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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... destiny along with foundational questions relating to the very nature and value of things . The origin of evil , and the struggle between it and its opposite , features large in many of these mythic cycles and as such the hero - whether ...
... destiny ? Is that destiny not worth one life ? DELENN : If I fall another will take my place and another and another ! SEBASTIAN : But what of your great cause ? DELENN : This is my cause ! Life ! One life or a billion , it's all the ...
... destiny . This is the example of Christ . Of course the notion of the will as something that might free us from the lawless animal side of our nature is seen in a some- what different way in the work of Nietzsche who argues that it is ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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