Wer it toter - Sylar oder Nathan??

'Heroes' Finale Aftergasm: Who's More Dead, Nathan or Sylar?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

nathan-sylar.jpgI couldn't help being reminded of Dollhouse (Joss Whedon's current FOX show about blank-slate people programmed with different personalities) while watching last night's season finale of Heroes, in which a shocking turn of events occurred that essentially turned Sylar into a Whedon-esque doll: after Sylar kills Nathan and then Peter tranquilizes Sylar, Angela and HRG convince Matt Parkman to use his mind control powers to wipe Sylar's personality away and "program" him (sans machines) with Nathan's personality and memories. In a seemingly intuitive self-alignment, Sylar uses his shapeshifting power to physically become Nathan, then wakes up, a reprogrammed person with no memory of his past life.

But as the Volume 5 teaser illustrates (and as Whedon's Dollhouse explores thoroughly through its own characters), reprogramming a person is not a seamless process, and certain residues of the original are bound to remain--and reemerge--in the brain. Thus, Sylar (now Nathan) retains his eerie ability to diagnose faulty timepieces, and Angela seems to rightly worry that other, more unsavory characteristics of Sylar's past identity will begin to surface, even as he still believes he is Nathan Petrelli.

The funny thing about the Heroes finale was how much hype about a "definitive" death led up to it. Cast and crew alike proclaimed that a Season One regular was going to die, and that the death would definitely "stick."

But the harder I think about it, the more difficult I find the answer to what should be a simple question: who's the dead guy?

The straightforward answer is, of course, Nathan. He did die, physically, before our very eyes. But if all of his memories, feelings, and unique modes of thinking now live on in Sylar's body--is he really all that dead? Does the fact that it's not his own body--but it is, in a way, because Sylar replicated his DNA--make this new Nathan less of a Nathan? If Matt had done his job perfectly by constructing a perfect clone, the answer would be "no." Nathan's thoughts, his memories, his emotions, his body, even his DNA--these are the things that make up a person. So right now, Sylar is more Nathan than he is Sylar. The elements of Nathan are very much alive. A lot more alive than Sylar's.

...Right? With the glimpse of Sylar's signature talent still alive within Nathan's psyche, we are meant to question whether Matt really did wipe Sylar permanently out of himself, or if such a wipe is even possible. If the real Sylar is still in there somewhere, buried deep within his own brain, then we can bet he will make his way back out soon. But the reemergence of a full-on Sylar stinks of cop-out, especially after the finale made such an elaborate fuss to ensure we knew that Matt Parkman was erasing Sylar. For the sake of those characters, I genuinely hope that Angela, HRG and Matt are not so deluded that they risked everything on an iffy procedure that might have left a complete Sylar inside.

So, if only stray fragments of Sylar remain--the residue of a former life, and not the essential elements of the life itself--I am personally inclined to say that Sylar is (or should be) the dead one. Or maybe I am just hoping he is.

Even without breaching the topics of souls, I'm typing myself into circles here, and rightly so. The Heroes writers now have a great opportunity to explore the gray areas of death and identity next season--and for such a task, who better as their doll than Gabriel Gray?

Quelle: Buddy TV