lot more efficient..

As I see it, Sylar's power is basically a bloodier version of Peter's power. He is able to modify his genetic code in the same way that Peter does, but for him to do it, he has to get in there and "see" how things work. Whereas with Peter, he simply has to "feel" how things work.

I thought his power was to see how things work.

Maybe I should watch the flashback episode again.

Yeah, I thought his power was to see how they work and fix them.
I also thought he was a crazy loon that thinks all the heroes are broken and need fixing.

It seems that he uses telekinesis to steal powers, and that makes me wonder how he stole telekinesis in the first place. I think his method of stealing powers is left intentionally ambiguous.

Peter and Sylar are the two halves of Jean Gray. Specifically, Peter is Jean, and Sylar is Pheonix.

Did you notice who the bus driver was? Yeah, that pretty much confirms that the Heroes are based on the x-men.

Clair is Wolverine.
The Senator is Archangel.
The cop is Professor X.
Peter is sorta rougish.
Hiro has the whole night crawler thing going.

It's not based on anything Isuwen, sorry. Although Stan Lee did make a guest appearance, and the writer admitted he looked closest at the X-Men when making the series, he came up with it out of nowhere--and it shows. It doesn't follow any other superhero formula, and is wildly original (well, as original as you can get with superheroes).

Hiro isn't night crawler, hiro stops time, doesn't pop in from place to place, and he...well he can't crawl on walls.

The Cop is about as far from Prof. X as you can get, morally and every other way except his powers to a minor degree--he can only read people's minds, he has no telekinetic powers.

Peter isn't rogue--his power-gaining abilities don't kill anyone, he can't fly, and he keeps his powers after people are gone.

Sorry :p

I'm worried that they might kill Peter off, I can see him becoming too powerful too quickly (which is kind of the point of the current story arc). I imagine that they're going to have to find a way of imposing limitations on his powers.

Wrong.

Well, then it seems reasonable to assume that some of these superpowers were inspired by X-Men. But yeah, that doesn't mean there's a meaningful correlation that will be consistently found with every character.

He can fly though... And if you think the flying ability was in Rogue to begin with, you are mistaken. She touched someone called Ms. Marvel for a much much longer than normal amount of time and abosorbed her flying and super strength.

Professor X has no telekinetic ablities, only telepathic ones. In other words, he cant move objects with his mind, but the difference between him and the cop is that Professor X can take a person over if he wants, and read a lot more than the persons current thoughts.

And in the flashback episode with Sylar, the father Suresh told him, after running tests, that he didnt seem to have any special powers, and the genome project must have made a mistake. So I figure Sylar is more in the Evil Genius mold of Lex Luthor than he is in the mold of Magneto or someone with a power.

I'm surprised no one's talked about this.

WTF did Hiro do? He shot the bullet back at Hope? He reversed time JUST for her? How did he get his power back?

Peter doesn't kill people though. If you want to compare anyone then compare Rogue to Sylar. Honestly, Sylar has a power--it's just not readily apparent. Are you telling me some watch maker can just figure out the human brain/genetic structure after killing someone and can match his own to it? Honestly, I think that IS Sylar's power.

I thought X had telekinetic abilities, guess I was wrong, but still the Cop is pretty much the opposite of the professor. Suresh is easily the best link to the Professor, at least personality wise. Saying that he copied Prof. X just because the guy has telekinesis...christ, that means so many people have copied X-Men. It's a very popular power.

What I'm really interested in, is what happened to Nikki and crew?

Also, yeah, wtf, Hiro totally just reversed time in one specific place. I have a feeling that Hiro and Peter are destined to be the two most powerful heroes who will lead the way. Hell, if Peter can get his **** together, who needs the other guys :p

I pretty sure sylar has a power, no ordinary human being would be able to just look at a person and see how they "tick" and then change themselves to have that power.

I'm guessing father Suresh just never expected such a power to exist at the beginning and that none of his tests were designed to pick it up.

If you listen carefully during the flashback episode you learn that Slyar hates being normal and wants to be special, special in that no one else is like him. He is going round killing all these people to take their powers and become so special/different that no one will ever be like him, killing them in the process so that no one is like him in any small way, problem is, he doesn't appear to want to stop.

I think the point is that Hiro needs to focus hard to use his powers now, I imagine it's quite easy to focus on finding a way out if you're about to be shot.

