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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... believe that what establishes someone as a hero or a villain and , more importantly perhaps , what prompts us to define a person in either of these ways , can provide us with a useful insight into the values we consider important in any ...
... believe , deliberately understated as this is not , in the final analysis , what made her a hero . Self - giving , to the point of self abandonment and the risk of destruction , becomes in the Buffy series , not only the heroic ideal ...
... believe , ought to be reconsidered . Hearing the truth is not always the most helpful nor even the most humane course of action and there is , I would venture , some knowledge that perhaps we ought not to possess . The heroic character ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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