Heroes Reborn - Season 1 Discussion Thread (with Spoilers)

[The Old Mixer]

Hey all, it's good to be back!

I see what you're saying, Christopher, but I don't agree with it. It's possible that the priest might have eventually learned to use his power like that given the opportunity, but one thing that they have set up, in the series in general and emphasized this season, is that Evos often have issues controlling their powers, and their powers have limits. Evidently the priest didn't have the sort of total control over his changing into gas and back that would allow him to consciously fix things up while suffering a mortal wound to his corporeal form that gave him seconds to live.

And again I'll point to Trek transporters...with their biofilters and pattern buffers, you'd think they'd be healing injuries automatically when beaming up wounded crewmen, but they don't.

marking territory

Ah, that explains the smell.

 

[Christopher]

I see what you're saying, Christopher, but I don't agree with it. It's possible that the priest might have eventually learned to use his power like that given the opportunity, but one thing that they have set up, in the series in general and emphasized this season, is that Evos often have issues controlling their powers, and their powers have limits. Evidently the priest didn't have the sort of total control over his changing into gas and back that would allow him to consciously fix things up while suffering a mortal wound to his corporeal form that gave him seconds to live.

But what I'm saying is, it can't be just a matter of a human being learning a new ability. It's implicit in the very nature of his ability that his consciousness must be essentially incorporeal now. That's not a matter of learning, it's just what he would have to be. If he can survive without an intact brain, lungs, heart, circulatory system, and nervous system, then there's no reason why piercing his heart with a piece of metal would have any effect on his ability to survive. That's not a matter of learning or choice, just of the physical nature he would have to have in order to possess such an extreme power.

And again I'll point to Trek transporters...with their biofilters and pattern buffers, you'd think they'd be healing injuries automatically when beaming up wounded crewmen, but they don't.

Which is something I've also complained about in the past. I think they should. Sometimes writers just don't think through the ramifications of the ideas they come up with, and that is a shortcoming on their part. There are many, many ramifications of the existence of transporters that Star Trek just ignores. Science fiction is supposed to be about considering the ramifications of a hypothetical advance or phenomenon. It's about asking "What if?" and thinking up possible answers. If you ask "What if teleportation existed?" and the only ramification you think of is that it lets you send the characters down to a planet without spending money filming a shuttlecraft model, then you haven't explored the idea to its fullest. As Larry Niven, Alfred Bester, Wil McCarthy, and others showed in prose fiction, the existence of teleportation would have worldshaking ramifications beyond mere travel convenience. And if you ask "What if a guy could change himself to powder?" and the only answer you think of is "Well, he can waft around for a bit then change himself back," then you're missing a whole bunch of really, really profound ramifications.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But Gas Priest's consciousness may only have worked like that in gas form...his physical form was still vulnerable to the same things that any other corporeal being suffers from. Again, something that he couldn't control.

Ultimately, no super powers make sense if you examine them too closely. That's why we don't have them.

The real bottom line is how his power serves the story. They wanted him to die, likely as a motivator for other characters and to up the stakes by demonstrating how even Evos with impressive powers that would ideally protect them from harm could be killed. Portraying his power the way you suggest wouldn't have served that purpose.

 

[kitik]

So, 2 episodes left, and Quentin and sister darkness are all but joined up with the good guys.

It feels like a lot of this show has tread over the same ground time and time again, as characters wind up back where they were a few episodes ago.

 

[Christopher]

But Gas Priest's consciousness may only have worked like that in gas form...his physical form was still vulnerable to the same things that any other corporeal being suffers from. Again, something that he couldn't control.

And that is the premise I find unbelievable. As I said, if he was able to survive being disintegrated at all, then it follows that his consciousness had changed on a fundamental level to something incredibly different from how a human consciousness works. I just can't buy the premise that it could go back and forth like flipping a switch. With a lot of other powers, I could buy that, but this power is just so insanely out there that in this case, the idea that he can "turn it off" and be normal is just not acceptable to me.

The real bottom line is how his power serves the story. They wanted him to die, likely as a motivator for other characters and to up the stakes by demonstrating how even Evos with impressive powers that would ideally protect them from harm could be killed. Portraying his power the way you suggest wouldn't have served that purpose.

And restaurants serve food, but if I think the meal they served me was badly made, I'm completely entitled to complain about it. Yes, obviously the writers believed that this served the story, but that doesn't mean I'm required to just shut up, turn off my brain, and uncritically swallow whatever they set down in front of me. I'm entitled to say that I don't think the creators made a good choice and to suggest what I think would be a better approach.

