History YMMV / Heroes

** Particularly later in the series, when the fourth season only had two main-cast characters of color (Hiro and Ando, not including Mohinder who spends most of the season PutOnABus), the series dove outright into MonochromeCasting, after Creator/TimKring had given some interviews touting the diversity and themes-of-international-[[BlahBlahBlah bla-bla-bla]] in the show. But the first season did have Simone written out when the writers "ran out of ideas" for her after they did almost nothing with her but did float a few ideas behind-the-scenes (such as that she could develop into a BadassNormal like HRG) which never materialized. And Mohinder's Indian accent was switched to British based on some sort of ExecutiveMeddling to make him more relatable to Western audiences. And there was the behind-the-scenes stuff with Creator/LeonardRoberts, whose character was killed off at the very beginning of S2. And, of course, the Haitian, who only got a name after a few seasons.
** The endless [[FanNickname Benetrelli]] drama was much more manageable in S1, but the fact Nathan is Claire's biological father definitely planted the seed for their BigScrewedUpFamily to basically take over every storyline.

** To a lesser degree, Mohinder fits this bill as well. While he's always been a relatively useless character - not for his lack of powers but because of his amazing ability to consistently trust the wrong people - he truly became TooDumbToLive in Season 2 [[spoiler:when he joined The Company to act as a deep-cover operative and bring it down from the inside, and ''then'' turned traitor on Noah Bennet despite having seen countless examples - both in Season 1 and Season 2 - of The Company being hopelessly corrupt and self-serving]]. Worse, Season 3 has paired Mohinder and Maya, which almost everyone can agree is a match made in Hell. EVEN WORSE, Mohinder suddenly gains Spider-Man like abilities and an inexplicable compulsion to steal people and encase them in cocoons. Maya missed an opportunity to [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap pull herself out of the Scrappy heap]] when she found out about Mohinder's new "habit". She almost killed him with her ability but Mohinder ''somehow'' talked her out of it. WhatAnIdiot!

* IdiotPlot:
** Claire has several DamselScrappy moments, fleeing from people who obviously had her best interests at heart on more than one occasion. Ando's deciding to take on ''Sylar''(!) ''alone'' (!!), isn't much better.
** In "Landslide", Peter Petrelli telepathically eavesdrops on Sylar's plans to enlist the police's unwitting aid in attacking [[spoiler: Ted Sprague]]... and then does ''nothing'' when he's later arrested.
** In "How To Stop An Exploding Man", Mr. Bennet warns Parkman not to confront Sylar because "he'll kill you" – one would think just telling him Sylar has Ted Sprague's powers would be more viscerally persuasive.
** The Company's method of controlling their superpowered prisoners. Depowering Sylar was a good idea, but leaving him alone and guarded by only one person, with no means of knowing their condition, is roughly the worst idea imaginable. And Adam? Oh, let's just keep him in a cell. Next to the impressionable idiot with god-like powers. It's not like Adam has had ''decades'' to plan his escape or anything.
** Also from Season 1 regarding the big threat of the season. Peter knew that if he went to Kirby Plaza, he would wind up absorbing Ted Sprague's ability, and he'd seen that he was the one who caused the big boom in New York on that night. Does he then decide to stay away and ensure that there is no way he'll become a nuclear bomb? Oh no...
** Basically every time Peter shows up on screen and forgets that he can teleport or read minds. Notable examples include not bothering to [[MindProbe mind-read]] the villainous Adam to find out if he can be trusted.
** Also, when Peter meets [[spoiler:his father, Arthur Petrelli, who was presumed dead and is, in fact, the head of a shady organization]], he does not stop to ''try'' to understand what the hell is going on. Instead, he runs to give him a hug, [[spoiler: and loses his powers to his father, launching the latter ever closer to AGodAmI status.]]
** [[spoiler:Arthur Petrelli]] absorbs every power Peter ever absorbed, including teleportation, phasing, many ways to blast somebody to pieces, and healing, so he can't really be hurt. In short, there's nothing to stop him from going over to Primatech and ending all opposition. What's he do? He sends out his incompetent mooks to fail at doing his dirty work. Furthermore, he needs Claire alive. He could teleport straight to her, capture her, and teleport back to ensure her safety. What's he do instead? He sends out his two most psychopathic followers to capture her, and is surprised it didn't work. WhatAnIdiot.
** The third season finale and end of Volume 4 takes the cake. [[spoiler: Having finally rendered Sylar helpless, do they finally kill him? No. They need Nathan to convince the President to end the project, and Nathan's just been killed by Sylar. So they use Matt Parkman to brainwash Sylar into believing that he's Nathan, and using his shapeshifting to support this. Angela, Noah, and Matt are just having Sylar walk around in Nathan's role and life permanently and expecting everything to be OK. Why? Why not ''at absolute minimum'' dispose of Sylar the instant he's finished with what you needed "Nathan" for? Better yet, since Peter had already mimicked the shapeshifting power from Sylar, why not just have ''Peter'' pretend to be his brother, convince the President, and then pretend to go missing or die? And above all else, '''why not at least tell Peter, Claire, et al that "Nathan" isn't actually Nathan, so they don't trigger inevitable disaster via their ignorance next season?!?''']]
** The fourth season's finale (which also turned out to be the last episode of the series) certainly qualifies. After living through the events of volume 4, which were the result of the government learning about people with abilities, and hearing [[spoiler:her dad plea that he wanted her to stay hidden, Claire is compelled to jump off a Ferris wheel on national television. No reason is given for this decision, other than pissing off her dad who had poured his heart and soul out to her ten minutes prior. Meanwhile, every other character in the series simply stands there gawking and dropping forced dialogue such as "she's going to change everything!", even though half of them had the power to stop her without making a scene (looking at you, Hiro!). After spending several episodes building up how much Claire-bear loves her crazy daddy, they have her just throw it all away for ''no apparent reason'' while the rest of the "Heroes" stand around and prepare for a repeat of volume four.]]

* DracoInLeatherPants: Sylar. [[DaydreamBeliever Oh so much.]] The writers realized this, and tried to avert it in volume 4 by upping his villainy [[UpToEleven to eleven]].

** The theme by [[Music/PrincesAssociates Lisa and Wendy]].

* FoeYay: Sylar [[LauncherOfAThousandShips has sexual tension with everyone,]] much to their discomfort:
** Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Sylar. The subtext becomes so glaringly obvious at times that during an interview with both actors, Creator/SendhilRamamurthy himself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8kleE4NdYs jokingly suggested the idea]] of "Sylar and Mohinder: The Sitcom" as a fictional spin-off.
** There's also Sylar/Peter. The breathy "You came for me?" and "I wasn't going to leave you." Their fights have quite an amount of FoeYay in them, especially a particularly nasty brawl that ended with Peter using a nail gun on Sylar. Cue the "Sylar gets nailed" jokes. The final two episodes of the series veer them right into HoYay territory with ''The Wall'' in which they are trapped in a dream world inside Sylar's head. They spent the majority of the time in there seething at each other. When a shocked Parkman asks how they escaped, they reply ''in unison'', "It's a long story". Hell, Eli shows up right after they escape and apologizes for breaking up "the love fest".
** The writers certainly seemed to be playing with this with Sylar and Claire in the last episode of the third season, amping up the creep factor for all it was worth. And again in Season 4 when Sylar telekinetically pins Claire to a couch and kisses her [[ItMakesSenseInContext so that he can use his power of empathy]]; her furious reaction is [[EyeScream stab him in the eye.]]
** HRG and Sylar. To the point that Sylar PRETENDS TO BE NOAH'S WIFE and break up with him.
** Sylar/Angela. Kind of awkward and neared towards {{Squick}} during the periods in which Sylar though that Angela was his mother. He even kisses her, saying she was a level of evil that he can aspire to.
** Sylar and Elle are canon FoeYay.
** ...and Sylar/Danko. ''"...and then you got into bed with Sylar."''
** There's also Adam/Hiro.
--->'''Adam (to Hiro):''' You were more than a friend... (and) you taught me how to love!
** Adam/Peter falls under this to a certain extent. Adam manipulates Peter into following his villainous plan in Season 2 for quite a while until Peter finally realizes that Adam's up to no good.
** Also the volume 3 BadFuture version of Peter/Claire. "I've always loved you Peter."
*** Evil Future Claire also gets this with present-day Peter, when he travels to the future. Claire catches and starts torturing him, with Peter being tied up, shirtless and helpless while the Haitian blocks his powers and Claire carves his chest with a scalpel.
** Elle/Claire. One could wonder if Elle had "other" plans for Claire upon capturing her...

