F - DL (hello arms), M - HRG (awww bless), C - Nathan (feels slimy to me)

M - Jack Carter (a-dorable), C - Lionel Luther (don't watch Smallville), F - Michael Dawson (hot, but ultimately a little craxy)

My friend K and I watched some SPN last night. Never has so much tv been consumed so quickly for the sake of hotness.

FINALLY watched Heroes last night. OMGLOVE. I love this episode SO MUCH. Just...wow. Love. Yeah.

Anyway, DH and I were talking last night about the powers, and the varying ages at which they seem to manifest. Claire has obviously had her healing power from infancy, because she survived the fire. Almost everyone else we've seen so far developed their powers as adults or teens. Now, do we think that this is because Claire's power is uniquely suited to being accidentally discovered (Toddler!Claire would have been noticing all her life that scraped knees didn't stay that way), or is there something special about having 2 empowered parents that makes your abilities manifest earlier in life?

Discuss.

[eta "Almost" because you people are CRAZY PEDANTIC]

Everyone else we've seen so far developed their powers as adults or teens.

Micah.

is there something special about having 2 empowered parents that makes your abilities manifest earlier in life?

Seeing above.

From what we've seen, it usually takes some sort of stressful situation for the powers to manifest. Either that or Solar Eclipses.

Everyone else we've seen so far developed their powers as adults or teens.

Except Micah. And the dream boy in India.

My theory is that the powers manifest when they are needed: Clare survived the fire, but she didn't know she had the magic healing until she was in her teens. Niki may have put earlier episodes of Jessica doing stuff down to alcoholic blackouts before she got sober. Nathan didn't fly until until it saved his life in the car crash. Hiro doesn't fit with this, but there's something weird going on with Hiro's power anyway - he has it, then it weakens, then he can do something new and he stil thinks he needs the sword. It's confusing!

On another hand (I expect to need several), hasn't it been implied that the current crop of Heroes' powers started manifesting around the same time inreponse to an as yet unknown threat to the Earth? So, maybe Clare's baby power was a flare in response to the earlier manifestation spree, and went dormant for a while (though Claude and teh Haitian have maintained their powers all along and Claire's mom probably did, too).

I remember thinking a while back that a hero had to be around another hero who already had active powers to activate their powers. I don't remember the evidence I had for it, but I think it came about after the episode where we see everyone developing their powers.

Matt & Ted seem to feel the neck marks led to their powers manifesting. eta: which ties in to sj's thought

Also, any thoughts on the tattoo that Jessica has but Niki does not?

Laura theory of the day. Linderman is daddy to Nathan and Peter.

Matt & Ted seem to feel the neck marks led to their powers manifesting. eta: which ties in to sj's thought

I think they're wrong about that. Didn't we see Matt use his powers before that? I think the mindwipe might make them forget they had powers before. Was Matt near Sylar before his powers started to manifest?

Matt keeps saying that his powers didn't manifest until after he was abducted, but we saw him hearing thoughts before that. Didn't we?

The Haitian Kid in the flashback was wearing a necklace that's the same symbols as Jessica's tattoo. I assumed it was something Company related, but now that we know he has another agenda, maybe he and Jessica have something else in common.

I really wish I had saved all the episodes, because I am feeling the need to watch the whole thing again from the beginning.