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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... called Ideas or Forms . Part of his motivation for this was to counter the subjective and rather negative teachings of the so - called Sophists the name given to a loose grouping of popular travelling teachers . These Sophists opted ...
... called laws of nature such as cause and effect were based on nothing more than habit and custom . According to Hume the only reason that we identify something as a law of nature is because it has , so far , always behaved in a certain ...
... called upon to act heroically - even Superman simply gets on with his job and hangs out with his friends sometimes - nor are we tempted to constant villainy . Heroism and villainy are often only apparent in extremis , I doubt that it is ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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