Villain Profile: Arthur Petrelli

Arthur Petrelli is the father of Peter and Nathan Petrelli.  Through the first couple of season we were told multiple stories of how he died, but the truth ends up being that his wife poisoned him because he was planning on killing Nathan for standing against his illegal activities.  She thought he died but he didn't; instead he spent a year being paralyzed.  Due to his ability to absorb other powers, he eventually recovers and even steals Peter's abilities, making him virtually unstoppable. 

Arthur is the main Villain in the first half of season 3, the worst season of heroes.  Arthur is a villain who could have been pretty cool, but instead of focusing on some grand scheme of his, it's mostly about him simply having a lot of powers.  If we hadn't already seen this from Sylar it might have been alright but at this point he feel kind of like a recycled character.  His whole story line feels like a soap opera anyway.  They thought he was dead but he isn't, he tells Sylar he is really his father, but he isn't, etc.

Another problem is his plan doesn't really make any sense.  I have no idea why he is trying to give everyone superpowers because he is constantly paranoid about anyone with powers who could be a threat to him.  Unless his goal was to give everyone powers so he could steal them all, I really don't know what his motivation was.  Like all of season 3, there was some really good stuff and some really bad stuff...Arthur is just a product of that.  

It's unfortunate his story wasn't all of season 3 so he could be devolved more.  Perhaps given some grand reason why he wanted to do what he wanted to do.  The second half of season 3 is the worst overall story from heroes so it would have been nice to see this one fleshed out and made sense of.  Arthur is even warned that the world will be destroyed because of his plan (by someone who can see the future) but he still doesn't listen.  Whatever his motivation was, apparently it was a strong one.  Sadly, we will never know since he died in the middle of the season.

On a side note, I am not sure why he didn't heal from his gun shot would after the Haitian was gone.  They had already established multiple times (Claire, Sylar) that if someone with a healing factor dies because their powers are blocked in some way, they will heal and come back as soon as their powers return.  Both Arthur and Future Peter Petrelli died from being shot because the Haitian was around and never came back (as far as we know).