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dmnky88

Ok so here is something that I've been thinking about Mr. Petrelli's power. What if it was empathy? Think about it, almost every single character that we've seen has had their power grow in some way or another. The next evolutionary step for empathy could be the ability to actually take the power from a person, instead of just copying it.

I also think that, in addition to being able to take powers away, Mr. Petrelli can give powers back. I think this because in the preview for next episode, it shows Peter telling his father he'll never join him and then Mr. Petrelli saying, "until you change your mind then, you're grounded". My thinking is that Mr. Petrelli offered to give Peter some of his powers back if Peter would join him.

This could explain why Peter gets his scar. Something happens and Peter gets slashed across the face. Because he doesn't have his healing power, it has to heal normally. Then, after the scar has become a normal feature on Peter's face, Mr. Petrelli is somehow forced to give Peter all of his powers back. OR this could explain how Future Peter was able to be killed by Future Claire... Maybe Peter gets some of his powers back, but not healing, and uses them to escape from Mr. Petrelli. Then Future Claire would be capable of killing Future Peter (Peter wouldn't be able to take Claire's power because either Arthur didn't give Peter back his empathy or because the fact that Arthur has Peter's version of Claire's power, Peter can't take it again)

Here's my evidence for it:

First of all, he is Peter's father. We know that Matt inherited his father's power, and the only other hero love children are Claire and Micah. Claire's father was Nathan, who had his powers given to him via injection. Micah's mom was also given her power via injection. Whose to say that having artificial powers doesn't screw up the whole power inheritance thing?

Also, this could answer the question of why Peter wasn't able to resist his father taking his powers. If Arthur's power was something other than empathy, then when Peter walked into the room he would have absorbed it. So when Mr. Petrelli was taking Peter's power, Peter COULD have subconsciously used his father's power to take all of his power's back, canceling the process. Now I know that Peter didn't know about his father's power, but he has been shown on SEVERAL occasions to use powers subconsciously... especially when he is in the presence of the person with the power (preventing Matt from reading his mind, flying with Nathan, healing with Claire, invisible with Claude, etc.) If Arthur had empathy, though, then Peter would have had nothing to take.

Arthur having empathy would also explain how he was able to communicate with Adam telepathically. He could have taken Maury's power and been using it to talk to Adam. The only reason I think Arthur wasn't creating the illusions of Linderman himself was because he was too weak in his bedridden state.

This also brings me to the chief argument against Arthur having progressed empathy: the fact that he actually had to take Adam's power to heal. If he had empathy then shouldn't he have just been able to copy Adam's power? Well... not necessarily. When Peter went to the future to get Sylar's power, he found that he was unable to get intuitive aptitude until Sylar let him. What if Adam knew how to accomplish this as well? He certainly had had enough time to master it. In fact, When Adam first meets Peter, he actually has to let Peter take his power so that Peter can heal his memories.

So that's why I think that Mr. Petrelli has a progressed form of empathy, it certainly would answer a lot of questions and fill in a lot of holes. Let me know what you guys think!

admeister · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: .

I think you might be onto something there! As for Adam healing Peter's memories, I didn't know that was an official thing? I thought Peter recovered them on his own.

Static · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:28 pm Post subject:

didn't Adam just tell peter how to go about "healing his brain"? As it were. He just told him how to heal himself, it wasn't Adam who healed him

jj0802 · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:35 pm Post subject:

I don't know. The more I think about this the more I think that either the effect of Arthur's power is temporary or he can (and has to) give them back eventually because the side effect is what led him to the state we first saw him in. Like overuse of his ability or retaining powers too long drains him somehow (I'm thinking of that cheesy movie The Covenant).

My main reason for this line of thinking is that the term "maximum potential" has been used in reference to Peter. If Arthur could permanently remove and absorb the abilities of others I would tend to think of that as "maximum potential".

A bit OT but one other random idea I'm having is that maybe he's not really a villain. Maybe he's assembling the 'bad guys' to strip them of their abilities and he's going to restore Peter so they can take on the real villian, Angela (and Sylar with her). I suppose the biggest problem there is that it doesn't mesh with anything Angela has seen in the future...and wanting Matt would fit into that plan. Oh well, just a though Smile

jj0802 · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:38 pm Post subject:

Edit to my above post: It should read wanting Matt would NOT fit into that plan.

Do Edit buttons no longer exist?

Static · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:02 pm Post subject:

lol i posted that he may not be a villain in another thread previously, and said that he wanted to strip the villains of their abilities and that angela was the main villain (since thats who adam named first when hiro dug him up) although that theory didnt go down too well lol

rose jam · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:45 am Post subject:

dmnky88 · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:11 am Post subject:

no arthur definitely communicated with adam telepathically. they went out of their way to show us the whole scene with the close up of mr. petrelli's eyes with the strange telepathy sound in the background.

and as for adam letting peter take his powers. if i remember correctly, when adam first meets peter, he's not able to heal right away. now this could just be because peter doesn't know how to use adam's power, but i think its that adam was blocking peter from taking it. I say this because adam says, "take my power and use it to heal your memories" now adam new peter had empathy... so why would he tell peter to take it when he knew peter already had it? wouldn't he have said "use my power" or something along those lines? unless, of course, adam had been blocking peter from taking his power at first.

also, i just remembered something that Claude said in season 1 when Peter first came to him. When peter tells Claude about his power, claude says "oh, your one of those" with an oh-so-experienced look on his face. perhaps he was referring to arthur? claude also mentioned how destructive the past empaths were.

My guess as to why arthur was so sick in the beginning is that maybe the rest of the company ganged up on him and forced him to give them blood to work on the formula for giving powers (i believe there are already topics on the subject of mr. petrelli being a genetic contributor to the formula). All of the experimenting with his genetic code and taking of his blood could have drained away his health. this would also explain why mr. petrelli seems to have no love for the company he helped to found or even his wife.

another possibility is his 'delusions of grandeur' drove him to try something that was too powerful even for him and it drained away his life force. perhaps that whole 'snowing in LA' thing that we heard mention of?

wolves_arsenal · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:57 pm Post subject:

yur theory is goodbut the thing with peters ability is that he doesnt gain new abilities he resequeenses hisown ability to make a copy of it. if mimicry is gone so is everything else.unless he just tookthe cloned abilitiesand just left hm with empathy. who knows......dont like this peter story anyways lol nay

adam dint heal peter, he tought peter how to utilise his ability fully thats why he healed. we are also gonna get to see hw arthur made HIMSELF disappear in an upcomming episode when hiro goes back in time to look watch arthur and how he started the company

Static · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject:

yeah Peter alread had the healing ability from claire. Adam just told him how to use it on his mind. If everyone had to give peter permission to absorb their abilities then his own ability would be pretty useless. Nathan didn't say "take my ability" when peter jumped off the roof in season one. And ted spragg didn't either when peter first met him with Noah and claire when he first thought he was gonna go nuclear. I think peter just needs to be shown how to use it because he doesn't fully understand it.... Or half the time doesn't even know he has it.

Static · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:45 pm Post subject:

and didn't Adam say "use my ability" not "take my ability" ???

wolves_arsenal · Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject:

id hve to watch the episode again to be sure but i think it was use my ability.........maybe lol