(Writing Talk is a type of short-for article centered around conversations about various aspects of writing/authorship. These aren’t usually long reads, but I think it’s fun to jot down some of my thoughts about the writing process as someone who loves the art of it all.)
Last time we did a Writing Talk article, we discussed the ways in which you, as an author/creator, should handle the death of characters in a narrative. However, what you might not have realized while reading that article, is that the majority of examples I used were in reference to protagonists and supporting characters. This is because I have my own views on how villains should meet their fates, and wanted to do an entire article just on that topic.
That’s because, by and large, I feel that antagonists should die at the end of the narrative, end of conversation…with a few key exceptions. Let’s discuss.
See, in my opinion, the majority of cathartic story endings come upon the finality of death of the villain. And this isn’t me trying to be aggressively bloodthirsty or something. I mean, it’s not like it’s just me who likes to see the villain die at the end. I bet if you tried to think of your favorite stories (assuming they have villains, that is) the majority would involve the villain dying at the end. Heck, the majority of Disney films end with the villain dying, and those movies are meant to be for children!
But I think it’ll be easier to explain my point of view if I talk about the exceptions wherein I don’t think a villain should die, as contrary as that might sound. So I’ll break this down into a few major talking points.
FIRSTLY, the villain shouldn’t die if their entire motivation revolves around nihilistic death-seeking. Or, perhaps it’s better to say that their death shouldn’t come as a reaction of their philosophy.
Let’s look at Jin from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Or, if you prefer, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. All these edgy silver-haired villains are the same. Point is, Jin’s entire plan is just to destroy the entire world. He’s tired of existence, he’s tired of other people, and so he just wants to end everything. So, in essence, his goal is to die. He might also want to take the world down with him, but his own death is still one of his stated goals.
And so that being said, granting him death would be, in effect, allowing the villain to win. And while there’s a time and place for stories where the bad guys triumph, that isn’t generally how you want your story to go, broadly and statistically speaking. Most commonly, the good guys win, you know? And so in a story like this, even if the world is saved and the villain stopped, if their ‘stoppage’ is dying, it can still leave your audience feeling like, to some extent, the villain won in the end.
Of course, exceptions to this exception exist, as evidenced by Jin himself. Jin ends up eventually being convinced that life is worth protecting, and he redeems himself by sacrificing himself to stop an even worse villain. And so while he still dies, that nihilistic philosophy no longer applied since his goals had changed. In fact, his outcome is entirely reversed, as now instead of embracing death to seek finality and darkness, he’s able to be welcomed into the afterlife to join his lost love. What was once a poor choice to kill off a villain has now become a profound ending. I’ll elaborate more on this later.
SECONDLY, the villain shouldn’t die if the theme of the story focuses on the protagonist’s desire for revenge, and their inevitable realization that revenge is a cycle that needs to be broken. This one should obviously make sense.
For this one, let’s look at one of my absolute favorite uses of this exception, T’Challa’s quest for vengeance against Zemo in Captain America: Civil War. T’Challa spends the majority of Civil War almost as it’s secondary antagonist, as he hunts down Bucky Barnes (believing him to be the killer of his father), and he pivots to Zemo once he recognizes the true threat. He is utterly consumed by his desire for revenge…only to stumble upon Zemo and recognize that Zemo is a broken and pitiable man whose own desire for vengeance led him to ruin. Recognizing a dark reflection of himself, T’Challa makes the conscious decision to stop letting vengeance consume him, and he arrests Zemo instead of killing him.
Realistically, this is how all good revenge stories should end. Sometimes I’ll permit a little bit of fun just so long as the story doesn’t try to argue the theme that revenge is good (John Wick movies are just silly little action flicks, after all), but by and large revenge stories should end with the protagonist recognizing that revenge is self-destructive and must be stopped. So, again to obviously reiterate, the villain shouldn’t die in a story like this, and if they do it needs to be their fault and not our hero’s.
THIRDLY, the villain might not need to die if redemption is a major part of their character arc. This doesn’t mean that plenty of villains don’t redeem themselves through their deaths, but plenty face redemption and live to better themselves, which I think is totally fine.
