https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=zKoQMzq-OU0
The notion of this of the superhero as a guardian is quite appropriate. A guardian stands on the wall, right? Stands on the limit, protects the city. And so in this way the hero is very much akin to to to to liminal symbolism, to symbolism of the margin. Like a wall or a weapon is a manifestation of what happens on the margin. And in fact the hero usually is not normal. The hero is not a proper extension of the center, let’s say. Not a proper extension of identity. Rather the hero is an exception. And being an exception, that exception manifests itself in ways which reflect the quality of a margin. So Superman is an alien. Wonder Woman is an Amazon. Aquaman is from Atlantis. And so many others of the superhero types are born from accidents. They’re freaks, right? Like Dr. Manhattan or Hulk. And so many of the superheroes, they suggest a type of hybridity, right? The type of hybridity that happens on the margin. On the place where two categories meet. That’s where hybridity begins to occur. And so we can see that in the names of the superheroes like Batman, Spider-Man, etc. etc. Not just a man, but a something man. And usually that’s something, let’s say it’s an animal or it’s a power or it’s some something strange, let’s say. And the heroes in antiquity, the heroes of mythology, you know, of the pre-christian world were also these hybrid things. They were usually demigods, right? Ambiguous hybrid beings that stand between world. Heracles, Achilles. But we also see that in the Bible in the pre-deluvian giants, right? They were called men of renown and were known for their extraordinary feats. And they were born of the miscegenation between the sons of God and the daughters of men. Whatever you think that means. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is to understand that they are this last generation before the end of a world. This limit of the world. And being at the end of the world before its destruction, they appear as this mixture of categories. As a place where the categories begin to fall apart. And the biblical giants, they also remind us that the superhero usually is a mirror reflection of the super villain, let’s say. Like two sides of a coin or rather two sides of a wall. And that sometimes the difference between what’s on one side of the wall and what’s on the other isn’t that obvious. And that was certainly the case in antiquity. A great modern example is the figure of Hellboy, who defends the world from evil but is basically a demon who crossed over from hell. And in the end it is said that he will be the cause of the end of the world itself. And so he remains ambiguous throughout his story. The recent Suicide Squad movie was a perfect example of this. Now in the Guardian of the Galaxy the characters exhibit this in-between nature. This ambiguity of the margin. We’re so used to the trope of like a rag-tab gathering of contradictory figures. Weirdos, outsiders, criminal loners, all these these these kind of these chaotic characters coming together. That we were so used to seeing it now as a trope in stories that we we probably don’t ask ourselves what that is, what that means. So the basic superhero story usually, let’s say the one that comes to mind if we think right away of a basic superhero story, that we could say the most archetypal story would be this notion that there is a threat from the periphery. There’s a something from the margin which threatens the center. Something monstrous is attacking. So think of Independence Day, think of Pacific Rim, and those types of movies of this invading outer, this invading stranger, this invading alien that comes and the hero saves us from that thing. If the movie is a bit subtle, the superhero or the hero in general will have some link, will have some relationship of identity or of causality with that bad thing that’s coming. Now think for example of Superman who saves the world from General Zod, who also comes from his world. Think of the X-Men who have to save the world from Magneto and other mutants who are just like them. So now because the superhero is an in-between character, he can also sometimes defend the world not from the outside threat, but from the dangers and the pathologies of the center itself. Or sometimes the hero can defend the world from both extremes at the same time. What made the X-Men movies so interesting for example is that the X-Men are trying to defend the world from bad mutants who are like them. Those bad mutants want to destroy the center, let’s say they want to destroy the normies, and then the X-Men are also protecting the mutants from those normies, from those in the center who fear and are disgusted by the mutants because they’re dangerous freaks. you