(some snipped)

More universally liked/hated characters? How about a laugh track? Maybe the villians should all wear Snidley Whiplash moustaches and top hats.

I think the whole point is that very few REAL people are universally liked or hated and that the shades of grey are what make the show more interesting. That these totally unremarkable non-heroic shmoes are the ones with the superpowers makes all the difference for this show.

If everything was so cut and dry the show wouldn't be called "Heroes", it would be a soap opera named "Passions".

no i love this show and glad its not lost or etc but these are just things i fear will bit them in the a** next season or the season after

Even though not everyone agrees with my model of how time travel works in this show, I'll post a link to my post. It just offers one alternate approach to time travel rules. You dont have to agree, it is food for thought.

http://www.9thwonders.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=39902

As for the show having characters you dont care about, that is subjective. I personally love the approach of "these are people who dont know what is happening and trying to figure it out while blending that in a 'normal' life." This will by definition create characters you care about more or less or inbetween some or all of the time.

As for the last episode being 40 minutes of filler ... for those of us who like shows, even sci fi shows, because of character development / exploration / interaction, the last show was a gem.

It reminds me of an old Champions superhero game I used to play in. There were 3 game masters who were also players, and 8 other players. It was a shared campaign. NO PLAYER GOT TO PICK THEIR POWERS. You only used the rule to make a normal human and all his contacts and family and life details, then one of the GMS would make 3-10 super hero templates, mix them up in a hat, and draw one at random for you. Even GMS didnt know at all times what all the powers were for other players. So, maybe a player got Magic Top Hat powers. Maybe his body was destroyed and replaced with 5000 c**kroaches that live inside a human looking skin the secrete every night. Maybe the character had vision powers. Maybe they had water-based powers. Whatever. None of the players knew. The GMs would improvise an origin and/or their powers starting to kick in or do things. Half the fun was in actually trying to figure out what your powers do.

Meanwhile, your character's life is still going on. Who will you trust, what will you do? Will you use your power to help someone? Are you the kind of character who uses his mind control powers to save the world, or only to get free drinks at the bar? How will you react to the weird things going on around you? How hard will you hold on to your life?

From this perspective, episode #10 was a gem for me. It reminds me of that old Champions campaign we used to play where we actually had the pleasure of focusing more on character development, and we had no idea really what all our powers were.

Lewis

I'm not saying that the show has jumped the shark, but needs to start getting alot better, fast.

after loooking though the boards and watching religiously myself. There are so many problems with the show that need to be address if its gonna survive the next season

1. give us clear and practical time travel rules and what can and cant be changed.

2. give us more universally liked/hated charactors. i know alot of people that theres a list of most of the charactors that they could care less what happens to. while some of that is good. at the amount this is is bad. i guess what i'm saying is most of the charactors are uneventful

3. better marketing... or better yet less false marketing. don't rely so much on hype. we all experianced some sort of dissapointment with the "save the cheeleader, save the world" bs. just stop overusing taglines that hardly have any tie end to the show

4. quit leaving lose ends, although the show is only halfway though the season means that they can still address these, but my feeling is they wont as with the charlie picture change



i know this was a rant, but i hate to see a great show go bad and my fear is that it's going that way. the same reason alot of us watched matrix 3 after the horrible matrix 2 we were addicted to the possible story, not what was put in front of us.

with the exception of the time explaination, i think the show is going along ok. the last episode could have been done as a sylar flashback as this is the only new thing we learnt... and 40 minutes of filler.

As soon as any time-travel rules are established, boundaries are created. They could effectively limit themselves down the road. Why do that?

