From a writer of the somewhat similarly-themed Misfits of Science. "Heroes" is an ambitious Story Arc-based series about what would happen if people with super powers started appearing in the "real" world.Heroes is best known for certain things: its overwhelmingly vast array of characters, its heavy, complex, and fast-moving storyline, its creative use of online content... and the characters' almostembarrassing stupefying Genre Blindness and mis-application of their powers, not to mention a plethora of bad decisions. If there was a "This Will Not End Well" trope, Heroes would be the poster show.The first "Volume" (see note below) of Heroes started out somewhat slow, but it soon matured and was entertaining, engaging, and interesting. The show picked up tremendous speed as the story progressed, and received high ratings and critical acclaim. Sadly, the second Volume didn't do quite as well. The storyline became muddled and there were several mistakes made in regard to newly introduced characters, pacing, plot and overall characterization. Fans were so vocally disappointed that Tim Kring, the producer and mastermind behind the series, felt compelled to apologize publicly in an open online letter to the fans. Some of the blame is attributed to the writer's strike that year as it cut the season short, and drastically altered the plans for the show.Unfortunately, the series has never fully recovered to the general audience. The third Volume seemed to be getting on track, with several interesting plot twists as early as the season premiere. Unfortunately, after starting with some interesting Character Development, it took a sharp turn off a cliff into a Random Events Plot with little coherence. The characters started acting very strange and almost every plotline from the first 75% of the season was either forgotten or ignored. The Fourth Volume struggled to get back on track - Your Mileage May Vary widely as to what extent they managed it. A lot. Volume Five "redeemed" the show quality-wise for some other people, further fragmenting the show's already Broken Base.On May 14, 2010, NBC officially cancelled Heroesand all hell broke loose. While there were some rumors of a follow-up television event or more dabbling in the Expanded Universe to clinch the series, nothing has come of it yet...Be sure to check out its character sheet page. There is also a tool for gathering and voting (or venting) on your Biggest Complaints.NOTE: "Heroes", wanting to be different, has "Volumes" instead of seasons. Each Volume is its own Story Arc: Volume 1 = Season 1; Volume 2 = Season 2; Volume 3 = Season 3 in the winter; Volume 4 = Season 3 in the spring; Volume 5 = Season 4. The ending episode of each volume includes a sneak peek at the next volume so Volume 5 ends with a cut-in to Volume 6 (which never materialized, as the show was canceled after Volume 5). Got that? (If not, don't worry too much; it's what editors are for.) This is probably because it's meant to be about comicbook style superheroes.
Warning: This page, much like this entire web site, contains no small number of spoilers. Reading it before watching the episodes to date will ruin plot points, wilt your geraniums, drive your pets crazy, and make you get a hair cut.
Absentee Actor: Common in seasons 1, 2 and 4, but not so much 3. Notably, Heroes is one of the few shows (with Charmed and Eastwick as perhaps the only other recent non-soap examples) to credit just the actors who appear in each episode, instead of running a standard cast list.
Hayden Panettiere and Jack Coleman tie for the best attendance record, appearing in 72 each. *
Technically, Panettiere is in 73 as one episode has her appearing (uncredited) in stock footage.
Actor Allusion: The actor who played Jeremy in Volume 5 played another character named Jeremy in Dexter. Both are troubled teens who main characters seek to help and both die in police custody.
Robert Knepper plays the charismatic leader of a Carnival for people with supernatural powers, who is gathering an army for sinister purposes. Along the way they find a young, scared Southern boy with the power to grant life and take it away. This is basically the plot of Carnivŕle, with all the elements tossed into a blender.
The mind-fuck that Virginia puts Gabriel through "to be special" most certainly qualifies. ..and then there's bio-dad who murdered his biological mother in front of him when he was five.
Arthur Petrelli takes this to new levels, as he attempts to MURDER his sons. And has his granddaughter attacked by two thugs, one of whom is a psychotic rapist.
Achilles Heel: Claire can regenerate her body, and is therefore invulnerable unless her brain stem is destroyed... Maybe...
Claire is arguably an aversion, though, as Sylar implies that he was incapable of killing her even when he desired it after copying her regeneration into himself, which means that not even decapitation would actually kill her.
Adults Are Useless: HRG suffers from this, especially in the first Volume. He repeatedly forbids Claire from doing something important to her, guaranteeing she will do exactly that. He is genuinely shocked and upset that his teenage daughter does the opposite of what he has ordered her on multiple occasions. It's generally because he's seen one of Isaac's paintings, but if he'd only tell her that, things would be smoother.
Affably Evil: Mr. Linderman. After spending most of Volume One as a sinister Ghost in charge of threatening Mooks, he turns out to be a kindly, grandfatherly old man who, in his time away from managing his criminal empire, enjoys cooking, healing cripples — and plotting nuclear holocausts. All to make the world a better place, of course.**
Also, Adam Monroe. I mean, he wants to wipe out humanity with a super virus - all for the greater good, mind you - but he seems like he'd be a fun guy to go out drinking with.
In fact, this seems to be a recurring theme throughout the series: that, despite the name, nobody is purely good or purely evil. Even the permanent villain of the series, Sylar ( well, permanent only until the end of volume 5), he's shown signs of affability throughout recent volumes. Same goes with former Company boss Bob Bishop, crazy puppeteer Eric Doyle, and power hungry carnival owner Samuel Sullivan.
All The Myriad Ways: Future timespaces are like throw away countries where you can have massive casualties, even of the main characters, and it doesn't matter because it hasn't happened yet and (maybe) never will.
All There in the Manual: There is quite a lot of supplemental material, and one of the best things about this series is the way it has happily adopted using online content as a storytelling medium. There was an ARG mentioned below, several online-exclusive miniseries, and an ongoing series of comics. The latter introduce new characters, establish the (usually sad) backstories of existing characters, set up new subplots, and, most importantly, enable you to actually see the characters use their special abilities. Many fans have argued that the writing in these comics is consistently better than that in the series proper!
All Your Powers Combined: Peter Petrelli, Sylar, Linda Tavara from the graphic novels, Arthur Petrelli, and Samson Gray.
Variation: Samuel Sullivan's earth-manipulating powers grow stronger while more supers are near him.
Alone with the Psycho: Sylar and... well, anyone really. He did it several times with the Bennets and the third time actually succeeds in getting Claire's power. And back in the first season, Mohinder visits a powered human, unaware that the "Zane" he's speaking to is actually Sylar. The real Zane's body is stashed in the kitchen.
Always Save the Girl: Hiro trying to save Charlie twice despite warnings about his disrupting history.
In "Pass/Fail" this gets thrown back in Hiro's face, as Sylar rattles off a very shortened list of the people he's murdered since Hiro made a deal with him to save Charlie.
Amicably Divorced: Subverted here since Noah and Sandra Bennet seemed like such a strong couple, but they didn't seem to be able to get along much after their separation. Sandra even knew and supported Noah's edgy career choice while they where married.
They seem to tolerate each other well enough for the sake of Claire in the episode "Thanksgiving", but are generally not on speaking terms after their divorce.
Anal Probing: In the seventh episode of Volume One, when Lyle discovers Claire's ability to heal herself after stumbling upon a tape that she and her friend Zach made to demonstrate her ability, this forces Claire and Zach to chase after him to retrieve the tape. A freaked out Lyle questions if they're both actually aliens to which Zach, in full-on Sarcasm Mode, responds, "Yeah, and we're gonna anal probe you."
And I Must Scream: Happens to Adam Monroe between Seasons 2 and 3 and Angela Petrelli at the end of "Angels and Monsters"
Anti-Villain: Adam Monroe and Samuel Sullivan. Especially Samuel, who seems to give a speech about the importance of family in every single episode, says Grace over every meal and gleefully talks about how good it is to "give back" to the earth by recycling. You don't get much more Anti-Villainish than that.
Samuel is basically Magneto only without the Holocaust backstory. All he really wants is to make sure that Evolved Humans are no longer seen as freaks by humans. It's just that he's willing to kill every one who gets in his way and the fact that he seems perfectly happy to slaughter large numbers of people to get his way that makes him a villain.
And let us not forget Mr. Linderman, who calls himself a "humanitarian" (not that way) and whose stated goal is to "heal the world."
Anyone Can Die: The deaths of Simone and Isaac and the planned death of at least one other main character (Nathan) by the end of the series. (Not to mention all the potential main characters killed by Sylar.) As with Lost, fans have had to suffer quite a few "Oh no, your favorite character might die!" teasers. (It's a little easier to take once you notice that the writers only rarely have the balls to kill off popular characters.)
Apologetic Attacker: Samuel is genuinely upset after he kills both Mohinder and Joseph.
However he seems to get over it by the point we meet im in the series as he's happy to kill hundreds if not thousands to achieve his ends
Arc Words: The stylised RNA symbol that appears on almost everything surrounding the Heroes (it's also a combination of Japanese characters saiyo meaning "great talent" or "godsend"), "Save the cheerleader, save the world," and the Activating Evolution book written by Mohinder's father, just to name a few.
Played straight with Noah Bennett, who wasn't even supposed to have a connection to Claire when they first shot the pilot.
Ascended Fanboy: Hiro goes back to the year 1671 in season 2 and meets his hero Takezo Kensei, and they go on adventures together.
The Atoner: Nathan goes through this in Volume 2, including getting tanked and growing an uber-scraggly Beard of Sorrow, over his role in nearly blowing up New York City in Volume 1. He goes back to being a dick midway through Volume 3 and through most of Volume 4, though, with pretty much the rest of the cast ending up as The Atoner in Volume 4.
Attending Your Own Funeral: Volume 4 ends with all the Heroes gathering together for the first time in the show's history to witness the destruction of Sylar's body. What most of them don't know is that "Nathan" is really Sylar after he was brainwashed into believing he's Nathan and assuming his appearance permanently by Ma Petrelli and Matt Parkman. The body being burned is a fake, a dead shapeshifter who died while mimicking Sylar's appearance.
Attempted Rape: Brody to Claire. Subverted, though, in that rather than being stopped by the Big Damn Heroes or even the girl herself, the attempt fails because he accidentally kills the girl, and apparently he's not a necrophiliac.
Well, even that's debatable, because Claire's body was found naked, even though she was dressed when when she decided to play "fetch the stick" with the back of her head. And with her ability to regenerate any part of her body, it'll forever be unknown what happened, because she should still have her hymen and Brody was mind raped by the Haitian.
She wasn't found naked - they kind of have to undress corpses to perform autopsies.
In the episode "Collision," they specifically state that she was fished out of the river naked.
There is absolutely NO WAY she could have been naked because of, you know, the cheerleader dress that identified which school she was from. The school that was having a party. The party to which it would have been painfully easy to trace said cheerleader to, and thus, with all the witnesses, find out who she was with. Necrophilia is clearly the first thing most people would think of.
But, it also seems pretty obvious. See, not only did Brody "murder" Claire, he has now hidden the body. So by removing her clothes, he can throw off that she came from his High School. Eventually though everything would be traced, but at least he stopped suspicion off himself for the getgo. Also Claire "[[got better]]"...
Author Appeal: Compare the sheer amount of blonde women against those with any other hair colour.
Also, check the heights of the majority of the main women. One would think Masi Oka had a line in his contract stating that all women who appear on screen with him must still be shorter even when wearing heels.
Author Existence Failure: In-universe with Isaac. Subverted in that it doesn't seem to stop him. Even after he died characters have found and followed eight unfulfilled paintings, a year's worth of comic issues, and one of his sketchbooks. The same can be said for Mohinder's father and his writings.
Awesomeness by Analysis: Sylar's original power, Intuitive Aptitude, that allows him copy the superpowers of others... oh, and to repair watches (by intuitively figuring out how things work or where they're broken, which makes him a candidate for Cut Lex Luthor a Check). Also, Monica can do this with Muggle skills (Muscle Memory).
Axe Crazy: Sylar and, to a comparatively lesser extent, Elle
Back from the Dead: Claire (Oncetwice ALL THE FUCKING TIME), Peter Petrelli, Adam Monroe/Kensei, and of course Sylar (I've lost count!), all thanks to the secondary Disney Death powers of their regeneration. Mr. Bennet and Maya, thanks to Claire's blood, as well as Nathan, thanks to Adam's blood. Linderman was teased to be this in Volume Three, but ultimately he wasn't.
Badass Family: The Bennets. Noah sets the gold standard for Badass on the show. Claire Took a Level in Badass in Volume Three, and single-handedly let the heroes loose in Volume Four. Sandra helps Claire hunt down villains in Volume Three and hide fugitive heroes in Volume Four. And even Lyle tries to brain the radioactive Ted Sprague with a baseball bat and even gets to take down Psycho Electro Elle in Volume 3.
Notably the Petrellis are clearly supposed to be this kind of family but too many of them are Invincible Heroes and villains who hold the Idiot Ball for far too long.
Micah's family was short-lived, but they had potential to be a really effective super-hero family like Micah wanted. In the Rebellion comic arc, they do become that family.
In Volume Five, Big Bad Samuel wears a grunge version of one. Edgar wears one too, in the Season Finale.
Badass Normal: Mr. Bennet. And arguably Peter during the "Find the Haitian" thing. Unfortunately, in Peter's case, it didn't take. The Golden Boy is back to power mimicry thanks to the super-serum, though it's apparently a bit more limited. (Also, that would imply Peter had ever deserved the label badass). And as of Volume 4, it seems Hiro might be going this way too. He's certainly giving it his all.
Danko? I mean he throws a knife into Sylar's head. Pretty badass.
Badass Adorable: Hiro, while still retaining an almost childlike innocence. Claire and Molly have the adorable part down cold, just not the badass part.
Claire arguably becomes more badass as the series progresses. And of course is still adorable.
Bad Future: Once a season. (Note: Season, not Volume.) In a possible example of You Can't Fight Fate, pretty early in Volume Four it becomes clear that the Volume One Bad Future is turning into the Bad Present.
Likewise, Volume Five offers hints that Samuel may have played a hand in Volume Three's Bad Future.
Bad Powers, Bad People Both subverted and played straight — with Walking Wastelands Ted (and those that copied his power) and Maya, the blackhole-producing Stephen Canfield, and Sylar who's power comes prepackaged with a compulsion to take things (and people) apart to see how they work.
A few episodes of volume 4 and the webisode "Nowhereman" indicate the same is true of creepy puppetmaster Eric Doyle.
With the Webisode series over we've seen that Doyle, while not pure evil as he first appeared, is far from a hero. Even when he does good things he does them in a bad way and he's creepy as hell while he does it.
With Volume 5 he's back to being evil and working for Samuel in a plan to kill god knows how many innocent people
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: According to the online graphic novels, Benjamin Franklin had the ability to absorb electricity, which is how he survived his famed kite experiment.
