Heroes - Never Black and White

One of the things I really love about the characters in Heroes is that things are rarely, if ever, black and white. In most things, you clearly know who is good or evil. Superman is good. Lex Luthor is bad. The bad guy is easy to identify.

Not so in Heroes. Take any of the characters, there are many many levels to each of them. The most obvious character to demonstrate this is Jessica/Niki. The dual personality is constantly fighting between good and evil. But not all characters are so obvious. Even the the most evil character, Sylar, has shown his humanity in The Hard Part. If events had only transpired in a slightly different way, we may be talking about Sylar the hero, rather than Sylar the bad-ass murderer.

I thought about this even as I wrote that Takezo Kensei is a bad guy. In reality, I know he isn't truly evil. I know that him knocking out Hiro could very well be interpreted in many different ways. I thought about it as I wrote about Matt and Maury Parkman. Clearly Matt struggles with the demons that he has inherited from his father. Demons that were on display when we see Dark Matt Parkman in the future. The Matt we know is the epitome of courageousness and heroism, but it only took a few critical events to turn him to the lackey of Sylar and against his own kind.