I have to say, the style of this show is that it makes a lot of sense if you have ever read a comc book in your life, each episode gives you just (barely) enough to make you come back next week, the large number of characters gives them a pool of stories which could be stretched out for years to come, even the little inconsistancies between each episode are reminiscent of the way comic books are written, often reflecting changes in the creative teams and other aspects of the production. This is truly what was promised, a pure hybrid of the two media, TV and comics.
Now this might not be considered a good thing by all, I myself enjoy comic books but i refuse to pay for them (they are deffinitely not worhth the amount of money they charge for a single 24 page issue), so if people don't like what it is they should just stoip watching. Instead of coming on and saying it should be more like 24 or medium or Lost, people should just watch those shows and leave this one alone, i personally wont enter a room with a TV that is tuned to Lost and i made that decsision after watching for a few weeks and deciding it wasn't the show for me, but what i don't do is hang around on Lost forums and tell people it needs to be a better show.
If you want a set of rules for time travel, read the post by Shirtless_Sylar, its pretty cool and is quite consistant with all the time travel shown to date, just do what i will do and asume a set of rules that you like are true until the show writers state exactly what they consider to be the rules, if they dont then relax, happy in the knowledge that you know what is going on thanks to a 9th Wonders post.
If by get better you mean become more like Lost or 24 or )insert TV show here) then just go and watch that show instead cos this is the style of the show and thats just the way its going to be for a while at least i would hazard a guess.
Sorry if I sounded like one of those people who come on the boards and say "hey if you don' like it get off the board" cos thats not what I'm saying, just that because you don't like the style of the show doesn't mean that its bad, it just means its not 24 or whatever.

well what i mean by thiss is most of the charactors are uneventful, they just have no porpous, if they never mentioned the niki,dl,micah story again i think alot of people wouldnt miss it. if they just never showed peter, nathan, matt, heck even as boring as sylar turned out to be, i think alot people would question for a week maybe two... but still after that it wouldnt be a big deal. they need captivating charactors

don't get me wrong though i do like the "real person" aspect but there should be some cut an dry bad/good guys soon. like i said i feel sylar was a dissapointment he set to be that super EVIL guy and well didnt live up to it or at least yet anyway





creates a flow an understanding, isn't it a bad thing when a show conterdicts itself? and it needs rules rules are good for confusing situations. when the audiances is completly fractured on whats happening that usually means bad story telling

Are any of you going to stop watching?

The reasons that you love/hate the show/characters/plotlines are the reasons that you come back every week.

We learned that Peters father was alive 6 months ago. He commited suicide, and did not die of a heart attack like Nathan told pete. Which also means he may have been aware of his kids stabing him in the back, or Lindermen thought Petrelli SR. might come clean to save face with his kids, so Lindermen had him killed, and it was made to look like a heart attack/suicide? Either way, important stuff!

And the Hiro to Hiro phone call..i dont know how you call this stuff filler

Whatever happened to suspension of disbelief?

there needs to be a balance of plaot to charactor development

we barely have gone past episode 1 in plot

we hardly know any more than we knew then on the actual storyline, we've done ten times more in the secondary storyline (niki,dl,micah) that so far shows no sign of being connected

The fact that the characters are not clear cut good or bad guys is my favorite aspect of the show. I think thats what makes it different from Xmen and many of the other Superhero stories out there. It seems to me that makes it more realistic, if you think about it how many people in the world are really 100% good or evil? I prefer the depth of the characters like DL and Jessica and Nathan and even Sylar.
If right now people started waking up with super powers, I don't believe there would immediately be the super good and the super evil people, although they could potentially develop into that over time.

With that said though, Hiro and Peter are still my faves, even though they are a bit more clear cut. They really are the good guys, Hiro is hilarious and Peter is so adorable and likable.

pete's dad killed himself... we learnt that from his mum. nathan was gonna take linderman down, but ends up not doing it, which just cancels that out. we did not learn anything new.

yes we see hiro talk to hiro, which only backs up the theory that time is looped, but unfortunately, no one seems to be willing to accept this.

I read your post several times and I still don't understand what you mean

You say potahto I say I love the show as is. Nothing is perfect and I would imagine that a lot of the canon on the show is being created as the writers come-up with new things. Heck, almost all sci-fi shows has huge "WTF That's not how it was in episode X" moments. You have to suspend you disbelief and just enjoy.

BTW I like Niki and the others (well Matt annoys me to no end), she's not my favorite but I don't hate her.

