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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... existence comes into sharp focus, these are our mid-teens when we ask such questions as 'Who am I and what the ... existence.3 By order, I have in mind some notion of consistency, the belief that there is pattern and regularity to ...
... existence comes into sharp focus , these are our mid - teens when we ask such questions as ' Who am I and what the blazes am I going to do with my life ? ' and our early forties where we ask the questions ' Is this all I am and what the ...
... existence is not susceptible to precise definition . Many postmoderns go so far as to argue that all we ever have are image and imagination , that there is no one truth , no absolute reality , that these images clearly and distinctly ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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