Heroes 3x24 "I Am Sylar" Discuss and Grade

[Temis the Vorta]

Why do many people hate Hiro and Ando?

They don't add anything to the show. Now that Fuller is back, the writing is witty rather than painful, but that's true across the board. Other characters have witty lines and if Hiro and Ando were gone, the other characters could take up the humor slack. It's not like Hiro and Ando are writing the comedy after all - it would still exist without them.

^While he's not my least favourite character, that award is reserved for Mohinder, I agree that if they're going to kill him off then should just do it, sod what the fangirls think.

Which fangirls? I'm more convinced than ever that my theory above is going to come true, because of this little tidbit from Ausello:

Spoiler: spoilery hint about finale

Question: Please, please, please give us a hint about whom Sylar kills in Monday's Heroes season finale! --Claire
Ausiello: It's a major character, and the death definitely sticks. But there is a twist. (Hint: It's possible no one will be leaving the show.)

That tears it. Quinto is going to be sharing Sylar as a charcter with another actor, who will be playing some melding of his original character and Sylar, and the only character they've done enough setup for this to happen with is Nathan. Nathan will die for good, but Pasdar will remain a regular. And in the end, it's Quinto who will probably lose 'control' of Sylar, but that will go well into next season which could be the last anyway.

I can guarantee that there are fangirls who will be hunting Bryan Fuller down with pitchforks and torches because even if

Spoiler: my speculation which at this point is 99% certain to be a spoiler

Sylar metamorphoses into Nathan "for real" - having both Nathan's DNA and memories - there will be a militant camp who will insist that Petrellicest has been ruined for good because Fake Nathan is no substitute for the real thing. But I'll be ecstatic. As a longtime, voice-in-the-wilderness advocate of Pylar, with no objections to Petrellicest in the least, I get to have things both ways.

And it's an ironic wrap-up to that idiotic Gabriel Petrelli plotline this season. I'd thought they'd left that nonsense in the dust, but looks like Fuller has found an interesting use for it after all.

The internet fracas that will break out is one of the reasons I want my theory to come true. This will make the ENT shipper wars look like a tea party by comparison.

And although I don't mind them killing a character just to be rid of him, if you're going to kill someone in a season finale, it should be because that one character is the best one to kill for the sake of the story. If my theory is correct, this show could go very interesting places.

 

[Dream]

The only problem with Hiro and Ando is that most of the time they have nothing to do. I bet if the writers gave them good storylines there would be less complaints from fans.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

To give them good storylines would require major revisions/development for the characters. Right now, Hiro is an overgrown child whose motivation seems to be solely infantile ego gratification and a level of self-delusion bordering on mental illness. Ando just tags along because he has nothing better to do with his life.

When Matt snapped "This isn't a game!" he got right to the core of the problem - Hiro and Ando act like they're playing a game while around them people are dying and their lives are being destroyed. It's impossible to respect people like that - did their maturation stop at the age of 12 or are they just idiots?

Now that the other characters are being placed back on some kind of emotionally solid track, the fact that Hiro and Ando are being left behind is becoming more and more apparent. They're both stalled at such a facile level that no writer could do anything interesting with them. If Fuller can think of something, he should get moving on it. He's come up with some reasonable solutions to the other problems he's been handed.

 

[Mr Light]

Well in the opening of "Fugitives", Hiro, despite losing his powers, set up a Bat Cave for Ando so that he could patrol and co-ordinate and save people. That's being responsible. I don't really remember what they've been doing since then but Hiro is always trying to stop the bad guy, isn't that what they should be doing?

 

[DarthPipes]

I think they should kill Nathan flat out. He's already had two fake-out "deaths", if he is the one to die in the season finale they should just leave him dead this time. Nathan has always been my least favorite character, so I for one would welcome his departure.

I wouldn't kill Nathan. Nathan is one of the best characters on the show. Mohinder, Claire, or Hiro would be a much better candiate because they all suck and should have been killed for their stupidity years ago.

Another problem with Hiro and Ando is that they are often disconnected with the plot and the rest of the characters. Hiro's character looked like he was going to have growth after the Adam Monroe business in Season 2 but Season 3 has him deliberately starting the next crisis because he is a bored, selfish child who places being a hero above anything, even if that means manufacturing a crisis. Hiro has grown more whining, selfish, and petulent since then. This Hiro is never going to become Samauri Hiro. Not that I'm complaining. Dry paint has more of a personality than him.

