Mental Manipulation

Mental Manipulation (sometimes referred to as memory removal and power dampening) is the ability to manipulate upper brain functions, enabling the user to render others unconscious, erase their memories, and negate the use of abilities.

Characters[]

René naturally possesses this ability. (One Giant Leap)
Arthur Petrelli has stolen this ability from an unknown source. (It's Coming)
Peter Petrelli replicated this ability from René, (The Fifth Stage) but later discarded it in favor of Regenerative Healing Factor. (Let It Bleed)

Limits[]

René[]

René could use his ability in at least three different ways: interfering with the abilities of other evolved humans, affecting human memory, and rendering people unconscious (The Eclipse, Part 2). The latter two abilities required physical contact. According to René, his own mental/emotional state affected the potency of his ability (It Takes a Village, Part 4).

Interfering With Powers[]

René could interfere with at least some of the abilities of other evolved humans. Whether or not this interference was equally effective against all abilities is yet unknown.

Interference seemed to be a largely passive ability, affecting all evolved humans in range without concentration or effort, even if the Haitian was unaware of their presence. He could, however, choose not to interfere with the abilities of particular evolved humans that he knew about. Also, his power did not operate when he was unconscious (One of Us, One of Them).

René's interference was not insurmountable; while Matt got nothing but "static" when he tried to read René's mind, he could sometimes pick up a word or two from Noah Bennet in spite of René's interference. Individuals with very powerful abilities were harder for him to contain, forcing René to concentrate in order to keep their abilities suppressed and exhausting his ability over time (Our Father). Nevertheless, any ability that requires concentration was drastically limited within an unspecified radius of the Haitian, and he could neutralize even passive abilities with active effort.

When Rene neutralized Matt Parkman's powers at Sunstone Manor, Matt heard massive feedback and asked Rene to "turn it down." Rene was seemingly then able to lessen the effects of his powers on Matt without allowing Matt to regain his power completely. When Matt fired a gun next to his head, the ringing in Rene's ears broke his concentration and deactivated his power. Without Rene using his power against him, Matt was able to get into Rene's head, showing that Rene is not immune to the powers he blocks when not actively blocking them. (Send in the Clones)

The following abilities have been shown to be blocked by René's mental manipulation:

Bliss & Horror Inducement (It Takes a Village)
Empathic Mimicry (Four Months Ago...)
Enhanced Strength (The Sting of Injustice)
Suggestion (Six Months Ago)
Regenerative Healing Factor (I Am Become Death)
Sound Manipulation (The Sting of Injustice)
Space-Time Manipulation (One of Us, One of Them)
Enhanced Speed (One of Us, One of Them)
Telekinesis (Four Months Ago...)
Telepathy (One Giant Leap, Send in the Clones)

Affecting Human Memory[]

René could induce a person to recall a set of related memories (It Takes a Village, Part 4). He could also selectively remove memories of specific events or periods of time. While he apparently needed to touch the subject to remove memories in a controlled manner, he had shown that he could seriously damage the memories of numerous people without physical contact (It Takes a Village, Part 2).

Erasing memories had harmful side effects. It had been associated with headaches and blackouts, as in the cases of Matt Parkman, Theodore Sprague, and Sandra Bennet. Multiple memory erasures appeared to be especially harmful to the subject. René had erased portions of Sandra Bennet's memory "many times" (Fallout), and after the last occurrence, Sandra developed a subdural hemorrhage in the part of her brain that controls memory (Unexpected). Symptoms included headaches, facial tics, fainting spells, and intermittent amnesia so severe that she sometimes did not even recognize her dog or her daughter (Run!).

René could not restore memories that he erased (Godsend, It Takes a Village, Part 4), and he had not demonstrated any ability to create false memories.

While extremely rare, it is possible to recover from René's memory erasure via special use of other evolved human abilities.

After René had erased Peter's memory, Adam encouraged him to use his healing ability to recover the affected memories. Peter needed to actively concentrate on healing the damaged parts for it to work however, as for some reason regeneration doesn't heal the damage automatically. (Four Months Ago...). This resembles Daniel Linderman's use of his healing ability to restore memories that Arthur Petrelli had erased from Angela Petrelli via telepathy (Villains). According to Linderman, using abilities to affect memory leaves scars, and healing the scars will restore the lost memories.
Sanjog was also capable of restoring Piper's memory by manipulating her dreams (Different and the Same).

René was also able to render a person unconscious by placing his hand on their head. This is the same technique he used to erase someone's memories (Homecoming, The Eclipse, Part 2).

Future René[]

Like his present day self, the René of the explosion future also possesses this ability. However, his seems to be more powerful as he is able to cover the entire top floor of the Homeland Security building with his power blocking. This version of René is also capable of blocking Hiro Nakamura's powers while allowing Matt to use his telepathy at the same time.

Arthur Petrelli[]

Arthur Petrelli has used this ability to erase Hiro's memories. Arthur's intention was to erase only those memories Hiro gained on his spirit walk, but due to Ando's interruption and Arthur's preoccupation with one of Usutu's paintings of an eclipse, he mistakenly erased years worth of Hiro's memory, leaving Hiro in the mentality that he was ten years old. However, for whatever reason, Arthur did not use this to block Hiro's powers as Hiro was able to teleport away. Ishi Nakamura was able to heal Hiro's erased memory.

