Heroes (TV series)/WMG

Sylar's original ability is Empathic Mimicry not Intuitive Aptitude

This was in fact heavily implied in-story. Sylar inexplicably gains Empathic Mimicry halfway through the series, despite never getting at Peter's brain. However, flashback episodes reveal that Sylar's old man had the Intuitive Aptitude ability. If Sylar was born with Empathic Mimicry, and gained Intuitive Aptitude from his dad from an early age, that would be the only way to explain the events in the show. Obviously, he wouldn't be able to bring up Empathic Mimicry from the start of the show, due to being psychotic and evil.

This would also explain why the Shanti virus cure gave back only Telekinesis and Intuitive Aptitude (as well as Empathic Mimicry)--those were the only abilities he gained using Empathic Mimicry, and were more firmly ingrained than the other abilities he used (he was fairly close to the guy he took telekinesis from, which would allow empathic mimicry to take hold in that situation).

The Sixth Season is the First Season

Being as This Is Reality after Clare outs people with powers Television networks clamor to produce shows about the supers lives. The most popular is an innovative Documentary that features no Confession cam the Show Heroes, which chronicles the lives of the heroes most influential in bringing the existence of Supers to the public and the disasters they averted while the world fell for the Masquerade.

Ghost Linderman was not a creation of Muray Parkman

He is this universe's version of The First Evil, and manipulated everything in Vol. 3, as he is much more powerful here (due to the huge amount of evil, not to mention Sylar). He just made Muray think he was his creation. Destroying the Earth seems to be his MO, and the creation of Synthetic Supers is what causes the world to end in the V3 Bad Future.

All of the Heroes are descended from Adam, and this is why powers appear to be hereditary

Adam (the name is kind of telling) was the very first hero, either by random genetic mutation, or because Hiro time traveling affected him in some way. He then spent the years between Hiro's disappearance and the founding of the company having lots and lots of kids. Through knowledge of where he had had children in the past and who he had children with, he was able to assemble the company by tracking down the strongest members of his bloodline and formed the company with the purpose of using all of his descendants to help the world/blow it all up.

Claire's stunt at the end of Volume 5 was actually planned by Samuel.

or the use of an idiot ball. Because why else would she reveal the specials to the world after trying so hard to stop it?

• Well, technically she wasn't trying to stop specials being revealed, she was trying to stop the reveal being something as irreversibly negative as Samuel using his earthbending to teabag New York City.

Lauren Gilmore (H.R.G.'s love interest in the past) is in fact his daughter Claire.

The resemblance is uncanny, but since she's years and years beyond her present-day appearance, her father doesn't recognize her. He does, however, resist her seductive advances for the time.

• Except for the fact that she's his daughter, and even though they don't share blood, I don't think Claire would swing that way. Unless it's a Brainwashed and Crazy ploy from a villain.
• I thought Claire couldn't age?
  • Based on Adam/Kensei's example, I'm assuming she'll get to be about 30 and then stop aging.
    • Based on Adam Monroe's example, she's going to go nuts, so this is plausible.
  • It's also possible she loses her ability somehow.

Sylar will be defeated by Ando.

Ando uses his ability to amplify Sylar's "Intuitive Aptitude" ability into full blown Omniscience, And Sylar's mind, and very consciousness, will be destroyed, Rendering him a permanent Vegetable. I know Sylar is good now and everything, But what if Ando has a Face Heel Turn sometime in the future?

"Save The Cheerleader" refers to Jackie Wilcox, the character who takes credit for Claire Bennet's actions

Her presence in a variety of events is completely irrelevant to the main plot of the series, but it will be later revealed that she will save the world from alien invasion. Or at least she would have, if her brain hadn't been eaten. As it is, the main characters screwed it all up, and the world will die.

• "Five Years Gone" would seem to clarify Future!Hiro's instructions referred to Claire. (Granted, Future!Hiro never did meet Claire or Jackie, and for that matter was confused about who blew up New York anyway. But his objective was clearly to prevent the explosion by keeping Sylar from regenerating.)
  • Except that we see that Claire is still alive and in hiding even in the future, and Sylar doesn't get to eat her brain until AFTER he becomes president. Something else kept him alive. That he still wanted to catch her and steal her powers shows that he couldn't have eaten her earlier and she just regenerated her brain afterwards.
    • That was after the first future was altered. Wasn't it?
    • The future changed so that Claire was still alive but Hiro never stabbed Sylar. Both things needed to happen to save the world.
    • Sylar doesn't eat brains. That was brought up in the show. He said that 'that's disgusting'.
    • Sylar has been known to distort facts when it suits his purposes.

Jackie was a "hero" who just hadn't discovered her powers yet.

Jackie is killed by Sylar, who believes she is Claire. But Sylar's "real" power is analyzing complex systems (for example, superhuman physiologies); as depicted in "Six Months Ago", he seems able to fuzzily "see" the presence of powers in others' brains even before he kills them. Yet he never suspected Jackie was a mistake until he saw Claire regenerate. Sylar survives being stabbed in a vital area by Hiro. Jackie may have had powers similar to Claire's, albeit latent. Somebody check those pom-poms for phlebotinum!

• • Debatable - after the stabbing, Sylar was almost immediately picked up by the Company, who worked on him and kept him alive. That, and Candice makes specific reference to the stitches in Sylar's chest in the second episode of Season Two. If Jackie had regeneration powers, even latent ones, Sylar's sword wound would have healed of its own accord.
    • Also, Sylar didn't eat Jackie's brain. She had a cut in her forehead. Then Sylar realized Claire was regenerating, and Jackie said "Run" before dying of exsanguination.

Hiro is his own ancestor.

After ending up in feudal Japan, Hiro will fall in love with a Japanese noblewoman and father his ancestor, and leave his sword in the past, becoming his own descendant and ancestor in a temporal loop.

• So does this mean that he's the only one who can save the world from giant floating brains?
• Jossed.
  • We don't know that yet. It's long-range Time Travel—he might go back later (personal timeline) and do it then.

Takezo Kensei is "Dallas" Petrelli and the mysterious "Hooded Man"

Kensei seems to have the same power as Claire, and powers seem to be passable genetically. Both the Petrelli brothers and Nathan's daughter Claire have powers, and Claire's is the same as Kensei's. But Angela Petrelli has no apparent powers thus far; therefore, the brothers get their powers genetically from their father...

...who is (or rather, was once) Takezo Kensei, who has lived so many years because his healing power, which seems the same as Claire's, leaves him effectively immortal. This also means he's one of the original members of the Company. Kaito Nakamura was killed by a mysterious hooded man who was able to fall off of a building and survive, and was also an original member of the Company—namely, the more-or-less-immortal Dallas Petrelli/Takezo Kensei/Probably-Something-More-British-Sounding.

• • Angela Petrelli definitely has powers! We just haven't seen what they are. That's why she was singled out, just like Kaito.
    • Confirmed in Season 3: prophetic dreams, as correctly deduced by the fandom. It was the only power demonstrated by Peter that was not otherwise accounted for.
  • Plus, Takezo Kensei looks nothing like the (albeit blurred) picture of "Dallas" Petrelli in the photo of the Group of Twelve.
    • But the picture of Chandra Suresh on the book cover in the pilot episode ended up not looking like the man himself, either. In the Heroesverse, pictures lie.

Mohinder Suresh is not the narrator

Whoever is doing the narration certainly sounds like Mohinder; but he takes a far more creepy, mystical view of the evolution of superpowers than the on-screen character. And he seems to be alluding to events that Mohinder never learns about. Perhaps someone's imitating his voice, which wouldn't be implausible on this show.

• • Or he could be narrating from the future, after his opinions have changed and he has learned of all the events.
    • Perhaps the entire story is being told by Mohinder as he heard it, explaining the minor plot holes and inconsistencies. It's like how 300 was completely inaccurate, but it's fine thanks to Unreliable Narrator.
  • Alternately, Mohinder's father is the narrator.

The guy in the Cheap Books ad is Takezo Kensei

Proving that the regeneration power is also immortality. Proof!

Being a Hero automatically gives a person some degree of superhuman healing

Not counting Claire, Peter and Adam, there are several characters that have recovered surprisingly easily:
Sylar: survives being captured and tortured by the company and then survives being stabbed through the chest.
Matt: survives being shot four times in the chest.
Claude: survives being shot twice and falling off a bridge.

• • That's just your standard Hollywood Healing. Comes with the job. Plus, Matt received prompt medical attention.
    • No. Niki seemed to have no ill effects after D.L. phased into her chest and stirred her guts a bit. Everybody else seems to die, or at least be severely hurt after Niki punches somebody. However, Sylar takes the beating with a smile. It seems consistent that evolved humans can take more punishment than regular ones, regardless of their ability.
    • DL wasn't trying to kill her, just hurt her so she'd let him go. And Sylar has the grab-bag of powers, who knows how much he can withstand?
    • Messing with people's organs is risky business if you're trying to incapacitate somebody. Maybe he knows of their own invulnerability?
    • We don't actually know what he did to her organs, so we have no way of knowing how dangerous or damaging it is. He might have done something completely different than the brainsquish he gave Linderman.
    • There's also glass. Matt was thrown out of a window, and it appeared to be Soft Glass. However, Sylar, who was still under the effect of the Shanti virus and thus had no powers at all, had several gashes on him after Elle blasted him through a glass door.
    • Again, that's just standard Hollywood Style injury. Glass windows in Hollywood love good guys and hate villains.

On that note, being a Hero with regenerative abilities makes you Made of Plasticine

The injuries Claire suffers are far worse than they normally should be to even a normal human being. This includes getting her neck broken from a common football tackle, having an ordinary dull tree branch pierce her skull, and cutting off her toes with clippers. Also, Sylar pierced Peter's skull easily using only a piece of ordinary glass. Granted, glass is sharp and fairly strong, but tough enough to rip through his skull?

• Well, it was being telekinetically propelled.
• Plus as Yu Yu Hakusho demonstrated, at the right speed a piece of eraser can become a bullet. Sylar probably just pushed the glass to the right speed.
• And a tackle could totally break your neck, if you are someone probably 100 lbs smaller than the person doing the tackling, not expecting it, and landing wrong.

Claude is the Ninth Doctor.

This is a rather popular theory with Claude-fans.

Claude is the Ninth Doctor right after the Time War, when he's all angsty and angry (before he met Rose). He's hidden the TARDIS, and he's wandering around late 20th-century (late 1980s or early 1990s) Earth trying to forget the Time War when he discovers the evolved humans; unable to ignore his detective-like nature, he decides to investigate. He discovers the Company through his investigations and decides to play detective from the inside, and so he uses the Chameleon Arch to alter his DNA enough to give him the power of invisibility (all the better to snoop around with). He then joins the Company and acts like a normal employee, trying to ignore the experimenting they do in the name of "increasing human potential" (or whatever). After a few years, he's paired up with Bennet, and then Bennet gets Claire. Bennet is distant with Claire, so Nine/Claude tries to fill the fatherly gap (it was mentioned in the "Company Man" commentary). Somehow, because of this relationship, he softens up and realizes that he can't stand by and watch the Company torture and experiment on innocent people anymore; so he protects someone from them. The Bridge Scene of Doom happens, and Nine/Claude lives as a misanthropic hobo for seven years; then he meets Peter. Peter reminds him that there's still good in humanity; and so, after Nine/Claude runs out, he uncovers the TARDIS and takes up his mantle as the Doctor again. He travels around for a while; then he meets Rose, and the rest is history.

Adam is Patient Zero.

In the first season, the charts and maps of the senior Dr. Suresh seemed to be describing the spread of a contagion—but the Powers were described as the "next step in human evolution". To anyone with even a little biology background, this didn't make much sense - until we discover that someone with powers has been alive and active for 400 years. Those charts make a lot more sense if they're following a genetic factor—especially one from a single key source. He even calls himself Adam: he's the ancestor of all the modern Heroes. You heard it here first, kids.

• Maybe not all, but many. The superpower gene is recessive, and for a long time it was very rare. Even if two people with the gene married, if they had no powers, then the chances were only one in four that any given child would. But Adam has been around—mostly in America—for four hundred years, and presumably, besides those ten wives, he's had lots of brief flings and one-night stands. With his genes spread around so much, the chance that two people with the superpower gene will marry has gone way up.
• And, as a corollary theory, Sylar has the potential for so many different powers because Adam got into his bloodline more than once, and the accidental inbreeding also predisposed Sylar to insanity.

Sylar is going insane from Mad-Cow Disease

Or at least a variant of it such as Kuru, a disease discovered in natives in Paupa New-Guinea who indulged in ritual cannibalism - specifically, eating the brains of deceased tribesmen during funeral rituals. The Organization simply didn't bother to check his brain once they noticed his scrambled DNA.

• That's not how he gets his powers.

Micah will be the Big Bad somewhere down the line.

With Niki's death confirmed, Micah Sanders has had one hell of a bad ride. He encouraged his family to be heroes, and look where it got him: a dead dad, a dead mom, and a cousin whose attempted heroism resulted in his mom's death.

And we have no idea of the limits of his technopathy. We saw him use it to rig Nathan's election at the end of Season 1 by just touching one voting machine. Could he use any normal computer connected to the Internet to hack into the nearest bank and empty it, or crack into the government's encrypted files or, worse, its nuclear arsenal? That's a fearsome power for a child to have, risky even in a stable environment. Now that he's an orphan? Season's 3's first arc is called "Villains"; and for all the nasty supers we've seen locked up in Section 5 and whatnot, what would be worse then a child filled with grief and rage at a world that betrayed his beliefs, with the power to potentially grind civilization to a halt just by being near a computer?

• Well, he did start talking about "fixing" Monica (or possibly her life), and we've all seen where that leads.
  • Until exact details of Tracey Strauss' origin and her link to Niki/Jessica are confirmed, it's safe to assume that Micah is going to turn into a major villain at some point, if he hasn't already: after all, we haven't seen Monica, the girl who inadvertently killed his mother, again yet...
• Micah has not only NOT become a villain, but has become the hero known as Rebel for Volume 4. Apparently, he's made of sterner stuff...or hasn't had his proper Start of Darkness yet...

Mama Petrelli has the power of super-persuasion via touching people.

Simple: she frequently starts touching or rubbing people's arms and shoulders, and they suddenly start agreeing with her. Particularly Nathan (in the "being presidential" scene, among others), as well as his wife in "Four Months Ago". And in the Dystopian "Five Years Gone" timeline, President Sylar starts doing the same thing to Mohinder in the Oval Office, and it gets him to come around to the idea of genocide. He must have gotten his hands on her ability...so to speak.

• Except that she repeatedly tried to convince Nathan to let New York get nuked, being touchy-feely with him all the time, but he ends up flying Peter away anyway. Regardless, Word of God denies it.
• Jossed by Season 3; she's a precognitive.
  • Not necessarily true... according to Volume 4 (now don't start with that), she's had her powers since the tender age of 16 or so. Presumably she's had over 40 years of practice refining control over her ability, and it's not too much of a stretch to say she could trigger dreams about how she convinces people to agree with her.

Sylar is the Father of the Shadows, and Peter Petrelli is the Father of the Vorlons, from Bablyon 5

At some point, Sylar will kill and "examine" either Daniel Jackson's or Jack O'Neil's mind, gain the Ancient knowledge, and ascend. Sylar decides to force his evolutionary theory upon the rest of the universe by becoming the shadows and 'kicking over the anthills' to force the races to evolve. Peter at some point walks past the Stargate character that Sylar didn't kill, also ascends, and tries to stop Sylar by becoming the Vorlons.

Mr. Muggles is an Animorph in Shapeshifter Mode Lock

He is always confrontational of those who are plot-important, showing an above-dog IQ of thing. For instance, he ran up to Matt and Ted as they entered the house. He was drinking Claire's spilled blood in an attempt to heal himself back to human form. This didn't work.

Claire is masochistic

No, seriously. Ignore the innocent image for a moment; how many "accidents"\x9D does this young girl have? Even though she explicitly says she can feel pain, she has never once expressed disgust or discomfort at her many physical mutilations. She has been getting off on the rush\x9D for the whole time.

• According to the Season 3 premiere, she deliberately inflicts pain on herself because it's the only thing that keeps her feeling human. This makes her a masochist. Claire's main purpose in this show is as Fetish Fuel.

Sylar is an alternate possible crazy non-Anime version from the future of Shirō Emiya from Fate/Stay Night.

Think about it. Shirō is handy with tools and repairs, as is Sylar. And Shirō has a known history of having at least one alternate possible crazy non-anime version from the future. Who says he can't have more? God help us if Sylar gets involved with the Holy Grail War, or, worse, wins it by eating the Servants' brains.

There is at least one unknown active time-traveler.

Evidence is between Five Years Gone and How to Stop an Exploding Man. It is reasonable to assume that each time Hiro travels into the future, he goes to the future that is, when he leaves, the most likely to occur. However, the only significant interactions Hiro appears to have after he comes back at the end of Five Years Gone are with Sylar (almost killing him once and rescuing Ando from him once) and Nathan (calling him a villain). While the Sylar meetings could have made him change the time of day that the showdown happened, and the Nathan meeting clearly led directly to Peter's rescue at the end, there are still too many discrepancies.

In Ht Sa EM, Niki, D.L., Linderman, Candace, Noah, and Matt were all definitely close enough to be hit by the explosion; 5YG implies that none of them were (Niki as Peter's girlfriend, Sylar having D.L.'s power, the Linderman Acts, Sylar having Candace's power, Noah running an underground railroad, Matt as head of the Inquisition). This says that someone else was at work on the timeline during that interval. It might be someone we haven't met, or it might be a (farther?) future version of Hiro, Peter, or Sylar. Or it might be lazy plotting.

Hiro made things worse between "Five Years Gone" and "How to Stop an Exploding Man" because he attacked Sylar.

Hiro attacked Sylar in his own house. The most accepted theory is that this made Sylar get off his ass and go to Kirby Plaza.

In the timeline when Hiro did not attack Sylar, Sylar probably waited until morning or midday to go to Kirby Plaza, as seen in the second episode where it was daylight, and spent the night mourning his mother, sleeping, etc. Thus, in that timeline, D.L. and Niki still went upstairs and killed Linderman, Noah tries and fails to kill Molly, and Claire gets shipped off to France, etc. all at night without Hiro's interference. Logically, they would've all left that building and gone home by late night, avoiding the fight between Peter and Sylar; the only characters left behind at the time of detonation (which would've been in daytime) would have been Micah and Ando, for some strange reason.

Mohinder has a power; he just hasn't manifested yet.

His sister died from the Shanti virus; she named the Shanti virus. If the earlier strain of virus killed her, she must have had powers. If Shanti had a power, then her parents had the power gene. Her parents are Mohinder's parents, which means he has the gene too. He could be hiding this power in Five Years Ago, given Nathan's/Sylar's apparent hatred of evolved humans.

• Alternatively, Mohinder has the same power as Sylar, knowing how things work. Mohinder uses his power for genuine study, not to crack open people's heads to steal their power. It explains why he's such a good doctor and why the company was so nice to him when it's possible, and indeed likely, that they have other scientists with less morals that they could have gotten. As for his curing blood, they could have just knocked him out and taken the blood by force.
• Word of God says that he will gain super strength and 'spidey' powers by the end of season three.
• It's only the end of the first two episodes, and he already has them.
  • HORNY SPIDERMAN!
  • Then, this ability nearly kills him, so he injects himself with a completed version of The Formula and gains Enhanced Strength.

