Hero and their Nemesis Research

Our next Contextual Studies assignment was to create a presentation in a group on the representation on certain characters or environments and how they differ from east to west. Some discussion with my group, Juliette Deforges, Jack Eastoe and Liam Gallagher-Vaes, we decided a good topic would be Heroes and their Nemeses i.e. an opposing (probably evil) person/god/creature that is more or less equal in power to them. We then divided up areas of history between the group, Jack taking between 1900-ish to around 1990, Liam taking between 1990 to present day and me and Juliette taking between 1900 to around 2000 BC.

Something I discovered very quickly during my research was that the good and evil duality commonly taken on-board by people today is a relativley new concept seeming to originate from some forms of monothiestic thinking, "If God is all good and there are bad things in the world there must be a source of pure evil". It is from this that the idea of Satan arose and with it ideals about definitive good and definitive bad (evil). In the west, this can be seen in the stories, myths and legends of the polytheistic cultures. For example, Hercules' nemesis would have been Hera, Zeus' wife and sister, who killed Hercules' family and, through a king, put Hercules through many trials in an attempt to better him. However, Hera is not evil. Like most of the ancient and classical greek deities, they had both good and bad traits. Demi-Gods seeming to be the only ones with more good traits than bad. When we look at a post-christian story, George and the Dragon, we see that the Dragon is a definite symbol of evil, possessing only bad traits, George and his christianity being pure good.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, in Old Norse culture for example giants, trolls and other varients of monsters are feared and the "Bringers of Ragnarok", an event similar to Revalations, showing a definite belief in what is good and what is evil. In this same culture, it is believed that the sun and moon are chased around the sky by "The Spawn of Fenrir", two huge wolves who will eventually devour the sun and moon, bringing about the age of Ragnarok. This shows a more modern representation of nemesis duality, good vs. evil.

In the East a very different stance is taken on the duality of the universe. One of these is the concept of Yin and Yang, which are seen as light and dark not good and evil. It is believed in Taoism that the two must be in balance at all times, if they are not in balance they will eventually balance themselves out over time "like a stone in a pond, the water peaks and troughs but balance is soon restored". This sort of thinking effects how their characters are potrayed. The story "Journey to the West" is the far eastern equivalent of the Illiad in cultural impact and it's main hero, the Monkey King or Sun Wukong, although essentially good, has been restrained from violence and controlled with a magic ring around his head. Similarly, all of the enemies in the story, demons and spirits, are not evil but lazy. They attack the protagonists of the story because they believe eating their flesh will grant them immortality, which seems easier to them than perform a good or pure act that would also grant them immortality.
Another difference in the representation of these characters is that there is no real nemesis. The characters are never in any more danger than they can handle with relative ease. As opposed to other western characters such as Achilles who has an obvious weakness (his heel) and powerful enemies which eventually kill him. This means The Monkey King cannot have a nemesis, since noone is a match for him. However, it has been suggested that Buddah puts them through the trials on their journey to bring them closer to enlightenment. This would make Buddah the closest thing to a nemesis.