title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: Thirty years have passed since Dr. Sam Beckett vanished into the Quantum Leap accelerator. The Quantum Leap project has been restarted with a new team trying to piece together the mysteries behind Beckett and his machine. For reasons unknown, Dr. Ben Song, the new project's lead physicist, has uploaded new program code to the project systems and used the upgraded accelerator to leap back in time. He becomes lost in the past just as Beckett did, living the lives of other people and changing history in hopes of getting back to the present. Project employee Addison Augustine, who is Ben's fiancée, acts as his liaison with the project, appearing to him as a hologram only he can see and hear, just as the previous project's observer Al Calavicci did for Beckett.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: In September 2021, Scott Bakula, who played main character Sam Beckett in the original series, hinted that a reboot of the original "Quantum Leap" was being considered with creator Donald P. Bellisario returning in some capacity. A pilot episode was ordered by NBC the following January with plans for writers Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt acting as showrunners with executive producers Martin Gero and with original series producer and writer Deborah Pratt. Helen Shaver was hired to direct the pilot episode and executive produce as well. NBC ordered the show to series in May after reviewing the pilot.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: After it received a full series order, Aadrita Mukerji and Dean Georgaris joined as additional executive producers, and Gero took over as showrunner while Lilien and Wynbrandt stayed with the series as executive producers. A new pilot was directed by Thor Freudenthal, with the original pilot being scheduled to air later in the season. The decision not to launch the revival with the original pilot was made in order to provide a better introduction to the series, and it was rescheduled as the sixth episode with some reshoots added for context.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: In September 2022, Bakula confirmed that he had been asked by producers to reprise his role as Sam Beckett in the revival, but ultimately decided to not be involved with the new series, saying in a statement on Instagram, "As the show has always been near and dear to my heart, it was a very difficult decision to pass on the project".


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: After the first three episodes had aired, NBC ordered six additional episodes for the first season, bringing its total to 18 episodes. In December 2022, NBC renewed the series for a second season.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: Raymond Lee was the first actor cast in the show, taking the lead role as Dr. Ben Song in March 2022. Shortly afterwards, the cast was filled out with Ernie Hudson, Nanrisa Lee, Mason Alexander Park, and Caitlin Bassett, making her television debut. After being ordered to series, Georgina Reilly joined the cast in a recurring role.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: "Quantum Leap" premiered on September 19, 2022. The show is available to stream on Peacock and NBC website and NBC app with ads.


title: Quantum Leap (2022 TV series)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 50% approval rating with an average rating of 5.2/10, based on 20 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "This more serialized reboot of "Quantum Leap" has enough heart to merit a look from viewers with the luxury of time, but it often forgets to have fun with the episodic structure that made the original a classic." On Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on eight critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a narrative poem by English author Robert Browning, written on January 2, 1852, and first published in 1855 in the collection titled "Men and Women". The poem is often noted for its dark and atmospheric imagery, inversion of classical tropes, and use of unreliable narration. Childe Roland, the only speaker in the poem, describes his journey towards "the Dark Tower," and his horror at what he sees on his quest. The poem ends when Roland finally reaches the tower, leaving his ultimate fate ambiguous.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: The poem opens with Roland's suspicion about the truthfulness of a "hoary" crippled man with "malicious eye", whose advice he nevertheless follows by choosing to turn off the thoroughfare into an 'ominous tract' that leads to the Dark Tower. The gloomy, cynical Roland describes how he had been searching for the tower for so long that he could barely feel any joy at finally finding the pathway to it, just a grim hope "that some end might be". Roland describes himself as being like "a sick man very near to death" whose friends have all abandoned him, as Roland had always been dismissed as a member of "The Band"—a group of knights searching for the Dark Tower, all of whom had failed in their quest. Despite that, all Roland wants is to join The Band, whatever the cost.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: As soon as he steps into the path towards the Dark Tower, the landscape around him shifts, and Roland finds himself completely alone in a featureless wasteland. Wandering onwards, he describes the desolate conditions with increasing despair, until he finds the emaciated body of a horse. Roland is disgusted by its appearance, saying "I never saw a brute I hated so; / He must be wicked to deserve such pain."


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: In an attempt to regain some semblance of strength after the trauma of his surroundings, Roland tries to remember happier times, and thinks back on his old friends. The memory of his friends and fellow knights Cuthbert and Giles bring him comfort, but he then remembers the downfall of each of them (Cuthbert by "one night's disgrace," and Giles by being hanged and declared a traitor by his friends), and his heart is shattered all over again.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Declaring "better this present than a past like that," Roland finds the energy to keep on moving. He reaches a river which he fords with trepidation, half-convinced that he is stepping on dead bodies floating under the water. Reaching the other bank, Roland is disturbed once more by the apocalyptic landscape, envisioning some dreadful battle that must have happened to create the scene of devastation he observes. Eventually the plain gives way to mountains, and Roland finds himself stuck, unable to find a clear path forward.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Suddenly, Roland realizes that the mountain he has been looking at is the very one that hides the Dark Tower.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: The sunset sets the scene ablaze at that very moment, and a strange sound fills the air. "[I]n a sheet of flame" Roland sees the faces of his dead friends, and hears their names whispered in his ears. Remembering their lives, Roland finds himself surrounded by a "living frame" of old friends. Filled with inspiration, he pulls out his "slug-horn", and blows, shouting "Childe Roland to the dark tower came".


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: The title, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare's play "King Lear" ("ca." 1607). In the play, Gloucester's son, Edgar, lends credence to his disguise as Tom o' Bedlam by talking nonsense, of which this is a part:


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: A "Childe" in this context is the eldest son of a nobleman who has not yet attained knighthood, or who has not yet "won his spurs." It has been proposed that Browning also took inspiration from the 11th-century epic poem "The Song of Roland", which features Roland, Charlemagne's loyal paladin, blowing his hunting horn (as Childe Roland also does at the end of the poem) to call for help before he dies.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Browning claimed that the poem came to him in a dream, saying "I was conscious of no allegorical intention of writing it ... Childe Roland came upon me as a kind of dream. I had to write it then and there, and I finished it the same day, I believe. I do not know what I meant beyond that, and I do not know now. But I am very fond of it."


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Browning explores Roland's journey to the Dark Tower in 34 six-line stanzas with the rhyme scheme A-B-B-A-A-B, using iambic pentameter throughout. It is filled with images from nightmare, but the setting is given unusual reality by much fuller descriptions of the landscape than was normal for Browning at any other time in his career. Many complex visual motifs are woven throughout the poem, including images of disease and deformity, as well as fire (connected with redness and death), eyes (both seeing and blinded), the idea of being suddenly trapped, and destroyed plant life.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Despite having a clear narrative structure, the precise point at which a given scene shifts to another is made unclear throughout much of the poem, creating a sense of "esthetic inevitability" in the reader.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: The setting of Childe Roland is nightmarish and hallucinatory in nature, and seems to act as a sort of mirror to Roland's psyche throughout the poem. Catharine Blass writes:


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: "Roland participates in a seemingly endless, futile quest deep into a landscape that he can never be certain exists outside of his own mind. He is unable to rely fully on his senses to determine his place or direction, which leaves him in mental and emotional agony. At times, he sees things that immediately after disappear, or that shift in front of his eyes; at other times, his senses abandon him completely ...The speaker appears to see these images with his eyes as he would something tangible; yet, his sight proves unreliable since these supposedly concrete, observable images ... move in and out of his consciousness. His 'seeing' of these figures occurs, in part, within his own mind, and is inseparable from his conscious thoughts about seeing each."


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: William Lyon Phelps proposes three different interpretations of the poem: In the first two, the Tower is a symbol of a knightly quest. Success only comes through failure or the end is the realization of futility. In his third interpretation, the Tower is simply damnation.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: For Margaret Atwood, Childe Roland is Browning himself, his quest is to write this poem, and the Dark Tower contains that which Roland/Browning fears most: Roland/Browning ""in his poem-writing aspect"".


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: Harold Bloom reads the poem as a "loving critique" of Shelley, and describes Roland as questing for his own failure.


