Heroes and VillainsHercules, Jesus, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, Gandalf, Frodo, Harry Potter, Buffy Summers, Spiderman, Batman, Captain Kirk, Dr. Who, Darth Vader, Sauron, Voldemort, Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, the Daleks, the Borg. Almost anybody living in the developed West would be able to group these individuals into two camps: the heroes and the villains. However, what criteria they may use to do this is less clear. Mike Alsford introduces us to a range of heroic and villainous archetypes on a journey through film, television, comic books, and literature. On the way, he addresses questions such as: What is a true hero? What is a true villain? Have we misunderstood these terms? What kind of societal values do our mythical heroes and villains represent? In trying to understand the extremes of hero and villain we are made more aware of our own ethical standards and given a space in which to explore contemporary concerns over notions of right and wrong, good and bad. |
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... there is a short story simply running through the average day of the city's Superman figure , Samaritan . It opens ... There's never any time ' . The story is punctuated with Samaritan pathetically timing the amount of flight time he ...
... There's a lot I don't understand . But I do know it's impor- tant to keep fighting . I learned that from you . BUFFY : But we never ... ANGEL : We never win . BUFFY : Not completely . ANGEL : We never will . That's not why we fight . We ...
... there are millions who deploy whatever gifts and abilities they might possess in the service of others . For every lone warrior who stands unaided against insurmountable evil there are innumerable individuals who make a stand against ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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