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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... clearly a significant threat to religious epistemology . Of course , while Kant saw this as a way of avoiding scepticism and establishing order he was never able to demonstrate why each individual's reason should operate in the same way ...
... 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 justice when these are regarded as empty ...
... clearly and cogently expressed.15 It seems to me that a point is inevitably reached when an in- dividual , or group of individuals , no longer feel themselves answerable to the laws , conventions , traditions and taboos of society and ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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