I don't care for the hype either but all TV shows do it. My husband watches Jericho (Armageddon the Soap Opera) last week "one of their own" was going to die. Of course in the promo they showed major characters and of course it was a very minor one who died. That's just TV, they have to find a way to compete with all the other entertainment options people have so they go overboard with the hype.

Personally, I'm fine with Hiro. He reminds me alot of Hugo from Lost.. where he's an "everyman" character who makes mistakes. Exactly the kind of person the viewers can relate to. Plus, he's by far the most interesting of the bunch, IMHO.

As I said, I wasn't sure but in fairness, this doesn't address my concern. But still, why was Peter about to jump? Was it because he was dreaming he could fly or because he actually flew? And if it was "just" a dream, why would Peter then be so convinced he could fly in "reel" life?


Not at all. Please read what I actually wrote; as I said, Micah fixing the laptop may be nothing more than a exhibit of his genius. The problem is that the writers seemed to want to give the impression that this was somehow a manifestation of power.


Agreed that it could be nothing more than a lie but there has been nothing to intimate why Nathan would lie to Peter. Normally people lie for a reason, so what is the reason for Nathan to lie to Peter.

(Sorry, I forgot that Nathan is a politician and politicians lie out of habit.)


Maybe we might want to read posts before we reply.

And even then there remains the self-contradictions with Niki/Jessica in the mirror, Claire resurrecting herself, etc.

I agree with you except that it's more than simply the time travelling. Below is a partial list of the things I find self-contradictory:

- The scene were Claire is on the autopsy table with her chest cavity open. Note that Claire neither healed nor regenerated herself, she resurrected herself. She was dead and then, when the stick or whatever was removed from her head, she came back alive. When you're dead, you cease to heal and no amount of undoing what made you dead in the first place can make you alive again. Notice that this is a different power displayed than from the other times when she is still alive and heals herself, even from catastrophic injuries.

- The scene a couple of episodes back where Niki and DL are in bed together. In the scene Niki looks in the mirror and sees both Jessica and herself (plus, DL, of course). Nothing wrong with that except that every previous time Niki looked in the mirror, she only saw Jessica. I take this to mean that "Jessica" is now just an aspect of Niki's fragmented or disassociated personality (and not the spirit of her dead sister or some "quantum twin" in the mirror) but it does leave the question as to why only now is she seeing two reflections.

- Peter Petrelli flying. We have been lead to believe that Peter mimics the powers of other Heroes when he is in close proximity to them and loses their power when he is not near them. But if I'm not mistaken (and I admit, I could be), the first time Peter flew his brother was nowhere around. That leaves the question as to how Peter flew the first time.

- Micah actually fixed his mothers laptop but with the pay phone, he touched it and then only he could use it. Although the former (i.e. fixing the laptop) may simply be an exercise of his genius while only the latter is an exercise of his power, the writing definitely leads us to conclude that both fixing the laptop and the pay phone are an exercise of Micah's powers. But that lead to the question of how Micah uses his power.

- How did the Nath and Peter Petrelli's father die. Was it a suicide or a heart attack. Another example of a continuity or self-contradictory problem since both have been given in the show.



There are limits to a suspension of disbelief. Whatever happened to an internally consistent story that does not violate its own rules?

Nathan was the one telling Peter to not jump, he was nearby... Nathan flies up to grab Peter and Peter flies before they hit the ground.


So if someone has technical know-how they are unable to have a power...



The family tells Peter it was a heart attack. They tell him this but it is a lie. The rest of the family knew that the father commited suicide.

We might want to re-watch episodes before we post...

The time travel rules thing is really just a matter of perspective. We don't know exactly how it works because Hiro doesn't know exactly how it works. His powers didn't come with a manual, nor did anybody else's. I would be a lot more disappointed if any of them had been able to figure out exactly how their powers work already.

