Heroes (TV series)/Tropes J-N

"Future Mohinder: OH WOW, I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY POWERS USED IN ONE BATTLE, IT'S WAY BETTER THAN ALL THE FIGHT SCENES IN THE X-MEN MOVIES COMBINED!"
 * Jacob and Esau: Early in the series, it's made clear that Nathan takes after his father while Peter is his mama's boy. Not that that guarantees either brother against being manipulated, murdered, or used to blow up New York.
 * Also applies to Hiro and Kimiko.
 * James Bondage: Peter Petrelli in a container, Nathan Petrelli in Haiti, Hiro on the loading trolley at the beginning of Volume 5.
 * Jerk Jock: Brody Mitchum is the quarterback and serial rapist who targets Claire and, if only temporarily, kills her. He gets extravagantly punished: Claire crashes his car with him aboard, she survives thanks to her Healing Factor, he is confined to a wheelchair, and later he has his entire memory erased (at the order of her Father).
 * Jossed:
 * Joker Immunity: Sylar. Oh so much.
 * Ali Larter. She's played two different characters on this show already - chances are she'll take the third at some point.
 * Apparently not.
 * Just Think of the Potential: Mohinder at the start of Volume Three regarding the Super Serum. Nathan, too, near the end, but before his (final) Heel Face Turn.
 * Karma Houdini: It seems that the universe is bending over backwards to let Sylar be his dastardly brain-and-power-stealing self. In Volume Three,
 * Later, he was . Sylar is the moral equivalent of a Timey-Wimey Ball.
 * You could argue that his constant Emo counts as a consequence.
 * Katanas Are Just Better: The sword of Kensei. As an aside, it is never outright stated that it is a magic sword, but it does focus Hiro's abilities somehow.
 * Magic Feather: Or so Hiro chose to believe.
 * Kick the Dog:
 * Pretty much the entire point of role on the show. He is either talking or being a dick. No exceptions.
 * He's also occasionally being a MORON too. He learns Sylar has turned against him. Does he track down and kill him, as he has every other person who opposed him? Nope, he figures "Hey, it's just a brain stealing serial killer with delusions of grandeur. No biggie". Too dumb to live, people. Too dumb to live.
 * Killed Off for Real For Real:
 * Kiss of Death: Or rather the Hug of Doom.
 * Kitsch Collection: Sylar's mom and snowglobes.
 * Knife Nut: New villain for Season 4/Volume 5 Edgar, a speedster and member of the sinister Carnival that Big Bad Samuel is running, apparently prefers to dispatch people with a well thrown blade when possible.
 * Knight Templar: Pretty much every major Big Bad, really. Mr. Linderman, who desires to heal humanity at any cost. Rivaled solely by the Primatech organization, which systematically abducts, studies, and slaughters potential heroes in order to protect all the fragile, regular humans from... we don't know yet but it involves lots of Stuff Blowing Up. Primatech's working for Linderman. So is just about everybody and everything else, for that matter. Then there's Adam Monroe, who wanted to wipe out 95% of the human race so the remaining 5% would stop fighting and get along.
 * Nathan Petrelli.
 * The Hunter.
 * Indeed, the only Big Bad who never bothered to put on pretentious airs about Shooting The Dog in order to save the world is Sylar. He's just in it for the brains and the lulz.
 * Arthur Petrelli, who's superdickery was motivated by the noble aspiration of - proving he was better than everyone else.
 * His long-term goal was to make everyone a super however. All people would have powers, not just a lucky group. (Which also prevented the issue of Fantastic Racism) Of course, he still would be a Physical God next to them, but the rest of Big Bads also envisioned themselves somewhere at the top of their new world orders.
 * Knight Templar Parent: Noah Bennet, most especially in Volume One. His daughter has superpowers, and could suffer if her mother found out? Wipe the mother's memory every time she gets suspicious. His daughter's only friend knows, and could blow her cover? Wipe the friend's memory of ever knowing her. The daughter seems rather upset about this? Wipe her memory as well. He was one step away from feeding her anti-growth hormones to avoid losing Daddy's little girl. By Volume 5 his actions have been softened considerably as wanting Claire to have a normal life. He was just trying a little too hard to help.
 * Kryptonite Is Everywhere - Happens to Hiro in Volume Three.
 * Lampshade Hanging:
 * When Arthur tries to recruit Mohinder's services, the latter replies that there's always some shady organization looking for his help for diabolical ulterior motives. This doesn't stop Mohinder from helping Pinehearst.
