< Heroes (TV series) < Headscratchers

Heroes (TV series)/Headscratchers/Miscellaneous


The human genome does NOT WORK LIKE THAT.

It just freaking bugs the hell out of me. Okay, I can take the Willing Suspension of Disbelief to a certain point. Claire has a genetic mutation that lets her regenerate her cells quickly. Great, she has an accelerated cell cycle and clotting mechanisms. Charlie has a mutation that gives her an enhanced memory. Fine. Memory is a function of the brain. That mechanic in Montana has super-hearing - maybe the structure of her inner ears is different than normal. Okay, fine. These are all things that are part of the human body, and thus controlled by DNA. Fine. But what DNA actually does; its actual role in the cell, is to be a blueprint for the production of proteins. Willing Suspension of Disbelief, okay. Maybe Matt can read minds because he's extra sensitive to the natural electrical output of brains or something, and he has a special or altered protein that allows him to do this. I can buy that. But HOW is a protein going to give you the power of flight? What kind of protein allows a person to stop time? And would someone please explain to me Peter Petrelli's power? Apparently his DNA is psychic, since it can tell what other people's genetic mutations are from a distance, and adjust itself accordingly? ARRRRGH!! And Nikki/Jessica, HOW ON EARTH IS THAT A GENETIC MUTATION?

  • Dude. This isn't a plot point, it's the entire premise. If you can't Mantra your way through that, maybe you should just watch another show.
    • I can Mantra my way through, it just bugs me. And hey, this is the "It Just Bugs Me" page, isn't it? I like the rest of the show.
      • Sorry mate, it's just (and I imagine the previous poster thought the same) your post looks a little bit long for "Hey, here's something that slightly irritates me". Chalk it up to "Too much scientific knowledge ruins television" >;~)
      • Yeah, sorry for my li'l misinterpretation. And just-slightly-Above Troper, we do actually have a trope for that. Dan Browned. XD
  • Although, I do have a little Fan Wank about Niki/Jessica in particular. Let's suppose that the proteins of her muscle structure are super-dense, and that's what causes super-strength. However, to avoid Does Not Know His Own Strength, Niki instinctively learned to be gentle with things, and thus bring her strength down to a basic human level. Since she developed these instincts probably before she learned to walk, she easily could have forgotten all about it by adulthood. Jessica, however, being made up of a bunch of other stuff repressed to the subconscious level, still remembers, and can thus subvert the gentleness reflex and hit as hard as she likes.
    • Especially since it's established in the Season 1 finale that Niki does have super strength when she's still herself, and it was her own mental block that was preventing it. It's Niki, not Jessica, that beats up Candice, and smacks Sylar with the parking meter.
  • I can live with the 'DNA-mutations make you superhuman'-thing, but what breaks my Suspension of Disbelief is that you could find everyone with mutated DNA through statistical analisys of data from the Human Genome project. How in earth would that have to work? Lame Hand Wave if you ask me..

Heroes seems to be chock full of these.

Most of them seem to revolve around either the fact that in Heroes world, Odessa, Texas and New York City are apparently a five minute walk apart. Or that someone in the room has a power that single handedly solves the situation but doesn't use it because it would kill the drama.

  • If I may just cockily squish myself in between here - Maybe that is another trope, a rule that compliments the Idiot Plot ? Next to the Rule Of Funny and the Rule Of Cool, how about the Anti-Rule Of Drama - "Nothing is allowed to happen that would reduce the Drama. Not even if it's logical" ?

Most of the current superpowered people had powered parents.

The Petrellis, Parkman's father, Hiro's father, Claire's parents, and so on. But what about Niki, DL and Sylar? And actually, did Hiro's father even have a power? Everything seems to suggest that he did, except for his "I've been waiting years for a Nakamura to ascend. I never thought it would be you" comment to his son.

  • Does "ascend" mean having powers? Or something else?
  • Genetics as power origin is a major plot point from minute 1 of the series. Also, season 3 reveals that Niki is a triplet created with powers, Sylar is a Petrelli by birth, and Kaito can see patterns in things like the stock market.
    • The Sylar thing has been undone, but his dad is John Glover so odds are good. Hiro's mom had healing; I'm not sure if Kaito's poweredness is canonical since that scene was taken out, although it seems likely. Maybe "ascend" meant to have Hiro's power over time and space, or a similarly high-level talent. Although the way Kaito says that he's been waiting implies that he only means a member of the generation of Nakamuras after his, since he couldn't have been waiting before he was born—so I guess he expected Hiro's sister, or maybe a cousin or something, to be the one to have powers.
    • As for DL His mother Paulette had the power of ability charging, and his niece Monica has an ability as well

Kirby Plaza is in New York City.

Wouldn't you expect at least a few Innocent Bystanders to be hanging around, even at night?

  • There was an evacuation.
    • Was there? Where were the police and Homeland security you'd expect to see in that case? Who ordered that evacuation?? Nathan Petrelli? Primatech doesn't have that official power. If they expected Peter to blow up on the Plaza they'd have had to evac half the city, which I doubt happened. I mean I know an evacuation appearently happened in Peter's dream visions of him blowing up in front of the hotel, but those weren't accurate visions like Isaac's pictures anyway, more like prophetic warnings. Probably the old black guy's power... what was his name, Devereaux or something?
      • Prophetic dreaming: Revealed in Season 3 to have come from Peter's mother, Angela Petrelli.

How the hell have the heroes gone unnoticed by the general public for so long?