Granted, their discoveries could be paced faster, but that's hard to pull off with an ensemble cast this size. Some of the scenes already feel rushed. I'm just imagining how awful a scene between Hiro and Ando where Hiro says "OK, I spent a couple hours figuring out how this time travel stuff works and here it is" would be.

Well, how do you define death? Her heart stopped beating, her lungs stopped working... but we have no way of knowing whether her brain function ceased. This is a show about people with unbelievable powers... and we've been given several reasons to think their powers reside in the brain. I don't see a problem with Claire's brain being able to survive and regenerate from ANYTHING save total removal/destruction - and then being able to regenerate her body once the obstruction is out of the way.



It's character development. Originally, Niki would look in the mirror and see Jessica instead of herself. Then she'd be looking into a reflective surface and Jessica would appear to split off... remember the elevator when she's trying to go back on her deal re: Nathan? Now, it's progressed to the point where Jessica is a separate entity in the mirror with Niki... and it eventually gets to the point where Jessica appears outside the mirror (when she's telling Niki about what she/they did). It shows Jessica getting more and more dominant - more and more separate from Niki. It also progresses the mystery regarding who/what Jessica actually is.



The ONLY times we have ever seen Peter fly is in dreams, or with Nathan nearby. The first time he flew, he needed Nathan there to catch him or he would have killed himself. The other time, he was yelling at Nathan to tell him the truth and he walked off the ledge. He's never flown alone. And the reason he tried the first time was his dreams - and the painting he saw in Issac's loft. No one ever said it was a SANE thing to do..



The idea with fixing the laptop was to show how amazingly technically minded Micah actually is - how many kids can just take apart a laptop, fix it, and put it back together so it works? The genius and the power work together - Micah knows technology, he understands technology, and he can even fix/control technology with only his mind. The laptop was just to give us a clue towards what his powers actually were.



Their father committed suicide. However, they originally told Peter (and the press, etc.) that he'd had a heart attack. They tell Peter the truth after he tries to fly off the roof.

Nah...the show's doing fine.

And as for the time travel stuff -- get over it. They'll probably explain more in the future, but remember that most stories involving time travel will always have some problem or another...

I hate characters with no porpoise.

I propose a new drinking game, wherein we take a drink when someone uses the phrase "jumped the shark" on these forums.

you are just mad because you can't figure it out. The show is going just fine the loose ends make things intreresting. there are no clear cut rules for time travle because hiro is learning as he goes. if you don't like the show don't watch it.

We don't know exactly how Sylar knows people are more than normal, or "metahuman." We assume that he has some intuition, but we only assume that because of his interaction with Brian Davis. But think about it...he only reacted to him being "broken" after Brian showed him his TK.

With Jackie & Claire, he didn't seem to intuit which one had the power to heal themselves. So, maybe that's the writers throwing us a bone to say that he doesn't have an intuition about it, that he's only going by a list.

As for the rest of this thread, I think people are just looking into these so called "inconsistancies" far too much. We're almost half way through the season & you want to know ALL the answers. If they gave you all the answers, then there wouldn't be a show to watch. Just sit back, relax & enjoy what they give us.

Someone here mentioned that watching the show is like reading a monthly comic (I think his name was Lewis) and he is right. You are left to wonder & speculate how things happened, what is going on with characters & what will happen next. I don't see it as BAD writing, it's actually that hook that keeps you coming back. If you disagree & can't tolerate what you consider to be inconsistant, then why watch?

But if Claire's brain was still alive when the stick was in her head, then why didn't she start regenerating immediately?

Interestingly, you are using the exact opposite reasoning as another poster to justify this scene. The mere fact that posters must make often blatantly contradictory reasoning to justify the irrationality of a scene highlights the self-contradictory nature of some of the show.

No, its inconsistent writing because if you notice, they switch back and forth between the ways Jessica is represented. They are not showing progression, but randomality. (And even if what you were saying were accurate, that is not the definition of character development.)

Notice that the only way you are rationalizing the scene is for Peter not to be sane. Has the show shown that Peter is not sane?

