Sorry. I probably shouldn't have asked that since it's very morbid and tiresome of me to say things like this, but I've seen a lot of sources lately that bring up the issue that I have with this, but everywhere I look, I can't seem to find the answers that I'm looking for. Not every villain deserves to die just because they're villains, right?

7584285
Some deserve reformation and some deserve jail time.

7584285
Usually, when villains do have to die, then it is less about them deserving it, and more that they're simply too dangerous to contain otherwise. Like, maybe the villain is about to kill a lot of innocent people and the only way to stop them from doing that is to shoot them, then the hero is justified in doing that. Hell, sometimes the villain is so powerful that there is no way to capture or incapacitate them, and where going all out and be forced to take them out permanently is the only option.

Death penalty utterly sickens me, but killing someone in self-defence is perfectly justifiable.

7584285
This reminds me a lot of the arguments against Batman for not killing certain villains, such as the Joker or Ra's Al Ghul. Narratively I feel it's more compelling to keep villains around, so if you do want to kill them it'll be more impactful. A hero struggling to defeat but not kill his opponent is intriguing, they always have to hold back their full strength, stop themselves going too far and becoming like the villains they oppose. Certain villains do need to be killed, world-ending threats that are intent on ending the world, have to be stopped. Characters like Kefka Palazzo, Seymour Guado and Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy series. Or The Goddess Kali or The Skullgirl/Skull Heart, The Vizier and Davoth from Indivisible, Skullgirls, Prince of Persia and Doom Eternal respectively. I bring up videogame villains as they tend to be killed off a lot more than comic or animated ones.

Edit: Also have a song all about the Heroes Journey. There's subs so you can understand the translated lyrics.

7584999
Wait, what's Indivisible?

7586834
It's a video game.

7584288
Who deserves reformation, who deserves jail time, and are there any exceptions?

7604133
Villains like Starlight and Doofenshmirtz deserve reformation while villains like Bill Cipher and Lord Dominator deserve jail time.

7604149
Good luck finding a prison that can hold Bill Cipher.

7606757
Okay you have a point, he’s too evil for anything except death.

7606768
Not to mention too powerful.