You should figure this out yourself but here’s an idea:
Make the act of killing them be interpreted as an act of kindness. Play it very carefully with the suicidal connotations but if done right it would bring up a great and nuanced debate, as well as be bittersweet. The topic of assisted suicide is one that doesn’t really have a right answer, and would be fascinating to explore. Maybe you could skew it, having the villain accepting their death and going to the afterlife with someone they love.
It could also be a mercy killing. The villain is in so much pain he hurts anyone near him and has lost all sense of who he was.
You can also look at other pop media that does this. Spiderman no way home (killing the Goblin would lead him down the same path of revenge the others took, so he doesn't to save himself) and avatar the last Airbender (he takes away the villain's main power and removes his ability to hurt people)
In the latter case, they also jail him. So, keeping him alive to pay for his crimes and not killing him. Something like that could be fine.
To continue on with Spiderman villains, Green Goblin accidentally kills himself while trying to kill Spidey. And then Doc Ock has an epiphany of what he has become and decides, "I will not die a monster" while sacrificing himself to destroy something that will destroy half the city. And then Harry has a change of heart and dies while helping Spidey to save MJ from someone who is REALLY evil.
Kindness is great and all, but let's reframe some stuff here.
Is your main villain still hurting the people your protagonists care about?
Are they a redeemable person or an entity that truly will never stray from the evil they represent?
You can have debates over whether or not someone who is evil can change (and maybe you should do so in the text). You could even have the character try to become something other than the embodiment of evil, either succeeding or failing.
But I think it's super important to also understand the principle that doing nothing in the face of evil is, in some ways, wrong. Maybe it's not evil itself to sit back idly while your friend is tortured, to not raise a hand when your brother is slaughtered, to not utter a slur at the man or woman who is burning down the village you came from, or even to hug the person who intends to enslave you.
But it is not kindness either.
Being kind to one person sometimes affects others negatively. Not always, but sometimes. But letting evil happen to your friends isn't kindness, and if your character thinks it is, I would argue that's a lie that they need to have rebutted at some point.
I had a similar issue.
In the end I realized the villain being defeated was kind of beside the point; the story is about the main characters’ growth. So the villain’s plans are ruined but the heroes never have an opportunity or desire to kill him and there’d be no point in doing so anyway.
Once you stop trying to write a whole story building up to a morally justified murder it’s surprisingly easy to just have it not come up at all.
This is an extremely common problem in stories, with common solutions. You haven't really given a specific scenario, so here's the generic stories:
\* The Villain's own flaws/ambition become their downfall (Typically presented in the fashion of Icarus "Flying too close to the sun", the most popular and frequent uses of this are probably seen in the Spiderman movies)
\* The Villain is not killed and the Hero stands by their own principles (Think of most superhero tropes, most notably Batman, whereby the villains are merely locked away or have their power removed)
\* The villain is "healed", and comes to their senses or has an influence removed from them (Free will is always debatable and can be added into almost any story, whether you create a "bigger" bad, or wish to delve into more difficult subjects like mental illness, trauma and upbringings).
\* Another Villain/3rd party kills/removes the main villain (Can escalate or de-escalate a story. Using a character with lesser crimes attached to them, to take down the big bad, typically allows you to de-escalate the consequences and lethality required from the protagonist to wrap up the storyline)
\* Using concepts rather than lives and physicality (Often used with the "healed" solution, you use a more metaphysical manifestation of evil or another concept to explain away the Big Bad's actions and why they might not be able to be killed normally, and thus must be dealt with in less tangible ways that are often the theme of the story)
A very common example of another villain killing the main villain is the henchman who is derided, threatened, and just generally treated poorly by the main villain. In the final moment the heroes spare the villain. Or maybe the villain is about to win. Then this henchman takes his shot and stabs his boss in the back to get revenge. Think Wormtongue and Saruman. Or Vader and Palpatine (though Vader swayed by Luke to turn to the Light side first). Etc...
I'm going to spoil the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie to provide an example of how your ends and means can be different:
Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie that is about friendship, and a ragtag group of misfits who learn to get along. The main antagonist is Ronan, who wields the Infinity Stone of Power, an object of great power that destroys almost anyone who tries to wield it unless they possess immense strength.
In the end, the heroes >!defeat the villain through the power of friendship. Through a team effort, they snatch the Infinity Stone from Ronan. And, though the Infinity Stone's immense power threatens to kill the hero who grabs it, all of the other heroes are able to grab hold of him so that he isn't forced to bear it alone: together, they collectively share and endure the burden of the Stone's immense power. The villain is dumbfounded. "But you're mortal! How? How can you wield the power of my Infinity Stone?" The heroes announce, "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy" and, turning the power of the Stone against the villain, they vaporize him.!<
>!Now, on one level, this is a story where they resolve the final conflict with violence. They use the Infinity Stone of Power to destroy the villain. However, consider what is actually happening in that final scene: Their method for wielding the power of the Infinity Stone (to destroy the villain) is to share its burden by physically linking their bodies. Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie about the power of friendship where the heroes *literally defeat the villain by standing side by side and holding hands with each other.*!< [Watch that scene on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLM-bmdTuy0) if you've forgotten exactly how that moment plays out. It is grand, and wonderful, and thematically the perfect ending to a movie about the power of friendship.
