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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... reason and natural science had to offer in place of traditional religious and metaphysical authorities . In his most famous work The Critique of Pure Reason he argues that what we called the absolute laws of nature , for example , cause ...
... Reason is withdrawn . Then the wild Beast in us , full - fed with meat and drink , becomes rampant and shakes off sleep to go in quest of what will gratify its own instincts . As you know , it will cast off all shame and prudence at ...
... reason is no longer fully in charge . Francisco Goya's famous late eighteenth - century etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters can be seen as reflecting this notion , that only conscious reason holds back the demons and monsters ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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