title: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

text: A footnote in the Penguin Classics edition ("Robert Browning Selected Poems") advises against allegorical interpretation, saying “readers who wish to try their hand should be warned that the enterprise strongly resembles carving a statue out of fog.” This sentiment is echoed by many critics, who believe any quest for interpretation will ultimately fail, due to the dreamlike, illusionary nature of the poem.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Pope Innocent X (; ; 6 May 1574 – 7 January 1655), born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj (or Pamphili), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 September 1644 to his death in January 1655.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Born in Rome of a family from Gubbio in Umbria who had come to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Innocent IX, Pamphili was trained as a lawyer and graduated from the Collegio Romano. He followed a conventional "cursus honorum", following his uncle Girolamo Pamphili as auditor of the Rota, and like him, attaining the position of cardinal-priest of Sant'Eusebio. Before becoming pope, Pamphili served as a papal diplomat to Naples, France, and Spain.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Pamphili succeeded Pope Urban VIII (1623–44) on 15 September 1644 as Pope Innocent X, after a contentious papal conclave that featured a rivalry between French and Spanish factions.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Innocent X was one of the most politically shrewd pontiffs of the era, greatly increasing the temporal power of the Holy See. Major political events in which he was involved included the English Civil War, conflicts with French church officials over financial fraud issues, and hostilities with the Duchy of Parma related to the First War of Castro.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Giovanni Battista Pamphili was born in Rome on 5 May 1574, the son of Camillo Pamphili, of the Roman Pamphili family. The family, originally from Gubbio, was directly descended from Pope Alexander VI.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In 1594 he graduated from the Roman College and followed a conventional path through the ranks of the Catholic Church. He served as a consistorial lawyer in 1601, and in 1604 succeeded his uncle, Cardinal Girolamo Pamphili, as auditor of the Roman Rota, the ecclesiastical appellate tribunal. He was also a canonist of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, a second tribunal.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In 1623 Pope Gregory XV sent him as apostolic nuncio (ecclesiastical diplomat) to the court of the Kingdom of Naples. In 1625 Pope Urban VIII sent him to accompany his nephew, Francesco Barberini, whom he had accredited as nuncio, first to France and then Spain. In January 1626, Pamphili was appointed titular Latin Patriarch of Antioch.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In reward for his labors, in May 1626 Giovanni Battista was made nuncio to the court of Philip IV of Spain. The position led to a lifelong association with the Spaniards which was of great use during the papal conclave of 1644. He was created Cardinal "in pectore" in 1627 and published in 1629.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: The 1644 conclave for the election of a successor to Pope Urban VIII was long and contentious, lasting from 9 August to 15 September. A large French faction led by Urban VIII's nephews objected to the Spanish candidate, as an enemy of Cardinal Mazarin, who guided French policy. They put up their own candidate (Giulio Cesare Sacchetti) but could not establish enough support for him and agreed to Cardinal Pamphili as an acceptable compromise, though he had served as legate to Spain. Mazarin, bearing the French veto of Pamphili, arrived too late, and the election was accomplished.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Pamphili chose to be called Innocent X. Soon after his accession he initiated legal action against the Barberini for misappropriation of public funds. The brothers Francesco Barberini, Antonio Barberini and Taddeo Barberini fled to Paris, where they found a powerful protector in Cardinal Mazarin. Innocent X confiscated their property, and on 19 February 1646, issued a papal bull decreeing that all cardinals who might leave the Papal States for six months without express papal permission would be deprived of their benefices and eventually of their cardinalate itself. The French parliament declared the papal ordinance void in France, but Innocent X did not yield until Mazarin prepared to send troops to Italy. Henceforth the papal policy towards France became more friendly, and somewhat later the Barberini were rehabilitated when the son of Taddeo Barberini, Maffeo Barberini, married Olimpia Giustiniani, a niece of Innocent X.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In 1653, Innocent X, with the "Cum occasione" papal bull, condemned five propositions of Jansenius's "Augustinus", as heretical and close to Lutheranism. This led to the formulary controversy, Blaise Pascal's writing of the "Lettres Provinciales", and finally to the razing of the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal and the subsequent dissolving of its community.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: The death of Pope Urban VIII is said to have been hastened by his chagrin at the result of the First War of Castro, a war he had undertaken against Odoardo Farnese, the duke of Parma. Hostilities between the papacy and the Duchy of Parma resumed in 1649, and forces loyal to Pope Innocent X destroyed the city of Castro on 2 September 1649.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Innocent X objected to the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, which his nuncio, Fabio Chigi, protested in vain. In 1650 Innocent X issued the brief "Zelo Domus Dei" against the Peace of Westphalia, and backdated it to 1648 in order to preserve potential claims for confiscated land and property. The protests were ignored by the European powers.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: During the Civil War (1642–49) in England and Ireland, Innocent X strongly supported the independent Confederate Ireland, over the objections of Mazarin and the former English Queen and at that time queen mother, Henrietta Maria, exiled in Paris. The pope sent Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, archbishop of Fermo, as a special nuncio to Ireland. He arrived at Kilkenny with a large quantity of arms including 20,000 pounds of gunpowder, and a very large sum of money. Rinuccini hoped he could discourage the Confederates from allying with Charles I and the Royalists in the English Civil War and instead encourage them towards the foundation of an independent Catholic-ruled Ireland.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: At Kilkenny, Rinuccini was received with great honours, asserting in his Latin declaration that the object of his mission was to sustain the king but, above all, to rescue from pains and penalties the Catholic people of Ireland in securing the free and public exercise of the Catholic religion, and the restoration of the churches and church property. In the end, Oliver Cromwell restored Ireland to the Parliamentarian side and Rinuccini returned to Rome in 1649, after four fruitless years.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: During the papacy of Pope Urban VIII, the future Innocent X was the pope's most significant rival among the College of Cardinals. Antonio Barberini, Urban VIII's brother, was a cardinal who had begun his career with the Capuchin brothers. About 1635, at the height of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, in which the papacy was intricately involved, Cardinal Antonio commissioned Guido Reni's painting of the Archangel Michael, trampling Satan, who bears the recognizable features of Innocent X. This bold political artwork still hangs in a side chapel of the Capuchin friars' Church of the Conception (Santa Maria della Concezione) in Rome. A legend related to the painting is that the dashing and high-living artist, Guido Reni, had been insulted by rumours he thought were circulated by Cardinal Pamphili.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: When, a few years later, Pamphili was raised to the papacy, other Barberini relatives fled to France on embezzlement accusations. Despite this, the Capuchins held fast to their chapel altarpiece.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Innocent was responsible for raising the Colegio de Santo Tomás de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario into the rank of a university. It is now the University of Santo Tomás in Manila, the oldest existing in Asia.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In 1650, Innocent X celebrated a Jubilee. He embellished Rome with inlaid floors and bas-relief in Saint Peter's, erected Bernini's "Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi" in Piazza Navona, the Pamphili stronghold in Rome, and ordered the construction of Palazzo Nuovo at the Campidoglio.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Innocent X is also the subject of "Portrait of Innocent X", a famous painting by Diego Velázquez housed in the family gallery of Palazzo Doria (Galleria Doria Pamphili). This portrait inspired the "Screaming Pope" paintings by 20th-century painter Francis Bacon, the most famous of which is Bacon's "Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X".


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Olimpia Maidalchini was married to Innocent X's late brother, and was believed to be his mistress because of her influence over him in matters of promotion and politics. This state of affairs was alluded to in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" 9th edition (1880):


title: Pope Innocent X

text: In his later years, Innocent X suffered from gout, causing him intense pain and severely restricting his movements. The eighty-year-old pontiff's health began to decline in August 1654. By the evening of 26 December his condition had deteriorated to the extent that the family was summoned.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: On 27 December, he blessed his nephew, niece, and their children, and then had a brief meeting with Cardinals Flavio Chigi and Decio Azzolino. That night he had a little rest, though his condition did not improve.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: On 28 December, Innocent X received the Last rites and expressed his desire to take leave of the cardinals. In anticipation of the Pope's expected death many of the cardinals had already gathered in Rome in advance of a subsequent conclave. Thirty-nine gathered at his bedside at the Quirinal Palace.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: On 1 January 1655, Mass was celebrated at the pope's bedside, and the same was done on 6 January, when Innocent X also received the Viaticum for the last time. Secretary of State Chigi, who had been in attendance during the last twelve days, Prefect of the Sacred Palace Bishop Scotti, and Sacristan Monsignor Altini, as well as, various attendants were present when the Pope died on the night of 6 January 1655.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: The Swiss Guard escorted Papal Camerlengo Cardinal Antonio Barberini to the Quirinal to perform the requisite rituals and Cardinal de Medici visited with the Pope's three nephews, who were in another room. After an autopsy, the body was embalmed and the next day taken to the Vatican where it was placed on a catafalque in the Sistine Chapel. On 8 January it was transferred to St. Peter's Basilica, where the sealing of the coffin was witnessed by Cardinals Ludovisi, Chigi, Omodeo, Ottoboni, Santacroce, Aldobrandini, Vidman, Raggi, Pio and Gualtieri, Princes Pamphili, Ludovisi and Giustiniani, and the Master of Ceremonies Fulvio Servantio. A funeral held on 17 January. Innocent's tomb is located in the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone which he had built in 1652 adjacent to the family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, in Rome.


title: Pope Innocent X

text: Innocent X was succeeded by Pope Alexander VII who promised Innocent X that he would build more schools in Europe.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar (Gabriel Gray) is a fictional character and a primary antagonist of the NBC superhero drama series "Heroes". Portrayed by Zachary Quinto, he is a super-powered serial killer who targets other Superhumans in order to steal their powers. He served as the primary villain of the first season and then as a recurring antagonist. Over the course of seasons two, three and four, the writers depicted Sylar attempting at various times and under different circumstances to become a hero or curb his desire to kill, undergoing relapses at various stages. In the series' penultimate episode he experienced over three years of penitence in a mental prison, and later identifies himself as a hero in what became the show's series finale due to cancellation.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar was originally created as a cannibal who ate his victims' brains and "digested their power"; however, in order to avoid the potential silliness and zombie associations, the producers deliberately made this fact vague in the series. In an interview with series creator Tim Kring, it is asked if Sylar eats brains, and he merely states "That's the popular speculation. There's a connection between the powers and the brain, and Sylar has found it." The question is addressed in the season three premiere, when he is depicted in the act of acquiring Claire Bennet's regenerative powers through examination of her brain with his hands. When Claire asks him the same question, he sounds surprised and replies "Eat your brain? Claire, that's disgusting." The writers never bridged the gap between the early insinuations regarding what Sylar does with the brains and the final incarnation they reveal in his encounter with Claire.


title: Sylar

text: Prior to Quinto's first appearance in the episode "Seven Minutes to Midnight", the role of Sylar was played by stunt doubles in "One Giant Leap", with the character's face being obscured by shadows. Quinto himself played the role with his face hidden in the same way until "Six Months Ago". In the second episode of the first season, "Don't Look Back", his voice is heard in a recorded phone conversation on Chandra Suresh's answering machine, spoken by voice actor Maurice LaMarche. Part of this conversation is heard again in "Six Months Ago", this time spoken by Quinto.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar was raised as the son of a watchmaker, but was indoctrinated by his mother's repeated assertions to believe that he was special and deserved more in life. This and the "evolutionary imperative" to acquire new abilities are what drive him to kill the victims with powers. Taking the name "Sylar" from a watch brand, he has shed all connections to his former life as Gabriel Gray to the point where he angrily lashes out at anyone who calls him Gabriel.


title: Sylar

text: In addition to the above, Sylar shows a marked lack of empathy. As seen in the episode .07%, when shortly before killing Isaac Mendez, he casually comments on Mendez's lack of fear, with the sort of mild surprise that someone might express if he noticed that a train was running late.