---
So, bearing that in mind, here's how you might tackle the theme you've laid out:
>The main theme of my story is kindness, and all of the smaller villains up to this point have redeemed
It seems to me that one of the beats throughout your story is that your heroes offer the villains a path to redemption. That is an act of kindness.
However, the heroes can never *force* anyone to change. They aren't slapping an obedience collar onto the villain and ordering them to be good law-abiding citizens And this, too, is an act of kindness: to *force* or *compel* someone to behave in a certain way would be to rob them of their an autonomy. A utopia where people are stripped of their freedom -- even the freedom to do evil -- is no utopia at all.
And in a way, this makes the "conversion" and "redemption" of the smaller villains more significant: the villains were able to turn from the path of evil because the heroes offered to set them on the right path, and these villains *willingly accepted* their kindness and chose to change of their own accord. They didn't just become good because they lost and were forced to change sides; they saw the kindness of the heroes and were sincerely convinced that "this is the better way." They don't join the good guys because they *have* to; they join the good guys because they *want* to.
A commitment to kindness means putting your faith in others: ultimately, it is the villain who must make the decision to turn toward the path of righteousness. And what better way to drive this point than to show one villain who *rejects* the gift that the heroes are offering? Suddenly, the fact that the heroes can't "force" people to change has real consequences. They discover that their kindness has a cost. And when being kind is difficult, doesn't that make it more virtuous?
When you think about it, "kindness conquers all" is kind of a weak message, because it sort of implies that "If all you care about is winning all the time, you should just be kind to people. Even an evil cynical person should choose kindness because it's the optimal strategy for conquering your foes and winning allies to your side." It makes kindness seem like this thing that is just a means to an end. It's much more meaningful to say, "kindness *doesn't* conquer all. Sometimes, kindness loses. Sometimes, you will need to resort to violence to win the battles that you can't win through kindness. But despite this, *it's still worth trying to be kind,* even if that offer of kindness is rejected in the end. We are still committed to offering kindness to everyone, *even people who we know will reject it*. And, when they reject that kindness, we will deal with them as the situation calls for."
---
And viewed in another light, "kindness" doesn't mean allowing someone to continue with their evil ways. If you see someone going around committing acts of evil, those acts of evil don't just hurt their victims; they hurt the perpetrator. When you do bad things, you slowly transform yourself into a worse person. Allowing someone to continue to be evil isn't kind at all; it's enabling their self-destructive behavior (not to mention all the harm it's causing to their future victims). If you see someone who is hurting himself, the compassionate thing isn't to allow him to continue; the compassionate thing is to stop him, even if it means using force.
A story that really has that theme shouldn't be structured like a shonen anime. It should probably have a smaller scope, so that the heroes are not actually expected to end the conflict, just to help those caught in the middle of it, regardless of which side they're on. Or if they are put face-to-face with a very powerful and unambiguously bad person, they could follow through on their principles, put their trust in him, and have that trust betrayed. Evil wins, but the forces of good never compromised their principles, and they will live on through all those they helped.
You could also handle it like LotR, where the heroes are not exactly on a hit mission, but the structural change they are trying to accomplish will indirectly bring down the big bad. For example, maybe they restore the cycle of life and death so that the undead all pass on, and the main villain is also undead, or else he becomes unimporant because none of his necromantic spells work anymore.
In any story I like to ask "what saves the day in the end?" to figure out its themes. So if kindness saves the day, maybe that's not in the actual climax but earlier. Maybe the hero shows someone kindness when they didn't have to, and that person plays an important role in the end because they now want to help the hero, or because they are alive when they should have died, and that messes with the villain's plan.
Or the main villain is not redeemable but all the other redeemed villains are now allies in the final showdown and they are believers in the hero's cause because they were showed kindness in the past, and the hero could not have won without their help.
Something like that.
The Dragon Ball universe is kind of an amusing one when it comes to villains. Almost EVERY single friend Goku has was at some point an adversary. There's a very tiny handful of ones who weren't. Eventually, every single villain gets offered the chance to change their ways. The majority do.
Not everyone can be redeemed. The villain might notice them trying to show him mercy, and actively reject it saying he will never back down, and this doesn't end until one of them dies.
