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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 29
... argues Hume , the only way one can know for certain that the same thing will happen again would be to repeat the action . Any statement that it must always happen is nothing more than a prediction and not an empirical certainty . Kant ...
... argues for the deployment of parental power only as sanctioned and requested by the child , while the other argues that it is in the child's best interest to be helped in spite of themselves ? Certainly there is a time when the very ...
... argues that even God could not enforce good behaviour upon human beings without com- promising their very humanity . Immanuel Kant argues that ethical judgements are the product of the free exercise of the will and that any external ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
2 other sections not shown