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. |
From inside the book
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... story and song were deployed as meaningful ways of describing the world in which we found ourselves and were ... stories in the book of Genesis along with the poetic material found in the Song of Songs and the Psalms ; the stories ...
... story and myth are often dealt with in our culture : ' You just imagined it ' ' She has an over - active imagination ' ' That's just an image , not the real thing ' ' That is purely speculative ' ' That isn't real , it's just a story ...
... story simply running through the average day of the city's Superman figure , Samaritan . It opens with the words : In my dreams I fly . I soar unfettered and serene , laughing at gravity and at care . The clouds embrace me as a friend ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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