Sylar and Krycek
Warning: long-winded rambling
So, I have been watching Heroes. The experience is eerily similar to my introduction to the X-Files years ago. Sadly, without any late nights in the TV lounge of a catholic student dormitory involving some romancing, beer, sweet liqueurs and tea. Those were the days! I remember... Hum, actually, let's get back to the X-Files chapter of my fannish memoirs after some Heroes comments!
My newest fannish fling, so to speak, is Heroes. I have no idea if this is going to be as serious and lengthy as my involvement with the X-Files, but at least the way I got into the fandom was very similar.
I made a late coming into the fandom. I hadn't watched a single episode until this summer. Heroes was almost completely under radar for me - I guess the only tidbit I could recall from what I had seen online was that there were the brothers called Petrelli, and some fans wrote slash about them. Ans then I was slow to get interested in the show even after I started watching it. I watched the first season - was bored. The second season wasn't much better.
I didn't get motivation of any of the characters. The pompous opening and closing narrations didn't mean anything! I couldn't get interested in Claire's teen angst. The secret organization abducting people, experimenting on them... Blah. The Petrelli family's issues seemed insignificant. (For some reason I often initially find stories about well-off people uninteresting; I am not sure why.)
My initial impression of Sylar was not favourable. First, he was just a creep skulking in the shadows. Then, after the short view into his background, he was just pathetic. How lame a motivation is "I just want to be special" for serial murders? And I had seen the new Star Trek movie before any episode of the Heroes, watching Zachary Quinto usually just reminded me to go to the movies to see Trek for Nth time, or to seek out some Spock fan fiction.
In spite of plot holes and general incomprehensibility, I liked the show well enough to keep on watching. I liked Hiro and Ando, and after a while I warmed up for D.L. Hawkins and Micah. And of course, Dr. Mohinder Suresh is extremely easy on the eyes. I also liked the Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe plot - though I was disappointed at him being a gaijin. WHY did they feel it was a good idea to place an Anglo-Saxon bushido warrior at that particular time period in Japan?!
Still, it wasn't until the third season that I was hooked. I really liked the wild, insane, inconstant Sylar characterization (he's evil! or perhaps not! sympathetic! evil again! or is he?). That rollercoaster ride made Sylar my "new Krycek". They are only vaguely similar character types: on the bad guy end of the morality scale, acting as a trickster confusing the plot and flustering protagonists, and, well, they get hurt frequently enough for me to get interested. They are the best thing in the show for me, and the focal point for my fannish imagination.
Sylar doesn't fill quite the same kind of need for me that Krycek does, though. Krycek is a necessary dark pair for Mulder. Sylar is more like an adversary for all the other characters, dark side of everyone. In a way Sylar and Peter manage the Krycek/Mulder-esque dynamics, though, their abilities are complementary and they are (mostly) on different sides. And the brotherhood theme binds them together nicely (I so hope we get some decent Nathan-Sylar/Peter interaction in the 4th season). But Sylar isn't as bound to any character as Krycek is to Mulder.
My fascination with the Heroes is transformative - just like with the X-Files. I am not quite happy with I see, but more than happy to ask what-if questions, to tilt the canon a bit, to play with it, to see it primarily as a source for fan fiction. And Sylar is an excellent character to use when you want to twist the show a bit. He can set up the self-righteous heroes and villains, and to challenge status quo. Sylar can transform himself (heh, quite literally) and mess up with characters around him, making them change too.
The X-Files was another one of those shows I had a difficult beginning with. I didn't even like the series at first, but it grew on me, and then there was Krycek.
It was 1997 or something, and I had managed to avoid the series that long. Some of my friends had been enthusiastic about it at high school (Was that really so long ago? Huh!), and it was a big hit in Finland, but those few episodes I had seen were just dull.
But in 1997 I was living in a student dormitory with a nice guest room/TV lounge, and there was this dorm mate I had a crush on, and I would have done anything if it meant I got to spend more time with her. So when she suggested we'd spend late nights alone together in a TV lounge, drinking beer and watching the X-Files reruns, I was all for it. I think I got into series somewhere in the late season one.
Awesome hot blond dorm girl: There's this series, X-files. You should watch it. It's a phenomenon.
I: OK. I think I have heard about it. But what's it about?
Dorm girl: Two FBI agents chasing scary monsters, and there's a top level conspiracy concerning the aliens.
I: Oh! There's a critical attitude towards the government, then?
Dorm girl: Have a beer.
After some episodes I was bored. Conspiracy? Blah. Monsters? Blah. Mulder was annoying. Scully looked nice in suit, though.