 * Claire asking "Why is it always me?" is a spectacular lampshade hanging.
 * Landslide Election
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia
 * The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Sylar, Adam.
 * Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid: Peter Petrelli and Hiro Nakamura are the worst offenders.
 * Leitmotif: Sylar gets a really nice one in Volume 3. It's used as a general one for a while, but then ends up just being used for whenever he's being... Sylar.
 * Legion of Doom:
 * In Volume Three, the team of villains being assembled by Pinehearst Industries a.k.a..
 * Seems to be what the new "carnival" is in Volume 5.
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Almost every season ends with geeky otaku Hiro Nakamura teleporting in and pretty much pwning the Big Bad in literally the blink of an eye. He takes out Sylar (twice!), Adam, Danko, and the entire Build 26 Black Ops unit (the last two defeated while Hiro was using a weakened version of his powers that are slowly killing him). So far the only Big Bad who could beat Hiro was Physical God Evil Overlord Arthur Petrelli.
 * Let's You and Him Fight: Season 2 had Matt vs. Nathan when Maury trapped them both in a nightmare and a Hiro vs. Peter misunderstanding fight thanks to Adam's manipulations.
 * Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Parkman and Nathan agree never to tell anyone about the former riding piggyback on the latter to get from New York to Texas.
 * Level Five Onix:
 * There was Stephen Canfield who could create black holes at will.
 * Then there's the Nightmare-man who was implied in Volume 1 to be even worse than Sylar, but all he ever did was give a little girl nightmares.
 * Since it was that particular little girl who described him that way, we can excuse her.
 * Lightning Can Do Anything: It can if your name is . Elle wasn't nearly as bad about this.
 * Not necessarily lightning as we know it, though.
 * Yeah, how many people remember that Ando's power was initially just super-charging other people's powers?
 * Ando's ability is not really lightning, even if it is referred to as 'red lightning' and looks like it sometimes. The energy he produces supercharges people, at least evolved humans, so it makes sense it could be used to overload electronic devices and be used offensively to send people flying. Also, the FIRST TIME we saw Ando's ability used (by Future-Ando), it was used as an energy blast.
 * Line-of-Sight Name: Gabriel Gray gets the name Sylar from the brand of watch he's fixing when he kills his first victim.
 * Lingerie Scene: Ali Larter has several, spread over the series. Not quite enough to dub her Ms. Fanservice, but still.
 * Living Legend: Hiro goes to medieval Japan to meet his hero, Takezo Kensei. Hiro then does everything he can to make Takezo live up to the legends about him, making him into the legend Hiro willen haven onen learned about.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: All the "heroes," and their friends, family, colleagues, etc. It's easy to get lost.
 * Long-Lost Relative:
 * Turns out Claire Bennet is.
 * Early in Volume Three, Angela reveals  may be the third Petrelli brother neither Peter nor Nathan was aware of. Noah later states that she might be a damn liar.
 * Loud of War: Mohinder knows his mortal nemesis Sylar has absorbed the power of super-hearing. His hearing is so keen he can hear other people's breathing and heartbeats, and in fact suffered terrible headaches from the noise. So when Mohinder goes to torture Sylar, what does he do? He strikes a tuning fork and holds it up next to Sylar's ear in all of its shrill, discordant glory and lets Sylar scream for mercy.
 * Love Floats: Though it's West using his flight powers, West and Claire do the classic embracing float scene.
 * Love Makes You Evil: Kensei/Adam, Angela Petrelli.
 * Love Martyr:
 * Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me: Knox seems compelled to mention in every single scene he's in that other people's fear gives him Super Strength. The Crazy Eye look he gives while saying this may count as well. It gets to the point where it must be asked, what kind of power does other people's annoyance give him? He also has the amazing ability to fail to notice a very tall woman with bright blonde hair enter a small room.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father/LukeYouAreMyFather: See Everyone Is Related.
 * Made of Plasticine: Claire is a comparatively mild version of this trope, but still prone to dying or breaking bones in completely ridiculous ways. Some fans claim she has a secondary power: causing herself unlikely and violent accidents.
 * In the first half of the first season, she was on a football field, a football player tackled her or maybe just ran into her by accident, and she broke her neck when she fell. Not sprained her ankle or dislocated her knee, but broke her neck. This was used mainly just to show off her Healing Factor for the benefit of her friend (the one person who happened to see it) and the viewers.
