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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28103
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28103
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm afraid that you have gone about this a bit backwards. The basic structure of a story can be described in many ways, but one of the best and most well-founded is that of the hero's journey, as described by Christopher Vogler in his book _The Writer's Journey_. The story begins in the hero's normal world, but the hero is forced to leave the normal world in pursuit of some desire, to achieve some boon, or to avenge some wrong. They pass through a series of trials leading to a final confrontation. Along the way they have to face some fundamental truth about themselves and emerged transformed (or not, in the case of tragedy).

To shape the hero's journey into this form it is often necessary to take some liberties with the activities of the villain. Thus villains often behave in ways that are risible. It is worth asking why this risible villain behavior does not ruin the story. It does not ruin it because the reader's enjoyment of the story depends on the emotional satisfaction provided by the hero's arc. Any false note in that arc will ruin everything. False notes outside of that arc inserted for the sake of preserving the arc itself, are by and large forgiven.

In particular, the classic form of the arc demands that the hero must reach their nadir, must have the villain's boot upon their throat, before rallying to win the final conflict. But of course a rational villain, once their boot is upon the hero's throat, is going to finish the job. There always has to be some reason why they don't, and while that reason does not have to be absurd, it does not seem to matter much that it often is.

But you seem to have approached it from the opposite direction, creating a villain who makes no mistakes, who leaves no room of a hero's journey to unfold. I would suggest that an easier way to go about this would be to create a hero and then create a suitable villain to send him on his hero's journey. I'm not saying you can't create a villain first and then invent a hero to oppose him. But if you create a villain who leaves no room for a hero to operate, you are going to run into difficulties -- as you have.

It is worth pointing out that in the real world, the armies of megalomaniac dictators are not defeated by the heroics of lone adventurers but by even larger armies. In the sensible world, power grinds down power through years of misery and bloodshed. Heroic acts within such struggles are on the small scale. Story world plays by different rules. Story villains are not sensible.

Original score: 4