I: The main plot is ridiculous, the main character quite obviously plain mad, everyone's acting irrationally and irresponsibly and without any moral consistency...
The coolest person on earth: But isn't it entertaining! And Scully - sex on legs!
I: Shouldn't it be coherent at least internally? If there's no sense in the plot, shouldn't the characters be somehow... consistent in their actions and motivations? The only morally logical role was that of the Cancerman.
Person: Shut up and watch Scully walk.
The second season and the first appearance of Krycek didn't cheer me up in any way. I remember being darkly amused by the poor Duane Barry - I was sure that was what Mulder was going to end up in a few years. My friend was kind enough to keep on explaining the finer points of the series.
The best drinking buddy ever: Don't sleep. There's a show going on. Mulder's drugged crazy.
I: So what's new? Heyheyhey, was that Krycek?
Drinking buddy: Yes. Killed Mulder's dad.
I: Hey, cool! Did he kill Scully's sister, too? Oh, wow, he's playing against the Cancerman! And he was ambiguous even before this! Actually, this is getting interesting.
Drinking buddy: The whole show is a kind of ambiguous and vague about truths, haven't you noticed?
During the 3rd season, after hours and hours episodes and after bottles and bottles beer, I finally got hooked. And on what? Krycek. It was the Piper Maru/ Apocrypha episodes.
My bestest friend forever: *concentrated on the plot and scary aliens*
I: KRYCEK! Did you see him? It was him in Hongkong!
Friend: So what?
I: Why didn't you say he would return? See, that's him again! Very sexy!
Friend: ... Of all the things you could have got interested in, why Krycek?
It was a bit puzzling. Krycek was just as two-dimensional a character as the rest of the pack. There wasn't a lot of the personal history or motivation to contemplate or explain his actions - but somehow it was exiting nevertheless.
I think it was because I had already been waiting for someone like Krycek. For me, there were constant problems in the show. The text kept understanding and rewarding the main protagonist for ideas and actions that I felt highly questionable. Now the text provided an answer: a player opposing the protagonist, in a sense at the same level of the game, had his own (unknown) agenda, stirred the plot, deceived everyone. Earlier I had sympathized with the Cancerman to some extent, but he wasn't an equal sparring partner for Mulder. Krycek was - they were equally not quite thoroughly informed, they were wild cards on their own sides. And Cancerman's role as a malevolent spider controlling the web of lies wasn't as interesting as the unpredictable, beguiling Krycek.
The text didn't use Krycek as much as I would have wished, though.
I: Wait a minute - did they leave him in the silo to die? Bastards!
But after Tunguska/Terma I didn’t even complain about the canon anymore. The text had delivered wonderful material for alternative readings. I was happy to re-interpret things. The fourth season cemented my Krycek-centric view on the series.
I: Mulder is strangely obsessed with Krycek.
The most awesome girl friend: Mulder is strangely obsessed with everything. It's his nature.
I: Didn't he say his parents were Cold War immigrants? Perhaps they were double agent scientists who "defected" from the USSR, but who really were sent to spy the Consortium for some Russian organization...
Girl friend: You are not getting the point of this show. The main thing is not Krycek.
I: Isn't it? Oh.
Girl friend: You are strangely obsessed with Krycek.
I: Finally a shared experience I can use for identifying with Mulder.
All my readings of the X-files are inherently "fanfictive". I have some issues with the source material, but I care about the canon enough that I don't want to abandon it totally. Instead, I want to quarrel with it, challenge it, transform, fix it, poke it in various ways. So, even after the show started to decline, and the main plot got even more disjointed and implausible than earlier, even after the episode Existence, I was happy with my alternative Krycek prism: through that I could always work the canon look better suited to my tastes.
And now I have managed to stir up the old urges. I must go read some Krycek/Mulder fics right now.
Hm, speaking of Heroes and the X-Files and fan fiction at the same time - more crossovers, please. Seriously, Heroes/X-Files fics with Sylar and Krycek could be terrific. There's that impeding alien invasion coming in a few years, says the X-Files mytharc. The evolved humans of the Heroes would provide a nice resistance. And a Heroes-inspired ability would be a nice trick to allow Krycek survive the Existence (I'd vote for a phoenix-like power to be reborn in fire - there's great dramatic potential there). Despite the genre differences (superhero comics meet scificrime), the both shows have something to give each other in fan fiction. The X-Files fic would benefit from the irrelevant, crazy "science" of the Heroes, and the Heroes fics need a touch of "let's pretend this is real" from the X-Files.
In conclusion: fan fiction needs to be written.
So, I have been watching Heroes. The experience is eerily similar to my introduction to the X-Files years ago. Sadly, without any late nights in the TV lounge of a catholic student dormitory involving some romancing, beer, sweet liqueurs and tea. Those were the days! I remember... Hum, actually, let's get back to the X-Files chapter of my fannish memoirs after some Heroes comments!
My newest fannish fling, so to speak, is Heroes. I have no idea if this is going to be as serious and lengthy as my involvement with the X-Files, but at least the way I got into the fandom was very similar.
I made a late coming into the fandom. I hadn't watched a single episode until this summer. Heroes was almost completely under radar for me - I guess the only tidbit I could recall from what I had seen online was that there were the brothers called Petrelli, and some fans wrote slash about them. Ans then I was slow to get interested in the show even after I started watching it. I watched the first season - was bored. The second season wasn't much better.
I didn't get motivation of any of the characters. The pompous opening and closing narrations didn't mean anything! I couldn't get interested in Claire's teen angst. The secret organization abducting people, experimenting on them... Blah. The Petrelli family's issues seemed insignificant. (For some reason I often initially find stories about well-off people uninteresting; I am not sure why.)
My initial impression of Sylar was not favourable. First, he was just a creep skulking in the shadows. Then, after the short view into his background, he was just pathetic. How lame a motivation is "I just want to be special" for serial murders? And I had seen the new Star Trek movie before any episode of the Heroes, watching Zachary Quinto usually just reminded me to go to the movies to see Trek for Nth time, or to seek out some Spock fan fiction.
In spite of plot holes and general incomprehensibility, I liked the show well enough to keep on watching. I liked Hiro and Ando, and after a while I warmed up for D.L. Hawkins and Micah. And of course, Dr. Mohinder Suresh is extremely easy on the eyes. I also liked the Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe plot - though I was disappointed at him being a gaijin. WHY did they feel it was a good idea to place an Anglo-Saxon bushido warrior at that particular time period in Japan?!
Still, it wasn't until the third season that I was hooked. I really liked the wild, insane, inconstant Sylar characterization (he's evil! or perhaps not! sympathetic! evil again! or is he?). That rollercoaster ride made Sylar my "new Krycek". They are only vaguely similar character types: on the bad guy end of the morality scale, acting as a trickster confusing the plot and flustering protagonists, and, well, they get hurt frequently enough for me to get interested. They are the best thing in the show for me, and the focal point for my fannish imagination.
Sylar doesn't fill quite the same kind of need for me that Krycek does, though. Krycek is a necessary dark pair for Mulder. Sylar is more like an adversary for all the other characters, dark side of everyone. In a way Sylar and Peter manage the Krycek/Mulder-esque dynamics, though, their abilities are complementary and they are (mostly) on different sides. And the brotherhood theme binds them together nicely (I so hope we get some decent Nathan-Sylar/Peter interaction in the 4th season). But Sylar isn't as bound to any character as Krycek is to Mulder.
My fascination with the Heroes is transformative - just like with the X-Files. I am not quite happy with I see, but more than happy to ask what-if questions, to tilt the canon a bit, to play with it, to see it primarily as a source for fan fiction. And Sylar is an excellent character to use when you want to twist the show a bit. He can set up the self-righteous heroes and villains, and to challenge status quo. Sylar can transform himself (heh, quite literally) and mess up with characters around him, making them change too.
The X-Files was another one of those shows I had a difficult beginning with. I didn't even like the series at first, but it grew on me, and then there was Krycek.
It was 1997 or something, and I had managed to avoid the series that long. Some of my friends had been enthusiastic about it at high school (Was that really so long ago? Huh!), and it was a big hit in Finland, but those few episodes I had seen were just dull.
But in 1997 I was living in a student dormitory with a nice guest room/TV lounge, and there was this dorm mate I had a crush on, and I would have done anything if it meant I got to spend more time with her. So when she suggested we'd spend late nights alone together in a TV lounge, drinking beer and watching the X-Files reruns, I was all for it. I think I got into series somewhere in the late season one.
Awesome hot blond dorm girl: There's this series, X-files. You should watch it. It's a phenomenon.
I: OK. I think I have heard about it. But what's it about?
Dorm girl: Two FBI agents chasing scary monsters, and there's a top level conspiracy concerning the aliens.
I: Oh! There's a critical attitude towards the government, then?
Dorm girl: Have a beer.
After some episodes I was bored. Conspiracy? Blah. Monsters? Blah. Mulder was annoying. Scully looked nice in suit, though.
