developed,

Another option, one taken by Harry Potter, for example, is to not have your hero strike the killing blow.

Christine Frazier deals with this option very well on her blog "The Better Novel Project" and explains who and why this works.
www.betternovelproject.com/blog/novel-ending/
The Jist of it is:

TKO: Total Knock-Out

The hero goes all in but is knocked unconscious. rather than killing the villain - they wake up later to find the final blow was struck while they were 'dying'.

The hero can put everything into the fight and totally commit, and due to a helping hand at the critical moment still come out both alive and free of being a murderer. this also has other framing and narrative benefits regarding wrapping up the novel in summary.

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: These two ideas - nihilism and existentialism - seem somewhat at odds with each other, at least from what I've about them philosophically (little). Nihilism (I assume you want to express existential

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