Heroes: Powers and personalities
Sep. 22nd, 2007 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkRe-reading Astonishing X-Men while catching up with Heroes on BBC2 (up to episode 12 now) its very striking how differently the same basic hook of mutant superpowers is used. While the X-Men’s abilities shape their personalities they don’t obviously arise from them. Maybe it’s different for secondary mutations - Emma does like diamonds - but I’m not going to speculate based on one example. In Heroes on the other hand part of the joy of it all is seeing how each character’s power reflects on him/her. Bearing in mind that I’ve only seen half the series (but am more than a little spoiled for the rest) it’s too tempting to go through them all character by character and guess at what each power means. In most cases I don’t think it’s as simple as the power being a metaphor for a character trait.
Sure Peter picks up other people’s powers because he’s empathic and Ted’s radioactivity is an expression of rage but Nathan’s ability to fly is more indicative of a desire for escape than escapism. It’s about not what he has or is but what he needs, what he lacks.
Nikki/Jessica
Superstrength and a dual personality sound like a Hulk thing or possibly Jekyll and Hyde, both very male fantasies. Nikki’s id, if that’s who Jessica is, is certainly amoral and she’s angry but far from mindless and in her own way very protective. She’s like the big bad sister Nikki never had to keep Daddy away or to stop Micah from being taken. Her manifestation is also very congruent with how Nikki describes being both a mother and an internet stripper. Whether Madonna or whore she wants/needs strength to perform the role, to survive the dangers it brings, but she doesn’t want to be *seen* to have it, hence the split.
Claire
Claire wants to be normal, she wants her differences to heal, to close up and undo themselves. On the surface a popular and pampered high school princess but she is different, she’s adopted, she can’t take acceptance for granted. Amongst the cheerleaders she’s dependent on Jackie’s approval and as a high school girl her reputation is a fragile thing one quarterback could have destroyed with a word. Where Nikki responds to her weakness pre-emptively, actively, by outfighting her attackers Claire’s reaction is to acquire invulnerablity, to take the blows but not to be harmed by them.
Charlie
At first when all we know about Charlie is that she’s a waitress her eidetic memory seems like something that would be useful in her line of work rather as Matt’s telepathy is in his. It seems a little trite in comparison, being a cop can be a defining vocation, waitressing in a diner not so much. But when we find out that Hiro can’t save her, that the clot her brain means she’s living on borrowed time, the idea that she might not want to lose any part of what she has left becomes terribly poignant.
Hiro
Nathan the politician is tied down by his work, flight is a way to escape those bonds. Hiro, the office drone, is boxed in by his both in time (the 9-5) and space (he works in a cubicle). So he bends the whole space-time continuum.
Sylar
As Gabriel Gray Sylar’s gift is another that seems tied to his profession (but he despises his profession). It must be frustrating having a gift that allows you to diagnose a problem but not to fix it, the telekinesis that he acquires from his first victim is a good match in that sense. Sylar the serial killer seems to be defined by his desire to be special but it was interesting how reading Suresh’s book got him excited not just about his potential specialness but also about the idea of an evolutionary imperative (skience at its best). I think he talks at some point about taking powers from those who don’t deserve them and describes his first victim as broken. Maybe the serial killing isn’t just about self-aggraidisment. The world as a great watch set in motion by a Watchmaker is a famous religious metaphor Sylar’s gift may be to see the whole thing as broken and himself merely the invisible hand of natural selection weeding out the weak and unfit. His problem is that he lacks the imagination to match his ability. If Hiro’s watch were broken instead of tinkering with the mechanism he would change time to match it, Peter would take on the pain of the watch, Claire would let it heal, Nathan would fly away from it and Nikki would grind it to a pulp before it corrupted Micah.
Sure Peter picks up other people’s powers because he’s empathic and Ted’s radioactivity is an expression of rage but Nathan’s ability to fly is more indicative of a desire for escape than escapism. It’s about not what he has or is but what he needs, what he lacks.
Nikki/Jessica
Superstrength and a dual personality sound like a Hulk thing or possibly Jekyll and Hyde, both very male fantasies. Nikki’s id, if that’s who Jessica is, is certainly amoral and she’s angry but far from mindless and in her own way very protective. She’s like the big bad sister Nikki never had to keep Daddy away or to stop Micah from being taken. Her manifestation is also very congruent with how Nikki describes being both a mother and an internet stripper. Whether Madonna or whore she wants/needs strength to perform the role, to survive the dangers it brings, but she doesn’t want to be *seen* to have it, hence the split.
Claire
Claire wants to be normal, she wants her differences to heal, to close up and undo themselves. On the surface a popular and pampered high school princess but she is different, she’s adopted, she can’t take acceptance for granted. Amongst the cheerleaders she’s dependent on Jackie’s approval and as a high school girl her reputation is a fragile thing one quarterback could have destroyed with a word. Where Nikki responds to her weakness pre-emptively, actively, by outfighting her attackers Claire’s reaction is to acquire invulnerablity, to take the blows but not to be harmed by them.
Charlie
At first when all we know about Charlie is that she’s a waitress her eidetic memory seems like something that would be useful in her line of work rather as Matt’s telepathy is in his. It seems a little trite in comparison, being a cop can be a defining vocation, waitressing in a diner not so much. But when we find out that Hiro can’t save her, that the clot her brain means she’s living on borrowed time, the idea that she might not want to lose any part of what she has left becomes terribly poignant.
Hiro
Nathan the politician is tied down by his work, flight is a way to escape those bonds. Hiro, the office drone, is boxed in by his both in time (the 9-5) and space (he works in a cubicle). So he bends the whole space-time continuum.
Sylar
As Gabriel Gray Sylar’s gift is another that seems tied to his profession (but he despises his profession). It must be frustrating having a gift that allows you to diagnose a problem but not to fix it, the telekinesis that he acquires from his first victim is a good match in that sense. Sylar the serial killer seems to be defined by his desire to be special but it was interesting how reading Suresh’s book got him excited not just about his potential specialness but also about the idea of an evolutionary imperative (skience at its best). I think he talks at some point about taking powers from those who don’t deserve them and describes his first victim as broken. Maybe the serial killing isn’t just about self-aggraidisment. The world as a great watch set in motion by a Watchmaker is a famous religious metaphor Sylar’s gift may be to see the whole thing as broken and himself merely the invisible hand of natural selection weeding out the weak and unfit. His problem is that he lacks the imagination to match his ability. If Hiro’s watch were broken instead of tinkering with the mechanism he would change time to match it, Peter would take on the pain of the watch, Claire would let it heal, Nathan would fly away from it and Nikki would grind it to a pulp before it corrupted Micah.