title: Sylar

text: Although he at times tries to impersonate other people in order to obtain a longer-term goal, Sylar is also unable to completely control his "hunger," or obsessive tendencies, to the extent that he still intimidates people when he is trying to gain their trust or co-operation. This was seen with Mohinder Suresh, when Sylar tried to impersonate Zane Taylor, and also with Claire Bennet's mother when Sylar was looking for Claire, as well.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar's dominant trait was his innate desire to be recognized as special and admired. This was fueled by his mother's vocal disappointment in him for perceived failure and his own feelings that he did not get a chance to choose his destiny, being forced into the role of a watchmaker. He spent his life hoping to learn something extraordinary about himself.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar is repeatedly shown as desperately looking for a family and parental figures due to his own unhappy home life, desperately wanting to be loved. The flip side of this is that he can react with extreme violence when his emotional needs are exploited by others.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar is also known for his voracious appetite, and he can constantly be seen snacking or looking for food. He has even taken time during his murders to eat, such as when he reacted with joy at a birthday cake of the woman he just killed.


title: Sylar

text: The sad part is, he's initially well-intention-ed. He wants to improve his life. He wants to make a difference. He wants to matter. Through the process of realizing how to do that, he gets blinded and loses himself in the pursuit of it and goes a little crazy—'a little' being an understatement.


title: Sylar

text: He's definitely somebody that has been overcome by a hunger and overcome by a pursuit for power and for importance that did start a little more innocuously than it evolved into.


title: Sylar

text: I think there's a certain point at which you cross a line and it's sort of irrevocable... I don't know what the writers have in mind, but it would probably be kind of a challenge at this point, you know?


title: Sylar

text: I don't really look at him as, you know, absolutely good or bad. I think that he is constantly walking a line of ambiguity within himself and uncertainty within himself that defines the way he acts.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar, however, is also shown as very caring and thoughtful, like when he takes care of Angela Petrelli, when Arthur and Angela Petrelli claimed that they are Sylar's parents, which Peter wants to go to Pinehearst, Sylar didn't allow him to go alone because it is dangerous, and right after he murdered Brian Davis, he tries to commit suicide, feeling his guilt for murdering a person.


title: Sylar

text: The episode "Six Months Ago" reveals that Sylar's real name is Gabriel Gray, a highly talented watchmaker who follows his adoptive father's footsteps. He encounters Chandra Suresh, who tells Gabriel that he may be an evolved human with superhuman powers. Gabriel eagerly submits to testing. After being rejected by Suresh because the test results are indeterminate, Gabriel contacts another person on Suresh's list, Brian Davis. Gabriel discovers that he himself has the power of intuitive aptitude, and murders Davis for his telekinetic powers. After returning to Suresh, he becomes "Patient Zero", and continues to work with Suresh until Suresh realizes that Sylar is murdering the people that they meet and ultimately, Suresh is killed by Gabriel in his own cab precisely at 11:53 p.m.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar is first referenced in the first episode when Mohinder Suresh (Chandra Suresh's son) finds a cassette tape labeled "SYLAR" on both sides in his dead father's New York apartment. His character is next mentioned in the series as a mysterious serial killer sought out by the FBI, whose existence is completely speculative. Appearing as a shadowy figure, he attempts to obtain Molly Walker's power after failing the first time.


title: Sylar

text: In "Once Upon a Time in Texas", Sylar bumps into a future Hiro in front of the Burnt Toast Diner, and sidesteps him before entering. Here, he converses with Charlie, and discovers her power of enhanced memory. Sylar prepares to kill Charlie, but Hiro stops time and locks Sylar in a bus storage container. Later, when seeking Sylar to fix Charlie's aneurysm, Sylar angrily attacks Hiro, demanding to know what Hiro did to him. He attempts to kill Hiro, but Hiro prevents this with his time control. Finally, Hiro makes a deal: to tell Sylar about his future if he saves Charlie. Sylar proceeds to do so, and is miffed that he is told that - although he will become the most powerful person - he will die alone and unloved.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar proceeds to attempt to obtain Claire Bennet's regenerative abilities, but is stopped by Peter Petrelli. He is greatly injured and is captured by Eden McCain and the Haitian to be experimented on. After various experiments, Sylar manages to escape, but he is again repelled from an attempt to obtain Claire's power.


title: Sylar

text: Remembering Suresh's list, Sylar makes his way to Zane Taylor, and by posing as the person Zane was expecting, Mohinder Suresh, he kills him and obtains his power. After Mohinder arrives, Sylar poses as Zane, and convinces Mohinder to take him to help convince other people with special abilities that Mohinder's research is real. After Sylar acquires enhanced hearing from a woman named Dale, Mohinder discovers Sylar's identity and manages to incapacitate him with drugs. After experimenting on Sylar to create a new list of people with special powers and attempting to kill him, Mohinder is captured. After Peter shows up and is temporarily killed by Sylar, Mohinder knocks him out, but ends up leaving Isaac Mendez's address on the ground.


title: Sylar

text: After meeting Isaac, and being told that his fate is to die at the hands of the other heroes, he takes Isaac's power to paint the future. He soon finishes a painting depicting himself about to kill and acquire the power of the radioactive Ted Sprague, and believes himself to be the "exploding man". Believing that only those who "don't deserve" their powers are the ones that need to die, he doesn't want to kill innocent people. After attempting to confide in Mohinder, he returns home to his alleged mother, Virginia Gray, in the hope that she will tell him that it is fine not to be special and live as a normal watchmaker. She tells him that he can be anything, including the president, causing him to demonstrate his powers and accidentally injure her. This causes her to panic, which eventually leads to her death, and Sylar deciding that his path is correct.


title: Sylar

text: After acquiring the radioactive powers of Ted, Sylar paints a picture of himself facing off against Peter Petrelli at Kirby Plaza. Realizing Peter is part of his final destiny, Sylar prepares to hunt him down. Before he can leave, Ando Masahashi arrives to kill him, though Ando is easily thwarted. After Sylar discovers the comic depicting his death at the hands of Hiro Nakamura, Hiro appears and rescues Ando. Sylar sets off for Kirby Plaza to wait for Peter. After a struggle involving Sylar, Peter, Matt Parkman, and Niki Sanders, Peter begins the process of exploding, showing Sylar that he is not the exploding man. Soon after, Hiro arrives and impales Sylar through the stomach as the comic predicts, terribly wounding him. His last act is to telekinetically throw Hiro towards a building, forcing him to teleport and rendering him incapable of stopping Peter, as he collapses with a triumphant grin on his face while events that transpired throughout the season that end with his injury by Hiro play in his eyes. However, near the end of the episode, a trail of blood leading from where Sylar collapsed and ending at an open manhole is seen, indicating that Sylar is still alive.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar is rescued by Candice Wilmer, who uses her powers of illusion to make Sylar disappear. After undergoing eight surgeries, he eventually awakes and realizes that he cannot use his powers. Though Candice promises that they will come back eventually, he kills her and attempts to acquire her power in order to start over. After realizing that it also doesn't work, he attempts to leave, though he realizes that he is in the middle of a dense jungle in Mexico. After wandering for three days, he is rescued from the brink of death by the passing-by Maya and Alejandro Herrera. He introduces himself using his real name, and eventually finds out that they are in search of Chandra Suresh to help control Maya's power. He tells them that he knows Suresh, and that he will take them to him.


title: Sylar

text: He continues to travel with them, and while Alejandro becomes more distrustful of Sylar, Maya becomes more trusting of him. After teaching Maya to control her powers, he convinces her that her brother hates her and that in her heart she wanted to see his wife dead. Convincing her to send Alejandro away, Sylar is eventually confronted by Alejandro. He kills him, but states that he would have let Alejandro go had he not come back. Soon after, Maya confesses her love for Gabriel, and they reach Mohinder's apartment. Sylar attempts to obtain a cure for his condition, later revealed to be the same strain of the Shanti Virus which Niki was infected with. Upon finding that Sylar cannot use any of his obtained abilities, Mohinder attempts to kill Sylar, who then threatens him with a gun. This causes Maya to finally see Sylar's true intentions, so Sylar takes Maya, Mohinder and Molly hostage. Sylar agrees to go to Isaac's loft after Mohinder tells him tests need to be run. At the loft, Molly reveals to Maya that Alejandro is dead, who then goes to confront Sylar. He rolls his eyes as Maya screams at him, casually turns around and shoots her in the chest, and then tells Mohinder to cure Maya first. Elle enters the building and starts shooting at Sylar, but by then he has seen that the cure works, and he steals it and escapes.


title: Sylar

text: In "Villains", Hiro sees Sylar's life shortly after the murder of Brian Davis. Intensely remorseful over the act, Gabriel attempts to hang himself. Elle Bishop walks in and saves him by using her electric abilities to cut the rope, convincing him that he's a good person. However, she is actually working with Noah Bennet to get Sylar to reveal the method behind transferring powers from one person to another. Elle befriends Gabriel and the two begin to share feelings for each other. Against her wishes, Elle helps Noah manipulate him to kill again by introducing Gabriel to Trevor Zeitlan, a young man who can kinetically shatter objects by "shooting" at them with his thumb and forefinger. She purposefully enrages Gabriel by having Trevor repeatedly demonstrate his ability by shattering glasses while calling him "special." Gabriel turns on Elle, who tries to stop him from killing Trevor. When Gabriel realizes Elle also has an ability, he is furious and pushes her against the wall with his mind, commanding her to leave before turning on Trevor and taking his power. Bennet and Elle watch from the car as Gabriel attacks Trevor.


title: Sylar

text: In the third season, Sylar injects himself with the cure, healing his wounds and regaining use of his intuitive aptitude and telekinesis (though none of his other acquired powers). Sylar makes his way to California and finally takes Claire's power, though he does not kill her, claiming that she is special and that he couldn't do so even if he wanted to because he felt something special about her. He also takes several of the Company files on superhumans she had collected.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar breaks into Company headquarters, killing Bob Bishop and acquiring his power. He is captured after attempting to take Elle's power, which results in her involuntarily releasing an electric burst which knocks him unconscious. The discharge also disables the Level 5 security system, allowing a dozen dangerous inmates to escape the complex. Before Sylar can regain consciousness, he is locked up. During his imprisonment, Angela Petrelli claims that she is his mother and attempts to rehabilitate him. She allows him to kill Bridget Bailey, a woman who can see the history of an object by touching it, in order to feed his hunger for power. When Noah Bennet returns to the Company to hunt down the escaped villains, Angela assigns Sylar as his partner, sending the two out to confront the villains and save the trapped Peter Petrelli.


