everyone else was making the decision on how she's to live her life for her

Has she now made that decision for others? The specials can continue to hide their abilities, I suppose. But, if they do something by accident, they're pretty much outed now. Hard to come up with a cover story if the world knows specials exist.

I suppose at least super-healing is fundamentally a defensive power

This is good, I think. People could be wigged out by her ability, but not threatened by it. She can't hurt them with it.

Has she now made that decision for others? The specials can continue to hide their abilities, I suppose. But, if they do something by accident, they're pretty much outed now. Hard to come up with a cover story if the world knows specials exist.

As you say, they have the option to remain hidden, whereas I can always appreciate the desire -- need, even -- to live in the open. As HRG says, bad things will happen, but it's hard to argue that bad things don't happen anyway, and indeed are made worse by clinging to the shadows. The specials have been hunted, rounded up by the government and suffered persecution already, and all of that has been enabled by the fact that the public at large doesn't know they exist.

I guess I just don't subscribe to the X-Men model, that their entire existence will be reduced to being prey to a world that hates and fears them. Don't get me wrong -- that WILL happen, but things always get worse before they get better. Eventually, someone was inevitably going to make a move. Better a Claire than a Samuel or a Sylar. (Even though Reformed!Sylar looked pretty happy with the turn of events.)

I also think it's a good opportunity for the show to not only shake up the status quo, which DEAR LORD kneeds shaking, but also to reassert the central dynamics of the show. Claire may be the catalyst (Eek! That word!) for change, but Peter has been squandered from becoming the show's "Superman" -- asmittedly, partly becuase the producer's lost their nerve and didn't know what to do with him when he was ultra-powerful -- and while HRG functions pretty well as the show's Batman, the contrast would serve him well.

They seem to have refixed Hiro, their other hyper-powered threat (eta:threat to the writers, not anyone else, really) with a heart of gold.

I don't know about Batman exactly. HRG is darker than Bats (although more sane) and less likely to work to the same ends. Peter and Hiro, at least, were always both on the same page as to ultimate motivation. Everyone else (okay, maybe Micah?) demonstrated varying levels of just trying to get by.

I'm not so much talking exact parallels to the characters, so much as I am the archetypes: the bright, supremely powerful force that's extremely human beneath the abilities, and the dark, purely human force that's more menacing than anything super-powered that's thrown at it.

But I think the idea that HRG works counter to the goals of the group is fundamentally different from the relationship Batman has with his peers. For them it's a means and an end sort of a thing. Part of the issue with HRG and with Heroes in general is the lack of a general end.

HRG is menacing not just because of how he does things (like Batman) but because of the things he wants to do.

If Batman were randomly trying to kill/contain Superman, then I could see it more.

If Batman were randomly trying to kill/contain Superman, then I could see it more.

Again, it's not an exact analogy, but it bears out my point. One of the weaknesses with the show has been its tendency to revert relationships back to the status quo, often to the point of building artificial barriers to the relationships deepening. But in the times where they have worked together -- and really, Claire aside, Noah's probably got the best personal relationship with Peter of all of them -- it's come down to MegaPowerful Peter wanting to do what's right, and HRG wanting to do what's necessary. And as they consistently end up on the same side, I think it's natural to let that dynamic evolve to be one of the centerpieces of the show. ETA: I think back to the end of the first season, where Peter and Noah first really bond. I think that link, while it's been present, hasn't really been explored to its fullest. But then, the show tends to run rampant with relationships by keeping characters separate or in small groups for too long.

Of course, the show still has problems keeping all its principals in the same story, or indeed, on screen. So there's that.

And back to Claire for a moment, it's hard not to draw a parallel between Claire's Maybe-Gay-Probably-Until-Graduation storyline and the "wanting to live in the open" stunt. I see it as kind of anvilicious, but oddly, I haven't seen anyone draw the line between the two story lines.

Apparently, it's going to take a while for me to get over Clare all BIG HUG! when she saw Doyle. That was Peter stupid, and I don't say that lightly.

I think I've become inured to the fact that the specials have powers in lieu of brains.

Apparently, it's going to take a while for me to get over Clare all BIG HUG! when she saw Doyle. That was Peter stupid, and I don't say that lightly.

Yeah, the writers were on the high-grade monkey-crack with that moment. Serious WTF?