Hero-vivor!

And it's the final episode of Hero-vivor. (Previous one here.)

And good fucking god, this has been hard to write. How do you determine a winner when at least two of the characters are extremely ambiguously should-be-dead-but-we-have-no-corpse-on-screen? Especially when one of those is the likely winner of the game?

*cries*

I have pondered various ways to do this. I even waited to start writing this until after the Behind the Eclipse interview went up to get some answers clarified. Plus I have scoured spoiler sites trying to figure out who for sure is returning. Yes, this has influenced my choices here to some degree, but I can assure the spoiler-free that you won't be able to tell from this writeup because...

In the end, I have decided to go with the "If there's no corpse on screen, they're still alive" option for scoring. It's about the best I can do here.

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D.L.:

• Despite being injured, can still phase himself and Niki through a wall: +10
• Gets dumped in the hall like the trash: -5
• Mohinder wants to rescue him, though: +8
• Wife and kid also return for him: +8
• Gets picked up and rescued: +10
• Hugs from kid: +5

Net gain: 36
Score: 241

Niki:

• Hubby hides her from guards: +10
• Ditches injured hubby to find kid: -5
• Falls for the "how'd my alter ego get her own body and kill my kid?" trick. Oh, Niki, Niki, Niki: -10
• Gets her ass kicked by Candice-as-Jessica: -8
• Gets a clue bat from Jessica about who's beating her up: +5
• Then continues to whine about her weakness anyway: -3
• Then actually does beat Candice-as-Jessica up. ABOUT FREAKING TIME! +10
• Rescues Micah: +10
• Returns for husband: +8
• Disables doorknob: +10
• And picks up hubby for rescue: +10
• Smacks Sylar with parking meter: +10
• Then bails mid-fight. For chrissake, unless you're calling paramedics, there's not that much you can do for D.L. right now! Meanwhile, that serial killer needs some killing! -3
• Hug from Molly: +5

Net gain: 49!
Score: 52

Micah:

• Gets rescued: +10
• Eek, Dad is shot: -8
• Fixes elevator and saves everyone! +10
• Hugs Dad: +5

Net gain: 17
Score: 164

Molly:

• Doesn't get shot: +10
• Does need another transfusion: -8
• Gets it: +8
• Finds Sylar: +10
• Knows of one really creepy guy she doesn't WANT to find: -10
• Finds Sylar again: +10
• ...and he's already here OH CRAP: -8
• Knows where the guards are: +10
• Gets rescued via elevator: +10
• Hugs Niki: +5

Net gain: 47
Score: 181

Hiro:

• Stands up to Daddums: +8
• Teleports away! +10
• Saves Ando: +10
• Leaves Ando behind for his own safety: +8
• Also gives him a sword: +5
• Bad-ass! +1
• STABBITY STAB STAB YATTA! +10
• Gets TK'd by Sylar: -10
• Has to teleport himself away from ramming into a building: +10
• ...and ends up in the Way Way Back end of the past. @#$#@! -10

Net gain: 42
Score: 208

Mr. Nakamura:

• Isn't exactly up with saving Ando's ass: -8

Net loss: 8
Score: 112

Sylar:

• Paints the future: +10
• TK's around: +10
• But throws a hissy fit and breaks a valuable painting: -8
• Nabs Ando: +8
• And the future comic: +5
• And somehow TK-fucks with him: +10
• TK's Bennet: +10
• TK-chokes Peter: +10
• TK-shoots Matt: +10
• TK-smacks Peter: +10
• Gets a big smacking from Niki: -8
• And from Peter: -8
• Heh heh heh, I get to be the hero! Oh, the irony: +1
• Never mind, instead gets well-deserved sword through the gut: -10
• TK's Hiro: +10
• Appears to die (hah, but I am still taking points for it anyway because I need some damn satisfaction here): -10
• In the grand tradition of evil villians, now the frigging "corpse" is missing. Grr. +10

Net gain: 60
Score: 361

Mrs. Petrelli:

• Nothing's changing here! Nothing! +5
• Kisses son: +3
• Catches Claire: +8
• Plays Phone Nazi: -5
• Disses Daddy Bennet to his face: -5
• Slammed her kid behind his back: -8
• Continues to act generally kinda bitchy and uncaring about the fate of the world, her own kid, et al: -8

