Sylar

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"Sylar"
a.k.a. Gabriel Gray

Hoang Trinh
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** BIOGRAPHY **
“Sylar” is played by the actor Zachary Quinto in the hit NBC TV series, “Heroes.” Introduced as a talented watch repairman, his exquisite attention to detail and inexplicable knack for comprehending functionality of systems can only be explained as “intuitive aptitude.” Gray’s “gift” is only given a name after a researcher by the name of Chandra Suresh, who travels around the world to connect with and learn from superhumans, approaches Gray in his shop in hopes to unveil the fact that he is indeed, “special.” Gray replies with a statement, that is key representation of his core drive for later actions and conflicts, “When I was a kid, I used to wish some stranger would come and tell me my family wasn’t my family. They weren’t bad people. They were just…insignificant.”

After series of tests, Suresh cannot claim that Gray has any empirical evidence of any special ability. Unhappy with his current “boring” lifestyle, Gray’s thirst to become more than simply a son of a watchmaker drives him to visit Brian Davis, a man with the power of telekinesis. When Davis inquires for his name, Gray looks at his watch responds with “Sylar,” the brand his watch bore. Having learned from Suresh that abilities, like the “soul,” can be found in the brain, “Sylar” stabs Davis in the back of his head and kills him. Sylar continues to dissect Davis’s brain and with his power of intuitive aptitude, begins to comprehend, much like how the gears work together in a watch, the complex processes that has allowed Davis to produce telekinetic abilities. Sylar is then able to apply his knowledge to produce the same telekinetic abilities. Returning to Suresh, he shows off his newfound power to finally prove that he is indeed, “special.” Davis is only the first of what become many victims as Sylar becomes the “serial killer,” addicted to killing superhumans and attaining their special ability only for himself. He embraces his new perspective in life beyond watch-making and new identity as a powerful superhuman, angered if anyone dares to call him any name other than “Sylar.”

NEO-ANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE:
 “I wanted to change. As the watchmaker’s son, I became a watchmaker. It is so futile…and I wanted to be important,” Sylar told Suresh. From the neo-analytic perspective, one might suggest that Sylar has a superiority complex. According to Alfred Addler, a superiority complex is “an exaggerated arrogance an individual develops in order to overcome an inferiority complex.” Suresh was surprised that Sylar felt so strongly about his “futile” life, and if he was so eager to be different, why not lead a different lifestyle? Syler replies, “I’ve never had much of a choice, I had to be a watchmaker.” Though the show never really delves into how Sylar exactly grew up, such a statement of the perceived inability to change or try any other occupation, can be indicative of an inferiority complex. Sylar overcompensates for this sense of futility, by creating his new persona, “Sylar,” as powerfully unmatched and therefore special. Perceived by the general public as a serial killer, Sylar has certainly ascertained the attention he has always wanted. However, Syler’s idea of “powerful” is subjective, and although he has greatly attained many powers and is indeed special even amongst superhumans, his never-ending, power-hungry killing spree helps to convey his superiority complex as a method of maintaining self-worth—in fear of ever lacking superhuman powers again and returning to his considered futile self.

Though Sylar can be very manipulative, he faces many occasions when he struggles with trust and is manipulated as well. At one point in the series, he is finally captured and locked in a cell, where a powerful woman named Angela Petrelli claims to be his actual mother. He follows her orders for some time and works with Bennett to stop villainous superhumans. However, after Bennett reveals that Angela is not his actual birthmother and was only trying to use him, he kills a woman with lie-detecting abilities to find out for himself that the Petrelli family was not his own. Confused and feeling betrayed, he ends up searching for his true roots. After confronting his alleged father, Martin Gray, Sylar learns that he was actually sold to the couple by his biological father, Sampson Gray. Sylar receives flashbacks of suppressed childhood memories, including seeing his father pass money to the couple in a diner. Sylar ran after his real father, only to see him arguing with his real mother in a truck, and then using telekinesis to kill her. Following Erik Erikson’s epigenetic principle, that the individual develops through interaction with the environment and the success of each developmental stage depends on the success of previous stages, such a traumatic childhood memory of abandonment, loss, and mistrust must have had a great effect on Sylar’s identity formation thus far.

