Peter Petrelli Never Lost His Initial Ability (Heroes)

Before I start, I’d like to thank tumblr user @adaav. I originally wrote this on my personal Tumblr and @adaav’s comments helped shape the revision of this theory. Link to the original post will be at the bottom.

On to the theory:

Peter never lost his initial ability.

Peter and Arthur have similar abilities: Peter's empathic mimicry allowed him to use other people's abilities, Arthur’s Power Absorption allows it so he can steal other people's abilities to use them himself. They're different in action, but essentially the same ability, so technically there would be no need for Arthur to take Peter's powers besides to hurt his son. Which Arthur does, and Peter loses his abilities until he takes the serum and gets a variation of his initial ability.

But why do I think that Peter never lost his initial ability? Because of Hiro Nakamura.

Arthur takes Hiro’s Space-Time Manipulation in Volume Three, but by the end of Volume Five, he regains his full abilities. Peter doesn’t, despite losing his ability the same way. Their paths to regaining at least some of their abilities are not the same, but are similar enough that both should have been able to regain their abilities.

So here are three theories as to why Peter seemingly is not able to access his initial ability:

1. Peter is suffering from a Mental Block that prevents him from accessing his ability. And when Peter took the serum to get his ability back, the block only allowed a portion of his ability to be used. Empathy is the ability to feel other people's emotions, and when Peter remembers how people made him feel, he can mimic their ability. It's very emotionally based, which means it's mentally based. A mental block can largely affect a mental ability.

   1. The causes of the Mental Block could have been:

      1. Arthur when he was absorbing Peter’s powers.

      2. Being constantly betrayed by his family. In Volume 1, his mother, Angela, is involved in the plot to have Peter blow up New York, and his brother, Nathan, is pretty much all for it until the very last minute. Then Arthur steals his powers in Volume 3 and Nathan works with Arthur. Peter then continues to be betrayed by his family for the rest of the series. And as adaav observed in Volume 4, “[Peter’s] feelings were more guarded in fugitives and he isolated himself during most of redemption.” His family’s betrayals affected Peter emotionally, so it it’s not a stretch that it could have affected him mentally.

2. The serum is blocking Peter from accessing his initial ability. The serum is one of the biggest differences between Hiro and Peter. While Nathan Parkman Jr. did help Hiro to regain some of his ability, what helped the most was time. Potentially, with time, Peter could have regained his abilities, but since he took the serum, he can’t fully access them.

Original Post Here