* FanPreferredCutContent: Before Creator/KristenBell's filming schedule got too busy, [[spoiler:Elle]] was originally intended to survive the events of season three and be the mother of Sylar's son in the BadFuture. Most fans would have been happier with that than with the final version of season three.

* EndingAversion: Some people think the rot began with the season one finale. The problem isn't that the writers never planned out the show... it's that they intended the show to have an anthology-format with a rotating cast. The season one characters instantly became popular sensations, so they were forced to come up with new plots for them on the fly. It didn't help that there was a Writer's Guild of America strike which truncated season 2.

** Scott the super soldier from Season 3. He's given significant screen time in "Our Father", up to and including an explanation of his motives for participating in the SuperEmpowering program, which is a novelty in a show where characters do things for unexplained and inexplicable reasons. He is the first recipient of the perfected formula, neatly subverts With GreatPowerComesGreatInsanity, and is all set up to be a big player in the finale. Then the finale comes and minor villain Knox unceremoniously snaps his neck.

** Some fans of the tie-in graphic novels don't acknowledge the culmination of the Evs Dropper plot line as canon. This is because of the number of interesting characters who get killed off and how TheReveal about [[spoiler:The Logans]] feels completely uncharacteristic with their prior appearances and inner thoughts due to the creator WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants.

* WhatAnIdiot: Eden. Did it not occur to her that if she could use her power on Sylar, he could use his powers, too?
** Brody in episode four gets this two-fold. The night before, he attempted to rape [[HealingFactor Claire]] which caused Claire to kick him and accidentally land on a log, impaling her. This caused Brody to drag her body and hide it in the river. Every thing seems fine until he arrives at school the next day to notice that Claire is '''completely unharmed'''. After school Claire comes to him and asks for a ride with the excuse that her original ride left without her.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Brody to realize that the girl he nearly raped and seemingly came BackFromTheDead probably wouldn't want a ride from him and probably has other plans for him and decline.\\
'''Instead:''' [[TooDumbToLive He gives her his car keys!]]\\
'''The Result:''' Claire is now driving his car and remains indifferent to how fast or dangerous she is driving which is especially evident when Brody points out she ran a red light.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' Brody to realize that given the fact that, to his knowledge, Claire has survived being impaled in the neck and dragged into a river where she would've drowned, Claire probably isn't too concerned with how she will survive an accident in his car. Maybe attempt to placate her by apologizing for nearly raping her, blame it on the alcohol or at least ''some'' excuse that doesn't make him out to be a complete ass.\\
'''Instead:''' Brody calls Claire a slut and says he's [[SmugSnake already been spreading rumors about how she is a slut and asks her what she's gonna do about it]].\\
'''The Result:''' Claire accelerates the car way past the already dangerous speed she was going at and crashes Brody's car into a brick wall, resulting in Brody being badly injured.\\

* {{Narm}}: Many scenes might qualify.
** One that almost certainly does has to be when Hiro confronts Nathan Petrelli at a press conference. When Nathan brushes him off and drives away, he leaves Hiro in the dust shouting, "You not a hero! You a villain! You a villain! Villain!", rendered as "bi-ran" by his {{Engrish}}. In the DVDCommentary, Creator/MasiOka notes that the [[RuleOfThree third repetition of the phrase]] made it, ''for him,'' hilarious.
** Hiro often has incredibly moving Japanese, that is utterly butchered by the show's own poor subtitles.
** Several of the oddly drawn facial expressions on the characters in both the [[http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels/novels_library.shtml online comics]] (particularly the last scene in Chapter 56) and Isaac's paintings are wonderfully Narmful.
** Any serious scene Mr. Muggles is a part of. It's so, so hard to take Sylar seriously with a cute, smiling Pomeranian tucked under one arm.
** The scene where Sylar kills the woman with super hearing. She asks, "That sound, in your heart... what is it?" And he replies, ''"Murder."''
** Nathan's speech at the end of Season 2, because of the line "at first I was afraid". Some mentally add "then I was petrified".
** The scene with the rental guy in "The Eclipse, Part 1"... who the ''hell'' would ''ever'' react like that?
---> "She filled me in pretty good, you serial killin' scum of the earth! ... I should kill you right now! I'd be a bona fide hero!"
*** There are disproportionately ominous [[ForDoomTheBellTolls church bells]] playing over the scene.
*** Sylar's bizarre breathy, rushed way of talking in that episode. We know you know how to talk like a regular person, dude; you were doing it just fine, and ''hilariously'', when paired with Bennet.
** This may have been intended as black humour, but the scene in "Cautionary Tales" where Mohinder turns to Elle and asks bluntly, "Have you killed many people?"
** In Volume 4, Sylar flashes back to the day his father sold him and killed his mother. The music in the background and the pretentious and ''Comicbook/SinCity''-esque color filter on the blood raise the {{bathos}} levels so high that not even Zachary Quinto's incredible acting talents can save the scene from corniness.
*** The lead-in to this scene is Luke telling Sylar that maybe it's a good thing he's repressed painful memories. Sylar responds, "No, it eats away at your soul!"
** In "Six Months Ago," Sylar shrieked "It's the evolutionary ''imperative!!"'' as he whanged Brian Davis on the head.
** Although HRG is normally a badass, his "pulling the trigger" face sometimes falls flat.
** Creator/SendhilRamamurthy, who plays Mohinder, seems to find many of his ''own'' scenes Narmtastic. He has mocked the endless references to his father's death and research; on episode commentary tracks, he frequently goes into ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' mode during Mohinder scenes.
** In the Volume 4 finale, Angela Petrelli's inhuman wails upon discovering [[spoiler: Nathan's dead body]].
*** It has been described as "like a guinea pig about to start an {{anime}} battle".
** Sylar's [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gollum-style]] conversation with his mother in Volume 4.
** Linderman waxing lyrical about pot-pies in a clichéd (slightly camp) AffablyEvil manner:
---> "Voila! A pot pie. Wholesome, warm, healthy. That's, of course if you can live without the cream sauce"... [seeing Nathan pull a gun on him] "Now you can't have any of my pot pie".
** Near the end of season 1, Sylar has just acquired Ted the nuclear man's powers. This is a big deal, considering the future paintings showing a destroyed NYC along with an exploding man. At the end of the episode, Sylar is playing with his powers as he gazes over the city. Then he says, "Boom." That's it?!
** Sylar's taco line in the third season premiere.
** From [[WalkingWasteland Ted]], a quote hilarious when heard out of context:
---> "Why are you THINKING IN JAPANESE?!!?"
*** That line's hilarious even in context.
** In the earlier episodes, the sheer number of ways Claire managed to damage herself quickly reached BloodyHilarious levels. Yes, honey, you can regenerate. Now ''[[TooDumbToLive stop sticking your hand in the trash disposal!!]]''
*** In the final season, she cuts her own wrists on yet another {{Wangst}} fest. Geez, why not just [[EmoTeen wear all black and get face-obscuring bangs]] already? Then again, there was that BadFuture scenario...
** Nathan's beard at the beginning of season 2.
** Peter's Season 1 Bangs.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Some fans like to pretend Volume 2 never happened, and a ''lot'' like to ignore Volume 3 completely. They can get a bit irritated when developments from these volumes (like Sylar having Peter's empathy power, or the existence of Claire's flying boyfriend) get brought up in the less controversial Volumes 4 & 5. Then there are folks who pretend the show ended after Season 1...