I always liked the Ando character though.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't really remember what they've been doing since then but Hiro is always trying to stop the bad guy, isn't that what they should be doing?

He's only doing it for ego gratification. I never get the sense that there is any underlying moral imperative fueling his quest, because he seems to lack that level. He is literally like a child - he doesn't understand morality, because he's at a level of development that is pre-morality. His motives are childish - he wants daddy's approval, he's acting out a comic-book-inspired fantasy. Seeing that in a grown man is gruesome and it's impossible to respect him because of it. Either the acting or the writing is at fault, maybe both.

Peter does the same thing that Hiro does, but with him, I get the strong sense that 1) he is operating out of a sense of moral imperative, 2) he is compelled by his personality to do what he is doing (which is great; that should be the basic motive for all fictional characters), and 3) even though he has immature aspects and character flaws, he is a grown-up individual, not a child, and I can respect him despite his flaws.

Really the problem is that Hiro has been portrayed as such a shallow character and he fills exactly the same role in the story as Peter, who although far from a perfect individual, is complex and believable as an adult human being. There's no purpose to having two characters who fulfill the same role in the plot. Everything that Hiro does, Peter could be doing. Either they need to make Hiro grow up and find another role for him, or they should kill him for being redundant.

I wouldn't kill Nathan. Nathan is one of the best characters on the show. Mohinder, Claire, or Hiro would be a much better candiate because they all suck and should have been killed for their stupidity years ago.

The show could afford to lose any of those three, but on the other hand, what if you could kill Nathan and use that to propel the plot into interesting places that otherwise would be impossible? Don't think about this negatively - who should we kill - but positively - whose "death" could set up something good for S4?

 

[Hermiod]

^If Peter truly wanted to be a hero, why would he just shrug his shoulders and say "Oh well, easy come easy go" when Arthur took his powers like he did ?

 

[melancholymecha]

I can guarantee that there are fangirls who will be hunting Bryan Fuller down with pitchforks and torches because even if

Spoiler: my speculation which at this point is 99% certain to be a spoiler

Sylar metamorphoses into Nathan "for real" - having both Nathan's DNA and memories - there will be a militant camp who will insist that Petrellicest has been ruined for good because Fake Nathan is no substitute for the real thing. But I'll be ecstatic. As a longtime, voice-in-the-wilderness advocate of Pylar, with no objections to Petrellicest in the least, I get to have things both ways.

Ill be one of those fangirls!

Spoiler

I want NATHAN around, even if its just his consiousness taking over Sylar's body, with Sylar struggling to regain control of it. So they would both be sharing the body, morphing into whichever character is in control at that moment. That way neither character would be dead(b/c Im sure itd suck just as much for the Sy fangirls if Matt kills Sylar mentally & its just Nathan's mind wearing Sylar's body.) But Sylar with Nathan's memories thinking he's Nathan? that blows! I take it youre more a Sylar fan than a Nathan fan then Temis?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^If Peter truly wanted to be a hero, why would he just shrug his shoulders and say "Oh well, easy come easy go" when Arthur took his powers like he did ?

I don't remember him shrugging. I remember him becoming a paramedic, which proves that his wish to be a hero does not stem from his powers or vanish when the powers do. And before he had powers, he was a nurse. There's a continuity to his actions that removes the suspicion that he's just playing an infantile little superhero game.

If Hiro lost his powers, he'd mope and go back to being an office drone. For Hiro, the powers are fantasy-fulfillment while to Peter they're just a way to accomplish what he already is determined to accomplish in life. A poorly written character is jerked around by the particulars of the plot while a well written one drives the plot, and uses the particulars to accomplish his goals.

 

[Hermiod]

^If Peter truly wanted to be a hero, why would he just shrug his shoulders and say "Oh well, easy come easy go" when Arthur took his powers like he did ?

I don't remember him shrugging. I remember him becoming a paramedic, which proves that his wish to be a hero does not stem from his powers or vanish when the powers do. And before he had powers, he was a nurse. There's a continuity to his actions that removes the suspicion that he's just playing an infantile little superhero game.

He actively refused to use the formula to get his powers back. That's shrugging your shoulders and giving up. After that, when he did get some power back, he never tried to find out why they don't work the way they used to - even with the last remaining person on Earth with any idea how the formula worked standing next to him.

If Hiro lost his powers, he'd mope and go back to being an office drone. For Hiro, the powers are fantasy-fulfillment while to Peter they're just a way to accomplish what he already is determined to accomplish in life. A poorly written character is jerked around by the particulars of the plot while a well written one drives the plot, and uses the particulars to accomplish his goals.

