# Heroes 12/15/08 "Duality" or maybe it's "Duel" (spoilers)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 16, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326 "2008-12-16T01:10:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326/121 "2008-12-22T03:09:34Z")

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> [@DigitalC](#):
>
> The future Peter was trying to avoid was not “everyone gets powers making the world somehow explode”, thats what happened after he started messing with things. The original future he was trying to change was “Nathan goes public and all supers are hunted and put in jail or killed”.

I see what you are referring to. So.. maybe lol. It’s just that even after Peter prevented Nathan from making his announcement, the future still had Peter-hating-agent-Claire. So I thought these two futures were more connected.

> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> These are all theories that came straight from Tim Kring. The man has proven himself unreliable in relating information like this before so I don’t have any reason to believe his ravings related to Zach.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the degaying came from pressure from NBC, and Kring speculated as to the reasons for the NBC pressure.

> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> Plus, for all the bleating over Zach’s gayness, he never actually said he was gay. If all the straightening of the character came from NBC (or the actor himself, as if he’d have that kind of pull), why did Kring and company dance around it for so long? And the smoking gun of Zach’s gayness (“his” MySpace page) was never claimed by NBC.

According to them, the ambiguity started as prologue to an eventual reveal, and along the way got stunted by resistance from the network. What does it mean that his myspace page was never “claimed”? (I mean literally I can’t parse that sentence). Besides that, and the NBC website episode summary, there’s the huge “I’m gay but I won’t say it in so many words speech” by Zach.

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**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326/122 "2008-12-22T04:36:46Z")

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> [@jackdavinci](#):
>
> According to them, the ambiguity started as prologue to an eventual reveal, and along the way got stunted by resistance from the network. What does it mean that his myspace page was never “claimed”? (I mean literally I can’t parse that sentence). Besides that, and the NBC website episode summary, there’s the huge “I’m gay but I won’t say it in so many words speech” by Zach.

“Zach” had a MySpace page that everyone assumes was maintained by NBC. But the network never confirmed that and I’m fairly sure none of the other characters had MySpace pages.

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**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326/123 "2008-12-22T05:51:59Z")

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> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> “Zach” had a MySpace page that everyone assumes was maintained by NBC. But the network never confirmed that and I’m fairly sure none of the other characters had MySpace pages.

Claire has one, and given that I stumbled upon it while idly clicking around the NBC Heroes website, I’d be willing to bet that NBC maintains them itself.

Anyway, as mentioned, the _first_ Future That Must Be Averted this season was the super witch-hunt future – first ep. where BadAss Claire points a gun at Future!Peter while he explains that he can prevent them from having to hide underground and be hunted and he’s going to go do that right now, whereupon he time travels and shoots Nathan.

At some point after that, the Future That Must Be Averted became the whole thing where everyone is super, and it makes the world go 'splodey (or something… I’m still fuzzy on why we’re supposed to believe that having everyone on equal footing is Bad, even if that equal footing happens to be everyone has superpowers. To be honest, the future we _saw_ didn’t look anything like what Nathan was proposing – a select few choosing another select few to be endowed with powers and keeping everyone else in line. What we saw was literally everyone having a superpower). This presumably came about because of Future!Peter’s meddling, whereupon he now tries to avert this second FTMBA with further meddling, and gets himself killed.

And now we end up here, with Nathan trying to implement the super witch-hunt himself. Apparently this FTMBA is not to be averted. It just amuses me because it looks like Peter caused this timeline to happen _because_ he tried to stop it from happening. It’s a time paradox. Poor Peter. 😃

And I want the human lie detector ability. How much time and energy could I save myself if I knew from the start that I was being misled/led on?

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**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326/124 "2008-12-22T06:03:22Z")

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Screw it, just make me a Jedi Knight 😃

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**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-12-15-08-duality-or-maybe-its-duel-spoilers/477326/125 "2008-12-22T06:46:35Z")

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Well, since my subconscious desire is to control everything, I sure as heck hope I don’t get the two powers I’d really want, namely either 1) the ability to rewrite reality as I see fit (a la Haruhi Suzumiya) or 2) the ability to brainwash people into doing whatever I wanted (a la Lelouch Lamperouge).

So if I were writing a Heroes fanfic, I’d give myself a comically lame power like being able to understand (but not communicate with) cats, or like Invisible Boy in Mystery Men, be able to turn invisible but only when people aren’t looking. 😃

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