 * Also in the first half of the first season, a Jerk Jock is trying to rape her, but she falls down and gets stabbed through the back of her head with a sharp stick, killing her instantly. That happened to hit her Achilles Heel, so she remained dead until the stick was removed in the morgue several hours later. This death drove her plotline for the next few episodes.
 * Magic Feather: In Volume One, Hiro convinces himself that he needs to steal Takezo Kensei's katana in order to reactivate his powers, while Niki believes that she can only access her Super Strength when her Super-Powered Evil Side is in control. Both are eventually proven wrong.
 * Magical Negro: Dying African American Charles and his inspiring speech to Peter. The Haitian can also sometimes be considered as fitting this role, being a mysterious, usually mute, plot device. Usutu, the African Trickster Mentor character was almost literally this -- though he had a neat little subversion where what Matt assumed to be ancient African mumbo jumbo was a quote from Carl Jung.
 * Mama Bear: Niki/Jessica will put anyone who dares to try and hurt Micah through a world of grief.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Linderman and Angela Petrelli are behind the Primatech company in Season 1.
 * And in turn Adam Monroe was The Man Behind the Man for Linderman, Angela, and the other ten founders.
 * In a rare good version, Rebel/ is The Man Behind the Man to our heroes in Volume 4.
 * Man On Fire: Elle sets Adam on fire as he's escaping Primatech.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Adam Monroe in Season 2, Angela Petrelli in Season 3.
 * Mass Super-Empowering Event: Inverted, the Eclipse mass depowers the cast.
 * Matter of Life and Death
 * McLeaned : Arguably
 * Apparently,
 * Me Love You Long Time: 100% subverted in the Hiro/Yaeko/Kensei love triangle.
 * The Mean Brit: Claude (ironically, one of only two British characters on the show played by an actual Brit).
 * Meaningful Echo:
 * "This is how we roll."
 * "The future's not written in stone."
 * Meaningful Name: Many of the protagonists have first names with "hidden" meaning that fits their story background.
 * Biblical names with roots in Greek or Hebrew are common, or names derived from Christian saints. Angela could come under this as well.
 * Of course, the name Hiro Nakamura might simply be a pun on the English word "hero", since it's pronounced similarly. In the online comics of the series, Hiro explains that he was named after Hiroshima, since his grandfather survived the nuclear explosion there.
 * And then there are the not-so-hidden meanings of Elle (who controls 'electricity), Flint (who can start fires), and Echo (with, of course, sound powers). The other obvious one is Adam Monroe, who predates all other known "evolved humans" (this would come under Biblical names too).
 * In an interesting bit of irony, the character of Danko is a complete inversion of his counterpart in the Russian folk tale publicized by Maxim Gorky (the folk hero Danko ripped out his heart to bring fire to his people, whereas Emile Danko is attempting to "extinguish" the fire of evolved humans from the world).
 * And of course the main hero, who can fly, and who actually believes that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, is named Peter P.
 * Volume 5 brings us Lydia, whose powers involve tattoos.
 * Meanwhile in the Future: Gets a Lampshade Hanging on the UK DVD covers.
 * Meddling Parents: HRG, Angela Petrelli, and Bob; but the prize goes to Mrs. Gray, the mother of watchmaker Gabriel Gray, who placed so much emphasis on her son being "special" that it drove him insane and turned him into the serial killer Sylar. So its kind of ironic that his 'specialness' ended up causing him to (accidentally?) stab her. Xanatos Roulette, much? This entire Series is a Xanatos Casino!
 * Mega Manning: Peter and Sylar.  Monica can also do this with Muggle skills instead of superpowers.
 * Peter can't have multiple powers anymore, but he can have one at a time from the last person with an ability he touched.
 * Therefore, Peter is actually more like Kirby than Mega Man.
 * The Men in Black: Noah Bennet, Badass Normal for hire, among others.
 * The Messiah:  aka "Rebel" gets promoted to this in Volume 4, being the driving force behind the Resistance Movement attempting to save all evolved humans from Building 26. He even (in the graphic novels) convinces Doyle to turn over a new leaf, and even tries to redeem Sylar (that last one doesn't turn out so well, though he at least convinced him to spare his life; as Sylar said to an unrelated character, that's "kind of a big deal" for him).
 * Mighty Whitey: Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe. A blond-haired, blue-eyed samurai running around Japan in the 1600s. With superpowers, yet.