Net loss: 10
Score: 108

Mohinder:

• Hides Thompson's corpse: +5
• Reasonably points out that unlike Matt n' Ted, trusting HRG hasn't worked out for him: +1
• Transfuses Molly: +8
• Nicely wants to help the shot guy in the hall: +8
• Gets rescued via elevator: +10
• Also nicely wants to help the shot guy in Kirby Plaza: +8

Net gain: 40
Score: 179

NOAH Bennet:

• Hides Thompson's corpse: +5
• Finds out Ted's dead and Sylar's nukular: -10
• Has to run the Mama Petrelli Gauntlet of Mean before he can talk to Claire: -5
• Wakes up Peter: +2
• And offers to stick with him and shoot him if necessary: +8
• AND HAS A FIRST NAME! +2
• Gets TK'd by Sylar: -8
• Hugs! +5
• Walks off into the sunrise with his kid: +10

Net gain: 9
Score: 173

Claire:

• Doesn't trust Daddy about as far as she can throw him: -5
• Nor does he care about her or Peter: -10
• Runs off: +5
• Gets caught by Grandma: -8
• Realizes birth family is a bunch of jerks: -10
• Hugs from birth dad: +3
• Flees from jerky birth family...out a high-rise window: +10
• Still can't shoot Peter: -8
• Hugs from adoptive dad: +5
• Walks off into the sunrise with her real family: +10
• Even though she has no clue what happened to the other ones, sadly: -8

Net loss: 16
Score: 180

Peter:

• Looks up Nathan, who doesn't seem like he's gonna be particularly helpful: -5
• Codependent much? -5
• Reads Claire's mind: +10
• -Duh, she's mad: -5
• Reads Nathan's mind: +10
• -DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED, Nathan thinks: -10
• Goes invisible: +10
• Starts to nuke up: -8
• Passes out instead of blowing up...for now: +10
• On the other hand, passed out: -8
• Has some kind of wacky time travel vision...thingie. I have no idea. +10
• Sees his old self meeting Simone again: +3
• Old self comes off as the perfect hospice guy: +3
• Also finds out his mom and his old boss were friends/in league with each other: +3
• Also finds out Mommy really doesn't like him much: -8
• Old boss does, though: +5
• DON'T EVEN FUCKING TELL ME IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THIS IS A DREAM SEQUENCE OR TIME TRAVEL OR WHATEVER! COME ON, WRITERS! -5
• Love will make me save the world. Groovy: +2
• Bennet helpfully wakes him up: +2
• And promises to stick by him and kill him if necessary: +8
• "Call me Noah." Awww: +2
• Gets choked by Sylar: -6
• And smacked with a parking meter: -8
• Then Niki steps in: +8
• Tells Niki to back off: -3
• Super-strength-smacks Sylar: +10
• Then goes radioactive when he doesn't want to...losing control here...-10
• Three people with the power to kill me, and yet nobody can/will do it? Argh. -10
• Awww, brotherly luv: +10
• Brother saves his ass from exploding on ground: +10
• On the other hand, did explode in air. But probably still alive, anyway: -10

Net gain: 15
Score: 291

Nathan:

• Gets kissed by Mom: +3
• Yeah, yeah, I'll still become the president: -5
• Oops, uh, I didn't know anything ahead of time. Really: -5
• Can't catch an invisible man: -8
• Goes along with his mom's bull: -8
• Hugs Claire: +3
• What, you can't fly your ass out a window? -10
• Here I come to save the daaaaaaaaaay! +10
• Aww, brotherly luv: +10
• I will fly you awaaaaaaaaaaay! +10
• Possibly gets blown to bitty bitty bits? Who knows? Either way, he at least has to have taken some damage? Oh, I don't know. I'm deleting major points but not going to count him as killed off quite yet: -10

Net loss: 10
Score: 114

Matt:

• Keeps an eye on Molly: +6
• Is stoopid enough to think he'll shoot Sylar all by himself: -8
• Figures out where Sylar's going: +2
• Attempts to shoot Sylar and fails miserably: -8
• Also gets shot by his own damn bullets. Dumbass: -8
• Gets tended to by Mohinder: +8
• And the paramedics: +3
• "Don't die, Mr. Parkman!" Well, you KNOW if a cute kid says it, it must be true: +2

