Ok, this does not make any sense to me. Feel free to try to make sense of it but I doubt that anyone will be able to make a even remotely reasonable justification of this. Here I go:

Sylar is a character who makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He dies, comes back, loses powers, regains them, loses memory, starts remembering again, gets weak and scared then becomes powerful. His deaths have never made any sense and his resurrections have made even less sense if any at all. Nathan died in the last season. He is dead. The Sylar walking around the carnival is not Nathan. He is Sylar with an identity crisis thanks to Matt Parkman. He is still Sylar. So how the eff is it that part of his consciousness is taking over Matt Parkman while he is far far away at the carnival? How is it possible to be fully functional and neurologically, mentally, physiologically, and physically sound but still have part of your conscious fully functional somewhere else also? So somehow, after being sedated by Peter, did Sylar gain the ability to split himself into 2? It makes no sense at all. Now he is in full control of Matt Parkmans body and he is still walking around the carnival. What power did Sylar magically pull out of his pocket of infinite immediate unexplainable abilities that gave him the ability to do this to Matt Parkman who BTW, should be one of the most powerful characters. I guess Sylars real ability is to be able to do anything to anyone at anytime anywhere for any reason regardless of anything. Matt Parkman has gone inside many characters heads. He has gone inside other supers heads as well as non-supers. No other character has been able to do this but Sylar can of course. I could understand if Sylar had acquired some kind of telepathic ability but he had nothing that could even partially explain this. And every week the only reason or explanation is "Oh, you can't do this to me because I'm Sylar". So let's say Hiro was to grab Sylar and teleport him to the distant past...would Sylar suddenly reappear with Hiro's powers and say "Oh, that won't work on me because I'm Sylar"?

I'm not saying I want them to get rid of Sylar because they are obviously not ever ever ever going to, I would simply appreciate it if they stopped making him die so then they won't need some ridiculous stupid BS way to bring him back.

When has Sylar died?

When Matt wiped him and forced Nathan's memories into his head, a portion of Sylar was copied into Matt's mind. It's actually a common theme in sci-fi, fantasy and comics.

Ok, remember this is Heroes. If other characters can travel through space and time, melt things, freeze things, read people's minds, see visions of the future, see sounds, have super strength, talk to computers, heal themselves and others, heck even fly and I could just go on and on then splitting someone into two existences doesn't seem to far a stretch.
As far as Sylar goes, I have personally enjoyed his character's journey. Also, technically the closest time to actually killing Sylar or where we were supposed believe he was dead was at the end of season 1 in Kirby Plaza. If there is a character who does not need to keep dying and returning it's Nathan. That guy has died like seven times between present and future. Well, even though Sylar is loaning out his body, Nathan will still make it through and kick him out. It'll be something like Samual decides he needs the Sylar part gone to have Nathan as a political advocate for the ability people or something. I have stated before that this guy is like a Timex watch "gets a lick'n and just keeps on tick'n". Talk about Sylar never ending, Nathan really won't. I want Sylar to keep going but doesn't look good.
By the way, I do like Nathan's character. I am just saying this within Heroes as a whole.

what they are doing on the show with Matt/Sylar Sylar/Nathan is brilliant.

Thanks for the help. I understand comics and I understand that this is Heroes. I understand that the characters are capable of doing things out of the norm of the real world. However, even in the comic world there are rules that apply that add continuity, limitations and substance to that particular plane. It would not make sense if in the next episode we all of a sudden saw Claire read someones mind or jump in the air ad fly. There would have to be a ridiculous retcon to explain that. Each character has limitations that exceed those of normal people but they still have limitations. There is no way that Sylar should have been able to "copy a portion of himself" into Matts mind. It makes no sense and sounds like a last minute retcon. Sylar has no ability at all that could even begin to explain how he did this, even on a faaaaaarrrrrrr stretch. Add to the fact that he was totally unconscious at the time you'd have to really make something up to explain this. Even if there was some made up explanation it still deserves to be mentioned that Matt is a master of reading minds and controlling people. So how is it that all of a sudden he is being out-smarted and over-powered by Sylar who has absolutely no experience with this type of ability? I do like Sylar as a character but I hate it when they allow him to do things without limitation and the only explanation is "I'm Sylar". He's getting soo predictable now that I knew once he started fading away in this last episode that they were gonna somehow someway make him take over Matt's body. I was like, ok this is where he comes back and says "ha, I fooled you again because I'm Sylar". They should just give him unlimited universal powers and call it a day...

