Plot Armor: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''[[Genre Savvy|"Look, we got four or five of the main characters on this ship. I think we'll be fine."]]''|'''Peter Griffin,''' ''[[Family Guy]]'', "Something, Something, Something Dark Side"}}

but it will not come near you.|Psalm 91}}

== Fan FictionWorks ==

* In the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfic ''The Council Era'', when he is in conflict with the [[Villain Protagonist]]'s son, the [[Chaotic Evil]] Takavor Derishama throws his spear and it directly impales him. When he throws the spear at the [[Villain Protagonist]], it goes too far upward, just cutting off one of those muscle-horn things that salarians have.

* ''[[DC Nation]]'' usually requires a player wanting to kill a character to go through an application process of the mods and muns of the characters teammates. The exception is when a mun leaves the game and the character cannot be adopted out for one reason or another.

* Lelouch in ''[[Soul Chess]]'' has an excuse, but apart from that, {{spoiler|[[Word of God]] states that even Ichigo and his friends will lose theirs after graduation. Some of the other characters from Bleach have lost theirs already. Like Head Captain Yamamoto.}}

* [[Lampshaded]] in the title song of ''[[Road To]]to Morocco]]'':

* Played straight in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', especially the second film, wherein the main characters' ship is attacked by the Kraken, who kills most of the crew ''except'' for every single main character who board the lifeboats {{spoiler|except for Jack Sparrow, who is left at the ship and then killed by the Kraken as it sinks the boat. He comes [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]], though.}}). Even the guy with the talking parrot survived.

* One of the many letdowns of the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' books is Meyer's continuous promises of danger to characters followed by little to no follow through. In the first book, Laurent refuses to fight against James even though it would be an eight to two fight. Which basically means James must be the badass of badasses. Actually Jasper and Emmett take him out alone. And easily. Book Four is the biggest Plot Armor moment when a brutal battle between the Volturi and the Cullen/Cullen allies that has been worked up for ages devolves into a friendly talk and aan okay, let's go home situation. The ''Twilight'' characters are supposed to be in real you-could-really-die situations, but somehow everyone leaves everything unscathed every single time. (WithExcept the exception offor Jacob breaking some bones that heal in a day or two.)

** Okra Ogress tries to put Jenny Elf into a life -threatening incident, but can't do it simply because Jenny is a major character. Ironically, the reason Okra was trying to get Jenny killed was so that she could get the major character status for herself.

* The ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' books were like this at first with all the main characters, but the central characters have been steadily moving away from Plot Armour. Particularly notable was when they killed a Chaos Baneblade in ''Honour Guard'' while only losing two or three troopers and one tank.

* In all the ''[[Star Trek]]'' series, the weekly evil alien menaces have killed dozens of [[Red Shirt|redshirts]] but only two major characters. And one of them kind of [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|came back]], albeit with a new body and personality. During space battles the ships that house major characters also have character shields, with many other ships being destroyed instead.

* A lot (by now) of games integrate this into mechanics anda tryform toof ablative Plot Armor, usually called Fate Points. Since they need a balance between "too easy to die" and "not challenging enough" is usually called Fate Points. Typically given only to PC and ''important'' NPC, and spending these allows a character a reroll, bonus or automatic success on some random check or to avoid damage. Since there are only a few, and they are usually not easy to recover, Fate Points somewhat protect from being slapped by [[Random Number God]], but not improve the character's abilities inonly theat critical moments rather longthan runconstantly. Sometimes there's a distinction between temporary "spending" and permanent "burning" (reserved for "save-from-certain-death" options) of Fate Points.

** Warhammer RPGs (''[[DarkWarhammer Heresy]]''40,000 ''[[DeathwatchRoleplay]]'', ''[[Rogueseries Trader]]'',started ''[[Blackwith Crusade]]''typical variant, ''[[Onlybut War]]'')immediately runsran with it on a rampage, introducing Traits and Talents that describe specific forms of improvement by Fate Points, or even ''only'' allow a new action "powered" by spending a Fate Point (Killing Strike - spend 1 fate to make melee attacks in this round impossible to parry or dodge) ''and'' somea checkroll, or hashave different effecteffects whenfor spent it'sand burned (Faith Talents), or modify pre-existing uses (Charmed - 10% chance to not lose fate point; Ill-fortuned - when using fate, 7+ on d10 pointhas ispoint wasted with no effect), or even modifies modified uses further (Miracle Worker - once per session ''spend'' fate to activate faith power as if fate was ''burnt''). ''[[Black Crusade]]'' uses Infamy score instead, which is amount of attention earned from the character's patron god in particular and Warp denizens in general (when someone elicits reaction from thinking non-Blank creatures, this almost by definition reflects in the Empyrean, and if it's the sort of reaction such entities approve, one is in favour).

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'': If a plot-critical NPC is "killed" during gameplay, outside of [[Plotline Death]], they will later come [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] and call you to pick them up from the hospital.

* ''[[Warcraft]] III'' hero units took less damage from most forms of attack. Even though they could be slain non-plot, they could be [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|revived at special Altars]]. Certain characters had "Divine" armor that reduced all non-Chaos attacks to one point of damage.

** AtIn at least one ofinstance, thesethe isheroes justified.find Especiallythemselves at the endmercy of Diskthe I[[Big Bad]], becausewho theleaves personwithout lookingfinishing atoff the defeated party issimply none other than {{spoiler|thebecause [[Smug Snake|he thinks it's more fun to let them live]] Kuja.}}

* Shelley Winters of ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' is indestructible. She survives several catastrophes that should have killed her, and even a few that ''did'', but she came [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]]. It's even discussed in the comic. In fact, not even the end of ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' (with her leaving town) can stop her, as she still appears around her author's website.

* It's almost creepy the way the military career of [[George Washington]] seems to follow this trope. To wit, during his service in The [[Seven Years' War]] (more commonly known Stateside as the French and Indian Wars), Washington had several horses shot out from under him, his uniform was damaged by musket balls at the limits of their range that failed to pierce his skin and he participated in some of the most disastrous routs the Colonial forces would suffer during the conflict and lived to tell the tale, all without ever taking a single bullet wound. This wouldn't be so strange, if not for the fact that Washington, by most accounts, was not especially competent in his early career, in fact he was even directly responsible for some of said routs (though largely due to his superiors piling responsibilities on him that were far beyond his level of experience). It is almost as if history itself knew it could not afford to lose him for the massive role he would soon play in it.

[[Category:Plot Armor{{PAGENAME}}]]