Yes, the Company is keeping an eye on them but you'd think that in all this time one of them would have done a big public display / appeared on TV / won the JREF million dollar prize.

  • Not to mention that Mohinder's father has published a book about them and Mohinder has spent months giving lectures all around the world. Mohinder has every reason to reveal their existence to the world and has the numbers of at least a half dozen people who could easily prove it.
  • Well, everyone thought Mohinder's father was crazy. And I think the people who come to Mohinder's lectures don't mind the academic idea of "special abilities", but prefer to believe it's purely hypothetical and/or hasn't actually happened yet.
  • It also helps that Angela Petrelli and others have assassins waiting to silence anyone trying to go public about their power.
    • But the assassin was only able to get there in time because Nathan made a big deal about how he was going to reveal a secret, never actually used his power and spent a while talking vaguely before revealing anything. And even then they ran the risk that Peter would react by throwing a lightning bolt at the assassin or something. The majority of super-powered characters could potentially expose the secret at any time they wanted by turning up at a crowded area and using their powers.
      • In theory, they could have been waiting in hope that he would change his mind about going public, as opposed to only just getting there in time. Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of the possibility of Nathan or Peter simply demonstrating their powers as opposed to talking about them.
        • Turns out the Company had nothing to do with the assassination attempt anyway. It was Future!Peter
  • It gets especially ridiculous when you consider the fact that supers, such as Adam, have been around as long as 1671.
    • According to one of the online graphic novels, a pharaoh who could levitate stuff used his power to help build the Great Pyramid of Giza sometime before 2566 BC. Understandably he hid his ability (and his relatives') due to the fear of angering the gods and what have you but that's a hell of a long time to keep such a volatile secret. Some enterprising and less religious individual should have taken advantage of the idea of considering rulers/monarchs the descendants of God a few millennia ago.
  • What do you do when someone claims to be able to communicate with the dead, lift a car with their bare hands or stop blood with their thoughts? Ignore it. They show it to you? It's a trick.
    • A few of the more subtle powers such as mind-reading or muscle memory could be dismissed as tricks, at least without proper testing but the likes of flight, teleportation or shooting electricity from your hands should make it quite easy to convince any sane person. You pretty much need an entire planet of Flat Earth Atheists for this explanation to work.

How is it that characters with regeneration can apparently be permanently killed by decapitation, but can survive ACTUALLY BLOWING UP?

  • He may have just been "blown up" into, well... bits, not reduced to dust. It is quite hard to reduce the human body to nothing at all. His head might still have been attached to something and relatively intact. What I found unfathomable is how can you KNOW that your enemy can regenerate from fatal wounds but just assume an explosion killed him permanently without even going back to to poke around the ashes to make sure.
    • Well, there was a crispy skeleton lying next to Kensei's signature facemask. It just turned out to be the wrong crispy skeleton.
    • They weren't blown up. Peter wasn't harmed by the explosion for the same reason Elle doesn't fry herself when she shoots lightning out of her fingers. We saw Kensei's body the morning after the gunpowder explosion, and it was more or less intact, though burnt to a crisp (that wasn't a skeleton, and it was his body). It hadn't healed by then, I guess due to the severity of the injury, or maybe he had some shrapnel stuck in his brain that got knocked loose later.
  • I figured regeneration was in the blood, thus they could regrow a removed or damaged brain. Sylar said he couldn`t kill Claire if he wanted, even though he actually messed with her brain. And objects stuck in their heads don`t cancel their power but is just in the way.

What I would like to know is the ratio of the characters who stay dead to the total number of characters that have died (not including glorified extras whose sole purpose is to be slaughtered).

Because it's getting ridiculous. Killing characters off doesn't seem to be so much "oh, how tragic, anyone can die" as "we're bored with this person, let's put 'em on a bus." Dying isn't the brush off. It's declining to bring them back.

  • First season, it was a Anyone Can Die kind of show. Charlie, Isaac, Ted - all plot-important characters, all died and stayed dead. I think what happened was that Sylar stopped going after main characters at all. Now that he's got his powers back, we might see more people being Killed Off for Real.
    • So only Sylar is allowed to kill main characters? That's kind of lame.
      • No, but Sylar was the only killer for quite a while. Part of the reason season two was such a failure was the lack of an adequate Big Bad, except for Adam, but he was locked up for thirty years, and once he gets out he has to at least pretend he's good so Peter doesn't kill him. No that we have Sylar and twelve psychos who "are just as bad or worse", the show will likely return to Anyone Can Die. The body count is already starting to rise with Bob gone.
    • It seems to have become "Anyone (introduced in season 2) Can Die". So, y'know...watch out, Monica.

Are we to believe that New York City and Costa Verde, CA are a short walk away?

Or does Sylar have some unspecified teleportation power? Or did he just stow away on a plane?

  • We've had this problem before, you know. Apparently, Odessa, NYC, and Vegas are also only a short walk away from each other.
  • It's not shown in real time. Also, we have these wonderful inventions, they're called cars.
  • Well, one trip took place between seasons and we haven't seen West in a while...

The entry above regarding how Gabriel Grey's transformation into Sylar doesn't jibe with the established history in Season One and the web comics is just the tip of the iceberg.

