it’s interesting to me that I love defeated villains choosing to die on their own terms, hopefully while sneering about the hero’s idea of justice (“I’ll stand trial, then, and ‘justice will be done’. No, I’ll die as I deserve: in flame and glory!” before calling down a pillar of flame) but I hate less dramatic versions that I feel allow the hero to abdicate responsibility for the villain’s death – the villain committing suicide off screen, or dying through an accident while at the hero’s mercy (the cliff they’re standing on crumbles), or a side character killing them. I think it’s that in the first, the villain is dying as they lived – being cool as hell – and in the second, the hero doesn’t have to stain their hands with blood, but the villain loses something at the end.
the best kind of death is when the villain not only chooses how they die but also the narrative of how they die. like they die in a very public way that makes it look as though the hero killed them when the fight had already been won