title: Sylar

text: Wanting to prove he is not just a killer, to both himself and Bennet, Sylar saves Bennet from Jesse and Knox, two of the escaped villains. However, his "hunger" reasserts itself and he kills Jesse, allowing Knox to escape in the confusion. Sylar is placed in his cell once more, where he is visited by Peter, who angrily snaps his neck after Sylar reveals that they are brothers. Peter, having absorbed Sylar's power and thereby his hunger, nearly kills Angela before Sylar knocks him unconscious. As Angela deals with her youngest son, Bennet arrives to take Sylar along to capture another Level 5 inmate. Sylar is surprised that Bennet would want to take him, but Bennet rebuffs him and tells him not to "make it harder than it already is." During the road trip, Noah chastises him about the murder of Jesse at the bank and his terrorizing Claire, and Sylar states that "rehabilitation doesn't happen overnight. I "am" trying."


title: Sylar

text: They track the escapee, Stephen Canfield, to an empty house, unaware that Claire is already there dealing with Canfield herself. The man creates a powerful vortex in the room which nearly sucks in Claire, but Sylar saves her at the last minute. The power gained from Bridget enables him to experience the horror she went through, so he attempts to sincerely apologize to her, but she regards him with anger and disgust, and Bennet emphatically tells him to never to speak to his daughter again. The three find Stephen at an amusement park, where Bennet tries to force him into killing Sylar in exchange for freedom; though Sylar is clearly aware of what Noah is trying to do, he doesn't do anything to stop him. Rather than become a killer, Stephen kills himself with his power instead. Sylar later calmly remarks to Claire that her father doesn't see people with abilities as human, and never will.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar is returned to his cell once more, where he is approached by Daphne Millbrook with an offer to join Pinehearst Industries, who will accept him for what he is. Sylar refuses, wanting to change. After they leave, Sylar revives Peter so he can help Angela Petrelli. Peter is initially skeptical, but Sylar's willingness to change combined with experience with the future Sylar convinces him; Peter's description of the future Gabriel Gray also gives Sylar hope that he can be redeemed. When Peter discovers the Pinehearst logo in her mind and attempts to go there, Sylar tries to stop him from doing so, but Peter easily defeats him due to his wider variety of powers and places him in an artificially-induced coma just as he had been. Angela is able to use her powers to wake him so he can rescue Peter, who has been stripped of his powers by Arthur Petrelli. Sylar does as asked, but is convinced by Arthur to turn on Angela. Arthur has Sylar throw a powerless Peter out a seventh-story window, but Peter miraculously survives. In "It's Coming", Arthur reveals that he knows Sylar slowed Peter's fall. Arthur is not angry; instead, he uses this event as evidence that Sylar can use his emotions like Peter could, to obtain someone's power without killing them.


title: Sylar

text: To test this theory, Arthur places Sylar in a dark room with Elle, who is restrained to the floor and still suffers from her uncontrolled ability. She is furious at Sylar for her father's murder and repeatedly electrocutes him to no avail. Sylar confronts Elle with his sorrow for what he's done as well as her sorrow for what she's done. She rages at him and continues to attack, finally collapsing and begging him to kill her so that her pain will go away. He forgives her for turning him into a monster and convinces her to forgive herself for her crimes, wanting to take away her pain without killing her. At that moment, Elle's pain disappears, and she regains control of her ability. Likewise, Sylar is able to absorb her power. Sylar is overwhelmed by this development, as he no longer has to kill to satisfy his hunger. The two appear to rekindle their old feelings for each other as Elle teaches Sylar how to use her ability. In "The Eclipse", Sylar is relieved when he loses his abilities, and wishes to start a new life with Elle. However, after Noah Bennet claims that Angela and Arthur Petrelli are not his real parents and are just manipulating him, Sylar feels betrayed and reverts to his murderous tendencies. Having regained his abilities after the eclipse ended, Sylar expresses seeming remorse and then attacks Elle, using his telekinesis to scalp her.


title: Sylar

text: The next morning Sylar proceeds to cremate her body, receiving a call from Arthur about his absence. Sylar curtly tells Arthur he is not returning and reveals he has a new list in the form of Elle's cell phone contact list. To ascertain the truth for himself, he kills Sue Landers, a human lie detector. He then heads to Pinehearst to confront Arthur, stopping Peter and the Haitian from killing Arthur by freezing the bullet fired at Arthur's head. With both the Haitian and Arthur apparently weakened in attempting to overwhelm one another, Sylar asks Arthur if he is truly his father. Arthur says yes; Sylar detects the lie with Sue Landers' power and proceeds to drive the bullet into Arthur's head, killing him. He then leaves Peter and the Haitian, claiming they do not have anything he desires.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar travels to Primatech, and sets up a mind game for Angela, Claire, Meredith, and Noah Bennet. After locking everyone inside and killing the Primatech staff, he tells them over the PA system that he will turn them all into monsters as they try to hunt him. Noah releases several Level 5 inmates as bait, including Echo Demille, Eric Doyle, and Daniel Pine, but Sylar easily disposes of them. He then injects Meredith with adrenaline, causing her to lose control of her fire ability. She and Noah are then locked in a cell with a single bullet, so Noah will either burn to death or kill Meredith to survive. Claire wants to help, as Sylar expects, forcing her to choose between her grandmother and her father; Claire chooses her father, leaving Angela at Sylar's mercy. He confronts Angela, and finds out that she was only using him for his monstrous qualities. However, she also reveals that she knows who his real parents are, and that they are not the Grays. As Sylar demands to be told the truth, Claire stabs him in the back of the head with a piece of glass, which will prevent him from reviving as long as it remains in place. In the prison cell, Meredith finally loses full control of her power and releases a massive explosion. Primatech goes up in flames with Sylar still inside.


title: Sylar

text: Following the destruction of Primatech, Sylar is shown to be alive and well (it's later revealed that the fire melted the glass, allowing him to regenerate), and begins to search for his true biological parents. He starts by tracking down his adoptive father, Martin Gray, in Baltimore, making a stop in Pittsburgh to kill an insurance broker who could replicate his signature, and possibly learn the whereabouts of Martin. Sylar learns that Martin had paid to take him off the hands of his supposed father, Samson Gray, in order to escape his marriage with Virginia, Sylar's adoptive mother. After interrogating Martin, Sylar raises his hand, and is about to kill Martin, but holds back and walks away. After taking the address from Martin, Sylar finds Samson's home, only for it to be empty and Nathan Petrelli's agents waiting to ambush him. Although shot at, stunned and restrained, Sylar easily recovers and kills the agents, save one Agent Simmons, whom he tortures for information on Samson's disappearance.


title: Sylar

text: In order to extract more information from Simmons, Sylar invades the house of Luke and Mary Campbell. Waiting for the two to return, Sylar telekinetic-ally pins them, and states he intends to torture them to get Simmons to talk. He then proceeds to torture Mary. In a rage, Luke manages to free himself and boils Sylar's coffee with his own ability: microwave emission. Intrigued, Sylar begins to talk to Luke, telling him exactly why Luke has been in so much trouble, and that he understands Luke's frustration. During this, Simmons frees himself from his bindings and tries to grab his gun to shoot Sylar, but Luke notices this and kills Simmons. Sylar proceeds to leave the house, taking Luke with him only after Luke states he knows where Samson is.


title: Sylar

text: As Sylar and Luke proceed to find Samson, Luke wishes to stop at some local diner to eat, as well as lying to Sylar about Samson's location when prodded. This irritates Sylar to the point where he threatens to simply take Luke's emission ability. Luke simply states that Sylar would never find his father then. Choosing to stop at a diner, Luke reveals that he and Samson went birding, awakening a memory from Sylar's childhood. As they eat, Sylar teaches Luke some lessons about using his power and having objectives, as well as revealing the change in his 'hunger' (emphasizing finding Samson over acquiring powers). This results in Luke giving Sylar Samson's location, even under the threat of being killed for his power. They are soon interrupted by Nathan's agents. Luke distracts the agents enough for Sylar to telekinetic-ally toss a few around and punch a hole through a window. However, as he gets into the car, Sylar locks Luke out and drives off, leaving Luke to the agents. However, a short time later, Sylar disguises as an agent and gets into their van, killing the agents and saving Luke, as well as taking a laptop. When confronted about this by Luke, Sylar states that Luke was simply conveniently nearby and that his goal was to get the laptop to understand how Nathan's agents worked, though Luke seems skeptical about that reasoning.


title: Sylar

text: Continuing to elude Nathan's agents, Sylar and Luke finally lose them. Irritated with Luke's wish to fry some agents and subtle attempts to stop the search for Samson, Sylar pins Luke to the side of the truck, essentially telling Luke to shut up. Sylar then seems to remember the area in which the two are in, and they reach an abandoned diner. Sylar makes an entrance by pulling off some of the board (throwing them in Luke's direction) and they enter. Here, Sylar recounts being brought to the diner as a child, and dropping a toy car in a wooden post. To prove this memory true, he rips open the post telekinetic-ally and finds the car. He then remembers exactly what happened at that place: His father took money from Virginia and Martin, then left to his car. Sylar followed, only to see his biological parents arguing, and Samson telekinetic-ally splitting his mother's skull open, killing her. In a rage exacerbated by Luke's revelation that Sylar's father was indeed a bad individual, Sylar pins him to the diner wall, but drops him and tells Luke to go home. Sylar leaves, intent on not only finding, but killing his father.