  • Bennet is portrayed as being a by-the-book Company man who never questions orders. Never mind that, before the events of this episode, he helped his former partner Claude fake his death so he could escape Company control and that within weeks of the events of this episode, he was subverting Company resources to save his daughter's life... from the Serial Killer he is now directly responsible for letting run loose. You'd think he'd also be somewhat concerned about the death of Mohinder's father, who he was actively trying to recruit into The Company during this time.
    • He wasn't trying to fake Claude's death. He was trying to kill him but failed.
    • He is also a gloriously amoral man, who is loyal to his family first, the company second. He's willing to kill, kidnap, and unjustly imprison innocent people. It makes perfect sense to this troper that he would have no problem with Sylar until he discovered that Sylar was going to target his daughter. At that point, HRG had no reason to expect that Claire would be on any list of specials that Sylar could get his hands on.
    • I feel all of this, as well as Elle's changes discussed below, are purely so the writers can ham-handedly continue their mission to "redeem" Sylar. Considering the man cut a path through the United States, and made a damn good villain doing so, this troper isn't accepting it. It reeks of pandering to the fanbase.
  • Elle, previously portrayed as a sociopath desperate to please her bosses and her father, expresses concerns about Gabriel's mental being and protests Bennet's plan to push him into killing again so they can observe how he takes superpowers. Awfully big heart for a woman whose thinks a good way to let a boy know she thinks he's cute involves high voltage.
    • Yeah, whatever happened to "The docs diagnosed me as paranoid schizophrenic but I think they just said that because I tried to kill them"?
      • What I took out of the episode was that Elle saw a lot of herself in Sylar (psychopathic killer), which is why she sympathized with him, something she probably wouldn't have done if he was just a regular law-abiding superpowered schmuck. Thus on some level, she probably felt that if Sylar could be "saved", then she could too. And of course Bennet promptly flushes that little hope down the crapper.
  • Thompson is a lot more compassionate than he was ever shown to be in Season One. Indeed, it almost seems that Bennet and Thompson's places in the script were switched in order to justify Eric Roberts returning.
    • This didn't bother me too much, since Thompson's character hadn't really been established that much. If all we saw of Bennet was the times he was being a jerkass antihero, we'd think he wasn't anything more than a stone cold bastard too.
  • Linderman, a manipulative bastard who is masterminding a plot to destroy New York City in the name of establishing a new world order that he would indirectly control and a man who has been shown to have manipulative the lives of at least two people (Niki Saunders and D.L. Hawkins) to the point where he arranged their relationship according to a prophecy so they would give birth to a child he needed for his plan... objects to a man using mind-control powers to keep his wife in check. Especially nonsensical given that Arthur Petrelli went to these lengths on Linderman's behalf...
    • What bugs me about this was that Linderman hinted in season 1 that Arthur had cold feet regarding the bomb plot. Now it seems like the roles were reversed. I think there are better ways to establish that Arthur is a vicious bastard that retconning the season 1 plot as his evil plan.
      • I don't think Linderman was getting cold feet as to the bomb plot. I think he was getting cold feet as to the killing off Nathan plot.
    • The difference being that all those people Linderman was happy to kill were complete strangers, whereas Angela was someone he'd been personally close to for decades since he was a young man. It'd makes sense that he'd be unphased by the deaths of millions of complete strangers, but object to Arthur's mistreatment of Angela. There's also an element of manipulative self-interest in his actions, because Arthur started threatening Linderman's life. Helping Angela so she'd bump off Arthur would make Linderman the top dog in the conspiracy.
      • Oooooh, good point. He seemed to have known about the mind control for years, but he didn't do anything about it until Arthur started threatening him... and immediately upon being threatened, Linderman, in one fell swoop, dethrones Arthur and gets Angela even more firmly in his camp. And manages to make himself look like the compassionate, reasonable guy while doing so. That is so Linderman.
    • Don't forget that it also conflicts with what we little we knew about Arthur before season 3. In season 1 he was described as bipolar and, I believe, it was stated or implied that he committed suicide. And for some reason it was my personal Fanon that he was a caring person and superhero like Peter and it was gonna rock when we found out his story but nope, I guess everyone who has ever had powers before the current generation has only used them for evil. (On the other hand, his characterization in the online comic "War Buddies" also contradicts that and is much, much more in line with his season 3 persona - assuming that he didn't manifest until fairly late in life, not unreasonable. Also, War Buddies was great - mostly because of The Reveal, but it was still pretty good otherwise - so I'm willing to let it stand.)
      • We knew NOTHING about Arthur before Season 3, save what we saw in War Buddies. We know what Angela and Linderman told other characters, but given that they're BOTH filthy liars, they really aren't the most trustworthy of sources, are they?

Who the hell is watching Molly?

Like, seriously, Mohider is off doing his whole Fly/Lizard impression, and Matt is off trying to hook up with some girl, what about the child they're supposed to be watching?

  • Sometime in the first episode of Season 3, he returned to his apartment and told Maya that he had taken her someplace safe. We never did find out exactly where but given Mohinder's track-record on wise decisions regarding who is trustworthy, I'd be very worried about Molly's survival into Season 4.
    • He probably found a level 5 escapee who looked trustworthy and left her with him. This escapee, of course, has the superpower of eating children.
      • It's been said that Mohinder's mother is taking care of her in India.

The Eclipses trigger/take-away powers?

Seriously. THAT'S the trigger? What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic ? Why didn't they just say A Wizard Did It ?

