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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... context of the truly heroic . - ― The hero is the one who accepts , however unpalatable this might be , that human existence defies our best attempts at reduction and categorisation . In this sense , as I hope we shall discover ...
... context of international relations ? The notion of a shared humanity or an absolute ethic , or even some- thing more formal and consensual such as international law , would seem to suggest that there are no boundaries that cannot be ...
Mike Alsford. but just that one is willing to stand . In this context Morris and Morris raise the point that the notion of the super - hero might therefore be regarded as incoherent . The reasoning is simple . The more powerful a person ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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