Berserk Button: If someone you had never met in your life that has no impact on your life and that might have only had one thing even slightly in common with you were to be killed, would you make a big deal out of it? Maybe not, but Samuel sure would. Oh yes, he sure would.
Beware The Cute Ones: Peter almost going all explody, Claire threatening Elle, Hiro's punishment of Kensei, and so on. Micah, the seemingly harmless kid genius managed to mastermind a huge underground resistance network that succesfully fought back against a man with government funding and resources and a team of highly trained killers on his side.
Mr. Linderman seemed to have emerged as the one true villain of Volume One, though Mr. Bennet and Sylar gave him one hell of a fight for the title for a while. Also, at the end of the first Volume, numerous mentions of Molly's "Nightmare Man" inspired many to believe that whoever it was would be the Big Bad for Volume Two. It was Matt's dad, an original member of the Company. However, he was quickly and easily dispatched in early episodes.
In Volume Two, it is revealed that Adam Monroe, aka Takezo Kensei, is behind the deaths of the original members of the Company, and had a lot more than that in the works.
In Volume Three, it was Papa Petrelli pulling the strings, although (appropriate to the title, "Villains") everyone and their mother tried to get in on the act at first.
In Volume Four, the governmental anti-super conspiracy took the role from the start. For a while, it seemed like Nathan would play the figurehead, but he was quickly usurped by Danko, who in turn gets usurped in a last minute steal by Sylar.
Tracy looked all set to be this for Volume 5 from an end-of-episode teaser, but then comes Samuel.
Big Brother Instinct: Peter Petrelli towards Claire Bennet (even before learning she is his niece).
Nathan also behaves this way as Peter's literal big brother. They don't always get along, but when Peter gets into trouble, Nathan is always there to get him out again.
Big Good: Angela Petrelli in Volume 3; Rebel in Volume 4.
Richard Drucker, an opponent of the Company, served this role in the Season 2 graphic novels plotline, but had no role in the main show's plot and appeared to be killed by the Company after a couple of appearances. The Volume 4 graphic novels show that Rebel was inspired partially by Drucker's legacy, though.
Big "NO!": Several times, but most notably HRG in Volume One after Sylar locks him up in a cell and sets on his way to Claire. Also Angela Petrelli after seeing Nathan dead in the Volume 4 finale.
Big Ol' Eyebrows: Nathan Petrelli, whose signature thick brows have been affectionately named 'Pasbrows' by the fandom.
This also goes for Sylar, complete with his own affectionate nickname, Sexy Brows 'Sybrows.'
The Petrellis. Dear God, the Petrellis. It's complicated of course.
Daddy was just this side of a psychopath, and was poisoned into near death by his wife.
Mommy is a cold blooded Manipulative Bitch who vacilitates wildly from genuine affection for her sons to using them as tools for whatever purpose she needs.
Nathan will do whatever Angela tells him such as allowing New York to blow up, no matter what his personal feelings.
Peter, despite being the only one who'll stand up to her even momentarily, usually gets talked into going along with her.
Not to forget fringe members of the Petrelli family, Alice Shaw or more correctly the crazy aunt who spent 50 years hiding in desert soley because her sister (Angela) told her to wait for her.
The Bennets. Sandra seems better able to cope, but it's a miracle Lyle isn't in therapy with all the weird crap going on around him.
Not to forget the Grays. Sylar who kills a lot of people including his mother, Virginia (Sylar's mother) who isn't all there in the head and the psycho bio-dad who probably killed just as many people as Sylar including Sylar's mother in front of him as a child, after selling Sylar to previously mentioned crazy snow-glob lady.
Black and Gray Morality: The only hero who hasn't done any morally grey activity is Molly, and she is ten years old. Even Micah, who is about the same age, used his ability to rob an ATM and commit electoral fraud. And as the series progressed, all the adults have become darker. Which makes you wonder why the show is called "Heroes."
Black and Gray is especially apt. The prevailing moral philosophy seems to be that there is no such thing as good, only innocence/naivety. Everything else is varying degrees of evil, and the sooner a character embraces evil, the happier and more successful they will be.
Body Horror: Sylar fell all over himself to get a new shapeshifting power, without realizing it had a few side-effects... like extra teeth, uncontrollable shifting, and mental instability because The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body. And let us not forget Mohinder's "Let's experiment on myself!" adventure. Scales, goo, and cocoons, oh my!
Book Ends: Claire's Establishing Character Moment of her being filmed jumping off a large height in the pilot also closes out the series as she reveals her regeneration to the world by jumping off a Ferris Wheel on live television.
Break the Cutie: The reason Elle is a sociopath is because her father decided to take his little girl and see just how much torture it would take to break her.
The whole entire series can be considered this for Claire. The season 4 villain outright states this is his plan for Claire.
Break The Gamebreaker: The most egregious being Volume Three's "Woah, wait, Hiro will just go through time and fix things! I will erase his memory and make him think he is a little kid again! Bwahaha!"
Brick Joke: A relatively quick version occurs in "Pass/Fail". Hiro's stuck in a trial being put on in his mind to determine whether he deserves to live or die. At one point, Sylar goes up to the stand and lists off all the people he killed because Hiro let him live after saving Charlie. He gets to Ted's name, but can't seem to remember his last name. Adam Monroe, leading the trial against Hiro, goes on to make a speech. A few minutes in, Sylar finally remembers the name, randomly shouting out "Sprague! Ted Sprague!".
Bring My Red Jacket: Claire, the castmember most likely to end up covered in blood due to her Healing Factor, wears a red cheerleading uniform for much of the first season. She manages to subvert Little Dead Riding Hood, despite constantly wearing red and havingHair of Gold. After the first half of the first season, she almost never wears red again.
Brought Down to Normal: In Volume Three, Peter, of all people. But it seems to have done a lot for his God Mode Sue problems. And everyone during "The Eclipse" episodes. And Hiro, temporarily as well, in Volume One and at the end of Volume 3.
Bullying a Dragon: Snobbery directed at the Big Badthat can level your housetends to be a suicidal idea. And apparently, Edgar has learned this lesson well. He starts a feud with Sylar, despite the latter apparently having quite a reputation amongst the superpowered community as an unstoppable brain-stealing murder machine. Granted, Edgar is Darth Maul and Sylar was a mild-mannered amnesiac at the time, but it still seemed like he was just asking for trouble.
Butterfly of Doom: Overused as an analogy in Volume Three. It's even worse in Volume Five - so much so that the Big Bad is named after it.
Matt Parkman has to be the undisputed king of this.
When the show opens, he's a joke amongst his fellow officers due to his constant failure to pass the exams to move up from patrolman to police detective.
He uses his powers to find a little girl who was the sole survivor of an attack by Sylar...and is immediately arrested on suspicion of being Sylar.
His telepathy reveals that his wife was cheating on him with his partner and - after they've reconciled in Volume 5 - it appears that she may have resumed doing so, but he can't confirm it because of his promise to stop using his powers.
He acquired a new superpower to see the future but nothing ever came of it save his having a lot of horrific visions and seeing his true soul mate.
Said soul mate then got killed before she and Matt could get married.
He was set up to look like a terrorist by Danko and a murderer by Sylar.
He lost his job at least once in every single volume.
He's the only character to defeat Sylar for good (twice!) only to have Idiot Hero Peter undo it (twice!!!)
Niki Sanders is a close second. If Matt Parkman was the King of the Butt Monkeys on this show, then Niki was their Queen.
She's stuck working a humiliating job as a web-cam girl to pay for her prodigy son's schooling and to pay back the gangster who she borrowed the money from in the first place.
Her powers caused her to develop MPD, with her two most dominant personalities being a self-serving murderous Black Widow and the other being a vapid party girl.
She committed herself to try and stop her murderous personality from killing her husband, only to wind up getting abused by the guards there and - ultimately - being unable to free herself from the influence of the gangster that was blackmailing her.
The later of her personalities indirectly caused the death of her husband, D.L.
Ted Sprague, whose radiation emitting powers caused him to unknowingly give his wife cancer, be hunted as a terrorist and finally get killed by Sylar certainly qualifies.
Maya, who killed her entire village save for her brother and countless other innocents also qualifies.
Cain and Abel: Peter and Nathan in the Volume Three season finale.
The Petrelli brothers subvert this trope in Season 1 - twice! First, in "Five Years Gone", and then in the season finale.
California Doubling: Los Angeles doubles as New York, Texas, and Japan, among other places.
Calling the Old Man Out: Nathan and Angela; Matt and his father; Claire and Mr. Bennet; Nathan and Arthur; Sylar and Samson.
The Cameo: Several, but we especially loved Stan Lee's awesome appearance as a bus driver in "Unexpected" and Seth Green in "The Eclipse".
Cannot Spit It Out: The show would probably be 40% shorter if characters actually shared basic, critical information with each other.
Canon Discontinuity: There was a lot of bad ideas introduced in Volume Two and Three. Volume Four spent a lot of time undoing the ones that could be undone, and the remaining ones... well, they're just not mentioned anymore. Ever.
Can't Hold His Liquor: Oh, Nathan. You think you're so tough but you're an embarrassment to drinkers everywhere. The fandom will laugh forever at the tequila scene in "Into Asylum".
Cape Busters: Nathan and Danko's team of Black Ops soldiers in Volume 4, who are attempting to capture and detain every evolved human in the United States because their powers are too dangerous. Yes, even the lame ones. Except Sylar.
Card-Carrying Villain: Knox in Volume 3, mainly because his Start of Darkness backstory got cut from the Volume 3 flashback episode. It is still available online and on the Season 3 DVD, however.
Cast from Hit Points: Hiro gets a weakened version of his power back from Baby Touch And Go's power, only to find out that every time he uses it takes a toll on his body and brain and is slowly killing him. This has been retconned to the power itself taking a toll on the body, as Samuel's time-traveling buddy Arnold demonstrates.
Half-way through Season 1, Nathan teaches Hiro the correct pronunciation of "villain". Ten episodes later, Hiro is using the word to great effect - on Nathan.
The last 9th Wonders comic book is needed for a Plot Coupon in Volume Three. Unfortunately, the author... well you know. But wait! He gave his sketchbook to an anonymous bike messenger back in Volume One...
At the beginning of the series, Angela gets busted by the police for shoplifting socks, which perplexes her sons and seems out of character for her, especially as the audience gets to know her better. In the Volume Four episode "1961", the reason is finally revealed: whenever Angela feels lost, she steals socks to remind herself of her sister, her goals, and her purpose (It Makes Sense in Context).
In the third episode of Season 3, during Angela Petrelli's reign of babymomma-ing Sylar, the superpowered serial killer was given the ability of clairsentience by a hapless mook. Didn't seem to do much until the middle of Volume 4, when Sylar learns the fate of his true parents in the dilapidated cafe, and even further still in Volume 5, when Angela gives him a box of Nathan's belongings (as Sylar has shapeshifted into Nathan) which triggers "Nathan's" memories of a young girl's murder back when he was a teen.
Cliffhanger Copout: A number of cliffhangers would pique viewers' interest that one thing would happen and then would give them something entirely different at the start of the next episode. The episode "Truth & Consequences" from Volume 2, for example, ends with Hiro charging at Peter, who refuses to believe Hiro's claims that Adam Monroe is dangerous and is even willing to protect him, suggesting that the two characters were going to fight each other. The beginning of the following episode, "Powerless," shows Hiro, after his charge, deciding to just teleport around Peter and try and talk to him some more to convince him that Adam is evil.
Coconut Superpowers: The show that inspired the trope. Fortunately, the budget seems to finally allow for more "showboating" beginning in Volume Three.
Code Name: The Haitian was only finally referred to by his real name in Volume 5.(It's René)
Notable in that suddenly EVERYONE who's ever met him, even briefly, know who he is, despite always referring to him as the Haitian before that point.
Coitus Ensues: Sylar and Elle randomly getting it on towards the end of volume 3.
Which suggests that the Volume 3 Bad Future has not been averted...
Or at least heavily implies that Samuel may have been the cause since his power in amplified by the presence of other Specials and the Volume 3 future had powers readily available to the public via the induction serum.
"Every creature cursed with awareness asks, 'Who are we? Why are we here?' Is it the Search for Self? Why do we dream? When will someone finally point out that RNA does not work this way? What happened to Caitlin? When will I ever shut up?"
Done literally when Tracy, in full freakout mode over her ability going haywire, accidentally freezes Claire and breaks off her foot when Claire tried to calm her down.
Cosmic Deadline: Most notable during volume one (season one) and volume two (season two). For the former volume, even with a twenty-three episode story arc, the last three episodes's pacing noticeably sped up to the point of distraction. Events fell together quicker than usual, Idiot Ball after Idiot Ball got tossed around to make the characters move around improbably fast, and even the long awaited final confrontation teased over the course of the season ended far too fast. Tim Kring stated that the production end ran out of time and money to let the plot properly develop, but sought to avoid such scenarios for the next season. Alas, that didn't quite happen, thanks to the writer's strike affecting production, which forced the creators to avert their initial plans.
Couldn't Find A Pen: Sylar painting the future in his mother's blood. Sylar cutting his name into his forearm while he was having his shapeshifting identity crisis. Sylar also leaves a note on the wall: "Sylar was here" in his victim's blood also during the identity crisis.
Happens to Nathan/Sylar twice in a single episode. Sorta.
Cult: The Sullivan Bros. Carnival is run like one, complete with references to "the family," religious trappings, isolation, physical labor for no pay, and, of course, a charismatic leader with self-proclaimed prophetic abilities (which, unlike in real life, happen to be real).
Curse Cut Short: Plenty, the best in my opinion being when Claire wakes up on the autopsy table...
Hiro...YOU SON OF A BI....
Cursed with Awesome: Claire's healing powers, whilst meaning she'll have a long life, mean she can't get drunk!
Cut Short: The final scene sets up a Season 5 (Volume 6). But the low ratings made NBC think otherwise.
Dead Little Sister: Revealed to be Angela Petrelli's Start of Darkness motivation. Mohinder also had one in Season 1, although he didn't even know she existed until halfway through the season.
Dead Man Writing: Hiro's father leaves him one at the beginning of Season 3.
Dead Star Walking: Scott, the Pinehearst Marine played by Chad Faust.
Death by Sex: Elle. Well she DID have sex with freaking Sylar of all people.
Death Glare: deployed by Nathan in Season 1 whenever Peter proposes, says or does something especially dumb◊. Subsequently, it's well demonstrated in Trust And Blood when Danko threatens Claire with a gun - Nathan skins him alive with a glare before ordering Claire off home◊. Also used to good effect in Shades Of Gray, when Danko defenestrates Senator Skyboy from the nth floor of their government office building. Nathan glares every insult in the BOOK at him before booming off. Essentially, this is Nathan's default look when he has to deal with his mother's or Danko's machinations or with people like Peter, Hiro and Parkman.