  • Shouldn't all of the more experienced powered-people known about this? There has to have been an eclipse sometime in the last 30–40 years since The Company was founded.
    • Clearly Arthur didn't know as he was totally in the dark (no pun intended) about the effect the eclipse would have on him.
    • It's also unlikely that Angela would have sent the rest of her team out to hunt for Hiro and The Haitian had she known that eclipses sap powers.
    • It's also unlikely that Adam really would have lived for so long.
      • Well, real eclipses don't appear simultaneously all over the world, so aside from the two “specialâ€� eclipses that did, I’ll assume they just weren’t under the correct spot at the time.
  • They had at least a few scenes of Mohinder honestly trying to figure out what could connect the eclipses to their abilities, even if he didn't get anywhere. Various scientific mistakes aside, there's still a chance (the fact that "it's Season 3" notwithstanding) that they're actually going somewhere with this.

Everything I know about astronomy says that this Eclipse is. Not. Possible.

For one thing, solar eclipses don't last that long. In the real world, they go for a few minutes, tops. How long has this eclipse lasted so far, and how can it possibly last that long? Secondly, for all intents and purposes, it looks like that Eclipse is occurring simultaneously, everywhere. Mohinder's narrato-speech at the end of "It's Coming" shows that the writers do know it's a matter of the moon getting in the way, so how big do they think the moon is?

  • An alternate future version of Adam Monroe came back from a future where he didn't die and decided to avenge his alternate past-self's death by using a gravity beam constructed using science... future science... possibly by alternate future Spider-Mohinder, to hold the moon between the Sun and Earth, thus greatly extending the length of the eclipse so the other superpowered individuals can wipe themselves out. He, of course, is protected from the power-draining effects of the eclipse by his sword; the sword of Kensei has magical power-improving effects, and he naturally brought his own back from the future with him. Yes, this explanation doesn't make sense... but I can practically guarantee that the show will not explain this to anyone's satisfaction, so it's the best you're gonna get.
    • And this is more than adequate. Thank you, above troper.
      • They admitted that the eclipse was totally impossible... apparently it was just supposed to be a visual link between characters that went out of hand...
          • It was in fact a massive waffle passing in front of the sun.

People who regenerate can heal scars.

  • Sylar's throat was slit, and Claire was cut open. Neither had their powers at the time, and neither are scarred.
    • I think the difference here is that those were fresh wounds. There hadn't been enough time for scar tissue to form before they regained their healing powers. Had Claire survived, without powers, for long enough for her injuries to heal naturally, she may well have kept some scarring. (Sylar, most likely, would have simply been dead.)
  • This would also imply that Future Peter chooses to keep his scar for a reason.
    • Honestly, people! Is it so hard to imagine that, if there's a Haitian who can negate the powers of others, there might be a villain in Future Peter's timeline who can inflict injuries that can't be regenerated?
    • Future Peter is able to shapeshift. He most likely just gave himself the scar to look badass.

STOP WASTING GREAT ACTORS.

I have nothing against Ali Larter. I think she's a good actress saddled with a bad character, and then...another bad character. But why in the name of God does she keep reappearing when underrated actors are treated to cardboard cut-out characters? Alan Blumenfield, Jamie Hector, Andre Royo, Francis Capra, Stephen Tobolowsky...seriously, Kring. Knox had so much promise, especially upon seeing the webisodes. And Bob? The guy who ruled the Company throughout season two dies off-screen? I wanted to see more of him, more of his past, more of his power, more of his relationship with Elle. To add insult to injury, his daughter ends up boning the guy who killed him. That's just insulting, seriously. This is pretty much my own little peeve, but it bugs me nonetheless.

  • Oh no, I'm pretty sure you're not the only one who thought this. I've been quite shocked the wide talent Heroes has managed to attract for its guest spots, only to see them killed off. I'm a Veronica Mars fan so (in addition to the yummy Kristen Bell) was pretty stoked to see Francis Capra (Weevil) appear. Then he's offed. And Marlo Stanfield/Jamie Hector goes from promising villain to sitting in the background glaring, and Tobolowsky/Bob Bishop, leader of the super-powerful company is (as you said) offed offscreen. If they're going to just have them appear, then die, so many of these parts could of gone to smaller-name actors (says the troper with an admitted 0% entertainment-industry knowledge, but still).
    • Which is why this troper could only roll his eyes at the news that John Glover was cast as Sylar's father. They're probably gonna kill him off in half an episode's time.
      • To be fair, Bob's actor got some kind of neck injury before season 3 started (I forget the details) - notice that, in the scenes he appears in in the first 2 episodes, he never gets up from his chair or turns his head.
  • Sounds more like an overall case of bad writing than an issue with the actors, who just happen to be caught in the blast. Which, if I'm not mistaken, belongs on the forums rather than Just Bugs Me. (By the way, you forgot Malcolm MacDowell.)
    • Malcom Mcdowell was a case of them just not having the cash to keep him around for too long. Unless you're talking about that ridiculous Illusion/Dream/Waffle thing that Maury put in Nathan and Daphne's head in which case yeah...that was a waste. If their gonna bring him back, at least actually USE the character, not some bullshit "Illusion" based copy of the character.

What the hell happened to Tim Kring and the writers?!

This isn't for complaining, but really, this is a question. How the hell did they go from a stellar first season...to this crap? This use to be my favorite show, and now...it's just awful. None of the character's motives make sense, now they're just dancing around waiting for the show to get cancelled which it inevitably will at this rate. I mean seriously, if he can write a good first season, why not a second and third?

  • This troper's first theory:
    • Bryan Fuller was doing far more than he was ever given credit for. Pushing Daisies was ordered to pilot in January of Heroes first season, and casting for PD was confirmed (and presumably started filming) around the time Heroes would have been working on the very end of season 1 in February/March-ish.
    • Supplemental theory: The original characters were created to lead to a specific conclusion, but then the show was a hit and they weren't going to be allowed to kill off as many as originally planned and attempts to fit those characters into a different plot and find new things to do with the old powers strained even moderate plausibility until it broke.
    • Combine both of those excellent theories with the Writer's Strike/the hasty resolution to Season 2 and you have a recipie for disaster.