Sylar has an Evolutionary Imperative to survive. Its been there since day one. He is evolution. He was Patient Zero. He Understands things. There is no limit to Understanding things.

Matt Parkman told him to DIE. He told him that Sylar was dead and proceeded to attempt to wipe out his very mental existance, leaving his mind a blank slate to receive programming to become the *person* Nathan Petrelli. Basically forcing his mind to do something very alien to it.

Matt is a telepath of the highest order, he was deep in Sylar's psyche, attempting to destroy his consciousness, and Sylar has the mental ability to Understand. He hung on for dear life. Dying is his greatest fear..

I think that's absolutely true. Sylar couldn't do it - I'm assuming Parkman did.

I don't think part of Sylar was copied, I think he was essentially split it two. What remains in one side does not exist in the other.
My assumption is that Parkman took Sylar's body and (for lack of better terms) extracted 'who Sylar is', leaving 'what Sylar is'. He then put 'who Nathan is' (at least what was left) and put that into Sylar's body. That left the 'who Sylar is' in limbo.
I'm guessing Parkman either accidentally dropped 'who Sylar is' into his own head rather than destroying it, or intentionally placed it in his head for safe keeping. Either way 'who Sylar is' awoke and is now dominant.
If Parkman did do it on purpose he really should have know better because, at least in the movies, Xavier tried the same to contain the Pheonix within Jean's mind and that didn't work either.

I think the OP was making the point that Sylar seems to break the rules. He really has since S1. There have been many many threads asking things like how did he fly before he had that ability, how did he take such severe injuries (gunshot wounds) before getting Claire's power, the list goes on. There have been various fan speculation to explain all of these (generally involving using TK in interesting ways).

My answer is (without getting into any specifics) is yes, he does. The writers love his character. He was supposed to die in S1 (at which time none of the mysteries would have mattered) but he didn't. Now, not only can he take any ability, but he can master it to a level never achieved by the original (due no doubt to his knowing how things work). He can pwn master telepath Matt after a few weeks in his body.

I find the whole consciousness splitting thing pretty preposterous in the real world. No brain, no complex interaction of neurons, no personality. But hey, it's Heroes.

Thank you very much JoeFriday. That is exactly what I am complaining about. Every world has specific rules that characters cannot break for various reasons. Sylar seems to always break the rules with the only reason being that the writers want to keep him alive. That is very lazy and sloppy on the writers part. I could see if they made him use his multiple powers in various ways to fight other characters but he uses telekinesis 95% of the time. It's just getting old and boring watching this time and time again and having to read some long drawn out insensible explanation as to how he did it...

our personalities, memories and/or consciousnesses are just electrical impulses and patterns in our brains... i dont think Matt fully understood what he was doing when he "erased" Sylar's consciousness/memories and replaced them with Nathan's - it is obvious now that Matt didnt, in fact, erase Sylar's mind - all he did was absorb Sylar's consciousness/memories into his own and allow Sylar's physical brain to recognize Nathan's memories - at that point, Sylar became Nathan and Sylar's consciousness is now in Matt's mind.

i think this is a pretty awesome concept, however the execution isnt really turning out to be that great. Matt has one of the most powerful abilities on the show - but he is probably the wimpiest character of all. he should have been a villain to begin with. also, the whole scene with Matt "hurting" Sylar by drinking was just stupid. it would have been more believeable if Sylar just got drunk from it instead of him actually "feeling" pain - but even that is stupid since alcohol affects the physical body/brain, not extraneous electrical impulses that make up Sylar's consciousness.

this whole thing with Matt having Sylar's consciousness shouldnt have been written in the first place. i think it should have gone like this: Matt erases Sylar's mind/memories from Sylar's body - or - put up some sort of block that wouldnt allow those memories to surface - Matt goes about his life - Sylar goes about his life (as Nathan) at some point Sylar is able to gain his memory back (like Peter did in season 2) -- even Samuel said that our bodies (cells) store memories just like our brains so it is definitely feasible - they should have just written a different story for Matt that has nothing to do with Sylar.