Because I don’t want to pass up the chance to talk about one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies of all time, I’ll use GI Joe: Rise of Cobra as my example for this one. In that film, the Baroness is one of the lead villains for the majority of the film’s runtime, and she does some pretty heinous things. However, not only was she sort of being half-mind controlled and half-blackmailed into her actions, but she also eventually chooses to abandon her evil brother for the sake of her love for our hero instead. And in the final action scenes of the film, she’s essential in getting our hero to safety and taking down the other big bad, then goes on to live out her sentence in prison atoning for her crimes.
On the flip-side, we have a villain like (who else could I mention here) Darth Vader. One of the most infamous baddies of all time…and yet when the cards are down, he chooses his son and the hope he represents over the evil of the Emperor and the Dark Side. He renounces his evil ways by killing the emperor, but in turn taking a lethal amount of damage from the Emperor’s lightning. And so while he is still a villain who dies, that sense of fist-pumping catharsis that often comes from seeing a villain die is instead replaced by sadness at the loss of someone who had just begun to turn their life around, the recognition of a pitiable soul who selflessly gave their life for redemption in the end.
I’ve always been someone who loves to see selfless actions and seeking atonement/forgiveness in literature, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I think this is a suitable exception for villains not dying at the end of a story. Second chances are something I believe in strongly, so if your story has appropriately set this up, I fully support allowing your villain to live. After all, they really aren’t even a villain at this point!
FINALLY, the villain is allowed to stay alive if the author has a specific purpose for them in mind, like in a follow-up story or a sequel. I will warn, though, that this one can get tricky.
Let’s look at Mission Impossible, and how they handle Solomon Lane. Lane is the big bad in Rogue Nation, and he gets taken down nonlethally at the end. Fantastic scene, but for a while it didn’t sit right with me that he lived because I couldn’t see what the narrative purpose was. However, he then returns as the co-antagonist of Fallout, and the bigger picture became clear. It’s the same director for both films, after all, so it was all a part of the bigger scheme. And, while I’m at it, I’ll point out that Lane lives through Fallout too, but because part of his plan in that movie is to die, the heroes denying him that chance fulfills one of my earlier exceptions, so it all still works out in my book.
But, like I said, this one gets tricky. Have your villain survive too many times, and the character just becomes a non-threat and a joke. Your audience will stop taking them seriously if they just keep living without clear narrative purpose. Real life can also affect this, such as with Joker from The Dark Knight (who was meant to show up in the sequel, but then Heath Ledger passed away, so the character was left in limbo with an unfinished arc). Overall, I’d rely on this exception the least when looking for a reason to spare the villain in your story.
So, with those exceptions out of the way, does that mean that I’m some sort of bloodthirsty fiend who wants all these villains to die at the end of stories? Not true! I will again stress that the death of a villain isn’t meant to evoke some sick pleasure. It’s meant to bring about narrative catharsis and a sense of finality to the story.
And hey, there’s plenty of ways to still get that sense of cathartic finality of a villain dying without dirtying the hands of the hero or shoehorning in unnecessary bloodshed, if that’s a concern.
Look at Beauty and the Beast or Tarzan. In both of those films, the villain essentially kills themselves because of their greed and blind rage. Or look at Lion King, where the villain is killed off by another villain in order to face comeuppance. Or turn to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, where the villain (Count Dooku, in this case) is killed by the hero but only because the hero isn’t in their right mind and is being manipulated. Or check out Dragon Ball Z, where Goku gives Frieza the chance to run, but then has to kill him in justifiable self-defense when the cruel warlord wastes his chance and takes a cheap shot. Or Iron Man 3, which has a secondary character deal the finishing blow with Piper ending Killian’s reign of terror.
With all this rambling out of the way, I think what I’m really trying to say is that I’ve never heard a compelling argument for keeping a villain alive that doesn’t adhere to one of those exceptions I listed. Outside of those exceptions, I just genuinely feel like the most narratively satisfying way to end a story is with the villain dying. It doesn’t really matter who deals the finishing blow, or what the circumstances are behind it. I just really feel like that’s the most impactful way to create that cathartic feeling of finality.
(And as a final clarifying point, all of the above relates to traditional stories wherein the heroes win. Obviously, sometimes in stories the villain wins, and in those cases these above rules and exceptions about villains dying do not apply, of course.)
Keep on writing, friends!
The Contrarian Corner 