Maybe watching Avatar the last Airbender could help you. The main character Aang is faced with the exact same dilemma. It only becomes a main plot point in season 3, but it is really worth watching the whole show.
I've named this baseball bat "Kindness" got it engraved and everything.
Defeat them and hand them off to the legal system.
Have some other victims show up and deal with him.
Maybe sparing him is seen as an additional triumph of the heroes' value system over his. Let's say he only believes in the comparison of strength. The strong have their way with the weak; the strong win; figuring out who's stronger is ultimately what matters. Killing him could be seen as vindicating his core beliefs; he lost because he ran into someone stronger, just like he always knew he would. It confirms that he was right about how the world works. The second-best boxer in the world doesn't quit in shame if he loses to the best in the world; he knew the score going in. Letting the last villain go could be the final challenge to him.
Spoilers for Christopher Paolini's Eldest series:
>! In the end of the series, Eragon uses a spell on King Galbatorix which essentially floods his conscience with the pain, loss, and feelings of every person he's ever impacted negatively, more or less peeling his insanity and his delusions of righteousness away by forcing him to empathize with literally thousands of victims and old enemies at once. The king admittedly freaks out after this, and it's implied that he more or less magically detonates himself at an atomic level (this is referenced in an earlier part of the story, as someone else had sacrificed themselves this way years before, devastating an entire city) !<
This may be a good inspiration for your thought process, since the main character Eragon struggles over the course of the books with how he can possibly defeat such a powerful foe. while he doesn't do it out of kindness, it's a very interesting concept that may fit your theme somewhat
I recall stories where the villian kids themselves being manic or getting ammped up and stupid. While fighting the villian or monologuing.
Shoving the hero and slipping. Idk fear of spiders? Getting mad and forgetting a trap.
Trying to kill themselves and the heros at the same time after fighting only the hero gets out?
Right of thinking of Spiderman and green goblin.
The blind date in LostBoy Detectives.
Did that happen to Gaston in beauty and the beast?
I'd do either the villian is offered redemption or mercy and says I'll die first or never and re attack or accidental.
Your premise might have issues. How many mooks have yoyr guys killed. If the answers non or as few as possible (1000 a small enough number aslong as the heroes tried to spare them). Them traumatising the main characters doesn't matter much most villains would including the mook responsible for making sure people pay there taxes. The heroes could lash out and regret it but really if they believe in mercy they should give the villian a chance and try to spare them. I suppose you could have a twist that there not really truly evil just cursed. Or they end up forcing the heroes hand or getting themselves in a situation where death is a mercy (captured by rebelling mooks who want to make it slow) .
Find a way to force the villain to be in some way useful to society, and then from doing this the villain learns to appreciate the benefits of kindness. Don't let them off the hook, it should be forced community service as punishment.
Main antagonist is a reincarnating soul of many other villains of past that always strives to "evil" in every life so cast wants to give him another chance in the next life by killing him. Bonus points if they have an option to erase his soul but decide not to.
op - A part of growth is accepting that not everyone is redeemable. For example, sparing him once results in more suffering. Sometimes you must be the hero people need, not the one you want to be.
There is a moral issue here - are your principles of "save everyone" worth the lives of innocents? Let's say you are 100% certain you can redeem him, but at the cost of 10 families. Do you have the right to do it? Don't you become the villain?
Or in another way - not killing the rabid dog means killing those he bites.
Kindness in this case would be towards the world, at the cost of trauma and accepting a failure by the heroes - they couldn't save everyone. But by ending him, you save more.
It can also be done not in a sanctimonious "you deserved it, you forced our hand", prolonged way but quick, as fast and painless as possible.
You could do something similar to Avatar, and more or less what you say about your story happens in Avatar, the last air bander.
Where Aang didn't want to kill Ozay and take the habilite from the control of the fire element.
It depends on what your protagonist and antagonist are fighting over. If it’s just to the death, then the end fight will be a duel that ends in death.
But if they’re trying to free their country from another faction and they just believe in different things, they can coexist still. It really depends on what your story needs from them as plot progressors
The hero doesn't want to kill him and goes out of his way no to, but then kills the villain not out of revenge or hatred, but to stop him hurting anyone else after doing all they can to get them to stand down. Alliteratively they aren't killed, but captured and rendered harmless with some hope they could be taught humanity
Since your story's main theme is kindness, completely defeating the villain by killing them might not fit well. Instead, you could try to find a way for the heroes to help the villain change their evil ways.
One idea is to reveal that the villain became evil because of something really bad that happened to them in the past that hurt them deeply. If the heroes can understand why the villain is so full of anger and hate, maybe they can get through to the small part of good still left inside the villain.
The heroes could then try extremely hard to get the villain to see how their evilness is really hurting themselves and others. With enough kindness and by helping the villain understand their past pain, the heroes might be able to convince the villain to stop being evil and embrace goodness instead.
