More Heroics
Nov 28th, 2007 by abi
Have just (belatedly) seen the latest episode of ‘Heroes’ just in time to bring me up to date for tonight. I really feel it’s starting to get good. That was by some way the best episode yet.
It is starting to tie my poor little brain in knots though. I reckon I might have missed something. How come Claire was still alive in the future? I thought the whole point was that Sylar could not be killed and he could not be killed because he’d already killed Claire and taken her power. That’s why that’s what had to be changed about the past -”save the cheerleader, save the world”. So in a future world where they’ve failed Sylar would have already killed Claire, right?And am I right in assuming that when Peter Petrelli and Sylar commence their epic battle neither of them can die?
The future world of the episode was one in which Peter saved Claire, but this failed to stop the bomb going off. Future Hiro thought saving Claire would save the world, but it hasn’t (it’s a bit muddy as to which future Future Hiro lives in - he remembers Claire dying, but has changed the past so she doesn’t - but this is forgiveable imho). This is probably because Hiro is unaware that Peter was the bomb, not Sylar.
Claire can be killed, as demonstrated by Sylar and his Magic Finger of Death. She’s apparently indestructible in most respects, but some superpowers can get her. Peter and Sylar both have the Magic Finger of Death, along with whatever other powers they’ve accumulated (glowing hands = cool), and will presumably need to use some power that can break through the invulnerability. But them squaring up with Duelling Magic Fingers of Death wouldn’t have been so cool
I think the basic answer is don’t think to hard about it: the continuity of the ‘Days of Future Past’ episode is distinctly garbled. The main points as I understand them are:
a) Future Hiro jumped back in time to get Peter to stop Sylar killing Claire, presumably so Sylar would not gain Claire’s recouperative powers and so would be more vunerable (although why he thought a floppy fringe would succeed where a bloody great sword failed, who knows). This changed the time-line
b) In this new time-line, Future Hiro says that he stabbed Sylar, but Sylar regenerated. Either this means that he made this attempt before the time-line was changed (in which case why doesn’t he have another pop?) or that Sylar steals regenerating power from someone other than Claire (In which case, why does Sylar want to kill her-other than that he’s a nutcase- and why bother saving her at all [although her importance may play out in other ways in the last couple of episodes]).
c) I can’t remember whether Peter had encountered Claire in this new timeline, although someone evidentally saved her. The evidence that he hadn’t met her is the fact that he sports a whopping great scar, which Claire’s regenerative power would have surely healed. The evidence that he has met Claire and can regenerate is that he exploded and is still apparently fine, although we still don’t know if going nuclear is actually fatal for the explodee, so he may not have had to regenerate (or maybe sticking himself together after going boom was such a strain on even his miraculous powers that it left a scar).
As for the indestrucibility of Claire: it’s an interesting point. She can certainly be put out of action with something being stuck in her brain, but her regenerative powers work on her and Peter even after they’ve been dead for several hours, by which period (normally) irreversible brain damage and decay would have set it. Even being dead for a couple of minutes is enough to severely affect brain function, and after ten minutes or so you can’t even hope for any sort of resuscitation in any state. But as soon as the offending item is removed, they can heal again. Quite how dead she has to be before she can no longer regenerate is not clear: it’s even possible that Sylar slicing off the top of her head and eating her brains is enough to stop her (Actually, that’s a thought: when exactly did Sylar twig that he could steal people’s power by eating their brains [or whatever it is that he does with their grey matter]? It’s not the first thing that would have occurred to me to do.].
And I’d always thought the Magic Finger of Death was just part of Sylar’s telekinetic abilities, which certainly seem strong enough to rip someone’s skull apart (by the looks of the trailer, next episode he uses telekinesis to fling an armoured car about. Hurrah! At long bloody last, they’re finally chucking cars at each other, like proper superheroes). Pointing at something to demonstrate that you’re using telekinesis on it is an old tellly stand-by, as invisible thought rays are otherwise quite hard to portray.
Jolly good. That’s cleared that up then