I have seen this god awful trope so many times I may actually have permanent psychological damage. It shows up in damn near 10% of novel descriptions I’ve read and it’s been butchered along with my soul 99% of the time. It’s seriously gotten to the point where if I see the words Devil King or Demon King I will instantly drop the novel or not even consider reading it if I am just reading the synopsis. It just feels like a crime against all original works and an attack on my ability to maintain my sanity. I genuinely think if they called it LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE and changed the plot a little from the original trope it would instantly be a better story. Here are pairs of randomly generated words that, as should come as no surprise, are still better than fucking demon king. “Width executive”, “rumor pastel”, “blame chemistry”, “beautiful choice”, and “report extreme” are just a few of the amazing alternatives to Devil please kill me King. Shit even that last one is better. I bet you could come up with an interesting and original backstory for all these main villains in the same setting you were originally planning and a similar plot with some slight adjustments. I mean come on, blame chemistry is great. Anyway, that’s my rant, I just wanted to complain somewhere. Anybody else have tropes bothering them recently?
I got one! How about replace Demon King or Devil King with... Demon Lord! How does that sound? That said, I think you are a bit overeating. Sure it's a trope and there are some cases where demon king makes little sense. It also doesn't help that demon is kind of used a lot in japanese translation to mean monster. And devil would be a real one when both exist. End of the day, I'd say, don't let it grind your gears. Plenty of good titles with demon kings in them.
For me, it'd be the term "healer". I swear seeing the word in any title wounds me such I require immediate healing.
Well what can you put in the novel as a last boss? Its usually something with a King/Lord/God titles. Its not a troupe to begin with. Its just normal to put something at the end to be the heaviest enemy of the main character. Unless you want to put a regular goblin killing the main character after he kills the demon lord/king/god at the end which will definitely drop sales.
All I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be the same guy every time being the last villain. For all I care it could be the lettuce burglar who stole the entire worlds lettuce supply and is holding it hostage, forcing the MC to fight with him. It’s still more interesting than the generic evil “Demon King” while still fulfilling the purpose of being the final boss you are talking about. Also, who said that a goblin can’t be the last boss? If he’s plotting or he’s the most badass goblin to ever exist then it doesn’t matter. That sort of mentality of boxing yourself in is what’s limiting the potential of a lot of these stories. Hell, the Demon King is fine to exist as long as he is a unique character BEFORE he is the Demon King. If he exists only to be the Demon King and we get another stereotypical character then it will inevitably feel like the same story.
If he's that badass, I bet even non-goblin demons would follow him. And make him their king. If he's the king of a bunch of different demons, I wonder what you would call him...
ANYTHING BUT DEMON KING TO AVOID THE CLICHE PLS. Once you make the first step there’s no going back lol