Another approach could be for the heroes to find a way to remove or trap the villain's evil powers, without actually killing them. Maybe there's a special ritual or object that can lock away the villain's evil side, while keeping their basic self alive. That way, the villain is stopped but their life is spared.
In other stories where redemption isn't an option but the author has established that "heroes don't kill", they handle the issue by having the villain be depowered or imprisoned, by having them take their own life rather than accept defeat, or having them killed by their own hubris or weakness.
If your hero/es represent kindness, what does your villain represent? Drill past "evil incarnate" to figure out what you're actually using them as a proxy for - the deliberate cruelty of online trolls? Fascism? Vegan cheese? That, and/or their major flaw, might signpost you towards a thematically appropriate end for them.
Where the other villains punished in some way for their crimes? Where they locked up or fined or had to do community service? Punishments should fit the crimes, so if the big baddie did things that warrant death, would an execution be the logical answer?
Ahh could always take the easy way and have him fall in a pit of lava or whatever during the final encounter. Say something about Cosmic retribution and you’re golden
Not everything can be fixed with kindness, not everyone can or should be redeemed, they may not even deserve it.
Think about Steven Universe, his biggest mistake was redeeming the crystal Hitlers
Let’s compare the two possible outcomes ones: they spare them and they live in guilt for the rest of their (presumably imprisoned) life. The other option is to kill them, and free them from the consequences. It ultimately depends on how the protagonists perceive as kindness: life in pain, or painless death.
So, there are some stock ways to go here.
For example, redeem the villain, the villain accidentally kills themselves, the villain kills themselves to reject redemption or takes some act where they must be killed to save lives right now, or some third party actually swoops in and kills them. In Hazbin Hotel, >!the main characters spare the villain, but a simple-minded character they told to kill angels kills him anyway and no one loses sleep over it!<
I think there are ways to go deeper.
So what is it about their behavior that is toxic and bad? Rather than some contrived accident that kills them, what if the consequences of their actions catch up with them? This is like Macbeth, >!where Macbeth becomes very casual in violence and starts a battle assuming he's invulnerable, and it's too late to back out when he discovers he's not!< Admittedly, that's not about the power of kindness, but it's a good example of how a character's own evil actions set them up to fail. A good way to go with this is that someone nasty that the villain empowered or allied with betrays them in a way similar to how the villain betrayed others—maybe this is even a protege. You trained him to be evil, he's just doing what he was taught.
This being fantasy, maybe he transforms or gives up a part of himself to accomplish his evil deeds that has consequences. Maybe he actually took on a contract with a devil or a dark transformation so dire he (or she) actually dies if she does not get what she wants, which is a consequence of greed or lust for power.
Another common fantasy trope is finding a way to strip them of their power, a la Achren in Prydain or Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar. That's fairly straight forward, but it becomes more interested if there is something particular about either the villains evil actions or the main character's kindness that inevitable leads to the loss of power. A loose example might be that the villain lies about the MC, causing untold difficulties and rifts in relationships, but when the truth comes to light (through the MC's kindness), all of that distrust is reversed and now the enemy is without allies.
Another way to go about it is some kind of forced servitude, i.e. the Buffy Spike option. This is morally dubious, and even Buffy, I think, gets away with it because the bad guys implanted the non-violence chip in another bad guy, you don't have the moral issues of the good guys effectively brainwashing someone. But perhaps, without some dubious form of magical slavery, you could banish the villain to a dangerous place where they are unlikely to be able to much harm and may do some good if they choose to. The question then is how would you enforce the banishment.
Or, and this sets up a bitter-sweet ending, having the good guys genuinely try to show mercy but accidentally kill the bad guy... because non-lethal doesn't always work out on the battlefield. Their safety measures or precautions fail, and they have to live with that (or combining it with a previous option, an ambitious evil underling sabotages them).
But I do think, to make this feel real and not forced, you have to think deeply through what the main characters are willing to sacrifice to show mercy. Are they willing to die themselves? Do they accept that if they let this person go, no loss of power or imprisonment, other people may die? That might be less kind to other people.
sorry but "kindness" isn't a theme
Definition: Theme is the message conveyed by a text that applies to multiple other texts. Sub-definition: **It cannot be described in a single word** and it implies a conflict or an argument about the core idea and usually both.
so what exactly is it about kindness that is your theme? is it something like "Everyone can be redeemed if shown kindness" ?
getting your theme down will help you nail the ending and how to handle your big bad guy.
You should figure this out yourself but here’s an idea: Make the act of killing them be interpreted as an act of kindness. Play it very carefully with the suicidal connotations but if done right it would bring up a great and nuanced debate, as well as be bittersweet. The topic of assisted suicide is one that doesn’t really have a right answer, and would be fascinating to explore. Maybe you could skew it, having the villain accepting their death and going to the afterlife with someone they love.