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Noah. Reall/y, most of his problems are his own fault, but he barely does anything to fix them. [[spoiler:His backstory is that his first wife was murdered by a man with powers.]] Fair enough, but it doesn't justify that he treats his [[spoiler:second]] wife and adopted kids poorly, ignoring them whenever possible. Not to mention he's responsible for why Gabriel Gray became the superpowered killer Sylar, but unlike Elle who saw good in him and wanted to help him be a better person, he pressured her into edging him closer into insanity and showed no regret for it. Every kill Sylar makes and every time he calls him a monster, he's conveniently forgetting he ''made'' him like that. When Claire is shot during a time she has no powers, he instead focuses on hunting down Sylar and Elle for it, ignoring her dying due to having no immune system due to a loss of her powers. He even joins Nathan's crusade to lock away all super-powered humans, despite having one of them as an adopted daughter he treats as his MoralityPet (she also happens to be Nathan's [[spoiler:own daughter as well, but she's granted immunity from this crusade and is thus not a target]]) and promising his wife that he'd stop hunting these super-powered people. This broken promise ended their marriage. Not to mention some of the captured people were his friends. It gets bad to the point where Claire should really stop defending him, especially when he's done things even she finds unforgivable.

%%* IronWoobie: Claire. Aided in no small part by her powers, Claire never gave up despite all the pain and suffering the world heaped on her.

** Bob Bishop. [[spoiler:We learn he subjected Elle, ''his own daughter'', to so much ElectricTorture she snapped and went Axe Crazy. When she was ''seven years old''.]]

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Noah. Really, most of his problems are his own fault, but he barely does anything to fix them. [[spoiler:His backstory is that his first wife was murdered by a man with powers.]] Fair enough, but it doesn't justify that he treats his [[spoiler:second]] wife and adopted kids poorly, ignoring them whenever possible. Not to mention he's responsible for why Gabriel Gray became the superpowered killer Sylar, but unlike Elle who saw good in him and wanted to help him be a better person, he pressured her into edging him closer into insanity and showed no regret for it. Every kill Sylar makes and every time he calls him a monster, he's conveniently forgetting he ''made'' him like that. When Claire is shot during a time she has no powers, he instead focuses on hunting down Sylar and Elle for it, ignoring her dying due to having no immune system due to a loss of her powers. He even joins Nathan's crusade to lock away all super-powered humans, despite having one of them as an adopted daughter he treats as his MoralityPet (she also happens to be Nathan's [[spoiler:own daughter as well, but she's granted immunity from this crusade and is thus not a target]]) and promising his wife that he'd stop hunting these super-powered people. This broken promise ended their marriage. Not to mention some of the captured people were his friends. It gets bad to the point where Claire should really stop defending him, especially when he's done things even she finds unforgivable.

* FanPreferredCutContent: Before her actress's filming schedule got too busy, [[spoiler:Elle]] was originally intended to survive the events of season three and be the mother of Sylar's son in the BadFuture. Most fans would have been happier with that than with the final version of season three.

* EndingAversion: Some people think the rot began with the season one finale. The problem isn't that the writers never planned out the show... it's that they intended the show to have an anthology-format with a rotating cast. The season one characters instantly became popular sensations, so they were forced to come up with new plots for them on the fly. It didn't help that there was a Writer's Guild of America strike which truncated season 2. Viewers started leaving in droves during season 3 when they started just recycling plots from season 1 (how many times can Sylar flip-flop from evil to good and back?)

** For that matter, Hiro himself! He was added as an afterthought when the creator's wife pointed out that no character actually liked having powers (besides possibly Peter and D.L.) and it's partly this very love of being superpowered that has made him easily one of the most popular characters.

** Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Sylar. The subtext becomes so glaringly obvious at times that during an interview with both actors, Creator/SendhilRamamurthy (Mohinder) himself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8kleE4NdYs jokingly suggested the idea]] of "Sylar and Mohinder: The Sitcom" as a fictional spin-off. In fact, the actors ''named their own slash pairing'' in that interview, as in "Sylinder: The Sitcom". They liked "Mylar", too.
** There's also Sylar/Peter. The breathy "You came for me?" and "I wasn't going to leave you." Their fights have quite an amount of FoeYay in them, especially with a shirtless encounter in Sylar's prison cell and a fight inside Primatech that had them nearly touching noses. It gets especially ramped up with a particularly nasty brawl that ended with Peter straddling Sylar to a table and using a nail gun. Cue the "Sylar gets nailed" jokes. The final two episodes of the series veers them right into HoYay territory with ''The Wall'' in which Peter and Sylar are trapped in a dream world inside Sylar's head. They spent the majority of the time in there seething at each other. When a shocked and annoyed Parkman asks how they escaped the prison in the following episode, they reply ''in unison'', "It's a long story". Hell, Eli shows up right after they escape and apologizes for breaking up "the love fest".
** The writers certainly seemed to be playing with this with Sylar and Claire in the last episode of the third season, amping up the creep factor for all it was worth. [[spoiler:Made a little less squicky by the fact that they're not really related after all]]. And again in the fourth season when Sylar telekinetically pins Claire to a couch and kisses her [[ItMakesSenseInContext so that he can use his power of empathy]]; her furious reaction is [[EyeScream stab him in the eye.]]
** From the same show, HRG and Sylar. They're obsessed with one another, to the point that Sylar PRETENDS TO BE NOAH'S WIFE and break up with him.
** And Sylar/Angela. Kind of awkward and neared towards {{Squick}} during the periods in which Sylar though that Angela was his mother, but once he realizes she was lying to him, he's back to messing with her. He even kisses her, saying she was a level of evil that he can aspire to.

*** Evil Future Claire also gets this with present-day Peter. Present-day Peter ends up traveling to the future and Claire gets her hands on him and starts torturing him. This torture involves Peter being tied up, shirtless and helpless while the Haitian blocks his powers and Claire carves on his chest with a scalpel.

** DL's [[spoiler: death]] is this in light of the revelations in Creator/LeonardRoberts'[[https://variety.com/2020/tv/features/heroes-leonard-roberts-ali-larter-1234854439/ essay for Variety]] where he revealed that Creator/AliLarter acted downright hostile towards him on set and that racism was a big factor in DL [[spoiler: getting KilledOffForReal]] at the start of season 2.

** Hiro passes Sylar off as a doctor in "Once Upon A Time in Texas". Zachary Quinto does play a doctor on ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum''. [[spoiler:Said doctor is a serial killer with issues even ''worse'' than Sylar's.]]
** In 2006-2007, Zachary Quinto and Robert Knepper appeared in a [[http://i31.tinypic.com/2pyxpv5.jpg photo shoot]] together about villains for ''Entertainment Weekly'' magazine. Two years later, Knepper would play Samuel, the main villain of Season 4.

