Matt Parkman - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

Matt is a telepath, able to read and manipulate the thoughts of others. In the episode "Out of Time", Bob states that Matt, like his father, should be able to control all aspects of the mind, including thoughts and senses, with practice. Matt originally could not activate his at will, causing him to pick up the thoughts of all those in close proximity to him. He gradually learns to elicit specific thoughts from people, and eventually learns to compel individuals to do as he wishes.

Though Matt's power enables him to read the minds of most people, it can be defeated through various methods. The Haitian's power is able to nullify Matt's, protecting himself and those in his vicinity. Other telepaths, such as Peter Petrelli and Maury Parkman, are also able to shield their minds. Finally, since Matt only speaks English, he cannot understand thoughts in other languages; Noah Bennet is able to defeat Matt's power by thinking in Japanese, which also happens with the child-minded Hiro who didn't know English. Although in "Cold Wars" Matt was able to overcome this while displaying a new ability with his telepathy where he was able to make his victims relive past events by going through their memory, while doing this to his victims such as Noah Bennet, it causes them pain. However, this is merely due to them resisting his efforts and its shown that if the person who he's doing it to allows him to do it of their own free will, there's no pain.

An interesting aspect of Matt's mind-reading is that it allows him to read any thoughts going through a person's mind - at one point, Matt read Jessica Sanders' mind and heard Niki in there as well. Jessica was surprised ("You heard Niki?").

He is able to enter the minds of various individuals in different episodes, including Nathan Petrelli, Molly Walker, and Angela Petrelli. When Maury traps Matt inside Molly's "nightmare world", Matt is able to bring his father in with them and subsequently leave with Molly, trapping Maury in his own nightmare (though Maury escapes). He later enters Angela's mind to free her after Arthur Petrelli traps her in her own mind and succeeds with Daphne's help, gaining the ability to pull people in with him at the same time. Apparently to free someone trapped in their own mind, someone has to enter it as Peter later has to do the same thing to free Sylar when Matt traps him in a nightmare. In "Cold Snap" he enters Daphne's mind to give her a fairytale ending while she dies.

Matt's ability to compel others is not as honed as his father's, though he demonstrates the ability at various points.

Matt can place suggestions in others through telepathic commands as a form of mind control, but those aware of what he is doing can resist. In "Cautionary Tales", Angela Petrelli initially resists his commands, though she experiences a nosebleed and eventually succumbs.

In "Eris Quod Sum", Matt is able to make the villain Knox see an illusion of Daphne and Matt himself dying, as well as momentarily immobilize him physically. In "Cold Snap" and "I Am Sylar" he is able to make agents ignore him and company, making them believe there was no one at the place.

In Volume Four, the combination of the growth of his telepathy and the precognitive visions induced by Usutu grants him access to the "same plane of consciousness" that other precognitive characters access for their own powers, allowing him to draw the future. Unlike Isaac Mendez, he didn't show any artistic skills until gaining this ability, which also happens to other characters.

In "The Art of Deception", Matt tries to use his telepathy to remove Sylar's powers by putting a mental block on them. Due to feedback, he is unable to, but is able to read Sylar's mind enough to know that he is actually serious about this. Ultimately Matt uses his powers to trap Sylar in a nightmare where he has no powers and is alone, similar to what his father once did to Molly Walker. In this nightmare one hour in the real world equals one year in the nightmare. Sylar is ultimately freed from his nightmare by Peter Petrelli who enters his mind and frees him like Matt did for Molly Walker and Angela Petrelli.