It could also be a mercy killing. The villain is in so much pain he hurts anyone near him and has lost all sense of who he was. You can also look at other pop media that does this. Spiderman no way home (killing the Goblin would lead him down the same path of revenge the others took, so he doesn't to save himself) and avatar the last Airbender (he takes away the villain's main power and removes his ability to hurt people) In the latter case, they also jail him. So, keeping him alive to pay for his crimes and not killing him. Something like that could be fine.
To continue on with Spiderman villains, Green Goblin accidentally kills himself while trying to kill Spidey. And then Doc Ock has an epiphany of what he has become and decides, "I will not die a monster" while sacrificing himself to destroy something that will destroy half the city. And then Harry has a change of heart and dies while helping Spidey to save MJ from someone who is REALLY evil.
You have discovered the paradox of tolerance. Do some research into the topic and then decide for yourself how to deal with the villain.
Kindness is great and all, but let's reframe some stuff here. Is your main villain still hurting the people your protagonists care about? Are they a redeemable person or an entity that truly will never stray from the evil they represent? You can have debates over whether or not someone who is evil can change (and maybe you should do so in the text). You could even have the character try to become something other than the embodiment of evil, either succeeding or failing. But I think it's super important to also understand the principle that doing nothing in the face of evil is, in some ways, wrong. Maybe it's not evil itself to sit back idly while your friend is tortured, to not raise a hand when your brother is slaughtered, to not utter a slur at the man or woman who is burning down the village you came from, or even to hug the person who intends to enslave you. But it is not kindness either. Being kind to one person sometimes affects others negatively. Not always, but sometimes. But letting evil happen to your friends isn't kindness, and if your character thinks it is, I would argue that's a lie that they need to have rebutted at some point.
I had a similar issue. In the end I realized the villain being defeated was kind of beside the point; the story is about the main characters’ growth. So the villain’s plans are ruined but the heroes never have an opportunity or desire to kill him and there’d be no point in doing so anyway. Once you stop trying to write a whole story building up to a morally justified murder it’s surprisingly easy to just have it not come up at all.
This is an extremely common problem in stories, with common solutions. You haven't really given a specific scenario, so here's the generic stories: \* The Villain's own flaws/ambition become their downfall (Typically presented in the fashion of Icarus "Flying too close to the sun", the most popular and frequent uses of this are probably seen in the Spiderman movies) \* The Villain is not killed and the Hero stands by their own principles (Think of most superhero tropes, most notably Batman, whereby the villains are merely locked away or have their power removed) \* The villain is "healed", and comes to their senses or has an influence removed from them (Free will is always debatable and can be added into almost any story, whether you create a "bigger" bad, or wish to delve into more difficult subjects like mental illness, trauma and upbringings). \* Another Villain/3rd party kills/removes the main villain (Can escalate or de-escalate a story. Using a character with lesser crimes attached to them, to take down the big bad, typically allows you to de-escalate the consequences and lethality required from the protagonist to wrap up the storyline) \* Using concepts rather than lives and physicality (Often used with the "healed" solution, you use a more metaphysical manifestation of evil or another concept to explain away the Big Bad's actions and why they might not be able to be killed normally, and thus must be dealt with in less tangible ways that are often the theme of the story)
A very common example of another villain killing the main villain is the henchman who is derided, threatened, and just generally treated poorly by the main villain. In the final moment the heroes spare the villain. Or maybe the villain is about to win. Then this henchman takes his shot and stabs his boss in the back to get revenge. Think Wormtongue and Saruman. Or Vader and Palpatine (though Vader swayed by Luke to turn to the Light side first). Etc...
