I have recently got my girlfriend hooked on heroes, and we were watching season one, and during episode 16, there is a scene where nathan is talking to simone, and he says he cant tell anyone about all of their abilities, because if people found out they would all be shipped off to a lab, and she asked if he really thought that, and he said "thats what i would do, round them all up and have them shipped off to an island in the middle of the ocean"

i had to laugh when i heard this

its weird how far back the foreshadowing really goes

To be honest though, it doesn't seem likely that the writers did think that far in advance.

They didn't, but it's still something worthy of pointing out. I had forgotten about that, myself! Thank you for reminding us, jbs.

Oh, man. This would have been the most excellent observation ever if the brains behind the show had properly prepared Nathan's character for the betrayal he committed in the finale. As it stands, it's just a coincidence, but it's definitely a neat one.

Just a coincidence?

The way the Hunger was just a coincidence?

This place makes me laugh sometimes. Yes, this season had some problems (although fewer than some people seem to think) and, yes, sometimes the show seems to be made up as it goes along.

Sometimes, though, certain strings, especially regarding specific elements of specific characters, are fully planned out and run solidly through.

Sylar in this season was not a departure, but a return.

Nathan at the end of this volume did exactly what he told us he would do.

I thought this thread was about Nathan, not Sylar...?

It is. I was pointing out that too many "coincidences" happened this season that directly followed statements and character issues from S1 for them to be true coincidence.

This bit about Nathan turning them over to the Government was not a "coincidental" relation to his S1 statement.

But taking all those things when writing the future is a great way to have continuity. To be honest they may have had this idea in their heads as I hear Vol 5 was something the show has been thinking about since season one - and whatever it is it has to have a direct effect from what happens in Vol 4 - which is the true opening of Pandora's box - no going back from this.

How stupid to say it is only coincidence. You do realize they have a outline of the story and plot already made up that spans from beginning to possible endings. Sure they have to change certain things do to budget cuts or actors with health problem or actors finding better jobs and such. But the basic storyline had to already be made up so they could pitch the show to NBC. You think a network would put a show on that was not backed up by at least an outline of things to come?

i remember durring an interview tim kring gave when season 1 was still airing, where he said he already had the show mapped out where he wanted it to go for the next 5 years or so

Great post, Picklehead. Of course they have storylines planned, and the circumstances are subject to change as the show goes on. But the writers always have a solid mapping out of what they want to happen in the show.

I think the map of where they want to go has been drastically changed since Season 2 bombed. After all, volume three was not originally supposed to be Villains.

but it was meant to be vol 4 - all they did was skip a volume and ad some of what was going to be 3 into the 3 we got.

I don't think it's a coincidence... Since in the 5 Years Gone timeline, Sylar said that Nathan had already betrayed his own kind before Sylar got to him (which I assume is indicating that the Sylar replaced Nathan after he has already installed the "round up the specials and put them into camps" policy)... And the 5 Years Gone timeline has not yet diverged from the current timeline (which would have occur after Hiro returned from 5YG and made changes in the "present") when Nathan made that comment... So I think the writers has always intended this character to have the potential to do such a thing...

And I remember reading an interview in S1 where Tim Kring said that in S2 he wanted to dump all the characters from S1 and start again on a new story with new characters, but all that got scrapped because all the fans went 'oh we love peter petrelli oooh'. So, obviously, plans have been HIGHLY subject to change!

A bit off topic, but I would have preferred that Tim Kring did the above. Think, in S1 we all got so excited when the heroes started meeting up. We could have had that on a grander scale... like, towards the end of Kring's S2, Peter and Hiro (or any other characters from S1) and start to get mixed into the S2 characters and storyline. This could then continue over multiple seasons, with S3 occurring and having a mix of characters etc etc etc.

Cheers

Peter and Nathan were not supposed to die though. Ever. At least not in S1.

He wanted to kill most of them. Not all of them.

And the point remains, which is the point of this thread, that shrugging links off as "coincidence" or "retcon" is sloppy viewing. The links are there because they're supposed to be.

I agree with Synch here.