Sylar

There's no exit from the speed of traffic sweeping you along / And nobody really cares whether you make it through the wars

The Player
User Name/Nick: Alishia
User LJ: risingfire
AIM/IM: inaloadedroom
E-mail: inaloadedroom (at) gmail (dot) com
Other Characters: n/a

The Character
Character Name: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Character Journal: heroslayer
Canon: Heroes
Age: 32
From When?: After painting the picture that suggests he might be the cause of the explosion that destroys New York in The Hard Part (1x21).

Abilities/Powers:

• INTUITIVE APTITUDE -- In Sylar's world, most people manifest one ability and are stuck with it their entire lives. Intuitive aptitude was this ability for Sylar and, put simply, the ability to understand the structure and operation of complex systems without special education or training. What that means is that, given enough time looking something over, Sylar will just know how it functions, what it's capable of, and how to fix it if it's broken. Since this ability requires no conscious effort to turn on or off (though analyzing something does take a willing desire), he first used it without knowledge of doing so, or that it was anything out of the ordinary, to repair watches in his shop in Queens. Later on, he learned that, through extensive study of the brain of another special, he could come to understand an ability and could force his neural pathways and body to mimic it. This always results in the death of the special, since it obviously involves significant blood loss, and grants him a sense of mastery of the ability oftentimes better than the person who originally displayed it and based solely on the fact that he simply understands how it works better than anyone else ever could. It is suggested in the first season of canon that every new ability that Sylar takes makes him that much more unstable, however, and the writer firmly believes this to be true, if only because changing yourself that drastically and so often can't be healthy and because Sylar oftentimes seems that much more evil after acquiring a new ability. Such as, for example, his shift from being terrified of the destruction of New York to playing with the ability that could make it happen with an almost childlike glee after killing Ted Sprague.

The applications of this ability extend far beyond simply being able to take on more powers, however. As mentioned before, he originally used his aptitude to fix watches, and that facet of the ability did not simply go away because he turned to murder. Given enough time and study, Sylar can understand just about anything biological or mechanical and know enough about it to make it work for him. He demonstrated this ability in the presence of both Hiro Nakamura and Charlie Andrews, recognizing that there was something physically wrong with both of them (a tumor in Hiro's case; an aneurysm in Charile's) and was able to cure Charlie without hurting her. He showed his aptitude's capacity for understanding again when, in the comics, he stole an 18-wheeler to get across the country after his escape from Primatech, and just knew how to drive it with only a cursory glance at the driver's manual. Furthermore, Sylar has claimed that his ability also allows him to analyze human behavior and canon has shown us that, with it, he can understand the complexities of cause and effect, both allowing him to roughly predict how someone will act or how a situation will go. While this is true, however, it is not infallible. He still can and is, in fact, prone to ignoring his intuitions in favor of his ego and feelings under the mindset that, regardless of how the situation looks, no one could possibly take him on and win, or that a certain person wouldn't possibly do a certain thing.

It should also be noted that this ability is not without a price. Sylar's aptitude comes with a darker side known as the hunger that compels him to understand how things work. This is, unfortunately, part of what made him into a murderer, but that will be covered in more detail in the personality section.

And finally, in his later seasons of canon Sylar has been known to be able to take on another ability with his aptitude without having to hurt anyone. It requires an understanding on a emotional level rather than a physical one, allowing him to form a connection with and thereby take the ability of someone else, albeit with much less control over the new ability than he would demonstrate otherwise. This seems difficult for him, however, the only ability he's shown to copy in canon without the aid of another ability being Elle's, but it's not impossible. As of his point in canon, however, he's unaware of that particular aspect of his ability, and even if he was, he still much prefers murder.

• TELEKINESIS -- This ability allows Sylar to move things with the power of his mind. As displayed in Landslide (1x22), his lifting limit seems to be around 6 tons -- as much as an armored truck -- but his telekinesis is useful for much more than just that. He has, after all, used it to do anything from picking locks to making himself appear as though he has super strength and speed to sawing open the skulls of unsuspecting specials. And, as a side note, he tends to telegraph the use of this power by pantomiming whatever he plans on doing with it (making a sweeping motion with his arm to throw someone back, for example), but such is not always the case. He has used this ability without the accompaniment of gestures, it just seems easier for him to do so when he does.