 * Which is then Subverted, as he makes a Face Heel Turn and Hiro saves Japan.
 * Milky White Eyes: Isaac, as well as anyone else who uses similar precognition.
 * Mind Rape: Frequently, using the Haitian's powers. Also Freddy Krueger Maury Parkman the Nightmare-man... and then
 * Mister Danger: Kensei again.
 * Mister Muffykins: Mr. Muggles came so darn close to being the Trope Namer. Note that he fails utterly in being an Evil-Detecting Dog.
 * Mobstacle Course
 * Moral Dissonance: Bullying is unforgivable. Traumatising someone and getting them suspended from school is A-OK! Claire and West have clearly been taking lessons from Yu Gi Oh Abridgeds Pharoah Atem.
 * Peter believes in Love and Compassion for everyone. Unless your name is Isaac Mendez, in which case he believes in throwing you around your apartment and telling you what a loser you are. The inconsistency between Peter's personality and actions in this scene leads to a jarring moment in the season finale, where Charles Deveaux extolls Peter's kind-heartedness, and doesn't seem the least bit fussed about the role he played in.
 * Morality Chain: Future!Sylar and his son.
 * Morality Pet: Claire for HRG, Peter for Nathan, Luke Campbell for Sylar, Noah Grey for Future!Sylar. Aileena is a subversion of the trope. Around her Danko is a far kinder, gentler individual than the cold blooded killer we know. But then when Matt holds him and Aileena hostage Danko reveals that at the end of the day, unlike with HRG, he will choose the mission over his loved ones.
 * More Expendable Than You: Peter argues this when he's trying to save Nathan in Haiti.
 * The Mountains of Illinois: "Odessa, Texas" has mountains in the background. The real Odessa is completely flat and dry, as actor Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder) amusingly pointed out in the DVD commentary.
 * Mugging the Monster: In Volume Five, a Rabid Cop makes the poor choice of threatening to beat a confession out of an amnesiac Sylar, who reflexively tosses him through the interrogation room's one-way mirror with his telekinesis.
 * Muggle Foster Parents: Claire's family, though in an unusual twist they're actually pretty cool. Especially her dad.
 * Muggle Power: The reason for The Company to be ambiguously evil and controlling, and Sylar's drive to be special. Referenced again in Volume Three with Marine Super Soldier Scott.
 * Mundane Utility: Generally ignored by all the heroes with the exception of Peter, who uses borrowed powers of strength, speed, and ultimately healing to make himself an elite Paramedic.
 * Murder the Hypotenuse: Brutally subverted when
 * Must Make Amends: Sylar in Volume Three.
 * Mutant Draft Board: The Company.
 * My Grandson, Myself: Adam Monroe in a tie-in graphic novel.
 * My Sister Is Off-Limits: Inverted with Hiro. When his accidental time traveling causes him to undo a mistake, causing his sister to fall in love with his best friend Ando, Hiro is ecstatic.
 * A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Building 26 operation, Nathan's Nazis.
 * Of course, despite the fan nickname and Nathan creating it, he actually had little control on what they actually did: For an example, in a rather notable aversion to the trope early on in the season where not only was Danko the one who let Tracy go to kill a random member of the group, but he did it without Nathan's knowledge until Nathan was accused by Tracy of setting her up to be released, and as soon as Nathan found out, he told Danko off for it.
 * Neck Lift: Niki/Jessica and her father. And in Volume Three,.
 * Nerd Glasses: Gabriel Gray.
 * Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: "Enhanced Synesthesia", though eventually shown to be an ability to manipulate sound and summon people, is initially demonstrated as like standard sound-to-color synesthesia and is played as a strange superpower.
 * New Powers as the Plot Demands:
 * Several characters demonstrate the ability to acquire new powers from other powered people. Peter Petrelli copies them, Dad Petrelli takes them, and Sylar rips them out of their heads (killing them, and he gets to use Peter's copying power later).
 * In general, the whole series operates this trope at a higher level. If the writers need a new power, they don't give it to an existing character, but introduce a new character with the desired ability. One of the benefits of Loads and Loads of Characters is nobody much notices a few more or less.
 * Except when Matt gets the power of drawing the future. It's never explained how he got it, and he doesn't use it later, but still...
 * Ando is a particular victim of this trope. His power goes from power amplification to . Subverted, in that we are given a preview of the latter form of his ability via time travel before we even find out if he'll even get one in the main timeline.
