Well love hte cop out send tracy away since we cant use her for this arc.

but daphne. that made sense and i liked how they played it.

Poor Daphne. No wonder she liked her ability so much.

It also explains quite well why she was afraid of Arthur.

I kno! I loved how her past came into the show! She had to broken legs! It was great

i think its more she had some muscle problem they played it as if she was compeltely weak all over.

I feel so bad for her. She's still adorable though. I was thinking that she just wasn't going to be able to run fast but not that she would need crutches. Kinda odd how she said 'It's happening again' Maybe the eclipse comes around every few years.

I know... it makes sense why those ribbons for relay races meant so much to her.

it was the second best moment of the episode (behind almost!naked Mo). I Litterally gasped when i saw it! Poor Dauphne. She is slowly becoming one of my favourites.

Kinda strange story imo.

I kno! I felt so badddd! it was terrible but at least it explains why she doesn't want to go back to "were she came from" like arthur always theartens her with!

My slightly twisted brain at work:

The moment I saw her walk out with those leg braces, I thought "Run Forrest, Run!"

sigh.


Anyway, that scene was powerful and I sure didn't see it coming. How does that have anything to do with Arthur's hold on her? or does it?

A great plot twist. I didn't see it coming at all.

But yeah, I feel so bad for Daphne.
No wonder she is so afraid of Arthur.

like i said in one of the other topics, it's kind of ironic how she has to rely on her power to be normal while the others are special. very nice twist.

Ah, good point. I suck at figuring out the little details, lol.

The thought crossed my mind... but... wow lol.

I think that has a lot to do with Arthur, maybe he helped her to use her power in the beginning, i dunno.

Very nice point

Because if Arthur took away her power, she'd be in the crutches again. But...did he give her the power? I can't remember the comic that well. Did she mention anything about her origins there?

I've seen it mentioned in a few places by the Heroes staffers that the power really does draw from the person's true character in some way. Kudos to the writers for making such a poignant correlation between her character and her power.

yeah, we haven't seen a great power correlation since season 1, and this one was definitely a shock. It does put a nice twist on what it means to have powers for different people

Hadn't looked at it that way, but very true. Poor Daph

Yeah, wow. Now we know what Pinehearst was holding against Daphne. So, before she got her power, she was actually crippled. No wonder she loved her power so much. It let her over come this to be "normal", and much more. Her power really was a gift and a blessing. Very interesting to learn this. The reveal was pretty well done and it adds some good depth to the character.

And now Arthur has been threatening her with taking this away. What a horrible man.

Totally shocked. I agree with the person above me, who said that she has to have her power to be normal. It's a really moving plot point. Daphne without speed is..like...IDK but it sucks.

The way I tend to see it... Daphne had her legs problem before she manifested. When she manifested, she got super speed... so it completely changed her legs (healed it) to work accordingly.

Arthur can take away her power, so she'll revert back to what we're seeing right now during the eclipse if he does.


I actually had a feeling that her situation would be something like this. They gave us enough clues, I thought.

maybe she still has the problems with the powers. and its just she can move so fast she appears to be moving normally. or she can move hyper fast if she wishes.

after watching this part and this thread...
is making me love daphne more..

i just love this plot twist...

When I saw that, I thought

"my names Daphne Gump... people callll me Daphne Gump."

I wonder if her power was synthetic, and like Mohinder she was returned to "normal" with this event. ?

The only thing that doesn't fit is that when they were at the movies and her powers got blocked by the haitian, she was still walking and running "normally" without being crippled.

Other than that I like her development a lot.

My heart broke when i saw her poor thing

My take on this was that the Haitian merely stifles the powers rather than robbing them away.

Such great writing. A character who couldn't use their legs but miraculously had their ability to walk restored to them.

Oh, wait...

Correct Matt has shown in season 1 to be able to break though the Haitian's mental suppression.