Secret Black-Ops unit chasing you all over the world? Trying to ship you to Parts Unknown?

WHY THE HELL DOES NO ONE GO TO THE MEDIA AND BLOW NATHAN'S SECRET!? It's not like Peter or Matt or Mohinder have lives to go back to! Why not spill their guts to the nearest newspaper and let Nathan stew in his own juices? For that matter, Ando and Hiro are foreign nationals. Why don't they tell their government what's going on (and ask for asylum for the others, while they're at it?
1 - Other than the obvious reasons, anyway.

  • Well, not to be cynical, but it's not like exposing the crimes of the US Government to the media In Real Life has stopped anything before.
  • There's also the problem that none of our five main fugitive heroes would be a particularly credible witness, given their backgrounds are FULL of things that any competent lawyer or journalist would consider before telling their story or using them as a witness in a criminal case.
    • Peter is - thanks to Nathan's politicking in Season One - publically perceived as a suicidal and mentally unstable Black Sheep.
    • Matt has left positions with three different law enforcement agencies in two years under questionable circumstances (almost fired from the LAPD, drummed out of the FBI for his botched raid on Primatech Paper and was probably fired from the NYPD for disappearing for so long during Season 3 - he's working as a bodyguard again when Season 4 starts) and has a long record of discipline problems (assaulting his partner, the botched Primatech raid, coming close to violating Angela Petrelli's civil rights...).
    • Mohinder left a respectable professorship in India to follow his "mad" father's footsteps to America and was apparently on the lecture circuit for a few months, talking about his discoveries and further ruining his credibility with the scientific community before The Company approached him with a job offer at the start of Season 2.
    • Hiro is well known for being a flighty weirdo with a history of suddenly disappearing and abandoning his responsibilities to travel abroad.
    • Ando, despite being marginally more sensible than Hiro when he isn't confronted with a pretty face, also isn't exactly known for being a reliable worker and only has his position because he's the boss' best friend.
    • They may not be clearly reliable witnesses, but it still falls into the problem of the earlier JBM about how the Heroes have gone so long undetected. With the exception of Hiro who has lost his powers, any one of them would be able to build up a major media frenzy just by using their powers openly. Once they're on the front pages of every newspaper on the planet, someone is going to pay attention to the government conspiracy claims they make, especially if Nathan's men make a move against them.

All the continuity problems caused by 1961...

Angela putting forth the idea for The Company to Daniel Linderman, Bob Bishop and Charles Deveaux when they were all teenagers conflicts with the history of The Company put forth in the War Buddies graphic novel. In that story, it is revealed that Daniel Linderman ran away from home after discovering his powers as a pre-teen, joined the US Army as a medic during Vietnam and never used his powers during that time until he healed one of his brothers-in-arms - a young soldier named Arthur Petrelli, with whom he later went on to form The Company after the war.

  • Well, there were only the four of them there, when it's been pretty solidly established that there were 12 founders of the Company, and they were brought together by Adam, who wasn't present at the diner meeting (and in the first ep of season 2 it was established that the Company was founded in 1977). So presumably Angela just said they were going to found a Company some day, and they all split up at that point. Linderman presumably joined the Army as a medic to try to preserve his idealism by helping people, only to A) discover War Is Hell and moreover B) meet Arthur Petrelli. (Who happened to be married to his old friend Angela, but that's par for the course).
      • That's the most logical answer. There's no way a group of teenagers could have achieved what the Company hyave achieved and, as has been mentioned, it contradicts EVERYTHING previously said about the Company. So logically Angela's prophecy didn't mean that they were going to form a Company right that minute, but that one day they would do so. So War Buddies occurs as normal, with Linderman meeting Arthur. Then in the seventies Adam tracks some of them down and Angela, whose forseen this in her vision, understands the time is right and lets the others know.


Chandra Suresh journeying to the USA nearly 50 years ago and conducting experiments on powered people in the USA completely contradicts everything we know about his background. Even if you grant that his memories were erased and his actions covered-up to the point where he'd still be able to find employment as a doctor anywhere, you'd have to wonder why The Company would let him go free after everything he did.

