How do I defeat a seemingly invincible villain?

I'm writing something right now that has the final Big Bad be somthing so powerful that the heroes really don't stand any sort of chance against it.

Considering that in my story, the heroes outright lost to the previous, less powerful Big Bad and only ended up winning when he was Hoist by His Own Petard, what exactly am I going to do?

Well, I like to follow this rule of thumb: When in doubt, Hurl It into the Sun.

...The sad part is I'm actually seriously suggesting this. Although it does kind of depend what resources/abilities your heroes have at their disposal, I suppose... Hmmm.

Ahhh, one of the toughest tricks of a writer. Writing a nearly unstoppable person. That's where the creativity comes in. Of course outright killing it is almost out of the question. Find a way to seal it or A Fate Worse Than Death him.

You could, y'know... not make the villain seemingly invincible. That would be a good way to not make the main characters look like Marty Stus.

Hmm, I think I've got an idea.

The said villain is actually a form of artificial life, maybe I could just have the heroes fighting its embryonic form, before the vast majority of its strength has developed?

edited 29th Jul '11 5:33:29 PM by Zennistrad

Good Lord, if you don't know how to resolve having a nearly invincible villain, then don't make a nearly invincible villain.

Never love your story too much to alter it greatly. Murder your darlings.

Also, you gave us two lines of text. What can we work with two lines of text?

Hmm, I think I've got it.

The heroes somehow manage to tamper with the development of the said artificial lifeform with a specially engineered virus, reducing it to roughly a billionth of its intended power. Even so, it is still roughly as strong as the combined efforts of the heroes.

But if it's so weak, how does the previous big bad succumb to it?

It would help if you gave more specifics about what kind of heroes, what kind of villain, and what kind of setting we're dealing with.

If you can't kill it, trap it (or render it helpless). For example, one Planetary story had a Hulk-analogue thrown into a giant pit dug by nukes, all his strength and size were of no avail.

Depending upon how you write this one, you can always have them lose...

kick him in the nads.

Right. Serious answer.

How about..........convincing him what he's doing is wrong?

You never said the guy was irredeemable. It's slim chance, but it might work.

"You're solid stainless steel, right? Ever considered going into deep ocean research?"

If you're deconstructing Reed Richards is Useless, giving the villain a job seems like a reasonable sollution.

ETA: sorry, mixing up threads.

edited 4th Aug '11 5:09:39 PM by JOZeldenrust

Generally, when the heroes can't win, you resort to not fighting, instead doing things like Summon Bigger Fish, or Hoist by His Own Petard. If your villian is intelligent and not too genre savvy, you can always have the heroes outwit him as well.

I don't suppose making it really, really sad is an option...?

Subject him to Villain Decay and have the heroes Take a Level in Badass, while the side characters say "Let's Get Dangerous!!"

Give him a weakness, or a debilitating heart defect, or something that makes him vulnerable at a certain point or have his Mooks betray him...there are a lot of possibilities.

edited 5th Aug '11 11:20:54 AM by LoganLocksley

Or, maybe you could kill the heroes. Or perhaps the villain's incubator could be used to destroy him, since it's powerful enough to contain him.

Two words: Downer Ending.

Unless you are trying to write an idealistic series that absolutely must end with the hero saving the world and getting the girl, making it so that the heroes lost is always a legit option.

See also: Space Runaway Ideon, Naru Taru and Bokurano.

Bittersweet ending could also work.

Also, you never said it as IMMOBILE: knock it into orbit, or at least really far from it's goals. Tying a rocket to it is reccomened.

I have a similar problem, at the moment my final big bad completly outclasses the hero ( and all the other good guys ) by several orders of magnitude. Though I do sort of have a solution in the form a more or less neutral eccentric mentor who is even more absurdly overpowered, I'd just like to have the hero do it.

I'm just gonna go with an earlier poster on this one:

Similarly, you could turn it on itself or redirect it, perhaps by convincing it that another target is the real threat, rendering it ineffective via insanity or in the former case by convincing it to target itself. Depending on your setting and Big Bad, this could involve illusions, mind control, reprogramming, hallucinatory illness, psychology, lies, misleading spacetime geometry or even Gaslighting (for patient heroes).

edited 24th Mar '12 6:12:25 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

You can make yoru heroes soutsmart him. Raw power isn't everything.

seriously, this

edited 24th Mar '12 6:13:09 PM by Culex3

I have to agree