Peter Petrelli[]

Determined to get Nathan back, Peter meets with The Haitian at the hospital so he can replicate this ability in order to be able to confront Sylar. Sylar was initially able to catch Peter by surprise and attack him using abilities while disguised as Nurse Hammer, although Peter probably didn't block him on purpose in order to catch him by surprise with this ability as he later tells Claire he has to "turn off" the ability for her to use her powers.

After finding drugs in Peter's bag, Sylar believes that his plan is to tranquilize him again and is caught by surprise when Peter uses this ability to block his powers. He tries to throw Peter across the room, but fails and engages in a physical fight with Peter which he loses. Peter pins him with a nail gun and then uses the ability to start erasing Sylar's memories in order to help Nathan regain control of Sylar's body. Although this attempt is initially successful in restoring Nathan's personality, Sylar proves too powerful for Nathan and eventually begins to overpower him. After Nathan falls to his "death", Sylar is able to regenerate as he's out of Peter's range. (The Fifth Stage)

Later, while rescuing hostages, Peter displays the ability to render people unconscious with this ability. He also inadvertently blocks Claire's ability when she accidentally cuts herself. Peter offers to turn off his power for her, but she has him keep it active so she can actually feel pain for the first time in a long time. Peter later discards this in favor of regeneration. (Let It Bleed)

Gallery[]

Memorable Quotes[]

"Relax. Nothing's gonna happen to your wife because she's not gonna remember finding anything. There's a boy we discovered in Haiti."

"He can make her forget?"

"He's really something. He's mute. When I asked him to describe his ability, he drew a picture of himself pulling memories like little grub worms out of someone's head. I wanted to put it on the front of my fridge. When he's done, make sure you thank him for saving Sandra's life."

- Thompson, Mr. Bennet (Company Man)

"Memories, moments, hidden like jewels scattered in a muddy field. But I could find them. I could find them and show them to him, in all of their radiance."

- René (It Takes a Village, Part 4)

"Don't you need to write any of this down?"

"Memory is not an issue for me."

- Mohinder, René (Crossroads)

"What the hell did you do?"

"Our Haitian friend. I took his ability, mind erasing and power blocking."

- Sylar, Peter (The Fifth Stage)

Notes[]

Though he is with a detained Nathan Petrelli, René is either unable or unwilling to prevent Nathan from flying away. (Hiros)
Though he is only feet from Peter Petrelli and Claude Rains, René does not prevent them from being invisible. (Unexpected)
He never tries to stop Ted's radiation in Company Man. In the commentary for that episode, Bryan Fuller admits that they have "played fast and loose" with René's ability and says that they had considered including a line explaining that he cannot suppress Ted's ability.
In an interview, writer and co-producer Aron Coleite said in regards to René's powers, "I think that it's more of an on-and-off thing. He has very good control of his ability. I think that he's able to turn it on and off. You'll find out that the Haitian has been using his ability for a while. He's adept at using his ability."
Sylar has a flashback of Charlie and the Burnt Toast Diner (Road Kill). Artist Jason Badower theorized, "The graphic novel confirms Sylar has Charlie's memory... He was immune to The Haitian's 'Jedi Mind Tricks'." This leads to wonder if the Haitian ever tried to remove Sylar's memories. A preview for Godsend includes a shot of Sylar lying on the floor of his cell with Mr. Bennet saying, "He is to have no memory of Claire," but this line does not appear in any aired episode. Regardless, Sylar does not appear to have lost any memories.
In an interview, Joe Kelly discussed René's first manifestation of his ability: "I figured that in his emotionally charged state, the Haitian's powers went 'off the charts' because he knew nothing about control. Since it had such terrible results for him, I think he'd instinctively be much more about control after that discovery."
The Mozaic file refers to "neurocognitive deficit" (The Fix), which could describe the effects of the Haitian's ability. However, it has not been confirmed as to whether or not the file was referring to the Haitian.
René was able to prevent Peter from recalling his abilities and memories (Four Months Ago...). It is unclear if René could block Peter's ability to absorb abilities, or if he could only block the recalling of abilities Peter has absorbed.
In The Kill Squad, Sean Fallon is engaged in a fight with Brendan Lewis and states that they need a "nullifier", specifically mentioning René by name. This suggests that mental manipulation is effective against plant manipulation, though this is uncertain.
In Resistance, Future Peter says to Future Claire while disguising himself that he doesn't want to make her forget again. This could imply that he has mimicked the Haitian's ability, and used it to erase incriminating memories of his alleged "terrorist" activities.
Although he removed all memory of his abduction, West Rosen was still able to remember Noah Bennet approach him.
Heroes: Survival describes Miles Lecomte as having an ability called "memory theft", which seems to have some similar (and some different) aspects as the Haitian's ability.
In Once Upon a Time in Texas, Company agent Lauren Gilmore jokingly calls the process of erasing memories "Haitianing".
The Heroes Reborn app refers to this ability as "memory removal and power dampening".