The Hooded Man that killed Kaito Nakamura was Peter.

This has been thoroughly Jossed, but it still makes sense. A screencap of the hooded guy with brightness increased bears more than a passing resemblance to Peter. Peter can fly. (Adam's regeneration doesn't explain why there wasn't any blood on the scene, and it was a big gamble that he wouldn't get anything lodged in his brain from the fall.) And why would Adam have been the last person Kaito suspected? Peter had amnesia, is able to time travel, was being mentored by Adam, and wasn't onscreen the whole time; he could be responsible for anything.

• It was Future!Peter messing with the timeline again.

Although he or she doesn't know it, one of the supposed normals at the Company emits a pheromone that causes people nearby to hook up with each other.

If you believe the recent online comics, half the Company is sleeping with the other half. Alternatively, everyone with powers emits this kind of pheromone, but in such a low concentration that the effects are only obvious in places like the Company where a lot of them are gathered together.

• Or The Company deliberately pipes such pheromones into their buildings to encourage breeding; the power gene is recessive, and they want a large pool to choose from.
• The first two episodes of season three support the "everyone with powers produces it" version: Mohinder and Maya hook up the moment Mohinder gets powers. Maybe he produces a stronger version because his powers are artificially induced.
  • Or maybe it's all the adrenaline he pumped into himself.

Peter has mental health issues

This was played rather nicely in the first season, but people seem to have forgotten it in the second. Just because Peter was right about the powers doesn't mean he doesn't have issues, and Nathan knows this. In the second season, this explains why Peter often acts in a way that would seem 'idiotic' to most people; he isn't perceiving reality as clearly as one might hope. From his point of view, it all makes perfect sense.

• But everything he believed was completely true. His lying bitch of a mother made up the whole "Delusions of Grandeur" thing about him AND their father (who wasn't suicidally depressed, just power hungry and vicious, and who DIDN'T take his own life, but was murdered by Angela). We can't prove that Peter has mental health problems. He's just stupid sometimes.

In a variant on the above, Peter's power causes mental health issues.

Just think about it. For each new power he absorbs, his Idiot Ball doubles in size. Clearly, his power either causes his intelligence to be inversely proportional to the number of powers he's absorbed, or it causes mental health issues because he doesn't have Sylar's ability to understand the powers. This is supported by the fact that when his powers were taken away, his Idiot Ball went with them, and seems to have barely come back (if at all) when he regained a weakened version of his ability, which only allows him to take a single power at a time.

• This actually makes sense. Sylar senses powers by looking at a super's brain or something, right? That means that a power uses up part of the brain, so for each new power Peter gets, he has that much less brainpower to go around. Or something.

Niki doesn't have Multiple Personality Disorder; Jessica's power was to astral-project herself into other people.

Jessica and Niki were both mutants. Niki's power is super strength. Jessica could astrally project herself into the bodies of others and wrest control of them. While her father was killing her, Jessica mind-jumped from her body into Niki's; they've been forced to share ever since.

• The appearance of 'Gina' in season 2 seems to have Jossed it.
  • Ok, then, Jessica is the one with MPD. Niki's not crazy; she's just got a crazy person in her head.
  • Or Gina is another dead spirit. Jessica's ability is, most inconveniently, a two-way street.
• Further evidence from Season 3: Future!Peter's ability to put Present!Peter in Jessica's body had to have come from somewhere - Perhaps from Jessica and/or Niki?

Niki, Jessica, and Tracy are all the same character.

There is no Jessica, and no Tracy. They are all Niki. Niki's real power is the ability to regenerate (kinda like the Doctor) when killed, but instead of changing her appearance, she cashes in her previous power for one that would have saved her. Niki was beaten to death by her abusive father. She came back as Jessica, who was superstrong. Jessica died in a fire. She came back as Tracy, who could generate cold and/or turn into water.

Superpowered or not, Claire will die young.

Matter for regeneration has to come from somewhere, and every cell division uses up telomeres (the terminal sequences on DNA that protect them from damage during mitosis, due to the imperfect ability of DNA to replicate). So, unless she has the ability to generate telomerase, she faces the same problem as Tsunade, namely, that she shaves lifespan with every use of her power, putting her ever closer to her Hayflick Limit. Peter has the same problem, though less so, since it's not his primary power. Adam seems to have telomerase-generation abilities in a fine balance to ensure immortality, while avoiding the carcinogenic risks of excess telomerase.

• For an example of the Hayflick Limit in action, read up on "Dolly". She was born at the age of six (biological) years.
• She can grow new flesh from nowhere without ingesting additional mass, so creating new telomeres should be no problem. It's already possible in canon to avoid the problem, and there's no sign she has any such condition. Also, in Real Life, certain lifeforms can extend or regenerate their telomeres.
• It's been stated by the writers that she'll live forever because she was the catalyst. So this one's been jossed.
  • Which didn't make any sense as Hiro's mother was also the catalyst, and Peter's father
  • Plus, she wasn't the catalyst!

Sylar has super-toughness.

He repeatedly survives injuries that would cripple or kill a normal person. He walks away from a fall that crippled another person (Peter). He has been shot twice (first by Parkman, then by Bennett) and walked it off. And he survived Maya's Black Tears of Doom when the Minutemen did not.

• Sylar often uses his telekinesis for defense; the writers confirmed that this accounts for his apparent invulnerability. Also, Sylar had no powers when exposed to Maya's Black Tears of Doom.

Future!Peter shot Nathan.

In one of the preview clips, it's mentioned that in the future, powered people are hunted down and experimented on by the government. In the same scene, Future!Peter tells Future!Claire, who's holding a gun on him, "I'm going back. To the day they all found out." The clip ends before she shoots him. So, right after that scene, Peter must have gotten away from Claire (not hard, considering he has flight, teleportation, and invisibility), gone back in time to the day Nathan made his speech, and shot him before he could say anything about people with powers.

• Oh look, this one is true.

"Tracy Strauss" is not Niki, but rather her sister Jessica

Or rather, the real Jessica, whom Niki believed died when they were kids. Linderman faked her death and arranged for her to be raised as Tracy Strauss as part of one of his bizarre Xanatos Roulette games. Niki herself is quite dead; regeneration aside, massive explosions are typically non-survivable.

• Well, her ice powers definitely put the kibosh on her being Niki.
  • Unless Niki has several multiple personalities, each with their own superpower, like Crazy Jane from the Doom Patrol. Gina's was the ability to turn herself and everyone she ever met into a total moron. This explains the second season perfectly.
  • Or she has adaptability. Need to protect yourself and child? Super Strength. Need to escape a fire? Cryokinesis. Though that doesn't explain the amnesia, and there's no mention of where Micah went.
  • The trauma of being trapped in an exploding house caused Niki to exhibit a new power and her mind to fracture further, creating 'Tracy.' Niki was so traumatized that she has since been a dormant or at least secondary personality. Tracy doesn't remember anything prior to her emergence, but has a set of false memories (possibly running parallel to the life Niki wished she could have had). She's not worried about Micah because Tracy never had a kid.
• Dr. Zimmerman said he "created" Tracy. Tracy, Niki, and the real Jessica are all clones; there are probably hundreds of others. It's even possible that he later mentored Gendo Ikari.
  • Jossed in the following episode- Tracy, Niki and Barbara were identical triplets which the company thought would make a nice baseline to experiment on giving people powers with the formula.

Ando kills Hiro.

Sick of having second banana status, Ando takes Suresh's power injection and gains red lightning. Being artificially powered puts him opposite the naturally empowered Hiro, who thinks the formula should be suppressed. Bottled resentment finally boils over in the scene past!Hiro saw. Alternatively, the scene created a Stable Time Loop in which it causes Hiro to mistrust Ando, which causes resentment, which causes the scene.

• It is now confirmed that he has taken the serum and gained a power-boosting ability... that comes with its own red lightning.

Sylar kills Hiro.

Sometime between past!Hiro's present and the scene where future!Hiro dies, Sylar kills the shapechanger fugitive and someone with red lightning power. Sylar figures that with the formula, he'll have an even wider selection of powers to choose from. Future!Hiro, having split from Future!Ando, argues with Sylar!Ando, leading to his death.

• Okay, he's got the shapeshifter power, so now he just needs to go after Ando.

Powers are at least partially influenced by subconscious desires.

Nathan wanted to "rise to power" and can fly; Peter wanted to be special, and is arguably the most special with his Mega Manning; Hiro wanted to escape the tedium of a salaryman's life, and became the ultimate escaper; Daphne wanted to be able to walk, and became the fastest person on Earth; Niki wanted to protect Micah, and became incredibly strong. Micah is part of a generation for whom machines are an integral part of life, and he became their Dr. Doolittle. Mohinder wanted to never feel helpless before people like Sylar again, and got boosted to superhuman athleticism. Tracey created a public image of herself as an "Ice Queen", and gained freezing powers. DL needed to escape capture and became the ultimate Houdini. Ando sees himself as a Sidekick and gains the power to supercharge people with abilities, but in Volume Four he desires to be a hero in his own right, and therefore learns to use his powers as a weapon. Maya's power was a mistake: originally, it just made people feel a little off, but she got so worked up, calling it a "curse" and such, that it transformed into the Our Lady of Bioweapon doom tears we see. Her brother's love made him the counter.

• Daphne postulates exactly this in the finale of 'Villains.' Good guess!
• Hiro's desire is more like "to be the ideal hero". Thus, he is given gamebreaker powers that must be kept in check by firm heroic morality.

Sylar's power would work like Peter's if he weren't an Exclusively Evil psychopath.

The first empowered person he meets is Davis. He doesn't try to use Davis' TK power until after killing him, but he could have. Thus, the killing and messing with brains has become superstitious/operant behavior, which didn't start out as necessary, but now is due to a mental block on Sylar's part.

• As of Episode 3.9, it appears that Sylar IS an empath. * headdesk* Or, more specifically, his powers CAN function that way - if he can overcome the hunger. Which he chose not to do in the end.

Future!Peter... isn't.

A shaky theory at best. However, this time traveler with multiple powers also possesses the illusion power, so it's possible that Future!Peter's scarred face is just another illusion. (See Candace, whose base appearance isn't seen until she is killed). If it isn't Peter, it could be another empath or maybe Sylar. At any rate, this Peter seems to care for the same people that Present!Peter cares for and is also concerned with saving the world. Perhaps this person had his memory wiped and was "programmed" to think and act like Peter.

• At the least, this would obviate any messy Time Paradox issues about what happens to him if he wipes out the future he supposedly came from. (cough* Caitlin* cough)
• Jossed. He was killed, and he still had the same appearance. There would be nothing to keep the illusion up if his brain functions were terminated.
  • Un-Jossed. Candace's illusion power must be continually kept active by the brain, but this isn't true for actual shapeshifting. In season 3 there was a character who could shapeshift, and he was used to provide the fake Sylar body. Dying didn't change his shape back. It's like the guy who melted things—when he was killed, the objects he affected didn't un-melt. Shapeshifting would be sort of like melting your own body.

Sylar isn't Peter and Nathan's brother; Angela Petrelli is jerking his chain to gain his loyalty.

We've already over-used that particular plot twist. Angela's probably aware that, given Sylar's psychology, claiming to be his real mother is a good first step in manipulating him to do her bidding.

• Alternately, the entire Petrelli family are off their collective rocker, and Angela has somehow convinced herself that Sylar is her son.
• Jossed: Arthur also identified Sylar as his son.
  • • Not necessarily! Arthur picked up on what Angela was doing and turned her story around to his advantage, which would be perfectly in character and also a much better plot twist than this. (Addendum: After "Eclipse pt. 2", it seems Bennett believes this theory.)
• Oh, look, this one is true, too, thanks to Sylar picking up a lie-detecting power.

Sylar IS Peter and Nathan's brother, and Kaito Nakamura is the father.

It's been implied that Kaito and Angela were together at one point. Sylar is simply what resulted from it. It helps explain why he was put up for adoption, and it totally fits the Tangled Family Tree they're currently building.

• They don't exactly look a whole lot alike.
• One should note that Sylar's attempts to find the truth just confirmed Arthur is not HIS father.

Nathan Petrelli did speak to God, or at least to a non-malevolent entity of some sort. He will probably end up being manipulated by Linderman's ghost into doing some crappy things, but he will remain a decent guy and avoid out-and-out becoming a Dark Messiah.

Since we're already introducing Promicin this season, it would be too much if he turns into Jordan Collier. Also, Nathan is clearly still Nathan, not possessed or crazy (other than seeing dead people).

• Jossed: Nathan was being manipulated by Maury Parkman, Matt's father

Hiro will avoid being killed by Ando

Hiro has already dodged the Idiot Ball and averted Poor Communication Kills by outright telling Ando, "You killed me in the future. Dude, please don't kill me when we get to the future, alright?" instead of keeping it bottled up for several episodes. Then again, if he continues to treat Ando like crap for something he hasn't done yet, he might not have dodged the Idiot Ball after all, and all bets are off.

Claire is going to pick up an Evil Mentor at some point.

Claire asks Peter to train her to fight and then asks her dad to bring her along as his villain-hunting sidekick. Both of them brush her off, much to her dismay. She clearly wants to take control rather than always being the Damsel in Distress. Since the "good guys" refuse and continue to treat her like a kid, in her despair she's going to end up apprenticed to a villain, kicking off her much publicized Face Heel Turn.

Ando will help Adam.

Angela's vision clearly shows Adam out of the grave that Hiro put him in. Hiro's continued suspicion towards Ando will cause Ando to start viewing his former best friend with bitterness and contempt. Ando goes to Kaito's grave seeking whatever wisdom he can glean. What he finds instead is Adam, buried alive by Hiro. Now fully believing that Hiro is walking down a dark path, he teams up with the extremely charismatic Adam to try and stop him. Adam, further incensed by Hiro's actions, uses Ando as an unwitting pawn to get revenge. Following this...

• Jossed by Adam's (very likely) permanent death
  • The writers have stated that Adam may show up again and didn't clarify if they meant in flashbacks/time travel or resurrected in the modern era. So this is still possible. (Though not likely, given Ando and Hiro patching up their differences.)

Ando will die.

Either Adam will kill him to get revenge on Hiro (which will culminate in Hiro finally killing Adam off for good and cementing his transition to his Future Badass self), or Hiro will kill him in a showdown between Ando and himself.

• Hiro killed Ando. Whether it will stick is another matter. If it doesn't, now we know why Future!Ando wants to kill Hiro.
  • Nope, Hiro used time muckery to just pretend to kill Ando

Somebody gave Nathan ownership of a Death Note while he was in hospital.

Linderman is the shinigami attached to it, which is why only Nathan can see or hear him.

• Perhaps a Death Note would be able to kill Adam or Sylar?
  • Adam's off the field now...
• Probably also Jossed by Linderman being the result of Maury Parkman messing with Nathan's head.

It is Hiro, rather than Ando, who will undergo a Face Heel Turn.

Hiro is already suspicious of Ando, and will drive Ando away with the kind of petty, exclusive behavior we've seen him begin to exhibit. However, Ando is much too loyal to Hiro to work against him; he's likely to look up some of their contacts from the first two seasons to see if they can help Hiro get his head on straight. Hiro by this point has seen Ando's abandonment as proof that his friend has gone evil, and will assume that anyone who's working with Ando is also evil. That Daphne is set up as a potential Hiro-love-interest will not help matters any.

The entity Nathan is communicating with (and whom Daphne seems to work for) is not Linderman, or Linderman's ghost, but rather the First Evil taking the form of Linderman

Also, Claire is well on her way to becoming the Slayer. Unfortunately, it's likely that she'll end up the Slayer of Specials, rather than the Slayer of Vampires.

• Jossed, and never feasible to begin with, but hey, the play's the thing.

The nice and homey future!Sylar we see gets the way he is by losing his powers

Sylar's murders are fueled by his desire for more powers (based on Season 3 Episode 3). He seems to have some guilt over this. Mohinder will discover the cure he promised to Maya; the Company will give it to Sylar, at which point he becomes the cute and cuddly version. Alternately...

The nice and homey future!Sylar we see gets the way he is by taking Peter's power

He can take the powers of regenerating people without killing them. Once he has Peter's power, he suddenly doesn't need to kill anyone to take their powers. Instead, all he needs is to meet them. Suddenly, he's not so dangerous and, incidentally, has the gratitude to Peter that would make him greet Present!Peter like he does. Maybe. We'll see next episode!

• Nope. Looks like it's just pure willpower keeping him nice, a constant struggle.

Angela Petrelli's apparent persuasive talent is a side-effect of her precognition.

Angela Petrelli's precognitive visions are accurate. That means she knows what people are going to do before they do. It also means that she can see how an action now will affect somebody in the future. Knowing how somebody will react, she is able to say exactly what he/she needs to hear in order to do what she wants.

Niki Sanders and Tracy Strauss are clones.

When Tracy went to see Dr. Zimmerman, he originally addressed her as... Barbara? His accent's pretty thick. Anyway, this points to the existence of a third lookalike. Together with his statement of "I created you," this suggests that Niki, Tracy, and Barbara, and possibly others, are all clones of a single super-powered woman. This woman, Dr. Zimmerman, or both are associated with the older generation of heroes or the Company, as evidenced by Linderman's tracking Niki's life in season 1. The goal of the cloning project was either simply to produce more people with powers or to produce more people with the original subject's specific power (in which case it most likely failed, as Niki and Tracy have different powers).

The original Jessica may or may not have been a clone, as well.

• Alternately, Zimmerman might have been involved in trying to figure out the genetic coding that gives powers, and how it gives specific powers. By manipulating the gene code, they managed to produce at least three different Specials, and at least two of those have different powers: Niki/Jessica was super-strong, while Tracy is An Ice Person - but apparently, not a nice person, as her ice powers are probably an offshoot of why the tabloids call her "Ice Queen".

Mohinder is turning into, not Spider-Hindu, but Cockroach-man.

The cockroach is a recurring motif in the Heroes universe, first introduced by Mohinder as the pinnicle of evolution. There are theories of him being a spider-man, fly-man (the scene where he crawls up the walls is a homage to the movie The Fly) and lizard-man (after the name of Chandra's pet lizard and the hiding place of the data needed to make the formula). However, as Heroes writers love their thematic motifs, it would only be fitting that the man that refered to God as a cockroach turn into one. Mohinder is a Cockroach.

• If this is true, he might even become the monster from Mimic. Ewwww.
• A cockroach was seen crawling around Future!Suresh's house, so it could be either the recurring motif of cockroaches or a more deliberate foreshadowing.
• Corollary: In the Heroes universe, Franz Kafka had these powers naturally.
• Sylar has his ticking clocks; Mohinder now seems to have a theme of rustling insect legs.
• Do cockroaches have scales?
  • They have wing-shells that overlap.
  • Don't forget exoskeletons

The Primatech box seen at the end of "One of Us, One of Them" was deliberately planted by Bennet.

Bennet doesn't trust the Company. He knows that they will try to capture the villains when they should be destroyed. So he sets up Claire to go after them without the Company knowing.

• Doubtful, given HRG's overprotectiveness of Claire. Also, he tried to dissuade Sylar from killing the bank robbers. But maybe someone else planted the box... possibly a villain luring Claire into a trap. Or it could be the Haitian. He's got to have some kind of secret agenda.

Strong powers make you evil or stupid

Those with the strongest powers tend to fall into one of two groups:

• The Permanent Idiot Ball bearers: Peter, Hiro, Matt, Claire

or

• Complete Psychos: Sylar, Adam, Elle, Jessica/Niki, the Unit 5 guys, Powered!Mohinder.

