: Re: Effective hero journeys that don't kill the villain? Are there good examples of the hero's journey that don't include any physical deaths within them? My hero has crisis and 'death' of self/ideals/psyche;

@Pierce369

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Short answer: No, you do not need to kill the villain.

Long answer:

The hero's journey is an archetypal path that many stories use to show the growth and progress of their main character. This page provides several different descriptions of what exactly the journey entails. If you read through all of them, you'll notice that something is missing - no villain is ever mentioned. The closest you get is the "Ordeal", the final most dangerous trial that the hero must face before receiving their rewards. But that trial is not necessarily a person who needs to be defeated. It doesn't even need to be a physical thing. Odysseus' Ordeal was a trip to the Underworld, and the only thing he kills is a couple of goats.

The villain is not a necessary part of the Hero's Journey. They can be a part of it, shaping the various stages that make up the Journey. Confronting a villain makes for an excellent Ordeal. But they are not necessary, and their death is doubly unnecessary. The Hero's Journey is about the hero, and all else is secondary and thus malleable.

Examples of Hero's Journeys where the villain doesn't die:
The Odyssey (There isn't really a villain, unless you count Poseiden, although a bunch of suitors do get murdered at the end)
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin (again, no real villain)
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (villain is an Elf Queen, and escaping is considered a victory)
Labyrinth (David Bowie turns into an owl and flies away)
Lord of the Rings almost counts, but I believe that Sauron does die when The Ring is destroyed. But he could have easily been turned into a Gollum-like creature instead and it wouldn't have affected the story any.
The Dark Knight is another partial example. Harvey Dent is killed. But the Joker is not. And the Joker has been trying to goad Batman into violating his "no kills" rule (especially in the scene withe the bike and the truck), so killing him would become a failure for Batman, rather than a triumph.

Actually, a great many Batman/Joker interactions fall under the trope of "Strike Me Down With All of Your Hatred" (so named for the Return of the Jedi scene), in which the villain has managed to reframe their death as their own triumph rather than a defeat. Usually this is because forcing the hero to kill is a corruption of the hero's ideals, but it can also have external plot consequences if the villain set themself up to be a martyr.

On the other hand, Batman also explores the consequences of leaving the Joker alive. Any decision, even the right decision, has consequences.

Finally, I'll leave you with a quote from Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson:

"You'll let them live," I whispered hoarsely. "They've slaughtered and tortured and enslaved us, and you'll just let them live."

"No," she answered quietly. "I'll make them live."

"And what's the difference?" I sneered.

"Terms and conditions," she answered. "I told you I was tortured? The man who ordered that is still alive, and he's going to stay that way. In fact, he's immortal now. He's living in a comfortable pair of rooms in the middle of his home city, and he'll live there forever, nice and cozy. He can't go outside. He can't talk with another human being face-to-face. He can't even go comfortably insane. He's alive and stable, and we're going to keep him that way. He never gets away from what he's done, never gets to have a better life or another life. He never meets his Maker or sees his Heaven. He gets to watch while the king dome he built fades from the historical record and the city he ruined is rebuilt by his enemies and opend up wide, because all the people he tried to lead to his brutal salvation like his enemy's way better.

He's ours. He's mine, in his two-room cell, forever and ever."

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