title: Sylar

text: Arriving at a run-down trailer in the woods, Sylar finds his father old and dying of cancer. Samson is not frightened by Sylar's threat to kill and instead prepares a rabbit for taxidermy. Demonstrating several abilities, he and Sylar realize that they have the same ability - the ability to steal powers. Samson reveals that it did not matter how many people he killed or how many powers he stole; in the end, he did not lead a fulfilling life and is now miserable. He claims to not even remember selling Sylar and killing his mother, as these things did not matter to him. He goes on to say how he would have lived life differently, if given a second chance - how he would risk everything to attain true power and ultimately change the world. He touches on Sylar's original guilt for murdering to steal abilities by mocking Sylar, telling him how both their victims were weak and helpless and that they had no chance against seasoned killers. However, when Sylar cuts himself and heals while stuffing the rabbit, Samson transforms, reviving his hunger for abilities, desperate to gain immortality and escape from death. Temporarily incapacitating Sylar, he is stunned when Sylar first resists and then retaliates, strangling Samson with his own oxygen tube. Samson does not understand, since both he and Sylar know that Sylar would not die from Samson's "examination". Sylar states that he is finishing what he came to do, taking the stuffed rabbit. Samson begs Sylar to kill him quickly, but Sylar refuses, relishing the fact that his father, who is ultimately just like him, will "die alone with his disease". Later, when Danko returns home to his apartment after discovering Nathan's ability, he finds the stuffed rabbit on his desk, unaware that Sylar is lurking in the shadows nearby. Instead of a confrontation, however, Sylar chooses to leave, but not before stringing up an unconscious Eric Doyle in Danko's apartment as a 'gift'.


title: Sylar

text: This 'gift' is explained further when Sylar surprises Danko in his car: He wishes to work with Danko in rounding up all super-powered humans, and quickly leaves before Danko can pull out his gun. To further win Danko's trust, Sylar decides to help Danko track a shapeshifter, James Martin, who managed to kill 4 of Danko's agents (3 via gunshot, and one murdered for his form). At Martin's apartment, Danko surprises Sylar, and the two exchange taunts and information, resulting in Sylar and Danko teaming up for the time being. Through their cooperation, the two find out that Martin takes forms of power and authority, in order to woo women at a local nightclub. At the club, Sylar and Danko are spotted by Martin (in the form of Danko), and they lose track of him. A short time later, Danko and Sylar decide to leave the club; however, the 'Sylar' is actually Martin in disguise with the intention of killing Danko. However, Danko shoots Martin, but doesn't kill him. Instead, he allows the real Sylar to take Martin's ability (without removing the skullcap) in order to not only make hunting superpowered humans easier for them, but to fake Sylar's death and keep people such as Noah Bennett from trying to track Sylar down.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar, disguised as Danko, later meets Noah at Building 26 as Noah, unknowingly, examines Martin's body. Noah, knowing how hard it is to kill Sylar, doubts Danko could do it single-handedly. When Sandra arrives to question Noah about Claire, Sylar shakes her hand in introduction, gaining access to her form. Wanting to destroy Noah, he later visits Noah at Noah's apartment, in disguise as Sandra. He delivers divorce papers, stating that he (Sandra) cannot trust Noah anymore and that their marriage is over. Noah is distraught but, upon examining the signature on the forms, discovers that it is not Sandra's. Rushing to the crematorium, Noah stops the cremation of Martin's body. He removes the metal shard in the back of the corpse's head, telling the surrounding soldiers that when Sylar was stabbed with a glass shard before, it melted in the Primatech fire allowing him to regenerate. When the corpse does not regenerate, Noah returns to Danko and confronts him with the knowledge that Sylar is still alive. Danko confesses and tells Noah that Sylar is in disguise and out on a mission with other soldiers. Noah forces Danko to take him to Sylar and, when they arrive, shoots the soldier Danko identifies as Sylar in the back of the head. When the corpse continues to bleed out and does not heal, Danko orders his men to capture Noah, who Danko claims has gone insane. However, when the soldiers leave in pursuit, the corpse gets up and shifts back into Sylar. When Danko asks him how he survived while bleeding so much, Sylar says it was all to make his death look realistic.


title: Sylar

text: As Sylar continues to shapeshift, he finds it is harder and harder to regain his form without side effects, including left over body parts like teeth. He also retains personality traits and memories of those he changes into, causing him to go through a literal "identity crisis". When Danko tells him that he needs to leave his "Sylar" identity behind to retain his free pass, Sylar kills the next target on Danko's list, Tom Miller, and takes his power. Further examining the shapeshifting ability, Sylar realizes he is actually absorbing different DNA sequences into his body, causing him to permanently change a little each time he shifts. When Sylar starts to shapeshift in his sleep, Danko tells him he has to find an anchor that will remind him of who he is. To that effect, Sylar, as one of Danko's agents, retrieves the evidence from the homicide of his mother, Virginia Gray. While examining her collection of snow globes, Sylar unknowingly shapeshifts into his mother and begins to have a conversation with himself, showing acute symptoms of dissociative identity disorder. He at first does not realize what is happening and talks to his mother about his encounter with Samson, why his mother lied to Sylar about his lineage, and how he is starting to lose himself. He, as his mother, tries to convince himself that he did not mean to kill her and that he is still special. Danko interrupts when his agents track down Rebel. Sylar gets to Rebel (Micah Sanders) before Danko's agents do and prepares to kill him and take his power. Micah, however, reveals that he understands what Sylar is going through because his mother, Niki Sanders, endured the same thing when her power manifested. Convinced that Sylar is special and the only one capable of saving those with powers, Micah convinces Sylar to join his cause. Sylar, disguised as Micah, tricks Danko and his agents into chasing the wrong person, allowing Micah to escape. Sylar, again talking with "his mother", reveals that her murder was no accident, but "Virginia" forgives Sylar anyway, convinced that he can still be whomever he wants to be, including the President. Realizing his opportunity, Sylar breaks into Nathan Petrelli's office and finds a brush containing some of Nathan's DNA. He later appears, as Nathan, at a press conference concerning new plans for change he has for the country and how he soon plans to meet with the President and "shake his hand". Realizing what Sylar is trying to do, Nathan returns to DC from Coyote Sands and confronts Sylar, who reveals he has examined Nathan's life in depth using clairsentience. Expressing pity and determined to become better than Nathan, Sylar prepares to take Nathan's ability when Danko appears and stuns Nathan. Attempting to salvage his operation, Danko orders Sylar to shift back into one of his agents so they can continue hunting specials. When Sylar refuses, Danko stabs him in the back of the head with a knife. However, Sylar recovers, having used his shapeshifting ability to relocate his weak spot.


title: Sylar

text: After framing Danko for the murder of an agent, he takes on Nathan's form and goes to meet the President with Claire in tow. When she discovers the truth, he controls her using the power which he had empathically absorbed from Eric Doyle and talks about how similar they are, both being adopted and both having the ability to live forever, proposing that, given enough time, Claire might come to forgive him and even love him. However, Peter and Nathan then confront him, and in the battle Sylar and Nathan fly out of a window and into another room. Sylar subsequently kills Nathan (after empathically absorbing his power during the fight) and takes on the form of the President's Chief of Staff. However, the President injects him with an elephant tranquilizer, and reveals himself to be Peter, having absorbed Sylar's ability during the fight. In an effort to shut down the program, Angela convinces Matt Parkman to use his telepathy to convince Sylar that he is Nathan, Matt using Angela's memories of Nathan's life to essentially 'plant' Nathan in Sylar's head, his shape-shifting power allowing him to assume Nathan's form while his clairsentience will allow him to subconsciously use objects around him to 'fill in the blanks'. Sylar, as Nathan, talks to the President and convinces him to shut down Building 26 and divert the funds to the new Company that will now be built. Later, Sylar, as Nathan, watches "Sylar's" (in reality James Martin's) body burn at Coyote Sands alongside Noah, Claire, Matt, Angela, Peter, Mohinder, Hiro and Ando.


title: Sylar

text: Six weeks later, this Nathan starts to rediscover the other powers he had gained in his old life. Later, following Nathan's confession of being involved in the accidental death of his girlfriend Kelly Houston, her mother, Millie Houston, has him shot and buried in a shallow grave. When healed, Sylar emerges from the ground in his own body, suffering from amnesia. Picked up by the police, he is recognized and accidentally uses his powers to escape. He then encounters the "Sullivan Bros. Carnival" and Samuel, who take him in as one of their own. The carnival is hidden from Sylar's pursuers, and Samuel assures him he is safe in his new "home".


title: Sylar

text: Once Sylar has rested, Samuel proceeds to show him around the circus, showing that everyone at the carnival has an ability. Sylar also meets Lydia, who he immediately hits it off with. Edgar, however, jealously attempts to out-show Sylar with his power, but is easily beaten. Samuel also notices that Sylar's memories are not his (in fact, Nathan Petrelli's). In an effort to awaken Sylar's true personality, Sylar is taken by Damien to the hall of mirrors, where he is forced to look at his past murders, starting with his mother. Repulsed, Sylar is unable to believe himself a monster. Samuel uses this to try and convince Sylar that he is a protector of the circus, and must remove threats such as the officer who attempted to capture him the night before. Sylar is told the officer is at the house of mirrors, and goes there to tell the man to leave. However, the officer shoots at Sylar, forcing an uncontrolled electric blast. Here, Sylar's killer instinct begins to take hold, but Sylar stops himself just in time for Edgar to cut the man into pieces. Later, Samuel formally makes Sylar a part of the circus family, baptizing him and letting him mingle with the others. Sylar and Lydia leave arm in arm for the night, much to Edgar's dismay.


title: Sylar

text: In "Shadowboxing", the persona of Nathan returns, causing him to shapeshift back into Nathan's form while sleeping. Panicking upon finding himself at the carnival, he flies away, and is later shown arriving at Peter's door, asking for help. Arriving for work at his office, Peter and Nathan discover that no one has been looking for Nathan, as he had been on 'vacation' according to Angela Petrelli. The brothers are further surprised when the Haitian appears, and tells Peter to go see a storage facility for the truth of the situation. Here, Nathan and Peter discover the real Nathan's preserved body, which 'Nathan' touches and sees Sylar and Matt Parkman. They head to Texas to see Matt, who is at the hospital, in a coma.


title: Sylar

text: Meanwhile, Matt Parkman, regretting his actions, is haunted by Sylar, who claims to have lingered in Parkman's mind after Parkman "sucked" all his memories and replaced them with Nathan's. Though Parkman had resolved not to use his powers anymore, Sylar eventually tempts him into using them again. Following this, Sylar escalates his tormenting of Parkman, using his own telepathy against him to force Parkman to use his powers to save himself. Sylar then gives a defeated Parkman an ultimatum: either continue to live with Sylar in his mind or return Sylar's mind to his body.


