The Heroes Finale: A Surprisingly Mythical Metaphor

WARNING: SPOILERS!

The only television show that I’ve kept up with consistently over the past few years has been Heroes. (Even Lost sorta lost me for a while and I’m struggling to catch up for the final ride this season.) The first season of Heroes was incredible and hooked me for the duration, however the fallout of the 2008 WGA strike spelled doom for the series for a while. The last couple of “chapters” in Season 3 were borderline ridiculous with terrible dialogue, sci-fi channel-style plot twists, and hideous melodramatic soap opera drama. However, when I settled in to see what the returning writers were going to do with Season 4 and this new volume, ironically titled Redemption, I prayed they would indeed redeem my beloved series.

Thankfully, the volume was aptly named and, despite pockets of atrocious writing and dialog in spots throughout the season, the overall arc and the finale ending was a well-crafted myth of our current time, summing up in a modern shamanic tale the plight of our world and the possible way forward. I was impressed and decided to share the layers I saw in the story.

While doing the best they could to repair the damage done to our favorite characters in the wake of the awful previous season, the Redemption volume also introduced the story of a sort of fairy tale carnival of “specials” led by a charismatic barker with mysterious motives. I’m not going to go into serious detail about the whole season (I’m assuming you watched) but it was interesting that I didn’t fully see the metaphor that was playing out until it began to wrap up in the finale. The carnival was interesting but, given the new understanding I have of it, it looks downright genius in retrospect.

To put it plainly, Samuel represents the government, or our current “powers that be,” and the carnival is his circus ring of politics and influence. As it exists outside the confines of the “real” (rational) world, he is able to manipulate his people into believing they are not only victims of the so-called “normal” people “out there” in the world, but also deserving of and bound for a glorious promised land in which they no longer have to hide. Though he’s a jackal at seeming genuine, his goal is truly self-serving, no matter how much he deludes himself and others into thinking it’s for the “greater good” of them all. To start, we know that the benevolent Father Figure of the carnival, Joseph, who protected them and provided a life of peace, was murdered by Samuel in a fit of rage. Sam found out he had the capacity to do truly magnificent (and terrible) things if but only he could gather enough supporters to power him. Ole Uncle Sam(uel) murdered his brother for keeping him under control, only to step in and seize control himself.

In a very ironic twist of commentary on the current political situation, Samuel deceptively creates a galvanizing event for his people to fall in line with his plan for world domination and personal glory. He engineers the death of Lydia, our lady liberty, as a sacrifice necessary to convince his people that an enemy is out there—one that will hunt them unless they follow their proud leader to glory. The event is not unlike our own 9/11 tragedy with its chilling fishiness and the subsequent global war on something intangible that we call “them” – the “terrorists”, whoever or whatever they are. We weep for our Lydia and want revenge to quell the hurt in our hearts but all the while it was actually the scheming of… Uncle Sam(uel).
Throughout the season, we’re never quite sure what to make of Samuel. Is he really trying to do right by his people or is he a snake? Samuel is the rebellious little brother who was never quite as shining and wise as his big brother, Joseph, who’s power was that of empathy, a bringer and sustainer of peace and balance. He felt small in his shadow, a stark and humorous comparison perhaps to former president W, who struggled with his own father’s shadow until power came his way and he assumed control of the carnival. I don’t draw any other reasonable comparison between Joseph and Bush Sr beyond the effects of Samuel’s character because empathy was far from Papa Bush’s strong suits. Joseph more represents the kind of leader we should have. A man of peace and steady balance, who protects his people by keeping things simple and safe, not groping for more power and glory. The justice here is that (Uncle) Sam’s power, remember, is dependent on the number of “specials” that support him. Without people to rally behind him, he’s a powerless sham.

Samuel’s manipulation of his people is cunning and familiar to anyone who’s ever sat back and watched our own politicians weasel and blame and give savior-speeches. While building his power base of specials, Samuel uses his true gifts of trickery, flattery, and deception. Couple this with his command of a veritable army in the Multiplying Man. This part is important. The army is really just one guy, a Special with the gift of copying himself into infinitum. This multiplier, Sam’s right hand man, represents the thugs that do the villain’s bidding. The heavy boots on the ground. The cops, the army, the iron fist. What seems like a limitless force that will just keep coming is really just an illusion created by one man who doesn’t really believe in what he’s doing anyway, but he’s subservient to Sam. When you strike one of the Multiplier’s copies, it disappears. You have to find the “real” one, the original. Get to the heart of the army, the real guy behind all the illusions, and you render the army useless. In the finale, interestingly enough, the character that overpowers the army and turns it on the villain is none other than Matt Parkman, the cop. The Everyman who controls the mind and its thoughts. He’s our “regular guy” hero, and a cop no less, the symbol of control and enforcement that the Multiplier embodies. Perhaps we can assume that the forces of control bearing down on us are regular people who are disillusioned by what they’re doing, as the Multiplier has doubts about his orders, which Matt uses against him. If the everyman cops and soldiers out there realize that the “army” used by Sam depends fully on their consent, that they are the power over this force rather than the other way around, perhaps they can make like Matt and mind-blast the illusion into submission. The whole thing gets turned back on Sam, demanding he take responsibility for his deceptions.

While Samuel’s plot thickens and nears its near-bloody climax, a grand battle of duality rages outside of time and space. Syler and Peter are trapped in a mythic world of their own minds, where they must each come to terms with the other. They are opposites, the twin forces of Yin and Yang. Peter is the warrior of light, the hero knight who wants to save everyone, while Syler is the force of darkness and death. They are helplessly bound together and trapped by the wall that (seemingly) separates them. Syler wants to find his way out of the darkness and Peter must acknowledge the anger and fear inside his own heart, and find forgiveness, in order for them both to unite and break through into the world as one unified force. They are finally able to accept that their differences will always exist but only together can they wash away the corrupting danger of Samuel and his mad circus of destruction.

I’ve personally always liked Hiro, the squirrelly junior samurai who can bend time and space. As a hero that exists outside the normal temporal events of regular life, he seeks out a profound and meaningful destiny to put it all into perspective, to make sense of his gift and his place. His journey this season has been about coming to terms with his power to change things and whether or not he should. The reality he learns is that no matter what he does, people create their own lives and, usually, they’re okay with them at least on some level. He can’t save people from themselves, only they can do that. In his struggle to accept the suffering in the world and his role in it, he puts himself on trial for his sins. This is the path to enlightenment. He forgives himself for all of his “mistakes” and transgressions, which brings him to the infinite light at the end of the tunnel – a place of the Great Mother, Hiro’s mother. At the moment when he is ready to accept death, to sacrifice and give up himself to atone for the wrongs of the world, she offers him healing and forgiveness. When time and space are trivial, only Destiny matters: making choices we can be proud of and making them for others, not for ourselves. It is this Buddha from the East that rescues the carnival people and renders Samuel powerless. Of course, Hiro can’t do it alone. The Buddha of time and space requires one very important thing to help him succeed, to give true meaning to his journey: his best friend. Ando is the support force that supercharges Hiro’s power. Without this companionship, our enlightened hero would be unable to wrestle Samuel’s power source away.

In a similar vein, we turn to Claire and Noah. Claire’s story this season has been about coming to terms with who she is and how to live with it, while quietly resenting the shadow of her father, Noah, and the pain he’s caused her and so many others. It’s very symbolic of the plight of religion in the modern world. The old world view of God the Father was this sort of tyrant that did a lot of nasty things because he thought it was for the best, a place HRG finds himself in quite often. If not God, then certainly the Church is responsible for filling this archetype. Our concept of this Father archetype is tainted with the corruption of various institutions and a sense of abandonment or betrayal. Claire is the new child of light. Us, or our modern generation. Immortal, innocent, and kind-hearted. Searching for meaning in an inhospitable world that doesn’t seem to accept who or what we are. The archetypal Father has always cast a shadow of shameful deeds done out of a misplaced sense of protection and the greater good.

Now Claire realizes that it isn’t her father’s decision anymore. It’s her own. She’s all grown up and can’t hide behind the father anymore. She forgives him at his moment of impending death for doing what he thought best to protect her and now has no fear of him, nor of the world he taught her to fear. She is unafraid to show the world her specialness and to stand up for what she believes in. She’s immortal, afterall. Why be afraid? As the twin forces of dark and light—Peter and Sylar—rescue the world from Samuel’s mad circus, and the enlightened Hiro leads the people away to render Samuel powerless, Claire sees the dawn of a new day. She realizes that as long as they run and hide, as long as there is secrecy and division, there will always be unhappiness and conflict. The only way to bring new light and truth to the world is to shine her own light. In a very Christ-child stunt, she decides to come out to the world and show that there’s nothing to fear by plummeting to what would normally be a suicidal death. Then she rises anew, brushes herself off, and declares that this is who she is, take it or leave it.

It’s a brave new world indeed. Even after Samuel is stripped of his corrupting influence and the “specials” are free to make up their own minds and lead themselves, there’s still danger. There always will be. But she—the Millenium Child—doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.

Nor do we.