** The image of a disguised Sylar holding Mr. Muggles becomes even funnier after Zachary Quinto landed the role of Spock in the ''Film/{{Star Trek|2009}}'' reboot films because the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' series had Spock holding the Alfa 177 dog.
** Speaking of "Save the cheerleader, save the world", it's hard not to think of ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' due to one of the main protagonists being a cheerleader who is destined to save the world.

** In "Landslide", Peter Petrelli telepathically eavesdrops on Sylar's plans to enlist the police's unwitting aid in attacking [[spoiler: Ted Sprague]]... and then does ''nothing'' when he's subsequently arrested.
** In "How To Stop An Exploding Man", Mr. Bennet warns Parkman not to confront Sylar because "he'll kill you" – one would think just telling him Sylar is telekinetic ''and'' has [[spoiler: Ted Sprague]]'s powers would be more viscerally persuasive.

** Also from Season 1 regarding the big threat of the season. Peter knew that if he went to Kirby Plaza, he would wind up absorbing Ted Sprague's ability, and he'd seen that he was the one who caused the big boom in New York on that night. Does he then decide to stay away and ensure that there is no way he'll gain the power to become a nuclear bomb? Oh no...

** Also, Peter Petrelli [[spoiler: meets his father, Arthur Petrelli, who was presumed dead [[ParentalAbandonment despite the fact he hasn't seen him in years]] and is, in fact, the head of a shady organization]], does not stop to ''read his mind'' to understand what the hell was going on. Instead, he runs to give him a hug, [[spoiler: and loses his powers to his father, launching the latter ever closer to AGodAmI status, and the former being telekinetically thrown out a window by Sylar, as Arthur's way of saying "thank you" to his son.]]
** Arthur Petrelli absorbs every power Peter ever absorbed, including teleportation, phasing, many ways to blast somebody to pieces, and healing, so they can't really hurt him back. In short, there's nothing to stop him from going over to Primatech and kicking everybody's ass. What's he do? He sends out his incompetent mooks to fail at doing his dirty work. Furthermore, he draws a future where Claire is dead, and he needs her alive. He could teleport straight to her, capture her, and teleport back to ensure her safety. What's he do instead? He sends out his two most psychopathic followers to capture her, and is surprised it didn't work. WhatAnIdiot.
** The third season finale and end of Volume 4 takes the cake. [[spoiler: Having finally rendered Sylar helpless, do they finally kill him? No. They need Nathan to convince the President to end the project, and Nathan's just been killed by Sylar. So they use Matt Parkman to brainwash Sylar into believing that he's Nathan, and using his shapeshifting to support this. ''And the episode ends with Sylar having been left in this imposture for weeks''. Angela, Noah, and Matt are just having Sylar walk around in Nathan's role and life permanently and expecting everything to be OK. Why? Why not ''at absolute minimum'' dispose of Sylar the instant he's finished with what you needed "Nathan" for? Better yet, since Peter had already mimicked the shapeshifting power from Sylar, why not just have ''Peter'' pretend to be his brother, convince the President, and then pretend to go missing or die? And above all else, '''why not at least tell Peter, Claire, et al that "Nathan" isn't actually Nathan, so they don't trigger inevitable disaster via their ignorance next season?!?''']]
** The fourth season's finale (which also turned out to be the last episode of the series) certainly qualifies. After [[spoiler: living through the events of volume 4, which were the result of the government learning about people with abilities, and hearing her dad plea ''on his deathbed'' that he wanted her to stay hidden, Claire is compelled to jump off a Ferris wheel in front of national television. No reason is given for this decision, other than pissing off her dad who had poured his heart and soul out to her ten minutes prior. Meanwhile, every other character in the series simply stands there gawking and dropping forced dialogue such as "she's going to change everything!", even though half of them had the power to stop her without making nearly as much of a scene (looking at you, Hiro!). After spending several episodes building up how much Claire-bear loves her crazy daddy, they have her just throw it all away for ''no apparent reason'' while the rest of the "Heroes" stand around and prepare for a repeat of volume four.]]
* IncestYayShipping: The Petrelli brothers are unusually close despite their roughly 13-year age gap, and then when factoring in [[spoiler:Claire, who is Nathan's daughter]], there's a lot of subtext. Didn't stop Milo (Peter) and Hayden (Claire) from [[CastIncest briefly dating]], though.
* IronWoobie: Claire. Aided in no small part by her powers, Claire never gave up despite all the pain and suffering the world heaped on her.

** Superpowered SerialKiller Sylar had the seeds of sympathy sewn for him toward the end of the first season when we are introduced to his [[EvilMatriarch domineering mother]], probably the root of his [[FreudianExcuse obsession with being "special"]] that drove him to kill, going on to [[GunStruggle kill her accidentally]] when she attacks him with scissors. The season ends with him being run through with a sword, and though the second season, during which he recovered, had less in the way of Woobification, the third and fourth were ''rife'' with revelations of ParentalAbandonment by his [[TurnOutLikeHisFather mass-murderer father]], murdered birth mother, multiple [[GambitPileup twisted and improbable]] {{mindscrew}}s sending him through the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor; that his first murder [[DrivenToSuicide might have been his last]] if Elle's [[LoveMakesYouEvil betrayal]] hadn't driven him completely AxeCrazy, and being [[MindRape manipulated]] by Matt Parkman first into [[TomatoInTheMirror believing he was someone else]] and then by trapping him [[MentalWorld in a living nightmare]] after he realized that [[WhoWantsToLiveForever copying an ability that makes him immortal]] [[IronicHell might have been a ''bad'' idea]] does not help.
** [[PsychoElectro Elle Bishop]] also qualifies. Essentially imprisoned for most of her life, a subject of cruel experiments, constantly belittled by her father, lonely, and socially oblivious, she's got a whole raft of psychological issues that spawned her love of ElectricTorture. ("When I was eleven years old, the doctors diagnosed me as a sociopath with paranoid delusions -- but they were all out to get me because I threatened to kill them.") [[spoiler: And then she loses control of her powers and is in constant agony...and then Sylar murders her. Poor Elle.]]
* LauncherOfAThousandShips: In addition to Peter Petrelli, Sylar is the main one in the fandom. Check out this LJ community: [[http://community.livejournal.com/rare_heroes/ Rare Heroes]]. Look at the pairing tags list; Peter and Sylar have the most pairings. Peter actually comes in as a close ''second'' to Sylar, when you count them up.

** Chandra Suresh. Chandra×Gabriel and Chandra×Eden are usually considered consensual, if [[NoYay squicky]], but Chandra×Mohinder, Chandra×Shanti and, for some bizarre reason, Chandra×Monty? Not so much. It's been mentioned that Mohinder wouldn't have been able to run out and buy last-minute curare to dose Sylar with, so it's become a [[BlackComedy running joke]] that it was Chandra's, which he planned to use to drug the specials he lured back to the apartment.
** [[{{Squick}} Arthur Petrelli]] 90% of the time this is his fanfic characterization, [[SarcasmMode because he apparently wasn't enough of a douchebag in canon.]] (The whole "bad-touch power" thing doesn't help.)
** What about Sylar? Jeez, Creator/ZacharyQuinto manages to make him multiple types of creepy at once, including serial-killer-creepy, Mommy-issues-creepy, MindRape-creepy, [[RunningGag literal-mind-rape-creepy]] [[OverlyLongGag not-literal-mind-rape-creepy]], I-''will''-find-you creepy, and most of all, rapist creepy. He's even creepy in the flash backs and flash forwards when he's not a serial killer. Zachary Quinto is amazing[[spoiler:[[RunningGag -ly creepy]]]].