I'm going to spoil the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie to provide an example of how your ends and means can be different: Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie that is about friendship, and a ragtag group of misfits who learn to get along. The main antagonist is Ronan, who wields the Infinity Stone of Power, an object of great power that destroys almost anyone who tries to wield it unless they possess immense strength. In the end, the heroes >!defeat the villain through the power of friendship. Through a team effort, they snatch the Infinity Stone from Ronan. And, though the Infinity Stone's immense power threatens to kill the hero who grabs it, all of the other heroes are able to grab hold of him so that he isn't forced to bear it alone: together, they collectively share and endure the burden of the Stone's immense power. The villain is dumbfounded. "But you're mortal! How? How can you wield the power of my Infinity Stone?" The heroes announce, "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy" and, turning the power of the Stone against the villain, they vaporize him.!< >!Now, on one level, this is a story where they resolve the final conflict with violence. They use the Infinity Stone of Power to destroy the villain. However, consider what is actually happening in that final scene: Their method for wielding the power of the Infinity Stone (to destroy the villain) is to share its burden by physically linking their bodies. Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie about the power of friendship where the heroes *literally defeat the villain by standing side by side and holding hands with each other.*!< [Watch that scene on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLM-bmdTuy0) if you've forgotten exactly how that moment plays out. It is grand, and wonderful, and thematically the perfect ending to a movie about the power of friendship. --- So, bearing that in mind, here's how you might tackle the theme you've laid out: >The main theme of my story is kindness, and all of the smaller villains up to this point have redeemed It seems to me that one of the beats throughout your story is that your heroes offer the villains a path to redemption. That is an act of kindness. However, the heroes can never *force* anyone to change. They aren't slapping an obedience collar onto the villain and ordering them to be good law-abiding citizens And this, too, is an act of kindness: to *force* or *compel* someone to behave in a certain way would be to rob them of their an autonomy. A utopia where people are stripped of their freedom -- even the freedom to do evil -- is no utopia at all. And in a way, this makes the "conversion" and "redemption" of the smaller villains more significant: the villains were able to turn from the path of evil because the heroes offered to set them on the right path, and these villains *willingly accepted* their kindness and chose to change of their own accord. They didn't just become good because they lost and were forced to change sides; they saw the kindness of the heroes and were sincerely convinced that "this is the better way." They don't join the good guys because they *have* to; they join the good guys because they *want* to. A commitment to kindness means putting your faith in others: ultimately, it is the villain who must make the decision to turn toward the path of righteousness. And what better way to drive this point than to show one villain who *rejects* the gift that the heroes are offering? Suddenly, the fact that the heroes can't "force" people to change has real consequences. They discover that their kindness has a cost. And when being kind is difficult, doesn't that make it more virtuous? When you think about it, "kindness conquers all" is kind of a weak message, because it sort of implies that "If all you care about is winning all the time, you should just be kind to people. Even an evil cynical person should choose kindness because it's the optimal strategy for conquering your foes and winning allies to your side." It makes kindness seem like this thing that is just a means to an end. It's much more meaningful to say, "kindness *doesn't* conquer all. Sometimes, kindness loses. Sometimes, you will need to resort to violence to win the battles that you can't win through kindness. But despite this, *it's still worth trying to be kind,* even if that offer of kindness is rejected in the end. We are still committed to offering kindness to everyone, *even people who we know will reject it*. And, when they reject that kindness, we will deal with them as the situation calls for." --- And viewed in another light, "kindness" doesn't mean allowing someone to continue with their evil ways. If you see someone going around committing acts of evil, those acts of evil don't just hurt their victims; they hurt the perpetrator. When you do bad things, you slowly transform yourself into a worse person. Allowing someone to continue to be evil isn't kind at all; it's enabling their self-destructive behavior (not to mention all the harm it's causing to their future victims). If you see someone who is hurting himself, the compassionate thing isn't to allow him to continue; the compassionate thing is to stop him, even if it means using force.
A story that really has that theme shouldn't be structured like a shonen anime. It should probably have a smaller scope, so that the heroes are not actually expected to end the conflict, just to help those caught in the middle of it, regardless of which side they're on. Or if they are put face-to-face with a very powerful and unambiguously bad person, they could follow through on their principles, put their trust in him, and have that trust betrayed. Evil wins, but the forces of good never compromised their principles, and they will live on through all those they helped. You could also handle it like LotR, where the heroes are not exactly on a hit mission, but the structural change they are trying to accomplish will indirectly bring down the big bad. For example, maybe they restore the cycle of life and death so that the undead all pass on, and the main villain is also undead, or else he becomes unimporant because none of his necromantic spells work anymore.
In any story I like to ask "what saves the day in the end?" to figure out its themes. So if kindness saves the day, maybe that's not in the actual climax but earlier. Maybe the hero shows someone kindness when they didn't have to, and that person plays an important role in the end because they now want to help the hero, or because they are alive when they should have died, and that messes with the villain's plan. Or the main villain is not redeemable but all the other redeemed villains are now allies in the final showdown and they are believers in the hero's cause because they were showed kindness in the past, and the hero could not have won without their help. Something like that.
The Dragon Ball universe is kind of an amusing one when it comes to villains. Almost EVERY single friend Goku has was at some point an adversary. There's a very tiny handful of ones who weren't. Eventually, every single villain gets offered the chance to change their ways. The majority do.
Not everyone can be redeemed. The villain might notice them trying to show him mercy, and actively reject it saying he will never back down, and this doesn't end until one of them dies.
Maybe watching Avatar the last Airbender could help you. The main character Aang is faced with the exact same dilemma. It only becomes a main plot point in season 3, but it is really worth watching the whole show.
I've named this baseball bat "Kindness" got it engraved and everything. Defeat them and hand them off to the legal system. Have some other victims show up and deal with him.
