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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39031
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39031
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There are many ways you can go with a series after the Big Bad is defeated.

- Was that in fact the Big Bad? Or were they in fact a servant of an Even Bigger Bad? Perhaps they were, in some way, a victim of the Even Bigger Bad, manipulated some way into doing what they did?
- What are the consequences of destroying the Big Bad? What factions use the power vacuum to rise? If you've just removed the head of an Evil Empire, who rules it now, preventing it from descending into chaos?
- What happens to your side, now that there's no enemy to fight? Does the group break up? Are there conflicts to be found there? Perhaps someone from within the group becomes so extreme as to be the next Big Bad?
- Perhaps (as others have pointed out) there's a different _kind_ of Big Bad?

Consider the real-life example of the French Revolution: the Big Bad King got guillotined, the Bastille was taken down. Next Big Bad: Robespierre, and the Reign of Terror. Or the Russian Revolution: instead of incompetent Tzar Nikolai II, there's scary Stalin. Both those examples are in fact at the same time different Big Bads from their predecessors, and the consequence of defeating the previous Big Bad. And they used to be on the side that took down the previous Big Bad.

Some circumstances might also warrant de-powering your characters to some extent. To use the RL example above, both Robespiere's friends and Stalin's, found themselves in a rather precarious position post-revolution. A mere few years after the revolution, they did not wield as much power as could be expected from the ringleaders of a successful revolution. In fact, they had good reason to fear for their lives.  
If you de-power your hero, the new Big Bad doesn't need to be significantly more powerful than the previous Big Bad to pose a sufficient challenge to the hero.

Original score: 7