It seems to be genetic, with Ma Petrelli also being more than able to cut someone down to about an inch tall with a poison look when she deems it necessary◊.
Destination Defenestration: Jessica throws Matt out a window in Volume 1. Sylar does this to Peter in Volume 3. And Danko to Nathan in Vol 4.
Not to mention what happens to Claire's peppy new roommate in Volume 5 (season 4).
Deus Exit Machina - The Haitian, whose power is to block other people's powers. Although he is the one person who could actually kick Sylar's ass rather easily, he is never seldom around when needed.
Similarly, Matt Parkman is kept well away from the Battle Royale in Volumes Three, Four, and Five, since his burgeoning Psychic Powers would allow him to just make the bad guys surrender (or worse, if he were in a bad mood).
Did Not Do the Research - Many throughout, but perhaps the most glaring is the whole Solar Eclipse causing heroes to lose their powers (It was a main plot point). There's a total solar eclipse once a month (they just usually occur over the ocean and in place that are not normally inhabited, so people don't see them. More importantly, the range of the eclipse is nowhere near what was portrayed in the show (I'd hate to see what happened with the tides. Hell, if the moon and sun where that close I wonder if Earth would maintain orbit).
Also, with the story happening at various points of the globe, the eclipse was apparently visible everywhere around the world.
Differently Powered Individual: The show generally avoids using a general term for its supers, and they are mainly referred to vaguely as "people like me" by those with powers or "individuals with abilities" by those without. The Company seems to officially refer to them as "specials", although this was mostly in the online comics. Adam also used the term "specials" to describe powered humans. Danko started using the term too, so it seems to have become the show's "official" word for people with powers. The general fan consensus seems to refer to them as "evolved humans", so much so that even NBC's publicity department uses the term.
Discard and Draw: Peter lost his ability in Volume 3, and regained a weakened version — the ability to copy the power of the last person he touched—at the end of the season. This does wonders for his intelligence, as the writers no longer need to glue the Idiot Ball to his hands to stop him being a gamebreaker.
Disproportionate Retribution: Samuel goes to New York City and decides to visit the mansion where he lived as a boy, and asks to have a look around. The new owner, with some condescension, turn him down since they're in the middle of a fancy dinner party, and then everyone in the house laughs when he returns. So he destroys the whole place by creating a massive sinkhole underneath it, killing three of the party-goers in the process.
And then he wipes out an entire town and kills hundreds because Vanessa refuses to be with him and a waitress asks him what's wrong.
There's also the fact that he had the Caimen Police Department demolished with the police still inside because the deputy and several of his men had a kid who determines life and death dragged to death as a lynch execution.
Dork Age: Actually seen in-universe. Several characters who were last seen attempting to kill each other in Volume 3 meet again in the first episode of Volume 4 and act quite civil towards each other, with the apparent unspoken agreement to pretend that Volume 3 never happened.
Dressing as the Enemy: Peter is all set to try this after knocking out one of the Black Ops agents, until Tracy points out to him what a stupid idea it is (he still puts on the guy's uniform, though, because why say no to free Kevlar?). In a later episode, Sylar does the exact same thing, with much more success, although he has much more experience in performing that particular trick. Hiro also does this when he and Ando try to shut down building 26.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Simone, DL, Caitlin, Adam Monroe, Bob, Usutu — though he got better, maybe — Scott, Knox, Nathan...
Danko. He survives the entirety of Volume 4, despite the fact that every single person wants him dead. He is back for Volume 5, and he is building up to retaining his recurring character status. He even narrowly avoided death at the hands of Tracy. Not even a minute later, Knife Guy comes in and slices him up, killing him before he even knows whats going on.
Both Hiro (unsurprisingly) and Peter Petrelli (even more unsurprisingly given his carriage of the Idiot Ball throughout Volume Two) fall under this effect.
In Volume Three, Matt is fawning over a thief with Super Speed he just met yesterday, all because he had a psychic vision of them being married in the future.
Hilariously subverted by Hiro during his introduction to Daphne. Rather than assume she's a complex human being with a complex motivations, he likens Ando and he to Batman and Robin and then refuses to refer to her as anything but "Nemesis" or "Catwoman" afterwards. He quite literally gets too caught up in assuming she's evil to make any sort of judgement call on her.
Dying To Be Replaced: Arthur Petrelli becomes the new Big Badby murdering the previous season's Big Bad, Adam Monroe. Of course, Sylar eventually reasserts himself.
Part of Volume Three had Noah Bennet and Sylar teaming up. It didn't work out so well.
The Volume Three finale, where Bennet frees all the Level 5 supervillains to help fight Sylar. They all last about 3 minutes, tops.
Sylar is pretty damn good at getting mortal enemies to drop their differences in order to team up and stop him from Taking Over The World (of course.) The Season 1 finale basically had all the desperate characters coming together to put the smack down on Sylar before he could nuke New York to become President of the United States. Though granted, that was shown to be a future result of the nuke and not his actual motivation. And, in the Volume 4 finale, Bennet and Danko team up to stop Sylar from (again) becoming President of the United States... which lasts for about 5 minutes, until Danko decides to backstab Bennet just for the hell of it.
Used in the Volume 5 opener, when Bennet and Tracy quasi-team up to get Danko off her case - resulting in Danko being swiss-cheesed by Edgar five seconds later.
In a twist, as of Volume 5, Sylar and Peter seem to have teamed up, though Sylar is trying to be good again. It seems like it might take.
Being trapped for five years in your own mind to wallow in your guilt will drastically change one's outlook on life, especially if you're only company is your more compassionate and moral archnemesis.
Enemy Within: Sylar seems to have become this in Volume 5... although, in a bit of a twist, it's to Matt, rather than to "Nathan".
Everybody Lives: In the "Redemption" season finale, the Heroes manage to stop Samuel's plot to destroy New York City without causing or allowing a single death; thanks to Big Bad Samuel's many Kick the Dog moments throughout the season, his right-hand men and other followers are all convinced to turn against him without a fight, rendering the previously all-powerful Big Bad into a powerless sap to be dragged off by the cops. Meanwhile, Sylar stay true to his redemption and incapacitates Doyle without killing him. This is pretty noteworthy considering the show's tendency to purge all its secondary characters at the end of each Volume, typically with a massive Sylar-centric bloodbath.
Everyone Loves Blondes: Six of eight of the white women from season three are applicable. Four have bright blond hair, and the two others have goldenrod hair.
Lampshaded in-universe by Meredith, who is blonde, when she is reunited with Nathan and meets Tracy, who had accompanied him and is also blonde.
Meredith: "I see you've still got a weakness for blondes."
Evil Foreigner: "The German," the psycho with Magneto-type totally original electromagnetic powers.
Evil Makeover: According to Volume Three, hair gel = evil.
Except that in Sylar's case, once he started donning the hair gel, he kept trying to go good.
Evil Is Not a Toy: Whenever some erstwhile Chessmaster keeps Sylar alive or even feeds him powers while plotting to use him to further their own evil schemes, you know the main man is going to eventually turn around and make things end badly for them. Bennet even Lampshades this when confronting Danko.
Bennet: Just how dumb are you? Who did you think would be left standing the moment Sylar got bored? You?
Evil Matriarch: Mrs. Petrelli, especially in the first two Volumes.
Evil Overlooker: Both covers to the first graphic novel collection show Sylar looming over the Heroes. As does the Season 2 DVD cover. And the second graphic novel collection.
Evil Overlord: Arthur Petrelli fits pretty much every item in the checklist.
Evil Versus Evil: Volume Three looked like it was working towards a battle between Primatech Paper/The Company (a morally ambiguous Ancient Conspiracy that tried to blow up New York City to unify the world) and Pinehearst Industries (a Legion of Doom of supervillains whose actions are apparently destined to make the world explode). Yeah...
Expecting Someone Taller: After meeting him in Volume 5, Samuel and Lydia discuss their disappoint that the long feared, Shrouded in Myth figure of "Sylar, the most powerful one of all" turns out to be a confused amnesiac with a rather mild-mannered disposition.
There's a reason for his nicer attitude - the memories he's retained are still Nathan's.
Extra Strength Masquerade: Oh, so much. From nuclear explosions over New York City to people using their powers to cheat in Vegas casinos, from a Serial Killer who freezes his victims and cuts their heads open without a blade to a concentration camp for metahumans constructed in The Sixties, and from former employees of the Mutant Draft Board putting their experience on their résumés and being hired by the CIA to an effort to abduct American citizens with superpowers being discussed (albeit in vague terms) on a Captain Ersatz for the Larry King show, there should be no way that The Masquerade can endure...and yet it does.
Eye Scream: Inflicted on Sylar by Claire in "Pass/Fail".
The Faceless: Sylar, for a surprisingly long time after he was introduced as a character. The first time we actually see his face is in a flashback; therefore the fact that he's uncomfortably handsome is more of a shock. This is, of course, due to the fact that the first part of Season 1 was filmed before Sylar was actually cast, with veteran voice actor Mauriche LaMarche being his voice in the Sylar/Chandra phone call and the on-set Sylar being played by stunt doubles until Zach Quinto was hired
Fake Brit: Adam is played by Oregon native David Anders.
Fake Guest Star: James Kyson Lee gets this treatment throughout Season 1, even though Ando appears in twenty-two out of twenty-three episodes. That's more than Peter, Nathan, or Mohinder, and way more than Simone.
Fake Irish: Samuel and Ricky are played by Americans Robert Knepper and Holt Mc Callany. Will and Caitlin are played by Brits Dominic Keating and Katie Carr.
Fake Nationality: See Fake Brit and Fake Irish above. James Kyson Lee (Korean) plays Ando (Japanese). Additionally, while Mohinder is from India, Sendhil Ramamurthy was born in Chicago and grew up in Texas. Lampshaded by Ando who says (of white people, though): "They all look alike."
Family Versus Career As a part of Samuel's plan to manipulate Hiro, he hides Charlie in 1944 Wisconsin. Since Charlie's power is perfect memory, and she had spent the 6 months prior to her appearance learning everything there is to know about everything, she's basically a walking Gray's Sports Almanac. Despite being in a unique position to manipulate world events (or at very least make herself fantastically rich), she chooses instead to be Rosie the Riveter and raise kids. The fact that the character had incredible Mundane Utility but never thought to use it in anyway but being a better manual laborer stretches into Unfortunate Implications territory.
Fandom Nod: Sylar explains that he, in fact, does NOT eat brains.
Also in one GN when meeting a trio of evolved humans who think of him as an inspiration, Sylar notes with some surprise "I have... fans!?" most likely a nod to the Sylar fandom.
Fantastic Aesop: There are entire episodes devoted to explaining that You Can't Fight Fate and/or change the past. This, however does not apply to the future. You can change that as much as you like. In fact the resolution for both the first and second Volumes is the characters preventing a future event, one witnessed firsthand by one or more characters, from happening. This seems to imply that the "present" timeline that most of the show takes place in is somehow more valid or real than any other timelines.
Fate Worse than Death: Adam Monroe is stuck in a coffin underground, thanks to Hiro's teleportation ability. Did we mention that he is immortal? And that he essentially can't die? He suffocates, then regenerates, then suffocates again, etc...
He is released by Hiro in the next season in exchange for helping Hiro and Ando. Before he can do much of anything, he is kidnapped by an agent of Arthur Petrelli, who steals Adam's immortality/healing power with a touch, causing him to diefor good.
A Father to His Men: Danko. He admonishes Nathan for not caring enough about his agents, then later tells the rest of his team to remember two killed by a shapeshifter.
Subverted later when he's willing to sacrifice members of his team to allow Sylar to continue working with him undercover.
Also Danko's motivation in volume 5. Tracy is killing former members of his team, so Danko goes after her for revenge. Or maybe it's that whole Fantastic Racism thing again.
Faux Fluency: Since, despite apparently having a decent working knowledge of Japanese, Adam still pronounces Yaeko's name "Yay-ko", his Japanese is probably an example of this. And who knows how many other examples there are, since polyglots seem to grow on trees in the Heroes universe.
Fauxlosophic Narration: Mohinder's Book Ends mentioned above. Though in Volume Three, they mercifully switched to using actual poetry instead of MoeMoe's fluff for a time. They also let a few other characters have narration duty.
15 Minutes of Fame: After Claire rescues a man from a fire early on, she lets Jackie lie about being the one who did it (all anyone saw was that the rescuer was wearing a cheerleader uniform), since she herself is mortified about the existence of her superpowers.
Fight Unscene: Happens three times in "Five Years Gone": twice when Future!Hiro and Future!Peter square off against the cops and once when Future!Sylar and Future!Peter have their big showdown.
They pull the "seen only through a crack in the door" trick again in the Volume Four finale, when Nathan and Peter fight Sylar.
First Girl Wins: Charlie over Yaeko. Well, in the order that Hiro meets them. Hiro met Charlie in present-time in Season One and went back in time and met Yaeko in fuedal Japan in Season Two.
Forbidden Fruit: Volume Three opens with Hiro getting his father's video will with specific instructions not to open the safe. Guess what Hiro does as soon as he hears this? (Face-palm!)
Forgot About His Powers: At the end of Season 3, Sylar kills Nathan. Angela and Noah decide to cover up the death by having Matt brainwash Sylar into thinking he's Nathan, despite the fact that Claire was elsewhere in the same building and they could have easily brought Nathan back with an infusion of Claire's blood, just as they did for Noah in Season 2.
Forgot I Could Fly: Nathan had to fly Peter out of Kirby Plaza. Hand waved that he was too busy trying not to explode.
Mohinder. The Volume Three opener is easily the most blatant example, but he's had elements of this all along.
This is even lampshaded in 1961, when in a What Have I Done moment Mohinder outright states "For Science!" was his misguided motivation for the crap he pulled in Volume 3.
For the Evulz: The only reason Sylar ever does anything.
Actually a plot point After Sylar meets bio-dad who attempts to steal Sylars healing powers to heal his cancer, gives Sylar a speech about all the things he is going to do when he is healed (pretty much all of them Evulz), which motivates Sylar (who was just pretending the whole to be caught).
Framed Clue: Chandra Suresh's diary is hidden inside the case of his laptop, and only discovered when Mohinder throws it down in frustration. There's also a very clumsy version of this involving reaching for some salt at a diner.