  • It's quite hard to reconcile Chandra Suresh's presence in this episode with, well, anything. The company had Dr. Zimmerman, who had apparently created a working genetic modification formula by the time Niki was born, in the 70s or so, but they'd still want Suresh either working for them or dead. I don't think there was any mention that Suresh was trying to blow the lid on superpowered people until recently—I can only assume this means that he wasn't motivated to until Shanti's death, at which point he brings out his theories, publishes his book, gets kicked out of the university, moves to America, and then attracts the Company's attention. However, this still doesn't make any sense because supposedly the human genome project was what he based all his research on...but they already had the formula in the 70s...and...oh, whatever. And what about Sylar being his "patient zero"? I get the sinking feeling that if I rewatch season 1 with this episode in mind, Mohinder's story would seem like a Shaggy Dog Story, all because this one jackass didn't mention his father's files in storage until just now. It's like Roy asking the oracle the wrong question in Order of the Stick. (GM: You're sure you wouldn't rather check with the landlord? Mohinder: No, I'd rather talk to this cute neighbor. GM: Hrr...fine. Hang on a second. * frantically scribbles notes about her secretly being a mind controlling Company agent* )
    • Actually, you COULD explain most of that away witht he idea that Chandra was one of the ones who was mind-wiped to cover-up Coyote Sands. This was early enough in The Company's evolution where they might still be idealistic enough to think they could just "blank" him and that would be the end of it. That could cause him to forget all his research and then start over with the project again in the 1970s with the human genome project, in which case his book, his research and his honest surprise at Sylar's powers confirming all of his theories in one shot are all explained away by "he just didn't know", apart from nightmares that apparently haunted him. In this case, the question is "Why didn't The Company do something to stop him from publishing his book or recruit him after his book was published and his reputation ruined?", as they did with Mohinder in Season 2? Even if they weren't watching Chandra all this time, you'd think with their connections SOMEONE would have heard something about this book or that Angela would have seen it coming...
    • The Company ran a Chandra Suresh smear campaign. This would explain why he was basically discredited and chucked out of the secret circle of genetecists. It would also be more effective than simply stopping him, you know how conspiracy theorists are. If a scientist who was about to publish a book on "Evolved Humans" suddenly went missing or died the internet would be buzzing.
    • It's been confirmed by Word of God that Chandra was mind wiped by Charles Deveaux.
    • My guess? The Company planned on taking care of Chanra Suresh (either mindwiping him again or killing him) until they learned he'd relocated to New York City. The same city they were planning to blow up later that year. Maybe they figured, "hey, two birds, one stone."


The end of Volume Four.

So Nathan was killed by Sylar, and in order to restore the status quo, Angela and Noah made Matt essentially brainwash Sylar into becoming Nathan. Obviously that will cause some massive conflict that will surely end at some point with Nathlar/Sythan/whatever cute Fan Nickname he will be given remembering that he is Sylar, but the obvious future plot development is not my problem. No, my problem is that apparently they all just forget that CLAIRE HAS HEALING BLOOD! Seriously, we know Noah even knows that she can heal others because he was brought back to life with her blood! Why the hell then did they do what they did rather than just heal Nathan and and after that find a way to kill or at least incapacitate Sylar for good? The whole thing just seems overly complicated and moronic.
  • I agree with you 100%. And furthermore, even granting that Angela was grieving deeply and probably wasn't thinking clearly when she came up with this plan...

1.) How did they dispose of the real Nathan's body? 2.) How did they clean up the hotel room without anyone noticing?

  • I actually can understand why Angela would fail to think of using Claire's blood. She's shown time and time against that she suffers from very ridgid thinking when it comes to her prophetic visions, to the point she's highly reliant on them and can't conceive of going "outside the box" around or against them (hence how dead-set she was on nuking New York in Season 1). Her visions told her Matt would "save" Nathan, and so because of those visions she fixates on Matt and his ability instead of looking for alternate solutions. That still doesn't excuse Bennet, though.

For that matter, didn't they consider what would happen if - at some point in the future - "Nathan" tried to fly and found out that he couldn't? Sylar never did get around to taking Nathan's power and his telekinetic hovering isn't even close to the supersonic flight Nathan managed.

  • This problem can be solved by the same deus ex machina that created it. Just have Matt make Sylar think he always flew by telekinesis, or could never fly at all. His memory makes no sense already, a little more won't hurt.

And finally why not just tell The President the truth - that Nathan died a hero's death trying to save his life and his country? All those Secret Service agents heard Nathan's confession. And any worries about "100 Dankos rising up when they find out a powered person killed a United States Senator" pale when you consider the good publicity that would come about from revealing that a United States Senator, ex-soldier and "mutant" gave his life to save The President.

    • Actually incorrect. Sylar can use Nathan's flight power - I suppose he picked it up when he was using clairsentience to absorb all of his memories. (For proof, listen closely when Sylar's hovering back in after throwing Nathan into the piano - the sound effect isn't his telekinetic 'whoosh', but the sound associated with Nathan's power.)
    • Empathy. It's already established that Sylar can absorb powers through empathy: he has demonstrated this in his Shirtless Scene with Elle. Before, y'know. Killing her. If this is true, he should have no problem imitating the power of flight. After all, he's not just empathizing with Nathan; he thinks he is Nathan. How much more empathetic can one get? Doesn't make it less of a fail, but still.
  • Because Humans Are the Real Monsters. Young Angela basically survived the mutant Auschwitz, all carried out (albeit as a pretty spur-of-the-moment "oh shit that guy just Hadokened a soldier, mow down the entire village!" thing) by Uncle Sam. Her entire life had conditioned her to be highly reluctant to risk everything on the good graces of normals. Noah likewise has a very poor opinion about human nature and doesn't believe people can handle the truth without freaking out. It makes sense for these two very cynical characters to cook up a (poorly thought out) scheme to fool and manipulate things in their favor instead of coming forward with the truth.
  • And another thing! Sylar may think he's Nathan and have a lot of Nathan's memories, but that doesn't make him Nathan. His personality should still be totally different. Angela can't expect her new "Nathan" to act or even talk like the old one.

One More Thing! Is anyone else annoyed that they set up the big "when will he start to learn the truth?" question only to blow any suspense with the first five minutes of Chapter Five, all but saying "he's already learning?"

  • The only possible, tenuous explanation is that Angela secretly wanted Sylar to be her son all along. But that doesn't explain why Noah went along with it. Or change the fact that it is a terrible idea of terribleness.

What about all the empowered humans Hiro and Ando saved in An Invisible Thread?