** Samuel Sullivan from season four qualifies. Let's see, he runs a carnival and plays into the creepy, perverted carny stereotype quite well. He has sexual tension with everyone and is constantly being all touchy-feely with his main hench-people, Lydia and Edgar. Oh, and he does the same thing to Sylar, Hiro, and really almost anyone who visits his carnival. Not to mention, he has Lydia use her empathy power so that he can stalk other specials and recruit them to his carnival. Samuel's memetic molester behavior is parodied in this (safe for work) [[http://quotidia.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=heroes#/d2bdimu fanart]].

** [[spoiler: Samuel has a killer one in "Once Upon a Time in Texas" - after spending the episode doing his utmost to save Charlie from Sylar, three years in the past, Hiro walks out to discover that she's been taken by Arnold, Samuel's time-traveling carnival member, at the behest of Samuel. Samuel reveals the entirety of the episode, including his previous attempts at goading Hiro into changing the past, have all been a manipulation to force Hiro to work for him, and to possibly prevent the death of Mohinder. Needless to say, Hiro is less than amused.]]

** One that almost certainly does has to be when Hiro confronts Nathan Petrelli at a press conference and asks what he's going to do about an upcoming prophecy. When Nathan tells him that there is nothing to do and drives off, he leaves Hiro in the dust shouting, "You not a hero! You a bi-ran! You a bi-ran! Bi-ran!" (That's "villain" for the {{Engrish}}-impaired.) In the DVDCommentary, Creator/MasiOka notes that the [[RuleOfThree third repetition of the phrase]] made it, ''for him,'' hilarious.
** Hiro often has incredibly moving Japanese, that is utterly butchered by the show's own subtitles. "We are taking this sword!" -- his friend, eyes askance "We?" See? Utter gibberish. Hiro's "we" is a "the group of superheroes I belong to!" sort of we. It kinda indicates that he's headed off the deep end. The English kills the whole scene, because it seems like Hiro's "we" includes his friend (whom the Japanese was not including).

** Any serious scene Mr. Muggles is a part of. It's so, so hard to take Sylar seriously with a cute, smiling Pomeranian tucked under one arm. But if Sylar killed that stupid dog, then it would have been hard for some people to regard him as a villain for the rest of the series.
--->[[ArcWords "Save the cheerleader, save the world."]]
** The scene where Sylar killed the woman with super hearing. She asked, "That sound, in your heart... what is it?" And he replied, ''"Murder."''
** West in general can be narmy, especially when he said, "Mr. Butler, what are you doing?"
** Nathan's speech at the end of season two, because of the line "at first I was afraid". Some mentally add "then I was petrified". You mean [[{{Pun}} Petrellified]]?

*** Elle and Sylar are narm-y in that scene, too.

*** Sylar's bizarre breathy, rushed way of talking in that episode. We know you know how to talk like a regular person, dude; you were doing it just fine, and ''hilariously'', when paired with Bennet. Come on.
** This may have been intended as black humour, but there's the scene in "Cautionary Tales" where Mohinder turns to Elle and asks bluntly, "Have you killed many people?"
** In Volume 4, Sylar flashes back to the day his father sold him in a diner and watches his biological dad do the dread telekinetic finger-slice across Mommy's forehead. The music in the background and the pretentious and ''Comicbook/SinCity''-esque color filter on the blood raise the {{bathos}} levels so high that not even Zachary Quinto's incredible acting talents can save the scene from corniness.

** Although HRG is normally a badass, his "pulling the trigger" face sometimes resembles an "I'm taking a really big poop" face.
** Creator/SendhilRamamurthy, who plays Mohinder, seems to find many of his ''own'' scenes Narmtastic. He has mocked the endless references to his father's death and research; and on episode commentary tracks, he frequently goes into ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' mode during Mohinder scenes.

*** For those who haven't seen it, it's like a guinea pig about to start an {{anime}} battle.

** Near the end of season 1, Sylar had just recently acquired Ted the nuclear man's powers. This is a big deal, considering the future paintings showing a destroyed NYC along with an exploding man. At the end of the episode, Sylar is playing with his powers as he gazes over the city. Then he says, "Boom." That's it? You're a nuclear bomb, and all you say is "boom!"?!

*** In the final season, she cuts her own wrists while on (yet another) {{Wangst}} fest. Geez, why not just [[EmoTeen wear all black and get face-obscuring bangs]] already? Then again, there was that BadFuture scenario where she had dyed her hair black and wore all black clothes...

** Peter's Season One Bangs.
* NeverLiveItDown: Arguably the most fan-derided moment of the series was Peter Petrelli abandoning his Irish girlfriend Caitlyn in the bad future of Season 2 after accidentally time traveling away from her. While it can be chalked up to the characters changing events so that the bad future and her by extension no longer exist, that's almost ''worse''. It's especially grating because once Caitlyn was left in the bad future she had become a LivingMacguffin that fueled a lot of Peter's IdiotBall moments in Season 2. Maybe it was the Writer's Strike that derailed this and there just wasn't enough time to film a resolution scene but not even a mention or HandWave about what happened to Caitlyn in the following seasons just made the writers look incompetent.

** Creator/ChristopherEccleston's memorable turn as Claude Rains began as an EnsembleDarkHorse, but since he never returned and was only in 5-ish out of nearly 60 episodes, he has evolved into a much-loved OneSceneWonder.

** Tracy Strauss for Niki Sanders. It didn't help that she was played by the same actress and that her character replaced someone who was already a BaseBreakingCharacter. Since the producers put her with Nathan, she's also a scrappy for anyone who liked Heidi. Really, the entire character is seen as an insult to the fanbase, especially to anyone who actually liked Niki.
** Janice was seen as a replacement scrappy for Daphne, despite the fact that she was with Matt first. It doesn't help that she was a scrappy before she came back.

** Most people agree that Peter Petrelli became ''much'' more likable after [[spoiler:his God-Mode Sue status was undone as he was BroughtDownToNormal]], which forced him to actually use his brain and drop the IdiotBall.
*** Superspeed knife fight! Okay, Peter, you're cool again. Shooting [[spoiler:Sylar in the balls with a nail gun]] also helped.
** How about Hiro? Popular in volumes 1 and then deeply annoying in 3 and 4 due to his development from the first two seasons being rejected in favor of him being a childish moron again. Then redeemed in 5 due to his cancer and Charlie arcs making him more serious again and him no longer appearing in every episode.

** West and Claire in Volume 2. This relationship was not one of the show's more successful moves, not least due to West being the only person in the entire run who Claire had absolutely NO chemistry with, including Sylar and her UNCLE.
* RootingForTheEmpire: Sylar earns this for both DracoInLeatherPants, and being less prone to stupidity than the protagonists (not that he's immune to the IdiotBall, of course). He is also one of the very few characters in the show who actually takes joy in having freaking super powers.

