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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... existential map , an overlay of principles , values and priorities which allow us to make judge- ments concerning the direction that our lives should take . Having such an existential map is not actually a matter of choice , only the ...
... existential , character - transforming significance . It is also an exercise of the imagination . As we shall see in ... existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers ( 1883–1969 ) talks about these shocking moments of encounter with the world ...
... existential philosophers such as Jean - Paul Sartre teach us anything at all it is about the power of human existence and that it is without excuse . In a characteristically bleak section from his Being and Nothingness Sartre makes this ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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