Now the truly interesting thing about your reasoning is that, of course, Nathan has been saying that Peter is insane (within limits). Yet in still, the show has been going out of its way to prove that Peter is sane and that Nathan is only saying Peter is only for political expediency (although he is personally concerned about Peter's mental health). Truth be known, I think it would be more interesting if, life you say, Peter is insane.

To a great extent, I agree. As I wrote from the beginning, Micah fixing the laptop might be a simple display of his genius. The point I am trying to argue is that the writing is too ambigious.

But again, why lie to Peter (as opposed to the press) in the first place?

Since this thread is about inconsistencies, I thought I'd add one more to the heap...and it's a biggie...

In the last episode, Eden's first assigned mission is to go spy on Papa Suresh and remove Claire Bennet's name from his list. Assuming that Sylar got the info on all the SG's from Chandra's list, how did Sylar know to go to Odessa if Eden was successful? How'd he know to look for a cheerleader? Okay, so maybe she wasn't successful and Sylar gets the information. There was a picture of Claire on the map, so why did he go after Jackie if he knew what Claire looked like? Ah, but what if she altered the map but not the computer list you say? Well, true...Sylar wouldn't have a picture but he would have had Claire Bennet's name because that is what the list is; a name and location. He would have realized he had the wrong cheerleader as the newspaper article in the High School trophy case had Jackie's name with her picture. Any way you tilt it, Sylar shouldn't have known about the cheerleader in Odessa.

Okay, now is the place where someone says that Sylar read about Jackie's Heroics in the newspaper..It works yes, but it isn't tidy. He's either going down the list or he's reading an awful lot of papers trying to find "heroic" folk.

I just assumed he found out about Claire via the news report (on TV & in the newspaper) where she runs into the fire and that he had no idea which cheerleader to kill. He may have even planned to kill them all, if need be (odd that he could see how Brian was a metahuman, yet he seemed to have no clue that Jackie wasn't).

If I was really smart, I wouldn't mention it but you've just pointed out an inconsistency that I overlooked. If Sylar could "intuit" that Brian was a metahuman (and please allow me to steal that term from now on), then why didn't he realize that Jackie wasn't?

It doesn't really take much skill to intuit that someone is metahuman WHEN THEY'RE USING TELEKINESIS IN FRONT OF YOU.

I was thinking more of whatever that was that Sylar used on Brian, in order to "determine" that he was broken. Seems like he'd want to do something similar to make sure that Jackie was indeed the one he wanted.

IMHO why can't we just sit back and enjoy the show without trying to pick it to pieces? Good Grief! This is just a fictional TV show. I thoroughly enjoy it every week. Sure some things disappoint and I'm left wondering why. But trying to decipher time travel it a bit useless. It can't happen so the writers are just making things up as they go. There are no real rules to time travel because it is just the imagination of anyone who writes about it. These boards are great for discussion and speculation but why waste time complaining about every little inconsistency? This show is like a good book to me. I sit back, relax and enjoy an hour of pure fantasy.

Because there was a big stick in the middle of it. It needed to heal that damage first - and it couldn't until the stick was removed. Once that was healed, the rest could be repaired.



Really? I haven't seen that post - what thread is it in? I'd like to read it.

I don't think the fact that viewers see a scene in different ways means that the show is self-contradictory in parts. Everyone brings their own perspective to a show, and one that requires such suspension of disbelief as Heroes will certainly end up with viewers justifying things to themselves in different ways. The danger lies in whether the SHOW ever violates it's own created universe. I don't think Heroes has - yet - we'll see what happens with the time travel.





We'll have to disagree on this one. I don't see it as random or sloppy writing. I see it as the writers showing the extent that Jessica is breaking off and taking control. And I do see it as a way they develop Jessica/Niki as a character.



I think the show has shown that Peter, and the whole Petrelli family, certainly has issues. And the idea that Peter would be so convinced that he could fly by his dreams - to the point where he would throw himself off a building - certainly doesn't qualify as normal behaviour. So while the show has been trying to show that Peter was RIGHT about having powers - I took that scene to show us that Peter does have problems/issues that he'd risk such a thing.

