Monday, November 13, 2006

Annoying Theory of "Heroes"

Standing in the rain, looking at the buildings, I was thinking about Heroes and how the characters powers relate and work to each other.

The thought that hit, sucks, because if it's true...it means the show is pretty much a psycho-therapy session in action.

Each of the main characters with a power has a power that seems to relate to how they resolve a missing facet of their lives. A list of what they can do and why it seems to work for them (spoiler-heavy, you have been warned)...
  • Peter Petrelli-His character is a male nurse, whom helps other people and spends all of his time and energy helping other people. His power lets him get what makes people special from them and use it for himself.
  • Nathan Petrelli-He's trapped in every direction possible-crippled wife that he loves but can't make love to, a political career that he seems to loath as much as enjoy, and it all smothers him and traps him in every direction. Except up.
  • Niki Sanders-She's been abused and used in every possible direction. Her alternate personality lets her abuse and use other people back, and much better.
  • Matt Parkman-His dylexia is a metaphor for his inablity to read people. Now, he can and it's so much more trouble than it's worth...
  • Hiro Nakamura-We first meet this character at a company-mandatory exercise event. His life is entirely scripted, his time is never his. So, he gets time of his own, in every possible way.
  • Claire Bennett-The cheerleader whom must be saved to save the world. She's dealing with all the emotional pain and angst of being an adopted child and a teenager (which is pressure enough). So, her flesh heals faster than it can be hurt...
All of them have a psychological element to their powers. And, it makes sense.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but if it's true...

2 comments:

Mitch H. said...

Well, it's a better way to see the series than the text, which had been getting pretty annoyingly preachy in that gobbledegook-pseudo-darwinian-overly-portentious fashion w/ Mohindar as the omniscient narrative-priest... Last episode, they seemed inclined to let up on the homilies, which is good if it isn't just a transient dip in the treacle.

project9701 said...

I found it to be aggrivating, too. I think they were aiming for "deep" and they got it. Deep bull...