• SHATTERING -- By holding his fingers like a child would to imitate a gun, Sylar can shatter things made of glass or things that he's frozen with his cryokinesis ability (see below). The writer is assuming that, since the man he stole it from tried to defend himself with this ability in the moments before Sylar killed him, it can be used on another person, but it won't do any real damage (no broken bones, nothing like that). Chances are, if he bothered relying on this ability in a fight at all -- which he likely won't, since he never did in canon -- it'd be something akin to being shot at a distance with an airsoft rifle. Worst case scenario, if he were standing at point blank range, you might end up with some nasty welts; best cast scenario, it would only be enough to distract someone as they wondered what the hell that was.

• CRYOKINESIS -- Given physical contact and a few seconds, Sylar can freeze things solid. On a living thing, this effect causes great pain but generally only lasts a few seconds before the ice melts (unless, of course, he remains in contact until the person is frozen solid, and then, well, they're dead). On something inanimate -- such as Hiro's sword -- the freezing effect seems to be more permanent, not wearing off as quickly, if at all. Anything that has been frozen solid can be shattered with a great enough application of violence, as we see in canon when Sylar breaks Hiro's sword, and the writer assumes that his shattering ability could likewise produce a similar effect on a frozen target. Fortunately, however, Sylar doesn't seem to use this ability in combat very often, possibly because it takes too long to freeze something solid, and generally reserves it for other, less destructive applications. Like freezing the road so it would be more difficult to follow him, given its slickness, or making snow from his mother's sink sprayer.

• MATTER LIQUIFICATION -- With this ability Sylar can melt objects. This power seems to apply solely to inanimate objects, as both he and the man he took it from had melted everything from glass beer bottles to toasters, and requires him to be touching or nearly touching the thing he wants to melt. As far as offensive powers go, this is a relatively useless one as he couldn't use it to melt a person or anything like that, but he could use it, say, destroy someone's favorite keepsake if he felt they deserved it.

• ENHANCED HEARING -- This ability basically does what it says on the box, allowing Sylar to hear things such as others' heartbeats to be able to gauge whether or not they're lying, or when the weather is about to change just by how the clouds sound. In canon, in fact, he claimed to have been able to hear a pin drop from a mile away, while it's debatable as to whether or not he was lying, the writer has always assumed that he wasn't. There is a substantial weakness that comes with this ability, however -- namely noises that are extremely loud or of the right pitch hurt his ears like you wouldn't believe. So much so that sustained exposure to something as simple as a tuning fork was nothing short of torture and anything louder or unexpected has the chance of deafening him, temporarily.

• PRECOGNITION -- Through art, Sylar has the ability to predict the future. This ability works with any physical art form -- though everyone who's had the ability has shown a tendency towards painting or drawing -- and when he uses it, his eyes turn completely white. It's a little unsettling, he's sure, but even more so is the fact that, when he starts, he can't be stopped until the art is finished, his movements seemingly controlled by some outside source. Thankfully, at least, generally he's still lucid enough to hold conversations while using this ability.

Power Limitations: First and foremost, Sylar's precognition will not work here at all. He can try and paint something, and his eyes will white out as they would normally, but all he'll end up with is some sloppy mess that looks suspiciously like modern art and a terrible headache. Beyond that, his cryokinesis will not work on anything organic or sentient (so no freezing the trees of the Wood, the arch or the journals, or any of the other denizens of the Wood and then shattering them with another ability), and his aptitude will not allow him to dismantle and simply understand how it works (chances are he'll probably try to take it apart anyway, but no advanced knowledge will be gained in the process). Finally, he'll find that trying to uproot the arch or hack down one of the trees in the Wood with his telekinesis will do nothing beyond exhaust him. Other than that, though, all of his other abilities will function normally. His aptitude will still compel him to take the abilities of others and can still be used to do so (though the writer will always ask the permission of the mods and the other player before letting him go to town and he will only be able to acquire abilities with it from his canon mates). His telekinesis can still be used to pin, cut, lift things, or give the illusion of strength and speed (which will probably make him pretty good at catching or killing deer, even if it won't make him happy, since he's a city boy). His shattering ability will still only work on fragile things -- glass, things he's frozen, and the like. His cryokinesis still has the potential to freeze inorganic things such as weapons, and likewise his liquification ability will still only function on inanimate objects. And his hearing will still allow him to detect lies, hear heartbeats, or say, someone screaming a mile away, though it's doubtful he'll be able to hear the changes in the weather.
Inventory:

• 1 pair of black jeans
• 1 gunmetal gray long sleeve button-down shirt
• 1 pair of black boots
• 1 white undershirt
• 1 pair of black boxers
• 1 Sylar brand watch (broken)

And, while not necessarily an item on his inventory, Sylar's hands will be covered in paint upon arrival in the Wood.

