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The Evolution of the Hero and the Villain
Čabartová, Kristýna ; Clark, Colin Steele (advisor) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
Thesis Abstract - English The thesis aimed to identify changes in the character of the hero and the villain and to determine the socio-cultural factors which influence them (religion, feminism, globalization and capitalism), with specific focus on the trends which merge distinctive qualities of heroes and villains and reduce their differences to a point where the reader's sympathies shift from the hero to the villain or until they are indistinguishable from each other. The hypothesis was that moral relativism, whose popularity expanded during globalization, was the most significant factor in the current merging qualities of heroes and villains. Due to the great number of factors, the focus was mainly on the analysis of influences present in the twenty-first century, and only briefly outlined their historical evolution. The primary focus was on modern cross-over fantasy (mainly high fantasy) with stress on the main characters, analyzing the changes in their description, qualities and the way their behavior is portrayed, while attempting to explore the respective sociological reasons behind them. The first chapter provided definitions of the term fantasy and characterized the hero and the villain, reaching the conclusion that these terms are continually evolving and, in the era of modern fantasy, became too...
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