Sylar

Template:Heroes character box Gabriel Gray, commonly known by his assumed name of Sylar, is a fictional character on the NBC drama Heroes. He is a superpowered serial killer who targets other superhumans. He is portrayed by Zachary Quinto.

Character history

First kills

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Gabriel Gray appeared clearly for the first time in the episode "Six Months Ago."

Gabriel Gray was a second generation watchmaker who always despised his occupation. He had always lived an uneventful life up to and including the point where he began fixing watches himself at the family business, Gray and Sons. When he was approached by Chandra Suresh and told that he might have special powers, Gabriel was quite hopeful that his theories were correct. However, none of Chandra's tests indicated that Gabriel had any sort of abnormal properties whatsoever. Growing doubtful, Chandra decided to move on to the next person on his list, which angered the distraught Gabriel. In an attempt to validate his hopes and prove that he was special, Gabriel used information from Chandra's notes with the name and address of Brian Davis, another possible subject on Chandra's list. He contacted Davis, asking him to visit his store and introduced himself as "Sylar," a pseudonym derived from the brand of watch that he was working on at the time. Gabriel then identified Davis as a telekinetic. Just as he was able to detect inconsistencies and defects in watches and time pieces, Gabriel sensed the genetic difference between Davis and a normal human, stating that he was "broken." Unlike Gabriel, who desperately wanted to be special, Davis feared his power, asking if he could be rid of it. Claiming that he could "fix" Davis, Gabriel brutally murdered him, acknowledging a previous statement by Chandra that "it is in the brain." He returned to Chandra's apartment the next day, this time demonstrating extreme telekinetic abilities beyond those exhibited by Davis. Thoroughly impressed, Chandra continued on with his research with "Sylar."

Sylar, being Chandra's very first recorded study, was dubbed "Patient Zero," though sometime over the course of six months the study ceased, as the two had a falling out. In a taped phone conversation discovered by Mohinder Suresh, Sylar states that Chandra "made [him] this way," and referred to a mysterious "uncontrollable hunger" that he now experiences. Chandra wanted nothing to do with Sylar at this point. A vision Chandra's son, Mohinder, experienced in "Seven Minutes to Midnight" showed Sylar killing Chandra in the latter's taxicab. Chandra's death was what originally brought Mohinder to New York.

Roaming the country

Eventually, Sylar became a notorious serial killer, using Chandra's list to track down victims across the United States. This led FBI agent Audrey Hanson to become obsessed with capturing him. Three months after taking on his serial killer persona, Sylar led Hanson on a chase through the streets of Chicago, following another one of his murders. Hanson chased him into the subways. He gave his cap and trench coat to an innocent elderly man, which caused the agent to mistake the man for Sylar. After shooting the man, she realized her mistake, and the unbearable guilt from her error intensified her drive to hunt him down.

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Sylar originally appeared shrouded in darkness.

In "Don't Look Back," Agent Hanson investigated a double homicide where a married couple with a child were murdered. The woman was pinned horizontally to the staircase and the male, James Walker, was frozen solid in mid-pose with his brain removed. Telepathic police officer Matt Parkman found their unharmed daughter, Molly, hiding in the house, and learned the name "Sylar" from Hanson. The two began working together to catch their suspect.

In the following episode, Sylar infiltrated the FBI's Los Angeles office and attempted to kidnap the murdered couple's daughter, Molly. Parkman and Hansen stopped him and gave chase. When Audrey pulled her gun, Sylar used his powers to force her back against a wall and make her point her weapon to her own head. Matt arrived and shot at Sylar, but when Matt checked on Audrey, Sylar stood up and the bullets which hit him fell to the ground. As the two law-enforcement officers looked back, Sylar disappeared upward.

Meanwhile, Mohinder and Eden McCain broke into Sylar's apartment in New York. The apartment had no photographs but plenty of books on philosophy and a copy of Chandra's book, Activating Evolution. A secret room also contained a map similar to those used by the Sureshes, but with many more connections and papers linked to it. Nathan Petrelli was identified on one of the links, and in an adjoining room, the wall was covered in scrawls, some seemingly written in blood. Most of the messages amounted to variations on the phrase "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned." When Mohinder fetched police officers to show them the apartment, it had already been cleaned out.