Yea. I'm really not a fan of the entire idea. The whole erase Sylar and make him Nathan was a doomed concept, but that ship has sailed. To take the next step and have Sylar's personality "jump" involuntarily into Matt is a pretty big stretch IMO. I think it would have made more sense for Nathan to be having this problem than Matt, although I do see the future coming when it will be Sy/Matt against Sy/Nate (the body). My guess is that Sy/Nate will not want Sylar back.

To put it bluntly, the people discussing this particular issue (Matt having Sylar in his head) seem to fall into 2 groups- those who are fans of sci-fi/fantasy/comics and those who aren't.

Those who are fans of sci-fi/fantasy/comics don't have a problem with it. Why? Because we're used to it. We've seen it time and again. It is almost always an obvious repercussion of the kind of complete mind wipe we saw last season. And, to us, it makes perfect sense.

Those who aren't fans of those particular genres have a problem with it. They haven't seen it before, and they don't like it.

First of all, I like the whole Nylar and Mylar stuff. I think it is fun. Anyways, I think the writer's idea of mind/body relationship is far different that any normal theory. Ok, if Sylar was aware enough to know a need for self preservation I don't think it would be to take up residence elsewhere, he would have fought Matt's attempts to dissolve him.
The next important thing is the differences of existence between Sy and Nate. When Matt put Nathan into Sylar what exactly did he put in? It would seem that Nathan can only exist as an interpretion. He can only ever really be a mimic as to how Sylar's mind interprets his memories. Sylar can absurb memories through touch but this absurbtion was different. Apparently, the writer's use memory as the basis for indentity. There is physical memory that falls in line with the body and other memories that are strong enough to make Sylar believe he is Nathan. Want to talk about out there and confusion of mind and body then they hit the mark. To further this point, Sylar's touch memories are used to learn about another, a sense of their identity. Now this is what stumps me. Sylar exists in two places, his body with physical memory and yet he has a seperate consciousness with a memory of who he is. I don't think Nathan is capable of that existence anymore. Nathan was dead and a seperate individual. As I said, he is just an interpretion of interpreted memories. Nathan's existence is through memory alone. Memory alone is not Sylar's existence. Basis for identity, if looking to rationalize, if contradictory to itself.

I have kind of lost myself so I am just going to stop. I hope someone actually reads this and tries to understand.
On another note, I think not always having an explaination for Sylar is on purpose. It just adds to his villain self. I really like Sylar but he is definitely the one to go. Dang.

Actually Synch, I knew somebody was gonna get up here and start talking that "oh, a real comic book fan would understand this" nonsense. Actually, I am a comic fan through and through. I have always shown an interest in anything related to comics. I think the 2 categories are 1: The fans who are less perceptive and don't care to question inaccuracies and nonsense because they don't recognize them in the first place, and 2: The highly intuitive fans who expect more and are willing to point out an error or when something occurs that shouldn't. I am fan #2 and I realize that a comic world still has rules to abide by and some general "real world" rules always apply as well.

This whole mind wipe thing does not make sense because Sylar was unconscious at the time. Anyone who knows the effects of sedatives, especially a powerful sedative that can knock you out in seconds knows that when you are sedated you are UN-CONSCIOUS (as in NO conscious, as in not possessing mind or consciousness, kind of like a cardboard box)...while Sylar was in that state, Matt used his power of suggestion to trick Sylar into thinking he was Nathan. When Sylar regained consciousness he was still Sylar, albeit with an identity crisis but he was still Sylar. A person cannot exist if they are not whole (mind, body, soul, consciousness, subconsciousness) in the real world or the fantasy world so for his personality to suddenly become split into 2 is too advanced for the writers of Heroes. Even in other comics (Hulk, Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, Rune, Dr. Strange to name a few) where this has happened, the character becomes distressed by a feeling of incompleteness. They do not go around tormenting other characters because they are the ones who are distressed and tormented. They are not fully aware of what has happened and have an out of sorts type of feeling. The mind part is usually on another plane where they can only have extremely limited interaction with other characters. As a matter of fact, the body portion usually starts dying and the mind part usually starts to fade due to the effects of separation even when the mind part takes over another body. This mind wipe thing is a terrible idea and attempt on the writers part because it was not thought out well enough. The writers only goal with this was to find a lazy way to keep Sylar alive without having to explain anything to Synch's #1 type fans...