Do you believe they're all going to just quietly fade into the woodwork? Do you believe not one of them might have been a little pissed off about what just happened and would elect to indulge in some immediate ultraviolence in downtown Washington DC? Do you not think there might be at least one person going to the media to blow the whistle on Building 26? Wouldn't at least one person attempt to file a one big civil suit against the Federal Government?

  • Maybe they will. As seen in the teaser for next season, at least one escaped superhuman is on a revenge kick.
  • From what I understood, the vast majority of the captured supers were innocent civilians with relatively lame powers like "breathing underwater" or "writing with your mind". Even if they were radicalized by being kidnapped and crapped on by Uncle Sam, most probably couldn't do much about it in terms of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Some will probably go to the media, but the news reports already know that the U.S. government is capturing and detaining its own citizens, so that ship has already sailed. And from what I know, you're not allowed to sue the government unless the government gives you permission to do so (they could certainly sue Nathan Petrelli, of course, since he's the guy responsible for the whole mess).
    • Legal Nerdwank: You can sue US Federal Government for 4th Amendment violations (this being an Unreasonable Seizure). The Supreme Court authorized suits against the agents specifically in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. And the Federal Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity in cases of false imprisonment by Federal Agents, allowing you to sue the Government itself.
    • It's been hinted that Tracy may well be organising them in a plan to get revenge for all that's been done to them.

Isn't this JBM getting a bit long?

Now, you can say 'the show deserves it' all you like, but the fact is that a lot of these complaints stem from years ago. Even if we don't just delete the blasted things, we could at least split the page.

Most of the main characters killed off or written off are the women or the minorities

It took three seasons before they finally killed one of the main white male characters and it's a "magical" death at that.

    • Yeah, absolutely no white male main character deaths. Except, y'know, Isaac, Linderman, Adam, Arthur, Flint, Thompson, Bob...
      • Of those mentioned only three died before season 3. Isaac, who is a minority; Linderman, who dies but continues to reappear despite his death and was not a main character; and Thompson who was also not a main character keeping my original statement valid.
  • Yeah. Daphne's entire storyline is a classic example of a female character being Stuffed in The Fridge. Her original purpose was to be a nemesis for Hiro and then she got co-opted into a love interest for Matt, before finally dying so Matt can get some "much-needed" angst and motivation. Like people being illegally arrested wouldn't be enough motivation for a heroically-minded cop like Matt...

Powers that make no sense

Most of the powers I can buy. But Hiro's stopping time and the Invisible Man cannot be explained as a fluke of genetics because they both have direct effects that violate the laws of physics. For Hiro, remember that force = mass * velocity. If he was able to push that girl out of the way of an oncoming truck in an imperceptibly small time span, his body would have hit hers about as hard as the truck would have, and she would have been dead anyway. There are plenty of other physical problems with stopping or slowing down time, but that's the big one. Anything you touch, including the floor you're walking on, should either shatter or splatter.

As for the Invisible Man, there are two serious problems. First, there's no good way to make someone invisible. Visibility comes from light reflecting from your body. If you turn transparent or bend light around you (the usual explanations), so that light doesn't hit any part of you and reflect, then it's not hitting your retinas either and you're not only invisible, you're blind. There is no way around that one without mutilating a couple different laws of physics. Making an invisible man that Peter can see is even worse. Either light's reflecting from his body or it isn't. There's no third option.

  • For my part, I just have to assume the abilities are literally magical, and are the cause rather than the effect of the mutations in DNA in the heroes.
  • Someone I talked to (who was perplexed about how humans could evolve to get powers such as creating vortexes) pondered that since time is a human construct, this means Hiro bends his mind around that to slow time down. For everything else I got nothing.
  • In Heroes, invisiblity seems to be a mental power, not a physical one. When Peter is invisible, he can see Claude plain as day, and vice versa.
    • Actually, all this indicates is that the invisibility power also comes with the ability to see other things that are invisible (this is confirmed by supplementary materials as well as, IMO, being more amenable to Occam's Razor).
      • But if it comes with ability to see things that are invisible, then that still means it doesn't play with light. To say toehrwise would bend it to make it not make sense, which in itslef makes no sense.
    • I think that invisibility essentially erases him from everyone's sight similar the way Ghost in the Shell does it. It's a psychic ability that screws with the eyes and the brain. Though that doesn't explain how to see other invisible people or objects, unless they cancel each other out.
  • *fanwank* Super powers result from Clarketech nanotechnology hidden within the human genome, created by time travelers/precursor aliens/whatever. As such, they can do anything that might-as-well-be-magic science millenia advanced of our time can do. */fanwank*

Why the omnipresent SWAT guys?

These guys happen to be at the outset 10 minutes away from whereever a protagonist might be. They could easily lampshade it since such a power has precendence but it never explained how they find them so quickly and efficiently.

Why Nerf Super Strength?

Now Mohinder has more less stragiht up Super Strength, but this is more or less the first time in the show it's happened. Let's go through all the strength humans. First there was Nikki/Jessica, who at first couldn't use her power at all unless she turned into her psychopathic alternate self, and then he barely saw her use it as the effects were so gruesome. Then she finally gets reconciled, but she hardly ever used it all in season two. Then we have Scary Black Man Knox, who can't even use his power unless somebody gets scared. Earlier, Mohinder was turning into a cockroach due to his power.

No other power in the show has been such abuse, lightning, fire, healing, etc. they all came with no strings attatched. Why is it that the writers in the show seem to hate this power so much? In theory they should love it, as it's probably the cheapest special effect on the show second only to telepathy and teleportation.