Its not power cancelling per se. It is a more refined talent using his mental manipulation ability which involves affecting the brain. (Memory erasing)

I had so called this early on a post for Eris Quod Sum back on Oct. 28. I hate when my brain starts to over think the small things and comes up with the best possible theory.

I submitted a question about Daphne and the Haitian in the movie theater for next week's Behind the Eclipse, so we'll see if the answer they give is similar to the one you gave... if they pick my question.

I would have figured that even if the Haitian was around at that time in the movie theater. Daphne's ability would have been canceled out but the crippling effect was taking some time to set in as she mentioned that she could feel it coming back. So she lucked out that Ando knocked out the Haitian when he did, otherwise we would have know about her condition way earlier than anticipated.

Was anyone else expecting Daphne to come out of the shadows all old and wrinkled? I thought a side effect of her speedy nature was going to make her age more rapidly, and Arthur was preventing it somehow. I was realy off the mark lol

Read the latest GN. No, she's "natural" and not "synthetic". But her power "healed" her legs to where she can walk and run not only normally, but "paranormally". I think this is the first time we've seen that plot.



Well, it appeared to have taken a few hours or so for her disease to come back where she needed the braces / crutches. And The Haitian was only blocking her power for minutes.



That's my general tentative take on it, as well. He just prevents "access" to the powers via the brain somehow, but he doesn't actually take them away. I think the argument could be made that his suppression wouldn't kill Adam or wouldn't make Daphne's disease come back.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I didnt notice that she looked older, ill have to watch it again...but truthfully if they are using the laws of physics, she would be much younger than everyone else

the faster you go, the slower you age

Maybe the Haitian somehow makes the "victim" temporarily "forget" how to access that part of the brain to consciously perform the power. This can explain how Matt and others can break through with enough will power, too. The ability is still there, so Daphne could still walk like normal when near Haitian.

daphne only became crippled when the power itself was not present at all; ie. prior to manifesting, eclpise, Arthur threats, etc.

*ANNOYED*

There is nothing wrong with having a disability! It disappoints me greatly that people just seem to take the "Medical Model" viewpoint to heart, especially if they're one of those Average * people. * An average person is one who doesn't have a disability, BTW.

Would people stop using the term "cripple", please? It's rude. Akin to one of those {evil, hateful} racial slurs. Unless you are part of that group you don't really Own the word, and shouldn't be throwing it about needlessly. So unless you're a Cripple Chick/ Guy --- please refrain from throwing the term of Cripple around, okay? Normally we use the phrase Crip-Chick, or Crip-Dude BTW.

Feeling sorry for a person with a disablity is like feeling sorry for a person for not having blue eyes. People with a disablity don't want pity. They are just people. Just people.

* And those Forest Gump references. Just don't get me started on that movie! *Growls In Annoyance* Look Daphne may in fact be a Crip-Chick (remember what I said about those who can use that term!), but she is not anything else like Forest Gump! I mean she Only has a physical disablity not a mental one as well. (At least last time I checked.)

Please, don't lump the two together by thinking :: A physical disablity automatically means a mental one as well. Nothing drives a person with a disability crazier than that Way Too Common Misconception.

As Far As The Haitian Making Daphne Need Her Crutches Immediately ~ We saw in this last episode that Daphne's disablity came on gradually. While everybody else lost their ability as an immediate effect, Daphne didn't. Her's was a slower process which she could actually feel, while none of the other's did. Which personally I rather liked in a way. After all the word "disablity" comes from two seperate words :: Ability - which is what our Heroes/ Villians have, and "dis" meaning a lack of. It fits in nicely with the whole Independent Living (IL) philosophy. Makes me proud of the episode in that regard.

And hopefully there will be a more constructive dialog about people with disabilities now. Which also pleases me greatly. All around not annoyed any longer!

