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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... significant to our existence , the sheer fact of a thing is seldom sufficient for us . That a thing is is rarely as important as why a thing is . Even very young children do not put up with ' just because ' for long , they very quickly ...
... significant threat to religious epistemology . Of course , while Kant saw this as a way of avoiding scepticism and establishing order he was never able to demonstrate why each individual's reason should operate in the same way , nor ...
... significant , the universal or the particular , has been an ongoing one since at least the time of Plato and Aristotle . 11. cf. Chapter 2 , pp.39-40 . 12. cf. especially Star Wars Episode 3 : Revenge of the Sith . 13. Moorcock ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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