Hi all, new to the forum...Actually I've been reading them for quite sometime but always had problems activating membership (probably an AOL email thing)

Anyway, I'm finally a member.

After watching last night's episode I have a hard time understanding what a sword would have to do with Hiro's powers.

They worked before, now he is in this slump since Charlie died but he still has the powers, even if they aren't working as great.

I payed attention to the story behind the sword, but still, I just don't get it. I mean let's say he does get the sword from Linderman but then looses it, does that mean his powers won't work as well without having the sword. I just don't like the idea, I hope its more metaphoric than him actually having to have the sword to use his time/space powers properly.

Well, he originally got the idea from Future Hiro when Peter told him about it. That is the main reason Hiro is getting a sword in the first place. I think he feels that if he will be travelling back and forth in time, he will need a weapon that suits his name.

He doesn't believe in himself right now at all, which is putting limits on his powers. The sword will help him believe in himself.

Yeah... I just think that the sword will raise his self-confidence, making his power grow again.

what I got from it is that the sword would amplify his powers. His Powers are getting weak and therefore he would need that sword not to get back his powers...which i thought was gonna happen...but for him to get stronger.

In the stroy the japanese man from the tapastry aquired the sword and gained immense power. I think that will happen with Hiro. It may be a mix of a metophorical self esteem boost and an actual item that boost one's power.

I mean if not...why would Linderman have it aside from being a collector's item.

I think it may be a bit like Dumbo and his "magic" feather. Or perhaps more to the point, like Isaac and heroin. Hiro doesn't actually need the sword to focus/amplify his powers, but he's having a crisis of confidence after losing Charlie (and also, he still thinks that he failed to save the cheerleader as well) and so he's losing his control over his abilities. If he believes the sword will help him, it probably will, simply because he believes it.

I agree with SukiWatching. We don't know if it would amplify Hiro's powers - that remains to be seen.

For the time being though, it would serve as a focus point for Hiro, sort of like when people meditate and say, "OHM..." to help them focus. It might not be necessary it sure does help.




(for those of you interested...OHM was believed to be the word Brahman said when he created the world in the Hindu religion - at least, that's what I was taught in my World Religions class)

Wondering, lets say the sword DOES help Hiro focus his powers, would that mean we would lose Hiros trademark *Squint* when he does try to stop time? Please say this wont be true!
Hehe you know we all love it when he does do it. <3

Maybe it'll change, PillPhreakerz, and He'll use a sword to slice open a time portal...possibly not but it would be cool.

As it's been pointed out, the emotional state of Hiro affects his ability to concentrate and control time and after realizing he couldn't save Charlie, it has him questioning his powers and self confidence.

It's the placebo effect, if he really believes the sword has magical powers, he'll more than likely regain the mastery he previous held over his abilities.

ooh yes that is a great idea: slicing open time portals...

also i think he needs "training" to control his powers, but he hasn't got the time to learn how to properly use them, so instead he'll utilize the sword to focus his powers/channel them

still once he is removed from his sword, i think his "inner powers" will unleash or something to that effect

I think Hiros powers are linked to his emotions or mental state. In the begining he was super confident about his powers so they worked without a hitch. Now that he has lost Charlie and he feels that he failed the cheerleader he was suppose to save, he feels that his powers will only come back to full strenght with the sword. Its all a mental thing for him. If he thinks his powers will come back with the sword then they will.

How about the fact that the hilt of the sword has the symbol on it. That's got to play a factor.

To me, the sword has NOTHING to do with his power at all. That's just another silly way to add some silly story for a silly character

Well, technically, "DNA" has nothing to do with super hero powers either. The human body, no matter how it were programmed, simply cannot be made to have the kind of powers the characters on the show have. Most of the powers on the show are theoretically possible for a machine of unimaginable complexity, though warping space to create time dilation or wormholes would take planets of mass and energy probably. (and even then, physics of course don't allow for backwards time travel earlier than the time the wormhole 'time shortcut' was created, and most physicists further won't allow for information from the future to travel to the past with the light cone of the wormhole)

Even mere nightstick snapping super strength is too far above the maximum strength of a mammal. An 'android' could do it, were it packed with high powered motors or hydraulics.

Since I am willing to suspend disbelief, I fully believe an ancient ARTIFACT...perhaps on earth for thousands or millions of years, that happens to look like a sword on the outside...could amplify and dramaticaly strengthen Hiro's power.

I think the sword is real : it will allow him powers far in excess of anything he has demonstrated previously. So strong that he might be able to travel years into the past, or to risk creating 'rifts' in the space time continum as a result of his power. He might be able to pause time for minutes, even hours on end.

err... did you not watch the show. they explained the symbol on the sword.

i agree that the sword is a placebo, but also a tedious way to link the characters together.

...and how come simone is so "up for it" now? she is apparently gonna waltz in with hiro and they're gonna steal the steel?

interesting that the painting she rolls up is of Hiro with the sword..Mr Linderman will be very pleased

The sword definitely has both real and symbolic significance.
I think it will help Hiro gain control over his powers, though I don't know the exact mechanics.

Hey, I like this guy.

Post more often please.

Like Grim with his scythe from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

i like the idea that the sword helps hiro believe in himself (like dumbo's feather) and therefore use his powers again after the hard lessons learns with charlie.

ur cool lol

You are all insane. The sword most definitely gives Hiro more power. It realigns quarks and boson particles and can do quantum singularities and has a built in flux capacitor.


I KNOW I AM.