title: Sylar

text: Matt decides to keep Sylar in his mind, which begins to have consequences when Sylar's control over Matt advances, where Sylar has sex with Matt's wife Janice while Matt was asleep. Scared of what Sylar could do to his family (which Sylar himself alludes to), Matt tells Janice the truth, and Janice agrees to let Matt try to exorcise Sylar by leaving the house. During another conversation, Sylar appears pained whenever Parkman drinks alcohol, giving Parkman the idea to drink into a stupor. Sylar appears successfully removed as he fades from Matt's mind, and Matt remains conscious long enough to see his partner and Janice return. In actuality, Sylar simply tricked Parkman into knocking himself out. Now much more powerful, Sylar takes full control of Parkman's body, leaving Matt trapped in his own head. Despite his control over the body, Matt's personality constantly hampers Sylar from reaching his body, including letting Sylar be arrested and "withholding" Sylar's ability to use Matt's telepathy. In response, Sylar threatens to murder innocent civilians if Parkman doesn't cooperate. Faced with an ultimatum, Parkman attempts to commit suicide by cop.


title: Sylar

text: The attempt appears to almost work, but "Nathan" and Peter arrive to revive Matt. Once revived, Matt is surprised to see Nathan and Peter, as is Sylar. Desperate to return to his original body, Sylar forcefully takes over Parkman's body, only needing to touch Nathan in order to jump back into his own body. While "Nathan's" confidence in who he shattered (Matt reveals that "Nathan" is Sylar), Sylar uses Parkman's telepathy to bring Nathan closer to him, with intuitive aptitude forcing Nathan to throw Peter telekinetic-ally and proceed to get closer, to understand who he is. Although the event is temporarily stalled by an incoming guard, Nathan brushes hands with Matt, freeing him from Sylar's hold, and leaving Nathan fearful that Sylar will soon take over his body once more.


title: Sylar

text: Staying over at Peter Petrelli's apartment, the brothers are surprised by Angela, who springs a Thanksgiving dinner on them. Nathan wakes up in time to hear Peter and Angela discussing the discovery of Nathan's body. Although they press her for information, Angela threatens to simply leave if they do not sit down and eat. During the dinner, Angela finally confesses that she had Matt Parkman place Nathan's mind into Sylar's body. During dessert, however, Nathan begins to act oddly, and transforms back into Sylar, happy to be controlling his body once more. He telekinetically traps Peter and Angela, relishing his ability to control himself. After taunting Peter, he begins to scalp Angela, only to have the 'Nathan' persona fight back. Losing control, Sylar transforms back into Nathan, who flees the building to protect his family. Peter devises a plan to eliminate the 'Sylar' persona leaving just Nathan using the ability of The Haitian to erase Sylar's memories. On a rooftop however, "Nathan" confesses to Peter he is not himself and cannot keep fighting off the 'Sylar' persona. Nathan jumps off the building and lands onto a parked car. Peter then sees Sylar heal, get up and wave as he walks away.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar returns to the carnival to face Samuel, but Sylar finds that while he wants to kill, he is unable to make himself do so. His identity in crisis, he makes a deal with Samuel. After absorbing Lydia's power, he tells Samuel to give him a tattoo, and that he would do whatever it said. When he sees the tattoo, he decides that he does not belong at the carnival. The next scene shows him floating outside of Claire Bennet's dorm room window, and his tattoo is a picture of her.


title: Sylar

text: In the episode "Pass/Fail", Sylar kidnaps Claire Bennet's friend, Gretchen Berg so Claire will talk to him in exchange for her friend. Sylar feels like they are very similar: they've never felt in place, they both lost their parents, and they are both immortal. Claire doesn't want to talk to him, and makes him tell her where Gretchen is. Claire finds Gretchen tied up, and they hide in a closet and have a talk. Claire tells Gretchen that Sylar thinks they are alike, and she fears that they might be. She is confused at Sylar's attitude, but resents him for who he is. Gretchen comes to the conclusion that Sylar's powers have isolated him from ever having any relationships. Giving them up might be the only way he could have any connections. Gretchen then shape-shifts back into Sylar. He then goes to Matt Parkman and asks him to take away all his powers away. Matt attempts but fails. Sylar threatens Matt's family and forces him to keep trying. Instead, Matt traps Sylar and his powers deep within the confines of his mind, "somewhere you'll never find them," and he is left alone to live out his worst nightmare: Being all alone. Matt then attempts to seal up Sylar within the walls of his basement. However, Peter Petrelli arrives after having a vision that Sylar will save Emma. Using Matt's power, Peter attempts to bring Sylar out of his nightmare, but ends up trapped in Sylar's mind along with him ("The Art of Deception").


title: Sylar

text: In "The Wall", Sylar is repairing endless watches in the empty city when he hears banging. Searching for the source of it, he finds Peter using a pole to get his attention by banging it on the concrete. Sylar is shocked to discover that Peter is real and says there's no way out - he's been searching for three years. Peter reveals that it's actually been three hours and that Sylar is trapped in a nightmare, which he is skeptical to accept, and runs back to his shop. Peter tries to convince him of the truth and tells him he must save Emma. He tries to pull them out of the nightmare but is unsuccessful. Peter avoids Sylar for a month while trapped, and Sylar tries being friendly by giving him a "9th Wonders!" comic book. Peter, determined to find a way out, does not understand why Sylar is so resistant to find a way out, and realizes that Sylar really doesn't want to be free. They come across a massive brick wall, the same one Sylar's body is actually trapped behind (in Matt's basement). Peter realizes that the two need to break the wall in order to escape. At first Peter tries to break it alone, but fails. Sylar compares his determination to a memory of Nathan's he possesses which angers Peter. Sylar apologizes for Nathan's murder, but Peter refuses to forgive him and Sylar finally joins Peter in attempting to break down the wall. After years of attempting and failing to damage the wall in the slightest, Sylar is surprised when Peter gives him a copy of "The Pillars of the Earth" as a gift as a to thank him for keeping him sane all the years of their imprisonment. Sylar admits he always worries Peter will attack him with the sledge-hammer which Peter admits he has contemplated. Sylar realizes that Peter won't let go of his anger out of fear of losing the last remnant of Nathan, and points out to Peter that he has truly changed. Peter finally accepts this fact and afterwards the two are easily able to break a hole in the wall, which frees them from their mental prison. Once freed, Sylar uses telekinesis to free him from his physical one and he and Peter learn that they've only been trapped for half a day in reality. The experience seems to have changed both Sylar and Peter and the two head off to save Emma, but are stopped by Eli and his clones who want to prevent their plans.


title: Sylar

text: In "Brave New World," he and Peter easily defeat Eli and save Matt's life as knocking out the Prime Eli gets rid of his clones who were about to kill Matt. Sylar tries to convince a furious Matt that he's changed, but fails and begins to leave with Peter (who read Eli's mind and learned Samuel's plans). Matt tries to telepathically prevent Sylar from leaving, so Sylar asks Matt to read his mind to show him he has changed. Matt is unable to, although he does let them leave. Peter and Sylar fly to New York where Samuel plans to kill thousands of people. Peter is reluctant, but Sylar convinces Peter to trust him and reminds him that the dream says that Sylar saves Emma. Sylar heads off to the tent to save Emma while Peter goes to defeat Samuel. He finds Emma playing the cello with bloody fingers, and tries to save her by taking the cello, but is taken control of by Eric Doyle, the Puppet Master. Doyle, desperate to be better than Sylar, begins to taunt him. However, controlling and mocking Sylar distracts him from his primary focus on controlling Emma. Once Emma realizes he has loosened his control over her, Emma blasts Doyle with a soundwave through the cello, breaking Doyle's control over Sylar, and giving Sylar the chance to telekinetically grab onto Doyle. Doyle begs him to stop, and asks, "What do you care about this girl, anyway?" Sylar tells him that he's going to save her. Confused, Doyle cries out, "That's not you! You're like me!" Sylar looks at him and calmly says, "No. I'm a hero." After Peter reunites with Emma, she tells him that his friend is taking care of Doyle. Fearing the worst, Peter heads into the tent to find Sylar admiring his new "masterpiece": a dazed Doyle trussed up like a puppet, clad in giant light-bulbs. Sylar plugs the lights in, deviously grins, and says, "I like it!"


title: Sylar

text: Sylar walks with Peter and discusses his rescue of Emma. Sylar explains that he could have easily killed Doyle but didn't and that not killing him and saving Emma felt good to him, showing that Sylar is truly changing and is enjoying being a hero rather than a villain. Peter and Sylar witness Claire climbing the Ferris Wheel to reveal her powers to the world and Sylar comments that it's now a "brave new world."


title: Sylar

text: Sylar's base power, as described by Chandra Suresh, is "intuitive aptitude", the ability to innately understand and manipulate patterns within complex systems, which initially manifests as a talent for repairing timepieces. As revealed in "One of Us, One of Them", this power comes with a nearly insatiable hunger for "understanding", which, in Sylar's case, specifically refers to craving the powers of others, driving him to kill other super-powered humans to understand their powers and make them his own. Despite the strength of this hunger, two episodes have shown that it can be resisted or satiated: in the alternate future of "Five Years Gone", Sylar has taken on so many abilities that he simply desires to get rid of all of his potential "competition" (other superhumans, to be exact); in the future of "I Am Become Death", he has resumed his identity as Gabriel Gray and denies his hunger for the sake of his son. In "Once Upon a Time in Texas" it is revealed that Sylar can also identify deformities in people such as Charlie's blood clot and Hiro's brain tumor.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar's intuitive aptitude allows him to deduce the workings of the powers of others; by examining the brain of his victim, he is able to find the brain's connection to the ability, and once he finds said connection, he can immediately replicate the power himself. The exact mechanics behind this are unknown, though it is theorized numerous times by many characters that DNA alteration/infusions is what allows him to obtain abilities. Yet, when the process is shown, Sylar only seems to touch the part of the brain that is the source of the ability and immediately replicates it. Sylar cannot acquire an ability from a person who has been dead awhile, even if their brains are intact though the process, he uses to acquire abilities kills his victims before he actually gains the ability. In "Fallout", Noah Bennet theorizes that Sylar's additional powers are a product of using foreign DNA to alter his own which, as a side effect, has driven him insane.