Franchise Killer: Season 4/Volume 5 ended up being the final season of Heroes, despite leaving a Cliff Hangar. Your Mileage May Vary whether or not it was due to Volume 5 itself, or just karma from arguably inferior previous seasons catching up. Actually, not only was the show cancelled, but they also ended up abruptly ending the graphic novels, and original plans for an end-of-series movie was also scrapped as well.
Friendly Enemy: Sylar to everyone in Season 3 and Season 4.
Future Badass: Hiro and Peter and almost everyone in "Five Years Gone", Peter and Claire in "I Am Become Death". Inverted with the "I Am Become Death" version of Sylar as a family man and father.
Gender Bender: What's the first thing Sylar turns into after getting the ability to shapeshift? You got it...
Gene Hunting: Claire in Volume 1, Sylar in Volume 4
Genocide Backfire: The whole cockup at the Coyote Sands Concentration Camp. Although not a deliberate attempt at genocide, it was a major effort by the U.S. Government to round up and contain supers; before you know it Dr. Suchong Dr. Suresh slaps a little girl, little girl blasts him with lightning, soldiers freak out and open fire on everybody, and hey nonny nonny you've got blood all over the place and a whole bunch of dead supers. And from the ashes rises two groups of very pissed off supers: The Company (who have been responsible for, among other things, attempting to nuke New York City and creating a virus capable of wiping out 99% of the Earth's population), and Samuel Sullivan (the super Anti Christ who, if powered by enough followers, potentially has the ability to split the Earth in half).
The Ghost: Mr. Linderman spent the first half of the first Volume as an invisible character. This was later revealed to be due to budget constraints. The show's budget wasn't big enough to pay for the high cost of actor Malcolm McDowell appearing from the start. In Volume Three, he appeared as sort of a literal ghost.
Good Thing You Can Heal: Claire Bennet is sort of the Trope Namer (it isn't a direct quote but might as well be due to all the trauma the writers like to put her through.) Lately, ever since he gained Regeneration, Sylar his giving Claire a run for her money, with getting shot, his shoulder dislocated, his throat slashed etc.
A God Am I: Adam Monroe, at least in the supplementary comic books. Also Baron Samedi, the Haitian's brother. He seems to give off major Xerxes and Colonel Kurt vibes, too. Let's not forget Arthur Petrelli, with his delusional Nietzche fixation.
Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: There's actually a scene in the second episode where Peter is standing on a ledge talking to Nathan. Peter gets angry and starts walking towards his brother - off the ledge and onto thin air. He doesn't even realise he's doing it until Nathan points out the three feet of empty space beneath him, at which point Gravitational Cognisance apparently kicks in and he falls back to the ground. Justified in that Peter is unwittingly using his new flying ability, but the effect is still remarkably cartoony.
Greasy Spoon: Hiro met his beloved at one of these, and Nathan Petrelli at another.
Growing Up Sucks: An amnesiac Hiro declares this in Volume Three after discovering everything that happened in the previous Volumes.
Hand Wave: Muggles can apparently find Specials by carefully thumb-tacking several bits of colored string to a map. It happens several times.
Hannibal Lecture: Subverted. Mr.Bennet is too clever to fall for Sylar's speech. Likewise, his daughter Claire gives Sylar a good Shut Up, Hannibal! in the Volume 3 final showdown.
Hanlon's Razor: Future Peter. Especially that corollary of any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Happily Adopted: Claire. It helps that her "real" family are mostly jerks.
Have You Told Anyone Else?: When Noah Bennet asks this of Claire about her powers, she tells him that Zach knows and Lyle found out. The next day, Claire finds that their memories have been erased.
Have You Tried Not Being A Monster?: In Volume One, complete with Claire being asked if she plans to "come out" to her family. The Shanti virus (the original strain) also has some parallels to HIV.
Headphones Equal Isolation: Emma, a deaf character, wears iPod earbuds that aren't connected to anything to prevent people from trying to talk to her.
Heel Face Turn: Mr. Bennet, whose various ruthless actions proved to be an elaborate stratagem to protect his daughter from the very company he's working for, and who is eventually outed and forced to join with two of the heroes in order to keep her safe. This seems more like a Reverse Mole, although the problem with both of these is that he still seems more like a Heel than a Face. Continuing to think of him as a Heel is seeming more reasonable all the time, as Claire (very) briefly flirted with going Heel in Volume Three.
Sylar starting in Volume Three. So many in fact that you think he'd get whiplash.
Finally resolved near the end of the series as Face.
Also Nathan Petrelli throughout the show. But then, he IS a politician...
Tracy Strauss: she's started as a political ally to Nathan Petrelli with a penchant for turning journalists into popsicles, who then jumps ship after being told she's a synthetic superpowered triplet and becomes Arthur Petrelli's office bitch, who then tries to "help" Peter and the others at the start of Volume 4 after Arthur kicks the bucket, who then breaks out of Building 26 captivity and is shot, whilst frozen, by Danko, who then returns as some killer ice queen/water-controlling wench with a serious grudge against anyone from Building 26, including Noah Bennet, who then goes a bit soft and gooey around Bennet when he offers her clam chowder after watching Danko get sliced to ribbons. Yeah, we got a little confused with her too.
She's related to Niki, who had a split personality. Only makes sense she's kind-of crazy, too.
Angela Petrelli could be an alternate title for the Trope.
Heroes: Obviously. Though it's somewhat subverted; the show seems to like exploring just how hard being a superhero would be like in practice.
Eden who kills herself to prevent Sylar from gaining her influencing abilities.
Then subverted. D.L. takes a bullet from Linderman to save Niki. Enter season two, he is dead, and we are lead to assume that is how he died. But then a flashback to four months ago has him make a full recovery from the hospital, and is indeed well enough to go fight fires and stuff...only to get shot by some random crackhead with the hots for Niki.
Don't forget Niki Sanders, who tries to rescue Monica from a burning building at the end of Volume 2, without her super-strength. Monica gets out, Niki doesn't.
Daphne is shot trying to rescue Claire, Matt, and the others. She initially survived, but later dies from sepsis because Danko had her removed from the medical facility.
And Traci apparently sacrifices herself in a spectacularly permanent-looking fashion to prevent Danko from killing Micah/Rebel. The Volume 4 finale shows that she got better.
Nathan Petrelli flies off with his critically nuclear little brother Peter in the Volume 1 season finale. He also "gets better" after a sense in the next season... Then at the end of Volume 4 trying to atone for this Volume's douchery he goes up against Sylar by himself (ditching Peter in the middle of the battle) and gets himself killed.
Matt, after having his body possessed by Sylar, uses his ability to arouse everyone else's suspicions about him, leading the Texas police force to deploy a dozen men with guns to form a circle around him. In order to stop Sylar from going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the people who stole his body, Matt makes the cops think Sylar has a gun, leading them to open fire, and effectively taking out both Sylar and Matt.
Too bad that Peter ruins everything
Hidden Elf Village - This seems to be the purpose of Big Bad Samuel's Carnival in Volume 5. They're a bit more proactive than most, as Samuel's M.O. often involves secretly arranging the deaths of Muggles to push other supers into joining the Carnival.
Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act - Mocked hilariously when Hiro repeatedly uses his power to sabotage a copier so that a goofball accountant won't photocopy his butt and get fired. Everytime Hiro stops him, he just does it again at the next party.
I Have You Now, My Pretty: Inspired by their Not so Different paths over the course of the series, Sylar woes a captive Claire in the Volume 4 season finale just before his attempt to become President of the United States. Especially creepy in that, by the series' timeline, Claire is barely 17 at this point.
Idiot Ball: It's like they're playing basketball with the damn thing. May even count as an aversion, in that everyone is so stupid all the time that it's out of the ordinary when one of the characters does anything intelligent. "Smart Ball", perhaps?
Beforehand, Hiro was persuaded by the carnival guy that he can change the timeline without doing too much damage. A few episodes later, the carnival guy tells Hiro that saving Charlie would screw up history...and he believed him despite that other encounter where the carnival guy says the opposite thing.
Another moment when Matt decides to drown out Sylar by drinking, which results in Sylar being able to take over Matt's body. A case of a plan backfiring. Sure, not even the audience saw it coming, but still.
What the hell are you talking about? It was obviously a bad idea from the start. OH NOES, THE MOST POWERFUL BAD GUY IN THE WHOLE SERIES IS GOING TO BE KILLED BY A LITTLE ALCOHOL!
Then there's Mohinder, who pulls a move straight out of Bioshock's playbook, and injects himself with an untested serum for superpowers. Then, he, a scientist, is horrified when it doesn't work. No, seriously, Mohinder. There is a reason for the scientific method. And human testing laws. And psyche evaluations.
And how does Modinder decide to fix his little problem? Well obviously by kidnapping people to experiment on.
Think of what Peter, Nathan, and Claire could have learned if they'd actually sat down and talked to each other at the end of ".07%"! Bonus points if they'd thought to bring Mohinder into the conversation, or, you know, their mom!
Idiot Hero: Peter, first and foremost, though he starts to grow out of it. Sometimes Niki. Hiro. Mohinder. Nathan. Aw, f___ it! EVERYONE.
I Got Better: Now that we know Linderman was a hallucination, Fridge Logic means that, for the time being, we must assume this is how Nathan recovered from being shot, twice. Then again, it worked for Matt and he got shot four times. Sucks for D.L., I guess. Although, given sudden religious streak Nathan embarks on shortly after his death, there are certain implications that he was either miraculously saved or just got really, really lucky.
It seems Nathan's luck has run out, as his character is Killed Off for Real (with his pseudo-personality residing for a while in a mind-blanked Sylar).
Tracy Strauss had this after being frozen-shot by Danko in Volume 4: come Volume 5, she's a water-toting ice queen with a score to settle with Building 26's remaining occupants.
Claire, but other characters fall into this as well.
Parkman says this to Daphne in Volume Four. Claire, on the other hand, seems to have given up on any hope of a normal life.
Parkman, at the start of Volume 5, is trying to lead a normal life with his wife and son - trying to give up using his powers, attending drug rehabilitation sessions to try to keep his "addiction" under control. Of course, now he's got Sylar living in his head, this obviously won't last...
Believe it or not, Sylar.
I Just Want to Be Special: Seriously, don't mention being special around Sylar—it will only lead to tears and dissection. Also Hiro and Peter (at least until Peter learned the downsides of his ability), Monica too.
I'm Standing Right Here: In Volume 1 when Nathan gives a campaign speech on his "mentally disturbed" little brother. Naturally, Peter punches him right in the face afterwards in the parking garage as Nathan was getting ready to leave.
Important Haircut: The show lives off Hair Tropes like a king. Aside from the Evil Hair Gel mentioned above, the best example was Sylar (mercifully) cutting Peter's trademark Emo bangs.
Improbable Weapon User: Mohinder has attacked people with things like tuning forks, syringes, microscopes, rolling chalkboards, elephant sculptures, tables, fire extinguishers, and taxi doors with an astonishing rate of success. We're nearing "In the average living room, there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris can use to kill you, including the room itself" territory here.
In a Single Bound: Sylar does this in an early episode using telekinesis.
In Harm's Way: Bennet tried to retire after the fall of the Company. It didn't take.
In-Series Nickname: FLYING-MAN!!! Ironically, the character with the least interest in becoming a superhero is one of the first to get a superhero alias.
Infant Immortality: Subverted with the onscreen death of future-Sylar's child, Noah.
Informed Flaw: For all of Volume 3's talk about Sylar's uncontrollable "hunger", he seems perfectly capable of hanging around and interacting with other supers without eating fingerbanging their brains to see what makes them tick. This seems to be the case even after he turns back fully to the side of evil (he never chows down on Luke, for example, despite on multiple occasions being given a good reason to do so. Ditto for Doyle, who he must have been lugging around for more than a day). Peter Petrelli, on the other hand, pretty much chops open the head of every single person he meets after acquiring Sylar's ability, despite (unlike Sylar) receiving no apparent tangible benefit from doing so.
(Though in Sylar's case this could be because he spent Volume 3 working to get it under control for the sake of his (fake) family.)
This was an unforgivably poor explanation of Sylar's murderous impulses. If his power was responsible for him being evil, how do the writers explain his violent, power-lusting behavior during the second season, the entire duration of which he was powerless?
Addiction to power can be separate from addiction to knowledge.
What about in volume 5 with fake Nathan? Shouldn't he have felt urges? And also when Peter borrows fake Nathan's powers. Shouldn't Peter have been overcome by the urges again?
In Spite of a Nail: "I Am Become Death" shows Nathan as President and Peter as a scarred renegade — the same as in "Five Years Gone" despite other major differences. And as of Volume Four, "Five Years Gone" seems more likely than ever.
In the Blood: According to Momma Patrelli, it's not Sylar's fault he's a mass murdering psycho; his powers ("The Hunger") just drive him to murder. Oh, okay...
Not really a retcon, per se. it doesn't contradict anything previously shown and, in all fairness, it's been made pretty clear that even without his powers he's still a killer as he was perfectly willing to help Elle kill Noah and abduct Claire after "The Eclipse" stole his abilities. It's just that his powers give him a thirst for abilities.
Instant Sedation: In Volume Four, the Building 26 teams stick tubes up the noses of captured "specials" that release some sort of gas that instantly sedates them. The inverse is also the case: when the tubes are removed, the victims instantly wake up again.
Invincible Hero: Peter. The writers realized this in Season 2; unfortunately this lead to him getting Easy Amnesia in the first half of the season and carrying a massive Idiot Ball in the second instead of having it fixed in any meaningful way. Fortunately, they learned from their mistake and reduced his power significantly in Volume 3(He can now only copy one ability at a time).
James Bondage: Peter Petrelli in a container, Nathan Petrelli in Haiti, Hiro on the loading trolley at the beginning of Volume 5.
Jerk Jock: Brody Mitchum is the quarterback and serial rapist who targets Claire and, if only temporarily, kills her. He gets extravagantly punished: Claire crashes his car with him aboard, she survives thanks to her Healing Factor, he is confined to a wheelchair, and later he has his entire memory erased (at the order of her Father).
Jossed: "Are you going to eat it?" "Claire, that's disgusting."
Karma Houdini: It seems that the universe is bending over backwards to let Sylar be his dastardly brain-and-power-stealing self. In Volume Three, he worked for The Company. Because the Company has shown itself in the past to not associate with dangerous psychos at all...
Later, he was working with the "villains", and somehow this only makes him more of a good guy. Sylar is the moral equivalent of a Timey Wimey Ball.
Six weeks after mind-wiping Sylar, Angela Petrelli seems thus far to have escaped full retribution...
As of episode "The Wall," we can probably remove Sylar from the Karma Houdini list. Several years (relative time) of complete and utter isolation? When solitary confinement can be used as a means of torture just over the course of days? And when you add in the fact that they listed his single worst fear as being alone forever and then having his arch-rival stuck in his head? Yeah, we can argue Sylar is getting his payback.
