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
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... death is the consequence of man's pernicious drive toward this relationlessness . Man's disastrous urge towards the deadliness of relationlessness stands in direct proportion to death's aggressiveness as alienating man from God and as ...
... death at the hands of the Green Goblin ; the Batman couldn't save Jason Todd - the second Robin - from death ; and Superman for all his power cannot be everywhere at once , cannot save everyone all the time . It seems to me that we are ...
... Death's Head , ( English trans . ) Pan , 1969 Holdstock , R. , Mythago Wood , Gollancz , 1984 Horn , M. , The World Encyclopedia of Comics , Chelsea House , 1999 Jungel , E. , Death ; the Riddle and the Mystery , Westminster Press ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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