system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Kill main villain and the rest of his army dies is always a terrible trope and cop out.

We’ve all seen it. The protogonist(s) are up against a seemingly superior enemy force, how will they ever win you ask yourself? And then the writer’s primitive ingenuity save the day: “Easy! They just kill the main bad guy, mothership, central core, throw the ring into the lava, etc.. and boom all other enemies magically die.”

My claim is that this is always an idiotic and lazy way to solve the main conflict. It is never justified because it removes the main interest of an antagonist dominant conflict, which is finding out how will heroes overcome the enemy advantage

I will use what comic writer Stan Lee once said about conflicts with external antagonists. That in such stories (say your typical hero vs villain), the villain must ALWAYS be stronger than the hero in whatever “head on” fight they have. If it’s pure violence, villain must be overpowering. If it it’s sports, villain is superior athlete. And so on. The fun and good writing would then come with asking “How will the heroes win?”. And the only acceptable solution would be an unorthodox approach/strategy. 

So when it comes to stories where large numbers of enemy forces, the question is how will heroes beat this enemy with superior numbers or fighting force? However, the trope of just “killing one to kill all” completely side steps the question! The heroes never actually resolved the main conflict, but made it a non issue by only focusing on a single entity. And it doesn’t matter whether the reason makes sense or not (i.e., the robot army loses because it’s central computer is whipped out), it is still lazy writing.

Imagine if at the final contest in a sport story, the hero(s) win because the ref disqualified the enemy opponent/team. That would not be a satisfying resolution  regardless if the victory technically valid.

Therefore, anytime this trope is ever used in any sort of media it should be condemned and given poor reviews. It can never be good story telling because the very purpose of the story (resolve the conflict) is never really resolved but side stepped…aka a cop out.


P.S. my argument is in context of “external antagonist dominant” stories. Basically when the main conflict is an external enemy. Stories that focus on more internal struggles or non antagonist conflicts maybe immune to my argument.
gpt
You don't want this. You don't want the end of Independence Day to be a credits roll explaining that the aliens were defeated through a year long systematic campaign. Sparing you from this isn't lazy writing, it's recognizing what the audience came to the film for.