Does every conflict must be solved with killing the bad guy?

Star Trek had stories where the episode revolved around cleaning up a misunderstandings, not killing a bad guy. Is there such a story in Star Wars? What would you imagine such a story looking like?

Well there is an obscure tale called Return of the Jedi. But you've probably never heard of it.

But no, since the darkside is almost impossible to get back from most SW bad guys don't just back down and see the error of their ways.

Depends. There are lots of stories where lesser bad guys will turn good, i.e Xesh from DotJ. Ulic sort of counts since he wasn't killed when he was a bad guy, but he died in the end.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Well there is an obscure tale called Return of the Jedi. But you've probably never heard of it.

But no, since the darkside is almost impossible to get back from most SW bad guys don't just back down and see the error of their ways.

They killed the Emperor.

Revan

There was this really powerful bad guy in ROTJ called Darth Vader. You might've heard of him.

In the EU, there was also this Emperor's Hand called Mara Jade. You might've heard of her too.

Originally posted by Emperordmb
Revan

Originally posted by Shey Tapani
They killed the Emperor.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ufmGXTLfujE/U9AWMUAl8fI/AAAAAAAAUXY/BqXTuzIjaGM/s1600/he's+right+you+know.jpg

Eh. Killing the Emperor was incidental. And he didn't stay dead anyway.

The story was about a father's love for his son overcoming the darkness.

He stayed dead in terms of canon.

His resurrection was cancelled by Mickey Mouse. It otherwise happened.

Jaden Korr and his Clone, Soldier. he didn't kill him, he let his clone go. Hell there are more questions than answers at the end.

Depa Billaba and Mace Windu in Shatterpoint.

The Darth Bane Trilogy follows "the bad guys" lol. There's a bunch of these cases

Most of Star Wars is pretty simple. Fight evil, kill the bad guy, kiss the chick with the most sympathetic boobs background.

The Yuuzhan Vong War ended up with the Vong disarming and largely- but not entirely- moving to a planet out of the way.

After their leader and millions (billions?) of their fellows were slaughtered though, yeah?

In any case, to answer the OP, no. Star Wars is a simplistic franchise and the writers have historically struggled to break out of the normal Star Wars mold- thus the basic idea of "super evil person in black beats up good guys for awhile, then gets killed- maybe repents for sins first." With little deviation.

The Empire being allowed to surrender to the Republic is probably the closest we've come to what you're looking for.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
[B]After their leader and millions (billions?) of their fellows were slaughtered though, yeah?

Multiple leaders died throughout the war.

It wasn't solved with killing, though, it was solved when the Vong were convinced to change their ways, else it could've dragged on for years more.

If it wasn't for the killing, the GA would never have survived long enough for the Vong to realize the error of their ways- not to mention that it was only after the deaths of their leaders that real change began to take place in the faction.

So at the very least, "killing bad guys" was a massive contribution toward buying time until the situation resolved itself.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
If it wasn't for the killing, the GA would never have survived long enough for the Vong to realize the error of their ways- not to mention that it was only after the deaths of their leaders that real change began to take place in the faction.

So at the very least, "killing bad guys" was a massive contribution toward buying time until the situation resolved itself.

That's splitting hairs. The question was about if every conflict has to be solved with killing the bad guys. The conflict itself was about the killing you mention, and the solution was making peace with them and convince them to give up war.

When a conflict is a war to begin with, there's obviously going to be killing involved, but the question is whether the solution is 'militarily defeat the other side' (which they did not), or prompt a change in philosophy that leads to peace (which they did).

I dunno. That strikes me as equivalent to saying that it wasn't kicking Japan's ass across the pacific and then nuking them that made the Japanese surrender, the "solution" derived from them not wanting to fight anymore.

The violence and killing of their ideological leaders was the catalyst for the Vong's change. They would never have done so if the war had gone better for them, imo.

Originally posted by Shey Tapani
They killed the Emperor.