Katanas Are Just Better: The sword of Kensei. As an aside, it is never outright stated that it is a magic sword, but it does focus Hiro's abilities somehow.
Knife Nut: New villain for Season 4/Volume 5 Edgar, a speedster and member of the sinister Carnival that Big Bad Samuel is running, apparently prefers to dispatch people with a well thrown blade when possible.
Knight Templar: Pretty much every major Big Bad, really. Mr. Linderman, who desires to heal humanity at any cost. Rivaled solely by the Primatech organization, which systematically abducts, studies, and slaughters potential heroes in order to protect all the fragile, regular humans from... we don't know yet but it involves lots of Stuff Blowing Up. Primatech's working for Linderman. So is just about everybody and everything else, for that matter. Then there's Adam Monroe, who wanted to wipe out 95% of the human race so the remaining 5% would stop fighting and get along.
Nathan Petrelli.
The Hunter.
Indeed, the only Big Bad who never bothered to put on pretentious airs about Shooting The Dog in order to save the world is Sylar. He's just in it for the brains and the lulz.
Arthur Petrelli, who's superdickery was motivated by the noble aspiration of - proving he was better than everyone else.
His long-term goal was to make everyone a super however. All people would have powers, not just a lucky group. (Which also prevented the issue of Fantastic Racism) Of course, he still would be a Physical God next to them, but the rest of Big Bads also envisioned themselves somewhere at the top of their new world orders.
Knight Templar Parent: Noah Bennet, most especially in Volume One. His daughter has superpowers, and could suffer if her mother found out? Wipe the mother's memory every time she gets suspicious. His daughter's only friend knows, and could blow her cover? Wipe the friend's memory of ever knowing her. The daughter seems rather upset about this? Wipe her memory as well. He was one step away from feeding her anti-growth hormones to avoid losing Daddy's little girl. By Volume 5 his actions have been softened considerably as wanting Claire to have a normal life. He was just trying a little too hard to help.
When Arthur tries to recruit Mohinder's services, the latter replies that there's always some shady organization looking for his help for diabolical ulterior motives. This doesn't stop Mohinder from helping Pinehearst.
Claire asking "Why is it always me?" is a spectacular lampshade hanging.
Leitmotif: Sylar gets a really nice one in Volume 3. It's used as a general one for a while, but then ends up just being used for whenever he's being... Sylar.
In Volume Three, the team of villains being assembled by Pinehearst Industries a.k.a. Arthur Petrelli.
Seems to be what the new "carnival" is in Volume 5.
Let's Get Dangerous: Almost every season ends with geeky otaku Hiro Nakamura teleporting in and pretty much pwning the Big Bad in literally the blink of an eye. He takes out Sylar (twice!), Adam, Danko, and the entire Build 26 Black Ops unit (the last two defeated while Hiro was using a weakened version of his powers that are slowly killing him). So far the only Big Bad who could beat Hiro was Physical GodEvil Overlord Arthur Petrelli.
Let's You and Him Fight: Season 2 had Matt vs. Nathan when Maury trapped them both in a nightmare and a Hiro vs. Peter misunderstanding fight thanks to Adam's manipulations.
Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Parkman and Nathan agree never to tell anyone about the former riding piggyback on the latter to get from New York to Texas.
There was Stephen Canfield who could create black holes at will.
Then there's the Nightmare-man Maury Parkman who was implied in Volume 1 to be even worse than Sylar, but all he ever did was give a little girl nightmares.
Since it was that particular little girl who described him that way, we can excuse her.
Yeah, how many people remember that Ando's power was initially just super-charging other people's powers?
Ando's ability is not really lightning, even if it is referred to as 'red lightning' and looks like it sometimes. The energy he produces supercharges people, at least evolved humans, so it makes sense it could be used to overload electronic devices and be used offensively to send people flying. Also, the FIRST TIME we saw Ando's ability used (by Future-Ando), it was used as an energy blast.
Line-of-Sight Name: Gabriel Gray gets the name Sylar from the brand of watch he's fixing when he kills his first victim.
Lingerie Scene: Ali Larter has several, spread over the series. Not quite enough to dub her Ms. Fanservice, but still.
Living Legend: Hiro goes to medieval Japan to meet his hero, Takezo Kensei. Hiro then does everything he can to make Takezo live up to the legends about him, making him into the legend Hiro willen haven onen learned about.
Turns out Claire Bennet is Peter Petrelli's niece.
Early in Volume Three, Angela reveals Sylar may be the third Petrelli brother neither Peter nor Nathan was aware of. Noah later states that she might be a damn liar.
We see Sylar's actual biological family in Volume 4, though we still don't know much about them.
... and then there's Alice Shaw, Angela's long lost sister.
Let's not forget Tracy Stauss, the triplet sister of Niki Sanders that we meet in Volume 3. They were separated at birth, and the third sister, Barbara, is only mentioned in passing as a possible Chekhov's Gunman
Loud of War: Mohinder knows his mortal nemesis Sylar has absorbed the power of super-hearing. His hearing is so keen he can hear other people's breathing and heartbeats, and in fact suffered terrible headaches from the noise. So when Mohinder goes to torture Sylar, what does he do? He strikes a tuning fork and holds it up next to Sylar's ear in all of its shrill, discordant glory and lets Sylar scream for mercy.
Love Floats: Though it's West using his flight powers, West and Claire do the classic embracing float scene.
Luckily My Powers Will Protect Me: Knox seems compelled to mention in every single scene he's in that other people's fear gives him Super Strength. The Crazy Eye look he gives while saying this may count as well. It gets to the point where it must be asked, what kind of power does other people's annoyance give him? He also has the amazing ability to fail to notice a very tall woman with bright blonde hair enter a small room.
Made of Plasticine: Claire is a comparatively mild version of this trope, but still prone to dying or breaking bones in completely ridiculous ways. Some fans claim she has a secondary power: causing herself unlikely and violent accidents.
In the first half of the first season, she was on a football field, a football player tackled her or maybe just ran into her by accident, and she broke her neck when she fell. Not sprained her ankle or dislocated her knee, but broke her neck. This was used mainly just to show off her Healing Factor for the benefit of her friend (the one person who happened to see it) and the viewers.
Also in the first half of the first season, a Jerk Jock is trying to rape her, but she falls down and gets stabbed through the back of her head with a sharp stick, killing her instantly. That happened to hit her Achilles Heel, so she remained dead until the stick was removed in the morgue several hours later. This death drove her plotline for the next few episodes.
Magic Feather: In Volume One, Hiro convinces himself that he needs to steal Takezo Kensei's katana in order to reactivate his powers, while Niki believes that she can only access her Super Strength when her Superpowered Evil Side is in control. Both are eventually proven wrong.
Magical Negro: Dying African American Charles and his inspiring speech to Peter. The Haitian can also sometimes be considered as fitting this role, being a mysterious, usually mute, plot device. Usutu, the African Trickster Mentor character was almost literally this — though he had a neat little subversion where what Matt assumed to be ancient African mumbo jumbo was a quote from Carl Jung.
Mama Bear: Niki/Jessica will put anyone who dares to try and hurt Micah through a world of grief.
The Man Behind the Man: Linderman and Angela Petrelli are behind the Primatech company in Season 1.
And in turn Adam Monroe was The Man Behind the Man for Linderman, Angela, and the other ten founders.
In a rare good version, Rebel/Micah Sanders is The Man Behind the Man to our heroes in Volume 4.
Man on Fire: Elle sets Adam on fire as he's escaping Primatech.
McLeaned : Arguably Adam Monroe. Of all the character deaths in Volume Three, his was the most spiteful. David Anders left to film Children of the Corn very shortly afterwards. The interviews he gave shortly before Adam was killed off seem to hint at this as well. And Elle for sure.
Meaningful Name: Many of the protagonists have first names with "hidden" meaning that fits their story background.
Biblical names with roots in Greek or Hebrew are common, or names derived from Christian saints. Angela could come under this as well.
Of course, the name Hiro Nakamura might simply be a pun on the English word "hero", since it's pronounced similarly. In the online comics of the series, Hiro explains that he was named after Hiroshima, since his grandfather survived the nuclear explosion there.
And then there are the not-so-hidden meanings of Elle (who controls 'electricity), Flint (who can start fires), and Echo (with, of course, sound powers). The other obvious one is Adam Monroe, who predates all other known "evolved humans" (this would come under Biblical names too).
In an interesting bit of irony, the character of Danko is a complete inversion of his counterpart in the Russian folk tale publicized by Maxim Gorky (the folk hero Danko ripped out his heart to bring fire to his people, whereas Emile Danko is attempting to "extinguish" the fire of evolved humans from the world).
Meddling Parents: HRG, Angela Petrelli, and Bob; but the prize goes to Mrs. Gray, the mother of watchmaker Gabriel Gray, who placed so much emphasis on her son being "special" that it drove him insane and turned him into the serial killer Sylar. So its kind of ironic that his 'specialness' ended up causing him to (accidentally?) stab her. Angela takes the prize right back due to her pretending to be Sylar's real mom.Xanatos Roulette, much? This entire Series is a Xanatos Casino!
Mega Manning: Peter and Sylar. And their dads. Monica can also do this with Muggle skills instead of superpowers.
Peter can't have multiple powers anymore, but he can have one at a time from the last person with an ability he touched.
Therefore, Peter is actually more like Kirby than Mega Man.
The Messiah: Micah Sanders aka "Rebel" gets promoted to this in Volume 4, being the driving force behind the Resistance Movement attempting to save all evolved humans from Building 26. He even (in the graphic novels) convinces Doyle to turn over a new leaf, and even tries to redeem Sylar (that last one doesn't turn out so well, though he at least convinced him to spare his life; as Sylar said to an unrelated character, that's "kind of a big deal" for him).
Mighty Whitey: Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe. A blond-haired, blue-eyed samurai running around Japan in the 1600s. With superpowers, yet.
Which is then Subverted, as he makes a Face Heel Turn and Hiro saves Japan.
Milky White Eyes: Isaac, as well as anyone else who uses similar precognition.
Mind Rape: Frequently, using the Haitian's powers. Also Freddy Krueger Maury Parkman the Nightmare-man... and then Matt does this to Sylar in the Volume 4 finale. As of the beginning of Volume 5, it looks like Sylar's giving Parkman a taste of his own medicine.
Moral Dissonance: Bullying is unforgivable. Traumatising someone and getting them suspended from school is A-OK! Claire and West have clearly been taking lessons from Yu Gi Oh Abridgeds Pharoah Atem.
Morality Chain: Future!Sylar and his son. Does he ever get pissed when his son is accidentally killed!
Morality Pet: Claire for HRG, Peter for Nathan, Luke Campbell for Sylar, Noah Grey for Future!Sylar. Aileena is a subversion of the trope. Around her Danko is a far kinder, gentler individual than the cold blooded killer we know. But then when Matt holds him and Aileena hostage Danko reveals that at the end of the day, unlike with HRG, he will choose the mission over his loved ones.
The Mountains of Illinois: "Odessa, Texas" has mountains in the background. The real Odessa is completely flat and dry, as actor Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder) amusingly pointed out in the DVD commentary.
Mugging the Monster: In Volume Five, a Rabid Cop makes the poor choice of threatening to beat a confession out of an amnesiac Sylar, who reflexively tosses him through the interrogation room's one-way mirror with his telekinesis.
Muggle Foster Parents: Claire's family, though in an unusual twist they're actually pretty cool. Especially her dad.
Muggle Power: The reason for The Company to be ambiguously evil and controlling, and Sylar's drive to be special. Referenced again in Volume Three with Marine Super Soldier Scott.
Mundane Utility: Generally ignored by all the heroes with the exception of Peter, who uses borrowed powers of strength, speed, and ultimately healing to make himself an elite Paramedic.
Murder the Hypotenuse : Brutally subverted when Isaac, in a move inspired at least partially by jealousy over Simone, thinks he hears Peter leaving and immediately fires two shots. But it wasn't Peter leaving; it was Simone entering.
My Sister Is Off Limits: Inverted with Hiro. When his accidental time traveling causes him to undo a mistake, causing his sister to fall in love with his best friend Ando, Hiro is ecstatic.
Of course, despite the fan nickname and Nathan creating it, he actually had little control on what they actually did: For an example, in a rather notable aversion to the trope early on in the season where not only was Danko the one who let Tracy go to kill a random member of the group, but he did it without Nathan's knowledge until Nathan was accused by Tracy of setting her up to be released, and as soon as Nathan found out, he told Danko off for it.
Neck Lift: Niki/Jessica and her father. And in Volume Three, Sylar with Claire.
Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: "Enhanced Synesthesia", though eventually shown to be an ability to manipulate sound and summon people, is initially demonstrated as like standard sound-to-color synesthesia and is played as a strange superpower.
Several characters demonstrate the ability to acquire new powers from other powered people. Peter Petrelli copies them, Dad Petrelli takes them, and Sylar rips them out of their heads (killing them, and he gets to use Peter's copying power later).
In general, the whole series operates this trope at a higher level. If the writers need a new power, they don't give it to an existing character, but introduce a new character with the desired ability. One of the benefits of Loads and Loads of Characters is nobody much notices a few more or less.
Except when Matt gets the power of drawing the future. It's never explained how he got it, and he doesn't use it later, but still...
Ando is a particular victim of this trope. His power goes from power amplification to multi purpose energy blasts. Subverted, in that we are given a preview of the latter form of his ability via time travel before we even find out if he'll even get one in the main timeline.
Sylar pulls off an even bigger Ass Pull than usual in Volume 4, when he inexplicably starts teleporting out of Danko's car. Sure, it was badass, but a little explanation would have been nice.
He broke HISTORY. Not even Superman over on Superdickery managed that.
In the Season 1 episode "Unexpected": Nice job killing your girlfriend, Peter and Isaac.
In Season 1, most of the characters are trying to stop a nuclear explosion in Kirby Plaza. Turns out, The explosion is caused by Peter exploding after absorbing Ted's radiation power. But he only absorbed Ted's power because he was trying to find Ted in order to stop the explosion.
Volume Three Peters. Just Peter. Angela gets one of these too.
Everything bad that happens in the series is the fault of one or more of "the good guys." Everything.
Nietzsche Wannabe: Arthur Petrelli, though the keyword here is definitely 'wannabe.' Wannabe defines everything about Arthur Petrelli.
Interestingly, from what we've seen of him so far Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel Sullivan seems to be defining as a genuine Übermensch; he doesn't seem to regard the lives of Muggles as holding any moral worth and happily offs them as needed, but at the same time he isn't going around killing folks just for shit and giggles, and seems to genuinely be trying to build a world of his own for evolved humans after he brings them around to his point of view.