 * Sylar pulls off an even bigger Ass Pull than usual in Volume 4, when he inexplicably starts teleporting out of Danko's car. Sure, it was badass, but a little explanation would have been nice.
 * Newspaper-Thin Disguise
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hiro: Volume Two Hiro should be the posterboy for this trope.
 * He broke HISTORY. Not even Superman over on Superdickery managed that.
 * In the Season 1 episode "Unexpected": Nice job, Peter and Isaac.
 * In Season 1, most of the characters are trying to stop a nuclear explosion in Kirby Plaza. Turns out,
 * Volume Three Peter. Just Peter. Angela gets one of these too.
 * Everything bad that happens in the series is the fault of one or more of "the good guys." Everything.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Arthur Petrelli, though the keyword here is definitely 'wannabe.' Wannabe defines everything about Arthur Petrelli.
 * Interestingly, from what we've seen of him so far Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel Sullivan seems to be defining as a genuine Ubermensch; he doesn't seem to regard the lives of Muggles as holding any moral worth and happily offs them as needed, but at the same time he isn't going around killing folks just for shit and giggles, and seems to genuinely be trying to build a world of his own for evolved humans after he brings them around to his point of view.
 * 90% of Your Brain: "Imagine what we could acomplish if we used one hundred percent of the brain." Massive seizures?
 * No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: "...breakfast?"
 * No Sell: Peter and Sylar are/were/are immune to just about everyone else's powers.
 * Noodle Incident: Whatever it is that Luke's ability does to pacemakers.
 * It's commonly believed that microwaves can disrupt/stop pacemakers, but there's not a whole lot of science behind this.
 * "I figured out that speedsters don't like the cold. Or qualuudes, but mostly the cold."
 * Exactly how Danko was involved in the "Angola Incident", or even what the Angola Incident was about. Considering what happened to the series overall, it is likely that no one will ever know any time soon.
 * The reason for Claude's termination from the Company. We know it has something to do with hiding a Special, but we're never given details.
 * No Ontological Inertia: In "Dual"
 * No Name Given: The Haitian, even in a story arc that took place in Haiti.
 * Except that in Shadowboxing, Claire calls him René. Presumably, everyone on the show learned this offscreen.
 * The Not-Love Interest: Most of the characters have one, and the relationships tend to drive a large part of the plot. In contrast to love interests, who tend not to stick around very long.
 * Ando for Hiro
 * Peter and Nathan
 * Claire and her dad
 * Micah for both of his parents, especially Niki
 * Not My Driver: Inverted, Mohinder as a cab driver realizes that his passenger is Mr. Bennet and flees. This is probably the smartest thing Mohinder does in the entire series. Which is very sad.
 * Not Using the Z Word: The heroes' powers are supposed to be derived from an abnormal genetic factor, but nobody ever mentions the word "mutant" or the X-men, not even the comic-book geeks.
 * Well, Ando mentions the X-men, but only when he's trying to figure out what Hiro is trying to say through the scrambled brain damage that Samuel caused.
 * Not Worth Killing: Sylar spares Luke and Peter didn't have anything he wanted anymore.
 * Noughties Drama Series
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Although Mohinder is almost always carrying the Idiot Ball, there are a few instances in which he's only pretending to carry it.
 * The Obi-Wan: Claude
 * Odd Couple: Company policy, one of us, one of them. They Fight Crime.
 * Official Kiss: Peter and Simone at the end of "One Giant Leap", under Simone's red Umbrella of Togetherness.
 * Offing the Offspring: Arthur Petrelli, Maury Parkman and attempt this.
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Future Peter vs Future Sylar... Offscreen.
 * Heroes Abridged had fun with this:
 * Odd Couple: Company policy, one of us, one of them. They Fight Crime.
 * Official Kiss: Peter and Simone at the end of "One Giant Leap", under Simone's red Umbrella of Togetherness.
 * Offing the Offspring: Arthur Petrelli, Maury Parkman and attempt this.
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Future Peter vs Future Sylar... Offscreen.
 * Heroes Abridged had fun with this:

""That hurt. ""
 * Offscreen Teleportation: Sylar does this a lot, so much so that it's kind of become his signature move. Also, to a lesser extent, the rest of the cast seem to have the ability to make long cross-country trips in an abnormally short period of time.
 * Oireland: Peter's subplot at the beginning of Volume Two. You know... maybe we shouldn't have brought it up again...