Net loss: 8
Score: 212

Ando:

• Gets caught and messed with by Sylar: -8
• Also loses the comic book of the future: -6
• Gets saved by Hiro: +10
• Gets returned to Japan. On the one hand, he's safe: +10
• On the other hand, misses the fun: -8
• Gets a sword himself: +2
• Calls Hiro a bad-ass: +1

Net gain: 1
Score: 159

Candice:

• Impersonates Jessica, totally fucks with Niki's head: +10
• Fakes Micah's death. Wow, going back to asshole behavior, huh? +10
• Kicks Niki's ass: +8
• Then gets ass beat by Niki: -8
• Also loses ability to magick Micah's dead corpse when knocked out, yet mysteriously continues to manifest as looking cute, white, and thin. OH, COME ON, WRITERS, THAT WAS FREAKING WEAK OF YOU (see Behind the Eclipse link for the lame explanation for this): -10

Net gain: 10
Score: 207

Jessica:

• Actually does something helpful by revealing that for once, she's not the one pounding Niki into the ground: +10

Net gain: 10
Score: 242

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Special addendum:
I normally don't recap the comics here (they're really too short most of the time to do this with any interest), but I'll have to do it this time in order to clarify the whereabouts of a particular character. Of course, this once again boils down to a "Is she dead OR NOT?"... and now I have a headache:

Hana:

• Manages to wrangle her way onto a freaking Chinese space shuttle: +10
• Wipes out the old-fashioned tracking system satellite: +10
• Does, however, end up all corpsified and gross in space: -10
• And yet, because she's all wireless, continues to live on in cyberspace: +10
• And gives Micah a bit of advice: +2

Net gain: 22
Score: 154

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FINAL SCORES:

361: Sylar
291: Peter
261: Haitian
242: Jessica
241: D.L.
212: Matt
208: Hiro
207: Candice
181: Molly
180: Claire
179: Mohinder
173: NOAH Bennet/HRG
164: Micah
159: Ando
156: Meredith
154: Hana
144: Zach
143: Claude
114: Nathan
112: Mr. Nakamura
108: Angela Petrelli
54: Mrs.  Bennet
52: Niki

Yay for Niki FINALLY NOT SUCKING! And NOT GOING INTO NEGATIVE NUMBERS! And ACTUALLY MAKING IT OVER 50! YOU GO, GIRL!

And...you knew it was going to happen...winning by a fuck of a lot because he has a lot of powers and doesn't get thwarted all that much... is SYLAR. Yes, the baddest guy on the show has won Hero-vivor. At the beginning of the series I would have put my money on Peter or Hiro or Claire, but no. Good guys get kicked once in awhile, but the superior use of powers without meltdown or much in the way of bad shit happening has put Sylar way, way, way, WAY over the top.

I was hoping he'd bite it by the end of this episode, but...HAH. He did and he fucking didn't at the same damn time! Ergo...Sylar is the winner of season 1 of Hero-vivor. I guess this all teaches us a valuable lesson, first mentioned in Spaceballs: "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb!"

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On the "Best of the Rest" scores, since technically WE CAN'T COUNT ANYONE ELSE AS DEAD, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, the scores remain the same as last time. Ergo, Linderman wins. Huzzah.

(I should say that I had heard on spoiler sites that Simone and her dad were supposed to return from the dead in the finale with powers, so I figured I should keep track of the scores in case they pulled a Mikhail. But apparently, that one was a foiler. So, uh, never mind.)

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And that's it for Hero-vivor for the summer! Tune in next fall when I try to figure out how to score people who may or may not have died over the summer, and how to score people who are technically dead but are still showing up in flashbacks a lot since it's "Generations" and all, not to mention what to do with the "Heroes: Origins" characters that may or may not continue into the main narrative! In short, watch me get another bunch of headaches over this and wonder why I thought it was a good and fun idea to do this with a sci-fi show in the first place...

Comments

[Jess]

Thanks so much for Hero-vivor! I had a blast reading it.

It also helps that Sylar won. I was pulling for him all along. :)