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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... less sophisticated way of portraying the abstract truths of philosophy . Religion used images such as Father , Son and Holy Spirit to convey to the less educated and less able a sense of the dialectic , the logical foundation of the ...
... less ' real ' , less ' true ' and thus less ' relevant ' . On the other hand , in certain contexts we reward people for their imagination : ' That was a very imaginative solution to the problem ' ' That was very intuitive of you ...
... less easy to spot and sometimes dwelt ' within ' , the mission of the hero was far less clear cut . It was during these more cynical times that the super powered vigilante came into its own , a hero that operated outside the law and ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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