Should the main character always be the one to face the final villain at the end?

[fantastic]

Imagine a story like Harry Potter, where at the end the final battle was between Dark Lord and Dumbledore.

It would make more sense because Dumbledore was much more Skilled than Harry. And he was also the one that everyone relied on as someone who protected them from the Dark Lord. Not to mention he was the leader of Order of the Phoenix and the chairman of Hogwarts.

Usually, the main character defeats the villain. I am talking about stories with happy end, where main character is good. Most often, main character is the strongest of those on his side.

But what when he is not, or it would not make sense for him to become the strongest one? Usually, the villain will somehow be weakened. But is it a wrong move to have someone who actually can defeat the villain, defeat him? When there actually are such characters, they are usually not there, defeated by some plan or somehow prevented from fighting the villain.

Is main character not fighting the villain dissatisfying for most people?

 

[ScipioSmith]

I would say that if the main character is not the one confronting the villain then he shouldn't be the main character.

It can be done, of course, but it would probably belong more in experimental fiction. Readers expecting a more usual story will expect the big confrontation.

 

[Ireth]

I had that happen in my novel Winter's Queen. Prior to the climax, the heroine maims the villain, a prince, and is sentenced to death by his father the king. She escapes and flees, reuniting with her family before the king and his guards (and, secretly, the prince) catch up.

A standoff ensues, where the heroine's family tries to persuade the king to let her go free. The prince then stabs his father (his primary goal being usurping the throne, and using the heroine only as a means to an end -- she only maimed him after he gave up on using her and tried to kill her instead) and is offed by a guard, while the heroine and her family must now save the king's life, even though he's nearly as villainous as the prince. The king then reluctantly acknowledges the life-debt and lets the heroine go.

In this instance the heroine is really not equipped to take out the villain by herself: she's a teenage human, and he's a roughly 1000-year-old demigod-like Fae. Her main goal throughout the novel is escaping him with her life, not actively taking him down. It wouldn't have felt right if she'd killed him. Even the maiming was a last resort. I can see the guard thing being unsatisfying, though, and am pondering how to deal with it. I don't really want the heroine's family to kill the villain either, because they just want to get her back and leave in peace.

 

[Miskatonic]

Depends. Look at how many lead characters their are in LOTR. Frodo has the task of bringing the ring to mount doom, but Sauron himself never actually takes anyone on head to head. Gandalf and Aragorn are both leading characters who face Sauron's most powerful minions at the end.

 

[X Equestris]

I think it depends on the nature of the conflict. If it's a war between two nations, for instance, the leader of the antagonistic nation might be the villain, but that doesn't mean he has to be personally faced by the hero(es). It's enough that his nation be defeated.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I read a Bruce Coville book once where a secondary character defeated the dragon at the end, because the focus of her arc was to free herself by earning the reward for defeating the dragon. The primary MC fulfilled his arc by saving his father, who had been grievously injured by the dragon.

Personally, I found something of a compromise in Blood Price. The main character doesn't have any weapons that can kill the villain, but she saves some people who can, then finds the monster's weakness and marks the target for them. She's also the only one prepared when it turns out to still be alive--twice. (You don't survive to be the oldest thing in the known universe by being killable by teenagers.)

 

[Ryan_Crown]

If done right, I think it can make for an interesting twist. Of course, you always run the risk that readers will be unhappy with the ending, but at the same I think there's the potential to really catch the reader off guard and give them a satisfying ending that isn't the one they were expecting.

 

[Amanita]

This is only my personal opinion but if there is a story setup with an extreme power difference between the hero and the main villain I'd prefer an alternate solution to the hero defeating the main villain through sheer luck. The last Harry Potter book for example didn't work for me because Harry shouldn't really have stood a chance yet.
If you plan to do this from the beginning I would advice against making the situation too personal. (Even though someone refusing to remain part of the heroic mentor's plan could make for a very engaging storyline as well.) The hero doing something important which leads to the villain's defeat could work for me as well though.
In the Harry Potter fandom, I've been reading plenty of fanfic about side characters and there are lots of interesting stories that can be told there and to me, this could make for an engaging main story as well.
Tastes may vary though.
Splitting responsibilites between different characters like done in Lord of the Rings works very well too of course.

 

[Vandor]

Possible SPOILERS

Wheel of Time also dealt with this differently, given the extensive number of primary and secondary characters on both sides of the final conflict. The struggle between the hero and the big bad is more mental than physical, and the whole while a huge battle rages on. In it, many of the antagonistic characters face multiple protagonists, so that it may be the third or fourth character that succeeds in finishing the conflict.

So there the situation is given for others to face down the protagonist, but fail so that a more built up or central character can instead be the one to succeed. Also like Lord of the Rings, as mentioned by Amanita, in that the responsibilities are split.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Before answering your question let me ask you another question: did the book promise the MC would fight the main villain mano e mano? Because if so then I and every reader out there would expect it. And if you break that promise you will leave your readers feeling empty and hurt. Eventually that will result in a readership panning your novel. However, if you promised a different kind of win for the MC and promised that another character would take on the big bad one v. one then you have fulfilled the promises and people will accept that.

Take LOTR as mentioned above. Over and over we were promised that Frodo would not actually fight the armies or get into an epic sword fight. From the beginning his and Sam's struggle was more about bearing the burden. It was really an internal type of struggle, emotional in its way. Whereas, Aragorn's struggle was one driven by war. To become the protector and leader of a kingdom. To fight for his people and to actually accept that mantle of leadership. Tolkien promised that throughout the series.