Texas kills

Sylar continued to use Chandra's list, leading him to Texas in "Seven Minutes to Midnight". Sylar entered a diner where Hiro Nakamura and Ando Masahashi were being served by a young waitress named Charlie Andrews. Charlie Andrews possessed a superhuman memorization ability, which Sylar had probably learned from Chandra Saresh's research. When Charlie went to the diner's storeroom, Sylar murdered her in his standard fashion. Sylar then took her brain, despite there being a blood clot in it.

A stylized image of Sylar was found on a painting in Isaac Mendez's apartment. When Peter Petrelli finished the painting, the man was standing over the mutilated body of a cheerleader. After his stop at the diner, Sylar traveled to Claire's high school to murder the one he believed to be a superhealing cheerleader. In the school's gym, Sylar attacked Claire and her classmate Jackie Wilcox, but concentrated his attack on Jackie, due to a news article which reported that Jackie had saved a man from a fire. Sylar merely hurled Claire, with crushing force, against a nearby wall. As Sylar brutally attacked Jackie, Claire healed from the attack and saw Sylar cut open Jackie's skull with no physical contact. When Sylar realized he had the wrong girl, he turned to pursue Claire. As she made her escape, Sylar used his powers to attack Peter, who had run into Claire in the hallway, by hurtling locker doors at him. His pursuit ended on top of the school, where he and Peter struggled, causing both of them to fall off. Sylar escaped alive, but was later apprehended by Eden McCain and the Haitian. Eden used her persuasive abilities to prevent Sylar from attacking her and the Haitian put him to sleep.

Capture

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A captured Sylar

In "Fallout," Sylar is confined in a small cell which supposedly prevents him from using his powers. During his imprisonment, Sylar becomes infuriated when Mr. Bennet repeatedly refers to him as Gabriel, insisting that his name is really Sylar after repeated uses of his former name. Bennet informs him that he'll be taken apart and studied, comparing the act to the watches Sylar once repaired. Before this can happen, however, Eden visits Sylar and attempts to use her powers to make him commit suicide with a gun she brought along, as she believes him to be too dangerous to be kept alive for any reason. However, before she can give him the gun, he telekinetically drags her through the glass wall of his cell (apparently the cell didn't block his powers as fully as believed). While he informs her that her power will help him immensely, she points the gun to her own head and fires, killing herself and preventing Sylar from acquiring her power.

Bennet and the Haitian then rush into the cell and subdue him with a tranquilizer gun. In "Godsend," Sylar is later seen lying helpless on the floor of his cell after being injected with strange drugs used to help make special abilities manifest. The doctor in charge of him, Hank, states that Sylar has been tested to the brink of death, saying Sylar had been given enough drugs to kill an elephant, and still fails to display any power besides telekinesis.

In "The Fix," the tests on Sylar seem to be fatal, as he dies despite Hank's best efforts. However, after Hank reports this to Bennet and removes his restraints, Sylar revives (possibly having faked his condition) and murders Hank. When Bennet arrives to check on Sylar, he finds Hank's body in Sylar's place and Sylar standing calmly behind him. Sylar simply asks Bennet, "How's Claire?"

Roaming again

In "Distractions," Sylar uses his telekinesis to attack Mr. Bennet, and then traps him in the cage in which Bennet had imprisoned him. After stealing Bennet's driver's license to learn the location of Bennet's house, he travels there. Under the disguise of a Primatech employee making a delivery for Mr. Bennet, he fools Mrs. Bennet for a while. However, Sylar's strange interest in Claire eventually causes Mrs. Bennet to see through his deception. He then uses his telekinesis to attack her, after telling her of his murderous intentions in regards to Claire. As he moves in to finish her off, Mr. Bennet and the Haitian run into the house. Bennet shoots Sylar multiple times. Nonetheless, Sylar quickly escapes unscathed. Though the Haitian quickly chases after him, Sylar has already vanished.