Personality: For the most part, Sylar is exactly what one would expect of a psychopath. As far as his canon point, he has shown little in the way of self-control and his moods are mercurial, shifting from furious anger to smug self-importance at the drop of a hat. He seems to have no problems using manipulation, intimidation, or plain old-fashioned violence to satisfy his own needs and is perfectly fine with violating social taboos without remorse. While a large portion of this is, in fact, true of the killer, there is far more to him that what he initially presents and, by the clinical definition, he may not even technically be a psychopath. Whether or not he is, however, is largely irrelevant; what is important is the fact that he's the emotional equivalent of an eight-year-old in a thirty-something's body.

With his real father having sold him to his brother (a memory that was apparently so traumatic that he suppressed it) and his adoptive father leaving him and him and his mother when he was just a child, Sylar was left in the care of his adoptive mother, Virgina Gray. Unfortunately for Sylar, however, Virginia was something of a paradox, constantly pushing him to become something more than what he was while consistently denying him the opportunities to do so. Canonically, we're shown that she wanted him to be more than just a watchmaker like his father, yet she appears to have no steady job of her own, so my assumption is that she forced more and more of her responsibilities onto him, forcing him to become the man of the house and forgo a college education, in spite of presumably doing well in school, and support her. Between that, what can be assumed to have been a strict Catholic upbringing (based on the collection of prayers painted on the back wall of his apartment after his murder of Brian Davis), and Virginia's clingy and dependent nature, Sylar had very little of the care required to mature emotionally and was forced into a life he ultimately wished to escape.

He stuck with it, however, repressing many of his own angers and frustrations concerning the life he was dissatisfied with, with the desperate hope that, by being the dutiful son, he could win his mother's approval and all the while terrified that he never would and that she would leave him as his adoptive father had. Then, mercifully, Chandra came into the picture, and he was everything that Sylar had secretly hoped for. A father figure to replace the ones that had abandoned him. Someone who could give him direction and guidance and purpose, where his mother could only offer criticisms concerning the life he had let her choose for him. Someone he could share intellectual ideas, gleaned from the pages of all the books in his apartment, with. And, most importantly, someone who could give him the approval he had been longing for -- someone who told him he was already important.

When Chandra told him that maybe he wasn't so special after all, it broke something in him. Here was a man no better off than he was, yet apparently better than him. It was all his mother's Why Can't You Be More Like So-and-Sos from the closest thing to a father he had and this man didn't even want what he had. It was too much, and in a manic attempt to keep Chandra's affections and his dreams alive, he killed Brian Davis and took his ability. While he did feel remorse for the act, however, going as far as to try and commit suicide for his sin, thus began Sylar's belief that everyone with abilities were undeserving of them and the manifestation of the darker side of his original ability, the hunger.

Technically, the hunger is what drives Sylar to kill, the feeling manifesting as an uncontrollable need to understand how an ability works which can only be sated by opening a victim's head and finding the part of the brain that controls the ability. While it has never been revealed in canon what it's like to experience the hunger, it is the writer's assumption that standing in close proximity to someone with an ability is the equivalent to standing next to a cabinet in which a clock has been hidden, being able to hear but unable to place the source of the ticking, and it getting to the point where the sound is so distractingly maddening, all one can do is tear apart the room and look for the source. If he already has a particular ability, the ticking isn't so bad, apparent but ignorable, as he understands how it works already (or, to run with the metaphor, where the sound is coming from), and therefore won't drive him to kill for it again. While feeding is both a relief and allows him enough understanding of his victim's ability to rearrange his own neural pathways to copy the ability, however, according to Noah Bennet, the constant rearranging of the way his body works hasn't done much for his sanity. Which probably explains why, even without his ability and the hunger attached to it, he still kills, as we saw in the beginning of the second season when he was without his abilities but still murdered Candace Wilmer. He's simply mad enough to have come to enjoy the killing and deluded enough to think that, with enough abilities, he'll be able to command the attention and awe he felt he was denied by his mother and Chandra.

