Heroes (TV series)/Headscratchers/Arthur

Do Peter, Sylar and Arthur all have differing degrees of the same absorption power?

It would explain a lot - like how Arthur knows so much about his sons' powers and that Sylar's "Hunger" can apparently be cured by his getting in touch with his sense of Empathy. It would also explain how Sylar is now able to absorb powers without killing. But it doesn't explain...

• ...why would Peter need to go to the future, meet a non-crazy Sylar and take his power so that Peter would be able to understand the ramifications of his altering the time stream?
  • The key here would be the "differing degrees" part of your summary. While Peter's power kicked off from Empathy, Sylar's kicked off from Understanding. Being all care-bear sympathetic with people the way Peter's power works would not allow him to figure out the mechanics of an erratic, butterfly-filled timeline, while Sylar's original start-off power would.
• ...why would Peter need special permission from Sylar to absorb his power when Peter's absorbtion has always been an automatic reflex?
  • For one, we don't even know what other powers Sylar has. He may somehow have one directly related to blocking that kind of absorption. For another, similar powers have been shown to interfere with each other in the past - remember when Matt and Peter first met, and all they could do was give each other headaches?
  • It's possible that, lacking permission, Peter's ability would just keep absorbing one stolen power of Sylar's after another. He couldn't risk absorbing so many other abilities that quickly, else he might blow up all over again.
• ...why didn't Peter feel the influence of The Hunger before he absorbed if from Sylar?
  • Again, "differing degrees". Peter's power was Empathic from the beginning, while The Hunger was based on wanting to have the power, without having a non-lethal way to get to it. Potentially, the Sylar of that timeline never discovered the Empathic application of his power, and so when Peter got the power from him, he didn't also get the realisation that killing isn't necessary to the process.

Arthur Petrelli lecturing anyone on 'empathy' bugs me.

Seriously, the guy's entire personality revolves around slaughtering or mind-controlling anyone who gets in his way without regard for the consequences. Where does he get off teaching Sylar to have 'empathy'? He doesn't know the meaning of the word!

• He does know the meaning of the word; he chooses not to use it. Rule 103 on The Evil Overlord List. Okay, that's mercy instead of empathy but the principle is the same.
  • Hee, hee... Maybe the next lesson will be 'Okay, now that you've learned how to feel for others and have developed a conscience, here's how to ignore it and be a stone killer again...'

The Massive Idiocies of Arthur Petrelli

• Why have Matt's dad cause an image of Linderman to appear to both Nathan and Daphne? The former knows him as a dead enemy and the latter does not know him at all. I'm sure Maury could have wrested more appropriately persuasive personas from their minds.
  • Maybe Maury just didn't want to use The First Evil's thing of using dead loved ones to get people to do his dirty work, as it would be seen as ripping him off.
  • Well, in the case of Nathan, having a somewhat-friendly figure who was able to heal people who Nathan knew to be dead show up in the wake of Nathan's "miracle" recovery made sense. As for why he recycled Linderman for talking to Daphne, there was no harm in him recycling Linderman since Daphne didn't know him and was - as far as Maury knew and cared - a mercenary who would take orders from anyone.
    • Plus, they have to justify re-using Malcom Mac Dowell SOMEHOW.
• If the goal is to give everyone powers why is he so destructive of those that already have powers?
  • On that note he's all over the place when it comes to his treatment of other meta-humans. Some are used as henchmen, some are drained of powers, and the rest are killed outright.
    • He's an evil overlord - you think he's going to spare anyone who is actively working to stop him and/or a threat to his plans?
• For someone with the ability to absorb powers he wasn't seen using many. This was the death of him as his regenerative ability should have countered a bullet to the forehead.
  • We saw him use his own power theft, regeneration, electricity, precognitive drawing, teleportation/time travel, telekinesis and telepathy. That's quite a lot of power even if we didn't see him walk through walls or fly.
  • And The Haitian was there SPECIFICALLY to cancel out all of Arthur's powers, including regeneration.
  • And again, it was a bullet to the freaking brain. It's been shown repeatedly that the brain is the major weak spot of regenerators, and not necessarily just the disturbingly soft spot in the back of the head which apparently doesn't have a section of skull over it - in season 2 Adam was threatened just basically with a shotgun aimed at his head. Not anywhere specific on it, just at it.
    • Why the hell does Arthur kill the most useful members of his team? Adam Monroe is practically unkillable, charismatic and manipulative and a trained warrior. Maury Parkman can control minds, create illusions and read peoples thoughts. What does he have left? A walking stereotype thug whose only strong when people are afraid and an inbred retard who's so stupid he makes Dubya look like a MENSA candidate. Oh and a speedster who doesn't even share his goals or have anything even approaching a villainous side. Okay, so he later brought Sylar and Elle aboard, which is a step in the right direction, but still. Was this guy planning to achieve ANYTHING with a group of C-list losers like Knox, Daphne or Flint?!
      • Well, Arthur did try to recruit pretty much every meta-human he knew of into Pinehearst, most with a pretty hard sell. It's only whenever someone says "no" to him that he bumps them off. Kind of a "if you're not with me, then you're too dangerous to leave alive" kind of deal. Which is actually pretty smart, as the one time he fails to enact this policy (RE: Sylar) it ultimately leads to him taking a bullet to the face. The only two people he kills or attacks pre-emptively are Adam Monroe and Angela Petrelli, who were both potential rival Big Bads, which made them too dangerous to leave running around.
      • Also, he killed Adam by taking his Healing Factor, which he wanted so he could move around, talk, and not be essentially a telepathic vegetable for the rest of his life. It could be that Adam dying due to the loss of his ability was just an unplanned side-effect.
  • The way I see it, Arthur Petrelli has pretty much the same mindset as Light "Kira" Yagami. He believes his plan to be the ultimate good for humanity, thus anyone who dares to oppose him is detrimental to humanity and must be eliminated.

