A topic for the discussion of Farscape, Smallville, and Due South. Beware possible invasions of Stargate, Highlander, or pretty much any other "genre" show that captures our fancy. Expect Adult Content and discussion of the Big Gay Sex.
Whitefont all unaired in the U.S. ep discussion, identifying it as such, and including the show and ep title in blackfont.
Blackfont is allowed after the show has aired on the east coast.
This is NOT a general TV discussion thread.
But even allowing him to choose his starting point in the person's memory is specific, where wiping the whole memory bank out is general. A selection is made.
Where did I say he couldn't be specific?
My point is, if I were writing code (which is what it too often boils down to), I'd write one procedure, and you'd specify your starting point. I'd not write one that says "wipe all" and another that says "wipe from this starting point forwards." The set of all starting point for memory wipes includes the beginning.
FWIW, I've been told that what helps doctors distinguish true amnesia and true paralysis, etc., from cases of 'hysterical' afflictions is that generally those victims with the latter seem somewhat unconcerned or at least at peace with their condition, since the brain at some level realizes that it is 'faking'. So Brody not being terribly upset would actually be consistent with MBG giving him a case of (perhaps permanent) 'hysterical amnesia'.
Or, you know, just bad writing/acting of a character's reaction.
(Guess how I'd bet.)
I think P-C saw an unaired version of the Heroes pilot, too -- maybe at Comic Con. The one he saw had a different ending with Peter.
It wasn't the Comic-Con version, which was longer. I saw a screener, and it didn't have the van scene.
Yep but the hollowing out of the rapist quarterback took away his name, but not his ability to speak. So memory erasure does not have to be date based, though it seems to include that.
I don't assume he neccesarily has mind reading. That is a lot more precise than erasure. But as I said the erasure itself seems to be telepathic - mental projection and getting some sort of mental feedback in return. And I don't agree that we can't use Occams razor in guessing which way a fiction will go. It applies to some extent to good writing too. I'll agree it is not certain. We will eventually have canon on this (probably) and canon may completely prove my guess that it is a projective mental power with feedback wrong. But I'll bet you four persian, to one I'm right - that it is projective telelpathy, with some very general weak feedback, the feedback not neccesarily anywhere near strong enough to be mindreading, just a general feeling about how much memory was erased.
The don't-notice-me thing is much more tenative. It is not like we've seen MGB break into anything with high levels of security , so he could just be good at sneaking. But that he has that ability is a strong hunch, and IMO would be good story telling as well. A memory erasor with effective invisibility: that is a spooky villain or a very scary watcher type. Actually I suspect he does not have mind-reading - mind erasure end invisibilty are both mainly outward projecting mental powers. No reason he should have as strong ability to pull detailed information the other way. And it is better story telling if not one person h as too many powers. And the fact that Nathan took him by suprise with the supersonic whoosh seems to argume against mind reading.
Incidentally on the "no-one gets too much power thing". We are starting to see hints of limitations even on Hiro who I thought was going to end up unbalancedly powerful. Too many paradoxes risks a "rift". That certainly limits what he can do with time travel. (I'm assuming that a "rift" is a Very Bad thing.)
Also, his blog reveals another weakness.
He can't maintain timestop for more than 20 seconds. Which contradicts some of the time stops that seemed to go on longer in actual episodes. But how to you time a time stop anyway? At any rate, lets take it as canon that he can't maintain timestop indefinitely.
Too many paradoxes risks a "rift". That certainly limits what he can do with time travel. (I'm assuming that a "rift" is a Very Bad thing.)
Yeah, that's always the peril of time travel. You don't want to fuck up the space-time continuum or you risk DESTROYING REALITY AS WE KNOW IT.
As scary as it is, I sort of like that idea because it posits a math-based universe that exists in a definite structure, and mucking about can cause a divide-by-zero error and cancel out the equation.
Yep but the hollowing out of the rapist quarterback took away his name, but not his ability to speak. So memory erasure does not have to be date based, though it seems to include that.
Yeah, but that's what fictional total amnesia always looks like. Is that based on sound real world data about forgetting? If so...is name an event and language something stored somewhere completely different, and therefore not caught in the cleanup?
It's not that it's fiction which makes Occam's razor unreliable for me--it's that it's a fictional power we're hypothesising about. What
is
simple about telepathy other than the norms we've each accepted from the fiction we've read? There isn't one common thing we can centre back on.
the fact that Nathan took him by suprise with the supersonic whoosh seems to argume against mind reading.
What the hell did Evil Dad know? Not that he could fly? Or did he just bargain that he wouldn't?
I think Evil Dad did not know how well Nathan could fly. He may have expected slow hovering; they would be able to grab him before he got very far off the ground.
For someone who seems to know more about the specials than they do about themselves, that's either disappointing or heartening.
In non-Hero related news, last night I saw an old CSI:LV with a beardless Ed Quinn as the rather slimy swinging husband who broke the rules of the swinging neighborhood club by having an affair with his neighbor. He was smirk-tastic!
