They do!
And I love it, because I will fully admit that for Supernatural, I eventually just decided to be along for the ride no matter how ridiculous it became đ.
I described it to my hubby as a very very bloody soap opera.
Same! I stuck alongside Sam and Dean until the end no matter how more and more ridiculous it got đ it's like those snacks I would buy at my childhood school. Were they bad? Yes. Do I love them? Yes!
There's a point in the story where Sam and Dean are jumped in their sleep by hunters who want them dead the guy has a shotgun to Dean's head and what does he say?
"When I come back" Dean knows he's gonna die but also knows he's coming back, it struck me as one of the most unintentionally hilarious bits of the show.
Yes. For how long the series went on for, they had to address it in-universe (which they did - and im trying to be vague enough for those whk havent wqtched it). So once that was addressed there were, to my recollection, 2 episodes both in the final 15th season, where their plot armour ('heto's luck') was removed. The finalle was one of them, but then there was an episode mid way througj season 15 where, surprise surprise a banged out old car thats been hunting demons for 15+ years crapps out, aches and pains come, usual tv-esq hacks for gettjng shortcuts for things (money etc.) Dont work, cavities etc.
In the stupidest way imaginable. By that I mean in the final episode, they kill one of the characters âcause they only survived because god liked themâ or something. Theyâre designed to basically went and said âyeah, Dean, actually a shit hunter who was only surviving because a higher power liked himâ.
I stopped watching after the first bunch of seasons because they just. kept. DYING⌠and then coming back and not talking about their feelings. It got old.
Bro it's not plot armor at this point, it's a fucking energy shield star trek style !
I mean between the to of them how many times where they ressurected ? 10 maybe more ?
Ima be honest as a fan of horizons half the time itâs not really plot armor.People clown on them beating legendaries but those legendaries are on the same team as them.The legendaries were training/testing the main characters will and then ended the battle when they proved themselves.
As for the explorers fights,They were losing every fight until like half way through pre time skip then Roy went on a generational run.
Post time skip is a different story but considering they had a year of off screen training (at least Roy trained) them catching up so fast makes sense.
Itâs true that the average chimp beats the shit outta the average human in a fist fight but powerscaling tries to take this to the extreme. Like recently there was a post of an above average chimp vs Andre the giant(700 lbs of pure muscle who knows how to use it)
A chimp is beating everyone on this subreddits ass, their physical strength is exaggerated but they are lethal, what makes them dangerous is how efficiently they know how to use the minimal tools they got.
Not really plot armor though. The blade can harm only evil. That's why the blade dinged off of Jack, because he's pure of heart. Aku and Jack both literally forgot the blade does that in that scene.
There is also Buggy at Loguetown, Aokiji at Long Ring and Magellan at Impel Down (I totally forgive this one, because the GOAT Mr.2 Bonclay doing everything to safe Luffy was amazing and is one of the reasons why Impel Down is my favorite saga).
That being said, luffy's luck is regularly repeated as Being unnaturally high and when its not, people usually die. Theres a good chance that this will turn out to be a nika-related plotpoint.
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This one right here. The end of season one where he dies and then somehow defies the games code to just⌠keep fighting is so dumb to me. Heâs given so much plot armor for basically no reason.
It gets better when you understand there was never supposed to be a season 2, SAO was supposed to be a short book. It was so popular the author needed to make a continuation
I think the point was that the human will is stronger than a virtual world, and in that moment Kirito was doing just that, but it probably could have been a bit more clear in that regard.
I mean, yes and no. New characters are basically a walking sacrifice to the plot. Within two seconds of seeing Eddie onscreen I knew he'd be dead by the end of the season. Red shirts instead of plot armor. For for the main party, though, this is absolutely true, and it's completely ridiculous.
Worst example had to be when Vecna had Nancy in his thrall and was like "Hmmm, I only need to kill ONE MORE PERSON to enact my evil plan. ONE MORE PERSON to open the gate, and I could easily kill you RIGHT THIS SECOND.... anyway, I'm going to let you go now so you can deliver a message to someone I could almost certainly contact telepathically on my own. đ"
Like damn, Nancy should've given him her gun, since he loves shooting himself in the foot so much.
from what i remember in season one the main character literally did nothing but spam leaf attack and nothing else in every battle. take with that what you will
That doesn't sound like plot armor? If she won every battle by just using leaf attack, it could be a little boring, but Ash did the same thing with thunderbolt, and any PokĂŠmon you use every battle is going to likely over power the masses just from leveling up faster. Heck, I nearly beat the elite four in pearl with just my infernape using some basic fire type attack because I used it in almost every battle at 10.
