Sylar gets his neck broken. You know, where the spinal cord is pinched and/or torn and/or severed completely. Major major damage. But Sylar recovers very quickly, within a handful of seconds (Sylar also recovers very quickly from being shot repeatedly in the heart and lungs a few eipsodes back). Peter on the other hand gets thrown a mere 3 feet into reinforced glass and is out like a light even though the injury is minor. Mrs. Petrelli and Sylar have a little chat over him, not concerned that he would wake up soon.

So how can Sylar heal and get up in seconds, but Peter gets a little tap on the head and he is out for minutes, if not longer?

Is the key to taking out regenerators hitting them in the head with anything harder than a nerf bat?

He was knocked unconscious, just like Adam was later on in the episode. I guess a regenerator would just regain consciousness like anybody else. Unless you'd like to turn this into another "plot hole", it's no rocket science.

Plus you have to take into consideration... Sylar has much more control over his power than Peter. Peter is stressed and all over the place right now, and just beginning to deal with the hunger that comes with acquiring IA. Sylar, on the other hand, has already tapped into the workings of regeneration to its fullest potential, just as he does when he acquires any other power. It makes sense if you look at it like that.

Hope that helps :]

I guess being knocked unconscious isn't enough to trigger regeneration. Although when you classify it as mild blunt force trauma, it makes me wonder.

Who said anything about a plot hole? This thread is about examining injuries and how they effect the regenerators. Apparently actions which are fatal to normals, or which severely shock the central nervous system (like damaging ones spinal cord from a broken neck), are recoverable in mere seconds, but a normal powered bop on the head leads to unconsciousness. It is a peculiar weakness of the regenerators that is worth noting.

Actually it is even odder than that. If you, a normal powered dude, stabs someone in the head with a knife, but the blade doesn't stay in, the regenerator recovers immediately. If you punch the regenerator instead, you can knock him out cold.

I wonder how knockout gas effects regenerators. Does it work, but poison gas does not?

Hmm. The way I see it, the bruise, concussion, etc. would go away but the person would still be knocked out and would regain consciousness X amount of time later, like any normal human being would.

Well sure, getting hit on the head is an injury. As one web page put it "when a person gets knocked unconscious by a punch it is not the immediate force of the impact which does this, but rather the force of the brain being rattled against the inside of the skull." Your brain is like meatball floating in liquid inside a hard shell. When the shell hits the wall your brain is going to get smacked around.

Sounds like a injury doesn't it? Not as bad as a knife to the brain mind you, but bad enough that the person loses consciousness.. which should mean the regenerators should recover from it quickly. But for some reason they don't.

Well that is clearly what happens on the show. I just find it odd, that's all. Lots of other injuries the regenerators get would cause shock and/or loss of consciousness in a normal person, yet they never pass out from any of those.

Which makes me wonder how other methods of injury would affect their state of consciousness. Knockout gas? It knocks out normals, would it knock out them? What would poisons do? Like toxic gases or ingested poisons - Is there a difference between sleeping agents and agents which physically damage? Is Peter fighting the effects of the sedation drug or is his healing power ignoring it all together?

It looked, to me, like Peter hit, and broke, the window with his shoulder, not his head.

In Season 1, we know Peter has to think of the person he took the power from in order for the power to work. If he's knocked out and didn't think of Claire or Adam in time, then he won't be able to regenerate. Sylar is different. He immediately heals because his power is more like Claire and Adam's, a defense mechanism.

However, as for Knox punching Adam, Adam didn't just easily get punched out. Remember, Knox punched the hell out of him, probably fueled by fear of those around. We've already seen what he can do with a punch, so it'd be no wonder that a direct hit to the head could cause trauma to the brain, even for Adam. He'd be knocked out until he healed and woke up. More than likely, Knox sedated him continuously.

So, this also answers your questions to sedation. Obviously, it affects those with regeneration. However, you'd have to pump chemicals continuously into an individual to keep them sedated. Just like Claire had that branch stuck in her head; she didn't heal until it was pulled out. She can't fully heal until the object in any wound is removed and the skin or organs are put back into place. If you're continuously pumping a sedative into their system, it's counteracting against the healing agent. It's trying to heal what the first drop of sedation caused, but a new drop flows through the system and the healing process must start over again.

Kind of complicated, but I hope I explained it well enough.

i just wanted to say that sylar's neck breaking was really good special effects just me being excited ab things
i think peter was knocked out and then possibly drugged to keep him restrained?

Gabriel had a fraction of a second to think about he neck being broken (Could have thought with his IA... If I were Peter I would break my neck...) This could have triggered the needed response to start just before the break occured. Peter on the other hand was taken by surprise when he was flipped and thrown into the glass.

Peter has not learned how to multi-task yet where Gabriel has.

Sylar was never able to "think of things" seconds before they happened nor will he ever be.
His power is more technical then most think and it was already shown in the show in many ways.
If he would see something and know the follow ups so he can immediately pull a power out that fits the purpose than he would had done that in many situations and not only in this one.

He only knows how a thing work after he examined it (studying it).
How things work has a wide spectrum but it was always shown that it has nothing to do with evaluing situations, its rather more simple.

Other than that peter has not to think of the person, he has just to bring up the feeling that brings out the power and make it work.

ok...It does not bother me that others disagree. I always admit that I could be wrong.
I've seen many of your posts where there are many good ideas and have said so, even recently.
This point is extremely minor in my opinion.
Ok, no problem here.
If he is not thinking things through then what good is IA? I think you are wrong here.I think this is still hotly debated.

I know what you mean but

- if this would had been the case, he would never kill jackie because he would already know that she has no ability.
- he wouldn't have to kill and examine the brain to find out where the ability lies so he can use it
- he wouldn't have be taken by surprise in many situations
The reason that he said to knox that he knows how knox power works wasn't the IA, it was because he already knew knox from the past.

You see him having knoxs file in his hands in claires home (in the future his home) and the two will definately meet again this season which will show how he finds out about knoxs power if he doesn't already know. However, I'm also sure that HRG even told him what the escapees can do as well.


And yet confirmated.

The proof? Peter could never had thought about D.L. since he never really meet him!
He still used phasing twice when he needed it like: "I need to reach Adam, need to go to the other side", than he touches the wall to see if he can remove it through TK and finds out that he doesn't even need to because D.L.s ability kicks through and he goes through the wall. Later even can immediately phase him and Adam out of the room.

Later in ireland the same thing happens, Caitlin is in trouble and he obviously thinks about helping her, he phases through the ties and does so.

Thanks a lot about your nice comments about my postings as well.
I rather get flamed or bashed on these boards so to see that there also people that think otherwise feels good.

Do we know how strong the glass in the cells is? It appears to be some sort of nigh-unbreakable type of material (else why use it for a prison?), which to me would mean that the force needed to break it with someone's head would be significant.

And hitting the regen heroes in the back of the head/brain is effective, as we've seen before.

You are welcome. Post with you again later...

You mean like the time claire broke her neck stupidly while a football player was rushing past her and put her head back together in season 1? yeah...I thought so.

And DL and Peter haven't formerly met, but DL and Niki were at Kirby Plaza during the battle.

If Peter's powers are based on feelings, then who is to say he didn't retrieve phasing from DL during the battle? And he simply had the same feelings that he did during the battle and that's how he used the phasing powers.