I guess I just think that the idea that Peter is messed up enough to do something that desperate is more supported by what we've seen on the show than the idea that Peter flew once on his own, off-camera, and that gave him the courage to try and fly in front of Nathan.




I just never saw it as ambigious. Or at least not enough to consider it contradictory or a plot hole. I see it as the genius and the power working together... or now, the more I think about it, rather that the genius is PART of the power. The same way that Hiro can both stop time and teleport - both abilities connected, but different.



I'd have to rewatch Episode 2 (I'll try and catch it on the SciFi marathon tonight) to remember the exact reason they gave Peter... but I think it was to protect him... it also might have been that they didn't trust Peter not to tell the truth. Again, the family has issues.

I do agree with you on the Sylar/cheerleading thing, though... they need to explain how Sylar finds these people. Is it from the list? Or can he sense them somehow? Either way has continuity problems (unless they can explain how Sylar got the list before Eden altered it).

Ever think we analyze and rationalize all this WAY too much? But the debate is just part of the fun...

Yes but remember Sylar said something like, "A malfunction in the brain." SYLAR SENSED BRIAN"S "DIFFERENCE" YET HE COULD NOT SENSE THAT JACKIE NOT HAVING IT. The issue is, if Sylar intuits metahuman powers in someone, then he should have intuited that Jessica didn't have them.


I don't want all the answers but I do want things to be consistent. The inconsistencies and self-contradictions are the problems some of us are complaining about.

And for the record, as I've said before, I still enjoy the show. But with so many inconsistencies and self-contradictions, suspending disbelief is becoming harder and harder. That's what I am complaining about.

So are you saying that Claire's brain survived when there was a big stick stuck in it and her heart was not beating for several hours?

That itself is a new and different power.

The thing is, she was either died (in which case, taking the stick out of her head should not have brought her back alive) or she was alive (in which case she should have started regenerating immediately). You just can't have it both ways.

By the way, here is the previous thread I mentioned: http://www.9thwonders.com/boards/index.php...38427&st=39


While I agree with the statement, we disagree that the show has violated it's own rules.


Agani, we disagree. How does going back and forth between seeing two images and one develop the character?

Sorry, but I just don't see it.


I can agree with you there except that the show seems to be going out of its way to prove Peter does not have problems. Look at the dynamics between Peter and Nathan.

And again, the interestnig thing about this line of thinking is that I think it would be more interesting if we were shown that Peter does indeed have mental problems.


And as I've said from the first, I can accept that fixing the laptop was an act of genius. But I do think it could have been written better.


If I had the time, I would watch it again, too. But if you find anything, please share it with me. Seriously.




Yeah, it my curse.

Or my metahuman power.

Here is one possible scenario which may not be true, but allows for at least one case where everything we have seen makes sense. This is SPECULATION.

Sylar does not actually "sense" powers nearby.
Sylar has an intricate pattern analysis power ("Clock Vision").
Sylar must deliberately turn on this "Clock Vision".
Sylar uses his power on an interesting subject (TK Boy).
Sylar gains the TK by some unknown mechanism.
Eden removes Claire's name.
Sylar gets some or all of Chandra's list (no Claire on it).
Sylar starts going after Mutants with a full or partial list.
Sylar uses research or other methods to identify people.
Sylar is passing through Texas while hunting other victims.
Sylar picks some victims based on News articles.
Sylar sees a news article with the "other" cheerleader.
Sylar assumes she has powers since she survived a fire.
Sylar thinks he knows who the correct Mutant is (but he is wrong).
Sylar waits for her to be as alone as possible.
Sylar, assuming he has the right one, just starts cutting.
Sylar plans to take the brain and analyze it later.
Sylar sees Claire regenerate from a near terminal blow.
Sylar simply made the wrong assumption on who to "study".
Sylar abandons his "work in progress" ... pursues Claire instead.


That is just one possible scenario that makes sense for me.

Lewis

Hmmm. In a strange way youre kind of right.

