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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The hero takes the more dangerous path , the one that always runs the risk of self
- destruction as a consequence of self ... In Kurt Busiek ' s justly praised Astro City
comic series there is a short story simply running through the average day of ...
In one scene we see a group of Martians pursuing some fleeing humans and
while firing on them with their ray guns you hear them calling out ' Don ' t run , we
are your friends ! Much has been made of the so - called Führer principle as a ...
I want to run , run like hell , to crawl into a cave somewhere and forget about
Goldie and Lucille and silent , deadly Kevin . Roark . Damn it . I ' m as good as
dead . I ' m as good as dead . And its not that I ' m any kind of hero that makes me
stay .
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Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 35 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Heroes and Villains |
| Author | Mike Alsford |
| Publisher | Baylor University Press, 2006 |
| Original from | the University of California |
| Digitized | 7 Feb 2008 |
| ISBN | 1932792929, 9781932792928 |
| Length | 158 pages |
| Subjects | › Philosophy / Good & Evil Social Science / Popular Culture |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |