Moot Point

Subtitle: “I have too much time on my hands”

My premise is that fathers and fatherhood have become increasingly central issues in Heroes, along with family in general. I think the pressures and cracks in the patriarchal family structure — which, as any good Lacanian knows, can be tied into bigger structures, like Law¹ — are central in the show, much more than the powers (and just to be clear, I have been saying something like this for months). The season finale last night made how much Heroes is about family and patriarchal power abundantly clear. And let’s not forget that powers are apparently hereditary!² Anyway, these are just some notes (and, SPOILERS if you haven’t seen the whole thing):

1. Claire: So Claire has two dads. There’s HRG, who worked for Linderman’s shady business and started out as a villain who erased his whole family’s memory repeatedly, and who she spent weeks being scared of. Then, in “Company Man,” we learn that all his crazy behaviour has been motivated by a paternal urge to protect Claire, and the family’s bonds are re-established even as Claire has to leave her whole life behind and HRG takes a bullet in the stomach to make it look good. Then she has her real dad, Nathan. Nathan is running for Congressman. So in other words, he is going to be a representative of Law! And he has no time for her, because having your illegitimate child who literally can’t die show up right before your election is Not Helpful. (Claire and NOAH were reunited in the finale last night, because “home is where your family is,” apparently; love wins out over blood).
2. Nathan himself: As I said, he is ascending to a position of power in terms of Law. Of course, this is obviously something he has been groomed for forever: his parents were both involved with Linderman (who plays god in several ways) in trying to “heal the world,” to basically re-form the world so it is closer to what they imagine it to be, and part of their plan involves making him president. Nathan started off conflicted about this access to power: right before his father died he was going to testify against him and Linderman, who were obviously corrupt, but he has slowly been drawn into by Linderman’s nebulous “plans,” in a very Manchurian Candidate kind of way (right down to the controlling mother), but the “plan” obviously also includes the seductive elements of holding patriarchal power. He has just won the election illegitimately, making him an illegitimate “father” in a totally different way. He is redeemed in the finale after hearing his (illegitimate) daughter exclaim that the future isn’t written in stone, essentially forcing him to accept that he is actually living in the world right now and–with the powers he has (both literal and figurative)–Nathan has the power to change things.
3. Peter: had apparently shared his brother’s ambivalence toward their dad’s involvement in Linderman, prompting him to become a nurse and withdraw from holding any kind of patriarchal power. Peter’s ambivalence about having “power” is also clear in his fears that he is going to actually be the bomb that destroys a chunk of Manhattan in a 9/11-esque disaster³. And then, there is the other person who thinks he is going to be the bomb:
4. Sylar: who has some mommy issues of his own. Sylar’s beloved, departed dad was apparently a great guy who fixed watches for a living. His mom is clearly the one who screwed him up. Sylar’s like bizarro-Nathan: his mom is shown encouraging him to be “special” and what-not, but for him “special” means “stealing other people’s brains.” (So it is pretty awesome when, in the “Five Years Gone” episode, Nathan turns out to be Sylar. Sylar’s more often paralleled with Peter, because of their similar abilities, but the last couple of episodes have definitely shown his and Nathan’s commonalities. Which were actually underscored when Sylar was all “You’re the villain. I’m the hero,” as he prepared to stop Peter from exploding, but then Hiro killed him and it was Nathan, Peter’s real brother, who flew him into space in a love explosion.)
5. Mohinder: is all insecure because his dad didn’t want to play ball (or study genetics or something) with him. At the very end, it turns out that Mohinder’s dad apparently basically resented him for being born two months too late to use his antibodies to save his sister from dying? But then that angst is resolved when he can use his magic blood to save Molly, deepening their bond of knowing each other for like two days into this special blood tie.
6. Parkman: So Parkman starts out the series struggling in his job as a lawman (oh that’s right, a pun) and in his family. When he finds out his wife is pregnant, his focus becomes much more clearly on fatherhood and assuming that role, lessening his commitment to being a cop. To the point that he actually steals some diamonds on his security detail, in a storyline I really barely found interesting at the time, except that it led to last week’s hilarious elevator ride with:
7. Niki/Jessica: Who has “daddy issues” written all over her. We know: Niki’s a recovering alcoholic. Her dad was an alcoholic who was somehow involved in her sister’s death. Except that her sister lives on, as her super-strong alternate personality. Who kills people. For money. Eventually, the sisters seem to make peace, as mirror-Jessica tells Niki she had the strength all along and she should go save Micah. How nice. This kind of glosses over the killing people for money, but whatever. Niki totally hits Sylar with a parking meter and looks like she could give him a run for his money, but then Peter tells her to “go back to her family.” Because her husband needs her and apparently that is more important than the fact that he will die anyway if either Peter or Sylar blows up and kills everyone in the city.
8. Hiro: I was totally bummed when even my beloved Hiro⁴ had the daddy issues. Luckily they were daddy issues with George Takei, who is at least not boring. Hiro’s dad is first introduced as this menacing Japanese corporate guy who wants Hiro to be all conformist and successful, but then we realize that a) he’s involved in all the shady Linderman exploding-man-election-stealing-plans when we seem in the past handing baby Claire off to HRG and b) he’s actually totally proud of Hiro and teaches him how to use a sword in like two minutes. Hey, while we’re on swords (and I almost never say stuff is phallic): there’s a phallic symbol for you! Hiro spends like, weeks, on a quest to find this “special sword” that will restore his “power” (read: manhood); when he goes to kill Sylar, his sword gets frozen and broken off (read: emasculation). Luckily, he can just get a new sword from his dad, and have his manliness confirmed through inspirational speeches and his heterosexual life partner telling him that he looks “bad-ass.”

I dunno, this is all pretty obvious, and in the end, I’m not sure I really have a point with my pointing out of the obvious psychoanalytic reading of a superhero show. The themes are almost too cohesive, the answers are almost too easy. I guess that’s melodrama for you!⁵ Hurray for easy answers, and the POWER OF LOVE.

1 - Because when you take on the “Name of the Father” you are integrated into the symbolic network, which is the world as linguistically/symbolically ordered. Of course, there are always going to be cracks, because not everything is name-able. Sort of.
2 - I seriously suspect Mama Petrelli’s power is some kind of mind control. She keeps touching people’s arms to make them do stuff. Like “Nathan, Linderman’s death changes nothing. You should still let your brother explode and kill millions of people,” or “Claire, let me answer your phone.”
3 - I am totally ignoring the “your power is love” shit in from Peter’s dream. There is no way to make that dialogue make sense in any way. Back in the early, early, early days of the season, I remember Alex and I wondering what Peter’s power would turn out to be and we were all “Heart!” (like the poor South American kid on Captain Planet) as a joke.
4 - Masi Oka is awesome in real life too: he was on Scrubs, appeared on the cover of Time as a CHILD GENIUS, and he worked in special effects a bunch before he was a star. Because he’s an actual genius. Those are actually all the things I know about him, but love!
5 - And I use melodrama in a totally non-pejorative sense. I love me some melo!