90% of Your Brain : "Imagine what we could acomplish if we used one hundred percent of the brain." Massive seizures?
No Sell: Peter and Sylar are/were/are immune to just about everyone else's powers.
Noodle Incident: Whatever it is that Luke's ability does to pacemakers.
It's commonly believed that microwaves can disrupt/stop pacemakers, but there's not a whole lot of science behind this.
"I figured out that speedsters don't like the cold. Or qualuudes, but mostly the cold."
Exactly how Danko was involved in the "Angola Incident", or even what the Angola Incident was about. Considering what happened to the series overall, it is likely that no one will ever know any time soon.
The reason for Claude's termination from the Company. We know it has something to do with hiding a Special, but we're never given details.
Not My Driver: Inverted, Mohinder as a cab driver realizes that his passenger is Mr. Bennet and flees. This is probably the smartest thing Mohinder does in the entire series. Which is very sad.
Not Using the Z Word: The heroes' powers are supposed to be derived from an abnormal genetic factor, but nobody ever mentions the word "mutant" or the X-men, not even the comic-book geeks.
Well, Ando mentions the X-men, but only when he's trying to figure out what Hiro is trying to say through the scrambled brain damage that Samuel caused.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Although Mohinder is almost always carrying the Idiot Ball, there are a few instances in which he's only pretending to carry it.
Future Mohinder: OH WOW, I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY POWERS USED IN ONE BATTLE, IT'S WAY BETTER THAN ALL THE FIGHT SCENES IN THE X-MEN MOVIES COMBINED!
Offscreen Teleportation: Sylar does this a lot, so much so that it's kind of become his signature move. Also, to a lesser extent, the rest of the cast seem to have the ability to make long cross-country trips in an abnormally short period of time.
Oh Crap: Mohinder disables Sylar's superpowers in order to torture, taunt, and eventually kill him. After torturing him for an hour, Mohinder shoots him in the head, only for Sylar to telekinetically freeze the bullet in mid-air, undo his restraints, and rise up revealing his powers have been restored. Mohinder's deer-in-the-headlights expression is quite appropriate.
Sylar on Kirby Plaza after getting several super-powered punches to the face looks up just in time to see Hiro teleport in ready to stab him.
In Volume 3, the look on Bennet's face after he realizes that Peter is no longer possessing Jesse.
Likewise, in Volume 4, after Sylar decides he's had enough of Danko's crap and isn't willing to play along anymore, Danko casually stabs Sylar in his weak spot when he's not paying attention, seemingly killing him. Just as Danko turns to walk away, Sylar rises up from the ground and looms over Danko, clear very much annoyed at just having been backstabbed. The look on Danko's face is simply priceless.
"That hurt. "
And again in the Volume 4 finale, when it looks like Sylar's plan to get close to the President so that he can shapeshift into him is about to succeed, we find out that he can't because it's actually Peter, who stole his ability earlier and in turn stabs Sylar with a tranquilizer. The look on Sylar's face shows that he's finally been owned after 3 seasons of fighting him with no clear winner, followed by a Badass quote from Peter:
"You didn't think I took that one from you, did you?"
In the Volume 5 preview, Sythan looks at a clock and remarks on how it's going a few minutes fast, with Angela Petrelli waiting for him at the door so they can go to lunch. The "FUCK." expression on Ma Petrelli's face is a classic.
One Person, One Power - strictly observed except for the power-borrowing/power-stealing characters.
One-Scene Wonder: John Glover as Samson Gray, Sylar's biological father
Only I Can Kill Him: subverted on Kirby Plaza when all the characters (without access to prophetic materials) believe that Peter will be the one to take down Sylar but its Hiro that delivers the coup de grace.
Organization With Unlimited Funding: The Company has fit this trope to varying degrees throughout the seasons, most closely when it was run by Bob Bishop (who had the power to turn anything into gold) during Volume Two, who identifies himself as The Company's "financial source."
Later becomes President Target in the Volume Four finale.
P-R
Papa Wolf: Noah. Bennet. The end. Do NOT mess with his Claire-bear, EVER, if you don't want him to go Terminator on your ass. Which made a LOT of people wonder whether he'd had a lobotomy sometime during An Invisible Thread. Then Sylar in I Am Become Death after his son is accidentally killed in a shootout. Leads directly in this case to a Superpower Meltdown. And Matt Parkman, normally a mild-mannered everyman, will mess you up if you go near his surrogate daughter Molly Walker, or his wife and bio-child. But we also have Nathan Petrelli, who * tries* to be a Papa Wolf for Claire as well, but... kind of fails miserably and manages to fuck everything up. As he does.
Parental Substitute - Angela keeps trying to adopt Sylar, with mixed results.
The Password Is Always Swordfish: Bob Bishop, whose power is that he can turn things to gold with a touch, uses "Midas" as his password.
Pensieve Flashback: Peter's dream in the first season finale starts off like this, with him watching himself on his first day as Charles' caregiver. It takes an unexpected turn half-way through.
Pet the Dog: The Volume Three flashback episode "Villains" was one big Pet the Dog moment for most of the series' major baddies: Sylar, Linderman, Angela Petrelli, Elle, and even Thompson all got to have sympathetic and humanizing moments. The only exception is Big Bad Arthur Petrelli, who was revealed to have been a grade A Jerk Ass even back then.
Danko, who's made a living out of hunting people with powers, gives some fatherly advice to Sylar when his shapeshifting power becomes too much for him to handle. Danko also lets Sylar examine a watch that his father had left to him.
But not the memory of her...well, until the following season, where she's never mentioned again.
Playing Drunk: Claire has to do this when playing a drinking game.
Plot-Induced Stupidity: Pretty much everybody, but Hiro Nakamura takes the cake - with his powers to travel through time / freeze time, there isn't in theory any villain he couldn't defeat or any situation he couldn't save. Hell, if you raise a whole army against him he can go back in time to the day before you started to raise an army, freeze time and kill you while you're taking a piss. So far there hasn't been a season finale climax / final confrontation which couldn't have been avoided had Hiro simply used his powers well had a brain.
My personal favourite is in volume 5, when Hiro goes back in time to save Charlie, does, by showboating his powers in front of Sylar. Then, Samuel kidnaps Charlie. Oh no, I better obey his wishes rather than go back in time to save Charlie, which I just did 5 minutes ago. To be fair, Hiro’s powers were malfunctioning but he still managed to travel back in time for Samuel in hopes it would help him rescue Charlie.
Even better, why not just have a future Hiro visit his present self, telling him where Charlie is. Then, after rescuing Charlie, present Hiro does the same thing. It's a stable time loop.
Power Perversion Potential: Explicit in the Series. In Volume 2, Master of Illusion Candice offers to let Sylar sleep with anyone he wants. Including twins. Or himself. Parkman uses his power in a more romantic way in season 1, by reading his wife's mind in order to give her a perfect date. Sylar (inside Matt's head) in season 4 uses it in a darker manner, by having sex with Janice and making her enjoy it much more than she ever did with Matt.
Posthumous Character: Linderman in Volume Three, though he's quickly outed as a hallucination created by Maury Parkman.
Promotion to Opening Titles: Ando, Sylar and Angela. Also sometimes someone is promoted midseason: most notably HRG started as a guest star, but season 2 had Adam Monroe promoted midway in and Samuel is a regular as of "Once Upon A Time In Texas".
Prophecy Twist: Isaac's paintings, both used straight and averted. Paints Peter dead: Peter dies, then regenerates in seconds. Paints Hiro up against a dinosaur: Hiro goes to a natural history museum and looks at a dinosaur model. Paints a sequence of Claire getting killed: the sequence turns out to be just ambiguous enough to let the victim be someone else. Paints himself, dead, his brains removed: Gets killed and has his brains removed. There wasn't really much room to manoeuver with that last one. He was still doing it in later Volumes, from beyond the grave...
Peter does it too, with the dream where he nukes New York. Notably Nathan's presence at the scene and his line, "I'm not leaving you, Peter." come off very differently in the dream from how they play out in real life.
This appears to have happened with Angela's dream of Bob, Kensei and Co followed by Sylar. Except Bob got Sylared
Bob was not in Angela's dream. The four "villains" were Adam, Tracy, Knox, and Maury. Sylar seemed to be on her side.
Psychic Nosebleed: Matt gets one when he over-exerts his mind-reading ability in order to overcome the Haitian's Power Nullifier field. In Volume 4, Hiro gets one, demonstrating that his new partially restored powers come at a significant cost.
Psychopathic Manchild: Sylar is shown to have shades of this as he enjoys toying around with everyone before launching into a bloodbath and Elle is a much straighter female example. No wonder the two of them hooked up.
Psychic Static: Mr. Bennet thinks in Japanese to throw off American mindreaders.
Also Peter, when he's trying to convince convincing Nathan to go along with one of his ideas.
See The Eclipse Part 1 where he persuades Nathan to fly him along to Haiti.
Peter: "take me?"
Nathan: "no."
Peter: ::puppyface::
Nathan: "seriously, you're pulling the... ... ...asdfghjkl... grrgh, OK then :: fume ::".
Put on a Bus: Man, they're bad about this. Zach, West, Molly, and Monica with no ceremony at all (Micah at least got a few brief cameos and West's departure was given a "aw, he and Claire broke up" Hand Wave). Also Caitlin, in the cruelest possible way. And Claude, who just ran out and was never seen again (for obvious reasons).
Mohinder decided he should return to India despite pledging to stop Samuel from wreaking havoc since was was the one who brought Samuel's potential to light to begin with.
The episode "Let It Bleed" addresses the situation with West. Claire tells Peter that he goes to NYU and they're friends on Facebook.
Zach is kind of justified as the Bennetts moved to California and changed their name. It would make sense that they would have cut all ties with him, not only for their safety, but for his because if the company found out that he knew about Clair...
Rage Against the Mentor: Matt and Nathan spend much of the second Volume interrogating and browbeating (and Mind Raping) each other's and their own parents for answers. Answers about their origins and Jerk Ass activities: the creation of the MIB-like Company, their controlling their children, never helping with their abilities, and basically being dicks "for their sakes", and committing Karma Meter -reducing sins "for them". All while never being clear or concise on what they had in mind or why they did these things. Needless to say, fans are exasperated at all this holding out too. All together now: Oh, Kudzu Plot, we hate you!
Real-Life Relative: The actors that play Ted and Sandra Bennet are married in real life and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter) and Hayden Panettiere (Claire) briefly dated.
Sylar gaining shapeshifting powers was a pretty obvious attempt to keep the character around despite Zachary Quinto being absent for long periods of time due to being the new Spock.
Really Dead Montage: Sylar gets one in the graphic novel following the Volume 4 finale. Not to mention the final scene of Volume 4 itself, with all of the heroes coming together for the first time ever in the show specifically just to watch him burn.
But this is Sylar we're talking about, so he's not dead, he's hiding. In Nathan.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Seems to have become Sylar's signature move in Season 3 (Volume 3 & 4), as he often delivers one to each of his victims before killing them. Apparently, this is a function of his original power (understanding how things and people work) combined with one of his acquired powers (learning the history of people and objects through touch).
Also Adam Monroe caps off the final episode of Season 2 with a magnificent diatribe against humanity's petty nature, successfully arguing in the process that Hiro Nakamura, the man who has come to stop him, effectively turned him into the man he is today.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Peter and Nathan. Peter and Sylar. Flint and Meredith.
Redemption Equals Death: Ted calms down and finally gets off his revenge kick, just in time to be snacked on brain-fingerbanged by Sylar. And later Maury Parkman gets swiftly executed for defending his son.
Volume 5: Redemption seems to be taking this as literally as possible. Victim #1: "Nathan", who attempts to atone for a Ted Kennedy-esque incident from his past where he accidentally caused the death of a young woman, which only results in him being murdered by the young woman's mother... which also incidentally pops open the lid on the Person Shaped Can that was keeping Sylar sealed away. Nice going there.
Interestingly averted with Sylar, where it may actually work out.
Thus far, it seems Volume 5's main plot involves Samuel Sullivan screwing with the Heroes in order to find which one is a suitable Replacement Goldfish for his dead brother Joseph. He seems to have finally settled on Sylar. Yeah, that's going to end well...
Retcon: In Volume One, Chandra Suresh's theory about the existence of "specials" is just that: a theory. He has no firsthand experience with metahumans and he is as giddy as a schoolboy to discover Sylar. Fast-forward to Volume Four, in which we are informed that he was the chief medical officer at Coyote Sands, a concentration camp for metahumans built in the American Southwest in the early 1960s.
Sylar's reason for being a a serial killer: Complexes thanks to his (adoptive) mother, being a victim to his own power, being manipulated by the Company, having it In the Blood, having lost himself because of his many powers (Clair's theory)...
The Reveal: Warning, SPOILERS ahead. Swipe at your own risk.
Volume 1:
"In His Own Image" - Two from the end of the episode: the Man with Horn-Rimmed Glasses is Claire's father, and Nathan (not Peter) can fly!
"Better Halves" - We have to wait all episode to learn that D.L.'s power is walking through walls. And Eden works for Bennet!
"Six Months Ago" - Sylar's a cute nerdy guy with crazy eyebrows!
"Fallout" - The Hatian can talk!
"The Fix" - The man behind Hiro and Ando's kidnapping is Hiro's father.
"Distractions" - Nathan is Claire's birth father!
"Parasite" - Mohinder's not quite as dumb as he looks. And Mr. Linderman knows all about you, your brother, your daughter, and the bomb.
"I'm your grandmother." Interestingly, the revelation here is not that Mama Petrelli is Claire's grandmother, but that she knows she's Claire's grandmother.
Speaking of Mama Petrelli, she gets a couple more this season. In ".07%" she reveals that she knows all about her sons' superpowers. And in "Landslide" we learn that she knows all about the bomb - and is totally on board with it!
"Five Years Gone" - President Nathan is Sylar!
"The Hard Part" - Bennet's tracking system is Molly Walker.
"How to Stop an Exploding Man" - "Call me Noah."
And throughout the season... The bomb is Peter! No, it's Ted! No! Sylar! No, wait.... It's Peter.
Revealing Hug: HRG (Noah Bennet) has done it to members of his family more than once, and it happens with the Petrellis fairly often too. Even Sylar has done it at least once.
On the Bisexual scale, Claire is somewhere between 1 and 2 while Gretchen is a solid 4.
Room Full of Crazy: Sylar's closet. Also Future!Hiro and Future!Peter's string collection timelines. And Mohinder's room full of cocoons.
Rule of Scary: First Volume Sylar. Later on... not quite as much.