Using the show's logic you should be able to cut Claires
head off and whenever you want you can put it back on and shed be fine, lol.

Not to mention that the scene was BS anyway. All of Claires memories etc were stored in her brain. That huge stick destroyed her brain. Sure, she may have regenerated but she shouldnt have retained everything she should have lost.

I mean, how much of Claires brain can be cut off for her to come back as the same person, lol?

There was alot going on at that moment, perhaps he didnt have time to concentrate enough.

Some of the inconsistencies pointed out seem more like someone not understanding exactly what's going on.

You can base a television show on the most outlandish premises you can think of but "A" must always follow "B" in order for it to work. Probably especially in the case of science fiction and fantasy. But when a show, any show, violates the internal logic or consistency of itself, then its done. Period.

No, I don't think Heroes has gone there yet but it does get dangerously close.

You go ahead and let us know when you have your own Successful Sci-Fi show that does that and we'll all watch.

I seriously don't see the problem with Claire regenerating after the stick was removed. I choose option 2 above, but I speculate that the reason she did not start regenerating immediately was because somehow, the stick was blocking the signals from her brain to the rest of her body... kind of like paralysis, but worse. Her body was dead, her mind was not. Haven't there been cases where a person's body was dead (heart not beating) but they were not brain dead? With her brain's super healing ability, it would not have deteriorated as is the case that happens in real life from lack of oxygen (I think).

The stick was perhaps lodged between her brain and her spine... who knows. Probably the only way to kill Claire is to destroy her brain or remove it from her body. I don't see why you are being so closed minded about a power that is so impossible in the first place.

Thanks for the thread.

Let me try to explain this again... I'm obviously not doing a good job so far.

In my rationalization - Claire's brain can survive anything, short of total destruction. That, in turn, allows her to heal from anything. It can't, however, fix anything until the broken/hurt part is back in the right place and nothing else is in the way. When the stick was in her head/neck, it couldn't heal that. And the stick had damaged/was in the brainstem - the part of the brain (I believe) responsible for automated functions like the heart beating and the lungs breathing. So while the stick was there, no, she wasn't breathing and her heart wasn't beating even if the rest of her brain (including the area that controls her power) was still alive. But once the stick was removed, she was able to heal the brainstem/areas of the brain affected, which allowed her to heal the damage lack of oxygen caused to the rest of her body and repair the y-incision made by the coroner (once she put the skin back in place.)

And as for the y-incision - we've seen that Claire doesn't heal instantly. It does take a little time. If the coroner cut, and immediately starting pulling the skin back, it wouldn't be able to heal.

So it all fits together in my head... what am I missing?

Snowmeow, with all respect I dont think youre right. Its not her brain thats regenerating things.
Remember the scene in her kitchen? Her hand didnt heal because there was something stuck in it. Nothing happened till she pulled it out.

Basically its very simple, her body can regenerate when it is unobstructed. Like you can hold hands with your friend but not when a brick wall is between you, lol.

The cells will come together and heal but not if there is something blocking them.

i think i created a monster with this thread

i want to clear up that i do love this show, i started this thread to show my fear that with the trend of inconsistancies this show may be doomed down the road

but i'm glad that everyone is debating in a mature manner

What you're saying is that Claire's brain doesn't die. And that IS a new power of hers.

Even forget the stick for a moment. When she was dead, her brain was not getting any blood or oxygen because her heart stopped beating. Even the part of her brain resposnible for her super-healing ability was not getting blood or oxygen for several hours (the time it took her to be transported to the autopsy table). Therefore, even the part of her brain that is responsible for her super-healing should have dead.

I can suspend disbelief enough to think that, brain alive, Claire can regenerate from any injury, no matter how catastrophic. But my thing is, how did the part of Claire's brain that is responsible for her super-healing bring itself back to life?

Or how can her brain -- including the part that is responsible for her super-healing -- survive without blood or oxygen?


But in defense of "snowmeow9", we were told in this episode that the powers are based in the brain. Besides, if you are correct, then shouldn't the rest of Claire's body started to heal immediately?

