I must admit to a certain bias, of course, but as you say, I think making Nathan's choice so important was thematically justified for the overall season.
Not as future!Hiro thought because Claire didn’t die and didn’t give her ability to Sylar but because she lived and lived to give her absentee biological father an exasperated teenager’s opinion on the evitability of things.
Which I actually like better. Not dying, not becoming Sylar's victim is essentially a passive thing, and doesn't have anything to do with her being Claire. But being the voice of blistering no-nonsense judgement is something Claire can do because she's herself. (I also loved that he looked back to her one more time before stepping towards Peter.)
I linked my Nathan meta and some post-season 1 finale fanfic at londonkds' journal which I saw you commented on, so you probably don't want/need the links here as well.
Re: Peter as Dawn - the sky getting bright during the explosion made me think of The Gift as well. Though it's interesting that the choices to be made are slightly different (with one common element). In The Gift, Buffy at first seems to have only two - either kill her sister and save the world, or save her sister and doom the world. As she often does, she comes up with a third option, substituting herself for Dawn and saving both the world and Dawn. Nathan's choices are either to believe that the future is inevitable and to allow the explosion to happen as scheduled (with additional incentive of promises that this will result in a leader of the country and country united thing, though Hiro also gave him a warning - and it's important here imo that Hiro doesn't know Future!Nathan was Sylar, because obviously had Nathan known he was about to get killed and replaced by a serial killer, any choice would have been selfish), but would make his brother responsible for the death of millions, let Claire shoot Peter, which might or might not stop the explosion (shooting didn't help when Thompson did it with Ted) but definitely will devastate Claire and, since she'd have to aim for his head and was close enough, would kill Peter for good, or volunteer his own life.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-12-09 04:51 pm (UTC)Not as future!Hiro thought because Claire didn’t die and didn’t give her ability to Sylar but because she lived and lived to give her absentee biological father an exasperated teenager’s opinion on the evitability of things.
Which I actually like better. Not dying, not becoming Sylar's victim is essentially a passive thing, and doesn't have anything to do with her being Claire. But being the voice of blistering no-nonsense judgement is something Claire can do because she's herself. (I also loved that he looked back to her one more time before stepping towards Peter.)
I linked my Nathan meta and some post-season 1 finale fanfic at
Re: Peter as Dawn - the sky getting bright during the explosion made me think of The Gift as well. Though it's interesting that the choices to be made are slightly different (with one common element). In The Gift, Buffy at first seems to have only two - either kill her sister and save the world, or save her sister and doom the world. As she often does, she comes up with a third option, substituting herself for Dawn and saving both the world and Dawn. Nathan's choices are either to believe that the future is inevitable and to allow the explosion to happen as scheduled (with additional incentive of promises that this will result in a leader of the country and country united thing, though Hiro also gave him a warning - and it's important here imo that Hiro doesn't know Future!Nathan was Sylar, because obviously had Nathan known he was about to get killed and replaced by a serial killer, any choice would have been selfish), but would make his brother responsible for the death of millions, let Claire shoot Peter, which might or might not stop the explosion (shooting didn't help when Thompson did it with Ted) but definitely will devastate Claire and, since she'd have to aim for his head and was close enough, would kill Peter for good, or volunteer his own life.