: Re: Why does the villain always win right before the hero defeats him? One common setup for a story goes like this: We have the heroes on one side We have the villains on the other side The

@Carla500

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Is there any other reason to use this device in a narrative, beyond "to build tension"?

No, but that's a heck of a good reason. Tension is the core of storytelling. But I do see your point about the way that the supposedly tension-increasing device of building up the stakes defeats itself when everybody knows that the heroes will win at the last moment.

And what good alternatives are there to it (that don't involve the bad guy actually emerging victorious)?

Some suggestions:

1) Do make the bad guy actually emerge victorious. Sometimes. When your readers know that your heroes can lose and can die they'll be that much more scared in your next story, or the next part of this story.

2) Do make the bad guy actually emerge victorious - but then have it turn out that things were not as they seemed, and his victory is a happy result. Either the bad guy was actually the good guy, or one or both sides had misunderstood the situation.

3) Set your story amidst a huge conflict but only as background. The tension in your story is whether your heroes will survive. Some very gripping war movies do this. Everybody knows from history who wins WWII; they don't know what's going to happen to Private Ryan.

4) They think it's all over… Consider the end of the The Lord of the Rings (the books, not the films). The heroes have defeated Sauron, Aragorn has been crowned king. The hobbits return home to the dear old Shire to enjoy a well earned retirement, right? Wrong. The conflict described in "The Scouring of the Shire" is on a far smaller scale than the epic battles earlier, but it is gut-wrenching because you realise that nowhere is safe.

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