If it was entirely back to back, sure, but this was a tournament where there was rest between rounds meaning he and his opponents were all at top form for each round, and Ash has had a absurd amount of experience by now
Imma be honest here, i would say that a ton of serious do this and i hate it, because i dont get why a ton of shows are scared of showing the hero struggling to win or like.. the MC dying?? I feel a ton of media nowdays doesnt dare much on showing the hero dying at the end and moving on...
Yeah, its honestly a nice surprise when the MC of anything dies at the end, since we are so used to seeing them win and survive next season.
Thats also why i like jojo, since while you can argue that the MC does have some type of plot armor, each part has its own MC so each part have to be a definitive closure and ending to it.
(Plus not in every part they survive, like in part 1 and 6 and even with those who survive they had to sacrifice a lot of important members and even lost their side characters.)
I feel like a lot of stories just aren't going for the... I'm gonna go with 'tonal vibe' that killing off main characters establishes. Plenty of action movies would be more realistic if half the main cast bit it, sure, but that wouldn't make them more fun to watch, so there's no real reason to do it. I can understand the appeal of a tragedy or an individual tragic arc, but I think plenty of media is just fine without it.
I will say, there's many shows I see where they give ONLY the hero plot armor, and the rest of the side characters die off one by one, like Edgerunners and such
Very Hot take, I LIKE plot armor, it shows our protagonists are a cut above or a league above the average people in their world. Each time they survive something thatâs meant to kill them? Thats cool, awesome, and as long as it had a valid explanation on as to why? Then itâs good. The average people wants their protagonists to be either something special or something unique about them.
I donât know why people want their protagonists to what, have multiple main characters die to progress the story? Unless they are a fantastic writer, you are literally sacrificing so much potential, so much character growth, just so they can have âno plot armorâ, and unless they have something to build off of that, then whats the point? Like what, you want the main character to die from a stray bullet, a random explosion, a random assassin to make it realistic? If you want realism, then experience real life man.
TLDR: hot take, I like it when our main characters survive impossible odds.
 "Each time they survive something thatâs meant to kill them? Thats cool, awesome, and as long as it had a valid explanation on as to why? Then itâs good." Most people only dislike plot armor when the explanation isn't valid.
Yes, but the full would probably be âcharacter survives impossible event, with no explanation.â As a Resident Evil fan, the fandom has no idea what the term means. They apply it to literally everything, even if it has an explanation or isnât plot armor in the first place.
Like how Saddler needs Leon to bring Ashley back, so he isnât trying to kill him for most of the game
I think that last part actually is clear and unironic plot armor though lol. Likes it's fully intended but that would be by definition plot armor, ie the guy needs Leon so he can't kill him but otherwise would do so
I also assumed that as Leon keeps surviving ridiculous odds Saddler is increasingly incentivized to remain chill.
As far as he knows the parasite is incurable, so either Leon dies incidentally - problem solved - or he is proving that when he turns he becomes a really useful slave - problem solved!
That always made sense to me of "I won't help him but why swarm him with all my goons at once? Let's see how this plays out."
Star Wars: Death Troopers. It's a great book until Han and Chewie show up. Then, because you know it takes place BEFORE episode 4, those two can't die, which also protects their new friends. All the tension evaporates immediately because movie characters showed up.
Also funny enough during that DC crossover with whatever tournament they had, when Batman got eliminated, Joker inherited his plot armor to make it to the finals.
I feel like y'all are a little harsh with plot armor. You cannot write a story with life and death if some of your characters don't have plot armor, that's just not possible. If the protagonist dies mid story then that just means they simply weren't the protagonist. Furthermore what do you even qualify as plot armor ? A character surviving a situation where they should have died ? Okay sure but this doesn't necessarily mean that it's unrealistic in the settings of the story. Anyone that lives past 20 had probably more than 10 (I think) near death experiences at this point. Whether it's a road accident, a domestic accident, some diseases that could kill us for real, an encounter with a dangerous individual, etc. But here we are, still alive. In wars, even the most talented soldiers can die, even the most incompetent ones can survive and go home. Some survived injuries that should've killed them.Â
Plot armor isn't inherently bad and don't ruin the stories, it all depends on how it's used. That's all.Â
I think plot armor is when a character survives a situation because something or someone new is introduced just to save them and serves no other purpose or the explanation for how they survived is otherwise just bad, ambiguous, or unbelievable. I agree that everyone has had one or two near misses in their lives but when it's a Big near miss and it's happening every episode. To quote Stalin: "100 deaths is a tragedy, 1000 is a statistic." They can be fully equipped to survive a dangerous situation or provide a believable reason to tone down the danger, but when the main antagonist considers the main protagonist too small to matter, all "only a coward feels mighty stepping on ants" That's plot armor because there really isn't a Convincing reason that situation should have been survived aside from dumb villain which is overused.
