decadentdream | Possible explanation for "glowy" Peter (Reply)

So this post is to address the little visionary dream Peter had at the conclusion of episode 1x11 "Fallout". My personal thought is that Peter did not have this dream to tell him he was the reason behind New York exploding but to show him that these were the people he needs to bring together. But, you know, Heroes writers are tricky, and they like to make us think - so clues can be found anywhere.

If we're taking this literally, I don't think Peter is about to go KABOOM! We all know by now that Isaac's paintings are only a snapshot in time that don't tell the whole story, and Peter's dreams aren't 100% accurate either as he has put himself into someone else's place (usually Nathan). To take on the presumption that this is all quite literall, that Peter is going to be the "exploding man" because Isaac painted one and because Peter says so would be silly. That would be like the painting of the dead cheerleader all over again (where, because they said so, we believed it to be Claire when indeed it was Jackie). So my theory is that Peter is not actually exploding, but absorbing powers. Let's look at the possibilities of what is displayed via this dream and I'll show you what may or may not be the eventual conclusion to this.

Preceeding - Peter's illness
I don't have an entire solution for this. It could be because of the fact that Peter's ability seems to peter out the longer he is away from the person he's around (hours after he'd seen Isaac he could only draw a stick figure premonition, but in his presence he was able to paint a masterpiece). So since Claire ran off from him, he wasn't exposed to her ability and considering all the blood he lost (and 24 hours later NO-ONE has bothered to even clean him up) he could become rather ill from such a fall. ALSO the theory of being exposed to multiple powers is what I'm basing this whole theory on. So in this short period of time Peter was exposed to Claire, Sylar (who's number of abilities we don't have a quota on yet)... by the time he gets to Matt and they're bouncing telepathic thoughts back and forth in a MASS clash, Peter's nose is beginning to bleed a little. So now we're up to 3. Then Claire comes to the station again. Not only is Peter exposed to her power, but with the Haitian running around as the secret bodyguard, it may have been possible that he stepped into Peter's range too. Add onto that Nathan once he arrives, and by the time Peter has been exposed to up to 5 ppl and is stumbling outside, he's passing out and nearly dying. This is what makes me think that the more abilities Peter takes on, the more he is hurting himself. If you look at the dream sequence, he is exposed to a good 8 ppl that we know of. And if Mr Bennet DOES happen to kidnap Peter and speed up his powers (as he seems to have done with Matt & Ted) then it is ALSO possible that accelerating Peter's ability is downright dangerous - and that MAY be why we end up with a screaming glowy Peter, transforming into the almighty powerful being. Every ability has a flaw - DL needs to concentrate to become incorporeal, Isaac ALSO needs to do this now instead of depending on drugs, Hiro needs to concentrate BUT it is still possible for him to overshoot his location, Claire CAN die but only when something is blocking/interferring with that part of her brain... so is it not possible that the reason Peter can't retain these powers would be that he would overload if he did? And possibly that is what is happening. But in regards to explaining everything else, here it is as follows:

Opening
Firstly, we open the scene when Peter falls on the ground. If you take note of his watch, the time reads 7:35 (or 36, I could be a minute off). If you remember back in episode 1x02 where Hiro is talking to the police, he glances at his watch and it is 11:52am. This is when the nuclear explosion is meant to happen. That's a 4 hour difference (or more if this is meant to be PM, but we'll play in the AM atm). We've noticed before that time plays a very important part in this show, and we often glance at watches or clocks to signify things (like Peter's death in 1x09 Homecoming). Then we look down a tunnel which is empty. Now I'm not sure if they're doing this to signify there's no-one around, or that tunnel means something (like the way to the real threat), but I guess we'll eventually find out. As Peter walks through the street we find that empty also. Now originally when I was trying to piece all this together I thought things had been frozen. This is probably not the case - demonstrated by the spinning bike wheel. Perhaps, then, it leads us to think that the chaos of everyone trying to escape the city via a section filled with roadwork led to people running away on foot. If you look closely though someone DOES appear to be walking through the cars with the same kind of confusion Peter has (possibly Claire) in the background behind him.

