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Armor Is Useless: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Hector''': A man died while wearing it!
'''Artimaeus''': ...Hector, it's a suit of armor. Men who wear them tend to do that.
|''[[Tales of the Questor]]''}}
In fiction, armor has virtually no protective qualities. Characters who wear no armor to speak of are no more (and often less) at risk of injury or death than somebody who is "protected". Indeed, it's often the case that people who wear armor find themselves far more competent after they either discard it or have it [[Clothing Damage|destroyed for them]] by the nice people out to kill them. In the latter case, it leaves one wondering why they bothered with it in the first place, if they can survive attacks that completely demolish their armor anyway.
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This trope probably stems from the fact that armor—especially [[Helmets Are Hardly Heroic|helmets]]—in movies, games, and other media often serves not to protect characters but to render them [[Faceless Goons|faceless and anonymous]]. Thus dehumanized, they make excellent [[Red Shirt]] and [[Mooks]]. The [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]] may also be connected; the armor represents a plan to be invulnerable, which, once presented to the audience, has to fail or it'd be boringly predictable. (This helps explain why ''hidden'' [[Bulletproof Vest]]s usually work.)
See also [[The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort]]. The logical extreme of this trope is the [[Full-Frontal Assault]]. For non-armor objects that make for bizarrely non-useless armor, see [[Pocket Protector]]. Contrast [[Heavily Armored Mook]], where the armor is genuinely useful to the detriment of the player.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'': The Sailor Senshi wore nothing but moderately skimpy clothing made of what appears to be cotton, yet appeared to be perfectly capable of keeping their wearers—exposed skin and all—protected from everything from flying debris to flames to the vacuum of space. Further, while they were often smacked around, their clothing only showed it when they were fighting the [[Big Bad]] or somebody directly under them. In the live-action ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'', Senshi wears some armor—a sports-bra-style [[Breast Plate]] made of what looks like fiberglass or plastic.
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* [[Spider-Man]]'s enemy the Vulture used [[Powered Armor]] during the brief period where he had de-aged himself and became a young man. If was later destroyed by a monster called DK, who also caused him to regress back to his true age, and he [[Status Quo Is God|never seemed motivated to rebuild it.]] He did consider doing so once in a story where he was with some other villains at the Bar With No Name; Kraven (as in, Alyosha Kravinoff) advised him not to, saying he himself never had much luck with armor.
** Alyosha may have had a valid point there, as his half-brother Vladimir did indeed use armor in his brief stint as the Grim Hunter. {{spoiler| He didn't last long, killed by Spider-Man's corrupted clone, Kaine.}}
** And
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Averted in ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]''. Even though main character Douglas Sangnoir has a mutant power which makes him difficult, if not almost impossible, to hit with an attack, he ''also'' wears a suit of form-fitting, flexible body armor for those times when the attack gets past his defenses, being well aware of [[The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort]]. It's saved his life a couple of times in the story material extant as of mid-2021.
== [[Film]] ==
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* All cops in ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' wear bulky armor that does absolutely nothing to stop bullets.
* Most of the troops in ''[[Red Cliff]]'' wear various forms of armor which provide no protection whatsoever. Master Archers who (because this is a [[John Woo]] film) can [[Improbable Aiming Skills|bullseye any target they can see]] shoot enemy troops right through their breast plates, not even bothering to aim a few inches higher to hit exposed necks. The senior generals frequently cut off limbs with a single stroke, not even slowed down by the heavy metal armor their targets are wearing.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy: The
* In ''[[Battle: Los Angeles]]'', the Marines' armor is ineffective at stopping the aliens' weapons, as the incendiary rounds they have
* In ''[[Only the Brave (2017 film)|Only the Brave]]'', {{spoiler|the Granite Mountain Hotshots attempt to use their fire shelters to ride out the Yarnell Hill Fire. Said wildfire burns so much hotter (2000 degrees Celsius compared to fire shelters rated only for 500) that they die anyway.}}
* Averted in ''[[John Wick]]''. John and several other characters get bulletproof suits that their opponents need to aim for exposed areas against. High Table [[Heavily Armored Mook]]s wear full-body SWAT-style tactical gear that is bulletproof everywhere and John either has to grapple them to expose weakpoints or use special [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]s in order to kill.
