Subtlety Is Important
Warning: minor spoiler for episode three, season four of the television show Heroes.
For the sake of the point I’d like to make, let’s skip the discussions about how season two and three of Heroes were severe disappointments or how except Heroes, I don’t actually watch televisions shows, so that fact that I can even talk about this is an oddity.
I just finished watching episode three (“Hysterical Blindness”) and want to share a powerful moment of character. Season four introduces some new characters, one of which is a deaf woman who can see color. An obvious question to ask after learning this is: what can you do with that?
Something brilliant.
Super heroes are great vehicles for story if done right—these are two standard approaches: 1) your hero is over-powered to an almost deity-like proportion, but in the end faces emotional and moral decisions that the powers can’t help with (e.g. Superman) or 2) your hero is very mortal but can do something interesting or has access to something special and she uses reason and ingenuity to overcome seemingly impossible odds (e.g. Batman).
There is a subtlety that is important here and the story does not always have to be about stopping the enemy. One of the ways Heroes went way off track is the characters became so powerful that they were no long interesting and became caricatures of themselves. Season four is doing a lot to rectify this, but there was an especially important moment in this episode—back to the seeing-sound-as-color-lady.
Peter, one of the main characters, can mimic a power of heroes he comes into contact with. He accidentally gets the power to see sound and realizes that this woman has a power. For reasons we don’t fully understand, plus the added pressure of being disabled in a society which doesn’t fully appreciate the difficulties, she is obviously wary and unhappy. Peter himself has been shown to be unhappy and unfulfilled. The stage is set.
The brilliant moment comes when they realize they can both see the colors and they sit down and play the piano together. My mouth literally fell open when I realized what was going on—these two characters were sharing an intimate moment (I think they are going to fall in love, awww) because of the power; the power became a vehicle for a raw, emotional connection between two characters in a way that will probably have significantly more story arc and lasting consequences than stopping a bank robbery ever will.
Lesson: Don’t be afraid to be subtle with your characters and recognize the potential for small connections between characters to have powerful contributions to the lasting story.