title: Sylar

text: Of all the powers Sylar has acquired, the most prominently used is telekinesis, which is the first power he took. In contrast to the limited abilities Brian Davis displayed, Sylar's skills are far more advanced; he exhibits both fine control (precisely cutting open the skulls of his victims) and sheer force (flipping a police van), can enhance his own strength and durability to superhuman levels, and can control a person's motor skills in a manner similar to Eric Doyle's puppet mastery. Tests done on Sylar by Bennet's associate Hank show no overt signs of powers other than telekinesis; while their tests show that he possesses other powers, they are unable to identify what they are. In "The Hard Part", Sylar demonstrates he can use at least two of his acquired abilities at the same time.


title: Sylar

text: After being injected with the Shanti virus by the Company, Sylar loses all of his abilities. After he is cured at the end of the second season, he only regains his abilities of intuitive aptitude and telekinesis. Sylar's empathic mimicry, which Arthur says he has had all along, is also present. In the third and fourth seasons, Sylar acquires or displays the following abilities:


title: Sylar

text: In "It's Coming", Sylar learns how to gain abilities without removing a person's brain, obtaining Elle Bishop's power of electric manipulation by empathizing with her and convincing her to let go of her anger. This empathy allowed him to retain the use of Brian Davis' telekinesis after being cured of the virus, due to the guilt he felt over his death. Arthur explains that Sylar possessed this ability all along. Despite possessing this ability, he has returned to killing to obtain new powers, though he later uses this method to obtain James Martin's shapeshifting ability, Nathan Petrelli's ability to fly, and also Lydia's empathy.


title: Sylar

text: As a side effect of the use of the shapeshifting ability when used in combination with his acquired psychometry, his mind has begun to fracture into the different personas of those whom he has shapeshifted into, and residual physical characteristics have started to appear, such as his adopted mother when he came into contact with the dried blood on the scissors he killed her with. As stated in "I Am Sylar", his "Achilles' heel" in the back of his head has been relocated due to his continued shapeshifting, making him harder to stop. Aside from superhuman abilities, Sylar is very intelligent and manipulative and possesses decent hand-to-hand combat skills, as seen when he fights Peter Petrelli.


title: Sylar

text: Sylar was named one of the best new villains by "Entertainment Weekly". Sylar was also named the best villain of 2007 by IGN. UGO also ranked Sylar 6th on their list of top 50 TV characters.


title: Sylar

text: Zachary Quinto provides the voice of a "Robot Chicken"-parodied Sylar in the episode "Bionic Cow". In it, he kills a man named "Uncle Glen", who is apparently able to remove his fingers, failing to realize that this is a simple sleight of hand trick to impress young children. He instead inherits Glen's power of "explosive diarrhea," remarking that "every once in a while, this power backfires".


title: Luís de Camões

text: Luís Vaz de Camões (; sometimes rendered in English as Camoens or Camoëns, ; c. 1524 or 1525 – 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Milton, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work "Os Lusíadas" ("The Lusiads"). His collection of poetry "The Parnasum of Luís de Camões" was lost during his life. The influence of his masterpiece "Os Lusíadas" is so profound that Portuguese is sometimes called the "language of Camões".


title: Luís de Camões

text: Much of the information about Luís de Camões' biography raises doubts and, probably, much of what circulates about him is nothing more than the typical folklore that is formed around a famous figure. Only a few dates are documented that guide its trajectory. The ancestral home of the Camões family had its origins in the Kingdom of Galicia, not far from Cape Finisterre. On his paternal side, Luís de Camões was descended from Vasco Pires de Camões, Galician troubadour, warrior and fidalgo, who moved to Portugal in 1370 and received great benefits from the king in positions, honours and lands, and whose poetry, of a nationalist nature, contributed to ward off Breton and Italian influence and to shape a national troubadour style. His son Antão Vaz de Camões served in the Red Sea and married Dona Guiomar da Gama, related to Vasco da Gama. From this marriage were born Simão Vaz de Camões, who served in the Royal Navy and did trade in Guinea and India, and another brother, Bento, who followed the career of a man of letters and entered the priesthood, joining the Austin friars at the Monastery of Santa Cruz, which was a prestigious school for many young Portuguese gentlemen. Simão married Dona Ana de Sá e Macedo, also from a noble family, from Santarém. Her only son, Luís Vaz de Camões, according to Jayne, Fernandes and some other authors, was born in Lisbon in 1524. Three years later, the city is being threatened by the plague, the family moved, following the court, to Coimbra. However, other cities claim the honour of being his birthplace: Coimbra, Santarém and Alenquer. Although the first biographers of Camões, Severin de Faria and Manoel Correa, initially gave his year of birth as 1517, records of the Lists of the Casa da Índia, later consulted by Manuel de Faria e Sousa, seem to establish that Camões was actually born in Lisbon, in 1524. The arguments for placing his birth outside of Lisbon are weak; but neither is it completely beyond doubt, so the most recent scholarship considers his place and date of birth uncertain.


title: Luís de Camões

text: About his childhood much remains unknown. At twelve or thirteen he would have been protected and educated by his uncle Bento, who sent him to Coimbra to study. Tradition says that he was an undisciplined student, but eager for knowledge, interested in history, cosmography and classic and modern literature. However, his name does not appear in the records of the University of Coimbra, but it is certain from his elaborate style and the profusion of erudite quotes that appear in his works that in some way he received a solid education. It is possible that his uncle himself, a chancellor of the university and the prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz, instructed him or that he studied at the monastery college. At about twenty years of age he probably moved to Lisbon, before completing his studies. His family was poor, but being noble, he could be admitted to the court of John III where he established fruitful intellectual contacts and began his career as a poet.


title: Luís de Camões

text: It was suggested that he earned his living as a preceptor of Francisco, son of the Count of Linhares, D. António de Noronha, but this now seems hardly plausible. It is also said that he adopted a bohemian lifestyle, frequenting taverns and getting involved in tumultuous love affairs. Several ladies are cited by name in late biographies of the poet as having been the object of his affection, but those identifications are currently considered apocryphal additions to his legend. Among them, for example, there was talk of a passion for Infanta Dona Maria, sister of the king, but that audacity would have earned him time in prison. Another was Catarina de Ataíde, with whom he allegedly had a frustrated love affair that resulted in his self-exile, first in Ribatejo, and then by enlisting as a soldier in Ceuta. The reason for the latter trip is doubtful, but the trip itself is accepted fact; he remained there two years and lost his right eye in a naval battle in the Strait of Gibraltar. Back in Lisbon, he wasted no time in resuming his bohemian life.


title: Luís de Camões

text: A document dating from 1550 states that he had enlisted to travel to India: ""Luís de Camões, son of Simão Vaz and Ana de Sá, living in Lisbon, at Mouraria; squire, 25 years old, ginger bearded, brought his father as guarantor; goes on the ship of S. Pedro dos Burgaleses ... among the men-at-arms"". As it turns out, he didn't board immediately. In a Corpus Christi procession, he got into an altercation with a certain Gonçalo Borges, employee of the Royal Palace, and wounded him with a sword. Sentenced to prison, he later received a letter of pardon and was released by royal order on March 7, 1553, which says: ""he is a young man and poor and he is going to serve in India this year"". Manuel de Faria e Sousa found in the registers of the Armada of India, for that year 1553, under the title "Gente de guerra" ("Men of war"), the following statement: "Fernando Casado, son of Manuel Casado and Branca Queimada, residents of Lisbon, squire; Luís de Camões, son of Simão Vaz and Ana de Sá, squire, took his place; and he received 2400 like the others".


title: Luís de Camões

text: Camões set sail on Palm Sunday, the 24th of March 1553. His last words, he says in a letter, were those of Scipio Africanus, “Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea” (Ungrateful fatherland, you will not possess my bones).


title: Luís de Camões

text: He traveled aboard the carrack São Bento, belonging to the fleet of Fernão Álvares Cabral, which left the Tagus on March 24, 1553. During the trip he passed through the regions where Vasco da Gama had sailed, faced a storm in the Cape of Good Hope Cabo da Boa Esperança where the three other ships in the fleet were lost, and landed in Goa in 1554. Soon he enlisted in the service of the viceroy D. Afonso de Noronha and fought in the expedition against the king of Chembé (or "da Pimenta"). In 1555, Noronha's successor D. Pedro Mascarenhas ordered Manuel de Vasconcelos to fight the Moors in the Red Sea. Camões accompanied him, but the squadron did not find the enemy and went to winter in Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Probably at this time he had already started writing Os Lusíadas. When he returned to Goa in 1556, he met D. Francisco Barreto in the government, and composed for him the ""Auto de Filodemo"", which suggests that Barreto looked upon Camões with favor. The early biographers, however, differ about Camões' relations with that ruler. At the same time, an anonymous satire criticizing the prevalence of immorality and corruption, which was attributed to Camões, also was published. Since satires were condemned by the Ordinances of King Manuel, Camões would have been arrested for that. But it has also been hypothesized that the arrest was actually for debts that Camões had incurred. It is possible that he remained in prison until 1561, and that he may have been convicted of additional offenses before then. At any rate, when D. Francisco Coutinho assumed the governship of India Camões was released and came under that man's employ and protection. He was appointed to the position of Superintendent for the Dead and Missing for Macau in 1562, serving "de facto" from 1563 until 1564 or 1565. At that time, Macau was a trading post still in formation and almost uninhabited. Tradition says that there he wrote part of Os Lusíadas in a cave, which later was named after him.


