Sometimes it works the other way. The main character is the main character because they survived the killer.

Other times it's because the killer is too attached to the main character and gives a reason like they want the MC to suffer more or they need the MC to understand why they've been targeted. In some romantic suspense, the killer doesn't plan to kill the MC, just everyone around (usually) her so she has no one else, and they can have her to themselves. Then when she doesn't cooperate, then she has to die.

Sometimes it gets kind of convoluted. And sometimes, especially in true crime cases, it can be scary how the killer formed this fantasy in their head that revolves around them getting everything they want.

Now that you mention it, YES! In TV shows and movies, the villains never kill the main character because they are so full of themselves and explaining why they are superior, giving the main character time to get out of what looks like a sure death for a lesser victim (James Bond, Wild Wild West,etc.). Now that I think of it, it is the same in books! If the bad guy just shut up and pulled the trigger there would be a lot fewer main characters out there. Thanks for pointing this out.

This has been brought up before, although it is a valid point. It was most famously discussed in Austin Powers.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. The stakes should be the same. If the killer has the chance, they should intend to actually kill the main character.

Any kind of "close calls" should involve inconvenient locations (like they were in public at the time), or the killer themselves being severely wounded, or police currently close enough to hear sirens and see lights (not enough time).

We know the main character is likely to survive as the story wouldn't be following them otherwise, but it shouldn't be so silly about how it accomplishes that.

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Fully understand where you're coming from. There's one exception I'm aware of, where the refusal to kill the main character is tastefully and sensibly done: >!The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris!<. His refusal to kill her fitted in entirely with the respect he developed for her over the course of the novel. It would have been a disappointment if he had gone after her.

I read one where the killer did kill the main character. Only it turns out that she wasn't, obviously. Because the book kind of would have ended at that point.

In the film Goldfinger - I can’t remember if the scene was in the novel because it’s been 50 years (!) since I read it - why does he put Bond on that laser thing instead of just killing him outright? (For that matter, why does he spend the money to come up with that elaborate moving model of Fort Knox to explain his plot to the underworld guys when he’s going to kill them all anyway?)

Yes! I finished a book an hour ago where the main character uncovered the killer, who said outright that he’d let him go. It made no sense!! Plot armour sucks!