Bear in mind, though, that Sylar does have some sense of morality, however twisted, and that is why the writer doesn't consider him a true psychopath. Yes, he's been more than a little disturbed by what he's done to himself and the circumstances of his life, but a psychopath wouldn't have shown remorse for their first murder. Nor would they have been as unsettled by the potential destruction of an entire city on their heads. Sylar was when he thought he was going to be the one that would destroy New York in the first season, and for more than just the fact that their loss would have left him entirely alone. As terrified as he is of dying alone thanks to Hiro's warnings that he would, he seemed more concerned with the loss of, in his own words, so many innocent lives. And along those same lines, chances are that he will refuse to kill someone who doesn't have an ability, providing that they're not blocking him from his exit or his goals or haven't wronged him in some way, and he has even been known to be genuinely pleasant to those that aren't on his hit list.

If you've hurt him, though, even if you're without an ability, God help you. Chandra learned this the hard way by crushing whatever delusions of grandeur he had and then presumably threatening to turn him over to to the police (or, at very least, cutting ties with him once he learned he was a murderer). Bennet learned it, too, by being the continual thorn in his side, capturing him at Union Wells and taking him off to be tortured. Never mind that Sylar technically started it by going after Bennet's daughter -- he's mostly of the opinion that, since he didn't hurt Claire then, he didn't deserve what he got and everything he did to the Bennet family afterward was fair play. He's a firm believer in an eye for an eye, and conversely, if you do something nice for him with no apparent ulterior motives, he's more than willing to return the favor later.

Oddly, it should be noted that Sylar's far more willing to trust than someone in his position should be. The writer believes that it's a combination of his own ego (who would dare betray someone with as much power as him?) and his own emotional immaturity (how could someone do something so terrible to him again?) but either way, he's laid himself on the line for some of the most bizarre people, particularly in the later seasons of his canon. He trusted both Angela and Arthur Petrelli when they said he was their son, he trusted Bennet when he later revealed that he wasn't, and closer to his canon point, he trusted Mohinder to be able to help him keep from destroying New York and trusted Elle with the knowledge that he'd recently murdered someone when she was, for all intents and purposes, still a complete stranger. And it was all, for the most part, because they were nice to him.

All that's been already said considered, however, Sylar is not without the potential for redemption. All in all, he's nothing more than an angry child lashing out at a world that never seemed to give a damn about him, and if people hadn't consistently used him and then turned on him when he outlived his usefulness, chances are he wouldn't have turned out so viciously. Even considering the price of his ability, if he'd had someone who genuinely understood and cared about him, he most likely would have learned to control himself or died trying for their sake. All he wants is for someone to love him -- though he settles for hate because it's at least acknowledgment -- and to not have to be truly alone.

History: Born Gabriel Gray, the son of Samson Gray and a canonically unnamed mother, Sylar's childhood was nothing short of traumatic. When he was just a child, no more than five or six, though we're never given an exact age, his father sold him to his brother and wife (Martin and Virginia Gray), murdered his mother in front of him, and sped off like a man possessed. The memory too traumatic for him to deal with, he repressed it and came to believe that Martin and Virginia were his real parents, and not too long after, his adoptive father walked out, leaving him in the care of his mother.

Though it is never discussed in canon, it is the writer's opinion that he was forced into Catholic school by his mother, had very few friends growing up, if any thanks to Virginia clinging so tightly to her son, and was the subject of persistent bullying. He was, however, exceptionally bright, excelling in maths and sciences, and planned on going to college to study engineering when he graduated. Virginia, however, had other ideas. Barely managing to make ends meet as it was and unable to cope with the idea of her son leaving, she badgered him into getting a job straight out of high school, and so, much to her dismay, he followed in his adoptive father's footsteps and took up a job as a watchmaker in the shop Martin had abandoned.

For years, Gabriel continued at this, a part of his earnings going to his mother to support her, while the other half afforded him a rather modest apartment near Virginia's in Queens. Slowly but surely he became increasingly disillusioned with the monotony of his life, hoping daily that something would happen to allow him some kind of escape, and eventually and much to his delight, something did happen. Chandra Suresh came into his life.