I would say that it is not that different at all from the story of Onslaught, where the seeds of Magneto's dark personality stayed in the Professor's psyche dormant... and I remember a story where Magneto's body had amnesia, and became a good guy and actually joined the X-Men as a student and had a yellow and blue uniform Lol. The Heroes story going on now is far from original, and therefore is not so unbelievable after all. =)

I remember that as well Psychopathicroc. But the key word is that those "dark seeds" were dormant. They made subtle influences yes, but they were still inactive for the most part until Professor X became extremely enraged at the death of another young innocent mutant. Actually, Professor X was more enraged at the callousness, hatred, and lack of remorse of the person who killed that mutant. At that moment and only at that moment were the seeds able to take over. BTW, those seeds were of a mental, psychological nature. Sylar has absolutely no psychological abilities at all (telekinesis is too much of a stretch), his powers are all purely physical. For him to be able to pull this stunt out of nowhere (which Sylar always does) would mean that any other character that Matt (or Matts father) has done this to should be able to do the exact same thing. Are we gonna see the spirit of the waterboy return and start pestering Matt to give him his route back in the next episode? That brings me to my original point that the writers constantly allow Sylar to do things that break the common-sense rules of the world of Heroes. The only reason is that they want to preserve him in the laziest and easiest way possible. Even if you can make a marginal amount of sense out of Sylar doing this, there are still far too many holes to support it or make it fully valid...

Umm...unless I missed some major changes in the character, neither did Magneto.
You're stretching to make the stories vastly different. The stories are more similar than dissimilar.

I didn't say a "true" comic fan (whatever that's supposed to mean) would understand the story. I said someone who reads the three genres that Heroes involves (comics, fantasy, sci fi) would be familiar with the story. And, by and large, they're the ones who have no problem accepting this story.

at first i thought the "ghost" of Sylar in Matt's mind was Matt's guilt (at performing the mindswitch) manifesting itself in the form of Sylar's persona - that, at the very least, is somewhat believable considering Matt's mental abilities and moral leanings. but when i figured out that it actually was Sylar's consciousness, the legitimacy flew out the window. there are just so many things that obviously do not make sense...and to top off the ridiculousness, the scene where Matt is getting drunk and "hurting" Sylar, was just near-slapstick to me. i actually said out loud "oh give me a break!" -
how do you guys think it should have gone? -- or what would have been more believeable?

Different genres lead to different expectations. I believe that many of the disappointments in the show come from fans having their own personal expectations broken. It would be incorrect to believe that stems from a dislike of, or lack of familiarity with a particular genre. I think a lot of people disappointed with the show categorized it (perhaps incorrectly) as a show with a higher level of connection with the real world than has been maintained. I know I personally found the solid connection to the "real world" the biggest draw of the show, making it different from just another take on "Smallville" or the like.

Also, I think you need to make a distinction between science fiction fans and SyFy/fantasy/comics fans (not that you can’t be both). I am a science fiction fan, but have never liked the poorly thought out syfy that litters the shelves at your local Barnes and Noble. Comics are a different genre, which I enjoyed in my youth. I expect different from each genre.

The category "sci-fi" is applied pretty liberally, but in my book Heroes has given up any pretense of science fiction and would be more accurately described as science fantasy or contemporary fantasy.

So Matt feeling bad about it and "imaging" Sylar- who can torment and control him- in his mind is somehow more believable than the concept that Matt, who dove further into a mind than telepaths normally do when wiping out Sylar's memories, which placed him inside that part of the mind that holds our deepest knowledge of Who We Are, somehow copied a part of Sylar into his mind?