Though in Volume 4 he managed to be properly terrifying, stalking around, on the edge of a nervous break down and giving up unpleaseant "Bad touch" vibes around Claire.
Hugs always seem to turn disastrous for Peter. Peter finally turns the tables in one Volume 4 episode where he hugs Nathan, secretly absorbing the latter's flying ability, to make a quick and badass escape when Nathan tries to capture him.
Hiro knows Nathan's name and how he feels about revealing his powers, but still insists on punching his fists in the air and shouting "FLYING-MAN!!!" every time he sees him.
S-U
Sadistic Choice: Sylar presents a number of these to Claire and Bennet in the Volume Three finale. They each opt to Take a Third Option.
Salaryman: Hiro Nakamura, and — even more so in Volume Two — Ando, who was stuck back in his cubicle as Hiro has wacky adventures traveling through time...
Scary Black Man: Volume Three introduced us to Benjamin "Knox" Washington, a black man who derives superhuman strength from people's fear. While technically he himself doesn't have to have caused that fear, it sure looks that way in most of the scenes he has appeared in. Some fans have thus dubbed him the King of the show's many Unfortunate Implications.
Subverted with DL who is suggested to be this at first, only to be revealed as a compassionate, kind man who wants to lead a good life and look after his wife and child, having completely abandoned his criminal past. Sadly he winds up dying in the second stupidest death on the show (Right after Adam Monroe's but just before Elle's on the list of pointless death scenes)
Screams Like a Little Girl: In "Into Asylum", Fake!Sylar is about to be killed by the real one. Cue Zachary Quinto's high-pitched squeaky screaming like a little 'bitch', and the Internet busting a collective gut. Seen again in Pass/Fail, when Claire sticks a pen in his eye, with similar audience reaction.
to be fair, it is to show that Sylar, without his menancing, is still that gawky Gabriel Gray underneath.
Screwed by the Network: The show has been canceled by NBC, and the network has gotten a lot of flak for it.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Volume Two's Big Bad, Takezo Kensei aka Adam Monroe. Volume Three went this way too with Level 5. And Adam. Again. For two episodes.
Self-Deprecation: Consider Noah's following comment about the events of An Invisible Thread; was it an apology by the writers for the utter absurdity that was the volume 4 finale?
Noah: I'm sorry about the Sylar thing. We all admit it was a terrible idea.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Pretty much everything Peter does in Season 1 leads him closer to, rather than further away from, becoming a nuclear bomb and blowing up New York.
Self-Made Orphan: Sylar kills his adoptive mother and later finishes Arthur Petrelli as Peter was unable to do so.
Hiro uses this exact phrase and then some in his mental trial of himself. It might have worked... if David Anders hadn't called him out on simply "...saying the opening to Quantum Leap!".
Sexy Back: Lydia the carnie from Volume 5 has some sort of precognitive power that only works by displaying images of people important in the immediate future...on her back in Samuel's tattoo ink.
Shadow Archetype: The Volume Two episode "Cautionary Tales" pretty much states outright that Elle is what would have happened to Claire had Mr. Bennet not hidden her powers from the Company. Word Of God is that they were originally meant to be sisters, further highlighting the parallels.
Also, Peter and Sylar. Both capable of Mega Manning, but one kills to do it and the other tries to save people. And in Volume Three, they're claimed to be brothers. The Powers That Be also briefly mixed up who's the "shadow", with Sylar attempting to go straight and Peter gaining his Great Power And Great Insanity. And then abandoned that plotline again.
Danko is very clearly HRG's dark counterpart, a stark illustration of what Bennett would become without Claire and his family. While HRG may occasionally toe the Moral Event Horizon line, Danko gleefully leaps over it
Shaggy Dog Story: The whole "Save the cheerleader, save the world" thing was based on Future Hiro's faulty information about what caused the nuclear explosion in New York. Since Sylar wasn't the direct cause of the explosion, preventing Sylar from absorbing Claire's ability wasn't actually necessary to stopping it.
On the other hand, an invincible Sylar would have been better able to capitalise on the tragedy, creating the kind of Bad Future seen in "Five Years Gone". And it's implied that Claire's presence in New York contributs to Nathan's last-minute Heel Face Turn. So it's perfectly possible that saving the cheerleader did save the world - just not for the reasons Future Hiro thought.
Volume Three seemed like a Shaggy Dog Kennel, specifically where Peter and Sylar are concerned (and ESPECIALLY the latter's ludicrous redemption arc) Tell me, Peter absorbing Sylar's power was supposed to save the world HOW? Not that it matters since Peter was completely depowered shortly afterwards.
Shape Shifter Swan Song: Happens during Sylar's ultimate defeat in the Volume 4 finale, when he involuntarily undergoes a shapeshifting spasm through all his previous forms after Peter uses his own copied shapeshifter power to overload Sylar's.
Ship Sinking: Volume Three crushed Matt/Mohinder Audrey shippers with a forced romance between Matt and new character Daphne Millbrook, and Sylar/Elle shippers could not have been happy when Sylar kills off Elle in a painfully transparent attempt to get rid of Kristen Bell's character.
Shipper on Deck: You wouldn't believe me even if I told you: In "Pass/Fail", Sylar. For Claire and Gretchen. "Subtext" indeed.
Shirtless Scene: The entire main cast and often. In fact, Peter and Sylar have at least one per season.
Isaac Mendez: How am I supposed to pretend this didn't happen?
Candice Wilmer: Maybe you should have thought about that before you shot her. Twice.
Shout Out: Lots. Most are to comics, including specific title and issue references. Television Without Pity have commented that some lines and scenes seems like shoutouts to them.
Although Hiro correctly cites Kitty Pryde in Days of Future Past from the X-Men comic book, he is a couple of issue numbers off.
When he meets Charlie the waitress with an Eidetic Memory, he discusses the same storyline, and she corrects the issue number for him.
Watch the scene where Hiro incapacitates Adam Monroe. Then read/watch the scene in Naruto where Shikamaru incapacitates Hidan. Really, you only need to see one or the other. They're almost exactly the same scene.
Mr. Claremont, the swordsmith from Episode 22, Landslide, is named for Chris Claremont, who wrote one of the most successful arcs of the comic book X-Men.
The license plate on the limousine belonging to Kaito Nakamura is NCC-1701, the call sign for the original Enterprise starship from Star Trek. It's probably worth mentioning that Kaito Nakamura is played by George Takei, the actor who played Hikaru Sulu from the original Star Trek.
Similarly, the catalogue number for Kensei's katana in the private collection is CRM-114, the cipher for plane communications in Doctor Strangelove
And when Claude first appears, he says "Fantastic!", which was Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor'sCatch Phrase. It should also be noted that Doctor Who is Britain's equivalent of Star Trek.
It's also no accident that the climax of the first Volume winds up taking place at Kirby Plaza (as in, famed comic artist Jack Kirby.)
And Kirby is also the name of a video game character that devours his enemies and copies their abilities. Sound familiar?
The name Takezo Kensei is a Shout Out to historical Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, aka Shinmen Takezo (or Takezo Shinmen in the western order).
Simone may be named after comics writer Gail Simone.
Hiro has now shouted "MUDAMUDAMUDA!" twice. First while fighting samurai in "Lizards" (S2, E2), then while teleporting around Daphne the speedster thief in "The Butterfly Effect" (S3, E2).
Not to mention his constant exclamations of "YATTA!!!"
There once was this... frog who lived with her mother and father and brother and Mr. Muggles...
As a child a person with powers is trapped in a "Relocation" camp full of people who are different. They survive but their family and countless others are killed by their captors in a mass wipe out. They go on to help form a group of people with abilities to protect their own kind against humanity by any means neccessary. Sound like Magneto's origin? Well it's also Angela Petrelli's as per "1961".
Hiro Nakamura might have been named after Hiro Okamura, the Japanese Toyman, most recently seen in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Both are Ascended Fanboys who want to be heroes, as opposed to most people in Nakamura's mileu, who can't seem to do anything but complain about it.
Hiro's sister calls his and Ando's Dial-a-Hero service Heroes For Hire
"Objection, your honour! He's reciting the opening to Quantum Leap!"
It's been noted that Gabriel Gray looks eerily like Clark Kent and his watch shop has a crystal shaped like the Fortress of Solitude.
Not only do we get a children's choir singing the theme from The Greatest American Hero, but William Katt, Ralph Hinkley himself, plays one of Traci's victims. Believe it or not.
When Gretchen encourages Claire to investigate her roommate's "suicide" by using the "jump, push, fall" method, she says she saw it on an episode of Crossing Jordan (Tim Kring's previous series - and both shows have episodes called... you guessed it).
Can it be a coincidence when the woman who played Serena Southerlyn is taking pains to deny that she is "shoving my liberal agenda down your throat"?
Shrouded in Myth: Both Mr. Bennet and Sylar seem to have something of a legendary reputation amongst the superpowered community; Bennet as the guy who comes when superpeople misbehave to kick their ass, and Sylar as the unstoppable power thief who hunts you down and steals your brains.
Given that it is visible in the Suresh's DNA program, which would make it way older than any possible conspiracy, it's more of a Running Gag.
Signature Sound Effect: Sylar has his clock ticking whenever he is being particularly evil, and in Volume Three, Mohinder's more...erm...interesting actions are accompanied by the sound of June Bugs.
Other good examples are the distinct sounds made by different abilities. Apparently, the Haitian's ability sound was given the nae "Haitian Grab" by the production team.
Sitting on the Roof: Peter in the early episodes. Also the roof of the Deveaux building is a popular meeting place.
"The Deveaux Building? Really? Everyone and their mother goes there! Literally!"
Slipping a Mickey: "Cold Wars" has Bennet unknowingly ingesting a roofied drink and he's hauled back to a hotel room by Peter, Mohinder, and Matt to be interrogated. Especially ironic when Bennet does the same thing to Parkman in the first season. Mohinder pulls this on Sylar in the first season as well.
Slow Electricity: In "Dual", when the lights go off in the Primatech medical facility's hallway. Possibly justifiable in that maybe Sylar did it that way on purpose.
The Slow Path: In Season 1, Hiro meets a diner waitress with super memory on the day she is murdered by Sylar. He travels back in time 6 months and lives with her for the interim, falling in love along the way. Conveniently, this is how he learns English.
Snow Means Cold: Alice Shaw makes it snow in the desert as a test of her weather-manipulation powers.
Sylar, who has stalked Claire since the beginning of the series, has started to show a sexual attraction towards Claire, beginning with the Volume 4 finale, when he suggested, in the creepiest speech in the show's history, that they get married and live together for, literally, the rest of eternity.
Staying Alive: Sylar. So much so that they don't even bother explaining how he survived seemingly being perma-killed by Claire then left to burn in the Volume Three final showdown (after several episodes they finally throw in some jazz about "melting glass"). He's Sylar, for crying out loud. Of course he survived.
And as of the Volume 4 finale it seems not even attacking his weak point For Massive Damage works anymore, eliciting a well-deserved Oh Crap reaction from Danko.
Stay in the Kitchen: Ryan Hanover, the sexist and unpleaseant Marine in "The Recruit" webisodes.
The Straight Man: Nathan in any scene he shares with Peter or Hiro.
Strapped to an Operating Table - Bennet does this to Matt and later to Sylar at Primatech in Volume 1. Mohinder does this to Nathan and Tracy and Arthur does this to Peter at Pinehearst in Volume 3.
String Theory: Both Mohinder's map of specials and Future Hiro's map of time.
This is what kills Meredith at the end of Volume Three.
Meredith's death isn't confirmed. Until stated otherwise, she's MIA.
Superpower Lottery: Sylar, Peter, Hiro, Eden, and perhaps definetly Matt now. Hopefully he won't be killed/depowered for it. Arthur Petrelli, Alice Shaw.
Super Senses: Dale Smither from Volume One had super hearing.
Take Your Time: With some rather Squicky implications. Noah learns that the eclipse temporarily neutralizes powers. Seeing this as his chance to kill Sylar for good, he grabs a sniper rifle and sets up where, through the scope, he can see Sylar and Elle kissing, fully clothed. End episode. At the opening of the next episode, Sylar and Elle are post-coital in a sleeping bag, and Noah's still out there aiming...
Taking You with Me: The first battle between Peter and Sylar ends with them grappling and throwing each other off a 30 ft drop off the bleachers. Peter died (he got better), Sylar slowed his fall with TK and limped away.
Tangled Family Tree: The Petrelli's immediate family thus far includes Angela and Arthur, Angela's sister Alice, sons Peter and Nathan, Nathan's wife and legitimate kids, and Claire. Claire, in turn, has the Bennets as her foster family as well as biological mother Meredith, making Meredith's brother Flint her uncle. Sylar was teased for a bit as a third Petrelli brother; this was a lie but he's now Nathan's Replacement Goldfish.
The Taxi: Mohinder's day job at the beginning of the series.
Team Spirit: A recurring theme in Season 1 is that the characters get a lot more accomplished when they work together. Played fairly subtly most of the time, but made very obvious in the finale, where only by the combined efforts of Peter, Matt, Niki, Hiro, Claire, and Nathan is Sylar defeated and New York saved.
Made explicit in Peter's conversations with Claude. Claude maintains that relationships are distractions, but Peter eventually concludes that it is only by letting other people in that he can fully realise his heroic potential.
Technicolor Fire: Flint's pyrokinetic fire burns blue because unlike his sister he embraced his powers and practiced burning it REALLY hot. Peter's fire looks like this too since he mimicked it from Flint.
Terrible Ticking: The ticking clock sound effect that plays whenever Sylar's up to his old tricks evokes this trope. Even though it's not literally a ticking he can hear, it symbolizes that he can see how everything works in a way no one else can, which drives him batty.
That Man Is Dead: Sylar pretty much refuses to answer to "Gabriel" most of the time, but goes back to it when he's repressing his "hunger".
Subverted and made all the more intriguing by the fact that when he is Gabriel repressing the hunger, he takes the opposite stance, refusing to answer to Sylar. His little identity crisis is edging dangerously close to split personality disorder (now THAT would be awesome).
Makes one wonder what "Nathan" will end up answering to.
That's What I Would Do: Nathan cites his belief that the government would capture and experiment on anybody with powers as exactly what he would do in the situation. And then he does.
Too Dumb to Live: Claire edged dangerously close to this in Volume Two. She knows the kind of people looking for her family. She knows her flyboy has sworn a vendetta against her father. She's caught him spying on her at her house. How certain are we that Sylar didn't steal her brain? However, the true champions of stupidity have got to be Maya and Alejandro, with Alejandro actually getting killed by Sylar and Maya trusting Sylar completely, even after she's found out that he was wanted in connection with his mother's murder. Also, Mohinder Suresh is an example of this most of the time, but especially in the Third Volume opener.