Also fairly old: "Why did Arthur just stand there and let Peter shoot him in the head?"

I've seen this JBM referenced a couple of times, but never explicitly brought to the open. In basic, it's a gripe with the fact that at the end of "Our Father", Arthur Petrelli apparently just stands there in front of a hovering bullet instead of actually moving away from it.

• The reason for this is very clear. Look at the way he moves throughout the entire scene after Sylar comes in - that is, he doesn't except for his mouth. Arthur didn't move away from the bullet because, thanks to a TK hold from Sylar, he couldn't move anything but his mouth. And the way he was leaning over slightly, the odd position of his hands... bullet or no bullet, that's not a comfortable pose. If it was physically possible, he would have moved.

Why was Arthur's plan bad?

I have not watched Volume three in a while, but how did Arthur's plan lead to the Earth blowing up. I know that he planned on giving powers to everybody, but the future we saw (when Peter went to the future) seemed pretty good. I just do not see the connection between "giving people powers" and "the Earth blowing up." In fact, now that I think about it, since they are called evolved humans, and are the "next step in evolution," wouldn't that mean that ever one will get powers eventually? Was the reason in a web-comic I missed?

• As seen in Hiro's trip to the future, and pictured in certain other visions, apparently it's what causes the world to blow up.
  • The question is, why? We did see how Arthur's goals had tremendous negative consequences in another future, but how do you go from "too much power granted too freely to too many people who can't handle it" to "oop, now the world is exploding"? I remember an interview where the writers acknowledged one of their Volume Two mistakes as not having clear stakes from the beginning, so they rectified that in Volume Three by showing off the exploding world (and Ando shooting Hiro for some reason), then... er... never mind. (I held out hope that it was the beginning of a cross-Volume Myth Arc, but they seem to have forgotten about it altogether by now.)
  • Well, based on how the forumla Mohinder created functioned, there's no way to be sure exactly what power a person will get, so presumably someone at some point got a "blow up the world" power. Either that, or someone got Ted Sprague's city-nuking power, someone else got Ando's amplifying power, they happened to run across each other, and KABOOM!!!
    • Post-hoc explanations aside, that has the makings of a brilliant story. You know what? Hold that thought.
      • Not sure if the above tropers are still around, but Samuel Sullivan's power is likely what the inciting incident was. Given the twofold nature of his power (moves earth + stronger with more specials) it seems like if Arthur and Samuel ever met (inevitable if the heroes hadn't stopped him) the Earth would just blow up reflexively. Presumably, Arthur developed the formula to allow himself to obtain all sorts of diverse powers, so he would have gone after the Carnival as soon as possible.

Why didn't Arthur do anything?

Arthur has all of Peter's powers, and seems to have a better degree of control. With those powers he can stop time,teleport, control matter and energy, reead minds, control minds, see the future, and hundreds of other things. Why did he just set around drawing. He could have killed all the heroes in a few minutes, but no, he just sends out some weak henchmen.

• Why bother with them? They're no threat to him. The only people on the planet (that he knows of) who might have a shot at killing him or ruining his plan are Peter, Sylar, Hiro, and the Haitian. He Depowers Peter, manipulates Sylar into working for him, and first gives Hiro amnesia and then depowers him as well once he's served his purpose. The only place he really slipped up was in not dealing with the Haitian (and it's implied that he set up Baron Samedi in Haiti in order to keep him busy).

Why didn't Arthur know his plan would destroy the world?

He has the ability to see into the future in two different ways, can extract the information from other people, and can actually travell there, so since every precognitive seemed to be seeing the world blowing up, why didn't he.

• I think he did know, but he just didn't care because he's a Card-Carrying Villain with basically no motives other than kicking dogs.
  • When questioned about this, he repeatedly says that he intends to change that future. Which, once he stole Hiro's Time Master power from Peter, was not all that unreasonable.

How the f*** did Arthur Petrelli die?

He was shot i get that but he took Adam Monroe's healing power. He had regeneration but a gunshot to the head just killed like that. I know the Haitian was nearby but he should get better as soon as the Haitian was gone. If anyone has an explanation for this i would love to read it.

• Bullets explode. Petrelli's brainstem wasn't just damaged, it was destroyed. That's the way to kill a regenerator. In contrast, Claire, Peter, and Sylar have each been laid out by partial damage to the brainstem inflicted with sharp objects, but Sylar was still worried enough about his "sweet spot" to move it (and all indications are that if he hadn't, Danko's attack would've been fatal).
• Except he didn't get shot in the brain stem it was just a head shot which would have killed Adam, but not Claire. Problem? He absorbed both types of healing