1) It's not the slowness that bothers me, it's the complete dead-end-ness of it. (Okay, the slowness bothers me too, because the plot should have been kicking into high gear then. But that's not my primary complaint.)
2) This is actually my main complaint with the episode: that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, re: the show and motherhood. The others I'd be more inclined to overlook if I enjoyed the episode more. But it doesn't require as much explanation, so I don't talk about it as much.
3) I don't know. I read manga wherein the protagonist's half-brother who wants to rip out his eyeballs and keep them in a jar gets a sympathy flashback wherein his father kills his pet lamb and he crawls inside it for the warmth, and it is totally awesome! But that's consistent with that manga's worldview general insanity levels and take on psychological realism. In Heroes -- I would actually prefer -- not "he's evil because he is," but a reason that doesn't shift responsibility onto somebody else (his mom) at the last minute and validate all the split personality Gabriel vs. Sylar fic. And obviously it's not that all the responsibility is his mother's, but -- why shift some at all? At that point?
I wanted someone he did care about
Well, like I said to Adiva, I liked the implication that he really did consider Mohinder a friend. That made me feel sorry for him in a way I'm totally okay with feeling sorry for him.
but I was never satisfied with Chandra's research being the only emotional catalyst for the sudden switch-flipping change between Mild-Mannered Watchmaker With Secret Yearning For More and Brain-Eating Psychopath
I was, because mild manners or not, I didn't have any trouble seeing Gabriel Gray in "Six Months Ago" as a potential Sylar. It made more sense to me before "The Hard Part" -- the snow globe scene, where he starts to smile crazily while they're spinning around and shifts into Sylar behavior that is distinct from Gabriel Gray not just in behavior but in sanity, seems a lot less "mentally unbalanced young man gets more power than is safe for him to have" and more "and then magic made his eyes turn black and Tara dumped him." And I can see wanting an explanation for that mental unbalance, but -- possibly the crux of the matter is that for me, the one we get in "The Hard Part" feels cliched and pastede on yay.
And for the record, I think the "I want to hug Sylar" reactions are entirely reasonable given the way the scene plays out. My problem is with the show woobifying him, not the fans.
The placement -- here I spoil the finale. I will say this part later, when you're on AIM or Adiva's finished the finale. But I like the placement, and two non-spoilery things: (1) if it had not happened just as the end run was beginning, it wouldn't feel so origin story-ish to me, and (2) I don't think the raised body count has had the effect you do. I think it is a lot easier to sympathize with Sylar by 1x21 than it was when all we knew of him was his voice and his shadowy face and his trail of corpses. I don't think there's any room before he's racked up an impressive and viscerally disturbing body count for flashbacks without wrecking the balance of mysterious and terrifying.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 02:02 am (UTC)2) This is actually my main complaint with the episode: that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, re: the show and motherhood. The others I'd be more inclined to overlook if I enjoyed the episode more. But it doesn't require as much explanation, so I don't talk about it as much.
3) I don't know. I read manga wherein the protagonist's half-brother who wants to rip out his eyeballs and keep them in a jar gets a sympathy flashback wherein his father kills his pet lamb and he crawls inside it for the warmth, and it is totally awesome! But that's consistent with that manga's worldview general insanity levels and take on psychological realism. In Heroes -- I would actually prefer -- not "he's evil because he is," but a reason that doesn't shift responsibility onto somebody else (his mom) at the last minute and validate all the split personality Gabriel vs. Sylar fic. And obviously it's not that all the responsibility is his mother's, but -- why shift some at all? At that point?
I wanted someone he did care about
Well, like I said to Adiva, I liked the implication that he really did consider Mohinder a friend. That made me feel sorry for him in a way I'm totally okay with feeling sorry for him.
but I was never satisfied with Chandra's research being the only emotional catalyst for the sudden switch-flipping change between Mild-Mannered Watchmaker With Secret Yearning For More and Brain-Eating Psychopath
I was, because mild manners or not, I didn't have any trouble seeing Gabriel Gray in "Six Months Ago" as a potential Sylar. It made more sense to me before "The Hard Part" -- the snow globe scene, where he starts to smile crazily while they're spinning around and shifts into Sylar behavior that is distinct from Gabriel Gray not just in behavior but in sanity, seems a lot less "mentally unbalanced young man gets more power than is safe for him to have" and more "and then magic made his eyes turn black and Tara dumped him." And I can see wanting an explanation for that mental unbalance, but -- possibly the crux of the matter is that for me, the one we get in "The Hard Part" feels cliched and pastede on yay.
And for the record, I think the "I want to hug Sylar" reactions are entirely reasonable given the way the scene plays out. My problem is with the show woobifying him, not the fans.
The placement -- here I spoil the finale. I will say this part later, when you're on AIM or Adiva's finished the finale. But I like the placement, and two non-spoilery things: (1) if it had not happened just as the end run was beginning, it wouldn't feel so origin story-ish to me, and (2) I don't think the raised body count has had the effect you do. I think it is a lot easier to sympathize with Sylar by 1x21 than it was when all we knew of him was his voice and his shadowy face and his trail of corpses. I don't think there's any room before he's racked up an impressive and viscerally disturbing body count for flashbacks without wrecking the balance of mysterious and terrifying.