The sole exception seems to be The Haitian, and you could argue that his power's nature (nullification) modifies itself to keep him from going too far down one path or the other.

• Now that Peter has Sylar's powers, he's going to take on the worst characteristics of both and become a Psychopathic Manchild.
• And when Peter lost his powers, he temporarily became a Badass Normal.
• After all, powers are housed in the brain - if the brain's constantly keeping a power (or more than one) active, fewer neurons are available to think with. This further explains Peter - his brain is constantly picking up everyone else's powers; thus, with each new metahuman he meets, his IQ drops. Sylar, although Ax Crazy, knows how things work; it wasn't so much his willpower he was using in the future, but exercising enough control over his brain to counteract the effects to an extent.
  • This is all but proven when it turns out that only being able to have one power at a time made Peter at least twice as intelligent as he was before.
• Alternatively, it isn't the nature of the powers but how often they are used that determine the severity of their effects on people's minds. Sylar, a complete psychopath, is obviously the most seriously affected because he has been unconsciously using his powers long before he became a supervillain while working as a watchmaker. Meanwhile, Nathan, despite being a morally ambivalent politician, made little use of his powers and was generally less idiotic or psychotic then most of the other cast with powers. Finally, the result of severe abuse of one's powers not only has a negative effect on one's brain but ultimately gives it a fatal tumor, as in the case of Hiro, whose Time-Space warping abilities unwittingly accelerated the process.

• On the other hand, Micah has demonstrated how powerful technopathy can be, and he's probably the smartest character on the show.
  • Maybe he's sharing his thinking with his friends the machines? Parallel processing can do wonders...

African!Isaac is an astral projection of the Turtle.

So when Matt was hearing the turtle give him advice on how to get water in the desert, it was the turtle's true voice. Sensing that this would be hard to believe, the turtle created a projection of a precognitive African to guide Matt.

After Matt saw the future, he was told that he must now follow his animal totem. And, perhaps * too* conveniently, the turtle shows up. You may wonder, "Why is this turtle going through all this trouble?" Well....

The Turtle and Mr. Muggles are arch-nemeses.

...the Turtle wants to force Dark Future v. 3.0. In this future, Matt marries Daphne, which brings him, her and Molly Walker together, which reveals Present!Peter and Sylar's location, cascading into a chain of events that causes Sylar to go nuclear and kill everyone in Costa Verde, which includes a certain spunky Pomeranian. The Turtle wants nothing less than to be the only "magical pet" in the Heroesverse. Leading Matt to Daphne is the first step in this scheme, which is so horrendous it would put Light Yagami to shame.

• Notice how Usutu is "alive" at the end of Volume 3. Does this prove anything? NOBODY KNOWS. WHAT A TWEEEEEEST!

Humans aren't alone in being able to gain powers.

If the turtle is Matt's guide, then it got mentalism powers, including sapience.

Future!Gabriel's son is Noah Bennett.

Gabriel and HRG were trying to capture someone with the power to age and de-age people, and things went wrong: Noah was turned back into his younger self. Of course, because HRG helped him stop "the Hunger", Gabriel decided to keep him as his son until the Company could find a way to reverse the process. That was 3 years before Past!Peter came to see them...

Canfield's vortex-creation power is a two-way street.

That is, he is able to open vortices back into the "real world" from wherever it is he sent himself. In various other 'verses, there tend to be two kinds of teleportation - the direct, instantaneous transmittance between two places, and the traveling through some other kind of space or dimension. Hiro's seems to be the first; it's possible that Canfield might be capable of the second.

The reason Parkman has the same power as his father is...

That Maury deliberately put the power into him in his infancy or childhood. In the Heroes universe, it's clear that mutant powers are somehow based in the brain; Sylar can duplicate them by studying a person's brain power, and Peter may have a similar mode. Now, Maury (and Matt) have the power to affect anything the brain does. Why couldn't someone good with that power, like Maury, set up Matt's brain to have the power or to develop it? As for why Maury can't just generate powers - he isn't Sylar. He doesn't understand mutations other than his own, so he passed what he could figure out to his son. It might also need an infant brain, or maybe even a brain that was genetically similar to Maury's.

Hiro has a plan.

How else is it possible for Hiro to so quickly turn around and stab Ando, especially after having just reconciled with him for being a bad friend? And the whole "I must make sacrifices" speech was in English, which it wouldn't have been if he just wanted to talk to Ando; the speech was likely for Knox and Daphne's benefit. Finally, it's been shown before that Hiro's more than willing to make hidden plans and not tell Ando about it. So, he has a plan to somehow either bring Ando back, (not that that's all that hard), or to fake having killed him in the first place.

• Possible for the death to be faked, as Hiro was seen buying fake blood and a prop sword from a novelty shop beforehand. Maybe this is one of the plans Hiro's come up with that Ando is let in on...
• Another possibility—The moment Hiro had to kill Ando, he stopped time, travelled five minutes into the future, kidnapped "future" Ando and killed him instead of Present!Ando. The show has shown so far that killing someone from the future doesn't have any major consequences.
• Confirmed! Hiro used his time travel powers to fake Ando's death, which Ando knew about in a basic sense: the look was probably surprise mixed with some acting. As for Daphne, she either wasn't paying attention or, with her character having been revealed to have limits on what she'll condone, perhaps she "wasn't paying attention" in that sense.
• Hiro teleported before Daphne and Knox arrived.
• Anyway, why exactly would Daphne notice? She's immune to time-stoppery, but we've never seen anything to indicate that she can detect teleportation.
  • She's only immune to time-stoppage when her power is also activated. Since she wasn't already moving super-fast, Hiro is able to stop time without her realizing it.

The formula is a Super Serum used to create artificial Heroes/Villains.

We know that at least some of the superpowered beings in the show weren't naturally empowered, and we've even seen that one doctor guy trying to reverse-engineer a Hero's powers; obviously, there's a study into what gives these naturally-powered beings their abilities, as well as a formula for transferring or giving wholesale non-powered beings the same. Having such a formula in the hands of corrupt military or corporate powers is never a good idea, so the original, stable formula was split and hidden away so no one can duplicate it. That doesn't stop them from trying, but without the original formula, their attempts to recreate it result in unstable mutations. That's why Future!Ando and others are trying to get their hands on the full formula; it's the original, stable blueprint that will correct any unstable elements the flawed formulas that gave them their powers added to the deal and render them veritable gods to boot.

• Clearly true by now.

The formula is Promicin.

This would create a great way to have a Fully-Absorbed Finale for both shows. Not to mention Linderman Vs. Collier has potential.

Adam Monroe isn't being recruited into the Legion of Doom; Pinehearst simply wants his blood so they can revive Arthur Petrelli. Afterwards, he'll have Outlived His Usefulness.

The "use Adam's blood to revive Arthur" is more of a "Duh, no, really?" guess. But they're also going to dispose of Adam (maybe by having Maury brain-lock him into a nightmare coma), since an operation like Pinehearst only has room for one Big Bad at the top, and Arthur Petrelli is probably not the type who likes to share.

• In the end, Arthur didn't even have to do that. A simple touch, and Adam was needlessly killed off by a two bit loser with god mode sue powers.

The "Hunger" is a reverse Magic Feather.

This concept of Sylar being evil only because of his power is just way too flimsy, especially since he's had the power his whole life and only turned evil relatively recently for reasons which would be more closely associated with his mother and Chandra's revelations. Angela invented the whole concept as an attempt to give him "structure"; when Sylar was just collecting powers for "evolutionary imperative" and "to be special", he didn't even want to stop. Now that he has a real mom, he doesn't need the "special" part as much, but it's still a force of habit. In order to help kick it, Angela manipulated him into seeing this "hunger" as a semi-external force so he has something to fight against other than himself to free himself of it. As for why Peter suddenly has the Hunger... for one, it's manifesting fairly differently - cutting peoples' heads open to get their secrets out rather than their powers. For another... no offence to the guy, but Pete's never seemed especially mentally stable.

Peter's suggestibility is a direct result of his power.

Although the most obvious effect of Peter's power is that he absorbs people's powers, he also absorbs opinions and worldviews. This explains why he suddenly has the "hunger" - he absorbed not only Sylar's power, but also Sylar's understanding of how the power works. Also, this is why he spent most of last season refusing to believe that Adam was evil - Adam does not think of himself as evil, and Peter was in near-constant proximity to him.

• A most intriguing theory. Peter has demonstrated character traits of every other character on the show; a need for his family to be together, like Michah; the feeling that he has to kill or destroy himself like Niki and/or Ted; and he and Hiro share the idea that if they fulfill their destiny as heroes, then they'll get the approval of their parents and siblings. (He also loses the woman he loves, just like Hiro and Ted.)

As related to a few other examples above, now that Peter has had his powers stolen by Arthur Petrelli, this is how Arthur Petrelli will be defeated.

Peter's powers DO affect the mind, inducing gullibility/personality synchronization/outright stupidity, and this is the Achilles Heel that the good guys will exploit to defeat Arthur Petrelli's now god-like ability.. It also fixes the problem of Peter being the "one minute problem fixer" that his sheer number of powers presented him as and the writers had to work around for good...or for now, anyway.

• Yes, Peter's powers will be Arthur Petrelli's downfall, but you don't even need to factor in that powers come packaged with an Idiot Ball. The real trap there is that when he took Peter's powers, that includes Sylar's power. In other words, Daddy Petrelli is about to go completely bonkers.
  • Ironically, it was not Sylar's powers but Sylar himself that was Arthur's downfall.
    • Though one could argue Arthur NOT MOVING HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WAY OF THE BULLET THAT WAS FLOATING IN FRONT OF HIM FOR 30+ SECONDS is a confirmation that he absorbed an Idiot Ball after all.

Mohinder's father Chandra Suresh knew all about the Company and other heroes and in fact worked for them

The Company knew all about Chandra's research into people with abilities and recruited him to work for them. Chanti was a failed attempt to give synthetic powers to someone born without them (possibly because she didn't have powered parents like Nathan Petrelli). Chandra was convinced that it could be done, and he was seeking other people with abilities so he could perfect the formula. He turned Mohinder away because he knew the Company would hurt him to get at him. Sylar was probably manipulated in killing Chandra so as to prevent him succeeding in recreating/creating the formula.

"Sylar" will become a Legacy Character

As noted on the main article page, Peter and Gabriel are Shadow Archetypes of each other, and the "shadow" is currently being mixed up with Gabriel trying to redeem himself and Peter gaining "the hunger". If both cross over completely instead of going back to their original alignments, then Gabriel will give up his "Sylar" identity, and Peter will assume the mantle instead.

• Alternatively, Arthur Petrelli will assume that mantle, since he stole all of Peter's powers and rendered him depowered.

The writers are trying to remove all "power mimic" abilities from the show

• Sylar has seemingly given up his, and Peter loses his just in time for the viewer to learn of an ability to synthetically induce powers in a person. Arthur has some sort of power-vampire ability, but he's a villain, so clearly his chances of sticking around are slim to nil.

Maurie, Matt's Father, is the big bad, not Arthur.

• Why would a guy who can control people's minds play second fiddle to a man who is bed-ridden and easy to kill? Simple: He isn't. Behind it all, Muray is the puller of the strings at Pinehurst, not Arthur. Perhaps he wants to have a physical power as well as a mental one, or maybe he just wants revenge, but the silent complacent act is not in the nature of the man we met. He has also been described as disciple of Linderman and may wish to continue his work; Arthur has no such affiliation. Finally, he's the only one capable of putting Ma Petrelli in a coma when she did. His little guest spot in season two was not enough to justify Molly calling him the Boogie Man.
  • Jossed: Maury's dead at Arthur's hands. Then AGAIN, considering both the nature of his power and the end result of what happened to cause it, maybe not...
    • Then again AGAIN... Arthur seemed to be able to telepathically communicate with Adam even when he was bedridden, and the telepaths have always seemed to be pretty resistant to each other. It's possible that Arthur power-drained someone else with powers like Maury in the past, meaning he was always basically Maury's equal even when he couldn't physically move. Also, this would make him capable of putting Angela into her coma himself... it's possible that his long association with her, and the nature of her own power, let him access her dreams from any distance; while he needed Maury to influence other people he couldn't affect from his hospital bed.

Peter will regain his core Empathy power.

However, he will experience a drawback of the drain. Either he'll lose all his absorbed powers and will have to start from scratch, or he'll be rebooted to pre-Claude level and have to remain in proximity to the person he's copying. The former is more likely, though, as the latter is mostly a fan's hope. The power regain will likely happen either with time if Arthur's drain is non-permanent, or after the theory below comes to fruition.

• Or Peter will regain powers by using the Super Serum that's such a big deal this arc.
  • Turns out Peter gets his empathy back, but can only hold one power at a time. If he grows a lock of bright-white hair, I'm so outta here.

A fully-redeemed Sylar will face off against Arthur Petrelli.

He's probably the only other being on the planet powerful enough to face him now. Plus, what better way for a previous Big Bad to redeem himself than to take down the new one? Liable to turn into a Heroic Sacrifice, though.

• • And that's what happened...except for the redeemed part.

The Haitian's power-null field also affects Arthur Petrelli's stolen powers, and it will be he and Bennet to bring him down.

Because it would be a totally awesome twist. The most powerful villain ever not brought down by a similarly-powered individual, or even a group of lower-powered specials, but by the single Badass Normal on the series.

• Somewhat confirmed. The flashback episode "Villains" reveals that the Haitian was largely responsible for putting Arthur down originally, and spoilers for upcoming episodes reveals that the characters believe he's the key to defeating Arthur in the present.
  • And he did end up playing a role, although it was demonstrated that Arthur had so many powers that the Haitian could only block them all a short time. But he did it long enough.

Sylar never Jossed a fan favorite theory.

Sylar tells Claire that he doesn't eat brains - except he doesn't. Claire asks him if he will eat hers. His response is "Claire, that's disgusting." That isn't a "No, I don't do that, what kind of monster do you think I am?" response, nor does his tone of voice suggest anything like that. Rather, he is merely stating his opinion on the nature of eating brains: It's Squick. But just because someone thinks something is squick doesn't mean it isn't done or that the person doesn't do it (think about all the squick that goes around in your bathroom). He could find eating brains disgusting, but still find it the icing on the cake of getting to gain new powers. This is supported by his leaving countless victims still brainless. If he didn't eat brains, that scene would be the perfect time to explain where they go. Alternatively, he does eat brains, and enjoys it; but Claire's brain, and only Claire's brain, is the topic of the question at hand. Sylar finds eating Claire's brain (which he established as being different from the others in this scene) disgusting, just as one might describe the act of throwing red paint onto the Mona Lisa (or desecrating a similar work of art) disgusting. He thinks Claire has a beautiful and awe-inspiring brain and he shouldn't ruin it for fun (seeing as how he doesn't "need" to eat brains, so it would purely be for fun). Either way, semantics play a big part in leaving this fan theory not completely Jossed.

• That, or it was a large Take That at the fanbase...

Arthur Petrelli's stolen powers remain with him indefinitely.

This is because of what he did to Adam. Finishing Adam off like that would have been poor tactical thinking on his part otherwise; much better to keep him around as a walking bag of regenerating blood than irreversibly end him for the sake of a temporary power boost.

• This seems to be the case with Peter's and Sylar's ability, so it's a pretty good guess.
  • Confirmed, as Arthur took Maya's powers and still demonstrated the powers he got from Peter afterward

Maury Parkman is going to be killed or incapacitated within the next couple of episodes. Perhaps Arthur will feed him to Sylar to gain his loyalty, or even consume his delicious power himself.

Maury is noticeably absent from Africa!Isaac's "Four Horsemen" painting (Arthur, Sylar, Knox, and Flint). The only other Pinehearst character missing is Daphne, who's got Heel Face Turn written all over her. Maury and Arthur are the last remaining members of the Original Twelve, and Arthur may not like to share (he already took out Adam Monroe).

• • Confirmed: Arthur broke Maury's neck after Maury disagreed with Arthur killing his son. Then again, considering Maury's power...maybe he didn't.

The Crapsack World future is inevitable.

When Hiro tried to save the girl in season 1, she still ended up dying, but of a different cause. This means that the course of time can only be changed slightly; the world will eventually end up gray and gloomy, but the way in which it does so is still not defined. This is why Nathan is always president, Claire is always a brunette, and Peter always has that freaking scar on his face.

Ma Petrelli didn't lie to Sylar as Pa Petrelli claims, and Sylar knows this.

If what Arthur said was true, consider this: why would Angela let Sylar "feed" upon one of her own company workers in the third episode of season three (before his turn)? When the woman's power in question is the ability to reveal the history of any object she touches to a person, and the person offering the character up on a silver platter to a horrible monster (to paraphrase Arthur's claims of why she wanted to kill the infant Gabriel) is a precognitive, it becomes obvious: Angla knows Sylar will be confronted with a lie from the villain. Why then would one give someone what amounts to a miracle security camera, knowing full well that he could see her trying to off him and his track record with mothers who abandon him? Sylar either already knows this (evidenced by his saving Peter to fool his dad - clever acting was foreshadowed in the same episode he got this power), or it will be revealed to him in the next episode. Since the next one promises yet another trip into the past, this might be the vehicle that takes us there.

Sylar DIDN'T Save Peter from the fall.

The writers did.

• More to the point, it just feels like the characters are shoving this theory down our throats. If it was just Claire's comment about Peter's unlikely survival, then it'd be okay. But then we had Peter elaborating on it further, and Arthur mentioning the unlikelihood as well. All this could be setting us up to expect Sylar to be the one who saved him so they can throw in the twist that it wasn't.
  • Either way, mentioning that three times in a row is a case of Viewers are Morons.

Arthur didn't actually kill Maury.

Think about it. Maury only stood up to Arthur over the plan to kill Matt, and the end of the episode shows that that wasn't the plan in the first place. It's not even clear yet why he would have that pretense at all, or even if he still has that pretense within Pinehearst beyond Knox. (Though maybe he's expecting Matt to start reading minds while he works against Pinehearst, and thus would easily uncover Daphne? They're still counting on Matt's famous lackluster intellect naturally trusting nature to keep from probing Daphne herself too far.)

Nathan Petrelli is Lindermann's son.

It appears that similar powers tend to run in the family. Matt & Maury Parkman have mind-reading and control abilities. Arthur, Gabriel and Peter all have "power-soaking" abilities. Nathan's flying ability doesn't fit. But Lindermann can heal others and Claire, Nathan's daughter, can heal herself. Claire therefore got her healing ability from Grampa Lindermann. It also explains why Lindermann was so interested in Nathan. Angela is not a very nice person, and it's hardly a stretch to think that she fooled around with another elder super or two.

• That, or inheriting abilities skip a generation. Nathan's ability was synthetic. (Or Angela is lying).
  • Er... if it skipped a generation, Peter and Sylar wouldn't have them, either.
  • Unfortunately for this theory: Micah.
  • Just because powers can skip generations does not necessarily mean they have to.
• This ties into the "Nathan naturally has the power of self-resurrection" theory further down the page.

Mind control causes brain damage. Being raised by mind controllers explains the behavior of the main cast, or at least those raised by Arthur Petrelli and Maury Parkman.

