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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... friends who support her in her fight against evil there is a very strong motif pursued throughout the series that she is essentially and finally alone . This theme comes to a powerful conclusion in the last series where Buffy frequently ...
... friends . You have to take care of them now . You have to take care of each other . You have to be strong . Dawn , the hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it . Be brave . Live . For me . In this Buffy expresses the very nature ...
... friendship deepens , we no longer call upon our friends to divest themselves of their power over us by vouchsafing to us similar power , but rather we trust those friends not to exercise this power , which always remains theirs . It is ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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