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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... seems all but beyond hope . Dark armies roam the lands murdering , pillaging and destroy- ing . The evil of Sauron and his forces is depicted as utterly irredeemable , from his nine Nazgul lieutenants to the lowliest of Orc foot ...
... seem to express a fundamental truth about the nature of our world . Sadly it would seem , and all things being equal ... seems to me that a point is inevitably reached when an in- dividual , or group of individuals , no longer feel ...
... seems to me that at the very heart of the notion of the villain is a refusal to submit to the social contract – for whatever reason and a wilful attempt at exploiting the fact that the rest of society chooses to be bound by it . The ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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