I: The main plot is ridiculous, the main character quite obviously plain mad, everyone's acting irrationally and irresponsibly and without any moral consistency...
The coolest person on earth: But isn't it entertaining! And Scully - sex on legs!
I: Shouldn't it be coherent at least internally? If there's no sense in the plot, shouldn't the characters be somehow... consistent in their actions and motivations? The only morally logical role was that of the Cancerman.
Person: Shut up and watch Scully walk.
The second season and the first appearance of Krycek didn't cheer me up in any way. I remember being darkly amused by the poor Duane Barry - I was sure that was what Mulder was going to end up in a few years. My friend was kind enough to keep on explaining the finer points of the series.
The best drinking buddy ever: Don't sleep. There's a show going on. Mulder's drugged crazy.
I: So what's new? Heyheyhey, was that Krycek?
Drinking buddy: Yes. Killed Mulder's dad.
I: Hey, cool! Did he kill Scully's sister, too? Oh, wow, he's playing against the Cancerman! And he was ambiguous even before this! Actually, this is getting interesting.
Drinking buddy: The whole show is a kind of ambiguous and vague about truths, haven't you noticed?
During the 3rd season, after hours and hours episodes and after bottles and bottles beer, I finally got hooked. And on what? Krycek. It was the Piper Maru/ Apocrypha episodes.
My bestest friend forever: *concentrated on the plot and scary aliens*
I: KRYCEK! Did you see him? It was him in Hongkong!
Friend: So what?
I: Why didn't you say he would return? See, that's him again! Very sexy!
Friend: ... Of all the things you could have got interested in, why Krycek?
It was a bit puzzling. Krycek was just as two-dimensional a character as the rest of the pack. There wasn't a lot of the personal history or motivation to contemplate or explain his actions - but somehow it was exiting nevertheless.
I think it was because I had already been waiting for someone like Krycek. For me, there were constant problems in the show. The text kept understanding and rewarding the main protagonist for ideas and actions that I felt highly questionable. Now the text provided an answer: a player opposing the protagonist, in a sense at the same level of the game, had his own (unknown) agenda, stirred the plot, deceived everyone. Earlier I had sympathized with the Cancerman to some extent, but he wasn't an equal sparring partner for Mulder. Krycek was - they were equally not quite thoroughly informed, they were wild cards on their own sides. And Cancerman's role as a malevolent spider controlling the web of lies wasn't as interesting as the unpredictable, beguiling Krycek.
The text didn't use Krycek as much as I would have wished, though.
I: Wait a minute - did they leave him in the silo to die? Bastards!
But after Tunguska/Terma I didn’t even complain about the canon anymore. The text had delivered wonderful material for alternative readings. I was happy to re-interpret things. The fourth season cemented my Krycek-centric view on the series.
I: Mulder is strangely obsessed with Krycek.
The most awesome girl friend: Mulder is strangely obsessed with everything. It's his nature.
I: Didn't he say his parents were Cold War immigrants? Perhaps they were double agent scientists who "defected" from the USSR, but who really were sent to spy the Consortium for some Russian organization...
Girl friend: You are not getting the point of this show. The main thing is not Krycek.
I: Isn't it? Oh.
Girl friend: You are strangely obsessed with Krycek.
I: Finally a shared experience I can use for identifying with Mulder.
All my readings of the X-files are inherently "fanfictive". I have some issues with the source material, but I care about the canon enough that I don't want to abandon it totally. Instead, I want to quarrel with it, challenge it, transform, fix it, poke it in various ways. So, even after the show started to decline, and the main plot got even more disjointed and implausible than earlier, even after the episode Existence, I was happy with my alternative Krycek prism: through that I could always work the canon look better suited to my tastes.
And now I have managed to stir up the old urges. I must go read some Krycek/Mulder fics right now.
Hm, speaking of Heroes and the X-Files and fan fiction at the same time - more crossovers, please. Seriously, Heroes/X-Files fics with Sylar and Krycek could be terrific. There's that impeding alien invasion coming in a few years, says the X-Files mytharc. The evolved humans of the Heroes would provide a nice resistance. And a Heroes-inspired ability would be a nice trick to allow Krycek survive the Existence (I'd vote for a phoenix-like power to be reborn in fire - there's great dramatic potential there). Despite the genre differences (superhero comics meet scificrime), the both shows have something to give each other in fan fiction. The X-Files fic would benefit from the irrelevant, crazy "science" of the Heroes, and the Heroes fics need a touch of "let's pretend this is real" from the X-Files.
In conclusion: fan fiction needs to be written.