In "Villains", Linderman pretty much confirms that the mind control power used by Arthur and Maury causes "scarring" in the brain. No doubt, being power-mad jerks, Arthur and Maury used this power liberally while raising their kids ("Nathan, stop hitting your brother." "Peter, go clean your room."), with the side effect of causing subtle but extensive brain damage in them. This accounts for the often rather nonsensical behavior of the Petrelli clan, as well as Matt Parkman's occasional bouts of Idiot Ball. Since Maury skipped out on Matt when he was just six, he's not quite as bad as the Petrelli brothers, who've been living with Arthur for well over 25 years.

The Turtle will play a role in defeating Arthur Petrelli

A throw-away line in "Villains" seems to indicate that Arthur's mind control power doesn't work on animals. Somehow, the Turtle will exploit this weakness and play a part in his downfall. Alternatively, he'll team up with Mr. Muggles to tag-team Arthur.

• • No, of course this didn't happen. Don't spoil people's fun, meanies.

The end of "Villains", with Usutu dead and Hiro about to lose his powers, is actually a vision from the time-travelling dreams

Hiro seems to be used a lot lately for did-that-really-happen endings (cf. "killing" Ando). Also, this storyline would be incredibly pointless (even for a Hiro storyline) if Hiro just loses his powers right after learning what he needs to fight Arthur.

• It's comparable to the end of Season 1's "Parasite" where Pete goes into Mohinder's apartment and gets his head cut open by Sylar just as the "to be continued" pops up on screen.
• Ando is going to charge up and hit Arthur with a rock or something. Not only is it in-character for him to attack like that (see "I'm being awesome!" from a couple episodes back), but this pure-normal, not even Badass guy running up to save his friend from the most powerful man on the planet... that doubles as Crowning Moment of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Those two are a team, through and through.
  • This turns out to be mostly true. Arthur easily shrugs off Ando's attack, but while Arthur's distracted by one of Usutu's paintings, Ando bounces back, grabs Hiro, and manages to get him to teleport them the hell outta there before Arthur can finish sucking out Hiro's brains.

Sylar kills HRG... and Claire will see him do it

Bennett has been constantly baiting Sylar and trying to goad other Heroes to do it. Sylar knows this. Soon or later something will break: Either HRG goes too far for Sylar to ignore or Sylar just says "fuck it" and rampages. Claire seeing it would explain Bitter Future!Claire and her "You took everything from me!"

Little Noah's mother? Elle

Go ahead and tell me you watched "Villains" and didn't think the same thing.

• It could be. It might just never be addressed, though, like Peter's scar.
• Post-"It's Coming", this is only looking more likely.
  • Noah would need the ability to gestate in a corpse for him to still be born.
    • Given the sheer amount of fake outs and general WT Fery this season, she ain't dead till we see a body. A clearly dead body.
      • • Not moving, bloody, and on fire enough for you?
          • DAMMIT!
            • Elle still could have been his mother in that future, but it's not possible anymore since it's been completely changed (Elle being dead for starters, and Sylar now knowing for sure that Peter is not his brother).

Whatever creature Mohinder is becoming gives off pheremones when happy

And he, not being fully transformed yet, is susceptable to them. Hence the Moya. Even he himself is not aware of this aility, which is why it hasn't been mentioned on the show; he's not going to get many more chances to be happy, and so it might not show up again. He was, of course, only 'happy' in the first place because of his new abilities.

Marvel Comics Executively Meddled with one of their Shout Outs

In "It's Coming", Hiro was in shock about some of Marvel's recent big plots: Captain America (comics)'s death, Spider-Man's unmasking in Marvel Civil War, and the mysterious "Red Hulk" character. Of the three, Spidey's was already resolved as part of the much-hated One More Day, and Hiro should be griping about that story's dissolution of Spidey's marriage instead. One suspects Marvel didn't want to get more backlash from people hearing of that, and somehow pulled rank to have the writers use a slightly outdated reference. (Out of curiosity, what was Spidey's marital status eighteen years ago when Hiro was 10?)

• Peter and Mary Jane would've been newlyweds in 1990. (The wedding occurred in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 in 1987.)
• Hiro couldn't have summed up "One More Day" as quickly as the other things. Also, he seemed to be grabbing comics at random. It's not obvious at a glance that a post-OMD Spidey story is all that different (which was the point), but comics between Civil War and OMD were all about his identity being public. The Red Hulk bit is more suspect—apparently Hiro just happened to seize on something Jeph Loeb is writing. :)
  • Then again, there's another question which we haven't brought up yet. Back when Hiro was just starting to use his power, he was notorious for leaping back and forth through time as well as space. Could it be possible that Hiro and Ando have been displaced a few months back in time, which is why we have the slightly-dated references? (This also explains why there would be another Ninth Wonders comic out, even though Isaac told the delivery guy that the unfinished one was the "last".)

If Arthur Petrelli dies, all his powers will return to their original owners.

Because Adam's death is such a waste. If his power returned, he could probably regenerate even from ashes. (It's not that much crazier than from a skeleton...) At the rate Arthur is eating powers, something like this almost has to happen. On that note, maybe...

• Arthur's dead. Let's see what happens...
• Corollary: Not only will the powers return, but Peter, being Peter, will be shown to have absorbed the Catalyst into himself as Arthur died. Hiro will not receive the effect until after he reaches a point in the time-stream where Arthur's dead, upon which time his powers will find him and reactivate.

Powers stolen by Arthur Petrelli slowly return on their own, like mutant powers in X-Men 3.

This would work too. It keeps Peter and Maya usable and sets Adam up to return whenever the writers want (who's to say how long it would take in his case?). In tonight's episode, Sylar drained off some of Elle's power without stealing it from her altogether; maybe what Arthur does is a more severe variation.

• • Both of these explain how Peter would get and keep his face scar. Something happens that scars him while he's depowered, and when he gets his powers back, the scar stays.

Hiro and Ando are "currently" in the past.

Think about it. Back when he first started teleporting, Hiro couldn't help but chronoport as well, even when he was focused on one particular destination... and in this case, his "intense concentration" was a vague desire for waffles. Plus, there's a 9th Wonders comic out besides the ones we've seen (when the one retrieved in S1 "Five Years Gone" was meant to be the last), and the other comic references are slightly dated. Of course, to slip from logic for a bit, this could mean that when Hiro jumps them both back, they will jump over the power-sapping effect of the second eclipse, and thus (for a time, at least) he will be the only powered person around.

• The dated references are due to the fact that the series in general is set slightly in the past; it started off in the present, but only about six months have passed in over two years of real time. Notice that "Villains" was set "One year ago", despite occurring before the series began.

Arthur's Power Absorption ability is related to his Telepathy

Arthur's original power is telepathy; with it he is able to identify anyone with abilities. However, because he does not have Sylar's analytical powers, he does not understand how someone's mind works and so cannot copy them. Likewise, his brain doesn't reflexively try and match another person's like Peter's does, so he can't passively mimic them either. Instead, he uses his power to steal mental energy from another and, in doing so, alters his mind to become like theirs. A side effect of this power transfer is that the original owner suffers brain damage; that section of their mind that gave them their powers is burnt out, leaving them powerless.

Ando is Mohinder's first "success"

• Since Hiro told him about the future where he kills his best friend with superpowers, it seems unlikely that Ando would subject himself to the serum willingly. However, none of Mohinder's test subjects are exactly volunteers. Most likely, Ando will end up getting abilities against his will, further damaging his and Hiro's trust of one another.
  •  :Jossed: It was that soldier. Though with the need for time travel, Ando may yet be the first MAIN CHARACTER success...

Peter's powers have a Reset Button

• Whatever events return everyone's abilities after the eclipse in "It's Coming" will also return Peter's abilities.

Mohinder has had a power all along

The ability to intuit the absolute worst option in any situation and take it. Seriously, can you imagine someone making as many consistently bad choices - especially someone as supposedly intelligent as Mohinder - without some sort of outside compulsion? This idea came from the GAFF boards.

The second-season Shanti virus nullified all of Sylar's abilities except for the original.

It never did make sense to me that all through that escapade, he was more worried about his telekinesis and so forth than about what seemed to be a constant sixth sense. Also, when he picked apart Candace's brain, he didn't notice anything odd until he finished up and tried to make an illusion. Shouldn't he have been all, "Wait a minute... why don't I know what I'm doing?!" when he first shoved his hand in there? Plus, he still acted in accordance with the Hunger, which has been, ahem, revealed to be an aspect of his core intuitive aptitude power.

• Taking this idea further, the Shanti virus, the Haitian and the pills do not take away powers; they just severely weaken them. Thus, Sylar still had enough understanding to know what to do when he cut someone's head open; taking the pills stopped Adam from healing any new injuries but still left him with enough power to remain young; and the Haitian left Daphne with enough of her speedster power to move like a normal person. Arthur and the eclipse totally remove powers, so when the same people are exposed to them, they suffer the full consequences of power loss.
• For some reason, the "Heroes Wiki" seems to take this for granted, so maybe there's Word of God about it somewhere (or, hey, maybe it's really pervasive Fanon). Either way, we haven't seen Sylar use anything but his intuition and telekinesis (which, given that it was the only "genetic marker" the company found, seems to have been ingrained more thoroughly in the others), and the scene where Noah's goading Stephen to vortex Sylar strongly implied he didn't have the use of his Super Hearing. Of course, given that he explodes when Noah's killed, implying that he still has Ted's power in that five-years-later, something has to happen to restore all his abilities - maybe the end of the Eclipse?
  • Sylar could have re-gained nuclear powers from Peter/Arthur at some point during those five years (seeing as it's pretty obvious that Peter will eventually get his powers back) using his new and magical "Empathy".
• Here's that Word of God.

Arthur chose not to, or couldn't, take Hiro's ability.

His power-stealing worked quickly on others, including Peter, who had multiples. Why did it take so long with Hiro? Either Arthur is hedging his bets, or his power doesn't work on Hiro. That could be the case if Hiro, being a spacetime bender, exists at least partially as a probabilistic wave function. Instead of Arthur's power removing his, it short-circuited, regressing his mind.

• Either Arthur does take Hiro's power, or he already had a similar power from someone else. After the deed is done, he gets back to Pinehearst through teleportation. My guess is, he used Peter's power instead of his own to get it, and then felt no need to suck it out. It wasn't Hiro's power, but his dream, that Arthur "can't have". He already had stolen Peter's copy of Hiro's power.
• He was trying to completely erase Hiro's memories rather than steal his powers. He got interrupted before erasing the first 10 years.
  • • Arthur didn't steal Hiro's power because he knew he could steal them later in a more dramatic fashion.

It is not Claire, but Hiro, who is the Catalyst.

In the video which he left his son, Kaito told Hiro that he now had to take care of a great legacy. As both Hiro and Ando noted, being expressly told to not open a safe is a bit lackluster. Potentially, the "two parts" which Kaito mentioned in the video were not the two paper halves of the formula, but the paper formula itself and the other part - the one inside Hiro. Either Claire is a distraction, or he put the catalyst in her as well.

• This could also explain why Kaito once said, "I have waited years for a Nakamura to ascend." This probably means "to get powers," but why was Kaito a founder of Primatech if he didn't have powers? The Nakamura family has probably always been a catalyst for powers, but never had a power in its line, which would have been a sore spot for Kaito.
• Alternatively...

The Catalyst is Ando.

Ando is a Muggle—next to all these superpowered people, who's even going to notice him? He's the perfect hiding place. In any case, the fact that there were obvious hints to it being Claire even before she mentioned it feels too much like misdirection to me.

• On the other hand, there were plenty of obvious hints that Sylar was the one who saved Peter. Then, it turns out, he did.
  • In the end, it WAS Hiro. For a minute anyway.

That comic shop is exactly where Hiro needs to be to get some important memories back.

Two words: back issues.

• Confirmed!

There will be a comet that boosts the villain's powers in the third season finale.

Now that we've had a Shaggy Dog Story involving a power-stealing, much-foreshadowed eclipse in the middle of the third season, this season will culminate with a comet that boosts the bad guy's powers, and the Avsylar will have to stand against Cockroach Lord Arthurzai.

• And on the way, the disappeared-girlfriend plot will be resolved with Pete-kka rescuing Sukaitlin.
• Don't forget Clairtara and Zuthan facing off against the evil Princess Ellzula.

Sylar really did die in Kirby Plaza.

The rest of the show is just his pre-mortem nightmare. This explains the quality freaking storylines we've seen so far.

Future!Ando didn't really kill Future!Hiro

It was his own version of the fake stab Hiro pulled off to fool the Villains.

• All the more plausible now we've learned that Ando's red lightning is a non offensive power.
  • This how Hiro gets his power back. His falling over wasn't him dying, just shock from the treatment.

Kaito wanted Hiro to open the vault with the formula in it

The Schmuck Bait was just so obvious, Kaito is a smart guy, and he knows Hiro. Getting the formula out into the open was part of some sort of Xanatos Roulette, the kind you can pull off when you're smart and you know precogs and probably have a power yourself (like you totally would have gotten if a scene hadn't been deleted in season 2, apparently).

Sylar's bio parents: Angela Petrelli... and HRG

Seriously, it's about the only twist left.

• Volume 4 spoiler? His father will be played by John Glover.
  • Jossed, his parents weren't them at all.

Hiro will accidentally kill Gabriel Gray in 1991

Because it's the only way to painlessly deal with the sheer mountain of retcon bullshit this season. As for what to do with Zachary Quinto, since EVERYONE loves him so much, they could always re-do that whole "The guy that who looks like Sylar is actually his long-lost identitcal twin" plot twist * coughAliLartercough*

The Writers of Heroes are reading this page

This page has a dangerously high amount of WMGs that turned out to be true. They must be stealing all their ideas from this page. So for the love of all that is good in this world, start breaking the standard WMG rules and post sensible theories!

Peter has directly erased the possibility of Sylar having a true Heel Face Turn.

Let's consider a couple of things. Back when Peter was in the future, Sylar was still under the impression that he and Peter were brothers, which has since been confirmed false. Now, let's chase the butterfly. The first truly impactful thing which Peter did upon his return was go to Pinehearst. That directly led to his depowering, and Sylar going over to Arthur's side... which ultimately led to Sylar's faceoff with the Bennets... which sowed doubt about Arthur being his father... which led to him confirming that Arthur was not his father. The chain of logic, if you follow it back far enough, originally began with Peter's post-timejump actions.

• It's only proven false that they're full siblings. Nothing (yet) says they don't share Angela as a parent.
• DING! It's now known that Mama Petrelli is not Mama Sylar as well, and he knows it.

Sylar has used his Empathy on Arthur Petrelli sometime in the past, though it was offscreen.

Otherwise, why would he have acted so unconcerned about his death when that death apparently destroyed the brain for his uses? He didn't even make an attempt to recover it. Arthur is probably the only person above Sylar on the scale of power, and it seems unlike him to allow something like that to go to waste.

Sylar is a displaced Simpsons character.

Let's see: an amusing sociopath who is frequently given to homicidial tendencies (how else do Springfeldians start riots at the drop of a hat?) that is completely immune to Character Development...

• • He should just show up on The Simpsons. Mr. Burns would make him Vice President of Communications or something. Claude should, too, since he's a crabby misogynist who would probably spend a fair amount of time at Moe's, when he's not randomly helping Bart get out of a fix because he just likes the kid for some reason.

Ando will gain a time-travel power from the formula... but it will be a very different kind of time-travel.

Pure time-travel - that means he wouldn't get the teleport or time-stop. However, those limitations will be more than offset by just how epic the time-travel is. He would be able to move not only back and forth through time, but also side-to-side, allowing him to access parallel universes and multiple alternate futures. Ando will also be immune to the "rift" effect which previously kept Hiro from changing history.

• Confirmed, sort of. Though he needs Daphne to do so.

Theoretically, it is impossible to kill/depower Hiro

This is not so much a guess as much as an attempt to stretch the implications of his ability to its breaking point. Given that Hiro is a natural time-and-space bender, his domain is literally everywhere and everywhen. Suppose Hiro were to be Killed Off for Real in an episode. Given that the future (or the past!) isn't set in stone, it is possible for Hiro-from-five-minutes-ago to teleport six minutes into his future and "abrogate" the dead Hiro.

In the episode "Our Father," Hiro was (permanently?) de-powered by Arthur Petrelli. Given his and Claire's tampering in the timeline, it may be possible that somehow down the line the ten-year-old Hiro will grow up and manifest his powers and somehow avoid a situation in which he would lose his powers to Arthur Petrelli. In that present, he could "replace" powerless Hiro.

Of course, we don't know if everything was part of a Stable Time Loop. And given the mind-breaking implications of all this time jumping, it's easy to see why the writers are trying to get rid of time travel...

• Apparently, it was part of a Stable Time Loop, since time doesn't seem to have changed... yet. And it's also proven that Arthur can't steal Hiro's powers; he can only short them out. This is proven when Baby Touch 'n Go reboots Hiro's time-stop power, and it later subconsciously reactivates his time travel. Its just that Hiro needs all of his powers to be active to prevent them from causing brain damage.

The Heroes have been given their powers for some greater purpose.

To repel a Lovecraftian horror or restart the sun or something...

Powered-up Ando will die very soon after bringing Hiro back to the present.

Because, honestly, they're running out of ways to screw Hiro over without outright killing him. For added wham factor, it'll be Sylar to do it, gaining a replica of Hiro's powers in the process. Mr Time-freezing teleporter won't be as potent against him as he once was. Of course, that could also segue into the following...

If Sylar ever gains Hiro's power or a replica thereof, he will never need to kill for power again.

Think about it. He could stop time, teleport the brain out of the person's head, do his thing, teleport it back, and then let time resume. Since not enough time had passed for anything to happen to the brain besides Sylar fondling it a little, and he wouldn't have inflicted any kind of injury on them to get it out, the person shouldn't die. Of course, this just says he wouldn't need to. He still might do it anyway.

Ando will restore Hiro's powers with his own.

Either permanently or through ocassional zapping, Ando will be able to use his "super charger" abilities to allow Hiro to access his now dormant powers. Additionally, while he will be able to restore most of Hiro's powers, he won't be able to give him back his time travelling abilities. With Peter having lost this abiliy as well when his powers were taken, there will be no more regular time travel in the Heroes universe (except when Ando and Daphne combine their own powers).

• Jossed. Through Matt Parkman Jr. (aka, "Baby Touch-&-Go"), Hiro got his time-freezing back.
  • Sorta...
    • Although now it seems his time-stop power's begun to restart his time travel power.

Sylar used his sound manipulation powers to muffle his slaughter of the guards, and the clairsentience from the woman Angela fed him to gain access codes to Primatech.

This is the only way he took control of the whole facility without anyone noticing. And they didn't show it because it would have been too awesome. As for why the power came back on and the shutters opened up when he died... Sylar never actually put lockdown in place when he took over the facility; instead, he held it in an approximation of lockdown using telekinesis. When he died, his TK went out, and thus things were allowed to return to normal. Why would he do that? Well, his little conversation with Angela suggests that he wants to believe there are good people out there, and that he knows how villainous he is. Thus, he intentionally put in place a way for the "heroes" of the story to win.

A little guess about Ando's power.

Not only can it not restore lost powers, but it's harmful when used on non-specials. A single blast can knock someone unconscious. The characters discover this when Ando tries to use his power to give Hiro his power back, with painful consequences. After that, Ando makes it his mission to get Hiro's power back, one way or another - even to the point of nabbing the ripped-up pieces of formula and trying to put them back together into something usable. Since he'd put so much effort into seeing it destroyed, Hiro sees the reconstruction of the formula as a "betrayal", and manages to rip it again, taking half away with him. Ando, however, doesn't think of it as a betrayal at all, as he's only doing it for Hiro's sake - he probably even plans to destroy the formula all over again once Hiro is restored. However, Hiro fights voraciously to keep the formula down, and Ando is forced to blast him unconscious to get that necessary half back. That is the future event Hiro saw in "The Second Coming".

