I have personal difficulty understanding a lot about dreaming/nightmares so I do have to wrap my mind around the whole concept. That said I love a good nightmare sequence! This one was awesome - realistic, expected where it needed to be and also unexpected, use of cliches with creative twists. I really can't gush enough about it.
Some of my favorite parts:
He'd given up fighting, so long ago. All he did any more was twist like a worm skewered on a hook - the futile, agonal spasms of the dying. It took him so very long to die. The torture was not merely physical. There was no ignoring it, for his mind was not his own either. He was driven on by urges and hungers, never satisfied, always itching for more. The craving devoured his ability to resist and there had never been anyone who tried to save him, no one to hold him back from falling into the abyss that yawned in front of him at every turn. He'd asked for this, in a way. He'd wanted to learn to fly, to soar, to rise above his circumstances. He hadn't realized it would instead be an endless freefall with so little ability to control his course. --Love the worm reference and the acknowledgement that he's dying, in life, behind the Wall (maybe), in his dream, especially that its taking forever for him to finally kick the bucket. Then what's really creative to me, because I read a lot of killing/dying in nightmares from Sy, but we never really read about the Hunger haunting him in his sleep. You used the flying/falling (I'll call it a cliche, not negatively) which I love, love, love. I have those nightmares all the time so I can relate deeply, but for him, the tie-ins to power/abilities, wanting more, life-goals, the Nathan mindfuck is awesome. And then that that same rise to power is also his Achilles heel.
To cope, he had become wooden inside. He tried to be as insensate as possible and during the day it was easy enough. During the day, there were distractions, an escape from his memories. He could hide behind snark and aggression, punishing anyone who got too close. They were always just leading him on anyway. Cotton and ice - that was how he'd described his waking mind. Muffled numbness was a refuge until someone got so close to him, warm against his skin, that he was forced to feel them. -- Beautiful. You nailed it. I read the most freaking cool thing the other day and I'm still noodling it, but I think it explains Sy's psychology/emotional/personality "problems" http://heroes-sylar.livejournal.com/861347.html#comments In short, ever since Its Coming, I'd gone with the theory that his empathy was (obviously) broken and his Hunger is a manifestation of his unfulfilled emotional/physical needs as a child and long after childhood. I'd read that Gabriel's real mother had empathy (which fits in a way since Samson didn't "take her power" but bothered to cut her head to kill her, which makes no sense in retrospect) and that Gabriel inherited that from her. So, yes, Gabriel/Sylar has repression going on, and for so long, that it eventually is painful for him to feel.
You're gonna love this...Somehow I never totally connected that all of Sylar's canon speeches about "You're a monster, just like me" meant that...*they* were HIS boogeymen and women. Not only does he say that to justify himself and bring them down to avoid blame, but they are scary-ass people who come in the night and lock him away. I love how child-like that fear is. And then, yes, that he's begging for someone who won't call him (insult him, really) a monster and abandon him to the real monsters in addition to begging for help so he doesn't become one/continue being one: "But if pretend-Peter was here, then were the monsters here, too? "Don't let them take me!"
The Hunger haunting him in his dreams was distantly inspired by your Chaos Theory entry, and how insidious the hunger was, eating him up inside. Even in The Wall, if he doesn't have his powers, I think he'd still have *nightmares* of having the Hunger and it driving him to do horrible things.
The theory on that link is excellent! It's not the way I see his power working, but it fits all the data in canon just as perfectly as the "IA is its own power separate from Empathic Mimicry". It might answer why, later, Sylar doesn't show much interest in gaining Peter's power, if he essentially already has it. Though it does not explain why Peter gaining IA drove him nuts, since IA should be the same thing as Peter's power (at that point in time).
I have personal difficulty understanding a lot about dreaming/nightmares so I do have to wrap my mind around the whole concept. That said I love a good nightmare sequence! This one was awesome - realistic, expected where it needed to be and also unexpected, use of cliches with creative twists. I really can't gush enough about it.
Some of my favorite parts:
He'd given up fighting, so long ago. All he did any more was twist like a worm skewered on a hook - the futile, agonal spasms of the dying. It took him so very long to die. The torture was not merely physical. There was no ignoring it, for his mind was not his own either. He was driven on by urges and hungers, never satisfied, always itching for more. The craving devoured his ability to resist and there had never been anyone who tried to save him, no one to hold him back from falling into the abyss that yawned in front of him at every turn. He'd asked for this, in a way. He'd wanted to learn to fly, to soar, to rise above his circumstances. He hadn't realized it would instead be an endless freefall with so little ability to control his course. --Love the worm reference and the acknowledgement that he's dying, in life, behind the Wall (maybe), in his dream, especially that its taking forever for him to finally kick the bucket. Then what's really creative to me, because I read a lot of killing/dying in nightmares from Sy, but we never really read about the Hunger haunting him in his sleep. You used the flying/falling (I'll call it a cliche, not negatively) which I love, love, love. I have those nightmares all the time so I can relate deeply, but for him, the tie-ins to power/abilities, wanting more, life-goals, the Nathan mindfuck is awesome. And then that that same rise to power is also his Achilles heel.
To cope, he had become wooden inside. He tried to be as insensate as possible and during the day it was easy enough. During the day, there were distractions, an escape from his memories. He could hide behind snark and aggression, punishing anyone who got too close. They were always just leading him on anyway. Cotton and ice - that was how he'd described his waking mind. Muffled numbness was a refuge until someone got so close to him, warm against his skin, that he was forced to feel them. -- Beautiful. You nailed it. I read the most freaking cool thing the other day and I'm still noodling it, but I think it explains Sy's psychology/emotional/personality "problems" http://heroes-sylar.livejournal.com/861347.html#comments In short, ever since Its Coming, I'd gone with the theory that his empathy was (obviously) broken and his Hunger is a manifestation of his unfulfilled emotional/physical needs as a child and long after childhood. I'd read that Gabriel's real mother had empathy (which fits in a way since Samson didn't "take her power" but bothered to cut her head to kill her, which makes no sense in retrospect) and that Gabriel inherited that from her. So, yes, Gabriel/Sylar has repression going on, and for so long, that it eventually is painful for him to feel.
You're gonna love this...Somehow I never totally connected that all of Sylar's canon speeches about "You're a monster, just like me" meant that...*they* were HIS boogeymen and women. Not only does he say that to justify himself and bring them down to avoid blame, but they are scary-ass people who come in the night and lock him away. I love how child-like that fear is. And then, yes, that he's begging for someone who won't call him (insult him, really) a monster and abandon him to the real monsters in addition to begging for help so he doesn't become one/continue being one: "But if pretend-Peter was here, then were the monsters here, too? "Don't let them take me!"
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The theory on that link is excellent! It's not the way I see his power working, but it fits all the data in canon just as perfectly as the "IA is its own power separate from Empathic Mimicry". It might answer why, later, Sylar doesn't show much interest in gaining Peter's power, if he essentially already has it. Though it does not explain why Peter gaining IA drove him nuts, since IA should be the same thing as Peter's power (at that point in time).
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