Four Horseman Archetypes

In literature, there are many archetypes including temptress, hero, trickster, transgressor, and many more, major and minor. One of the most prominent of these literary devices is the destroyer, who is usually the antagonist, who has an unquenchable thirst to kill, and avenge whatever wrongs they have received in the past. The destroyer in modern day literature is most often described as having the basic instinct to kill everyone and everything from the moment it is birthed, or it is wronged, and is best portrayed by such villains as The Chimera, The Apocalyptic Horseman, and Bane. The Chimera is one of the most feared creatures in all of Greek history, causing fiery devastation and deaths in whatever lands it occupied at that time. The Chimera,

The horsemen are described as beings whose entirety of their existence is to destroy all sinners and non believers of Christ in their way, in God’s name. There are four different colors for the four horsemen, representing different aspects of the second coming of Jesus Christ, corresponding to their colors. The first horseman, the color white, kills all non believers in Christianity, and all humans who do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In some instances it is thought that the white horseman is a representation of the Messiah himself, with a crown to represent his conquering of sinners, and a bow and quiver of arrows to represent his military power against all believers in other gods and Anti-Christs (Crier). The second horseman, red, is said to be symbolic of the blood shed during wars, and is permitted to eliminate all peaceful affairs and treaties from Earth, causing nations of men not committed to Christ to kill each other one by one, until all men are deceased, or to a point of no return. To help with the effort of taking peace permanently from the world, a third horseman, of the color black, was created to spread earthquakes throughout the lands, causing inflation in nations, famines through rising cost in food, and a larger separation between rich and poor, which often leads to civil wars, or stronger conquering nations to invade (Crier). The final horseman, the pale

In the box office hit Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, Bane plays the main antagonist, who uses his physical strength and mental wits to bring Gotham City, as well as the seemingly untouchable Batman, to their knees. Before his eventual rise to power Bane escapes his childhood prison, Pena Dura, or “Hard Rock”, where he was serving his absent father’s life sentence for revolutionary charges. When he was little, Bane had nightmares of a “Bat-like” demon, which meant that when his journey took him to Gotham City, it was probably not to defeat Batman himself, but to vanquish his childhood tormentor, or at least representation of it (Peaty). Throughout the movie Bane uses his will to kill to senselessly beat and terrorize Batman, cops, and civilians alike with anything from his bare fists, to bombs the size of football fields. He snaps batman like a twig, and then forces him into the same prison that Bane himself was once in, and although he eventually escapes, it takes years of training to heal his back and escape (Dark). There is no end to the pain, destruction, and mayhem Bane caused in the world of Gotham. He is one of Batman’s most formidable arch nemeses, and the single villain to bring Gotham City to its knees. He is truly a