Villains who have died and have remained dead. This category should only include villains that are currently deceased rather than ones who have "died," but then later returned. This is also for robots or machines that were destroyed/deactivated permanently or ghosts/spirits that were banished to the spirit world as well. Undeads cannot count unless they are also killed for good. This also includes villains who were erased from existence.

Various means how a villain died/remained dead includes:

• Violent Death: A villain winds up killed in a violent or disturbing way, such as fatally incinerated by an explosion, mutilated alive, etc. (e.g. Dio Brando, Ken Wheatley, Commander Vic Hoskins, Syndrome, King Ghidorah).
• Died in Honor: The villain has accepted the fact that their demise is inevitable and had enough dignity to face it. Many of the villains who died in this way are honorable ones. Thus, circumstances were includes:
  • Chooses to Die Rather Than to Be Saved: Honorable villains defeated by the heroes choose to take his/her own life, preferring to die with honor rather than to live in shame like cowards. When they killed themselves, they can either give the heroes sometime to escape from disaster that they already started but cannot undone it (an example being the battle between the hero and the villain took place in the damaged ship/building that about to explode as result of the villains' own mistake or heroes' effort to foil their evil plan) or have the hero whom defeated him/her gave him/her a mercy killing (e.g. Doctor Octopus).
  • Heroic Sacrifice: When a villain commits a heroic sacrifice before death, it is regarded as a way of redemption and dying with honor (e.g. Ingrid sacrificed herself to erase the Spell of Shattered Sight, redeeming herself and saving Storybrooke; Nagato reviving the Konoha ninja he killed during his invasion, and Viggo fought his own men to the death to allow Hiccup & Toothless to safely escape Johann's cave; Gellert Grindelwald refused to tell the location of the Elder Wand to Voldemort; Mitch Wilkinson held the door of Cibola open, allowing the rest of Gates's team to escape safely and drowning himself in the process).
  • Accepted Their Death as Their Fate and Faced it with Dignity: In this case, it needn't be a redeemed villain to die with honor. For instance, when Lord Shen saw his cannon falling down on him, he shut his eyes and allowed his end to come. Even a villain that is Pure Evil can somehow die with honor if they accepted their death with no fear. Some of them also held no grudge when the hero killed them as they simply accepted their fate (e.g. Kefka Palazzo, John Doe, Yuuki Terumi, Makuta Teridax, Lord Cutler Beckett, Alien Empera, Acnologia and Wilford).
  • Fought with Honor: Villains who fought with honor in order to avenge, protect or defend themselves with no fear can die with honor (e.g. Hephaestus died at the hands of Kratos after attempting to back-stab him, but it soon turned out that Hephaestus was trying to protect his daughter Pandora from a certain demise. Kratos was deeply moved by it and promised to a dying Hephaestus that he will protect Pandora).
  • Remorseful Suicide: The villain goes aware of his wrong actions, and thus, they discover it's already too late to their redemption. Instead, they take their own life to fix their wrongdoings, it can overlap with Heroic Sacrifice, most probably if the villain was a Pawn or Brainwashed/Possessed.
    • A good example of both of this is Shade (Cyberbots). After Jin defeated G.O.D., Shade, a brainwashed soldier of G.O.D., attacks Jin, so he can't destroy the weapon, but after Jin defeated him, he gained consciousness. Shade felt bad about the assassination of Jin's father, Ken, who was also his best friend, the one responsible of this hideous action was G.O.D. Thus, he used himself to destroy Earth Force’s Super Weapon as a form of redemption towards both, Jin and Ken.
• Died in Disgrace: In this case, the villain commits something dishonorable or had no dignity to face their downfall. Related circumstances include:
  • Villains who try to kill the heroes after being offered mercy or spared to live, only to end up dying in the process (Gaston, King Stefan, Clayton, Fouchet, Frieza, and Murad are good examples).
  • Villains who are killed by their own allies who come to realize just how evil the villain really is.
    • Jenner is a prime example after being literally stabbed in the back by his own henchman, Sullivan.
    • Aerys II Targaryen was slain by Jaime Lannister after Aerys told Rossart to detonate the wildfire caches, and ordered Jaime to kill his father and bring Aerys his head.
    • Dick Hardly when the clones killed him after realizing that he never loved them.
    • Mason Verger is left to die amongst the boars (whom devoured him alive) by his associate Cordell.
    • Scar when the hyenas Shenzi, Kamari and Azizi mauled him, having heard him double-crossing them.
  • Villains who die in an ill-conceived, foolish, and/or desperate attempt on the heroes' life, such as an "I'm taking you with me" type attack that backfires.
    • Gleeman Vox's failed attempt to kill Ratchet.
    • The Great Intelligence's reversed attempt to destroy the Doctor.
    • Pete Anderson's failed attempt to kill Rick Grimes, even going as far as to blame him for everything that had happened to him.
    • Danzo Shimura's failed attempt to seal Sasuke Uchiha and Tobi with him when he was already dying.
    • Grimmel's attempt to have Hiccup fall to both of their deaths.
    • Black Wolf attempted to drag the flying squirrel Julius down with him, to not die hungry.
  • Villains who try to weasel their way out of their predicament by trying to talk the heroes into mercy, only for the hero to kill them anyway because they know that the villain is only trying to trick them (Maman, Minister Mason, Sentinel Prime, Raynare, Dimitri Rascalov, Henry Evans, Esther Coleman, Arkham, Dandy Mott, Steven Jacobs, Koba and Oushima Sanagi are prime examples of such).
  • Arrogants or Egotists who spend their last moments questioning on how they could possibly be beaten (Menomaru is a good example of this).
  • Villains pleading/begging for their death when they are being suffered/tortured.
    • Cato pleads for help when he was attacked by the Mutt Mutants, so Katniss, who couldn't bear the agonizing moans, ends his suffering by shooting her last arrow at him.
    • Szayel Aporro Granz, trapped in the drug of Mayuri Kurotsuchi, begs for his death, the sword coming closer, slowly through his senses, pleading it to hurry up as it pierces his heart, killing him.
  • Cowards who try to run away from their problems, and kill themselves to avoid punishment (e.g. Samuel Norton, Patrick McKenna).
  • Former immortals who lose their sources of immortality and face their downfall either immediately or later on in the story. 
    • A good example of this is Lord Voldemort. After his horcuxes have been destroyed as well as effortlessly "killing" Harry Potter with the Killing Curse in the Forbidden Forest, and Neville Longbottom, slicing Nagini's head off with the Sword of Gryffindor, Voldemort tries to strike Harry with the Killing Curse one last time, only for the Elder Wand to turn on him and kill him instead.
    • Another example is Ego, who gets killed after the explosion of a bomb placed on his brain.
• Died Offscreen: In many cases, certain villains have met their fate onscreen. But, in this case, the villain's death was not shown but was mentioned by a character that he or she met their fate when no one else was there to see it. An example of this is Noah Cross. In the sequel of Chinatown, The Two Jakes, it is revealed he died between the events of the two movies.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: While death itself is the worst realistic thing that could happen to anyone, there are sometimes a few things that are worse than that. This mostly includes villains who are damned for all eternity, or Barty Crouch Jr suffering the Dementor's kiss.

By extension, none of the deceased characters can be a Karma Houdini if they have not died of natural causes, no matter their influence on the plot.

Characters who are confirmed dead rather than simply being presumed as much are different; please keep those categories separated.