• Alternatively, Ando killed Hiro by using his power amplification ability on himself. Perhaps he amplified his killer intention into killer action. It sounds a bit over the top, but then again, this IS a show about impossible super powers.

Peter's Power is not necessarily the same as before

Think about it. We can't be sure the formula restores old powers; in fact, it's suggested there's no way to control which ones you get (although Daphne postulates a psychological component). So far, we've only seen Peter fly to save Nathan, so it's possible all he has is flight, or that his powers have returned to their original (and much more interesting) status where he can't store and retrieve them.

• Seems to have been confirmed; it's the latter, sort of. Apparently he copies the power of the last superhuman he touched. No indication of its duration.

Nathan has been possessed by Arthur

In a similar way to when Future!Peter put Present!Peter into Whatshisname's body, the light we saw when Arthur died wasn't the catalyst, it was Arthur's spirit seeking a host. This explains Nathan Jumping Off the Slippery Slope; the whole government thing, whatever that is; and why he was willing to kill Peter after last season confirmed that the weird Bro Yay co-dependency thing they have going is mutual.

Mohinders ability is enhanced physiology

He's faster, stronger, etc. His ability is, he's just better. All the bug stuff were the results of the side effects of the formula.

Jesus is an empath

He could change water into wine, heal the sick, was persuasive, could see the future and rose from the dead after being "killed." Peter, Sylar or Arthur could all be distant descendants of Jesus who stole powers from common folk he laid hands on.

• Or hell, take it a step further: Peter goes back in time and becomes Jesus. Or better yet, Peter accidentally teleports himself back to Bible Times, where he meets the real Jesus, who doesn't live up to expectations. Peter tries to get him to become the savior he knows he can be, only to fall in love with Mary Magdalene, causing Jesus to swear revenge and seemingly be killed. Peter But Now I Must Go's, so Mary promises him that he'll grow up with the stories of the messiah he always wanted. Then, back in the present day, the second coming happens and Jesus is back—with a vengeance! Later, Jesus is subject to The Worf Effect. (As an aside: Peter being who he is, during the sequences shot in Bible Times we see background shots of someone resurrecting people and performing miracles in the background, while Peter continues to attempt to convince the first random drunk he encountered that he's the son of God.)
  • Thus, Peter Petrelli becomes Simon Peter.
  • A scarier, weirder, and much more awesome possibility: Sylar steals Hiro's powers, goes back in time and becomes Jesus. Figure that one out.
  • We have a trope for this: No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus.

The Writers have started relegating character twists to coin flips

In particular, if the coin comes up heads, the character changes Petrelli-parity (someone who was a Petrelli now isn't or vice versa). If the coin comes up tails, the character switches sides (Good/Evil doesn't apply anymore, so we'll say they switch between "Team A" and "Team 1"). If the coin lands on its side, both occur. At this point, we can conclude that the thickness of the coin is about three times the diameter.

Usutu is not dead

He has the power to see the future; knowing Arthur was on his way to kill him, he faked his death. Instead, He's Just Hiding and slips in occasionally to give Matt some pointers.

• And technically, we Never Saw The Body. Although if this turns out to be the case, let's also hope that Maury faked his death. Arthur's kill list will be reduced to just Adam Monroe (and maybe even that could get taken away from him too), just because it'll be a Humiliation Conga danced by the people who he thought he managed to kill.

Claude is in every scene

Claude is following all of the heroes around and watching them make their stupid mistakes; this gives him a weird voyeuristic thrill. He doesn't become visible or help them out because he's having too much fun watching them wrestle with the Idiot Ball.

• This is unlikely given the existence of the eclipse episode; he would have lost his powers and become visible.
  • Well, not necessarily. He could, in fact, have hidden somewhere in Sylar's eyebrows until the eclipse was over.

Elle is an Idiot Ball

Let's have a look. When Peter was in the care of the Company, he was a complete idiot, thinking his powers were a bad thing. After he escaped with Adam, the residual effect from prolonged exposure to Elle resulted in him going along with Adam's crazed scheme. When Sylar ended up with Pinehearst, he was partnered with Elle and became a bit of a moron - for instance, taking on HRG with out his powers during the eclipse - just generally. However when he kills Elle, he is resurrected to full awesomness. Elle herself is also an idiot, just generally. This would also explain some of Bob's crazed ideas.

Vampire legends were started after Medieval Europeans were exposed to superhumans.

Specifically, the legends on how to kill them. Now, it's been through some Adaption Decay, but the original was a stake through the heart, decapitation, and then burn the remains. Let's compare that to regeneration. If a regenerator were staked through the heart, the implement being left in them would keep them dead, because the heart couldn't heal through it - but, on the other hand, once the stake was removed, they'd just get back up again. Decapitation is a bit more permanent, and people seem to think it's the be-all, end-all killing mechanism... but how do you know for sure that you can't just put the head back on, and then let the power take care of the rest? Lastly, burning. Decapitation may be thorough, but there'd be no coming back from being turned into ash and then scattered in three different directions.

• Much of Sylar's appearances in Season 1 were influenced by the old silent film Nosferatu. This is especially true of his presence in Isaac's paintings, including the grasping shadow that menaces Claire in the depition of Homecoming and the claw-like hands of the figure in Sylar's version of "The President Stands Alone" (Future!"Nathan" in the Whitehouse). In the first season his ability itself was hinted at as being vampire-like. Though this was ret-conned in Season 3 during his conversation with Claire, the vampire motif was hinted at again when Angela introduced the concept of Sylar's ability causing a "hunger". Though it is possibly more of a stretch, vampires in some of the original folklore display a few quirks, such as an obsessive-compulsive nature and the need to prey on family members. The first could be said to apply to Sylar's ability of Intuitive Aptitude, while second could be explained that, since abilities run in families, others with his ability would likely be compelled by their Hunger to make victims of their own super-powered relatives... Which would in turn lead to a unique set of acquired abilities that might explain the incredibly varied set of powers displayed by vampires in mythology. It also offers a possible, more palatable explaination for Samson's motive in giving his son up in the first place, if he wanted to avoid this.

Peter can now only copy one power at a time

His new ability seems to be different from the old one (he needs to touch the other person for one thing), and so far we have only seen him use the power of the last Hero he touched. Flight would definitely have been useful at the end of the first episode of season 3.5, but Peter made no attempt to use it.

• This is almost certainly the case, since he went from owning the guards using Mohinder's power to getting smacked around after brushing against Tracy.
• While it may be wishful thinking, it seems like Peter had touched most of the people he had gotten powers from the first time around, and it would be decently safe to say that some people's powers may "radiate" around them, causing Peter to absorb them. Also of note is that in season one, unless he consciously thought about using another power, he generally used the last one he had gotten if still in their presence..
• Confirmed.
  • Well, at least until the writers decide that it would be a brilliant decision to let Hiro get his time travel back so that Peter can copy it. Naturally, he'll meet up with Past!Peter, and copy his ability. So Peter gets his original power back and his brain decides to just commit Seppuku this time, leading to him regaining his Idiot Ball... and the writers will have wasted and ruined his Character Development at the same time!

Synthetic powers are automatically more weaksauce than natural powers.

Evidence: Nathan and Tracy. Think about it - Nathan can fly, Tracy can make things really cold, Niki could punch real hard, Mohinder can punch real hard, and Ando can make other people awesome. On the other end of the scale, we have the Master of Time and Space, two Domination Telepaths, another two All Your Powers Combined, an Immortal, and Sylar (I'm not counting him in All Your Powers Combined because he's more awesome than both put together). Now, with the added details about Peter's new ability, this seems all but explicit.

Nathan has Molly.

The last thing we heard of her was that Mohinder "sent her off to someone he trusts". Mohinder's level of common sense means that an abduction wouldn't be too hard to pull off. It would explain how Nathan was able to find all the heroes so easily; while it's not impossible with his resources (in particular, since he's working with Angela, he would have known what Sylar's next moves would be as soon as he woke up), it would give him a Kick the Dog moment, which is probably what this season's going to be all about for him.

• According to the Primatech Assignment Tracker Map, Molly is in Madras, India. Suresh likely sent her there to keep her out of harm's way.

The Powers are LITERALLY Contagious

Superpowers in Heroes are like magic in Discworld.

The superpowers the main cast have aren't from being the next step in evolution. And they are not unique. They're some sort of odd biological quirk that anyone can do if they know they have the potential, or if they get lucky. The more people realize that superpowers exist, the more they realize that they can do it, too. The chances of gaining a superpower increase exponentially if you're around people who already have access to them. Because of the events of the series, by 2020, everyone on the planet will posses a superpower.

The serum? It's a placebo.

• • Still sounds like their the next step in evoloution. More so when you put it that way.
    • Only if Lamarck Was Right.

Our heroes crashes onto the Island from Lost

Real simple: at the begin of the current volume (Fugitives), our heroes have been round up by Nathan and his buddies in the government, and are on the way to Gitmo when Claire hijacks the plane and helps free the prisoners and they fall out of the sky. They land onto the Island and Hilarity Ensues. The monster is one of Matt's mind powers, the heroes produce the mysterious whispers, and they are the source of the Island fever and the Islanders' recent bout of time travel.

• Jossed. They're in Arkansas.
  • Well, there's one awesome crossover opportunity wasted.

Micah is Light Yagami.

• The message Claire receives at the end of Episode 15, in addition to the online graphic novel, suggest that Micah is using his machine-controlling powers to influence and gather together powered people from across the world in a secret Chessmaster-esque plot. This would be awesome.
  • He was pretty much behind everything that everyone who wasn't Danko, Nathan, HRG or Sylar did in Volume 4.

Ando's Abilities

Ando has an obvious effect on Parkman, and a less obvious, more interesting effect on Daphne. What will he do to the others? Feel free to add ideas.

Nathan:

• Fast flight.
• Interplanetary travel, with the Required Secondary Powers.
• The ability to defy forces other than gravity, protecting him from some bizarre weapon or letting him stop time.
• Airbending!
• Super-maneuverable flight.

Peter:

• Enhance whatever he has.
• The two enhance each other in a feedback loop that ends by permanently enhancing Ando's power to the form shown in the future.
  • Alternatively, they enhance each other until their heads explode from power overload.
• Restore Peter's old version.

Claire:

• Freezes her into an unalterable statue.
• De-ages her.
• Gives her the ability to shapeshift (her regeneration is basically shapeshifting limited to one form).
• Revive from brainstem damage.
• Uncontrollable cellular growth, leading to tumours, extra limbs, and superhuman cancer.
  • I don't think that counts as a power.
• Duplication. Especially if she ever gets blown up and the pieces reform. This would require a powerup since as she is now her power doesn't work when her brain is damaged.
  • It's not clear why her power doesn't work when her brain is damaged anyway, considering that her blood heals people and when her brain is damaged she still has her own blood inside her.
• I'd assume she'd be completely inpenetrable.
• Seal up all openings, including the nose, the mouth, the eyes, the vagina, the anus, ears, and pores.

Sylar:

• Phenomenal cosmic power.
• Itty-bitty sanity.
• Super-sanity.
• Understand how Everything Works, blurt out cryptic prophecies/insights, forget it as soon as Ando lets go.
• Figure out how a power "works" with one quick glance at a character's forehead, no slicey-dicey necessary.
• Boost copied powers.
• Return lost powers.
• Long-distance brain-eating. And ridiculously exaggerated versions of any power he absorbs... such as being able to control all matter that contains either hydrogen and/or oxygen by absorbing Tracy's power, or wormhole generation from that guy who made portals (and disappeared into one).
• His ability to understand will be upgraded to genuine Omniscience. And either he will become, Essentially, God, And gain the powers of every powered individual on Earth, Or, More likely, His mind will collapse under the strain and he will turn into a vegetable.

Tracy:

• Make things really cold, or lots of things cold, or long-range cold.
• Leech other forms of energy than heat.
  • Create darkness.
  • Stop a moving object dead.
  • Drain powers.
• Absolute zero.

The Haitian:

• Remove powers from everyone, everywhere.
• Remove the entire world's memory (which would make for a convenient series reboot).
  • Remove the entire world population's entire minds.
    • Return the writers' minds.
• Uh... end the show?

Luke:

• Gourmet leftovers.
• Slide into Ted Sprague radiation territory.
• Super-powerful microwaves that can cook an entire building at once.

Precogs in general:

• Prophecies that actually make sense.
• Visions/paintings of the objective past.

Arthur Petrelli:

• Leech not just the target's power, but their life; death touch.
• Leech power without deleting it from the original holder.
• Boost leeched powers.

Hiro Nakamura:

• True time-stop.
• Travel to alternate realities.
• (During a jump made with boosted power:) No risk of rift.
• Become a Time Lord.

Mohinder Suresh:

• Thor-level, mountain-crushing strength.
• Muscle density becomes too great for skeletal structure to support, skeleton turns to powder, organs get squished, Mohinder dies.

Alex:

• Breathe anything.
• Survive other extreme atmospheric conditions - pressure, heat, what have you.

Micah Sanders:

• Control technology without touching it.
• Control all technology in a city.
• Reprogram the most powerful computer of all: the human brain.

The Catalyst:

• Super-super formula.
• Grant powers directly.

Matt Parkman:

• Human fileserver. Copy, move, and delete knowledge.
• Control large groups.

Matt Parkman Jr.:

• Grant machines intelligence.
• Alter a machine's form.
• Total blackout if he's unhappy.
• Make him the new Catalyst.
• Give him power over life and death.

Ted Sprague:

• Blow up the world.

Peter can now only copy synthetic powers.

Simply because they're all we've seen him copy thus far. Nathan, Mohinder, and Tracy... none of whom had powers naturally.

• There's also the fact that he was able to fly Matt away without copying Matt's power and losing Nathan's.
  • Jossed, unless there's a stupid revelation in the future regarding Matt's power.
    • He also didn't copy Angela when he touched her hand. So maybe...

Peter is now better able to control his power.

It now works by an act of will, like Mega Man. It fits how it seems to work now.

Volume 4 is a prequel to Volume 5 and the End of the World as We Know It.

Drawing on the theories about Micah's plotting and Ando's ability, what's to say this season doesn't see the acension of all the supers to A God Am I status? Assuming that the writers have decided to put away the Idiot Ball, it seems very plausible that Micah (who has already shown himself to be the smartest person on the show) will figure out some of those potential super-super abilities that Ando makes possible. If they can find a way to make the charges permanent, then the Heroes (because no one on the show has named our intrepid rebels) could easily push Nathan's Danko's Nazis aside. This would then set up Volume 5, where the now godlike supers roam the Earth, causing mass destruction and fighting each other for supremacy. Eventually, someone will slap themselves on the forehead and realize Oh God What Have We Done? The series will end when most of the supers are then somehow killed. The world slowly decays after this, leaving Peter/Momo/whoever Tim Kring likes to sit in some cafe and remark on how hellish powers are.

There is only one mutation, and it comes from some kind of an 'energy field'.

Take a look at certain powers: like Ted's radiation, Flint's flames, sound manipulation, telekinesis etc. Or take a look at Claire's/Adam's regenerative powers - they can keep going on and on, seemingly never needing any proteins to repair the damage. Where does the energy for those powers come from? It takes A LOT of energy to produce a nuclear blast or to lift a car in the air.

The Heroes-verse has some sort of an "energy field". The mutation gives the human the ability to tap into that field to accomplish a certain effect. The way that the character will tap into that power is shaped as explained by "Powers are at least partially influenced by subconscious desires" WMG, and once it is shaped, it's mostly locked in place.

Power copiers with this idea are simply characters who evolved even beyond that - they can retain multiple "shapes".

Peter's power hasn't changed - it's being altered by his current attitude.

It's widely accepted at this point that a personal's emotional state can have a negative effect on their powers. In Season One alone, we had Ted Sprague losing control of his power whenever he became angry or scared, Hiro's powers becoming less effective or failing outright following his loss of confidence after he failed to save Charlie up until he got the Kensei sword, Niki being unable to use her powers until she got stressed out and Jessica took over, and Isaac being unable to paint the future (at first) unless he was in a drug-induced stupor. Last season, we even had Sylar being able to alter how his power worked simply by trying to access his empathy for other people instead of analyzing everything. Given all that, it's not too much of a leap to suggest that Peter's mental/emotional state could alter how effective his empathy-based powers are.

And given the mental/emotional trauma Peter went through during Season 3...

• wrongfully imprisoned in another man's body
• forced to stand idly by while innocent people were hurt to maintain his cover following the prison break
• finally getting a sense of just how much evil his parents had been responsible for in the past
• seeing the horrible future his Future Self was trying to stop
• seeing his niece become a merciless killer
• killing his own brother in an alternate future
• being told his nemesis is his long-lost brother
• nearly killing his mother
• finding out his father is alive - and a supervillain
• having people whom he thought were friends - including his own real brother - sign on with the bad team
• eventually, having to prepare himself to kill his own father
• killing his father, albeit indirectly
• ostracizing himself from his family and the brother he has always admired and respected

... is it any wonder that he's become a lot more jaded, cynical and less trusting of others to the point where he questions Claire's reliability when she tells him about Nathan's plot?

The first scene we saw Peter in at the start of Season 4 hinted at this. Rather than mourning the loss of life, Peter berates himself for his failure and not being strong enough. First Season Peter wouldn't have been so insular and self-absorbed.

Okay - so Peter is more cynical, and certainly not nearly as forgiving, willing to listen, or open to other people as he was. Given that his power is based on his ability to connect with people and literally put himself in their shoes powers-wise, wouldn't it follow that his powers would become more limited if his own ability to relate to other people was likewise hobbled?

Usutu foresaw his own death and, rather than preventing it, used the time he had left to try and prepare others for the future he saw coming.

This would explain why he didn't see Arthur coming for him and why he went through the trouble of trying to teach Matt how to see the future as well as giving Hiro the lesson that he needed to learn to learn how to be a hero without using his powers - both things which are proving necessary in Season 4.

Usutu used the time Matt was in a trance to hypnotize him into being able to simulate the mental-pattern needed to see the future. THAT is how Matt gained precognitive powers.

It's been said that Matt can do anything with his powers involving the mind. Wouldn't it follow that, since most of the Precogs we've seen had to alter their consciousness through drugs or music, that Matt would be able to institute the same state in himself? Usutu even could have set up a "program" that would cause Matt to see him as a spirit guide after Usutu's death.

Micah is Rebel.

He's perfect for the job. He's only a kid, so he's useless physically, but he combines technopathy with genius-level intelligence into a package made for secretly organizing the heroes into a resistance while simultaneously spying on the government.

• Heck yes, Micah is Rebel; he's literally the only already-known character it could be (We know where Noah is during most of Rebel's actions, & Angela couldn't possibly be that good a hacker. As for the below theory, we also know where Danko is during most of Rebel's actions; it's not him.) However, I don't think Micah's alone; I'd bet he's working for Angela.
  • Confirmed.
  • Although this was confirmed, he wasn't the only already known character it could have been. Hana Gitelman would fit.
    • Technically, the graphic novels show Micah is not acting as Rebel alone: he is aided by Sparrow Redhouse, West, and some random British woman.