Another interesting new ability is Sylar 'remembering' Nathan's past (like the accidental death of that girl). There's no way Matt should have known of this when imprinting Sylar. It was one of those Dark family secrets you tell no one.
It's also not physical memory as this body is not Nathan Petrelli's (unless shape-shifting gives you the original subjects memory as well).
If they continue with Gabrielle occasionally experiencing a ‘Nathan’s’ memory, it would be interesting to watch him relive Nathan’s memory of being murdered by Sylar. (it should be shocking to be a victim of yourself)

Synch, how do you know how far Matt dove into Sylars mind? It seems like you're trying to make this reasonable and it isn't. Guilt could definitely manifest itself in all sorts of ways so yes it would be feasible if that was what really happened to Matt...all I have been saying in this post is that ever since the beginning, Sylar has been shown to do things that makes no sense. Other characters who have powers have had their powers negated when fighting Sylar (puppetmaster, Sylar's father) with no apparent explanation. Sylar disappeared out of a car and reappeared on a rooftop within seconds for chrissakes with absolutely no logical explanation. He took gunshots to the upper body and was stabbed all the way through with a samurai sword and survived without so much as an bruise and there was no logical explanation. He resisted Eden's powers when he was supposedly in a depowering room and then telepathically pulled her through an highly resistant barrier (that took a combination of gunshots, extreme heat and a Claire-style bumrush to break) and there is absolutely no possible way you could even begin to explain that so don't try...he magically gained Peter's empath ability...and the list goes on. Now he somehow split into two parts, mastered Matt's own power and use it against him while he is actually fully functional and miles away in a carnival...come on man, really...

How do I know? Gee...it wouldn't have anything to do with what they showed us, would it?

Matt dove far enough into his mind to completely erase Sylar and implant Nathan. You don't do that on the surface. The only way it's even remotely possible is to dive down into the deepest recesses of the mind, where those elements that define us are located.

Sylar acquired that ability in volume 3...

My personal explanation:

In the Heroes universe there is a Mind/Soul and a Body. These are two distinct and completely separate (opposite) things. Proof? Hana Gitelman and Drucker. Two characters that existed in on an etheral plane of energy. A dimension of existence they could access thanks to their abilities.

Also, just because a person isn't awake doesn't mean they are a cardboard box. They have brainwaves, and patterns, and basically you don't have that kind of intrinsic access to the mind you would need to scientifically back up what you are saying. We are not dealing with laws, just theories.

So, in this universe what I expect happened is that Parkman forced Sylar's mind/soul from his physical body. Unfortunately Sylar hasn't figured out the whole Hana/Drucker state of existence so now he has been stuck. Think of it this way, Parkman didn't take a bat and knock Sylar out of the park. What he did was reach in and take something out, then he used Nathan's memories that Sylar already had from earlier, and as we all know that when you take something you have it until you lose it.

You really have to put yourself in the state of mind that in this universe there is a soul and there is a body. The connection of these two can be disrupted or altered. It's fairly simple once you understand the concept and accept it as the truth of this universe.

Yea, Matt turned his head WAY sideways so obviously he dove really deep.

Seriously though there are a lot of different paradigms you could apply, many of which would not require a "deep dive". I prefer the computer analogy, he could have just done a quick format then overwrote Sylar's brain with Nathan. He didn't seem to have the time to do a good low-level format, so Sylar's data might still be in parts of the brain that were not overwritten. In keeping with the computer analogy, it would be quite a surprise to find that while you were reformatting a hard drive that the entire contents of that drive just copied itself to another location (something that one would think would not be that easy to do). That's the main thing I don't like about it, that somehow a fully functional Sylar personality got copied into Matt's head....by accident. It's too metaphysical, but after the eclipse and "catalyst" I guess we shouldn't be surprised

Of course the rest of Pyramyd's post was completely ignored.

I'll buy that.

I still think is a combination of both. I've used the hard drive comparison myself, and definately believe that the Nathan-memories are what is "on the hard drive." I also believe that the memories "restored" to him were of the "physical, this body has been thru these events" type of imprint that clairvoyant touch ties into, and were not lost kernals on the hard drive.

