Is it necessary for hero to be strongest at the end of the story?

[Manasa]

Stories almost always ends with the main character being strongest
eg naruto, demonslayer, etc
what do u think?

[faisalhussein394]

It is more interesting to make the character smarter than stronger. A hero must always have their limits, otherwise, they won't be exciting thanks to their power-up. I prefer if they already reached their limit of power, and made decisions to face their enemy strategically through the use of their intelligence, or gear.

It is better to make the heroes less superman, and Goku, and more like Guts, and batman.

No hates on Superman or Goku, one gives a clear message, and the other inspires to break limits through hard work.

[Stargazer31]

Not necessarily. It's always good to show change and character development, to show how the events have changed them, but they don't have to end up as some infinitely powerful super buff demigod

[Manasa]

sounds very convincing thankyou​

[AxemanRifflord]

There are stories where the hero actually loses their powers at the end.

[RobertBMarks]

Stories almost always ends with the main character being strongest eg naruto, demonslayer, etcwhat do u think?

Not really, actually. Stories tend to end with the main character being victorious - in most of the good ones, they enter the final battle/confrontation/denouement as the underdog.

The problem with a protagonist being the strongest character in the story is that you run into what I call the "Superman effect" - if they can curbstomp any villain, there is no narrative tension (after all, they're going to win without difficulty). So, you have to find a way to get around the fact that the hero is so strong in comparison to everybody else.

Conflict works best when the protagonist is facing a force of antagonism that is equal to, or preferably greater than, themselves. This forces them to grow and reveal their true selves as they come up against it and lose at the beginning, until they finally come up against it and win in the end. And, this means that a lot of the time, a good protagonist will end the story weaker than the antagonist they just defeated.

So, there are stories where the hero is the strongest at the end of the story, or throughout, but a lot of the time that's pretty far away from ideal storytelling.

[bronte448]

I like stories where at the end, the hero is at their weakest, suddenly gets really strong, and then returns to normal after the battle. It's just freaking awesome. That's just my perspective, though.

[Freemints30]

Honestly depends on your genre and intentions, Naruto, demon slayer ect are battle shonen. The whole genre tends to be at the end of day the hero eventually being the strongest.

If you were doing lets say a horror series, having the hero the strongest would tend to be more detrimental and honestly would kinda ruin the point of the horror, IE fear. Yes they can become stronger but most powerful is not necessary.

But that's just physical strength

Same with mental strength, if your story is about over coming adversity then yes it would be necessary to show it. But if you are more going for a tragedy it can be just as effective for the opposite.

Honestly even in some shonen series Ive seen the opposite happens once with one of the MC where they gradually get weaker and the the other MC gradually gets mentally stronger so by the end of the series they were at the same level and were truly equal.

[BoomerZ]

You can make your hero as strong as you want as long as there is conflict. Superman can indeed curbstomp anyone with pure strength. That is why good writers use other things to make the conflict. Superman and Louis is a good example. The conflict is usually with the sons and growing up. You can't punch that. The problem is weaker writers only see power in the material (hence the power levels in manga be actually a measurement, like 9000...). The thing is not how powerful the hero is, it's if they have a weakness. For weaker writers that comes in the form of a de-powering thing (kryptonite). Strong writers do it through other means, such as a villain that just has other strengths that the hero can't just punch into a paste (Lex Luther).

[JaveCraze]

Your character, if they're dynamic, should feel "complete" at the end, unless you want a weird sense of melancholy. (Unless you wanna bank on that :3)
If they're a flat character, then their goals should be finished at the end, be it through completing them, dying, or giving up on them. Someone being the "strongest" only matters if that's what they wanted all along and worked the whole way to get there.

[thepenmonster]

what do u think?

The best ending for any genre show was Blake's 7. Avon might have had the highest IQ in the room when they cut to the credits but his hubris was far stronger.

[Lensing]

That depends on what stories you read and write.
The end of the story often delivers some kind of solution and that doesn´t mean
that the hero is the strongest at the end of the story.
The last stories, movies etc that I enjoyed had endings like that:
main protagnist is dead or in jail at the end of the story.
I don´t remember when it was the last time that I enjoyed a good vs evil
hero vs villain with a happy ending story

[system]

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