title: Luís de Camões

text: On the trip back to Goa, he was shipwrecked, as tradition says, near the mouth of the Mekong River, managing to save only himself and the manuscript of Os Lusíadas, an event that inspired the famous "redondilha" ""Sobre os rios que vão"", considered by António Sérgio the "backbone" of the Camonian lyric, as is repeatedly cited in the critical literature. The trauma of the shipwreck, in the words of Leal de Matos, had the most profound impact on redefining the themes of Os Lusíadas, this being noticeable beginning with Canto VII, a fact already noted by Diogo do Couto, a friend of the poet who partly accompanied the work as it was being written.


title: Luís de Camões

text: His rescue took months to occur, and there is no record of how it happened, but he was taken to Malacca, where he received a new arrest warrant for misappropriating the assets of the dead that had been entrusted to him. The exact date of his return to Goa is not known, but he may have remained in prison there for some time. Couto says that in the shipwreck Dinamene, a Chinese maiden with whom Camões had fallen in love, died, but Ribeiro and others reject that story. The next viceroy, D. Antão de Noronha, was a longtime friend of Camões, having first met him during his Morocco adventure. Certain biographers claim that he was promised a position at the trading post at Chaul, but he did not take up the position. Severim de Faria said that the final years spent in Goa were occupied with poetry and military activities, where he always showed bravery, readiness and loyalty to the Crown.


title: Luís de Camões

text: It is difficult to determine what his daily life in the East would have been like, beyond what can be extrapolated from his military status. It seems certain that he always lived modestly and may have shared a house with friends, "in one of those collective dwellings where it was customary for people from the homeland to associate", as Ramalho notes. Some of these friends must have been in possession of a certain degree of culture and would have provided illustrious companionship. Ribeiro, Saraiva and Moura admit that he may have encountered, among other figures, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Fernão Vaz Dourado, Fernão Álvares do Oriente, Garcia de Orta and the aforementioned Diogo do Couto, creating opportunities for debating literary topics and the like. He may also have attended lectures at one of Goa's colleges or religious establishments. Ribeiro adds that


title: Luís de Camões

text: At such meetings the participants were both men-at-arms and men of letters, and were in search not only of military success and material fortune, but also of the fame and glory born of culture. This was one of the great aspirations of the Humanism of that era, and from it may have sprung the idea of creating an academy, reproducing within the limitations of the local context, the model of Renaissance academies such as the one founded in Florence by Marsilio Ficino and his circle, where Neoplatonic ideals were cultivated.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Whether it was by invitation, or simply a matter of taking the chance to bridge part of the distance that separated him from his homeland, it is not known for certain, but in December 1567 Camões embarked on Pedro Barreto's ship to Sofala, on the Island of Mozambique, where Barreto had been appointed governor, and there Camões would wait for transport to Lisbon at a future date. The early biographers say that Pedro Barreto was treacherous, making false promises to Camões, so that after two years Diogo do Couto found him in a precarious state:


title: Luís de Camões

text: While attempting to set sail with Couto, Camões found his departure embargoed in the amount of two hundred cruzados by Barreto, demanding reimbursement for monies spent on the poet's behalf. His friends, however, collected the amount and Camões was released, arriving in Cascais aboard the carrack "Santa Clara" on April 7, 1570.


title: Luís de Camões

text: After so many adventures, he finally completed Os Lusíadas, presenting them in recitation to Sebastian. The king, still a teenager, ordered the work to be published in 1572, also granting a small pension to "Luís de Camões, noble knight of my House", in payment for services rendered in India. The value of the pension did not exceed fifteen thousand réis a year, which, if not generous, was also not as miserly as has been suggested, considering that the Royal Palace's bridesmaids received around ten thousand réis. For a veteran soldier, the sum must have been considered sufficient and honorable at the time. But the pension would've only lasted for three years, and although the grant was renewable, it seems that it was paid irregularly, causing the poet to experience material difficulties.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Camões lived out his final years in a room in a house near the Convent of Santa Ana, in a state, according to tradition, of the most unworthy poverty, "without a rag to cover him". Le Gentil considered this view a romantic exaggeration, as he was still able keep a slave named Jau, whom he had brought with him from the east, and official documents attest that he had some means of livelihood. After being embittered by the Portuguese defeat at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, in which Sebastian disappeared, leading Portugal to lose its independence to the Spanish crown, he was stricken by bubonic plague, according to Le Gentil. He was transported to a hospital and died on June 10, 1580, being buried, according to Faria e Sousa, in a shallow grave in the Convent of Santa Ana, or in the cemetery of the poor in the same hospital, according to Teófilo Braga. His mother, having survived him, began to receive his pension as an inheritance. The receipts, found at Torre do Tombo, the Portuguese national archive, document the date of the poet's death, although an epitaph written by D. Gonçalo Coutinho has been preserved which mistakenly assigns his death to the year 1579. After the 1755 earthquake which destroyed most of Lisbon, attempts were made to find the remains of Camões, but to no avail. The bones deposited in 1880 in a tomb in the Jerónimos Monastery are, in all probability, someone else's.


title: Luís de Camões

text: The testimonies of his contemporaries describe him as a man of average size, with reddish blond hair, blind in his right eye, skilled in all physical exercises and with a temperamental disposition, having little difficulty in engaging in fights. It is said that he had great value as a soldier, exhibiting courage, combativeness, a sense of honor and willingness to serve, a good companion in his spare time, liberal, cheerful and witty when the blows of fortune did not overwhelm his spirit and saddened him. He was aware of his merit as a man, as a soldier and as a poet.


title: Luís de Camões

text: All efforts made to discover the definitive identity of his muse were in vain and several contradictory proposals were made about alleged women present in his life. Camões himself suggested, in one of his poems, that there were several muses to inspire him, when he said "in various flames it was often burning". Names of supposed ladies like their loved ones appear only primitively in his poems, and can therefore be ideal figures; no mention of any ladies identifiable by name is given in the poet's first biographies, those of Pedro de Mariz and that of Severim de Faria, who only collected rumors about "some loves in Paço da Rainha". Reference to Catarina de Ataíde only appeared in the edition of Rimas de Faria e Sousa, in the middle of the 17th century and to Infanta on José Maria Rodrigues, which was only published in the early 20th century. The decanted Dinamene also appears to be a poetic image rather than a real person. Ribeiro proposed several alternatives to explain it: the name might have been a cryptonym of Dona Joana Meneses (DIna = D.Ioana + Mene), one of his possible loves, who died on the way to the Indies and was buried in the sea, daughter of Violante, countess of Linhares, whom he would also have loved in Portugal, and pointed out the occurrence of the name Dinamene in poems written probably around the arrival in India, before proceeding to China, where it is said that he would have found the girl. He also referred to the opinion of researchers who claim the mention of Couto, the only primitive reference to the Chinese outside of the Camonian work itself, to have been falsified, being introduced "a posteriori", with the possibility that it is even a spelling error, a corruption of "dignamente" ("worthily"). In the final version of Couto's manuscript, the name would not even have been cited, even though proving it is difficult with the disappearance of the manuscript.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Probably executed between 1573 and 1575, the so-called "portrait painted in red", illustrated at the opening of the article, is considered by Vasco Graça Moura as "the only and precious reliable document we have to know the features of the epic, portrayed in life by a professional painter ". What is known of this portrait is a copy, made at the request of the 3rd Duke of Lafões, executed by Luís José Pereira de Resende between 1819 and 1844, from the original that was found in a green silk bag in the rubble of the fire at the palace of the Counts of Ericeira, which has since disappeared. It is a "very faithful copy" that,


title: Luís de Camões

text: Also survived a miniature painted in India in 1581, by order of Fernão Teles de Meneses and offered to the viceroy D. Luís de Ataíde, who, according to testimonies of the time, was very similar to his appearance. Another portrait was found in the 1970s by Maria Antonieta de Azevedo, dated 1556 and showing the poet in prison. The first medal with its effigy appeared in 1782, ordered to mint by the Baron of Dillon in England, where Camões is crowned with laurels and dressed in coat of arms, with the inscription "Apollo Portuguez / Honor de Hespanha / Nasceo 1524 / Morreo 1579". In 1793, a reproduction of this medal was coined in Portugal, by order of Tomás José de Aquino, Librarian of the Real Mesa Censória.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Over the centuries the image of Camões was represented numerous times in engraving, painting and sculpture, by Portuguese and foreign artists, and several monuments were erected in his honor, notably the great Monument to Camões installed in 1867 in Praça de Luís de Camões, in Lisbon, by Victor Bastos, which is the center of official public ceremonies and popular demonstrations. He was also honored in musical compositions, appeared with his effigy on medals, currency notes, stamps and coins, and as a character in novels, poetry and plays. The film Camões, directed by José Leitão de Barros, was the first Portuguese film to participate in the Cannes Film Festival, in 1946. Among the famous artists who took him as a model for his works are Bordalo Pinheiro, José Simões de Almeida, Francisco Augusto Metrass, António Soares dos Reis, Horace Vernet, José Malhoa, Vieira Portuense, Domingos Sequeira and Lagoa Henriques. A crater on the planet Mercury and an asteroid in the main belt were named after him.


title: Luís de Camões

text: Camões lived in the final phase of the European Renaissance, a period marked by many changes in culture and society, which mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It was called "renaissance" due to the rediscovery and revaluation of the cultural references of Classical Antiquity, which guided the changes of this period towards a humanist and naturalist ideal that affirmed the dignity of man, placing him at the center of the universe, making him the researcher par excellence of nature, and privileging reason and science as arbitrators of manifest life. During this period, several scientific instruments were invented and several natural laws and physical entities previously unknown were discovered; the knowledge of the face of the planet itself changed after the discoveries of the great navigations. The spirit of intellectual speculation and scientific research was on the rise, causing Physics, Mathematics, Medicine, Astronomy, Philosophy, Engineering, Philology and several other branches of knowledge to reach a level of complexity, efficiency and accuracy unprecedented, which led to an optimistic conception of human history as a continuous expansion and always for the better. In a way, the Renaissance was an original and eclectic attempt to harmonize pagan Neoplatonism with the Christian religion, eros with charitas, together with oriental, Jewish and Arab influences, and where the study of magic, astrology and the occult was not absent. It was also the time when strong national states began to be created, commerce and cities expanded and the bourgeoisie became a force of great social and economic importance, contrasting with the relative decline in the influence of religion in world affairs.