Talk:Peter Petrelli

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[edit] What was archived

[edit] Empath vs absorption

Sigh, he is not an empath. He has the same empathic abilities that most humans (excluding psycho- and sociopaths) have, in that he can gauge the feelings of others. it is not his root ability. That is absorption. Comic and scifi folk, think Parasite, and not Deanna Troi. Empathy has nothing to do with absorption. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Your reasoning makes sense, but there's a problem that's been dealt with time and time again in the discussions. In interviews that have been sourced, the creator refers to his ability as empathy, and in universe Claude calls him an empath. So...which should we go with? The sourced comments by the creator as to what his ability is, or YOUR ideas? Nezu Chiza (talk) 22:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
While I seem to have missed where Kring refers to the ability as empathy (the actual quote "based on his empathy and his ability to connect with people" - refers to his mundane - or rather, his normal - personality traits. It doesn't refer to the actual ability).
I recall the mentioning of the term by Claude, which has been repeatedly misinterpreted by editors. In the episode in question, PP was discussing how Claude's uncaring behavior was wrong, and Claude responded how Peter was empathic in how he chose to look at humanity. It was not a comment about his power.
So this confusion refers to a misunderstanding of the mundane usage of the word empathic and how folk, seeing a horse interpret that they have found a wingless pegasus. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Urm, in The Fix, doens't Claude make a comment about Peter being a "nurse whose an empath", and saying as though it's ironic or similar. The way he said it to me meant he was empathic. If anything, since his power was originally controlled by thinking of how powered people made him feel (He thought of Claire and could heal, and thought about all the Heroes and felt all their powers etc...) then his power would be "Empathic Absorbtion" or similar, since its controlled by
Just found the quote on Heroe's Wiki:

A nurse who's an empath, very cute."
"Empath, what's that mean?"
"Means you're a pain in my ass, mate."

So I think the term "Empath" is, at least in universe, used to define his power rather than a state of mind. Jacobshaven3 (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you are misinterpreting it, for the reasons I have mentioned above. Please, stop seeing zebras when presented with horses. Claude is tired of caring for people. Peter represents what he thinks is overly naive. That is why Peter's state of mind is a pain in his ass, and not because it represents a power.
Honestly, this is getting to be a bit too fan-crufty. I'll make it super easy for everybody. Find a citation that specifically says that Peter's ability is EMPATHY, and its in. If you cannot find it, it is out. I hope that simplifies matters enormously. And before some zebra visionary adds the old citation that talks about what fosters PP's ability, note that it doesn't SAY that that's his ability. All the difference in the world, my friends. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 21:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Damn Claude's pseudo-explanation! ~QuasiAbstract (talk/contrib) 00:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, damn them all. lol. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 20:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources of Peter's powers

I read through the previous discussion of this topic and I disagree. There were several arguments against the inclusion of the people Peter absorbed the powers from.
1. It is unimportant to the plot.
2. The origin of the powers should be considered original research, because Peter could have gotten the powers from any passerby on the street.
3. The information is uninteresting, because it is already known to anyone who has seen the show.