** Maya, the TooDumbToLive plague-creating "heroine" who was introduced to us in Season 2 became TheScrappy of the show in record time. Her entire lengthy story was a TrappedByMountainLions plot and had fans begging for her death at the hands of Sylar even before the two characters met. Here's a hint for the writers: If a character dies and is [[DeathIsCheap brought back to life almost immediately afterwards]], and the fandom is ''angry'' that the character is still alive... you know you've got a Scrappy on your hands.
** Another Scrappy on the show would not so much be a character but multiple characters played by the same actress. These would be the multitude of Creator/AliLarter clone characters. Once the first character ran her course fans were happy to see her character's storyline come to a close and her to be done, but WAIT fans were introduced to a concept that no matter how many characters played by Ali Larter die, there could always be another one in hiding. In the promos for season 4 it is shown that Ali Larter's many characters have become a CreatorsPet as the next season centers around her. The only good thing about this Scrappy is you actually get to watch her die multiple times on the show and though each one is exciting for the fans, it is bittersweet because the fans know she'll always return as Gina, or Brenda, or Cookie, or Lanora, or any other name and random power you can put on her.
** To a lesser degree, Mohinder fits this bill as well. While he's always been a relatively useless character - not because of his lack of powers but because of his amazing ability to consistently trust the wrong people - he truly became TooDumbToLive in Season 2 [[spoiler: when he joined The Company to act as a deep-cover operative and help bring it down from the inside and ''then'' turned traitor on Noah Bennet despite having seen countless examples - both in Season 1 and Season 2 - of The Company being hopelessly corrupt and self-serving]]. Worse, Season 3 has paired Mohinder and Maya, which almost everyone can agree is a match made in Hell. EVEN WORSE, Mohinder suddenly gains Spider-Man like abilities and an inexplicable compulsion to steal people and encase them in cocoons. Maya missed an opportunity to [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap pull herself out of the Scrappy heap]] when she found out about Mohinder's new "habit." She almost killed him with her ability but Mohinder ''somehow'' talked her out of it. WhatAnIdiot!
** Monica Dawson who appeared in the show's second season. Micah's cousin who was a Katrina victim with the power to imitate any movement she saw. Her storylines were considered some of the worst in the show's history and people are also upset that she lived while more popular characters died. She was written out after the season. There were several fans who were very upset to see her go, and thought she was one of the best things about the season.

** Basically Season 2 only introduced 2 well-liked characters: Adam and Elle who are both sympathetic characters who are both potential WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds characters. Of course both characters were killed but ''Heroes'' had a thing for killing well liked characters and keeping the Scrappys.
** You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who likes Bob Bishop. What he did to Elle before the series alone is enough reason to hate him.

** The first half of Season 3 was worse. The writers heard the complaints that Season 2 was too slow-paced and lacking twists. Their answer? A RandomEventsPlot and one AbortedArc after another. Fans could no longer say it was predictable or slow-paced, but the result was even worse. The show mostly returned to form with the second half of its third season and the fourth and final season, though fans argue by how much.
** Interviews with the creators later clarified (though not necessarily justified) a lot of the problems with Season 2 that led into Season 3. Originally, Peter wouldn't have caught the virus and it would have been released, causing the bad future he foresaw. What was supposed to be the first half of Season 2 involved a lot of setting up for the second half; plot points that ended up being abandoned were originally {{Chekhovs Gun}}s (for example, Claire's blood was going to be used to cure victims of the virus, and Maya's power would have had some level of control over the virus). Instead, when the writer's strike happened, they decided to change what was supposed to be a mid-season finale into a season finale and chose to take the story in a different direction when they returned.

** Adam Monroe is a popular villain, especially due to his amazing powers, badass fighting skills, a twisted backstory, the potential to be the most evil character within the entire series, and the actor's physical attractiveness. He had more potential, so what do the writers do to him to prove it? They unceremoniously get rid of him by having him forced to the main antagonist of the Villains arc's room and have him essentially become a battery power for him so that he would no longer be paralyzed. Then when he gets another chance at proving himself later on in the series, he gets killed again in an even more pathetic and lackluster manner.
** Elle Bisop. The 7th episode of Season 3 set her up for a HeelFaceTurn, only to abort it at the last minute. Then she starts a relationship with Sylar which seemed to be going well until he suddenly kills her.

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** Isaac had been stagnating as a character for quite a while before Sylar killed him, but his death and the scenes leading up to it were handled well enough that many viewers who had been complaining about Isaac were touched by his exit.
** Niki. As much as the character was hated, her death was still sad, being that she couldn't even use her power at the time. Then Tracy showed up and all that went out the window.

** The rest of the show's soundtrack is low-key, but very nice though.

** Anything involving Sylar's theme, usually played on church bells. Towards the end of "Trust and Blood", Peter explains to other heroes they are fugitives now, and an omnious rock tune starts playing in the background. In the next scene, Sylar and Luke are driving a car, the music continues and segues into the Sylar theme. This rock version of Sylar theme, even if it lasted only a few seconds, was a true CMOA.
** The music playing during "Nathan's" suicide in "The Fifth Stage". And the music playing during his funeral in "Upon This Rock..." In fact, a lot of fans of the character were annoyed that he didn't get his own theme when even Maya got one.
* BadassDecay: Toyed with and retconned several times with Sylar. Several storylines make it look like he's becoming a more sympathetic character until the arc is aborted and he snaps back to being a psychopath.

** Monica. Some fans hated her, while others thought she had an awesome super power by mimicking other's actions. Her short time in the show is also up for contention on whether she had more potential or was better left behind.
** Sylar is the epitome of this trope. You either [[EvilIsCool love him for screwing with the main characters' lives and getting away with it]] or hate him for [[KarmaHoudini those exact same reasons]]. He kinda-sorta goes through a redemption arc towards the end of the series, but that only added ''more'' fuel to the fire. Did he earn redemption, or was he too far gone to ever be sympathetic?
* BestKnownForTheFanservice: This is that show where a whole load of stuff about eclipses, helices, and conspiracies to take over the world keeps getting in the way of Creator/HaydenPanettiere being all bouncy, cheerleadery[[note]] even though by the final season her character was no longer a cheerleader[[/note]] and indestructible and Creator/ZacharyQuinto and Creator/MiloVentimiglia being all broody and [[ShirtlessScene forgetting their shirts]]. And indestructible.
* BetterOnDVD: Keeping up with the many {{Call Back}}s and {{Continuity Nod}}s is much easier when all episodes are readily available. It's also easier to keep up with the extensive backgrounds and how each character is related to one another.

** The Nathan and Sylar fans exited in droves and were baying for blood after the volume 4 finale. Those who weren't hopelessly confused, that is. And really, anything related to Sylar has this effect. That's because he's a CreatorsPet to half the fanbase and the [[DracoInLeatherPants best thing on the show]] [[BaseBreakingCharacter to the other half]].
** Another case comes in those who wish it had ended after Season 1, those who wish it had after the second, etc. Seems the fans can't decide whether the show they loved has been dead for three years, a few months or whether it still lives on.
** Speaking of Season 4, there was a massive divide during its production in regards to Claire Bennet's fanbase about the implications about her becoming a lesbian/bisexual, some seemed to praise the decision to have her "come out of the closet" while others claimed that there was absolutely no hint that she even had any attractions to the same sex in prior seasons, and in some cases, even in Season 4, and claimed that it was just a desperate marketing ploy and just overall bad writing.

** Sylar is a completely insane serial killer, but he's so nonchalant about everything and can be quite funny. He's the only character who actually enjoys his powers and he's hilarious when he takes on a fake identity (usually just for fun).
** Hiro Nakamura, the self-proclaimed "[[AsianSpeekeeEngrish Masutah of Tahm ond Spehce]]"? The one character who takes GenreSavvy to new levels and wanted to be a hero from the start, who manages to break Suresh out of a psychiatric hospital ''while'' his brain is scrambled, among other things. The only reason Sylar hasn't been defeated by him is that Hiro believes he ''has'' to let Sylar exist. And the only reason [[DishingOutDirt Samuel]] is a threat is due to having a hostage. Not to mention he committed one of the most horrific [[BuriedAlive acts of vengeance]] in [[FateWorseThanDeath TV history]].