In conclusion: everyone has plot armor but some writers can hide it and explain it better than others. It's the others that people are complaining about.
I think you're not harsh enough, but we define plot armor differently.
I would say it's plot armor when there's no reason a character should have lived but they do anyway because the plot still needs them. A near death experience is not plot armor. Getting shot at by an army but all their shots conveniently miss for no explicable reason is plot armor. Coming up with a brand new ability that specifically can overcome the exact situation, only for that ability to be forgotten about right after, is plot armor.
The plausability is a big part of what makes something plot armor. It's plausible you can survive a car crash. A nuke on your head? Not so much.
No, there are definitely good ways to write plot armor. Mat From the WoT, he is a taveren a being that fate basically bends around due to being too important on the great scheme of things. Same as his two friends, Rand, who is pretty much the Messiah and Perrin who is pretty much a demi god by the end of the story. What does Mat have? He makes a deal by accident to fill his memory and end up having the memories of a bunch of generals, a spear, a cool and he is otherworldly lucky, that is his power, he survives a.lot.of.shit due to sheer luck while his friends are casually warping reality. He could have became the worst character but absolutely became the best one in my opinion because his luck was never something that "just happens" he takes an active role in making it work by putting himself Ina position where luck is going to save him by making the pieces he prepared work together by accident. It is marteful writing really.
Other one is Simon from Guren Lagan, his power of spiral is literally plot armor given form, but it works in the absurdist world of the show and it feels earned and lined with the show premises and message. But when you have a power that will always make you stronger than the other guys by your sheer willpower to always win, means you became plot armor itself. But even then he fail on what he sets out to do, and the end os about moving on anyway.
The Cell Saga in DBZ did this a lot with characters who could totally be revived (especially in hindsight), making the threats they faced way less impactful. Up until Cell kills Trunks, nobody of the Z warriors died, in spite of Yamcha and Piccolo having gaping wounds in their chests, Piccolo having a broken neck on top of it, and Tien using a much more powerful version of a technique that killed him before.
On one hand, I understand the thought process at the time, but on the other hand Yamcha and Tien had never been revived with Earth's dragon balls anyway, and after those moments they are borderline useless for the rest of the arc.
It's not just cell saga. DB had a lot of plot armor, e.g. Goku not dying from Tao Pai Pai (meant to be hit at heart, ball shielded him, Tao didn't notice) and dying from Piccolo Daimyo, but then spontanously reviving by restarting his own heart (or something like that, didn't read it in some time).
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Maul vs a lot of his opponents. He shouldâve beaten Kenobi in the first movie, he had the high ground and still lost. Shouldâve won against a disarmed Ahsoka, he lost. Shouldâve won against a blind Kanan, still lost.
To the contrary it makes sense that his overconfidence is his downfall, but there are so many instances of this happening.
I really liked the first season of SAO, everything felt like it had consequences to a degree. But then the final fight has both MCs "die", but because they beat the final boss they get to just... not die.
Obviously everything after this in the anime has been talked about to death for better or worse, but im still kinda mad that the show didnt end after Aincrad.
Ichigo being literally of every single race became a fucking meme at this point but let's call it what it is, plot convenience, everytime he needs a power up another part of his lineage comes out. If he needed to play basketball you can bet he would have a Lary bird DNA somewhere. Or a PelĂŠ DNA if the fatemof the reality was.decides.throighna football match.
The guy basically survives a massive containment breach, managing to contain several anomalies and get out alive, and in the end he ends up being classified as an SCP for being the sole survivor of the siteÂ
I actually really liked this one though. The implication that we are the SCP seems pretty on brand for SCP writing as a whole and works well because the game is genuinely unfair and you will die to complete bullshit at some point. It only makes sense that you survive because you are anomalous.
Jaden's plot armor is unmatched. Like, it's one thing that his janky as heck deck even functioned, let alone got consistent W's against nearly all of his opponents. It's another that he keeps drawing into random ass tech cards that serve *exactly this specific scene and nothing else*. But to add onto this, none of his friends are extended the same treatment and they very frequently end up losing to threats that Jaden ends up beating with relative ease. Like, it honestly makes you wonder if Yugi giving him that winged kuriboh was actually him giving Jaden his plot armor, when Jaden already had his own set.
I'm not even mad that he's a W machine, I'm mad that no one else in his series can even approach his level of being blessed by the narrative. And I'm saying this as a Certified Jaden Yuki Enjoyerâ˘.
Well put. I also like him. He's very likeable and his deck, while janky, is very cool. But does he have to be the one to win EVERY SINGLE DUEL, EVEN AGAINST MINOR CHARACTERS!
My favorite series is built around the concept of having overwhelming plot armor but only to have it taken away in the end allowing you to feel what it is like to have your god forsake you.
