Heroes: Evolutionary Pressures
So, I've been thinking more about the mutations and the abilities they grant...
( A bit of disorganized rambling about evolutionary pressures in the Heroesverse )
( A bit of disorganized rambling about evolutionary pressures in the Heroesverse )
Gabriel's mutation did not lead him to kill. It is his obsession with being more that lead him to kill.
His ego, if you will. He'd always felt that he was better than this, destined for greatness. That's a very psychopathic trait.
(I don't consider being a sociopth a bad thing - they reckon that one in 200 is such a person and it came about because it was needed for leaders to survive. I'm an advocate in a an advice charity, merrily doing shitty things to help my clients. If there's a heaven for the merciful, I won't be seeing it.)
From what I've seen from other texts and treatises, he was already in a detail-oriented profession, that gave him very small power over things (he can make and fix watches)
He's always been dissatified and resentful of this, I beleive he comments that he was pushed into it by his parents, or at least did nothing to stop the course of his career.
He appears to have no outside connections to others. No friends, no synagogue - I just get the feeling he's Jewish, but you could apply that to any religion - but no hobbies, interests.
That's already hitting potential serial killer territory - I can't recall the grade of the top of my head of what type of killer he'd be - I'm assuming no mutation in that statement.
Now, yes, you can say rightly, he'd not killed when first discovered, and might never have done so, may have instead drank himself to death at fifty, embittered. he could equally have had some kind of revelation, sold the business and become a singer in Vegas. None of us know the future. And you can't castigate a man for what he may do.
But he went from being a meek and mild watchmaker to a killing the PK on the list very quickly when Suresh Snr was going to discontinue his studies on Sylar.
That's not normal by any stretch of the word. Normal would be to brood about it, then carry on with one's old life or change one's live situation constructively.
Not kill someone.
Now it's clear that Sylar had the same ability as Peter or he wouldn't be able to take on the powers of his victims after their deaths - he doesn't know that he doesn't have to kill them to get the power.(I'm guessing)
But Peter's personality hasn't changed as a result of his absorbing all the powers of the others, just his own ability to hold them stable within himself - though he's trying.
But if Peter is still Peter, then it's not such a huge leap for Gabriel to still be Gabriel.
That's why I think that sooner or later, Gabriel would have become a killer.
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Sociopathy is perhaps not negative, though I expect, as with all things, there are degrees. Being ubermensch is one thing. Being so ubermenschen that you decide you are judge, jury and executioner, hrm, that's rather another. ;) But, hey, Batman/Bruce Wayne is my one true love, and he's as sociopathic as they come. His decision not to kill is one of the most interesting things about him.
Anyhow, digression. I actually don't think that Peter and Sylar's powers are the same. Peter is an empath, he absorbs powers even if he doesn't know what they are. He understands the expression of the powers/emotions/etc. not the power itself.
Sylar understands what makes things tick. That's an analytical skill. Analysis requires breakdown into parts. I don't think Sylar has the ability to absorb powers without doing whatever he does. I think he is a watchmaker. That is, he is a Frankenstein-type monster or perhaps a Hyde, in that he has remade himself by adding pieces. He sees what he's doing as, as you say "becoming more".
Peter's just emerging/evolving and possibly exploding by absorbing too much. :)
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