 * Oh Crap: Mohinder
 * Sylar on Kirby Plaza
 * In Volume 3, the look on Bennet's face
 * Likewise, in Volume 4,

""You didn't think I took that one from you, did you?""
 * And again in the Volume 4 finale,

"Meredith: "I see you've still got a weakness for blondes.""
 * In the Volume 5 preview,
 * One Degree of Separation
 * One Person, One Power - strictly observed except for the power-borrowing/power-stealing characters.
 * One-Scene Wonder: John Glover as
 * Only I Can Kill Him: subverted on Kirby Plaza
 * Organization with Unlimited Funding: The Company has fit this trope to varying degrees throughout the seasons, most closely when it was run by Bob Bishop (who had the power to turn anything into gold) during Volume Two, who identifies himself as The Company's "financial source."
 * Our Presidents Are Different: Of the President Minority type, but subverted due to real world events.
 * Later becomes President Target in the Volume Four finale.
 * Papa Wolf: Noah. Bennet. The end. Do NOT mess with his Claire-bear, EVER, if you don't want him to go Terminator on your ass. Which made a LOT of people wonder whether he'd had a lobotomy sometime during An Invisible Thread. Then Sylar in I Am Become Death after his son is accidentally killed in a shootout. Leads directly in this case to a Superpower Meltdown. And Matt Parkman, normally a mild-mannered everyman, will mess you up if you go near his surrogate daughter Molly Walker, or his wife and bio-child. But we also have Nathan Petrelli, who * tries* to be a Papa Wolf for Claire as well, but... kind of fails miserably and manages to fuck everything up. As he does.
 * Parental Abandonment: For lots and lots of characters.
 * Parental Substitute -
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: Bob Bishop, whose power is that he can turn things to gold with a touch, uses "Midas" as his password.
 * Pensieve Flashback: Peter's dream in the first season finale starts off like this, with him watching himself on his first day as Charles' caregiver. It takes an unexpected turn half-way through.
 * People Puppets: Level 5 inmate Doyle
 * Persona Non Grata: Hiro and Ando are banned from Mr. Linderman's casinos after they abuse Hiro's powers to cheat at poker.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Walking nukes Ted, Peter, and Sylar, and Maya our lady of bioweaponry.
 * Personality Powers
 * Pet the Dog: The Volume Three flashback episode "Villains" was one big Pet the Dog moment for most of the series' major baddies: Sylar, Linderman, Angela Petrelli, Elle, and even Thompson all got to have sympathetic and humanizing moments. The only exception is Big Bad Arthur Petrelli, who was revealed to have been a grade A Jerkass even back then.
 * Danko, who's made a living out of hunting people with powers, gives some fatherly advice to Sylar when his shapeshifting power becomes too much for him to handle. Danko also lets Sylar examine a watch that his father had left to him.
 * Ping-Pong Naivete: Powers roughly 75% of the plot.
 * Pineal Weirdness: Implied to be the source of superpowers.
 * The Plague: Shanti's virus, which would have killed basically everyone. Instead, it only led to
 * Playing Drunk: Claire has to do this when playing a drinking game.
 * Plenty of Blondes: Six of eight of the white women from season three are applicable. Four have bright blond hair, and the two others have goldenrod hair.
 * Lampshaded in-universe by Meredith, who is blonde, when she is reunited with Nathan and meets Tracy, who had accompanied him and is also blonde.
 * Lampshaded in-universe by Meredith, who is blonde, when she is reunited with Nathan and meets Tracy, who had accompanied him and is also blonde.

"Daphne: This whole time-stopping thing, how does it work, exactly? I mean, if you chase me to Bangkok, will time stay frozen in Tokyo? Hiro: I don't know. Daphne: Well, something to think about when you get back on your feet. Hiro: But... I am on my feet."
 * Plot Induced Stupidity: Pretty much everybody, but Hiro Nakamura takes the cake - with his powers to travel through time / freeze time, there isn't in theory any villain he couldn't defeat or any situation he couldn't save. Hell, if you raise a whole army against him he can go back in time to the day before you started to raise an army, freeze time and kill you while you're taking a piss. So far there hasn't been a season finale climax / final confrontation which couldn't have been avoided had Hiro simply used his powers well had a brain.
 * My personal favourite is in volume 5, when Hiro goes back in time to save Charlie, does, by showboating his powers in front of Sylar. Then, Samuel kidnaps Charlie. Oh no, I better obey his wishes rather than go back in time to save Charlie, which I just did 5 minutes ago. To be fair, Hiro’s powers were malfunctioning but he still managed to travel back in time for Samuel in hopes it would help him rescue Charlie.