My take on the situation is that yes...the sword is special. The "great talent"/"godsend" sigil has been showing up far too much for the sword to be simply a "magic feather". Nothing is that coincidental

I have an additional belief, however, that the problem with Hiro's powers is not solely mental. That could indeed be playing into it, but I think that the briefly mentioned potential for a "paradox" has a part to play.

The quintessential setup for a paradox occurred when Hiro went back to "save" Charlie. In that instant he created a time wave that shot forward from six months ago and changed everything prior. The picture at her birthday was our little eye candy to represent this, but think of the contradiction on all levels. The universe metaphorically had to break out the mouse, go back to each person that came into contact with him, "click the cursor" to the appropriate point, and "insert the text" that they saw him, or worked with him, or whatever. That temporal wave rocked his powers greatly and until it subsides he will be at a great disadvantage (as "presumably" would all other time benders).

While the sword will likely amplify his powers and enable him to even greater focus and ability I believe that we could very well be astounded by the effect if he obtains it and the temporal wave settles. Perhaps the ability to choose an exact moment, freeze time, deliver a message, and without his trademark "concentration squeeze" hop right back into his own time...hmm.

As for the explanation as to how a sword could increase or focus one's powers... I would say that it will likely have something to do with the "meteoric" metal used as that is the easiest answer and as we are already suspending disbelief the easiest to stomach because it is the most cliched.

First post down... hope for many more!

Cheers,

Feyd Rautha
"I am the Kwisatz Haderach!"

I'll give you a different take on why the sword is important, and maybe moreso than a "placebo effect" (although that is probably the more accurate accessment, mine is strictly "comic book fanboy style")...

Let's take Harry Potter as an example. Harry is born a Wizard, which isn't much different than our Heroes really. He is proven to be magical in the first book (or movie if you prefer) by making the glass to the snake tank disappear. Later on, he gets his magic wand, which allows him to harness, focus and control (after much practice) his magical ability. The wand itself isn't what is magical - it's still Harry.

Another actual comic book example - a villian in the X-Men series is Black Tom Cassidy, brother of Banshee. He fires energy bolts thru his shilleghligh, but he is still a mutant born with that power - he just has better aim using the stick. It's the difference between using a shotgun vs. using a rifle.

While the wand indeed helps with focusing his magical abilities, the wand itself IS indeed magical, since every wand contains a part of a magical animal (unicorn hair, dragon's blood, phoenix feather) to make it work.

I actually have a theory, and I don't read these forums much so i don't know if this has already been brought up before... but I think that Hiro will use this sword to control his powers for sure.

Some how or another, I think Hiro will travel back in time, intentionaly to retireve the sword, or accidently when using his powers.

he'll find the sword in a snowbank or save a warrior who used the sword, in return the warrior or master will teach hiro how to use the sword, all the while they will help him hone his abilty to control time.

over time, Hiro will become an excellent swords man and witht he ability to stop time be able to take on entire armies and become a man of legend we see in the tapestries.

when he's learned all he can from the past, he'll return to the future a hardened warrior with control over his abilites and a sword from the past, given to him as the saviour of the ancient people of japan.

The man in the tapestry had a soul patch and long hair, and I think when Hiro first traveled in time to meet peter on the train, he also wore a sould patch and sported long hair and carried himself with much more composure.

I'm thinking that if hiro does not get the sword from linderman, he will from the past.

i think that the swords main purpose was for hiro to aquire his powers back by building selfconfidence and also...experience a whole other side to his powers. now he has experience of slow motion. that means (assuming his powers were really low) that when he is back to normal, he can use slowmotion instead of freezing time and will consume half the energy. this will also look so awesome when he actually gets the sword and slice bad guys in slow motion !. i think of hiro as a DVD player. i believe he has the power to rewind, fastforward, slowmo, pause, and other functions)

I just thought of a super hero name for you...

Bluntman!

Way to go dude!

I think it has more to do with Hiro's confidence than anything. He's lost it, what with not being able to save Charlie, so he's lost his powers, too.

That said, I think that he thinks that if he gets the sword, he'll get his confidence back, believing that he'll get his powers back.

And once he does, it won't be because of the sword, but because he believes in himself again.

Then again, I could be WAY wrong.

I also tend to believe that Hiro does not *need* the sword any more than he believes he does. As far as his powers diminishing, maybe there is an explanation. Now, I'm not sure about the timing around all of this but consider this idea:


Perhaps his power has diminished because there is more than one Hiro in the timestream. And, as the Hiro we have been following is the newest with his powers, it has diminished to a point where it appears that it has been lost).

We don't see this concept show up a lot in time travel stories. It gets alluded to (sorta) in the movie Time Cop (where a single person can't occupy the same point in time and space multiple times). But it does get described in detail throughout the Dragonriders of Pern series of books. When a dragonrider ends up travelling through time and existing in the same point in time multiple times) the person is often fatigued and has "unexplained" weakness (as I recall, it's been a few years since I've gone into the books...)

Anyway, we know that Hiro-from-the-subway has made multiple attempts to save the world. Perhaps we are now at a point, just a few weeks before someone or something goes boom in NYC, where Hiro exists twice, three, four, more? times in this same local temporal space.

Hey... it's not any more out there of a theory than some of the others I've seen while lurking here for the last couple of months..

I'm reminded of a quotation:

Katherine Janeway: When I was at the academy I promised myself I'd never get into one of those temporal paradoxes. The past is the future, the future is the past... frankly the whole damn thing gives me a headache.