For example, shouldn't the incisions to open her chest start healing immediately before they pinned her chest cavity open for the autopsy?

Or worse yet, the point that you and "snowmeow9" are now arguing is another inconsistency within the show.


And for the record, I am in perfect agreement with you. Despite everything, I still currently like the show.

I think the show has made it clear that in it's universe, these powers are sourced in the brain. Without Claire's brain being the way it is, she wouldn't have these healing abilities. The suggestion was that Sylar could kill Claire by removing her brain, permanently keeping her from healing.

In the case with the stick, it was in her brain, obstructing it from healing itself. It was in a place that meant her heart couldn't beat and her lungs couldn't breathe. As MeMyselfandI points out, the lack of oxygen to the brain meant the rest of her brain was also being damaged but nothing there kept it from healing itself. Brain death from lack of oxygen isn't immediate. Her brain was stuck in a cycle of continuous damage and continuous regeneration. (I wonder what would happen if Claire tried to breathe underwater or something..) The y-incision had the skin pulled out of place, so it couldn't heal. Was there other damage that should have repaired itself? Because that WOULD crimp my theory.

And of course I could be wrong. It's just my theory/explanation.



Sorry, vernies_garden .. I got carried away. I'll stop now. It really is just all our opinions until the show confirms or contradicts them. We can argue and debate until we are blue in the face, but we can't prove anything.

Thanks for the thought-provoking posts, MeMyselfandI!

ETA: And I love this show too! I just like to debate and defend my theories. I do agree that inconsistancies can doom a show (I'm looking at you, Alias and Lost). I just don't see Heroes going down that path - yet. No offense to Heroes or anyone on this thread was intended.

Hmmm. Actually youre right.
Why didnt everything else heal up while the stick was in?

I think that was a total mistake on the part of the writers and for this reason:

If the reason is: "her brain was damaged so her heart wasnt pumping blood" then all the cells/organs should have just shut down. They cant have it both ways. So what she auto-regenerated enough to keep everything alive but not to the point of regenrating her cuts and the Y incision?

If Claire was knocked out I would imagine that a cut on her hand would heal - which would mean its not a conscious action.

Like when Peter is knocked out / killed when he falls with Sylar but he still wakes up - im assuming because of some auto-regeneration while he was knocked out.

So either all things should heal always (unless obstructed) or only consciously.

I think that for the benefit of storytelling they couldnt have the Y incision (before the rib spreader mind you) heal in front of the medical examiner.

I dont see any issues with her power, really. A healing factor may be a bit wonky. Also, it could be that the more extreme the damage, the longer it takes. They could also simply be linking the functioning of her power with the integrity of her brain, since the powers "stem" (pun) from there. So, between her powers being "new", and "comic booky" and the like, I can view everything as fitting together fine.

Also, someone said that regeneration and resurrection are seperate powers. Maybe. Whatever heals her may not require that she be alive. Every cell could be rotten and she might get better. Depends on how it works. She may not have a mutant power to heal, but a mutant power to secrete and compel microorganisms or freaky protein chains she creates to repair her body. That could still let her regen long after death. The control over these micro-items could still be linked to her brain because of their comic book requirement of an intact brain or control center or whatever.

One other note, we may see her power increase. Right now she is dependent on her brain to be whole (seemingly) to regen, as all the "mutants" are significantly linked to the brain. Later, she may surpass that limit. Maybe its only "now" that she would be vulnerable. Maybe later, she would transcend that requirement with practice or experience.


Also, it may ultimately turn out the powers are supernatural and the dna / mutations are a side effect of THAT.

Anyway, we are in a comic book universe, and how sci fi it is or isnt remains to be seen. For non comic book people it may be a problem, but after years and years of comics, given any set of constraints, you can piece together some scenario that links them all ... until they throw the next wrench in. Then you have to revise things again.

Lewis

You're welcome.

And no offense taken with anything in this thread. I just hope I have not given offense to any.