Danko is Rebel.

This is all a Batman Gambit to control the heroes so he can capture them - and to give him an excuse to bring Claire in.

• Jossed, see above.

Intuitive Aptitude causes "The Hunger", Empathic Mimicry causes... "The Idiot Ball".

This explains everything Peter Petrelli has ever done, ever. Just as Sylar's alterations and the whole brain banging stuff drove him batshit, it permanently fused an Idiot Ball in place of Peter Petrelli's common sense and / or testicles.

• • It also explains why, now that Peter has a new power, he is all of the the sudden competent about using it.
  • Jesting aside, this is actually a very good justification for Peter's mistakes. Almost every time he was smacked with the Idiot Ball, it was because he trusted the wrong people blindly. Just as Sylar's power carries a hunger for more knowledge, Peter's power carries a hunger for more love which makes him so easy to manipulate. Consider his last Idiot Ball moment, when his powers are taken: He knows his father is evil, and has come to stop him, but Arthur offers him a hug. Peter psychologically couldn't refuse it. His power wouldn't let him.
  • This is all but outright proven when Peter's ability is kinda restored: now that he can only copy one power at a time, he is at least ten times more intelligent than when he had ten powers... and don't even get me started on how many he had when Arthur stole them. It seems that Peter's intelligence is inversely proportional to the number of powers Peter copies. This is his "hunger."

Matt can change which abilities other people have.

It's been said time and again that the brain is the seat of the powers, and it's been suggested that there's some subconscious trigger which decides who gets which powers. Bob stated outright that Matt can control anything the brain controls; if the subconscious - which is in the brain - decides the power involved, then Matt should be capable of controlling that particular part of the subconscious. He may not be able to increase the power level (you need Ando for that), but he could change the power type. Turn Mohinder from a strongman into a speedster, turn Micah from a technopath into a telepath, and eventually branch into greater degrees of change.

Mr Muggles is an animagus.

I'm not sure if this belongs in Grand Unifying Guessing, so I'll just keep it here for now. Alright. The idea is this: all the super-powers we've seen in the series are actually an advanced form of the "accidental magic" from the Harry Potter universe, to the point whereby it actually begins to tailor itself to a specific person rather than purely random effect. Of course, the Ministry of Magic (and/or whatever the American counterpart is) are very interested in these strange, semi-magical abilities, so they decide to keep tabs on them - especially Claire Bennet, the one with the power to come back from the dead, which should be impossible. Thus, they actually send someone in to watch over her: an Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries (or, again, the American equivalent) who infiltrates the Bennet household in the form of a Pomeranian. They specifically arranged for the name Mr Muggles to help to keep suspicion off their agent - nobody would suspect a thing, since his 'Muggle-ness' is right there in the name. Even if this isn't the actual case in the show (and, let's be honest, it probably isn't) it would still make one hell of a fanfic.

Danko and Sylar are working together

Despite being specifically told to kill Sylar, he gives orders to capture to his men. Later, the presence of a few guns was enough for him to fight for a kill order when dealing with Peter. He was able to get a team in place within minutes of Sylar showing up at the taxidermist, which gave him the opportunity to interrogate someone who just happened to know about his father.

• This troper finds this a very interesting theory, and suggests a corollary: Danko is working to help Sylar, and Sylar doesn't know it.

Danko is Sylar's father.

Ties in as the reason for the theory above. Why else would he push for a kill for everyone but Sylar? Not to mention having people poised to attack the taxidermist... Sylar's dad's old place. This could become very ironic, considering Danko's diatribe against Bennet's split Company-Family loyalties, as well as painting the already-bad man in an even worse, hypocritical light.

• Danko is played by Zeljko Ivanek. Sylar's father is played by John Glover.
• Jossed.

Danko has a power.

Wouldn't be the first time a member of a targeted group turned on their own. Maybe it's a really nasty power, or maybe he's just a Jerkass.

• Wouldn't be the first time it happened in the show, either. Nathan, anybody?

Luke's (Sylar's new sidekick) father is the same man as Sylar's father

They have a lot of empathy and it seems Mr. Gray was in the habit of leaving freaky kids behind. Also, Samson has telekinesis and both Sylar and Luke have powers.

• Please, next time word it in a manner that doesn't make you think "What, Vader?"

Danko's parents were killed by Sylar's father

It seems highly unlikely that someone could be so fanatically against powered people with no motivation besides a ten-minute slideshow given by Nathan. Unless the writers are trying to recreate the same level of unmotivated jerkassness that characterized Pa Patrelli last season, it seems logical that at some point they'll give him a history with powered people. That its Sylar's dad who did it is just speculation.

Las Vegas, Heroes, The X-Files, The Stand and Knight Rider all take place in the same or parallel universes.

Both KR and Heroes have a Montecito, the setting of Las Vegas. Linderman was apparently running the casino, which would fit with the Montecito's high owner turnover ratio. It's possible the Company was killing or persuading the previous owners, using people with powers, in order to get their hands on it. Also, the Shanti virus, in an alternate universe, is what kills everyone in Stephen King's The Stand, except much earlier (This is supported by King himself, who said that The Stand universe was just an alternate version of ours). Possibly due to time-travel, or the Company experimenting with an early form of the virus. The Company coverups would also explain all the weird stuff that keeps happening to Mulder and Scully, especially if you've read the "Last One Standing" fanfic.

• • There's a running list for this on the Grand Unifying Guesses page.

There's an odd quirk of physics and geography in the Heroes world...

...where, whenever you move more than a mile or so, time and space compress greatly. Most people aren't aware of this, but Sylar's ability lets him exploit it to great effect—in the time it took Meredith, HRG, Claire and Angela to arm themselves in response to hearing about him at Pinehearst, he went from Jersey to Texas and still had enough time to murder a whole bunch of guards. This is also how he pulls off Offscreen Teleportation, by using a localized version of this effect.

• • Primatech has an office in upstate New York, so (barring traffic) it isn't that hard to travel from New Jersey to there.
    • Apparently that was the office where Dual happened, I thought it was the Odessa facility. But the general idea is, it's really easy to travel in Heroes and maybe this is why.

Sylar's original ability is Empathic Mimicry

He unknowingly absorbed Intuitive Aptitude from his dad. That's why he lost all his season 1 acquired powers when he got the Shanti virus. He only lost the powers he gained with the intuitive aptitude. When he was cured, he regained his original power (just like Molly got her original power back after being cured), the empathic mimicry. Also he regained the powers he acquired with it: intuitive aptitude from his father and Telekinesis from the first guy he killed. Sylar wanted to kill himself after he killed the telekinesisguy, so he had an emotional connection to him. This then could mean...

Peter absorbed Empathic Mimicry from Sylar

Peter unknowingly used his power touch to copy Empathic Mimicry which then fit with his personality to become his basic ability. Peter's touch only copied the basic ability from Sylar but then Empathic Memory allowed his body to store more than one power along with getting powers just by being near them.

• This is circular. What you're saying is that he used mimicry to absorb mimicry. Also he didn't have the touch version until the very end of Volume 3.
  • I'm proposing the possibility that what Peter uses now is a different but similar power. What I meant was that maybe unknown to him, the "copying powers after touch" was only what he had up to the point in homecoming when he grabbed sylar and absorbed his base ability of Empathic Mimicry which also allowed him to store and obtain multiple powers. So Peter's original ability had ALWAYS been the "power touch" and that was why that was the power he got after the injection.
• This would be a good theory, but Peter absorbed a few abilities at a distance before he touched Sylar.

Matt's son is The Messiah.

...Embodied in terms of a Rachel Summers-type, or even a Franklin Richards/Jack-Jack Parr-type. Angela had a precog dream about Matt Jr., so she had Micah send Hiro & Ando to guard him (see "Micah is Rebel" entry above).

Micah and Molly are Rebel.

Molly can find anyone, including the whereabouts of the escaped heroes. Combined with Micah's technopathic prowess they're saving people and pointing them in the right direction.

Ando's supercharging can be used to give super seizures.

Ando's power unleashes hidden power. Both Mohinder and Sylar have mentioned how humans only use a small portion of their brain. Force simultaneous activation of the entire brain and bam! Unconsciousness or even death.

• Alternatively, Ando's powers act as Super Empowering on specials, and a Zat gun on normals.

Matt's son is the Catalyst.

If the timeline is still on-track for the future that Hiro saw, then the formula must resurface at some point. If Ando speaks to Mohinder at any point, he'll know that the formula is useless without the proper Catalyst added to it. Considering that Arthur Petrelli was able to "take" the Catalyst using his power-stealing ability, it seems likely that the Catalyst was originally a regular born power, so it's possible that someone else can be born with it.

• Jossed - Matt Jr. is "Toddler Touch-and-Go". However, he does still give Hiro his power back, at least temporarily.
  • Who's to say that this power can't serve as the Catalyst?

Ando's power can act as a substitute Catalyst.

We already know that Ando goes after the formula again at some point, and it would be pretty useless without the Catalyst to go with it. We also already know that Ando's power has more than one application - not only can it boost existing powers, it can also be used offensively. Since this third application would actually follow the power-giving theme, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

Usutu is Rebel.

Assuming he's not actually dead (see: "Usutu is not dead", above) as he has the power to see the future, this explains how Rebel knows what was going to happen to that guy Claire saved from the comic book store and that Hiro and Ando were going to India (and so sent the fax there in advance).

• Jossed.

Sylar and Danko weren't working together before (per previous WMG) -- but they're gonna start.

As of last episode, Sylar is waiting in Danko's room. But I don't think he's going to kill him. What's better for Sylar: heroes scattered all over the world with no easy way to locate them, or all in one place and restrained so they can't even put up a fight? He'll help Danko corral the heroes, and Danko will go along because he's been unable to kill Sylar anyway. Like Bennet did, he'll accept Sylar as a partner in the hope of finding a way to eliminate him—and in the meantime, he'll be the most powerful ally they could have.

• • It looks like you got this one right on the money, judging from the promoes for the next episode.

Each person's DNA has one superpower it's "meant" for.

Otherwise it's pure coincidence that Peter got a power so similar to his old one. Yes, this theory means Peter has his original power back—he just needs to get the knack of using it again. His limitations were mental once before, and they still are now.

• This one was explicitly stated by Mohinder: it's why he was able to use a serum made from Maya's power to give himself superstrength.

Sylar's new goal is to assume the Presidency, Take Over The World, or something else along those lines

After spending a few episodes complaining about how merely acquiring abilities has lost its appeal and how he's hoping to find a new purpose after meeting his father, Sylar finally runs into his father, who accuses him of only going after "small game" and proclaims that if he were young again, he'd go after the "big game", acquire "real power" and "change the world" just because he can.

This ties in rather nicely with the Dark Future 1.0, where Sylar had used his powers to become President of the United States. A lot of other elements from that future are occuring in Volume 4 (most notably Nathan being the apparent Big Bad and Supers being hunted by the government).

I'm guessing Sylar is going to take Samson's words to heart, and will try to either obtain real power over the country or attempt to make his mark by changing the face of the Earth. This will no doubt precipitate Volume 4's climactic crisis. After Nathan's Danko's Nazis fail miserably to stop him, the Heroes will use their powers to save the world (for the Nth time), exposing themselves to the public and showing the world that abilities have the potential for great good as well as evil.

Alternatively, Sylar will try to bring down the entire U.S. Government (the "big game"), and it will be up to the Heroes the government has been persecuting to save the government's sorry ass from Sylar.

• Confirmed.

Tracy is still alive

This isn't particularly wild, but still needs to be on here. In X-Men, Iceman's abilities allow him to survive shattering and reform himself; Tracy's ability may be an homage or work similarly. Her eye blinked, and also, there was none of the viscera that she left whenever she froze someone—indicating that she converted herself completely to ice, and may still survive in that form.

• I'm seconding this idea, and would have suggested it myself if I hadn't been beaten to the punch. I didn't see the eye blink, but the last shot of her broken face looked like she was crying, which reminded me of the Iceman thing. I'm thinking she'll come back somewhere on down the line as an ice woman, but in Shapeshifter Mode Lock due to having gone all the way and shattered, never again to be anything but a walking ice cube.
• Confirmed:

Tracy comes back in a really big way later on in the season. That was one of the things where it was like, "Is she going to come back as Barbara now?" I was thinking "Can we please not do Barabara, because that's another sci-fi ghetto storytelling element with clones. How many Ali Larters are there?" I wish there were dozens, because I'm a fan of hers, but watching Ali in the first season, you know what she's really capable of.

• • Confirmed! She's back for Volume 5, but now with hydrokinesis and a liquid form, like The Liquidator or Aquamaria.

Waffles are behind everything

See this link for more on this theory. (My favorite is that the eclipse was actually a giant waffle moving in front of the sun, although I also have a certain fondness for "Niki and Tracy's triplet sister Barbara is actually a waffle".)

Barbara will be introduced within the next few episodes.

Tracy is, if not dead, at least out of commission for a while, and Micah has every reason to believe that she is dead. Disillusioned by Tracy's collaboration with Nathan, he'll now seek out his other long-lost aunt.

Ando's power is not merely "supercharging", but generalised energy generation and manipulation.

The first time we saw it used, he was generating "Hero energy", which simply amplifies the powers of those who have them. When he tried to fight the agents coming to take Matt Jr, he turned it into the kind of Pure Energy you expect to find in Frickin' Laser Beams. Should he practice more with it, he'd be able to generate and manipulate all forms of energy - thermal energy to boil water, electrical energy to never need batteries again (without relying on Matt Jr), and so forth. Considering the "red lightning" nature of the power, it seems that electrical energy will be easier to master. Not to mention, it would be totally killer-awesome to see him and Sylar throw down, each with their own lightning—like the bit of "fire and ice" in "Five Years Gone", but without the Fight Unscene because we have good special effects now.

Hiro and Ando are already in a homosexual relationship.

Now, I'm not even the right gender to be a Yaoi Fangirl... but from an objective viewpoint, the evidence is far too strong. Any Troper worth their salt would have been calling Ho Yay from the start of season 3, but now there's the Subtext of Ando "Warm Mommy" Masahashi and Hiro "Cold Daddy" Nakamura. Considering Hiro's consistently poor luck with women, who could blame him? Anyway. The relationship upgrade probably would have happened in the break between volumes 2 and 3, when the characters had some offscreen time to spend together. At the very least, it gives Hiro a reason besides glory-hogging to want to avoid being "the sidekick" in the relationship.

Arthur Petrelli took Charles Deveaux's telepathy.

Not only would this explain where Arthur got the power from but it would also explain why Peter didn't/couldn't absorb that power from Charles during Season One, though he was already having prophetic dreams because of Angela.

• The number of telepaths on this show is unusually high, given that most abilities shown are generally unique. Arthur having stolen his telepathy from Charles would reduce this a little, and drop the number of "natural" telepaths down to just Charles, Maury, and Matt.

Angela and the proto-Company were responsible for the death of John F. Kennedy.

Angela states that she and the other 3 survivors of Coyote Sands killed or brainwashed everyone who was involved with the concentration camp to hide the existence of evolved humans. It would be logical to include the President in that list, and the timing is certainly too close to dismiss as mere coincidence.

• On the other hand, Angela and her buddies somehow missed Papa Suchong Suresh, or at least let him live, despite him apparently being the person most responsible for the entire sorry mess.
  • Not only did they miss him, but they let him publish a book and go on the lecture circuit! Surely that would bring unwanted attention to people with abilities that the company would rather avoid. He is also the one that unleashed Sylar onto the scene. This latest episode revealing the company's prime motivation really doesn't mesh with Chandra's backstory at all - that or the company is completely incompetent (which I don't think is an unreasonable conclusion to draw).
    • They didn't miss him. Word of God has stated they wiped all his memories of Coyote Sands but presumably allowed him to live because he was seen as harmless. And given that no one actually took his theories seriously the Company probably saw no reason to stop him publishing his book as he was dismissed as a crackpot
    • Given their history with Sylar, it's pretty clear the Company isn't the most well-run organization around.
    • Re: the company's prime motivation. Noah mentioned a few times in season 1 that the Company had "lost its way" and had been corrupted. But since at least three of the same people (Linderman, Angela and Bob) who were in that diner were still active in the Company's management, this might have been retconned (or it might refer to stuff like the internecine conflicts in the Company in the graphic novels, like the Kill Squad, the rebellious Julian clones, etc. And, of course, Thompson).
    • Alternatively Noah just doesn't know what he's talking about. Given he didn't even know who was really running the Company despite working for them since the seventies, for all that he's a bad ass he clearly isn't as smart as he thinks he is. So the Company's purpose may well have always been warped but Noah was just too much of a "Company Man" to realise it until Claire came along and he started questioning orders.

There's a big alien spaceship in orbit which activates and deactivates powers.

This superficially bizarre theory actually makes a lot of sense. We know that eclipses in the Heroes world cover a much larger area and last much longer than eclipses do in reality. This could mean these "eclipses" aren't caused by the moon, but by some large unexplained object in space. If the object has been there for a long time, the characters in the story (having known it all their life) would not treat an eclipse caused by it as any more unusual than a regular solar eclipse. This eclipse also affects powers, which would be very strange if it was just a big rock blocking the sun. So it must be some alien device up there.

• It seems like the Eclipse deactivating powers was a new thing, because people who had had their powers all their lives (e.g. Elle) were caught off guard by an eclipse taking away their abilities. Therefore the aliens must have just come up with a power nullifying ray and were testing it out.
  • It would explain so much if the ship's captain is a Sylar fangirl.
  • Alternatively, John Locke's corpse turns into the new Jacob and teleports the island into space. It then decides to screw around with DNA and time (again), resulting in the powers. The aliens just caused the power-draining eclipse. The new season will come to a climatic battle between Matt Parker and the aliens, with Parker controlling the island's smoke monster.

Chandra Suresh had his memories of Coyote Sands erased and was just released by The Company.

Angela did say they erased minds in addition to killing people and buying their silence. Chandra being "blanked" would explain away a lot of the continuity problems caused by his working with evolved humans in the USA some 20+ years before he came up with his theories on superpowers based on the Human Genome Project and some 40+ years before he published a book, ruined his career as a serious geneticist and traveled to America where he was shocked to find a man who proved his theories correct (Sylar) before dying. All of his actions in Season One still fit the timeline if he doesn't remember Coyote Sands and what he did there - though the suggestion that he had reoccuring nightmares suggests that - on some level - he did remember.

So why did The Company just let him go? Angela probably suggested compassion, having seen in her visions that Chandra was a good man deep down and that he didn't want what would happen to happen. And The Company founders were probably naive enough at that point to believe that that would be the end of it and that there was no reason to keep an eye on him afterwards. He didn't come back on the radar until his book was published, at which point they sent Eden as a feeler to see what his intentions were and then brought Noah in to recruit Chandra.

• It also helps that Angela had no idea that Papa Suchong Suresh and his poor handling of the situation was most responsible for the military going nuts and mowing down the entire village. As a result she was probably more inclined to be charitable towards him, only thinking of him as the somewhat hapless scientist who was polite and reassuring to everyone.
  • Word of God has confirmed that Papa Suresh was indeed mind wiped by Charles Deveaux.

Peter's real power is 'plot perception'

He's not an idiot, he's forced to act stupid because he knows things would be far worse if he didn't play along.