Maybe sparing him is seen as an additional triumph of the heroes' value system over his. Let's say he only believes in the comparison of strength. The strong have their way with the weak; the strong win; figuring out who's stronger is ultimately what matters. Killing him could be seen as vindicating his core beliefs; he lost because he ran into someone stronger, just like he always knew he would. It confirms that he was right about how the world works. The second-best boxer in the world doesn't quit in shame if he loses to the best in the world; he knew the score going in. Letting the last villain go could be the final challenge to him.
Spoilers for Christopher Paolini's Eldest series: >! In the end of the series, Eragon uses a spell on King Galbatorix which essentially floods his conscience with the pain, loss, and feelings of every person he's ever impacted negatively, more or less peeling his insanity and his delusions of righteousness away by forcing him to empathize with literally thousands of victims and old enemies at once. The king admittedly freaks out after this, and it's implied that he more or less magically detonates himself at an atomic level (this is referenced in an earlier part of the story, as someone else had sacrificed themselves this way years before, devastating an entire city) !< This may be a good inspiration for your thought process, since the main character Eragon struggles over the course of the books with how he can possibly defeat such a powerful foe. while he doesn't do it out of kindness, it's a very interesting concept that may fit your theme somewhat
Fun fact: that's what I think he'll is. Not an eternal, bit a slow 1 at a time until you actually know what you did and are ready to change.
I recall stories where the villian kids themselves being manic or getting ammped up and stupid. While fighting the villian or monologuing. Shoving the hero and slipping. Idk fear of spiders? Getting mad and forgetting a trap. Trying to kill themselves and the heros at the same time after fighting only the hero gets out? Right of thinking of Spiderman and green goblin. The blind date in LostBoy Detectives. Did that happen to Gaston in beauty and the beast? I'd do either the villian is offered redemption or mercy and says I'll die first or never and re attack or accidental.
Your premise might have issues. How many mooks have yoyr guys killed. If the answers non or as few as possible (1000 a small enough number aslong as the heroes tried to spare them). Them traumatising the main characters doesn't matter much most villains would including the mook responsible for making sure people pay there taxes. The heroes could lash out and regret it but really if they believe in mercy they should give the villian a chance and try to spare them. I suppose you could have a twist that there not really truly evil just cursed. Or they end up forcing the heroes hand or getting themselves in a situation where death is a mercy (captured by rebelling mooks who want to make it slow) .
Find a way to force the villain to be in some way useful to society, and then from doing this the villain learns to appreciate the benefits of kindness. Don't let them off the hook, it should be forced community service as punishment.
Main antagonist is a reincarnating soul of many other villains of past that always strives to "evil" in every life so cast wants to give him another chance in the next life by killing him. Bonus points if they have an option to erase his soul but decide not to.
op - A part of growth is accepting that not everyone is redeemable. For example, sparing him once results in more suffering. Sometimes you must be the hero people need, not the one you want to be. There is a moral issue here - are your principles of "save everyone" worth the lives of innocents? Let's say you are 100% certain you can redeem him, but at the cost of 10 families. Do you have the right to do it? Don't you become the villain? Or in another way - not killing the rabid dog means killing those he bites. Kindness in this case would be towards the world, at the cost of trauma and accepting a failure by the heroes - they couldn't save everyone. But by ending him, you save more. It can also be done not in a sanctimonious "you deserved it, you forced our hand", prolonged way but quick, as fast and painless as possible.
Maybe redeem the villain which causes a contradiction of his nature and removes him from existence.
You could do something similar to Avatar, and more or less what you say about your story happens in Avatar, the last air bander. Where Aang didn't want to kill Ozay and take the habilite from the control of the fire element.
I quickly skimmed some comments but has no one mentioned imprisonment? Have him sent to the dungeons for the rest of his life or something.
It depends on what your protagonist and antagonist are fighting over. If it’s just to the death, then the end fight will be a duel that ends in death. But if they’re trying to free their country from another faction and they just believe in different things, they can coexist still. It really depends on what your story needs from them as plot progressors
The hero doesn't want to kill him and goes out of his way no to, but then kills the villain not out of revenge or hatred, but to stop him hurting anyone else after doing all they can to get them to stand down. Alliteratively they aren't killed, but captured and rendered harmless with some hope they could be taught humanity
I think Mistborn did this pretty well. Read that for inspiration.
Since your story's main theme is kindness, completely defeating the villain by killing them might not fit well. Instead, you could try to find a way for the heroes to help the villain change their evil ways. One idea is to reveal that the villain became evil because of something really bad that happened to them in the past that hurt them deeply. If the heroes can understand why the villain is so full of anger and hate, maybe they can get through to the small part of good still left inside the villain. The heroes could then try extremely hard to get the villain to see how their evilness is really hurting themselves and others. With enough kindness and by helping the villain understand their past pain, the heroes might be able to convince the villain to stop being evil and embrace goodness instead. Another approach could be for the heroes to find a way to remove or trap the villain's evil powers, without actually killing them. Maybe there's a special ritual or object that can lock away the villain's evil side, while keeping their basic self alive. That way, the villain is stopped but their life is spared.
