Let's talk about Candice and Illusions

[sylar]

I’ve been so busy this week being a grown up, getting my website put together and spamming about my novel being out, that I’m in desperate need of some quality fandom time. The talk about Nathan being completely OOC in Season 3 was so awesome that I thought I’d find something else to get us all going.

Also don’t forget about the Drabble Tree. Let

Comments

[game_byrd]

The plotlines that I've managed to stumble across as what they had originally planned for season two are frustrating in how appealing they were. For example, they were going to link up Adam Monroe with Niki Sanders, yet instead, the debacle of the writer's strike killed both of them. The original intention for the disease was that it would be released and Maya and Alejandro, working together, would contain it. There are so many tantalizing possibilities

[game_byrd]

Their inclusion of time travel and the ability to change the past broke my belief in the realism of abilities. Candace's ability could include the radiation of a visual and auditory component of the illusion that would register on camera and film. We don't know how it works - we only know that it would logically have to work on cameras, both due to the presidential problem and that her appearance was unknown to Micah, when all he needed was a single streetside or building security camera along their route to or from the voting area.

[sylar]

Micah wasn't looking at those things. If he had, he'd have seen Betty. He had other things on his mind like going home.

There is no way she could use her power that way. Why is it so hard for you to see that in 5 years that Sylar might have taken SHapeshifting AND Illusions?

Also your argument about time travel and teleportation? Does that mean you think Hiro should have a lightning scar on his forehead and study with Dumbledore?

If you travel back in time, you can change the past. That change creates alternate realities. That's a scientific theory.

[game_byrd]

I share your frustration about the plot holes. Things would be so much more straight forward if the writers had had Sylar thanking shape-shifting for his ability to mimic Nathan, instead of Candace.

I completely agree with you that Sylar could easily have had shapeshifting as well as illusions. Given his role as the president and access to information on specials, I'd be surprised if he *didn't* have both. At that point, it's likely one of those times when the question "How many powers does Sylar have in FYG?" is best answered with "Most of them".

[game_byrd]

It sounds like we have lots of areas of agreement. It was an ass-pull on the part of the writers. It is dumb, as I said in my first post on it. If powers have logical, common-sense limits like 'Candace's illusions operate on the minds viewing her, and do not include light wave emission', then they won't work on cameras.

And it sounds like you're agreeing with me that many powers don't conform to science as we know it.

The 'light emission' theory was me straining to find a way to explain why Sylar thanked Candace (and by implication her illusion power) for being president, and how he would have gotten around cameras using only illusion. It's a strain! I'm with you there. I'm having to ass-pull rationalizations to make up for the insult to our intelligence that the writers put on the screen.

[sylar]

Exactly there is no magic in Heroes. It is powers of specials that people before the age of science thought was magic....

Candice's power will not work on camera. It can't. A camera doesn't have a mind/eyes to fool. A camera sees the truth. Period.

Candice somehow could access a person's mind to see what they wanted to see. Her power was HUGE when you think about all she had to do to create a viable illusion that would fool someone. And she used it all the time to hide her true self from anyone just looking in her direction.

Sylar was a great actor. He knew how to create a character. I agree with you that he might have had illusions, but he also had shapeshifting. I think they said in the graphic novels or somewhere that he'd pretty much grazed through the internment camps, taking what he wanted at the buffet line.