Arthur is alive, but no longer in this universe

Between his sheer, undiluted comic-book evil, all of the abilities he had absorbed, and the stress inherent in having a gun fired at his forehead, Arthur Petrelli's mind pretty much folded in on itself. No longer willing or able to take it, he channeled everything he had into his twice-over power of space-time manipulation, left behind a copy of himself a la Black Belt to take the bullet, and departed for another world, free of any tangled webs or superpowers. In this new (to him) world, he vowed to use his immense powers to fight evil under a new identity as "Artie" -- the strongest man... in the WORLD!

Hiro will die in the finale.

This comes from combining points 3 and 6 from this link. Hiro and Ando "combining powers" sounds to me like Ando is going to supercharge him to get through it. Hiro's power is already harming him, so overcharging it could kill him. The killer "dying in many ways" could be a reference to Ando grieving over the unintentional loss of his friend.

• Jossed. Thank God for that.

== Peter will receive his facial scar in the finale. == (of season 3) Related to the "crapsack world is inevitable" theory higher up the page. With the "specials" in hiding (in large part because of a perceived act of terrorism and Sylar, as Nathan, well on his way to the White House, it would seem that the "bad future" is about to become the present. With how his powers currently work, Peter is fully capable of scarring. Most likely, he will get hit in the face with something large and sharp, and decide that it's more important to keep whatever offensive abilities he currently has than to run off and find Claire.

• Jossed.

Sylar can shapeshift clothes because he is naked.

9th Wonders Boards came up with the Naughty Naked Sylar Theory to determine why he can shapeshift CLOTHES. Since shapeshifting requires DNA sampling (ala Animorphs) and clothes don’t have DNA, he must have Required Secondary Powers to mold his flesh to resemble clothing (like Venom from Spider-Man or Mystique from the X-Men)

• Have we ever seen him shapeshift clothes? When he was talking to himself as his mother, for instance, I think he was wearing his mother's sweater from the box of evidence, and he already had a trenchcoat on before he became Sandra.
  • He was wearing the same clothes as Micah when he rescued him from Danko's men and his clothes shifted back and forth when he was "talking" to his mother.
• Perhaps the greater degree of control Sylar inevitably develops whenever he steals a power allows him to extend the shape-shifting power to his clothing. We've already seen that he can use shapeshifting to change forms in less time with less pain than the person he took it from. Perhaps he mastered the ability to passive extend the power go his clothes, like how people with the powers of phasing and invisibility can extend the power to anything they wear.

Sylar is actually little Noah's mother.

He can shapeshift now which includes full gender swap.

• Any leads on the father? Perhaps "Uncle" Peter? (Yeah, they're separated now but still close. Future!Peter pays child support and comes home on the weekends.)
  • It's gotta be Danko. (Perhaps things got a little crazy at that night club...)
  • Noah Bennet? Sylar PRETENDS TO BE NOAH'S WIFE!
  • Or he's a Truly Single Parent by way of a turkey baster.

Sylar can use Clairsentience to learn a person's life story by touching a sample of their DNA.

This is the only way Sylar would have a chance of being able to fully "become" a person using his shape-shifting after touching an item that belonged to that person. His mother's favorite snowglobe and Nathan's jacket would have a fairly limited range of memories to access but if he could tap into the DNA left on such an item...

The law of the Heroesverse: The Characters serve the Plot, and the Plot serves Sylar

There is no other logical explanation for gems like HRG's, Angela's and Matt's plan to brainwash Sylar into thinking he is Nathan. That's so stupid that thinking about it can cause your brain to atrophy.

• See also: every single Sylar-related plot development in season 3.

Sylar is Darth Revan.

...and once he gets his memories back he must find the missing pieces of the Starforge.

• ...wow. Even for a WMG... Ok. 1) The Star FORGE never had bits missing, the MAP did. 2)This would require some massive messing around with the past from Hiro, which I doubt he would accept. 3) Sylar would probably not fit in, with a bizarre language and biochemical makeup (the SW series happens far before the English language existed, and as we all know from Doctor Who, just because it looks human doesn't mean it is.)

Sylar was never successfully mind-wiped in the first place.

Seriously, when has that stuff ever worked on him? His Villainous Willpower fought through anything Eric Doyle tried to do during their encounters, he fought through it when his father even tried to hold him still... that kind of stuff just doesn't affect Sylar.

• One possible reason he's playing along as far as he is: he's always wanted to be someone else, and this allows him to do exactly that.
• Another: Matt's attempt, while unsuccessful, was able to show him the error of his ways and make him want to be Nathan, at least for a while.
• Another: He's messing with everybody to get himself into a good position to screw them all over.
• This is just about Jossed simply by the brief glimpse of the next storyline. He sees a clock that's not working right, something stirs in his mind, and he tells Angela about it. Given Sylar's history, this is a big clue that he's starting to recover his memory. If Sylar already had his full memory, it would be stupid of him to tell Angela anything that could be taken as a clue to it.
  • While I think it is more likely that Sylar was mindwiped, because Matt is just that powerful, it's worth noting that, well...Sylar's a dick, and he would totally do something like that just to make Angela shit a few bricks.
    • Actually, Sylar's Villainous Willpower kept him from being mind-wiped. He instead became so badass that he reverse-mind-wiped himself into Matt's mind. Without having Matt's power.

Tracy's hit list:

• Along with random Building 26 Mooks contains Danko (who "killed" her), Bennet (promised help but didn't deliver), Nathan (it was his operation), and Peter (abandoned her when she betrayed him, could also attack him to hurt Nathan).
• Also, possibly Rachel, the (fairly ineffectual) agent tasked with keeping an eye on Claire and taking down Doyle, and she'll use her teleportation power (which she got from the formula in the webisodes) to escape. Not that Tracy has a grudge against her, specifically, but she might just be going after anyone associated with 26, and this might be a way to give Rachel the Ascended Extra treatment.

"Nathan" will be revealed to not be Nathan when Tracy comes for her revenge.

• Things will start to tick, so to speak, when he doesn't drown / uses powers he's not supposed to have to save himself and Peter. (i.e. Leave my brother alone! Zzzzzaaaappp!!) Expect much Wangst and the emergence of the body's original occupant to follow.

Peter will be the one to discover that "Nathan" is not Nathan.

Sylar never took Nathan's power. Therefore, the next time Peter is too cheap to pay for a cab (or is trying to avoid Mohinder, who apparently is the only cabbie allowed to pick Peter up), he will find that "Nathan" has entirely the wrong set of powers to be his brother. Peter may even recognise Sylar by his powers.

Peter will most likely react by yelling about how he's been betrayed and running off to become a terrorist. Claire may go with him.

• Sylar picked up flight in the Season finale, he just used the "empathy" method instead of the slice and dice method. But otherwise you're right, if Peter tries to swap out with "Nathan" he's in for a big surprise...
  • Actually, its thought that he can fly through telekinesis. It explains away several problems such as the "No Footsteps" comment in season 1. He telekinetically lifts himself which is why in the seen he was all billow-y.
    • In that scene, however, the sound effect implied that he'd picked up Nathan's power through empathy. Of course, if he didn't have Nathan's power the Mind Rape thing would fall apart even more hilariously and quickly.
  • Sylar flies or at least lifts himself with telekinesis in his very first appearance after he tries to get Molly and Matt shoots him.
  • We've been shown that shapeshifting is at a genetic level. Sylar can fly because he's mimicked Nathan at a genetic level.

Alternatively... Multiple abilities may not give away "Nathan."

Remember who we're dealing with. Angela and Bennet may try to cover Nathan suddenly having multiple abilities by telling them that he was always a power mimic like his dad and Peter, but just never accessed it before.

Nathan/Sylar/Gabriel's memories will return but with a severe case of Amnesiac Dissonance.

He’ll become the Token Evil Teammate / Sixth Ranger and stay on to fight the new villains that are higher up on the Sorting Algorithm of Evil.

Sylar is actually only evil because of his eyebrows. They call the shots.

• He always does this weird expression with them, the shots focus on them, once there was even a scene where he himself appears to be mesmerized by / communicate with them.
  • I thought that was just your standard Angry Eyebrows. He did that a lot during that brief "Saint Sylar" arc. Whenever he got pissed off he would glower and do that thing with his eyebrows.

Angela's sister, Alice at one point met and worked with Adam Munroe.

• The newspaper clippings that Bob showed Mohinder when discussing Adam and his followers ("Snowstorm in Miami" that could have read “Tsunami Wipes out Eastern Seaboard") suggests that someone who can control the weather was involved.

Alice will be the powerful new Big Bad for the next volume.

• Angela confronted Alice with the truth to set her on this course because she knew it would be necessary to bring everyone (namely her children and grandchildren including a certain Replacement Goldfish) together. (Using the same logic of blowing up New York was necessary to unite the world.)

That's not Tracy in the teaser for Volume 5.

• Just because Tracy was Only Mostly Dead, and water powers have a thematic connection to ice powers, doesn't mean that's her. For all we know, Barbara has always had water powers, and somehow she's heard about the "death" of her sister. Yes, the creators say they're not going to use Barbara, but what does that prove?
  • Jossed.

There are no continuity errors.

• Everything actually happened the way we saw it, even if there are a lot of contradictions. Because there's a time traveler we're not watching and he's in the past, changing our canon.
  • Maybe we don't get to see what the character does because we can't see him.

Angela Petrelli knew that Nathan was going to die.

She saw it in one of her precog dreams way back before volume three. She then set about the quasi-revival of Nathan in the season four finale by feeding Sylar the Clairsentience ability and telling him that she was his mother in order to seed the parent issues that led him to seek out his father and therefore go after "bigger fish", ie. impersonating Nathan and absorbing his memories, allowing the Mind Rape to go ahead. Nobody pulls a Batman Gambit like Mama Petrelli.

Linderman's brain was the one in the vault, slowly being healed into a full body by a combination of his own ability and Adam's blood.

This would bring back a convincing big bad and would be all kinds of awesome.

• Linderman's brain is currently plotting world domination healing with Lordgenome and Nixon's head.

Abigail the Barrier Warrior of the Graphic Novels is Claude's daughter.

• They have similar powers.
• Claude was "hiding one of them" and thought that since Bennet was raising "one of us" he'd understand.
  • "I won't hunt my own people."
• She was living with him in London when Elle showed up (and seemed jealous and upset that Claude was giving Elle advice. Both living and working at the Company Claude probably got to know Elle better than any blood relatives he was hiding.)
• She might be the reason Claude survived Bennet's attempt on his life. Her barriers might have lessened the impact of being shot and falling off a bridge.
• He's very protective of her (stays behind to fight off the Building 26 Mooks) and begins to explain by saying "She’s my…" cut off by explosion / mayhem / mooks storming in.
  • And in a later issue, Claude tells Abigail that she's just like her mother. It's possible that he's her uncle, but it's more fun to imagine him as her father.

The Sun in the Heroesverse is actually a giant Idiot Ball

That's why everyone in the Heroesverse is so stupid. They became notably cleverer during "The Eclipse", because the Idiot Ball's power was being blocked by a giant waffle.

Powers make you stupider

This may have already been said but I'm gonna go for it. Mohinder suggests that if humans used more than 10% of their brain, they could be capable of incredible powers. What if the powers don't just use extra brainspace, they use up some of the brain usually used for thinking. It would explain the apparently omnipresent Idiot Balls that many Heroes hold. The more powerful the power, the more space is used up, and that's why the most powerful specials (Peter, Arthur, Hiro) are also the stupidest. Sylar is exempt from this because his power allows him to understand things. Mohinder's Idiot Ball is a side-product of his magical blood that cures the Shanti virus, as it is somewhat related to having powers. He gets an epic-sized Idiot Ball after he injects himself.

Peter is in a coma, and it's All Just a Dream.

Peter jumped off the building, and Nathan watched helplessly because Peter can't really fly. Peter hit the pavement and is now in a coma. The events of the series are an elaborate dream by a comatose Peter. This is why everything seems to revolve around him: it's all a part of his dream. All the other characters outside the Petrelli family are just figments of Peter's overactive imagination. And he really does have delusions of grandeur.

• And his father was a Complete Monster of a villain with absolutely no other character other than being really, really evil because he has a really bad relationship with his father, and his subconscious reflected that.
• After season one, his condition deteriorated, which is the reason for the severe drop in quality since then.
• Yes, so funny we listed it twice! Might be good for a Mind Screw episode involving an illusionist or mind control villain. But otherwise (in case as per previous WMG the writers really ARE reading this page), SERIOUSLY DON'T DO THIS.
  • Or we'll find you.
  • Don't even make an illusion of this type of thing, as it's a bit ripoffy. How? Person with special abilities gets illusions which may not be illusions of the entire world being fake, their friends being fake and the only people who are real are their family? Sounds like the plot of Normal Again

Isaac's painings don't just predict future events, they cause them.

It's been a while since I saw Season 1, but I seem to recall that Peter found Claire from clues in the paintings, which cause him to be present at her homecoming dance. And in the graphic novels, a woman gets hit by a train after storming angrily out of an art exhibit in which Isaac painted her getting hit by a train. Except when people are trying to prevent one of his paintings from coming true, their reaction on seeing one is usually to go to the place/ find the person depicted. Hiro and Ando's comic-book road trip in Season 1 would be an extreme example.

Everything after season 1 is a delusion of Angela Petrelli.

Not being able to cope with her sons being dead, Angela is now in a mental institution of some sort where she imagines a reality where her sons are still alive.

This explains the Aborted Arcs and why the storylines and going into whack, it's her mental health declining. As for why Sylar keeps showing up? It's because she wants a third son and somehow sympathises with the villain.

"Nathan" is going to realise he's Sylar, and Angela and Matt are on his hit list of revenge.

Admittedly the first part isn't guessing, it's practically a given. Why Angela and Matt? Angela for trying to make him into her son again, and Matt for messing around with his mind.

A common power, perhaps secondary in Heroes is stupidity

This sounds crazy, but hear me out. We can infer that its not just high power levels making you stupid, or else Sylar and pre-superhug Arthur would be drooling vegetables (Peter... well, he's Peter. Some supers are perfectly capable of being rational and intelligent, or else the whole thing would have been obvious ages ago. However, the stronger, more unusual mutations (bending space and time to your will, mind control, etc.) often come with the brain being impaired, in the least. Peter's frequent bouts of What an Idiot! moments are due to him absorbing the stupidity powers of a ridiculous number of mutants. Sylar, meanwhile, is capable of plotting with his powers because he's probably the best super-neurologist in the world, so he knows about it, maybe using telekinetic surgery on himself or shapeshifting to temporarily set it back. This would explain why, among other things, Arthur Petrelli went from "Mastermind with a new Company" to "Idiot who stood in front of a hovering bullet while Sylar monologued" and why these people have never thought of really changing the world with some power like Ted Sprague's.

Powers are NOT evolutionary in nature

Most of this theory comes from the eclipse in season 3, Uluru in the online comics, the Catalyst. Firstly, when the eclipse occured, Mohinder could find absolutely no (pseudo) scientific explanation for why it took away their powers. Admittedly, he didn't have much time to search, but the fact that he was utterly baffled is somewhat suspect, especially given previous methods of surpressing powers he could've looked into. Secondly, the recurring appearances of Uluru. Despite the creators stating that only exists in the realms of the comic, given that Isaacs power were precognitive, it seems to hint at some magma, rocky...thing actually existing, which again I can't find a suitable pseudo science explanation for. Thirdly, the catalyst. This doesn't seem to be a power, it's tranferable, it's not especially well-explained where it came from in the first place, and there are more than a few mystical connotations for it. Feel free to shoot the theory down if so you wish, but I resolutely refuse to believe that these powers don't have some kind of magic component.

• Uluru huh? You see we're all related to this family up in New England...
  • ...and my own Uluru theory was just a earthbender creation.
• This is what I've always been thinking. One more thing: the genetic component (that Papa Suresh used to make his list, that the Company found when they analyzed Sylar in season 1, etc.) isn't the cause of the powers, they're a side-effect. Some sort of chromosomal damage inflicted by the presence of magic in their bodies.

Peter's original power has been replaced with his father's.

Relatedly: Arthur's power was originally to only copy one power at a time, the way Peter is now. Over time, he developed another way to apply it. If he robbed the other superhuman of their power, he could keep that one permanently regardless of whichever others he copied. Or, as another possibility, once he perma-drained one power, that one was stuck and he couldn't just 'copy' any others, but had to perma-drain those as well, thus launching him onto the slippery slope of stealing powers left, right, and centre. If Peter ever gets up the guts and lack of empathy to even try to perma-drain someone, he'll start to pick up multiple powers simultaneously again, possibly by hunting down Season 4's Villains and leaving them all powerless.

• Another possibility: if Arthur could still copy powers without removing them, he filled in that 'slot' with Maury Parkman's telepathy, which is why we never saw him copy anyone else.

The reason Peter's and Hiro's powers are so reduced from what they once were...

They haven't been under an Eclipse yet. Whatever meta-power the Eclipse has is necessary to get powers working at full, ahem, power. The Formula and Toddler Touch-and-Go can allow mini-powers, and those mini-powers can later turn onto full power once exposed to an Eclipse. If Peter and Hiro want to get their powers back, they should start consulting some astronomical calendars.

Hiro didn't start messing up because his body's rejecting the power.

Ever since he got it back, there were no problems until the second last episode. What was the big change? He started freezing Ando as well. Freezing two full people at the same time will naturally cause much more strain, and thus is started giving him the Psychic Nosebleed.

Sylar will go to the future and meet Good!Sylar.

While there, he will kill Good!Sylar and cut his head open. Redundant, you say? Not so. Being able to look at his own core power objectively with his "understand how things work" power would make it easier for him to understand the Hunger and subsequently overcome it permanently. In addition, handling Good!Sylar's corpse will allow him to use his clairsentience power on it, thus coming to truly understand his good self as well, allowing for a full Heel Face Turn. (Perhaps this is actually a Stable Time Loop.)

Nathan naturally has the power of self-resurrection.

His parents only assumed that the powers had skipped a generation in him. If they actually had genetic testing when Nathan was a baby, it would have been fairly primitive, and could have given a false negative. It's also possible that Angela relied entirely on her prophetic dreaming to tell her about her children's powers, and simply never picked up on what Nathan's was.

His artificial power of flight is, in fact, masking a naturally occurring power that allows him to return from death. It only works on fatal injuries, takes some time, and does not fully heal him. We've already seen it work at least once, after he was shot at the end of season two by future!Peter. It may also have come into play when he was exposed to Peter going nuclear at the end of season one.

This ties into the "Nathan Petrelli is Linderman's Son" theory earlier on the page.

There is no "empathy" aspect to Sylar's power

Sylar simply uses clairsentience to gain enough knowledge about the person to copy their abilities without cutting open their heads. This method takes longer, and is less accurate, but it works. This is how Sylar was able to steal Nathan and the shapeshifter's ability without cutting their heads open.

All "evolved humans" have the same ability.

And that power is bending reality itself at will. The characters just don't know how to really use it to its full potential yet, and instead each is only able to figure out one or two ways of using it (note how most powers seem to match the personality/needs of the person). This way referring to them as a "new species" makes a bit more sense. It also explains why Sylar can "learn" powers by figuring out how they work.

The idea of a character that can see color is a result of Executive Meddling

The basic concept was NBC's idea to "capitalize" on their "in living color" theme

Matt will fully succumb to Head-Sylar, and become Sylar himself.

It's been mentioned several times in the series that Matt could potentially be one of the most powerful people on the planet due to his power, which can be applied many different ways (in effect, being able to do almost anything). Head-Sylar may be already starting to realize this and will abandon the quest to get his old body back, choosing instead to persuade Matt to see things his way. Whatever was once Matt will be gone completely, and he will also shapeshift his main form to permanently become Sylar. The original Sylar will either have a Heel Face Turn, or die (or both, probably due to eventually confronting Matt-Sylar).