 * Even better, why not just have a future Hiro visit his present self, telling him where Charlie is. Then, after rescuing Charlie, present Hiro does the same thing. It's a stable time loop.
 * Poke in the Third Eye: Maury Parkman to Molly.
 * Power Hair: Ma Petrelli
 * Power Loss Makes You Strong: Peter Petrelli during the Villians Arc, and later after the Discard and Draw.
 * Power Perversion Potential: Explicit in the Series. In Volume 2, Master of Illusion Candice offers to let Sylar sleep with anyone he wants. Including twins. Or himself. Parkman uses his power in a more romantic way in season 1, by reading his wife's mind in order to give her a perfect date. Sylar  in season 4 uses it in a darker manner, by
 * Posthumous Character: Linderman in Volume Three, though he's
 * Power Incontinence: Peter, Maya, Ted.
 * Preemptive Apology: Hiro (to Tracy): * bows* "Sorry" * whack!*
 * Preemptive Declaration: From early in the third volume, when Hiro meets Daphne after she compromises his time-stop:

"Peter: "take me?" Nathan: "no." Peter: ::puppyface:: Nathan: "seriously, you're pulling the... ... ...asdfghjkl... grrgh, OK then :: fume ::"."
 * Professor Guinea Pig
 * Promotion to Opening Titles: Ando, Sylar and Angela. Also sometimes someone is promoted midseason: most notably HRG started as a guest star, but season 2 had Adam Monroe promoted midway in and Samuel is a regular as of "Once Upon A Time In Texas".
 * Prophecy Twist: Isaac's paintings, both used straight and averted. Paints Peter dead: Peter dies, then regenerates in seconds. Paints Hiro up against a dinosaur: Hiro goes to a natural history museum and looks at a dinosaur model. Paints a sequence of Claire getting killed: the sequence turns out to be just ambiguous enough to let the victim be someone else. Paints himself, dead, his brains removed: Gets killed and has his brains removed. There wasn't really much room to manoeuver with that last one. He was still doing it in later Volumes, from beyond the grave...
 * Peter does it too, with the dream where he nukes New York. Notably Nathan's presence at the scene and his line, "I'm not leaving you, Peter." come off very differently in the dream from how they play out in real life.
 * This appears to have happened with Angela's dream of
 * Proud to Be a Geek: Hiro
 * Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Had a Lampshade Hanging in the eclipse episode where everybody lost their powers.
 * Psychic Nosebleed: Matt gets one when he over-exerts his mind-reading ability in order to overcome the Haitian's Power Nullifier field. In Volume 4, Hiro gets one, demonstrating that his new partially restored powers come at a significant cost.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Sylar is shown to have shades of this as he enjoys toying around with everyone before launching into a bloodbath and Elle is a much straighter female example. No wonder the two of them hooked up.
 * Psychic Static: Mr. Bennet thinks in Japanese to throw off American mindreaders.
 * Psychological Torment Zone: Maury and 's mental prisons.
 * Puppy Dog Eyes: Yes, we KNOW Nathan Petrelli is a Jerkass... but Adrian Pasdar flutters the eyelashes and pouts and panties everywhere commence to drop. Don't you just wanna hug him?!(... Although this was mostly cancelled out by the fugly Beard of Sorrow in the beginning of Season 2.)
 * And Sylar. Serial killers should not look this cute.
 * Also Peter, when he's trying to convince convincing Nathan to go along with one of his ideas.
 * See The Eclipse Part 1 where he persuades Nathan to fly him along to Haiti.
 * See The Eclipse Part 1 where he persuades Nathan to fly him along to Haiti.


 * Put on a Bus: Man, they're bad about this. Zach, West, Molly, and Monica with no ceremony at all (Micah at least got a few brief cameos and West's departure was given a "aw, he and Claire broke up" Hand Wave). Also Caitlin, in the cruelest possible way. And Claude, who just ran out and was never seen again (for obvious reasons).
 * Mohinder
 * The episode "Let It Bleed" addresses the situation with West. Claire tells Peter that he goes to NYU and they're friends on Facebook.
 * Zach is kind of justified as the Bennetts moved to California and changed their name. It would make sense that they would have cut all ties with him, not only for their safety, but for his because if the company found out that he knew about Clair...