** Niki. Initially fairly warmly received by fans, she quickly wore out her welcome with her multiple personality subplot and [[spoiler: causing the death of fan-favourite DL. Fans rejoiced that she died, only for yet another identical twin to come back because the writers felt that the show apparently couldn't go on without Ali Larter]]. Exacerbated by the reports of how temperamental Ali Larter was on set,[[note]]She reportedly threw a tantrum over being asked to simply lower her top's straps to give the illusion that she was topless in bed with her husband, completely covered by a ModestyBedsheet, only to have no problem performing a raunchy scene with Adrian Pasdar later on in production.[[/note]] meaning they had no good reason to keep her on.
** Arthur Petrelli. He was introduced as a blatant replacement for the other fan favorite of season two, Adam Monroe, and was instrumental in the Great Season 2 Character Purge. Despite quickly establishing himself as the single most powerful villain the show had seen yet (or possibly, because of it) he quickly became a case of OrcusOnHisThrone and sat around drawing pretty paintings until the fandom made it clear how much he was hated and Sylar euthanized him.
* DieForOurShip: The fandom tends to have a negative reaction towards canonical love interests, particularly when it comes to Peter Petrelli. His season-one love interest, Simone, was widely seen as being a high-and-mighty bitch; when she died - partly because of Peter - you could practically hear the cheering. Caitlin, his second-season girlfriend, is less hated and does carry a small but loyal contingent of shippers; but most people didn't complain much when she was conveniently pushed out of the way.
** Nathan's wife Heidi isn't really ''hated'', but fanfic writers tend to marginalize her since her existence interferes with the One True Bro Yay.
** Oddly enough, Noah's wife Sandra is generally well-liked even though she logically gets in the way of any pairings featuring her husband. Matt's wife Janice, however, is hated by everyone, even though she didn't interfere with any major ships while she was around. Then again, she ''canonically'' messed him up romantically, so there's some justification.
** Claire's second-season boyfriend West is just as loathed, but this may be because he was horribly written, especially compared to Zach, her friend in the previous season (who was originally written as gay, but since his actor thought he was in love with her...). Too bad Zach's actor went to another series.
** Hiro's second-season love interest, Yaeko, is also disliked partly because Hiro's supposed to be walking The Hero's Path and above things like lusting after your best friend's girl and partly because of how poignant and sweet the Hiro/Charlie romance was. It seemed that he forgot her too quickly: she was his first love in more ways than one, canonically, and yet Hiro seemed to have no memory of her during the feudal Japan arc. Yaeko has been also bashed by Hiro/Ando and Hiro/Kensei shippers.
* DracoInLeatherPants: Sylar. [[DaydreamBeliever Oh so much.]] The writers finally realized this, and tried to avert it in volume 4 by upping his villainy [[UpToEleven to eleven]].
* EndingAversion: Some people think the rot even began with the season one finale. The problem isn't that the writers never planned out the show...it's that they intended the show to have an anthology-format with a rotating cast. Problem was that the season one characters instantly became popular national sensations, so they were forced to come up with new plots for them on the fly. It didn't help that there was a Writer's Guild of America strike which truncated season 2. Viewers started leaving in droves during season 3 when they started just recycling plots from season 1 (how many times can Sylar flip-flop from evil to good and back?)

** For that matter, what about Hiro himself? He was added as an afterthought when the creator's wife pointed out that no character created so far actually liked having powers, besides possibly Peter and D.L., and it's partly this very love of being superpowered that has made him easily one of the most (if not ''the'' most) popular characters.

** Sparrow Redhouse. Before she became a major part of the Graphic Novels Rebel story arc she'd only had one brief appearance yet she was still a character fans wanted to see more of.

** Possible explanation for why occasionally-repentant Sylar is a major fan favorite. Plus, he goes [[{{Fanservice}} shirtless]] and gets nookie with Elle. [[GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex Evil sex!]]

* FanonDiscontinuity: Some fans like to pretend Volume 2 never happened, and a ''lot'' like to ignore Volume 3 completely. They can get a bit irritated when developments from these volumes (like Sylar having Peter's empathy power, or the existence of Claire's flying boyfriend) get brought up in the less controversial Volumes 4 & 5. For folks who pretend the show ended after the first season, however, this isn't a problem.
** Others like to think Elle was never killed in Volume 3 and Daphne was never killed in Volume 4, so Matt never got back together with Janet.

* FirstInstallmentWins: The first season garnered widespread praise and acclaim. The rest of the series on the other hand...

** Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Sylar. The subtext becomes so glaringly obvious at times that during an interview with both actors, Creator/SendhilRamamurthy (Mohinder) himself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8kleE4NdYs jokingly suggested the idea]] of "Sylar and Mohinder: The Sitcom" as a fictional spin-off. (Mind you, he has also suggested a "Heroes: The Bollywood Musical" episode a couple of times.) In fact, the actors ''named their own slash pairing'' in that interview, as in "Sylinder: The Sitcom". They liked "Mylar", too, though.
** There's also Sylar/Peter. The breathy "You came for me?" and "I wasn't going to leave you." Their fights and bickering in general have quite an amount of FoeYay in them, especially with a shirtless encounter in Sylar's prison cell and a fight inside Primatech had then nearly touching noses in between punching each other's lights out. It gets especially ramped up with a particularly nasty brawl between them that ended with Peter straddling Sylar to a table and using a nail gun. Cue the hurricane of "Sylar gets nailed" jokes. The final two episodes of the series veers them right into HoYay territory with ''The Wall'' in which Peter and Sylar are trapped in a dream world inside Sylar's head where they are the only inhabitants and time moves much faster. They spent the majority of the time in there seething at each other. When a shocked and deeply annoyed Parkman demands how they escaped the mental prison in the following episode, they reply ''in unison'', "It's a long story". Hell, one of the bad guys, Eli shows up right after Sylar and Peter escape from the dream world and apologizes for breaking up "the love fest". Sylar and Peter then proceed to cement their new-found Foe Yay turned Ho Yay relationship with plenty of lingering touches, smiles, and finishing each other's sentences.
** The writers certainly seemed to be playing with this with Sylar and Claire as well in the last episode of the third season, amping up the creep factor for all it was worth. [[spoiler:Made at least a little less squicky by the fact that they're apparently not really related after all]]. And again in the fourth season when Sylar telekinetically pins Claire to a couch and kisses her [[ItMakesSenseInContext so that he can use his new found power of empathy]]; her furious reaction is [[EyeScream stab him in the eye.]]
** From the same show, HRG and Sylar. They're both obsessed with one another, to the point that Sylar PRETENDS TO BE NOAH'S WIFE and break up with him. Just for kicks. Oh yes, did we mention Sylar seems to be spending a lot of time female lately? I can only begin to imagine some of the fanfics that will be spun out of this particular plot thread.
** And Sylar/Angela. Kind of awkward and neared towards {{Squick}} during the periods in which Sylar though that Angela was his mother, but once he realizes she was lying to him, he's back to messing with her. He even kisses her, saying she was a level of evil that he can aspire to. Naturally she doesn't take this very well.

** Adam/Peter falls under this to a certain extent. Adam manipulates Peter into following his villainous plan in season two for quite a while until Peter finally realizes that Adam's up to no good.
** Also the volume 3 BadFuture version of Peter/Claire. "I've always loved you Peter." Right before trying to kill him!
*** Evil Future Claire in volume 3 also gets this with present-day Peter. Present-day Peter ends up traveling to the future and Claire gets her hands on him and starts torturing him. By the way, this torture involves Peter being tied up, shirtless and helpless while the Haitian blocks his powers and Claire carves on his chest with a scalpel.
** Elle/Claire started as Foe Yay then turned into regular Les Yay and possibly Foe Yay again. One could wonder if Elle had "other" plans for Claire upon capturing her...

