Does not compute

I hate it when I'm illogical.

I was mulling over this idea for a story: It would open with the bad guy having captured the good guy somehow. But, to throw a wrench in the works, the bad guy is forbidden by the laws of their world/universe to physically touch the good guy, so he has to find creative ways to torture/maim/kill the good guy.

I thought, oh well, then he can just use knives and swords and stuff, can't he? Not that hard. What's so interesting about that?

Laying that aside, I thought again. If he can't lay hands on the dude, how did he capture the good guy in the first place?

Easy, I told myself, he sent his minions.

Well, if it's that easy, why didn't he just send an assassin after the fellow? Why does he need to find creative ways to do away with him?

I was stumped. And annoyed at myself for coming up with such an illogical plot.

As I was writing this blog post, though, I realised that I could have it such that the good guy has some kind of power that only the bad guy can extinguish. Erm... but I still don't have an answer for what's so interesting about using knives and swords to off the bloke. If I extend the limitation and make it so the bad guy can't harm the good guy in any way, whether by physically touching him or other means, then his minions would also be ineffective, because they're extensions of him and doing his bidding, so how did he trap the dude in the first place?

Grrr, this is so ridiculously annoying. And to think I was all set to start writing out the first scene!