: Re: The protagonist can't defeat the antagonist without the antagonist being stupid What should I do if my story's plot is built around the antagonist being extremely strong, and by the end it's

@Bryan361

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“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

If the protagonist can not beat the antagonist in a direct battle, don't have them fight.

Have the protagonist solve the conflict in a non-violent way:

Convince the antagonist to abandon their plan:

By appealing to the antagonists morals or code of ethics
By convincing the antagonist that following their plan will harm them in the long run.
By proposing a deal which benefits everyone
By bluffing or otherwise tricking the antagonist into believing that their plan will fail

Have the protagonist change the circumstances so that:

going through with the plan doesn't make sense anymore for the antagonist
the antagonist's plan will no longer cause harm to anyone.

Have the protagonist find and exploit some obscure weakness of the antagonist.

All of that does of course require that you have a properly developed antagonist character who has more character depth than "being extremely strong" and a more complex motivation than "being extremely mean". Discovering these depths and motivations might be the "real" quest for the protagonist and their strongest weapon against the antagonist.

And if all else fails, you still have the heroic sacrifice: Even a weaker opponent might be able to win if they are willing to sacrifice their life for it.

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