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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... 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 way , however , it does not logically ...
... effects . It is thus a quantitative concept : given two men with similar desires , if one achieves all the desires that the other achieves , and also others , he has no more power than the other . But there is no exact means of ...
Mike Alsford. power than B , if A achieves many intended effects and B only a few.2 At its most basic level power could be seen as simply the ability to effect change , to be able to manipulate – for good or ill - the world in which we ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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