| “ | There's so much to discover before the world ends. | „ |
| ~ Sylens during The Mountain that Fell. |
Sylens is a major character in the Horizon series. He serves as the secondary protagonist of Horizon Zero Dawn and an anti-villainous character in the 2022 sequel Horizon Forbidden West.
He is a mysterious Banuk wanderer and an archaeologist, who has a deep obsession for the knowledge of the Old Ones, spending most of his lifetime searching for answers regarding their past fate. Despite that, however, Sylens would often resort to such questionable methods in doing so.
He is voiced and portrayed by the late Lance Reddick.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- Despite being an anti-villain for the majority of the series, as he is mostly On & Off, Sylens had shown some villainous acts, both in the past and the present, especially towards Aloy, all for his obsessive pursuit of knowledge, even going so far in attempting to use the Tenakth army to be sent on a suicide attack.
- He is often known for his unethical and amoral acts, such as using others in his quest, placing little value on empathy and humanity, and focusing more on the logic behind his actions.
- Despite being angry on Ted Faro for holding back the new humanity by erasing APOLLO due to indirectly causing the Red Raids, Sylens also wanted to take the APOLLO database and flee Earth, thus willing to rob humanity of its second chance to learn from the Old Ones.
- While the Horizon's heinous standards is high, he does enough with the less resources he has, with it being Old World knowledge he gained from HADES, as he was able to have an attempted indirect kill count by himself, as shown in the second game.
- He also stands out, due to him arming both villainous factions including the Eclipse and Regalla's own army of rebels, a unique act for the franchise since no other villain had done that in the series. This is due to the fact that he is the one responsible for starting their acts of terror in both games, so he does not fail the in-series' Heinous Standards.
Horizon Zero Dawn[]
- In the past, as revealed by Ourea in Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds, Sylens ransacked the caverns in Maimstrom during one of the Banuk Conclave's meetings, when he acted as the purported "shaman" of a Banuk werak known as Owl's Watch. From there, he stole all of the machine parts that the Conclave had stored, making him sacrilegious, which even caused Ourea to swear an oath of secrecy regarding his sacrilege.
- To follow up to that, even people like Burgrend speak highly of Sylens' worst act in utter silence, showing that his actions have caused irreparable damage to the Banuk's religion.
- Prior to the present-time events, Sylens orchestrated many of the events in the first game, which makes him stand out for causing them in the first place. To say that would be an understatement since:
- He presents the rogue AI HADES to Bahavas and the other Sun-Priests, whom he atempted to make them believe that it is a God of the Shadow Carja, as means for him to give the Shadow Carja and later the Eclipse the necessary firepower they needed to retake Meridian from Avad, which included Focuses, the Eclipse Focus network, and ancient FARO machines. His involvement in the cult's creation directly led to many of the events that occurred in the first game.
- His aid of Bahavas (a Pure Evil villain) had led the corrupt Sun-Priest to imprison both Itamen and his mother Nasadi, caused the mass-culling of the Shadow Carja refugees, framed Uthid for it, as well as attempting to kill Itamen to take the throne for himself.
- Due to being the man responsible for Helis' ascension to being a dangerous threat to Aloy, his proxy role in the near-genocide of the Nora tribe after Helis attacked the Nora Sacred Lands cannot be underestimated.
- Sylens would lure Aloy into a trap during her mission into destroying the Focus Network in the Eclipse Main Base in the jungles of the Jewel, while not revealing to her that HADES was settled within the camp via a Quantum Processing Module core.
Horizon Forbidden West[]
- At the start of the game, it is revealed that Sylens tricked Aloy into stabbing his own Lance at the Quantum Processing Module that HADES used to be after the Battle of the Alight, where it instead shows a transmission complete signal, taunting her to visit the source of the signal pulse, which turned out to be in the ancient FARO facility known as LATOPOLIS. He would use this signal pulse to unknowingly lure Aloy and let Far Zenith capture her for her interference.
- Even if Sylens was surprised about the Zeniths' unwitting interference, he still plays a major hand in Aloy almost getting killed by Erik Visser within LATOPOLIS, since he willingly lies to her about it.
- After striking deals with both Regalla and Asera in the past, Sylens would soon form the creation of Regalla's rebels and Sons of Prometheus, respectively, making him instrumental to Regalla's acts of terrorism.
- By using Regalla's hatred towards the Carja and her own tribe, he willingly armed Regalla's rebels with weapons and an army of like-minded individuals who hate their chief. He also played a direct hand in the creation of the Sons of Prometheus, a rebel group of Oseram mercenaries whom he provided them with machine overrides and Focuses, where he proxied it by having Asera giving it to Regalla's army, resulting with Regalla's own faction having an army of overridden machines.
- According to Tilda herself, it is all a part of his secret pact with Regalla to usurp Hekarro's position as the tribe's Chief and kill him, so she would use the Tenakth as sacrificial fodder to launch a suicide attack on the Far Zenith base. This is despite Sylens acknowledging the true danger of the Far Zenith army, where he would use the chaos of the battle to escape Earth and seize the APOLLO database for himself, and with all of the Tenakth getting mercilessly slaughtered by the Specter drones and the Zenith army via an act of attempted indirect genocide against the whole tribe. Had he succeeded, he would not only deprive the future generations of ancient knowledge and wipe out a whole tribe, but also dooming the world to Nemesis.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is far too morally grey to be NPE, as he often switches sides, either between the good side (particularly Aloy) or the bad. Most of the times, he helps Aloy out on her personal quest, but other times he has instances where he temporarily betrays her and sometimes even going so far in luring her to her death.
- Despite his rather cold erudition and his extremely blunt form of logic that borders to him being a jerk and reckless in his primary pursuit, he often has moments where he learns from his mistakes that he commits. This included him foolishly serving HADES, a mistake he learned. But this also made him much more cautious, when he acted as a proxy with his plans in the Forbidden West, especially towards Regalla and Asera.
- Oftentimes, while he sees Aloy as nothing more than ally that is vital on his quest, he often shows some degree of care towards her well-being, such as when she was captured by Helis in the Sun-Ring, and would go so far in saving her. He also respects Aloy's abilities, as well.
- He also shows to have a hatred against Ted Faro, after revealing the true cause of the APOLLO purge, and views ignorance as a plague, going so far in remarking Faro's abhorrent actions that led to the Horizon world as it is.
- When his plans later collapsed, due to Aloy and Tilda's interference, he would later abandon it and willingly joined with Aloy again. At the same time, due to knowing what Tilda is, he would warn Aloy not to trust her, as he revealed more regarding the rogue Zenith's history, including the existence of Nemesis.
Trivia[]
- Sylens is one of the two Horizon characters to be Inconsistently Heinous, alongside HADES.
- Along with Stanley Pines, Midnight, and The Man with No Name, Sylens is one of the four Inconsistently Heinous characters to be Inconsistently Admirable, Guile Hero and Magnificent Baddie.
External Links[]
- Sylens on the Heroes Wiki
- Sylens on the Villains Wiki
- Sylens on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Sylens on the Guile Heroes Wiki
- Sylens on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki