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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... ideas , ideas we are born with , and related all knowledge to sense data - we are blank slates to be written on by our sense experiences . David Hume , argued for epistemic scepticism in general and criticised religious experience ...
... ideas underlying the evils of the modern critical epoch , where ' disorder , atheism , individualism and egoism ' they contrasted with the prospect of ' order , religion , associa- tion and devotion ' . The ' philosophers of the ...
... ideas as a World of cold rationalism and equalitarian atomism , a world of superficiality and Pharisaism.13 This Romantic conception of personal and qualitative individu- ality very soon developed into a form of nationalism where the ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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