BY NOAH FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
Plot armor is a pretty known trope and frequently used, but it seems to be only talked about in a negative sense. It comes up sometimes when talking about a story, but if it’s used poorly then we notice it. After all, why would such an obvious trope be liked? You’re pulled out of the story, it feels muddled, and it messes with the rules of the world. Why would anyone like plot armor? Well, tropes only become bad when used incorrectly and poorly, and it also applies to plot armor.
Plot armor is defined as when a character survives a life-threatening situation for plot-related reasons. They might be needed for the plot, the character is the narrator, and possibly deus ex machina territory. Fake-out deaths could be considered a kind of plot armor–for example, your main character sacrifices themself and somehow reappears, unscathed, with no explanation on how they survived. As long as your character somehow survives against all odds in dangerous situations, they have plot armor.
Like I said before, plot armor is only bad when you use it poorly, and that’s the most well-known usage of the trope. You’ve accidentally backed yourself and your character into a corner, and now you need to figure out how they’ll survive twenty gunshots and drowning. Luckily, that solution is…they swim to the surface and drag themself to the nearest town to get healed with no sustaining consequences or acknowledgement.
Now you can see why this would be poor writing. If your audience expects the character to die and you subvert that expectation with no explanation, they’re going to catch onto the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing.
But a scenario like this could work if you set the rules correctly.
It’s undeniable that there are rules to death in the world of fiction. No one expects the main character to die from a stray bullet; they have to die in a meaningful way after completing their character arc and resolving the conflict. You need a reason for why characters do things which includes dying. It’s also you, the writer, who must set those rules of death and when we should expect a character to die.
Bungou Stray Dogs is an excellent example of plot armor used correctly. If you know anything about it, then it becomes quite apparent that the characters don’t get hurt significantly. “You got shot eleven times by a machine gun? Don’t worry! A quick visit to Dr. Yosano will make you all better.” After all, it’s a show about detectives who are superhumans beating up the mafia and other bad guys who are equally powerful. Despite the constant danger, it is expected that the characters will survive since the show quickly establishes how absolutely powerful all these characters are and the casual violence of the show. It makes it all the more intense when characters do get injured in a significant way, which creates tension.
Furthermore, if you compare the rules of injury/death for Atsushi and Dazai, it is a wildly different playing field. In contrast to Dazai, Atsushi gets battered and broken way more, including the following: gunshots, broken bones, torture, impalement, getting his limbs ripped off, and a lot more. These injuries are quickly healed by his weretiger powers and Dr. Yosano–both aspects that were previously established. We also all know that main characters don’t die, and the show doesn’t bother to make you worry if Atsushi will survive or not. Instead, they put Atsushi in danger at the threat of his character arc, which we care about much more.
On the other hand, Dazai rarely gets injured, being the brains of the operation and not liking pain all that much. The already established rules in the universe make small moments like him getting slammed into a wall not significant, but that doesn’t compare to season three when he is put out of commission by Fyodor after getting sniped in the chest. The difference is that in this scene, there are other things at stake than Dazai’s survival. Instead, the scene is used to establish how smart Fyodor is by tricking Dazai and giving the audience even more reasons to be worried about the threat.
In fact, that’s where a lot of the tension comes from in the show. The story establishes that you don’t need to worry about the characters’ lives and prioritizes the threat of incomplete character arcs, the homes of the characters, their identities, and things that we’re so much more invested in. This makes the danger meaningful and death seem scary.
By definition, a lot of the things that happen in your stories are plot armor, but your rules are what define tension and when we should worry. Breaking said rules will feel inconsistent, and your audience will remember that they’re reading a story. It’s like you snatched the ball in the middle of a soccer game and chucked it in the goal, but it’s okay because it’s you, and rules were meant to be broken.
Now, what’s the moral here? Well, the best piece of advice I can give you is to establish rules and don’t break them.