Throughout “Heroes,” Sylar goes through many periods of identity crisis, or “the uncertainty about one’s abilities, associations, and future goals,” as he switches from being the serial killer antagonist to being an ally and stopping villainous superhumans, to killing again. Despite many instances of deceit and manipulation by “loved ones,” Sylar learns he actually feels good rescuing a woman from a villain. Instead of killing as he normally would, he decides to tie the villain up, stating that he’s a “Hero.” Since identity formation is a life-long process, one cannot say exactly that Sylar has realized his true identity or if he is simply trying to be good again. Sylar has explored many identities, especially with all the abilities he attains, and for now chooses to be a “hero.”

BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE:
 Thorndike’s Law of Effect states that “the consequence of behavior will either strengthen or weaken behavior.” Following operant conditioning, an action that is rewarded is positively reinforced, and conversely, an action that received punishment, is negatively reinforced. Suresh initially does not consider Sylar special, but after Sylar kills someone and takes their power, Suresh then considers him special and powerful. The continual rewards of attention and new special ability that arises from killing and dissecting the brains of other superhumans are positive reinforcements that lead Sylar to re-enact killing over and over again. Over time, it becomes clear that Sylar has turned his action into a habit, or “association between a stimulus and response.” Meeting any superhuman, he automatically associates them with killing and retrieving their power. Throughout most occasions in the beginning of the series, Sylar exhibits his habit hierarchy, or “a learned hierarchy of likelihoods that a person will produce particular responses in particular situations.” That is, “responses most likely to result in reward become the responses most likely to occur.” In the beginning, most of Sylar’s victims usually fall prey to his act of trying to “help them.” This response to the superhuman’s presence usually gets Sylar close enough to the superhuman so that he can kill them and get their power. However, after he becomes infamous and more powerful, he no longer puts up an act and simply uses his telekinesis to paralyze his victims.

At one point in the series, a woman with the ability to create illusions, Candice Wilmer, actually saves Sylar. However, his habit seems to have turned into an addiction as it did not matter who she was or what she did for him, but rather, that she possessed a power at all, and he just had to kill her in order to retrieve it. At the time when Angela Petrelli convinces Sylar that she is his actual birth mother, Sylar accompanies Noah Bennett on his venture to stop some superhuman bank robbers. His intentions to stop them peacefully are then conflicted by his addiction to kill them for their powers. Sylar ends up stopping all three villains, but is so focused on one in particular that one villain ends up escaping. His focus was lead by his temptation to kill—one that he ends up giving into. Later chastised by Bennett for his murderous action, Sylar remarks, “Rehabilitation doesn’t happen overnight. I //am // trying.”

DISCUSSION:
 Sylar is a complex character in “Heroes” that requires just as much attention to detail as he portrays in the series. Though he appears as a serial killer and cast as the antagonist in the first couple seasons, it is interesting to see how many times he is manipulated to achieve certain things for different people. As much as people say they reject him, they cannot help but ask for his help. In a strange way, perhaps it is through these manipulated opportunities for him to do good that he is finding himself and associating with a more protagonist identity. From the neo-analytic approach, it was obvious to see that Sylar was having an identity crisis. Seeing Sylar journey into dealing with his identity crisis, it was interesting to see at one point when he actually had the ability to change his physical identity by touching some piece of DNA, like a person’s hair strand. Unknowingly, this ability had some emotional baggage—that is, each person that he transformed into, he would have pieces of their thoughts and feelings. To morph into another person unconsciously, and then at times talking to himself, or in his view, different personalities inside him, Sylar showed signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). To attain such a power, while he was still trying to figure out just who he was or wanted to be, was completely counterproductive.

Sylar eventually learns from his biological father, Sampson, that he has the ability to learn other people’s powers without killing them. Though from the behaviorist approach, Sylar appears conditioned to kill, it is clear from most recent events that he does not want to kill at all. If he ever needed a power, he would simply use “empathic mimicry” instead of killing people. By the end of the last season, Sylar makes a powerful statement about how actually feels good helping others. In the past, he was always manipulated to do “good,” perhaps in compensation for motherly love and attention (at the time persuaded by Angela Petrelli). However, now he acts independently, choosing not to kill the villain but instead ties him up. From a humanistic approach, one might suggest that such actions are steps in realizing his self-actualization.

REFERENCES:
“Heroes” Season 3. Episode 19. Friedman, H., & Schustack, M. (2009). //Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research//.Boston, MA: Pearson A&B. Sylar. (2010, April 7). In // Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia //. Retrieved 09:25, April 15, 2010, from []