Insisting that he was somehow special based on certain markers that had been found his blood, Chandra gave Gabriel a copy of his book and told him to come find him, if and when he were interested. Gabriel devoured the book, believing every word of it, and went to find Chandra at his apartment in the city. The two of them developed a friendly relationship, Gabriel exalting him as the father he never had, and Chandra divulging small details about his life and his son, and the two of them ran Gabriel through a gamut of tests to try and determine what sort of ability he had. Unfortunately, however, the tests revealed nothing and Chandra suggested to Gabriel that he could have been wrong and that the watchmaker wasn't special after all. Bad idea.

During the argument that ensued, Gabriel grabbed one of Chandra's files he had been keeping on someone else with the potential to have an ability, and threw it in his face figuratively. Would he give up on the man in the file, too, if it turned out he had nothing? Would he just abandon him, too? Chandra didn't answer, instead telling Gabriel to leave, and so leave he did, unaware that he still had a part of the other man's file in his hands.

On a whim, hoping to find out why this other man, Brian Davis, was apparently more important than he was, he called him to his shop. Davis came willingly, met Gabriel -- who introduced himself as Gabriel Sylar, the surname based on an vintage watch he'd been piecing back together for years as a side project -- and after displaying the ability to move things with his mind, asked if Gabriel could somehow make the ability go away. Furious that he'd want such a thing, covetous of what he had and did not want, and possibly in the first throes of the hunger, Gabriel attacked Brian with a quartz paperweight and learned that he could take on other abilities by looking at the brains of other specials.

He went back to Chandra then, convinced that, with his new ability, he could demand his attention, and showed off his ability. Chandra was impressed and more than willing to accept an apology from Gabriel about the argument they'd had the day before. They parted ways again, this time on better terms, and as he walked home and started thinking things over, the horror of what he'd done finally set in, the reaction delayed both due to his elation over having something to show Chandra and simple shock. And when he got home, by this point half-mad with remorse, he proceeded to cover the walls of one of the spare rooms in prayers and religious symbols, hoping for some kind of divine intervention. When nothing came, he went back to his shop and attempted to hang himself from the rafters, viewing what he had done is unforgivable and ready to give his life for the one he had taken. His life was saved by Elle Bishop, who shot him down before he could strangle to death as he had planned.

Unbeknownst to Gabriel, Elle was working for the Company -- an organization devoted to studying and detaining dangerous specials -- and was there solely to learn how he copied the abilities of others. That had, apparently, been watching both him and Chandra for some time and knew what he had done to Brian Davis, but regardless, Elle manipulated Gabriel, getting him to trust and, quite possibly, care about her. Then, as was the Company's plan, Elle brought him another special, Trevor Zeitlan, and provoked Gabriel into killing him. In the instants before he did, however, she had second thoughts and tried to stop him, revealing herself as a special, too, but was ultimately unable to, and after throwing Elle out of his apartment, Gabriel went on to kill him before fleeing the apartment himself in horror.

It is the writer's belief that he went to Chandra Suresh here, hoping for help, and was turned away when Chandra realized that there was very literal blood on Gabriel's hands. It would explain why Chandra apparently abruptly stopped returning Gabriel's phone calls and why he referred to him as a murderer the last time they spoke on the phone. Regardless of how he knew, however, what happened next remains the same. Feeling entirely betrayed both by Chandra and Elle, Gabriel (by this point referring to himself solely as Sylar), proceeded to murder Chandra by beating his head in on the window of the cab he drove as a day job.

Sylar went on to murder his way across the country, earing him a place on the FBI's most wanted list as a serial killer. He had a brief confrontation with them -- most notably Matt Parkman and his then partner Audrey Hanson -- in trying to get to Molly Walker, the daughter of one of his victims and a special with the ability to find anyone, and then traveled to Texas to find Claire Bennet and relieve her of her ability.

Before getting that far, however, he stopped at a restaurant called the Burnt Toast Diner and discovered one of the waitresses there, Charlie Andrews, had an ability. He would have killed her but he was stopped by Hiro Nakamura, who had traveled back in time to stop him from ever doing it. Furious, Sylar tried to kill him and failed, and after the standoff ended, Hiro promised to tell Sylar everything he knew about the killer's future in exchange for saving Charlie from the brain aneurysm she was suffering from. He agreed, saving her life, and Hiro revealed to Sylar that he would die alone and that no one would mourn his death.