Mohinder
At first we see Mohinder getting out of the driver's side of the taxi. This would be fitting because Peter first met him when he was driving the taxi Peter was in. However Peter didn't recognise him when he went to Chandra Suresh's apartment and mistook him for his father, so it's likely either Peter's subconcious has put 2 & 2 together, or it's really just for our benefit. At first Mohinder looks happy to see Peter. I take this as his excitement in discovering his father's research was in fact true (he was pretty overjoyed to find the list) and he would recognise that Peter was the one that was first trying to direct him to it (I'm going to presume that post-it with Isaac's name on it that Mohinder found was written by Eden, and Mohinder has realised that the man on the post it and the man Peter was taking him to see are indeed the same guy). So he would be pleased to see Peter because here's a man who knew and believed wholly before he did. But, as we see, Mohinder's expression turns to one of shock and horror. So far Mohinder seems to be one of the last to get involved and discover exactly who Sylar is. If Mohinder manages to uncover this information, he may think that someone with multiple abilities will be corrupted. He may therefore begin to think that Peter may become just as corrupted. And I'm sure he would feel repulsed to learn that the man his father tutored is now the one killing them all. Mohinder manages to disappear pretty quickly. And I can't quite say what it is that brings that about, because strangely enough the next shot appears as if PETER is the one getting out of the cab.

Matt
Matt, we see, in his police officer's uniform. He LOOKS like he's directing frozen traffic (as we first saw him), and again there's the discrepancy as Peter only knows him from working with the FBI, out of uniform. But I guess it's easy to categorise police into uniforms. Now, personality wise, we know what Matt is like. He keeps a level head and tries to get the situation under control. We saw this with Ted and the bubbling glass, where he urged the man to calm down (I think he's a pretty skilled negotiator from what I've seen) and tried to ensure that neither he and Audrey NOR Ted were hurt by his powers (shall I also mention that when Ted goes radioactive, he doesn't go all glowy? So that's another way to dispell that kind of theory). We ALSO know that Matt is telepathic. So it is possible that Matt realises what is going on with Peter. I don't know if dream!Peter has a different mentality from real!Peter, but in the case that Peter recognises something is wrong, there must be a mental SOS going on there. Matt starts giving orders to the Hawkins/Sanders family to go in the opposite direction and tells Peter "Go away from them. Stay back!". If Matt recognises that their presence is causing a problem with Peter, he will realise that the Heroes need to step away from him to keep him from absorbing so many powers. Who better to vacate first than the family with the most number of powers? (ie. Niki, DL & Micah) So Matt is trying to evacuate them out of the area, at the same time telling Peter to head away from them before anything goes wrong. Notice that Matt does not head away, he wants to keep a handle on the situation.

Niki, Micah & DL
Well, it's obvious what they're doing. They're running away like they were told. LOL Notice they are still looking around though, as if trying to pick up on the real danger.

Claire
Claire is running towards Peter. I would think that she is having two thoughts at this point. She would remember that she was the one who saved him last time - that he could heal around her, so would be heading towards him so that this problem would stop. She would also be thinking "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World", at which point she might think that because she was saved it is her mission or duty to "save the world" and that perhaps by saving Peter she would be repaying the favour and fulfilling that duty. But once Claire reaches Peter, you can see there is no change. She looks down at his hands and tells him she's sorry. I think her apology is because she realises she's not helping him (and possibly hurting him, hence she runs away).

Simone & Isaac
As far as we're aware, Simone has no powers. So if she knows/recognises what is going on, she may think she is the only person able to stop it. She would be the only one who could get close enough to Peter without hurting him. And, well, she cares about him so of course she would head to him. Isaac, however, tackles her and pulls her away. Although this could signify the 3-way love triangle they had going on earlier in the piece, I think more to Isaac would be that he will instantly remember his painting of the exploding man and jump to the conclusion that it is Peter, hence pulling Simone away from danger. I would hope that this means there's a reconciliation between the two (and she apologises to him for not believing him).

