I just finished season 2 of Heroes on Netflix. I plan to start watching season 3 soon (so please no spoilers on that), but the ending of the Adam story line left me wondering. So, Hiro trapped Adam six feet down in his father’s grave. Adam is effectively immortal due to his healing ability. This leaves two possibilities for his fate: The most realistic scenario is that he will die of dehydration. His ability may give him superhuman healing, but it shouldn’t be able to create water. He will die slowly and agonizingly alone, cramped in the dark. The more fantastical option is that his power will keep him alive in the grave forever.
With these two options, what was Hiro trying to do? Kill him cruelly? Kill him indirectly, so he can feel his hands are clean? Just permanently remove him from the board? Something I missed?
If he stays alive in the grave, how secure is he? If we assume he can’t pull a Beatrix Kiddo and dig his way out, he could be trapped in there for any period of time from centuries, to months (Molly could find his location and then anyone with a shovel could free him.) And when he comes out, I doubt he will be feeling any kinder to the human race, or Hiro.
Im sorry but theres really no way to answer any of this without going into spoiler territory. I assumed Hiro simply wanted him trapped there forever with his father, i doubt Adams power would let him die of dehydration.
The Highlander series had Duncan causing a fellow immortal to suffer a similar fate. He would die agonizingly of dehydration, only to re-awake and repeat the process.
Needless to say, when he was finally rescued, he was a little peeved at Duncan MacLeod.
Adam heals. I would suspect that the ravages of dehydration (and starvation) heal. Given the speed at which Adam heals versus the speed of starvation/dehydration, I don’t think he would physically be at all handicapped, though he might have a debillitating craving.
I guess it depends on the mode of his healing. If his ability allows his body to use its resources at amazing speeds and abnormal ways, then he would still need raw fuel and resources to rebuild.* For example, if he lost a hand(say five pounds of bones and flesh), he could grow it back, but he would not create any new matter, just rearrange what he had. He would be 5 pounds lighter than before, and probably incredibly hungry. I could see him surviving for a lot longer than a normal human, and even reviving if pulled out after death, within a limited period of time. But it is established that destroying his brain would kill him, so if his brain turned to powder, that should be it.
*There was something similar in an early Xanth book. Magician level healing would restore lost tissue from nothingness, average talent healing, would just rearrange the tissue to recover, so the person would have to eat a lot to regain what was lost.
You know, given that he heals pretty fast, I would think pulling a Beatrice Kiddo would not be entirely out of the question. I mean, keep pounding on just about anything (I beleive he was in a wooden coffin, maybe I’m wrong) long enough and you’ll be able to make a hole. It’s not like he was trapped in a 2 inch thick steel coffin or anything.
Assuming he could get sufficient leverage (the whole point of the kung-fu training flashback was to show she had been trained to strike from only 2 inches), he could probably break the top of a wooden casket, but a) many caskets are metal, and b) he would then have dirt fall in on top of him. It is not unbelievable that someone could break out of a pine box, it is unbelievable that someone of normal human strength could dig (or punch in Beatrix’s case) their way through 6 feet of dirt. They did a Mythbusters on buried to the neck in sand (I also saw it on a similar British show) and it wasn’t possible to move at all.
If you assume that, then his father’s grave is poor choice. Anyone who wanted to could easily get him out. Hiro could have dumped him in a pocket in a collapsed mine, or an ice cave in Antarctica, somewhere almost impossible to get him from. Not to mention in a few hundred years at most it will probably be dug up to make room for more houses. Then you have Adam with a real grudge.
I still think, while true to the comic book roots of the premise, not killing him was a stupid idea.
I don’t think it was his father’s grave; you see Adam in a coffin, but there’s no accompanying body in there with him.
Besides which, I’d think that would be really creepy for Hiro. His father’s killer buried in there with him? I know I’d feel that to be defiling my father’s grave. The Japanese tend to place rather high importance on honor and family, too. Kensei certainly did. Hiro was a bit rebellious, but when it came right down to it, he still honored his father.
Did Hiro know at the time that destroying the brain would kill him? It may be possible that he didn’t know this, so entombing Adam was a way to keep him out of trouble, believing that simply killing him wasn’t an option.