Hiro's attempt to save Charlie will horribly backfire, and result in the Five Years Gone time line or a variation of it.

He will save her from being killed by Sylar, and bring her to the present to try and be healed of her terminal illness. However, they will end up in the Bad Future from Volume One because everything ended up quite differently because of this change and Sylar was unable to be stopped. Charlie will have to be returned to the past to die in order to save the future, leaving Hiro heartbroken at failing to save her again.

• Or, Hiro will do the above and also kill Sylar before he can kill Charlie (remember, this is long before he can regenerate). The temptation to eliminate Sylar while he is still fairly weak and unable to heal, which would also prevent many future deaths and disasters from ever happening, could convince Hiro to kill him for the greater good (while time is stopped, so he couldn't retaliate). This will lead to an even more horrid future in which "The Family" will have taken over (and probably destroyed) the world, because only Sylar could have stopped them from doing so. It will turn out that "Nathan-Sylar" is in fact The Chosen One in this Volume.

Peter will be stuck with the life/death power.

We've seen that the power can unintentionally kill people, and Peter has been shown being "clumsy" with new powers (he even had trouble teleporting when he hadn't done it for awhile). Pete will accidentally kill someone by touching them, and he won't be able to switch it out for another power out of fear that he'll kill whatever superhuman he touches to get it from.

• Jossed. How funny would it have been for him to accidentally kill Nathan/Sylar when he was trying to take the flight power?

Hiro will actually be able to save Charlie and not destroy the future in doing so.

As a twist to the viewers who are pretty much expecting him to fail, the Butterfly of Doom will actually be subverted, perhaps due to some trickery on Hiro's part similar to what he did to fool Knox and Daphne in Volume Three.

• Seems confirmed.

Volume One Sylar will kill Present Hiro and take his ability.

Forget about "Save the cheerleader, save the world", if Sylar ever got his hands on that power it's literally game over for everyone. Hiro's meddling will only serve to bring about his death faster and give Sylar the most Game Breaking ability in the entire series. He would then be unstoppable, and would quickly teleport to and corner Claire before she could react and then steal her ability. Same with nearly anyone else that he knows about with a power.

Unable to really do anything to stand against Sylar, and on the run from him since he is the only known person able to undo what has been done, Past Hiro will have to go back in time and convince his future self to not go through with his plan to save Charlie, as much as it will hurt both of them.

• Seems to have been Jossed, because Hiro is still faster than Sylar.

In Volume 2/Volume 3, Peter never had a chance to save Caitlin from The Plague Future

It's worth noting that the events of the last few episodes of Volume 2 and the first few episodes of Volume 3 took place over a matter of days. During that time, Peter was either preocupied with stopping the plague from being released in the present, investigating the assassination attempt on Nathan, trapped in the body of a locked-up on Level 5 convict, on-the-run pretending to be said convict in order to stop other super-powered criminals from causing trouble and, finally, being kidnapped by his future self and dragged to an alternate future where things had changed for the worse AGAIN.

Basically, there was one long chain of events and disasters which didn't give Peter any time to stop and think about saving his girlfriend.

• It's worth noting that for most of that period, Peter didn't have the power to time-travel. And once he did have his powers back, he was more concerned about stopping the new crisis in front of him... which lead to him losing his powers completely.

In Chapter Two, Peter DID try to save Caitlin from The Plague Future off-camera, but failed to do so.

At the start of Episode 210: Truth & Consquences, Peter did travel back to the future, at the same point that his past self and Caitlin were getting captured. He managed to stay just long enough to grab an evacuation notice before forcibly being returned to the present.

There is a suggestion that a day or two has passed since Peter regained his memories and that he has been trying to go back to the future to save Caitlin but that he hasn't been able to for some reason and getting to that point was the closest he could come.

• There's also the practical consideration that Peter couldn't have gotten to her AFTER she'd already been captured and deported back to a plague-stricken Ireland. The records showed that Peter was dead in that future which meant he didn't have the immunity to the plague that others did. Going back to the future might mean exposing himself to the virus.
  • Not to mention that bringing back a plague-infected Caitlin to the present would be counter-productive to the main goal of stopping the plague from being released.

Samuel killed Joseph due to policy differences

We don't know the nature of Joseph's death and it is suggested in "Acceptance" that Samuel's plans diverge from what Joseph would have allowed. It is likely that Samuel wanted to recruit evolved humans who had some connection to the Company, but Joseph strongly disapproved, probably because it would violate some sort of truce. When the Company was destroyed, Samuel saw this as a good opportunity to gain new family members, but Joseph still would not let him seek those who were monitored or protected by it. When Darko started hunting down evolved humans, Joseph applied a non-interference policy, which angered his brother.

• Possibly Jossed: Samuel told Bennet that Danko killed Joseph. He could be lying, but Danko would certainly have the motive.
  • Definitely Jossed in the preview for next week, though this may be a case of Never Trust a Trailer- Samuel mentions that the one who killed Joseph is at their table- we are treated to three quick flashes of Hiro, Edgar, and Lydia.
    • Samuel was at the table too
  • Partially Jossed- Samuel killed Joseph, but for different reasons.

Sylar is now in Peter.

The events of "Acceptance" suggest that that Sylar has at least left Matt's mind when he made some contact with his body/Nathan. However the show also seemed to make a big deal of Peter taking Nathan's powers, even using the same effect as when Nathan touched Matt's hand. This leads me to believe that there are five possible theories. One is that Sylar is now in Peter. I'm not sure why he wouldn't have taken control over his body immediately if he had successfully made it back, but finding himself in Peter would at least be a way to postpone making it back.

The second theory I have is that his mind is now fragmented in some fraction between Matt, Nathan, and possibly Peter. That may explain why he was not able to immediately take Nathan over, since he is not whole. However I don't know what implications that would have on each "host", and how Sylar will interact with each person if he is not all together.

The third theory is that he is now pretending he's gone while still inside Matt. The fourth is that he is indeed back in his body and is either waiting for the right time to emerge or pretending to be Nathan. Considering Nathan's Wangst angsting, I'd be very surprised if the fourth theory is the correct one. If the third is true, he's surely hiding because he trying to do what he wanted by force failed, and so now he would try something a little more covert.

And of course the final theory is that he jumped into the mind of a random guard that ran into the room and stopped Nathan? Why? For hilarity's sake.

In Season 3's bad future, Samuel was responsible for destroying the Earth

Samuel's power is control over the ground, and this power apparently gets stronger the more supers are around him. In the bad future a large portion of the general population were given powers, this should boost Samuel's own power to an insane level to the point where he could accidentally tear the planet in half.

Emma can use her power to hypnotize people.

Whenever Emma plays music, random people wander over to listen to it. Emma is deaf however, and therefore shouldn't be able to play a musical instrument well enough to draw the crowds she does. Emma will eventually learn to control people through music, like a pied piper.

• Confirmed in that as of the latest episode she can call people to her through focusing on them and playing music.

Charlie is either dead, or Samuel doesn't know where she is.

Besides blackmailing Hiro into doing more dirty work for him, he may be likely also stalling because he actually can't give Hiro Charlie. Given that Jayma Mays isn't set to become even a recurring character, either reason is quite likely.

• • Jossed- Officially released spoilers state that Hiro and Charlie will be reuinited in the finale.

Peter will finally wise up and use the Haitian's power to neutralize Sylar

...because really, that's the only way outside of a hallucination that Peter could get anywhere near Sylar. Unless, of course, Sylar's in one of his masochistic moods.

And, to prove he's still an idiot, Peter'll absorb the Haitian's power, losing his healing ability forever, instead of just dragging the Haitian along.

• Confirmed to the full extent. Except one thing, Peter already lost healing a few episodes back for flying. I do agree, an idiotball move.
• I think taking the Haitian's ability is actually a pretty sensible move with Sylar on the loose, so that he can't get too close. To me, the Idiot Ball move is why he went through the whole "dropping him off a roof" thing instead of taking care of him permanently, but I guess I should stop pretending anyone's ever going to do that.

Hiro will be reunited with Charlie.

By this point, he will have regained full control over his power, including all time-travel and teleportation aspects. This leads to the Tear Jerker aspect of this conclusion: he really does take Charlie on the first step of her trip around the world, teleporting her exactly where and when she wants to go... but the strain finishes him off, and he dies in Charlie's arms.

Sylar is a stand-in for mankind

Think about it: What is the special power of humans? We can't run as fast as cheetahs, aren't as strong as gorillas, can't swim as well as fish, and don't have impressive claws and fangs as lions. Let alone greater powers like electricity, as electric eels have, or natural poison, or the ability to fly. But thanks to our brains, we can understand how things work. And thanks to our opposable thumbs, we can create tools more sophisticated any animal can use, and construct mechanisms as intricate as, for example, watches. Sylar was a watchmaker before he became Sylar. And yes, while this means that Humans Are the Real Monsters, at least we're Magnificent Bastards.

All Powers can be trained and evolved, one way or another

We have already seen that people can strengthen and train their powers if they work for it. For example, Tracy started off only using ice, and progressed to hydrokinesis and being able to turn herself into water. Matt gained the ability to control minds as well as read them. Peter's Season 1 Power progressed so he could use any power at any time. There are dozens of powers, we just didn't see their full potential. Here's some ideas as to how certain abilities could grow.

1) Bob Bishop: As we know, Bob has the "Midas Touch." If he had trained his abilities, he might have been able to alter chemical compounds into materials aside from gold- silver, copper, aluminum. If you really want to stretch it, he might have turned it into full-blown alchemy.

2) Daniel Linderman: As seen from Jeremy Greer and the other woman Noah mentioned, the healing ability can go both ways. If we follow this way of thinking, then Jeremy's power was more advanced than Linderman's, albeit harder to control. Jeremy was having a slightly easier time controlling his ability before he died, so this seems like hard proof that this ability at least can be evolved.

3) Nathan Petrelli: This one requires some creative thinking. There's a possibility that Nathan's (and West's) ability may have actually been manipulation of gravity, and it first manifested in it's crudest form: flight. Training of such an ability could have progressed to manipulating the gravity field of other objects, perhaps even a form of telekinesis.

• Flint and Ted are both clear examples also. Flint had blue flames from "training" them, and Ted was able to on one occasion create an EMP with Noah's help.
  • This kind of crosses over with another theory This Troper had, where any super can learn any ability, and the powers manifest in certain ways depending on the person's personality/needs. If that were the case, then logically the next powers they'd learn would be ones related to what they already have.
• This could possibly go both ways- that is to say, a power could devolve. Consider Doyle: In volume 4 of Nowhere Man, we see him slam a door shut without touching it- via telekinesis, which he doesn't have. In An Invisible Thread, we see Sylar imitate Doyle's power on Claire using his telekinesis. Perhaps Doyle's original power was telekinesis, but due to using it as a method of puppetry for so long, the remaining aspect of it atrophied and grew lethargic, fading in strength. Of course, his telekinetic door-slam would indicate that perhaps this power is not quite as dead as we thought...

Mohinder Suresh has a stalking power

In the first two episodes alone, he walks into his apartment twice when there is a spy in there. These spies are from the company, and probably highly trained, plus at least one of them is expecting Suresh to come home at any moment. Yet in both cases he manages to walk into the house completely undetected. You could take this even further and say that Suresh was invisible to any lookouts that would have been placed, as you'd expect at least a few lookouts. I'm watching through the episodes one by one, so if i find any additional evidence or jossidence i will edit.

Noah Bennet has military experience.

It explains where some of his skills came from.

• • Pretty sufficiently jossed- as seen in The Wall, Noah was just an poor Average Joe working as a car salesman until the Company recruited him. Although, if Hana Gitelman's saga in the graphic novels are to be believed, Noah probably did receive some training from the Company.
    • It's entirely possible he served in the military before settling down as a used car salesman.
    • It's actually not, especially given how hesitant he is at handling the gun when he faces his first special.

Lydia gave Edgar his tattoo.

In Let It Bleed, we see that Edgar has a tattoo on his bicep while he's locked in the freezer. Since Lydia is the Tattooed Lady, and she and Edgar are close, it would make sense that he got his tattoo from her. It would also explain how he knew how to come back to the Carnival when Lydia died- Lydia's tattoos vanished when she died, so Edgar's tatto would probably do the same.

The Carnival will turn on Samuel.

They already fear him, perhaps even hate him. If they were to find out that Samuel and Eli killed Lydia and framed Bennet for it, that would probably be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Thus, Samuel will have to fight for his life, but with each one he kills, the weaker his power will get. He'll have to decide between powerless or death. Either way, the Carnival will most likely be without a leader, which leads me to...

Either Peter or Edgar will become the new Carnival Ringmaster.

Lydia already wanted Peter to become their new leader. When Samuel's out of the way, there will be a power vacuum, and I doubt many of the carnies will want to step up. The Carnival needs to stay in operation for the carnies to be truly happy, so a new leader will be needed. On the one hand, Peter would take the job, since it's more or less the right thing to do, and Peter always does the right thing. On the other hand, Edgar certainly has experience with the Carnival, plus the trust.

Stuff happened off-screen between Peter and Sylar during The Wall.

Peter: Was it really all just a dream?
Sylar: Not if we don't want it to be...

* awkward half-smiles*

Multiple-Mook: Hate to break up the love-fest.

• • "No... you were the wife."

There is neither an idiot ball, nor glass skin

A lot of WMG's on this page seem to explain the idiot ball some of the heroes seem to carry. But what if the normal human in the heroes universe is actually this stupid. In the first episode with Parkman and Molly, the police knew there was a girl not accounted for. Yet somehow they didn't find her, even though she was in the closet closest to the entrance, with the close door being barricaded. Yet for some reason, the trained detectives can't seem to find her, even though they have been searching the house for a while now. Another theory here mentions Claire being far too prone to damage, receiving deadly damage from situation that would normally dead non-lethal damage. But look a bit further in the series. In episode 9 Claire manages to strike a fellow cheerleader unconscious in a single blow. And while cheerleading is a good exercise for arms and legs, it is not enough to strike someone unconscious in a single blow. It's also why everyone panicked when the quarterback hit Claire while running, in the heroes setting, everyone expected to break every bone in her body.

The reason Earth would have exploded if synthetic specials had been created...

...is entirely because of Samuel. He grows in power based on being surrounded by other specials, thanks to absorbing the 'magnetism' these people generate. Mohinder's use (and creation!) of the compass prove that synthetic specials generate the same magnetism. Thus, the 'everybody has a power' world would absolute saturate the atmosphere with the power. With power of that magnitude, Samuel could easily have broken Earth in half, intentionally or accidentally.

[[WMG: Nathan & Peter Petrelli are really the grown-up versions of Jack & Bobby from the WB's Jack&Bobby Here are the clues: Lack of father figure in their lives (as referenced in "Upon This Rock"), an all-important controlling mother, the older brother becoming the father figure for the younger son, an affinity for politics, the older brother involved in the military, lots of sibling fighting, the younger brother always being kept down by the older brother who was just trying to build him up stronger, the younger brother survives longer, and (possibly most importantly) the Jack & Bobby episode with the hunting deer incident was almost EXACTLY played out in a graphic novel involving Nathan, Peter, and Arthur. The facts are there... though if Peter is to become our President, we are ALL doomed.

Claire's real power is Chronic Mood Swings.

This explans practically ALL her changes throughout the season. Esspically her "I trust you/I distrust you" jumps with her dad.

Peter met somebody with the ability of Idiot Ball

Going with the 'Abilities make you stupid'-theory, there is actually someone with the power of being really stupid. Peter unknowingly met this person prior to or during Season One. When Arthur absorbed Peters powers, he took this one too, which explains his later actions. Peter, however, being freed by this burden, has beaten Sylar and also Samuel with his newly functional brain.

If NBC does a two-hour special to close out the series, it will have one of two endings

Ending 1: An idealized version of the Volume 3 future, with some changes- humans and specials will live together in harmony, with specials in hiding now free to come out. The world will be fine, aside from the usual bad apples who use their powers for evil, who will be placed in Company 2.0's version of Level Five. Company 2.0 is a government-funded agency, headed by Bennet, Lauren, Mohinder, Matt, Tracy, and Angela. Peter now runs the Carnival.

Ending 2: Peter or Hiro hit the Reset Button and send us aaaaallllllll the way back to Season 1, resulting in the biggest cop-out in television history.

Not only do Heroes and Lost take place in the same world, they are two parts of the same story.

• As seen in the ledger (which is probably fake, but fits nonetheless), Adam Monroe is on the Black Rock when it crashes on the island. Magnus Hanso is also aboard and is killed either by the Man in Black or by the crash itself. Adam finds a way off the island and Richard Alpert is left behind. Richard is granted a copy of Monroe's ability by Jacob (possibly the first "special").
• Alvar Hanso, looking for the remains of Magnus, stumbles upon stories of the exploits of Takezo Kensei. He determines that Kensei and Monroe are one and the same. Shocked by the finding of people with supernatural abilities, Alvar meets with Chandra Suresh. It is here that he picks up the habit of ending his conversations with "Namaste". Alvar and Chandra together create the Coyote Sands Station. The first station of the Dharma Initiative. They begin experimenting on specials as the government begins to be concerned about the coming apocalypse and hires Enzo Valenzetti to create the Valenzetti equation.
• The Coyote Sands Station Orientation film's production is interrupted by the birth of Samuel Sullivan. The havoc Samuel causes destroys the station and allows the escape of the test subjects. Among the escaped subjects are the future founders of "the Company".
• Alvar and Chandra decide to make another attempt to create a superpowered being strong enough to prevent the apocalypse, but learning from their mistakes, do so on a remote island in the Pacific. Dharma stations similar to Coyote Sands are constructed all over the island, and a device to summon a powerful special known only as the "Man in Black" is harnessed beneath Horace Goodspeed's residence.
• Years later, the Others purge the Dharma Initiative, letting loose test subjects like Ethan Rom, who's strength and endurance have been greatly enhanced.
• Even later, a plane crashes on the island, piloted by a relative of known special, Matt Parkman. The Others, using the materials left behind by the initiative, find the survivors with the special genetic marker and kidnap them. Among the kidnapped survivors is Jack Shephard, a healer.

Arthur Petrelli stole Charles Deveaux's powers.

• In "1961," we see Charles Deveaux using powers very similar to those used by Matt and Maury Parkman. We also see him getting very close with Angela Shaw. In Volume One, however, we never see Charles use any telepathic abilities, nor does Peter absorb them from him. Meanwhile, the next time (chronologically) that we see Angela, in "Villains," she is now with Arthur, rather than with Charles, and Arthur has telepathy. Explanation: Arthur used his Mega Manning to steal Charles's power and used it to brainwash Angela into marrying him.

Simone had a power but it was never revealed

• All of the other children of the company founders had abilities so there was no reason why she wasn't born with one or given an ability like Nathan was.

Future!Ando didn't kill Future!Hiro.

He killed Hiro Doll. Hey, we've got time travel, and Hiro's compared himself to Crono, so why not? This also means that Ando will at some point turn into Lavos.

Hiro's time powers always' gave him tumours.

His teleportation just counteracted this by teleporting them outside his body, or alternatively just not reconstituting them at his destination. This is an extension of a theory above that Hiro needs all of his powers to be active for them not to hurt his brain.