There was also the extra factor being that if he didn't stop/reverse time, Ando and possibly himself would die. Thinking about Peter, and how his emotions tie into his powers, I think it's likely the same with Hiro. We know he can't really use his powers right now because of his perceived failure with the waitress (name escapes me), so it's more a mental block he placed upon himself.

Charlie. She gave Sylar perfect memory.

One thing has bugged me, though. When Sylar was cutting open Jackie, couldn't he tell she was normal? If he can see how people's powers work, shouldn't he have known immediately that it was Clair he wanted, and not Jackie?

He has to have some kind of power if he can take someone else's power and make it his own. If he didn't, why can't everyone else in the world do the same.

all he knows is that there is a cheerleader at this school that has an ability, he read the papers and saw Jackie's name plastered all over the place so he automatically assumed it was her until he got close enough to realize his mistake and go after Claire, but then peter showed up and forced him to leave.

right. If all of the research and identification is done for you, why check up on it? Especially if you don't really care about who you kill?

Yes, I agree. I think he's physically capable of using the powers, he just doesn't believe he can, so he doesn't. For example, when they grabbed the sword in the musuem, he had no trouble using the power even though the sword was a replica. Basically he can't use it cause he doesn't believe in himself. (Similar to how Peter, had to be around someone to use his powers before, even though he's capable of doing it without having them around. He just had to realize it.)

No, the first person he got telekinesis, he killed by hitting over the head with a globe or something.

Remember the painting of Hiro brandishing his sword at the dinosaur?

At the final battle, Peter and Sylar are facing off (it's fairly obvious the show is building toward these to coming head to head), and Hiro tries to help but ends up teleporting them 65 million years into the past. Peter and Sylar keep fighting (Peter's face becomes scarred at this time) and eventually Sylar goes nuclear, wiping out all the dinosaurs. Hiro and Peter escape to the future just in time.

That's my theory.

The scene where Hiro has the sword in front of the dinosaur was replicated in the Museum already vinface.

Did he have the sword drawn in the painting though? Cus he had it in its sheath in the museum.

[QUOTE=Heroes Wiki]Some feel this prophecy has not yet been fulfilled. Hiro did stand in front of the dinosaur model at the museum and brandish the sword he got from the display case, but he was holding a sheathed replica with no blade inside, while the painting appears to show a real, unsheathed blade. In an interview, however, writers Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite seemed to imply that this prophecy was fulfilled in Godsend. (The episode where he brandishes the sword)[/QUOTE]

I suspect it was actually Ando that stopped the bullet, because there was no reversing of time involved. After the bullet went back into the gun, things didn't return to the way they were before Hope fired... if they had, she'd just have shot them again.

How in the world would Ando stop the bullet?

maybe Hiro has the ability to localize his ability, to slow or speed or even reverse time in a specific area instead of the entire world, because he feared for his life and was so scared he was able to think about the gun and only the gun and made the bullet reverse back into the gun, but only the bullet and the force and shock of the bullet going back into the gun was strong enough throw it back.

I defiantly think that hiro's powers are not in fact controlled by the sword, it's just a placebo effect, he failed to save Charlie (the waitress) so he threw himself into a funk and thinks this sword is they key, but what he's slowly starting to realize is that it's believing in himself and not relying on a crutch (the sword, or Ando) for help.

The painting prophecies shouldn't be taken literally. They are often slightly inaccurate and usually stylized.

Someone mentioned about Mo's dad telling Sylar he didn't have a power, but I thought he said that because Sylar was already acting strange and was scaring him.

Doubt it. Remember Peter's visit from Future-Hiro? "You look different without your scar," seems to imply that Peter's still alive in the future.

How can Peter get a scar now though? He can just regenerate...

Maybe he loses his powers.

(PS I like how the Heroes Wiki refers to Mr Bennet's organization as The Organization Without Initials, or OWI.)

(Remember, he said he doesn't work for any organization that has initials.)

Simone was also alive in Peter's most recent visions.

I thought it was Primatech Paper. Or, I guess that's just the front.
Heh, the initials would be PeePee.

I guess we discovered her power: bullet catcher

Or Peter manages to reverse her time.

Or Peter can temporarily bestow powers upon others, the strong emotion swelled up the next level of his power, allowing him to shed his regeneration to her for a bit, allowing her to live.

Either way, Peter is too f***ing powerful.