Yes, it would be hard to accidentally copy the "hard drive" into your own brain while doing this, but I don't think it was Matts fault. A telepathic link is two ways, and with Matt that deep in Sylar's psyche doing the "format G:\*.*" (yes i'm an old school nerd) his brain was just as open to Sylar escaping the mindwipe and choosing to (or subconsciously) imprinting himself in Matt - off the "drive" being formatted.


Seeing the way they are showing the "souls" coexisting in Parkman, I am definately leaning towards reopening a S1 debate - the Company lies, anyways - - I am fully leaning back on some sort of mental transference with Nikki and Jessica again. Not that it was actually Jessica...since she wouldn't have looked like Nikki.... but maybe Barbara, who we've never seen? She could be dead already - or have some type of astral projection ability as we used to theorize about. IMO it still could hold water. You could even take it a step further - what if all of them are branches of a Jamie Madrox type character that developed separate abilities as separate individuals?

Thank you and to take this theory a little further. I believe that Sy/Nathan stayed shapshifted into Nathan by the ring he always wore. This also gave Sy/Nathan access to all the memories of Nathan's adult life. When he was shot and the ring removed he lost a big chunk of who Nathan was and reverted to his original form.

It makes sense superficially, but once the memorie are there, aren't they pretty much "stored" and pretty subconscious? The mind was already told (ordered) by Parkman to assemble those memories into a form that is interpreted as personal memories. Theres no reason for those things to be gone from the slate just because their origin is from someplace else.

To continue the hard drive analogy, the ring was the Install CD, but the memories are now permanently on the hard drive.

Mental trauma, Nathan didn't know he was immortal... and he was brutally murdered. Thats enough to throw any psyche into confusion.

Matt didn't know squat about the death of that girl. Not even Nathan knew about it(he experienced it, but didn't remember because Angela had the Haitian erase his memory). Nylar found out about it because of his Clairsentience touch, which is the ability to see the history of any object by touching it. When he touched the hat, he saw what happened.

*headdesk*
Thank you.

That's why they went to such great pains to point out that the hat he was touching when he first saw it was the same one he was wearing the night she died. Then showed him going through the area and touching everything that might have seen more.

The question remains whether or not Nathan really had it blacked out or whether that was Angela covering her butt as to why "Nathan" wasn't remembering it.

This might be a first, but got to agree with you here.

You can thank me for Synch's "what they showed us" line; something he will now use wherever he goes.

I'm touched.

Hey, I have been trying really hard to find a relationship between these two characters and their actual existence. How they can both exist in one body despite it actually being Sylar's real body. Really, how much of Nathan actually exists and how.
Thanks for this insight. I really should have caught on sooner. Anyways, this shows how the extent of Nathan's memory is limited.
I have posted earlier here with a long winded attempt with my theories. I was trying to imply that Nathan can only really ever exist as an interpretation now. In contrast, to Nathan's self and memories actually being transferred which I don't agree with totally. Anyways, I'm not sure if I make sense but oh well.

wow ok this is too much, i personaly like what they have done, and i dont read commics. the drinking part was weird, but i think sylar was pretending to get hurt, he planned ahead.

Actually...it doesn't remain. It was answered. Angela told us, quite clearly, that she had the Haitian wipe it from his memory.

Angela is a liar. She VERY easily could have made that up, on the spot, as to why Nathan isn't remembering something he very well should have been.

Umm....as far as Nathan knew, she ran away and was living la vida loca in wherever the heck she supposedly went.

He didn't suppress the memory.

How do you know?

who's to say that it was suppressed or the Haitian erased it? Maybe he knew the whole time and just lived with it. I thought it seemed like Angela was lying about the Haitian thing. You could tell by the way she said it.

IMO, Nathan never forgot about the incident and sylar/ Nathan didn't know about it because it wasn't one of the memories he had acquired.

In fact, I think we can be pretty certain that the Haitian had nothing to do with it because in the episode "company man" there is a flahback to when Claire was a baby where the Haitian is clearly a teenager and they say that the company had only recently found him.