  • Nearly all the powers have strings attached, it's one of the big themes of the show. Mostly in the form of accidentally hurting someone you care about during a Power Incontinence scenario, but consider how Healing means the curse of immortality (and never being able to drink!), Sylar's learning means the hunger, speed means that normal life appears to be in slow motion, etc.

The whole deception thing

For some reason, I feel like everyone who's being deceived is holding the Idiot Ball BECAUSE the audience knows the other side of the scheme when he characters are fooled even if the audence didn't know anything beforehand

I feel like I'm not supposed to think this way, and I can't help but make a little theory saying that writing a deception scheme is a no-win situation(and I have nowhere else to talk about this

  • If you reveal the other side of the deception - show the characters causing the deception - the audience will, obviously, know what's going on, but tend to believe the victims are acting like idiots for going through with it, even if evidence is perfectly well hidden from characters, plus you will lose the element of surprise.
  • On the other hand, if you wait until the characters learn about the scheme, you could be accused of pulling the twist out of your rear end

Can someone else respond to this idea for me?

  • What could be done in this kind of plot is not actually showing the deceivers, but dropping enough clues that, after the reveal is made, make it clear that the writers planned it from the beginning.
    • Like a typical mystery novel where you unravel the clues as the detective looks for the killer. Problem is, what if the scheme is hidden well enough that no one would know there's even a case to investigate, like with Claire not knowing that Rebecca is behind everything from the supposed suicide to dropping the flag. Because Rebecca can become invisible and effectively hide herself, there's no way Claire would know that it was her, but I still feel like that Claire has the Idiot Ball, but I also feel that I'm not supposed to think that way, even though someone else is also thinking that way. I'd love to take it to the forum, but I don't really feel like getting known

Unusual perceptions of the Idiot Ball

This is the same guy who brought up Rebecca's deception thing, and I'm seeing Idiot Balls after every twist when I shouldn't. I saw one in the cop after the bald cop was revealed to be plotting to kill Jeremin. I saw one in Matt when his drinking plan backfired, all when no one else, including the audience could deduce anything like that would happen. And that wreaks of me misperceiving everything.

I'll bet someone will say Sylar's messing with my head

The show's timeline is completely broken!

Walk with me - this will take some slogging.

Volume One started with an eclipse on October 1, 2006.

The events of Volume One took place over five weeks, with the destruction of New York being averted on November 8, 2006.

Volume Two started four months later, with an episode called Four Months Later filling in the gaps of what happened between the end of Volume One and the start of Volume Two.

Volume Two officially begins on March 11, 2007. The events of this volume take place over the course of a little over a week, ending on March 20, 2007 when Nathan calls his press conference in Odessa, Texas.

Volume Three picks up right where Volume Two left off on March 20, 2007. The events of this volume take place over a few days. No exact dates are given after March 23, 2007, but we do know that it is sometime in April when Volume 3 ends, "three weeks later", when Nathan is showing talking to The President about the existence of superpowers.

Volume Four doesn't start with an exact date either but we do find out later on, as Matt is ripping memories from Noah regarding how the government-backed power-hunting team was formed, that it all started five weeks earlier.

This puts a gap of two months/eight weeks between the end of Volume Three and the start of Volume Four, making it sometime in the middle of June, 2007 when Volume Four starts.

Volume Four takes place over the course of a couple of weeks, ending sometime in July.

Volume Five doesn't start with an exact date but we do know that six weeks have passed since the end of Volume Four. This information, coupled with the fact that Claire is just starting her first semester of college, puts the date at somewhere in late August/early September 2007.

So why is this a problem? Because Once Upon A Time in Texas made repeated references to it having been three years since Hiro met Charlie and Hiro being "Three Years Ago" when he time-traveled back to save her! But a cursory glance at the timeline proves that it's barely been 11 months, much less three years!

Honestly, if one fan on the Internet can puzzle this out in about 10 minutes with an episode guide, you'd think the professional writers would be willing/able to keep track of these things. Or do the writers not realize that one year of series time does not necessarily equal one year of real time?

  • Here's another constraint to the timeline: Baby Matt Parkman. Unless Matt Sr. knocked up Janice (again?) after the divorce we have a nine-month pregnancy and a few more months to get Baby Stop-and-Go where he is now. That sets the upper limit to about 15 months between Volume 1 and Volume 4. Still nowhere around three years. If three years did pass then Matt Jr. would be walking and talking by now. Either the writers have no sense of time, Hiro is actually from three years in the future or we have a missing baby noboby wants to bring up...
  • Another Minor thing is that obviously they are having Thanksgiving a bit early this year.

Ted's Radioactivity

If Ted is radioactive, then why doesn't he decay?

So Heroes can enter churches?

in a episode in season 3 peter and the rest of family hid in a church for a while. I thought that their kind couldn't enter holly ground, or am i just getting his show confused with something else?

  • I'm positive you're confused with something else here. The people with abilities in this show (called "specials" in the last season, and at no point called "heroes") aren't connected to religion at all, they're just mutants. There's no reason why they wouldn't be able to enter a church.
  • You're thinking of the immortals in Highlander.
  • No, you're not. Immortals aren't allowed to FIGHT in a church. The only things not capable of entering a church are some demons and some vampires.

Micah.

Just the existence of Micah. He bugs me.

  • It bugs me that they never used him for anything really important.
    • Define "important." He was the lynchpin of the villains' electoral fraud plan in Volume 1 and pretty much single handedly led the resistance in V4 while every other hero was fighting to get their thumb out.
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