While on the run once more, the bullet wounds annoy Sylar. He notes that things would be easier if he had Claire Bennet's healing factor. To go "north" and out of "Podunk, Texas," Sylar hitches a ride with a semi-truck driver. After realizing the driver is really heading West, Sylar kills him and hijacks the delivery truck. Police eventually follow Sylar, but he easily escapes them by using his powers to put ice on the road and then jump/fly out of the truck as it crashes over the embankment. Sylar also notes that he is down to the last person he can remember from Chandra's list. Thus, he ends up at the home of this person, and the events of "Run!" begin.

Zane Taylor had been expecting Mohinder Suresh, and Sylar let Zane assumed he was Suresh. Zane let him into his house, quickly demonstrating his molecular manipulation powers to him. The floor was also littered with melted appliances that Zane had tested his powers on. Sylar kills Zane and takes his power, just before the real Mohinder arrives. When Mohinder arrived, Sylar identified himself as Zane Taylor, showing Mohinder his new power when prompted. Mohinder then asked for a DNA sample. Sylar covertly gives him a sample from Taylor's corpse, in place of his own. In the end, Sylar, in need of a new way to find victims, has a proposition for Mohinder. Sylar asks to accompany Mohinder on his mission to find the other "unique people," saying he could help convince them since he has a power. Mohinder happily agrees.

Next, in "Unexpected," Sylar and Mohinder locate a woman named Dale, who possess incredibly enhanced hearing, able to hear rain coming from forty miles away, or hear the changes in someones heartbeat. Sylar demonstrates Zane's power to her, and she agrees to let Mohinder run some tests. Later that night Sylar returns and kills Dale, taking her power. The next day, Sylar finds her powers hard to control, the slightest noise causing him to reel in pain. Mohinder finds Dale's body, but Sylar convinces him not to phone the police, telling him they'd look too suspect. Mohinder agrees, and says he'll phone them once they're on the road again.

Powers, abilities and skills

Original power

When Sylar first meets Chandra Suresh six months prior to the series' starting point, he describes having intuitive aptitude, the ability to "know when things are broken, and how to fix them." This is the ability to see and manipulate patterns within complex systems made him an expert watchmaker, as he could discern any problems with any given watch almost instantly. Upon meeting Brian Davis and learning of his telekinetic abilities, he was able to see the genetic difference in Davis. He promised to "fix" what Davis perceived as a problem and killed him.

Acquired powers

Telekinesis

After killing Davis, Sylar acquired his telekinetic powers. Bennet mentions that Sylar's powers are a product of using foreign DNA to alter his own, but the mechanism behind this change remains unshown in the television series. According to an interview with Heroes writer Bryan Fuller it was originally intended that, "[Sylar] kills people and eats their brains and [...] digests their powers," but this wasn't stated in the series because it seemed "silly" and zombie-like. Bennet confirms that Sylar has gained multiple powers by mixing other people's DNA with his own.

In the six months since he acquired telekinesis, Sylar has become far more proficient than Brian Davis was when he demonstrated his abilities to Sylar. Sylar was able to fling Claire Bennet several feet horizontally into a wall with enough force to break her arm and severely lacerate her face, yet he has enough control over his power to smoothly cut open the skulls of his victims. Despite the number of powers he has at his disposal, Sylar is usually shown using telekinesis during the TV series. When tested by Bennet's associate, Hank, Sylar shows no overt signs of any power besides telekinesis.

Other powers

The freezing abilities referenced in "Don't Look Back" and Charlie Andrews' eidetic memory have been confirmed. With his freezing powers, he is able to freeze human beings solid, leaving their bodies in a very fragile, icy state. He can also create a layer of frost on flat surfaces, making them too slippery for vehicles such as cars to drive on safely. Though it didn't seem to "kick in" very fast, Charlie's superhuman memory has also prevented Sylar from forgetting information.

Sylar posesses some sort of superhuman durability. These include the ability to walk away from a fall that crippled Peter in "Homecoming", claims that Eden's gun wouldn't kill him in "Fallout", and the ability to run away after being shot by several bullets and being propelled backwards with enough force to leave a significant dent in what appeared to be a stainless steel refrigerator. In the Heroes graphic novel Road Kill his skin seems to slowly regenerate after the bullets are taken out.

