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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... perspective on the world , implicitly ( at least ) throwing doubt on the role and value of imagination . The quest for certainty It seems to me that our culture has developed a level of dys- function with regard to our need for variety ...
... perspective on human nature , whether out of fear or the desire for control over the masses , has been extra- ordinarily influential throughout Western cultural history . The notion that only reason , backed - up by the human will ...
... perspective engenders in him a profound indifference to other ' lesser ' species in spite of the fact that he was originally very much like we are . At a rather more mundane level this could be likened to the person who forgets his ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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