** In 2018, Creator/ChristopherEccleston revealed he came to America specifically because Creator/TheBBC were trying to kill his career over his departure from ''Series/DoctorWho''. His first American work has him playing a man who narrowly survived an assassination attempt and now spends his days as a literal invisible man.

** Also Zach was supposed to be gay but this was not made known to Creator/ThomasDekker. He would later go onto play a gay character in ''Kaboom!'' and come out himself.
** "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" itself because Claire ended being the key driving force in saving the world from Samuel in Season 4.
** Nathan and his ability to fly, after it's revealed that Adrian Pasdar is now the voice of Iron Man, a hero who can fly.
** Hiro passes Sylar off as a doctor in "Once Upon A Time in Texas". Zachary Quinto does play a doctor on ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum''. [[spoiler:Said doctor is also a serial killer with issues even ''worse'' than Sylar's.]]

** In a first season episode, Claire's brother steals the tape Zach made of Claire surviving a fall and healing instantly. He threatens to "put the tape on Website/YouTube and make a million dollars''. Zach tells him "Website/YouTube is free, you idiot!" Years later, it became possible for [=YouTubers=] to monetize their videos and make money that way, so he was probably on the right track.

** Speaking of "Save the cheerleader, save the world", it's hard not to think of the plot for ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' due to one of the main protagonists being a cheerleader who is destined to save the world.
** Kristen Bell playing a character with powers, considering she'd later famously play the sister of [[{{WesternAnimation/Frozen 2013}} someone with ice powers]] who tries to keep them hidden from her for years.

** Near the end of the season, Claire has several DamselScrappy moments, fleeing from people who obviously had her best interests at heart and into trouble on more than one occasion. Ando's deciding Hiro would give up if he had one more conversation with his dad, and thus going to take on ''Sylar''(!) ''alone'' (!!), isn't much better.
** In "Landslide", Peter Petrelli telepathically eavesdrops on Sylar's plans to enlist the police's unwitting aid in attacking [[spoiler: Ted Sprague]]...and then does ''nothing'' when he's subsequently arrested.
** In "How To Stop An Exploding Man", Mr. Bennet warns Parkman not to confront Sylar because "he'll kill you" – but one would think just telling him Sylar is telekinetic ''and'' has [[spoiler: Ted Sprague]]'s powers would be more viscerally persuasive.
** The Company's method of controlling their superpowered prisoners. Depowering Sylar was a good idea, but leaving him alone and guarded by only one person, who he wanted to kill anyway with no means of knowing their condition, is roughly the worst idea imaginable. And Adam? Oh, let's just keep him in a cell. Next to the impressionable idiot with god-like powers. It's not like Adam has had ''decades'' to plan his escape or anything.
** Also from Season 1 regarding the big threat of the season, kind of. Peter knew that if he went to Kirby Plaza, he would wind up absorbing Ted Sprague's ability, and he'd seen that he was the one who caused the big boom in New York on that November night. Does he then decide to stay away and ensure that there is no way he'll gain the power to become a nuclear bomb? Oh no... he goes right to the one place he shouldn't and, boom, gains the power which will blow up New York in a matter of days.

** Also, Peter Petrelli [[spoiler: meets his father, [[ParentalAbandonment Arthur Petrelli, who was presumed dead]] ''[[ParentalAbandonment despite]]'' [[ParentalAbandonment the fact he hasn't seen him in years]] and is, in fact, the head of a shady organization]], does not stop to ''read his mind'' to understand what the hell was going on, and why he had disappeared for so long. Instead, he runs to give him a hug, [[spoiler: and loses his powers (all of the ones he absorbed) to his father (who took in a lot of powers to begin with), launching the latter ever closer to AGodAmI status, and the former being telekinetically thrown out a window by Sylar, as Arthur's way of saying "thank you" to his son. In fact, Sylar spared him death [[TooDumbToLive even if his idiocy didn't suggest so]].]]
** Arthur Petrelli absorbs every power Peter ever absorbed, which is a hell of a lot of powers, including teleportation, phasing, many, many ways to blast somebody to pieces, and healing, so they can't really hurt him back. In short, there's nothing to stop him from going over to Primatech and kicking everybody's ass. What's he do? He draws the future, and sends out his incompetent mooks to fail at doing his dirty work. Furthermore, he draws a future where Claire is dead, and he needs her alive. He could teleport straight to her, capture her, and teleport back to ensure her safety. What's he do instead? He sends out his two most psychopathic followers to capture her, and is surprised it didn't work. WhatAnIdiot indeed.
** The third season finale and end of Volume 4 takes the cake. [[spoiler: Having finally rendered Sylar helpless, do they finally kill him? No. They need Nathan to convince the President to end the project, and Nathan's just been killed by Sylar. So they use Matt Parkman to brainwash Sylar into believing that he's Nathan, and using his shapeshifting to support this. ''And the episode ends with Sylar having been left in this imposture for weeks''. Angela Petrelli, Noah Bennett, and Matt Parkman are just having Sylar walk around in Nathan's role and life permanently and expecting everything to be OK. Why? Why not ''at absolute minimum'' dispose of Sylar the instant he's finished with what you needed "Nathan" for? Better yet, since Peter had already absorbed/mimicked the shapeshifting power from Sylar, why not just have ''Peter'' pretend to be his brother for a little while, convince the President, and then pretend to go missing or die? And above all else, '''why not at least tell Peter, Claire, et al that "Nathan" isn't actually Nathan, so they don't trigger inevitable disaster via their ignorance next season?!?''']]
** The fourth season's finale (which also turned out to be the last episode of the series) certainly qualifies. After [[spoiler: living through the events of volume 4, which were the result of the government learning about people with abilities, and hearing her dad plea ''on his deathbed'' that he wanted her to stay hidden and not reveal herself, Claire is compelled to jump off a Ferris wheel to do just that in front of national television. No reason is given for this decision, other than pissing off her dad who had poured his heart and soul out to her roughly ten minutes ago. Meanwhile, every other character in the series simply stands there gawking and dropping forced dialogue such as "she's going to change everything!", even though half of them had the power to stop her without making nearly as much of a scene (looking at you, Hiro!). After spending several episodes building up how much Claire-bear loves her crazy daddy, they have her just throw it all away for ''no apparent reason'' while the rest of the "Heroes" stand around and prepare for a repeat of volume four.]]

* CrazyAwesome:

** Season 2: Half the characters had boring storylines, one of the more interesting ones was [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome mostly offscreen]], and [[TheScrappy Maya Herrera]]. The season was cut short by the 2007 writers' strike and acknowledged by the writers as inferior to Season 1. The main plot also required the hero to carry the largest IdiotBall in recorded history to keep it from being resolved before the season ever started.

* SeasonalRot: '''And how'''. This show is an often-cited example of this trope in time lapse. It's so bad and so blatant that it's borderline fascinating. The first season was widely regarded as one of the best, freshest pieces of television in years....then it went downhill faster than Daphne can run. It's become such a well known example that TV & Media College Professors could hold entire lectures about the series and how NOT to further a successful television show. While there are certainly other shows that go through SeasonalRot, looking back it's surreal how the writers somehow managed to make every possible ill-advised story decision or the laundry list of detested tropes they played completely straight (amnesia, long lost triplets, sudden paternity revelations and that's only a few!). The 2007 Writers Strike played a large part in the rushed ending to season 2, but the writers tried everything they could to recapture the magic of Season 1 after it and all of it fell flat on its face.

* EvilIsCool: Sylar. A serial murderer who steals other's powers via their brains, but awfully charismatic and played by Zachary Quinto.