Terrified and shaken by this, Sylar renewed his quest to collect Claire's ability and continued on to Union Wells High School where he met with Peter Petrelli instead. The two fought, the battle ending with the both of them falling off the roof, and while Peter did not walk away, Sylar did, stumbling off into the dark with possible broken bones only to be captured by Claire's father, Noah Bennet, and the Company.

In the Company's care, Sylar was drugged, tortured and questioned by Benent. Eventually, however, he relented and left Sylar to stew for awhile, and shortly after his departure, Eden McCain, another Company agent and a special with a reason to want Sylar dead, came to his cell with a gun. Her intent was to use her ability on him to force him to commit suicide, but Sylar, who had slowly been adverting the drugs they had been giving him by rearranging his brain with his aptitude, pulled her through the glass window of his cell, hoping to kill her and take her ability. Eden, unfortunately, beat him to the punch by committing suicide, and Sylar was stopped from escaping by Bennet and the Haitian, who had not gone far.

Drugged again and left for God only knows how long, Sylar played dead in order to facilitate an escape, killed the doctor that had been torturing him, and trapped Bennet in his cell. He then continued on to antagonize Bennet's family, was almost recaptured, and escaped. He left to continue his reign of terror, vowing silent revenge on Bennet, and ended up in Virginia Beach at the door of yet another special, Zane Taylor.

Pretending to be Mohinder Suresh, son of the late Chandra, he murdered Zane. Just as he was about to leave, however, the real Mohinder showed up and, to avoid being caught, Sylar masterfully pretended to be Zane. After some conversation and a display of Zane's ability, Mohinder and Sylar set off on a road trip to find and "help" other specials, and their first stop? A mechanic's shop in Bozeman, Montana.

There they met a special named Dale Smithers, talked briefly with her (with Dale wondering why "Zane" seemed so nervous), and then left; later that night, Sylar returned and murdered her for her enhanced hearing. The next morning, upon finding her dead, Sylar convinced Mohinder to leave the scene of the crime without calling the police, and the two of them head hastily back to New York, Sylar all the while giving himself away as he suffered the same headaches and sensitivity to sound that Dale had mentioned had first come with her ability.

Upon arriving back at Mohinder's apartment, the geneticist drugged a cup of tea and gave it to Sylar, and tied him up while he was unconscious. He then revealed that he had learned that Sylar couldn't be Zane because he had found his obituary, and proceeded to torture him with a tuning fork before pulling a gun on him with intent to shoot him. As he had before in the Company's dungeon, however, Sylar had managed to subvert the curare Mohinder had drugged him with and stopped him from shooting him, pinning him violently to the ceiling. It was about this time that Peter, still very much alive from their encounter at Union Wells, thanks to Claire and her ability, arrived to save the day.

Sylar "killed" him again and prepared to take his power, only to be stopped by Mohinder, who smashed him over the head with something that had been broken during the fight between Peter and Sylar. When he came to, he proceeded to have a rather childish temper tantrum which involved beating Mohinder's destroyed computer with a bat, and then found the address of a special, Isaac Mendez, in the rubble.

He went to find him, torturing him when it became apparent Isaac already knew who he was, and murdered him for his ability; he then went on to paint a prophetic picture of himself attacking Ted Sprague. It was then that he realized that he was potentially the one that would cause the explosion that everyone had been talking about, and disturbed by the idea that he would kill so many innocents and with no reason, he moved to grab the phone to call Mohinder Suresh and beg for help the same way he had begged Chandra. He never made it that far, however, as about that time, he was relocated to the Wood.

First Person Sample: Here. The log is from a Supernatural/Heroes crossover game that takes Sylar from the middle of third season. This log was chosen because it displays an interaction with another, is less than six months old, as asked, and shows how he would act around someone he's on friendly terms with. If the mods would prefer a fresh sample, the writer would be more than happy to write one.
Prose Sample: Here, here and here. All are written in his canon universe, but all are from well beyond his current canon point. The writers hope that's alright; she was looking to show both writing ability as well as a few different facets of his personality that remain true regardless of their placement in canon.

Special Notes: I used examples from later in his canon for the abilities and personality section, despite his canon point, because the later seasons of Heroes provide a much richer view of the character than the first season alone does. Oh, and randomly, Sylar's left-handed. This makes me irrationally happy.