The Color Gray

Heroes is better than ever. Seriously, you need to watch this show Monday nights on NBC at 9PM eastern!

Heroes has cool special effects and people who can fly and do other cool things, but if that was all Heroes was, it would just be another superhero show. Heroes is about so much more. It's about relating with people, making decisions, how your actions can effect not just those around you - but maybe even the future or the whole world. Of course, it's hard to think of others when you have your own problems and that brings us to a central theme of Heroes. "Morally gray" characters and decisions are sprinkled throughout each episode. The king of morally gray is "HRG" or Noah Bennett.

A few episodes into Season One we learned that HRG was a family man. Everything he did, he justified as being 'for the family'. Kill someone, it was to protect his daughter Claire. Betray his friends, Claire again. And then, half way through Season Three, the people he worked for gave him his freedom. They gave him his retirement money and told him to go home to his family. Turns out, he missed his job. He didn't always do things to protect his family, sometimes it was because he ENJOYED his work!

Now, his wife kicked him out of the house and he has nothing left but his job. Still, he's comfortable with morally gray... extremely comfortable. He has practically sold his soul to the devil.

Speaking of the devil, Sylar lives in his own morally gray area, though the rest of us might call it black...

It's interesting to think of a character like Sylar, who is a serial killer having some sort of moral standard. Yet, he views himself as a character not unlike HRG, a man who lives in the morally gray area of life. I think watching Sylar self-analyze and push himself to the extremities of good and evil is one of the most interesting aspects of the show. The episode "Dual" from Volume 3 is one of the best in this respect. Sylar does the opening narration and forces the other characters to choose whether they'll be angels or monsters. It's like a mad scientist with his lab rats.

We're all teetering one bad decision from morally gray. It's hard to balance the needs of others and our own desires. Heroes just has more adventuresome extremes than most of our humdrum lives!

"Viva la libertad — A Friend."