Hiro did lose his powers and while he didn't exactly react positively, he tried to help Ando instead.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Peter may have given up on getting powers, but given his experiences, maybe that's the smart thing to do. He didn't give up on his willingness to help others. That didn't begin with the powers and lack of powers didn't end up. Powers are not equivalent to heroism.

Hiro helping Ando doesn't prove that his motivations are grown-up. The whole way the character is presented is childish; but I'm thinking it's more to do with the acting than writing. Masa Oki is playing Hiro in this sickening "look at me, I'm a cute widdle kiddie" style that I cannot stomach. Bryan Fuller's instincts can be a bit on the cloying side, so he might not recognize how sickening it is to see a grown man acting like a child.

 

[Hermiod]

Peter may have given up on getting powers, but given his experiences, maybe that's the smart thing to do. He didn't give up on his willingness to help others. That didn't begin with the powers and lack of powers didn't end up. Powers are not equivalent to heroism.

On a show about people with superpowers they are. Peter can be a better hero with powers than without but he still gave up and instead went trekking around the jungle with his brother trying to prove that he can be a hero without them - giving us an utter waste of a chapter as a result.

Finally, our cast of superheroes are given supervillains to fight and the first thing they do is take their powers away. Pathetic.

Hiro helping Ando doesn't prove that his motivations are grown-up. The whole way the character is presented is childish; but I'm thinking it's more to do with the acting than writing. Masa Oki is playing Hiro in this sickening "look at me, I'm a cute widdle kiddie" style that I cannot stomach. Bryan Fuller's instincts can be a bit on the cloying side, so he might not recognize how sickening it is to see a grown man acting like a child.

Hiro is an idealist, sure, but that's not uncommon amongst superheroes. While Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were running around being idealistic, they had Green Arrow, Zatanna and the rest cleaning up after them and they didn't even realise it, after all.

 

[Jaron]

On a show about people with superpowers they are. Peter can be a better hero with powers than without but he still gave up and instead went trekking around the jungle with his brother trying to prove that he can be a hero without them - giving us an utter waste of a chapter as a result.

Finally, our cast of superheroes are given supervillains to fight and the first thing they do is take their powers away. Pathetic.

I don't think Peter would be a better hero by using a formula that he has personally seen will destroy the world, to give him powers that almost destroyed a chunk of New York. What is he supposed to say? "Destroy this foul concoction you have created... but first, could you let me try it out?"

Hiro is an idealist, sure, but that's not uncommon amongst superheroes. While Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were running around being idealistic, they had Green Arrow, Zatanna and the rest cleaning up after them and they didn't even realise it, after all.

I don't think idealism is the issue. The problem is that Hiro wants to live in a comic book (or more dangerously, thinks he already does). When there is a clear-cut problem to solve or foe to defeat, this motivates him to act heroically. When he doesn't have that, he does stupid things like opening the forbidden safe of mystery at the start of Villains in order to find one. That's not idealism, that's childish naivety.

 

[MichaelDornFan]

So, does it look like Sylar us going to go after the President in the season finale?

It seems like they showed his mother saying (in flashbacks or as crazy Sylar morphing into her, I can't remember) he could be anything, "even President," more than once. Sylar-as-Nathan was also trying to get a handshake with the President, perhaps to acquire his DNA so he could morph into him? Sylar made a point saying he can "be anybody he wants."

I wonder if Dorn will show up again.

 

[Hermiod]

I don't think Peter would be a better hero by using a formula that he has personally seen will destroy the world, to give him powers that almost destroyed a chunk of New York. What is he supposed to say? "Destroy this foul concoction you have created... but first, could you let me try it out?"

It's what he needed to do to fight Arthur and get back what was taken from him. Instead, he got the Haitian and Sylar of all people to fight his battles for him.

I don't think idealism is the issue. The problem is that Hiro wants to live in a comic book (or more dangerously, thinks he already does). When there is a clear-cut problem to solve or foe to defeat, this motivates him to act heroically. When he doesn't have that, he does stupid things like opening the forbidden safe of mystery at the start of Villains in order to find one. That's not idealism, that's childish naivety.

I'm not saying Hiro doesn't make mistakes, but at least he wants to be a hero. Peter keeps flip-flopping at best.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

Don't think about this negatively - who should we kill - but positively - whose "death" could set up something good for S4?

The death of Mohinder, Hiro and/or Claire would set up something good for series 4. Namely, that they won't be in it.