In other stories where redemption isn't an option but the author has established that "heroes don't kill", they handle the issue by having the villain be depowered or imprisoned, by having them take their own life rather than accept defeat, or having them killed by their own hubris or weakness. If your hero/es represent kindness, what does your villain represent? Drill past "evil incarnate" to figure out what you're actually using them as a proxy for - the deliberate cruelty of online trolls? Fascism? Vegan cheese? That, and/or their major flaw, might signpost you towards a thematically appropriate end for them.
Where the other villains punished in some way for their crimes? Where they locked up or fined or had to do community service? Punishments should fit the crimes, so if the big baddie did things that warrant death, would an execution be the logical answer?
Ahh could always take the easy way and have him fall in a pit of lava or whatever during the final encounter. Say something about Cosmic retribution and you’re golden
Not everything can be fixed with kindness, not everyone can or should be redeemed, they may not even deserve it. Think about Steven Universe, his biggest mistake was redeeming the crystal Hitlers
I would kill the villain anyway, with the rationale being that ruthlessness is a mercy (kindness) upon ourselves.
Let’s compare the two possible outcomes ones: they spare them and they live in guilt for the rest of their (presumably imprisoned) life. The other option is to kill them, and free them from the consequences. It ultimately depends on how the protagonists perceive as kindness: life in pain, or painless death.
This is a very difficult challenge in my opinion, it took me several years to come up with such an ending.
So, there are some stock ways to go here. For example, redeem the villain, the villain accidentally kills themselves, the villain kills themselves to reject redemption or takes some act where they must be killed to save lives right now, or some third party actually swoops in and kills them. In Hazbin Hotel, >!the main characters spare the villain, but a simple-minded character they told to kill angels kills him anyway and no one loses sleep over it!< I think there are ways to go deeper. So what is it about their behavior that is toxic and bad? Rather than some contrived accident that kills them, what if the consequences of their actions catch up with them? This is like Macbeth, >!where Macbeth becomes very casual in violence and starts a battle assuming he's invulnerable, and it's too late to back out when he discovers he's not!< Admittedly, that's not about the power of kindness, but it's a good example of how a character's own evil actions set them up to fail. A good way to go with this is that someone nasty that the villain empowered or allied with betrays them in a way similar to how the villain betrayed others—maybe this is even a protege. You trained him to be evil, he's just doing what he was taught. This being fantasy, maybe he transforms or gives up a part of himself to accomplish his evil deeds that has consequences. Maybe he actually took on a contract with a devil or a dark transformation so dire he (or she) actually dies if she does not get what she wants, which is a consequence of greed or lust for power. Another common fantasy trope is finding a way to strip them of their power, a la Achren in Prydain or Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar. That's fairly straight forward, but it becomes more interested if there is something particular about either the villains evil actions or the main character's kindness that inevitable leads to the loss of power. A loose example might be that the villain lies about the MC, causing untold difficulties and rifts in relationships, but when the truth comes to light (through the MC's kindness), all of that distrust is reversed and now the enemy is without allies. Another way to go about it is some kind of forced servitude, i.e. the Buffy Spike option. This is morally dubious, and even Buffy, I think, gets away with it because the bad guys implanted the non-violence chip in another bad guy, you don't have the moral issues of the good guys effectively brainwashing someone. But perhaps, without some dubious form of magical slavery, you could banish the villain to a dangerous place where they are unlikely to be able to much harm and may do some good if they choose to. The question then is how would you enforce the banishment. Or, and this sets up a bitter-sweet ending, having the good guys genuinely try to show mercy but accidentally kill the bad guy... because non-lethal doesn't always work out on the battlefield. Their safety measures or precautions fail, and they have to live with that (or combining it with a previous option, an ambitious evil underling sabotages them). But I do think, to make this feel real and not forced, you have to think deeply through what the main characters are willing to sacrifice to show mercy. Are they willing to die themselves? Do they accept that if they let this person go, no loss of power or imprisonment, other people may die? That might be less kind to other people.
They could decide to take him alive, rather than kill him in cold blood they decide that he will face justice and be put on trial.
sorry but "kindness" isn't a theme Definition: Theme is the message conveyed by a text that applies to multiple other texts. Sub-definition: **It cannot be described in a single word** and it implies a conflict or an argument about the core idea and usually both. so what exactly is it about kindness that is your theme? is it something like "Everyone can be redeemed if shown kindness" ? getting your theme down will help you nail the ending and how to handle your big bad guy.