Re 1: I think who absorbs/takes whose powers at which point in time is one of the central plot points in the whole first season. Peter saves Claire specifically so Sylar won’t be able to get her ability (though he doesn’t know it at the time). Also without it he would die several times later on.
Re 2: I think this is made unambiguously clear in the show in most cases. He walks by Ted Sprague and his hands begin to glow. He is questioned by Matt and begins to hear his thoughts. He is chasing Claude and turns invisible, etc. I have not yet listened to the commentaries on the DVDs (I expect most of the open questions are answered there), so you could argue that the information is not 100% certain. However if you want to use that agrument, you should use it consistently: There are several passages all over the article that should be rewritten as well, for example: “While in Isaac's company, Peter also confirms that his superhuman ability involves copying those of others, when he mimics Isaac's powers.”, “However, when Claire shows up, Peter mimics her healing powers.”, “Peter, now capable of using Niki's super-strength, tells her to go back to her family.” (From Niki’s article). In at least one case the source of the power is unambiguously clear: When Peter falls from the building onto the taxi and regenerates, he afterwards tells Claude that he did it by remembering how Claire “made him feel” so the source of this power is definitively Claire.
Re 3: Well, so is probably more than 90% of the article… maybe a bit less for people who watched a foreign language dub. It was certainly interesting enough for me to spend the time to cross-reference the information with the other character profiles to make sure everything is correct. (I haven't seen season two yet, so I had to rely on those for some entries.)
Finally I do agree that a section "Other people with the same power" serves no purpose in Peter's article. I was originally going to title the column "Gained from" but changed it to "First exhibited after having contact with", though in my opinion the first would also be justified.
--Mirage GSM (talk) 14:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. As a response I must present this:
Re 1:How would it be any different if Peter had survived Sylar's attack using Adams power as opposed to Claire's? How does who he gets the power from impact the power itself?
Re 2:This is, in point of fact two different arguments, so...
Re 2a: It may appear, at first, unambiguously clear in most cases but there are other situations (Elle for example, If he has Micha's power for another) that are quite ambiguous. These ambiguities now cast doubt on the formerly unambiguous cases and the whole thing can't be represented clearly.
Re 2b:Thank you for pointing those out. I will change them as soon as I can. I've tried to be diligent but I can't catch everything. Yes, everything you pointed out should be rewritten so as to avoid OR. This was the recourse several editors took when we first eliminated the column and we editors have apparently missed some.
Re 3: I can't imagine anyone that would classify a topic that has caused as much controversy as this one as "Uninteresting". I can honestly say this is one side of the argument I agree with you on, this is a very interesting aspect of Peter's power. Padillah (talk) 14:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Re 1: Well for one thing he hasn't yet met Adam at the time, but that's probably not what you meant... My point was that it probably is not as important for the plot who he gets the power from as at what point in the story he gets it. To use the earlier example: If he didn't get regeneration from Claire when he did, he would have died in the fall with Sylar, because Adam is only in the second season.
Re 2a: As I said, I have not yet seen the 2nd season, but the Powers of Micah and Elle seem to be quite different to me from the descriptions. To be honest, I can't imagine right now how some of the cases could be made to seem ambiguous (Claire, Ted, Isaac), but I'll concede the point until I have watched the second season.
RE 2b: One more thing I noticed: The article states that Peter first used Space-Time-Manipulation in "Collisions", but in that Episodes it was Future-Hiro who used it. Peter was not affected, but whether that was due to him absorbing the ability or due to Future-Hiro excluding him from the effect could be considered OR as well...
Re 3: I think it was one of your statements in the archive, but I might have misinterpreted it.
You know, I understand why there is a "No OR" policy here, but sometimes I think there can be too much of a good thing. Maybe the definition of OR should be updated some time...
So would a possible statement by the director or by the actor in the DVD commentary be sufficient to remove any lingering doubt?--Mirage GSM (talk) 15:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Re 1: I just have one thing about this. Adam may have only been portrayed in the second season, but who knows if Peter had ever been near enough Adam, even growing up, to absorb his power. ~QuasiAbstract (talk/contrib) 15:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Re 1: QA brings up a good point, with Peters parents being founding members of The Company it's conceivable that Peter has come into "close enough contact" to Adam to have absorbed his power. The benign nature of Peters absorption makes this type of "there's a .000001% chance" an ongoing, never ending debate.
Re 2a: (and kinda Re 3) It's actually a statement by the writers that makes what powers Peter may or may not have open to questioning. A writer said Peter was close enough to some at Kirby Plaza to have absorbed their powers (I don't want to spoil the episodes), so all the sudden everyone is trying to assert that if he was close enough to absorb one persons powers then he must have been close enough to absorb... and it goes down hill from there.
Re 2a:As for Elle, there are arguments that Peter got his electricity manipulation from Elle but the series has left this up to the viewer to decide. There are statements that say Peter was close enough to the person next to Micha during the Kirby Plaza fight to absorb their power, which opens up debate for Peter being close enough to Micha to absorb his power... or not. See, not all the situations are as unambiguous as others, and as soon as we start debating the merits of one we have to acknowledge the possibility of others... and then it's down the rabbit hole.
Re 3: It's statements by the writers that gave us the "Peter has Micha's powers" conflict. It's statements from the writers that gives us the ongoing "Which power did Angela give Peter" debate. Oddly enough, statements from the writers have not be as helpful as one might think. Padillah (talk) 15:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Padillah notes the salient points. We are not here to interpret the material, we are here to present it, collated, for the reader to make their own evaluations, We don't interpret or find context for that material. We note citations that make those evaluations and interpretations. A lot of people tend to make that mistake when they start editing here in earnest. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Micah's power is talking to/influencing/repairing machines and/or computers he touches. Elle shoots bolts of electricity. I don't know which of those powers Peter exhibits, but the article seems to suggest the electric bolts.
As far as I have seen nobody has suggested listing every power Peter might have because of a character he might have had contact with. The list contains only powers he has actively shown to posess. It seems to be pretty certain that he got the precognitive dreams from Angela, as it was stated that he has already used her powers in the show and this is the only power in the list without any obvious source, but in this case I agree that this would be too speculative to include in the article.
Any opinions on the "First exhibit of Space-Time-Manipulation" which I posted above?--Mirage GSM (talk) 10:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Mirage wrote:

Any opinions on the "First exhibit of Space-Time-Manipulation" which I posted above?

It is widely regarded that Peter was able to move and talk when Hiro stopped time because, being in Hiro's presence, he had absorbed Hiro's power and was using it (subconsciously as he did in the begining).
Mirage wrote:

As far as I have seen nobody has suggested listing every power Peter might have because of a character he might have had contact with.

Not anymore, no. But that was very much what some were attempting to do as a logical extension of the list and, more specifically, the column you are proposing.
Mirage wrote:

The list contains only powers he has actively shown to posess.

It does now, yes. But it had to go through semi-protection and months of discussion to get to that point. If you look in the archives you will see Micha's power in there, Angela's power in there, concessions made that explain he may have everybody's powers, and everything in between. There was even debate about linking over to HeroesWiki so people could see an article with this type of speculation in it. In the begining we were fine, as you say it was pretty blatant where Peter got each of the powers he displayed. He usually had an episode involved with controlling the power and the onset was pretty evident. But in season 2 we see him use not one but two powers that were never blatantly acquired. As soon as the writers did that they opened up the doubt that he could get powers from others off air and the list went down hill fast. Padillah (talk) 12:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Padillah wrote:

It is widely regarded that Peter was able to move and talk when Hiro stopped time because, being in Hiro's presence, he had absorbed Hiro's power and was using it.

I tend to agree with you, but after all this discussion I'm surprised to see you use this argument ;-)--Mirage GSM (talk) 13:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Not my argument. As far as I'm concerned this is another case of assuming he has or acquired a power. However, as RREDD13 mentions below the fact that Hiro had to fight with Peter rather than freeze him in time along with everyone else, suggests that Peter was able to remove himself from the time-freeze, which would suggest that he has control over Hiro's power. Padillah (talk) 12:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

OK everyone here is thinking to realistically with this, no writer is gonna make Peter absorb a power from a passerbyer unles they have some role in the show, you just have to assume that he got is power from an already established character, as for the hiro's power, Peter did get hiro's prower from hiro's future self on the subway, also if it wasn't for present hiro fighting Peter in season 2, you could have convinced me that future Hiro excuded Peter from being frozen in time in season 1, but since hiro and Peter's season's two fight it is obviose that Peter is resistant to Hiro freezeing time, since Hiro is still unfamilar with his power to stop time for certian people, and even if he cold why would he do it for peter when he is about to kill adam? As for the power chart, put back the benfactor colum, episode asborbed colum, and notes, since it is important to know that he gets headaches when trying to read Matt's mind, he is unifected by Hiro freezeing time, he can see other invisible people like cluade and so on and also it is interestining and informaitable, also an encyclopedia is an infomational guide containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject, so just because you know how peter got a power from doesn't mean you shouldn't add it since you know it, wikipedia is to inform other, So any questions?- RREDD13 (talk) 22:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

"...you just have to assume..." - need I say more? Padillah (talk) 12:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)