So if the book promises an MC v. Villain conflict, then it had better be there. If it doesn't then it had better not be there.

 

[Penpilot]

As mentioned by Bryan Scott Allen, it all depends on the goal of your story and your characters.

Look at the movie Rocky. He didn't defeat the villain, but still came away victorious in a way. The story is not about becoming a winner in the boxing ring. It's about how to be a winner in life

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy didn't defeat the Nazi's. The Ark killed them all and Indy was lucky enough to figure out how to survive. And he was successful in just surviving. Which is par for the course. Indy always gets himself over his head and figures a clever way out of the situation.

 

[Miskatonic]

There are two characters in my story that share the spotlight as the main character, and neither may end up facing the main villain as it is something beyond their ability to defeat, even if one has certain elements about him that allows him to be more powerful than other humans in a certain capacity.

 

[Laurence]

Make of this what you will: I hate underdogs.

 

[Miskatonic]

Make of this what you will: I hate underdogs.

Especially if they are the "chosen one".

 

[Ophiucha]

I don't think so, at least not if the story allows for the possibility. It'd be a bit cheap if the character was prophesied to defeat the villain only for them to not even be part of the final battle (though a twist on 'defeat' is allowable), but it can work. The most common form of this I've read is somebody other than the protagonist making the Heroic Sacrifice, if the villain cannot be defeated by any other means. As long as there is a character in the cast who would, logically and narratively, be more willing or able to do it, then I am okay with it. It's just gotta feel good.

But it can be done in way that disappoints. This example isn't technically a main villain, but to use Harry Potter, I did find it a little anti-climactic when Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix LeStrange. Not to dismiss the excellence of giving her a scene to show her strength as a witch, or her "Not my daughter, you b*tch!" line (perfect), but... Bellatrix tortured and killed so many people. There are a lot of characters, major and minor, who had a reason to fight her. Harry, Hermione, Neville, Remus, Tonks, either of the other two Black sisters, or even Neville's grandmother (albeit if she'd had a bit more presence before this). And Molly is the one to do it? Molly could have killed any Death Eater to complete her arc as a badass, grieving mother -- Fenrir Greyback would have been good -- without stepping on the toes of a ton of characters who had a bit more backstory with Bellatrix.

 

[TheokinsJ]

I don't think so in the slightest, in fact I feel it prevents a very cliché showdown that occurs in most books/movies. I can think of The Hobbit, Smaug was killed by Bard, a complete stranger, a 'random guy' in Laketown, who by co-incidence happened to be a decedent of a great hero and could understand birds, but lets not go into that. The point is the dwarves nor Bilbo killed the dragon, they never fought the dragon, some random man in Laketown killed it, who Tolkien introduced two sentences before he shot Smaug down. I don't think that was in anyway dissatisfying.

I can also recall in the Ranger's Apprentice Series, Horace, the main character's best friend, kills Morgarath, the primary villain, Not Will, the main character himself.

I don't think its anticlimactic in the slightest, but that's just me.

 

[glutton]

In my recently completed WIP the heroine defeats the apparent 'main' villain, an exceptionally skilled warrior attempting to revive an evil godlike being, as an underdog.

It then turns out defeating him will not stop the revival, and the heroine stands terrified before the godlike being knowing she and all her friends stand no chance.

Her idol, who she aspires to 'reach the level of', shows up, tears the 'god' a new hole, and definitely settles whether or not the heroine is even close to reaching her level yet. XD Our heroine is young enough that she has many years left to try though... lol

Also, one of the heroines' friends is about to make a heroic sacrifice but the idol is like 'Nah, just let me kick the god's ass'.

 

[Snowpoint]

I recently read a trilogy were the "Main" character never met the main villain at all. The villain was killed by the people he hurt the most, even though those characters weren't important.

 

[skip.knox]

For myself, whenever I read absolutes in reading advice, my answer is the same: no.

Always do this. Never do that. Whatever absolute writing rule you can cite, I can find an exception to it. To me, such questions are wrongly put. The correct question is: should I do X in this particular story? Does Y work here in this passage?

To put it another way, writing advice in the abstract is amusing to read but rarely useful. Writing advice in response to a specific piece I have written is nearly always useful.

To put it yet another way, it's a bit like asking "should I never use blue in a painting?" or "should I stay away from diminished 7ths in a pop song?" Art is about the specific. The particular act.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. (because I have this gummy stuff on my fingers and I can't seem to get ... it ... off ....)

 

[Helen]

Imagine a story like Harry Potter, where at the end the final battle was between Dark Lord and Dumbledore.

It would make more sense because Dumbledore was much more Skilled than Harry. And he was also the one that everyone relied on as someone who protected them from the Dark Lord. Not to mention he was the leader of Order of the Phoenix and the chairman of Hogwarts.

Usually, the main character defeats the villain. I am talking about stories with happy end, where main character is good. Most often, main character is the strongest of those on his side.

But what when he is not, or it would not make sense for him to become the strongest one? Usually, the villain will somehow be weakened. But is it a wrong move to have someone who actually can defeat the villain, defeat him? When there actually are such characters, they are usually not there, defeated by some plan or somehow prevented from fighting the villain.

Is main character not fighting the villain dissatisfying for most people?

MAD MAX FURY ROAD. I'd say Max is the main character, but Furiosa kills Joe.