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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... absolute and primarily rational perspective on the world , implicitly ( at least ) throwing doubt on the role and value of imagination . The quest for certainty It seems to me that our culture has developed a level of dys- function with ...
... absolute reality , that these images clearly and distinctly correspond to.25 While it could be argued that Postmodernism's rejection of absolute value only serves to undermine the notion of the hero how can one fight for truth and ...
... absolute spirit or consciousness . In Hegel at the very least , this absolute spirit could be understood in a pantheistic way . The impact of this upon human history manifests itself in the idea that the state or certain civilizations ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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