More recently, Sylar has stolen Zane Taylor's power to quickly liquefy objects into pools of fluid. Both Taylor and Sylar recommended that others stand back when they use this ability. In "Unexpected", Sylar kills Dale, a woman who had superhuman hearing. Before he does so, Dale asks him why she didn't hear any footsteps, and Sylar responds with "That's because there weren't any" (alluding to being able to levitate using the telekinesis). After he acquires Dale's power, however, he cannot control it. Thus, every sound becomes much louder, and he has painful headaches just as Dale did before she learned to control it.

Killings

Sylar has committed several murders, with the usual end result being the removal of the victims' brains. Sylar tends to target people with powers of their own in order to take their abilities. Still, he has not hesitated to attack others when he deems it necessary.

People whose deaths have been linked to Sylar and their powers (if any) are listed in chronological order below.

Character	Power	Episode or graphic novel	Notes
Brian Davis	Telekinesis	"Six Months Ago"
Unnamed white male	Unknown	Turning Point	Murdered in Chicago.
Chandra Suresh	None	"Seven Minutes to Midnight"	Seen in Mohinder's dream
James Walker and unnamed wife	Unknown	"Don't Look Back"	Only James Walker's brain was removed, and his body was found frozen. Later, Sylar unsuccessfully attempted to kidnap the Walkers' daughter from FBI custody.
Unnamed FBI agent	None	"One Giant Leap"
Charlie Andrews	Eidetic memory	"Seven Minutes to Midnight"
Jackie Wilcox	None	"Homecoming"	Mistaken for Claire Bennet.
Eden McCain	Mind control	"Fallout"	She committed suicide with a gun to prevent Sylar from obtaining her power.
Hank	None	"The Fix"
Unnamed male trucker	None	Road Kill
Zane Taylor	Molecular manipulation	"Run!"	Sylar took on Taylor's identity
Dale Smither	Enhanced hearing	"Unexpected"	Syler is having trouble controlling this power.

• During "Don't Look Back," Hiro Nakamura travels to an alternate future. There, he finds a long-haired man, whom he presumes to be Isaac Mendez, dead in the painter's loft, killed in the same manner as Sylar's victims.
• During "Nothing to Hide," Audrey Hanson states eight murders are linked to Sylar, which would exclude murders done after the killing of the unnamed FBI agent.

Other skills

While not a master of disguise, Sylar has been able to fool some people by assuming alternate identities. He took on a southern accent and a Primatech Paper uniform to fool Mrs. Sandra Bennet. He has also taken on a new look to pose as "Zane Taylor" when accompanying Professor Mohinder Suresh.

Personality

Originally conceived as a character of mystery and intrigue, Sylar had little personality beyond a serial killer. The episode Six Months Ago, however, reveals Sylar’s desire to be special and important which drives him to kill Brian Davis and other heroes. He has now shed all connections to his previous life as Gabriel Gray and prefers to be called Sylar. The online comic book Road Kill reveals that Sylar now thinks of what he does as an evolutionary imperative to acquire new abilities. Mr. Bennet believes the radical changes to his DNA may have driven his already unstable personality insane.

Names and aliases

Gabriel Gray took the alias "Sylar" six months before most of the series' events. He got the name from a brand of watch that he had been working on. Since then, "Sylar" does not want to be referred to by his given name, angrily proclaiming that his name is indeed Sylar after repeated uses of his real name by Mr. Bennet. A picture of a news clipping on the NBC website has a birth announcement for a "Paul E. Sylar," born June 11, 1962. This clipping is posted to the left of the map in Chandra Suresh's New York apartment, but does not appear in any of the televised episodes.

Besides this, Sylar also tends to use assumed names in an attempt to mask his true identity and intentions. He allowed at least one victim to believe he was Mohinder Suresh, and later took on that victim's identity, Zane Taylor, to join forces with the real Suresh. He has also used the alias "Drew O'Grady," inspired by a newspaper headline.