== [[Literature]] ==
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** Also subverted for many of the monsters, who will put on armor when possible to augment their own AC (which may already be naturally high).
* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', this is subverted with Ashley's medieval-style plate armor, which is unlocked by finishing the main game and finishing the Separate Ways mini-game. [[Lethal Joke Item|It looks kind of silly]] given the genre and setting, but it makes the game a ''lot'' easier, protecting Ashley from attacks (enemy attacks and accidentally hitting her yourself) and makes her too heavy for enemies to carry away, which becomes a frequent problem without it.
* The Iron Bull in ''[[Dragon Age: Inquisition]]'' has very few armor options, because he really doesn't need it. He's your typical bare chested, [[Boisterous Bruiser]], [[Barbarian Hero]]; armor would just slow him down.
* Undine's plate armor in ''[[Undertale]]'' was actually ''detrimental'' in the original version of the game. The first time you fight her, she has a ''negative'' defense score, and in the "date" battle later (where she isn't wearing it) her defense is higher. It's also a handicap story-wise, because if the player wants to win the first battle without killing her, they have to lure her to Hotland, where the armor causes her to dehydrate quickly and collapse. A later patch fixed the first problem, but it still doesn't give her a significant boost in defense score.
* Zigzagged in ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)|Gauntlet]]''. Thor doesn't need armor - he avoids 30% damage despite [[Walking Shirtless Scene|being bare-chested!]] On the other hand, Thyra wears plate armor, and she resists 40% of damage.
* In ''[[Lethal Company]]'', all employees wear [[Hazmat Suit]]s, but it doesn't do anything to protect them from the bloodlike substance a Masked vomits.
* Averted in ''[[Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice]]'' with the Armored Warrior, who wears full plate and is immune to Wolf's attacks. Instead, he is a [[Puzzle Boss]] whose posture the player must break in order to knock off a ledge.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* A [[Cyclic Trope]] in regards to naval warfare. During the age of [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]], cannon fire could blast through anything that could float, so warships generally <ref>The original six frigates of the US Navy, utilizing a type of wood [[Unobtainium|found only in the United States]] for exceptional cannon resistance, are the most famous exception.</ref> didn't bother with armor. Then came the era of ironclads, where cannon balls would [[Won't Work On Me|bounce off]] armored hulls. This began an arms race between naval weapons and naval armor that saw both getting [[Serial Escalation|ever bigger and heavier]]. This pattern finally broke in [[World War II]], when it became clear that heavily armored warships were not effective against serious airpower. Thus, ships were generally low on armor again... at least until the 1970s and 80s showed that then-modern destroyers were so unprotected that they would take catastrophic damage from things that WWII-era ships could just shrug off. So they began adding ''some'' protective armor back; for instance, the ''USS Cole'' (a 90s design) survived an explosion that would've destroyed a 70s-era Spruance-class destroyer.
** The Soviet Navy feared the Iowa-class battleships above any other ships in the US fleet because of this. There is a story that they even nicknamed them the "Cockroach Battleships" because, when the Sovs ran simulations, they just wouldn't die.
* Modern soft body armor, intended to stop bullets, is fairly defenseless against bladed weapons - the fiber weave is designed to stop (or at least slow) relatively blunt objects travelling at high speed, and can be cut or pierced by a sharp edge much like any other cloth. This has been a problem for some, such as prison guards, who wear [[Bulletproof Vest|Bullet Proof Vests]] as part of their standard equipment, but frequently face lower-tech threats than firearms. Stab vests, designed to protect against knives, have the opposite problem of offering no protection against bullets. Modern vest designs try to combine both protections in one way or another, though you're often stuck with wearing two types of light armor or heavy plates that cover fairly little of the body.
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