History Heroes / TropesVToZ

* WhyAmITicking
* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Sylar, Peter, and Hiro have these kinds of issues.
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou

* YouDoNotWantToKnow: Done very badly with Jesse's ability, which turned out to be a not especially impressive MakeMeWannaShout. Apparently it was supposed to be an earthquake ability like Samuel had in the next season, which is not exactly too horrifying to disclose.

* XanatosSpeedChess: In contrast to the seemingly perfectly laid out master plans of TheChessMaster Linderman, Volume 5 BigBad Samuel Sullivan seems to have an EvilPlan 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.

--> With our powers gone, Bennett is the powerful one now.

* YouAlreadyChangedThePast: The results of Hiro's adventures in feudal Japan.
* YouCanSeeMe: Claude, when first meeting Peter.
** Hiro has a variation of this when he finds out that his timestopping doesn't work on Daphne

* YouKilledMyFather: [[spoiler: Elle and Mohinder had these moments with Sylar. Also Adam killed Hiro's father. After discovering Sylar murdered her father, Nathan, Claire has this confrontation with Sylar.]]

* YourFavorite: Samuel tries this on Vanessa, but his information is about 30 years out of date.
* YourWorstNightmare: [[spoiler:Maury Parkman]]'s schtick.
* ZenSurvivor: Claude.

* WeaponOfChoice: 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.

* WorldOfBadass: Inverted, strangely enough. It's notable that in spite of its [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters huge roster of characters]], there are very few who can be counted as true Badasses. A Badass is defined on its [=TV=] Tropes page as "someone who regularly 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 BadassDecay. 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. For example:

---> - A [[StarWars Jedi's work]] is never done. Unhand the princess, or feel the sting of my lightsaber.

---> - '''Cop:''' Drop the knife! '''Hiro:''' [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Lancelot!]] [[StarWars C-3PO!]]

---> - '''Cop:''' Drop the knife! '''Hiro:''' [[KingArthur Lancelot!]] [[StarWars C-3PO!]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans 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 InTheBlood excuse in Volume Three, though Ma Petrelli [[strike:could just be]] is a damn liar).

** ''How will they ever stop Pinehearst…'' cut away scene to Arthur Petrelli engaged in arts and crafts.
* VillainProtagonist: 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.
* VillainousBreakdown: Elle goes through a moderate one in ''Villains''. Sylar goes through this multiple times, each time involving his mommy issues.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans 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 InTheBlood excuse in Volume Three, though Ma Patrelli [[strike: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.

*** "There are things you need to hear. Things I know about you. ... That you can fly, for instance?"

** In season 2, Peter accidentally leaves his girlfriend Caitlyn in a plague ridden future. This is a major motivation for him to try and stop the virus from getting released. Then in the season finale, he prevents the virus from getting released, and afterward doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in what happened to Caitlyn. The real reason for this is that before the writer's strike, the virus was going to be released, and when they reshot the ending, they didn't have enough time to shoot a resolution to Caitlyn's story. WordOfGod makes it clear she'll never be seen or heard of again either.

*** It's been offered that Nathan may have been right about it being some type of divine intervention or [[spoiler: it may have been Future Peter drawing on a power that he did not know he had because of his empathy.]]
** What happened to Angella Petrelli's sister after she left Coyote Sands?

** Hana Gitelman, Claude Rains, Monica Dawson, Maya Herrera, Molly Walker, Flint Gordon, Claire's friend Zach and many others simply disappeared from the series. If they were lucky they got a fate in the comics.

* WhatHaveIBecome: Mohinder and Peter went through this in a big way in Volume Three. [[spoiler: Having taken Sylar's ability to understand [[strike: the plot]] how things work, Peter also developed "the hunger", a corresponding addiction to ripping out peoples' brains.]]

** Ando's power is to supercharge other people's powers. Even he complains about how lame it is. [[spoiler:But now he can also [[KamehameHadoken blast people with energy]]]].

*** 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).

* WorldOfBadass: Inverted, strangely enough. It's notable that in spite of it's [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 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 BadassDecay. 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:

** A similar example, Elle was a true Badass, but then [[spoiler: along came Sylar......]]

** Most importantly, the character who has played the DamselInDistress 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 [[FunWithAcronyms DID]]. Further, she's frequently used as a plot device to make the male characters act heroic. ([[ArcWords 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. This slowly changed by Volume Five as she TookALevelInBadass.
* WorldOfNoGrandparents: 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 [[NotQuiteDead not quite death]] to be a BigBad. 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.

* YearInsideHourOutside: 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.

* YouDoNotWantToKnow: Done very badly with Jesse's ability, which turned out to be a not especially impressive MakeMeWannaShout. 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.

* YouWillBeAssimilated: Sylar and his ability to steal the superpowers of those he kills. ''Doubly so'' now that he can [[spoiler: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.]]

* WindowPain - Volume Four, Episode 1.

* YouKilledMyFather: [[spoiler: 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.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Caitlin? At last count, she was ''still'' trapped in [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Future Version 2]]. Or not, because that timeline was erased.
** Also, who is watching Molly?
*** Apparently, WordOfGod 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 [[CreatorProvincialism American soil]].
** The Graphic Novels show Molly having stayed in India with Mama Suresh before returning to America to help Rebel.

* ViewersAreMorons:
** ''Gee, I wonder how Peter survived that fall.''
** Sylar himself, when he's on one side of the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor. Lampshaded [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilariously]] in "Pass/Fail"
--> '''Gretchen''': "So, Sylar huh?"
--> '''Claire''': "Yes. ...No, the Emo, apologist version."

---> - [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Citizens of Caprica]]. You are saved. The Cylon has been defeated.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: 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?

* XMeetsY: ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'' meets ''Main/{{Lost}}'' meets ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''.