Then there's Peter, who in the very first episode decides to test his theory of Flight by jumping off the roof of an apartment building. Peter, I think I've spotted a tiny flaw in your experiment design. Can you see it?
Matt seems to have taken at least half a level in Volume 4.
Micah apparently took one in Volume Three. In Volume Four, he's adopted the codename "Rebel" and is organizing a resistance effort against the government.
Peter does this, twice. First, by actually getting a grasp on his powers after his training with Claude. Later, when his DEPOWERING followed by his new NERFED ability, he becomes one of the most strategically intelligent characters of the show.
Trailers Always Spoil: Ok, Heroes. I get it, you don't want to kill anyone. But why put the last minute of the finale, featuring one Noah Bennet, in a finale promo trailer airing for weeks, if you are putting him in a situation that he could possibly die in a cliffhanger in the penultimate episode!?
Trickster Mentor: Again, Claude, whose training methods involve gleefully whacking his pupil repeatedly with a pole and throwing him off a building. Given the circumstances, it's often hard to tell whether Claude sincerely cares about his pupil or hates his guts.
Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Sylar in Volume Three after acquiring the ability to sense truth. Sylar is utterly casual in the elevator, as is his fellow passenger... albeit for different reasons given Sylar is drenched in blood.
Another memorable one happened all the way back near the finale of Volume One, where Matt, Niki, HRG, and D.L all find themselves sharing an elevator (the last time Matt saw Niki, she was throwing him out a 10 story window... which she outright reminds him of just prior to getting into the elevator). Complete with cheesy muzak in the background.
The Unfavorite: A staple of Petrelli family dynamics. Also Mohinder was the unfavorite to his dead little sister.
Unflinching Walk: Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel gets a totally badass one; after some corrupt cops brutally murder an evolved human, Samuel uses his earthbending ability to level the police station, then walks towards the camera as the station collapses behind him.
The Unreveal: HRG's first name. Of course, eventually we find out that it's Noah.
Sandra Bennet: It is so funny how all of y'all call him Mr. Bennet over there. I've always just known him as – (Sees Mr. Muggles chewing on Sylar's shoelaces.) Stop that, you!
Happens a few times with Linderman in Season 1. One of the characters is all set to meet with him - only to be confronted with a middle-man instead. Nathan eventually comes face to face with him in "Parasite".
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: As one editor joked during one episode (and this is but the most spectacular example of many), "Wouldn't you know it? That's the second time in as many years the corpse of a cute blonde girl suddenly vanished off one of our operating tables!"
A truck driver who picks up a hitchhiking Hiro and Ando learns that the baby the two of them are carrying has the power to shut down machinery (i.e. the trucker's truck) when upset (which is pretty much all the time). His only reaction is to politely ask them to remove their "magic baby" from his truck so he can continue on his journey. It's especially notable that this polite nonreaction occurs in the middle of a plot arc about how normals would be so threatened by the existence of supers that they would commit mass genocide against them if they ever learned about them. There's either something very profound there, or it's just a funny piece of dissonance in a comic relief scene.
He most likely didn't know how to react to a "Magic baby". And it was the government who were shown to be paranoid of Specials, not mankind as a whole. We've seen several ordinary people on the show happy to be around evolved humans without being threatened.
How will they ever stop Pinehearst… cut away scene to Arthur Petrelli engaged in arts and crafts.
Villain Protagonist: Sylar spent the first half of Volume Four looking for the truth about his parentage. Of course, he's still killing anyone who gets in his way.
Villainous Breakdown: Elle goes through a moderate one in Villains. Sylar goes through this multiple times, each time involving his mommy issues.
Oh good lord...I Am Sylar. With Quinto's excellent Norman Bates impression with his mother...topped only by his skin crawling scenes with Claire in An Invisible Thread.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Luke and Sylar, type 1. "You're my bestest friend ever!" "Get lost!"
Poor Luke. At least Sylar didn't kill him. That's kind of a big deal for him.
Voice with an Internet Connection: Hana. "Rebel". And hilariously, Hiro tries to be this to Ando at the beginning of Volume 4; but Ando isn't interested and just ignores Hiro to go out and meet girls.
Waking Up At The Morgue: Claire. And HRG, and Claire again, and Sylar offscreen... (These weren't at the morgue, but still.)
Was Just Leaving: Daphne is the victim, Matt is the harasser and Daphne's dad is the eavesdropper.
Weapon of Choice: Tasers. People get tazed a lot in this show. Maybe because all the actor has to do is squirm and shake after being poked by a prop with lights glued on it.
Prior to Volume 4, the show's signature weapon was apparently the heavily customized Colt .45 pistols wielded by Company Agents.
Welcome Back Traitor: A little attempted murdermass murder genocide won't stop the Petrellis from having family brunch together.
"Well Done, Son" Guy: LOADS of them. Sylar's probably the biggest, but Elle and Mohinder follow pretty closely too. Nathan also apparently suffers from this, but he handles it much more sensibly than most.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Utopia Justifies the Means seems to be the motive for pretty much every major villain in the series. Except for Sylar, of course, who runs more or less on pure evil (at least until the writers oddly decide to give him an In the Blood excuse in Volume Three, though Ma Patrelli could just be is a damn liar).
Arguably Danko. He genuinely sees evolved humans as a threat but some of what he does make him seem a lot more like a Graydon Creed than a Senator Kelly. Yes it's an X Men reference, seemed appropriate somehow.
Wham Episode: Lots of them, most notably "Homecoming," "Company Man," and the Volume Three premiere.
"There are things you need to hear. Things I know about you. ... That you can fly, for instance?"
"I know you're there, Peter."
"Turns out you're the villain, Peter. I'm the hero."
What Could Have Been: The obvious example is how volume 3 was cut short, with plot threads obvious to be related to the main story ending up going nowhere. A bigger example would be the entire style of the series: The original intent was to have a revolving cast, with most characters not returning in future seasons. What could have been, indeed, if after season 2 we didn't have to deal with most of the extended Petrelli family?
The end of the The Fifth Stage has Nathan committing suicide to end the threat of Sylar. His body falls in the shape of a cross and church bells can he heard right after he hits the ground. Nothing symbolic there, no sirree.
Apparently, Word Of God is that she's chillin' in India with Mama Suresh. Which is actually a surprisingly smart move on Mohinder's part, seeing as how most of the assorted superpowered wackiness and nuclear explosions seem to be mainly limited to American soil.
The Graphic Novels show Molly having stayed in India with Mama Suresh before returning to America to help Rebel.
What Have I Become?: Mohinder and Peter went through this in a big way in Volume Three. Having taken Sylar's ability to understand the plot how things work, Peter also developed "the hunger", a corresponding addiction to ripping out peoples' brains.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Alejandro's ability is limited to immunity to and suppression of Maya's deadly plague ability. You know what else? Maya eventually learns to control herself on her own. Not surprisingly, Alejandro is swiftly offed. Sucks to be him.
Ando's power is to supercharge other people's powers. Even he complains about how lame it is. But now he can also blast people with energy.
Alex's power is to breathe underwater. So yes, he has one of the powers of a guy notorious for having terrible powers.
Claire actually lampshades hers with this direct quote, substituting 'healing' for 'heart'. And if you think about it she kind of has a point, because it's hard to do anything actually active with hers; she can take a bullet but can't actually physically defend herself very well. (The fact that she's about 5'1" doesn't help her much in that area, either.)
Short blond girl who's much more resilient than a normal human being and heals much faster? Sorry, but if she were to get some training in a few fighting styles she'd be more dangerous than Buffy or River.
Makes it a pity HRG never really followed through on his promise to teach her to defend herself. Neither did Meredith, who mostly served to show her how many weaknesses she actually had. She was stuck using her body as a literal meat shield, though why she didn't try to seek out some kind of self-defense class in college is a mystery. Possibly because it would have kept her out of too much trouble.
What Measure Is a Mook?: Lampshaded in Volume 4 with regards to Danko's Black Ops stormtroopers - "People have died. Or do my men not count?!". Indeed, the fact he genuinely values the lives of his men (sociopathic snake eaters and all) seems to be Danko's only positive attribute.
Of course, he doesn't mind sacrificing a few of them just to prove his point of how dangerous people with abilities are... or to collaborate with Sylar.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Sylar, who discovered his power to see how things (and people!) fit together, and decided to use this wonderful gift to... eat study fingerbang people's brains and steal their powers. Mr. Bennet stated that all the alterations Sylar made to himself by stealing other special's powers drove him insane. (Never mind the fact that a guy who even starts removing people's craniums probably had a screw or two loose to start with.)
As of Volume Three, they're claiming that his "see how things work" power gave him a desire for more knowledge, and for more powers.
Also, Adam Monroe, who wanted to kill nearly every human because... they had wars. Never mind that the major reason why wars are bad is because people die.
Word Salad: Hiro gets his brain scrambled (Onceagain), and starts speaking in nothing but media references. A sample (subtitled Japanese) +
Workaholic: Peter. It's implied in earlier seasons, but when Season 4 opens, he's revealed to have cut off contact with everyone he knows, stripped his apartment down to the most basic essentials (including an empty refrigerator), and keeps a police scanner and a running tally wall of people he's helped save since the events of Season 3. His partner has to tell him to go home because someone else covered a double shift that Peter wanted and tries to get Peter to socialize out of work. However, this doesn't last long as Peter is inevitably drafted into the machinations of the plotline.
Possibly averted in Volume Four, as it deals with a government roundup; not New York getting nuked, a viral outbreak, or the planet cracking in half. That said, the show hasn't addressed whether or not the planet-cracking has been averted, and the "nuke" Bad Future looks like it might more or less come to pass anyway.
Perhaps no longer the case, now that Matt has painted a procog painting of Washington D.C. getting nuked. (Although Volume 4 is now over and the D.C. nuke still hasn't been referenced at all in the plot).
Definitely averted in Volume Five. The threat Samuel poses is on a smaller (but more personal) scale.
Although if you add two and two together with the paintings of the earth splitting in two and the man being an Earthbender....
World of Badass: Inverted, strangely enough. It's notable that in spite of it's huge roster of characters, there are very few who can be counted as true Badasses. A Badass is defined in its tvtropes page as "someone who reguarly gets away with outright insane stunts." Look at it this way, and the only ones who fit the type are Sylar and Claude. Claude more so because he's disappeared since the first volume so there's been zero Badass Decay. Everyone else comes close but then proceeds to fall absurdly short. In fact, the show seems to revel in taking potential Badasses and turning them into complete wusses. E.g:
HRG might seem like one at first sight, but it's clear he simply manipulates and pulls people's strings.
Adam Monroe might have been this, but he gets bitchslapped by Hiro in what, five seconds?
A similar example, Elle was a true Badass, but then along came Sylar......
Mohinder was headed in this direction after getting powers, but he proved to be too much of a wimpy scientist guy and has gone back to his old role.
Danko, the guy brought in to "take care" of the heroes. Big Damn Army Badass. Evil Personified. Or so we're repeatedly told. Powers include having an Idiot Ball for a head.
Most importantly, the character who has played the Damsel In Distress the highest number of times is Claire. That's right, folks, the girl who can heal from any wound within seconds is the show's regular choice for a DID. Further, she's frequently used as a plot device to make the male characters act heroic. (Save The Cheerleader, Save The World, remember?) This is further emphasized in that in spite of always getting into trouble, Claire has not taken up any kind of physical training over the show's run so far.
World Of No Grandparents: Averted- Claire, while the parents of the parents she grew up with are never shown, has a biological grandmother who is actually a fairly prominent character- Angela Petrelli, and a biological grandfather who is presumed dead but returns from not quite death to be a Big Bad. They are also, obviously, the grandparents of Nathan's two legitimate sons, but those two don't show up much. When Micah's parents are dead/indisposed (one of each), he goes to live with a great-aunt (Cameo!Uhura), who is taking care of her own grandchildren, including Monica ("Blaxploitation Taskmaster"). Matt Parkman has a son and a father, although the former isn't introduced until the latter is dead. We also meet Sylar's father and an alternate future version of his son.
Xanatos Roulette: Although Linderman at least has the excuse of having prophetic paintings to help him.
Xanatos Speed Chess: In contrast to the seemingly perfectly laid out master plans of The Chess Master Linderman, Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel Sullivan seems to have a general master plan, but also seems to be making a lot of it up on the fly as he's clearly not in total control and has to deal with multiple unexpected events that are not in his favor.
Year Inside, Hour Outside: In retaliation for messing with him and his family, Matt traps Sylar in his mind where is forced to live in an alternate reality where he is the only person in the world. Peter travels inside his head to retrieve him several hours after it happended only to have Sylar tell him that 3 years have gone by.
You ALL Share My Story: Seen throughout Season 1 as the Heroes slowly come together, finally converging on Kirby Plaza in the season finale to save the world from Sylar. Oddly, the remaining seasons seem to avert this in increasing illogical ways, having to keep the Heroes separated and/or at each other's throats since any given Volume's plot could probably be solved in 5 minutes if they actually communicated with each other.
Hiro has a variation of this when he finds out that his timestopping doesn't work on Daphne
You Can't Fight Fate: In the first twenty-two episodes of Season 1, every one of Isaac Mendez's paintings comes true. Though not always in the ways the characters expect. This helps to heighten the suspense leading up to the season finale, when Isaac's painting predicts a nuclear explosion in the heart of New York.
You Do Not Want To Know: Done very badly with Jesse's ability, which turned out to be a not especially impressive Make Me Wanna Shout. Apparently it was supposed to be an earthquake ability like Samuel had in the next season, which is still not exactly too horrifying to disclose.
You Get Me Coffee: Sylar use this on the cop who seems to be in charge of a hostage situation while impersonating an FBI agent in the third season.
You Killed My Father: Elle and Mohinder had these moments with Sylar. Also Adam killed Hiro's father. Claire, presumably, will get one the next time she meets Sylar.
You Will Be Assimilated: Sylar and his ability to steal the superpowers of those he kills. Doubly so now that he can assimilate other peoples very identities, through a combination of a shapeshifting power that lets him copy anything whose DNA he samples via touch, and a psychic power that lets him absorb memories via touch.
Your _____ Is Broken: From early in the third volume, when Hiro meets Daphne after she compromises his time-stop:
Daphne: This whole time-stopping thing, how does it work, exactly? I mean, if you chase me to Bangkok, will time stay frozen in Tokyo?
Hiro: I don't know.
Daphne: Well, something to think about when you get back on your feet.
Hiro: But... I am on my feet.
Your Favorite: Samuel tries this on Vanessa, but his information is about 30 years out of date.
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