I don't see what your problem with people calling Daphne a cripple. A cripple is someone who can't use one or more of their limbs. In other words Daphne is a cripple without her power. That is just the cold hard fact, there is nothing snide about it, and nobody is using it in a rude manner. It is no more derogatory than to say that someone has a fractured bone.
The fact that people feel sorry for Daphne shows that they can empathise with her. In other words they actually care about the character.

to answer the question about the haitian and Daphne,

it took Daphne a while before she became crippled again, it was not instant.

what the haitian actually does is emit a field that stops restricts the adrenal chemical from being produced which gives abilities. When someone pushes through his null field, its becasue they are pumping more adrenal fluid through stress, which allows the chemical to produce, albeit at a reduced rate which is why matt did't have the full use of his ability.

..in more simple terms.

to manifest their abilities, specials require a chemical produced by the adrenal gland to activate, the more fluid pumpin the more power they can access. The haitian's ability allows him to restrict the chemical produced by the gland, which without the chemical the power can not activate. By focusing and thus increasing your stress level, your body can produce and increase the level of adreanal fluid within your body, thus alowing at least a minute amount of the chemical to flow, granting access to your abilities albeit reduced from the lack of chemicals needed to sustain your powers.

I like this thoery better then my "forgetful" one since it explains the Haitian's ability while including what we learned of the abilities so far.

However, since his ability is called Mental Manipulation, he may just control/manipulate the part of the brain that controls the adrenal glands instead of hindering the glands themselves directly.

Nice speculation, IMO. I can go with that, myself.

What say you about how the "memory erasing" aspect of his overall power works?

thats an interesting theory about Daphne's powers gradually going away, maybe thats why she was so nervous before the eclipse. I thought that she was going to come out of the shadows with her age regressed or something, but that was a shock. It was good writing, I actually really enjoy the interplay between both Matt and Daphne!

I really don't buy into the politically correct bull crap. I don't.

Someone who is crippled (and I will use that word, because it is quite literal and is only offensive when 1 of the 2 parties involved decides to make it so) when they are deprived of the use (incompletely or completely) of a limb, usually of the legs.

Handicapped is another word that also works.

Someone not born with blue eyes is not handicapped in any way- save perhaps in Hitler's Germany back in the 30s.

Someone without the use of their eyes? Without the use of their ears? Without the use of one or more limbs?

Yeah, they are.

And nothing about it denotes a mental handicap as well as a physical one. And nobody here even implied that it did.

But the truth, hard as it may be to accept, is that Daphne is crippled. Without those crutches and braces, she can't walk at all. With them it's a struggle.

So, yes. She's handicapped. She's crippled. She is physically disadvantaged in a way no one with full use of their limbs is.

Is she still fully human? Of course. Is she still capable of living a full and productive life? Certainly. Nobody has denied that.

But she's not capable of doing things that others take for granted. Every person on the planet, with full use of all limbs, can run. Some run fast, some run slow, but they all are capable of running. She's not. (That was a simple example. You could also include jumping, crouching, kicking...)

Alessandra - How do you feel about the portrayal of disability by the writers? It could be interpreted as actually quite negative. After all, Daphne is clearly very distressed and self-conscious about not being able to walk after her ability is suppressed. She doesn't want Matt to see her as she truly is, and hides herself away. In my view that's a much less positive take on disability than say Charles Xavier from X-Men, whose power is unrelated to his disability (his legs were broken by a huge stone block), and who basically runs the show.

Love your point about the relationship between 'disability' and 'ability'.

I was going to stay out of this, but I will say one thing and then run and hide.

For those of you who are so "anti-PC," consider that there is a difference between saying someone is crippled and calling them a cripple. The first describes, while the latter defines. How would you like for others to label or define you not by what you CAN do but by what you CAN'T do?

And who has the right to say that something is not offensive just because they aren't offended by it? By that standard, no one would have a right to be offended by any word if anyone says it's not offensive.

This show does attempt to at least research the disability it used in the case of niki's dissociative identity disorder. I'd hope they have odne the same for whatever they wish to portray Daphne with.