As I've already said more than once, if they wanted this character to be expendable, then they should have given him a different, less extraordinary superpower. This particular one is just so over-the-top that any character who has it should be all but indestructible, like the T-1000 or Sandman. It's inconsistent to give him a power of that class and then just kill him off like a chump. So, yes, you've restated what the writers obviously intended, but the simple fact that they did it does not mean that it was the best decision.

 

[sojourner]

You're stating your opinion on the power as fact.

 

[sojourner]

Heroes:reborn will not have a second season.

 

[Forbin]

Fine by me.
Very disappointed in it.

 

[Aragorn]

I still haven't watched beyond the two-hour premiere because of how awful it was. On another site they said that only one episode this season has been good. Have I seen that episode yet?

 

[Christopher]

It's official -- Heroes Reborn is re-dead. They're saying it was always planned as a limited series, but that's what they say about a lot of series that end up getting renewed if the ratings are good enough. This time, they weren't.

But at least that means that this time we'll hopefully get a suitably definitive ending without it being hedged at the last moment to leave room for the characters to continue.

 

[sojourner]

It's dead? You don't say? I never would have guessed.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Heroes Reborn is re-dead.

Liked for this.

 

[Gryffindorian]

This is one revival show I won't miss when it's gone. I wanted to like it from the beginning, but the characters are very unrelatable, and the story isn't that strong to begin with, especially all the time travel nonsense. I'll be at the funeral just to pay my final respects.

 

[Beagleman]

I'll be at the funeral just to be sure it's dead!

 

[Forbin]

If they do ever try again, they should leave out astronomical phenomena. They really have no understanding of them at all.

 

[cylkoth]

I'll be at the funeral just to be sure it's dead!

Bring plenty of Holy water. And a hammer and chisel in case the casket is closed.

 

[Christopher]

No, you have to find that spot in the back of its skull and...

 

[JD]

I've got to agree with everybody else except Christopher about the priest, they didn't establish enough about how his powers worked to say anything about what he can or can't do. Christopher, you're basing all of you complaints on a lot of assumptions on your part about what you think somebody with these powers would be capable of, but we never saw evidence of on the show. When it comes to stories like it, it really doesn't matter how the powers might theoretically work in the real world, all that matters is what the show establishes.

I've enjoyed the season overall, but I'm not really that upset to it not come back.

 

[Christopher]

I've got to agree with everybody else except Christopher about the priest, they didn't establish enough about how his powers worked to say anything about what he can or can't do.

But that's exactly what I am complaining about -- the fact that they didn't establish enough to justify the apparent contradiction in his powers.

Christopher, you're basing all of you complaints on a lot of assumptions on your part about what you think somebody with these powers would be capable of, but we never saw evidence of on the show.

You don't need evidence for something that's simple common sense. I've tried to explain this. Getting a bullet fired into a part of your body does much less damage than having that part of your body completely disintegrated. Yes? Doesn't that logically follow? So it stands to reason that if you have the power to restore your body from being completely disintegrated, then it should be easy to restore your body from being only slightly damaged. It's as simple as concluding that 100-2 is a larger number than 100-100. Even if it isn't portrayed that way in fiction, it should be, because it simply makes sense. My problem with a lot of shapeshifter portrayals in fiction, not just this one, is that they fail to recognize the contradiction of a shapeshifter being unable to heal an injury.

When it comes to stories like it, it really doesn't matter how the powers might theoretically work in the real world, all that matters is what the show establishes.

No. It doesn't. Because we are not required to blindly accept what the tellers of a story decide. We are allowed to critcize their choices and point out their errors and say when we think something is a bad idea.

And "the real world" has nothing to do with it. Shapeshifters? The real world? How is that even a conversation? The point is that fictional worlds have to be convincing. Like I said, we're not obligated to blindly swallow every premise. Suspension of disbelief is voluntary and has to be earned. So even if a fictional world is totally unreal, it still has to be logical and consistent within its own rules. If something within it is fundamentally self-contradictory, that makes it harder to believe. Like, say, establishing that Superman is weakened by kryptonite but then showing him lifting an entire continent made primarily of kryptonite into space. That doesn't connect to anything in reality, but it contradicts itself, and thus is a bad idea.

 

[JD]

But we never saw him use his powers to heal himself, or got a description of how his body is returned to it's original state. Maybe his body would just automatically return to whatever state it was in when he turned to mist, so he would still have a big bloody hole in his chest when he came back. If the bullet was blocking the blood flow and he changed and the bullet fell out, then when he returned to his solid state he could have actually died quicker.