The Innermost Cave

I have such a cluttered imagination.  Don't even look at my house (my kingdom for matching socks!).  The nice thing about the Hero's Journey or Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet. is that I can look at that and figure out what goes where and what's missing in my story.  Oftentimes, I'm muttering, "Something's not right, something's missing..."  And I'll have to go back and study those structures a bazillion times and the story's scene-by-scene outline.  Even at this late juncture, even with something obvious, I'm still finding holes and searching.  My daughter/editor helps a lot with that.  Anyway, the hole I just found yesterday is known as the Innermost Cave.  Check it out at the Coyote Tale pages.
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It's Bilbo Baggins in Gollum's Cave.  It's Frodo in Shelob's Lair.  Luke Skywalker in the trashmaster on the Death Star.  Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets and Bella in the ballet studio with James.  It's where heroes go to experience their darkest moment and emerge, as though resurrected from the dead.
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I knew I was missing something with Martin.  Oh, yes, of course, he lives.  You don't waste an effective villain by killing him off too quickly.  Too many readers have found Martin creepy enough to keep around for a while.  Martin is to Ophelia like Voldemort is to Harry Potter, although, yeah, I realize I'm not J.K. Rowling.  The nice thing about Fantasy and Science Fiction is it's easy to bring folks back from the dead.  You just twist the Bad Guy to make him Even Badder.  So, I knew Ophelia was going to have to have a showdown with Martin, but it just wasn't gelling in my brain.  Now it is, so I'd better go working on it.  Yeah, yeah, don't worry, she kicks serious butt in this one.
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Or, as Bianca says, "Geez, you're getting vicious!"