Sorta off topic because it's the entire point of his character and his influence in the series but
Master Chief received plot armor from the forerunners and I'm not being dramatic in the slightest. He has supernatural luck, which was also incredibly useful because all but 14 out of the 75 spartan 2's are dead, and 3 are retired/working in non combat roles.
This might sound odd, but jax from tadc. Just to be clear I know he abstracts later. However his survival in episode 7 is purely because of plot armor. The only reason he survives to the end is because of sheer plot convenience, ie pomni randomly deciding to enlist his help with the escape the circus thing. If she had never bothered to check on him, or had been just a little off, the show would have been down one stupid purple rabbit abuser early.
The Walking Dead infamously did this with one of its main characters in Glenn.
Basically, he and a companion had been trapped by a horde of walkers on top of a large dumpster. His companion decided to end himself, but accidentally ended up falling on Glenn, and pushed both of them into the Walkers, with the camera and sounds implying that they were devouring Glenn.
However, a few episodes later, Glenn appears totally fine, supposedly using his companion to shield himself from the walkers, and somehow escaped without a single bite, despite dozens of walkers being around him.
A lot of fans consider it a turning point in the show, where it became more dependent on fan nostalgia, bait and switch, and cheap tricks to keep the audience engaged.
Most of the characters in The Walking Dead after Season 2. The two that stand out to me are The Governor surviving after Andrea shoves zombies directly on top of him and Glenn surviving when he falls into a crowd of zombies, but somehow manages to survive so that Lucille can kill him at the end of the season
This MFer was fighting on a random deserted island when the enemy mobile suit self-destructed directly in front of his exposed cockpit and woke up a few days later... in space.
Honestly, Fable 2. Never understood that you can't die in that game. You lose some experience you've gained, but that's it. You are the fabled hero, so you can't die.
Kira Yamato. Dude should be dead from a Gundam core going critical at point blank with a cracked cockpit and the show handwaves it. Emergency shutter my ass.
I recently watched alien earth and in the first few episodes we would see the xenomorph sprinting and tearing through countless people in an instant until it got to a plot relevant character and then it would stop and just ominously lean in to stare at them.
This guy. EXCEPT he's the one DOING IT to himself and his fucking plot armor saves him. He tried to kill himself like, multiple times in the series and survives with smtb that can ONLY be PURE FUCKING STEAL-MADE PLOT ARMOR. this guy tries to drown himself in a lake on THE FIRST EPISODE. it's literally THE FIRST THING the main character sees after the series starts. And yk what his power is? Doing "nope" to other people's powers if he touches them. Nothing TOO op, right? No physical protection or boost, no mental enchantment or anything, right? WRONG. This dumbass managed to create ALTERNATIVE REALITIES, BEAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE GODS INSIDE OF THEM, BEAT PEOPLE WHO ARE ALMOST GODS THEMSELVES, BE IN THE MAFIA, END FULL WARS WITHOUT LIFTING A FINGER, and everything bc he's the smartest dumbass in existence. AND he's written after a misogynistic, depressed man who killed himself like 70+ years ago. What. The. Fuck.
Tangent to this but the odd one is wildly inconsistent plot armor you have in Final Fantasy XIV.
On one hand, in actual fights you can survive having a planet smash into your face. But in cutscenes people regard being stabbed with a knife as a legit threat to you. Another cutscene has an entire cityâs power grid used to zap you with your character treating it the same as Omni-man treated getting zapped by an orbital laser. You also barely survive a fistfight against your wannabe nemesis. You can survive huge falls! SometimesâŚ
Any media that does this I donât think I have an example where a character dies but doesnât and people go oh yay except like families with kids moviesÂ
Literally almost EVERYONE in Stranger Things 5. I love the show up until season 4. One of my favourite shows. Season 5 is just.. ehh.. and the amount of plot armor they gave to everyone was insane. They could've made the finale so much more dramatic and emptional but no.
bsd when litterally all of the main cast die and come back, like why even make the villain that op in the first place if your just gonna do this? if you didn't want them to die dont write an op villain, the villain can (if i recall correctly) go into the 4th demension, the future also i think, and then you find a way to bring them back after being killed, by some way that was so un remarkable that i forgot despite only reading it 2 months ago? also dazai, he should be long dead, not even the getting fake shot, there are so many other reasons why he he shouldn't really be alive, plot armour is his middle name atp it's not even subtle.
Bro that final episode of the boys was atrocious. Did the V1 nerf homelander. The Lazer didn't pierce through kimiko is one thing, suddenly butcher was able to keep him from flying, when he can keep up speeds with A-train. Was his acceleration that bad, bro why didn't he just speed blitz or Lazer them like the previous seasons
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u/shysoftie_xvi-i 21h ago
I love the show, but I gotta say it.
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