Hiro & Ando
Are doing nothing, which is interesting. You would think that Hiro would be trying to freeze all the action. He looks a little defeated, and seems to be not as close as the others. And I find it interesting that Peter would dream of Hiro as Present!Hiro, not Future!Hiro. Because he has never met Hiro now (only seen a photograph at the Burnt Toast Diner and Isaac's painting) so it would be more likely of him to dream of Future!Hiro. Plus, you know, that would throw the whole thing out of whack since Future!Hiro saw him with a scar and such (which wasn't apparant in this scene).

and lastly... Nathan
Is striding out of his office. I would presume that he has won the election, there are wine glasses and a bottle in the bottom left hand corner of the shot that signifies the celebrations. There is also a collection of broken glass just outside the door. You'll notice that none of the glass doors or windows around it are shattered, and it can't be from above as it's in the indented section. And some of the glass it appears is, oddly, blue. This makes me think that there was ALREADY an explosion of some kind from the street, though a small one. The direction of the spray has caused it to settle in its current position. Nathan, I'm sure, probably recognises the disturbance outside is interupting his celebratory win. Maybe he even thinks Peter is stealing his thunder. But the reason we look at Nathan is because he's striding towards Peter, despite the danger. So what is going on there? He looks pissed off and a little determined, but here's a few possibilities:
1. Nathan is still in complete denial about everything, and is just going to lecture his brother again and tell him to stop it
2. Nathan isn't actually heading towards Peter, he's heading towards Sylar/Ted/whoever else Peter has put himself in place of, and plans to fly them out of there as a great sacrifice to protect everyone else from the great KABOOM
3. Nathan realises it is Peter, remembers Peter says he's the reason for the big bang, and decides to fly his brother out to protect everyone else
4. Nathan has finally acknowledged that certain people do have abilities, they are able to help one another with them, and he needs to right now help his brother to prevent him from overloading. The quickest way to do that would be to seperate Peter from the rest of the Heroes by creating as much distance as possible - hence flying him away.

Now I like the idea of #4 and my friend pointed out something in one of my video clips yesterday that we ended up spending forever analysing to work out if we were right. We're still none the wiser. But I did read in another journal that there is possibly a missing/deleted scene where Nathan asks "How fast do you think we can fly?" This I believe to be in relation to his sonic boom escape from HRGM & the Haitian. I advise people to go back and have a look at the future scene with Hiro in Isaac's studio when New York goes Kaboom. The mural on the floor shows that the explosion happens between two pointy buildings (k I don't live and have never been to New York so forgive my ignorance over this). Though its not possible to see the tops of the skyscrapers, most of the buildings around Nathan's office (where Peter is in his dreamscape) appear to be flat. I don't know where Nathan's office is in relation to Isaac's studio, but here's an interesting point. Before Hiro looks out the window there is a booming noise. Upon looking out the window on the right hand side there appears to a curved line of smoke that looks much like the trail Nathan leaves behind when he uses the "sonic boom" part of his flight ability. I know there is a sound AFTER this appears which sounds like glass breaking which made me think the window had simply cracked but you notice none of the windows across from Isaac's studio break until AFTER the cloud of smoke hits them and they crumble. So, if this is indeed a stream of smoke that's left in Nathan's wake (and I'm just guessing here as it was only a one frame change - so he WOULD have to have been really super-sonic quick to get Peter out of there and out of danger) this is blocks in front of the point of the explosion. Which means that Peter is not the cause.

Still... there is that 4 hour time discrepancy. And I've no idea where Nathan's campaign office is in relation to Isaac's studio, because I don't think Peter has ever traveled between the two. He has traveled to and from these places but never between them. So it'd be interesting to get a location.

So any thoughts? Anyone?