History Main / PlotArmor

* [[Characters/TheUnbeatableSquirrelGirl Squirrel Girl]], from the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, has beaten every archvillain she has faced, including [[Characters/MarvelComicsDoctorDoom Doctor Doom]], Mandarin, [[Characters/{{AIM}} M.O.D.O.K.]], and ''[[Characters/MarvelComicsThanos Thanos]]''. Her superpower is the ability to communicate with ''squirrels.'' (Of course, Squirrel Girl is different from most cases in that she has less "Plot Armor" and more "[[LethalJokeCharacter Punchline Armor]]", because seeing all-powerful supervillains like Doctor Doom, Magneto, and the Mad Titan himself being knocked down by swarms of squirrels is [[DontExplainTheJoke humorously unlikely.]]) She basically operates on the same rules as [[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Roger Rabbit]]: She can't ''always'' defeat guys who are way more powerful than she is, only when [[RuleOfFunny it's funny.]]

* Avoided in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': in the film itself, the supers suffer injuries, and in one scene, Violet even loses consciousness due to a concussion. In the DVD commentary, Brad Bird explicitly expressed his opinion that utilizing plot armor won't teach kids anything about [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome how the real world works]].

** The playable factions get this to a degree but the worst offenders are The [[NominalHero Imperium]] of [[MostWritersAreHuman Man]]; especially a certain [[RatedMForManly all-male]], [[PoweredArmor Power-armour wearing]], SuperSoldier [[CreatorsPet faction]]. For example, during the campaign for Cadia, Abaddon won but they retconned the campaign as not canon, because then Chaos would win and the Imperium, apparently the MainCharacters of 40K, would fall.

* Mostly subverted in ''Videogame/FalloutNewVegas'', where every adult NPC can be killed, though certain plot-important [=NPCs=] only appear in certain. Played straight with Yes Man and Victor, with the justification that as AI, they can simply jump between different Securitron units.

* One of the many letdowns of the ''Literature/{{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 an "okay, let's go home" situation. The ''Twilight'' characters are supposed to be in real you-could-really-die situations but somehow everyone leaves unscathed every single time. (With the exception of Jacob [[GoodThingYouCanHeal breaking some bones that heal in a day or two]].)

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' averts it with [=NPCs=]. You can kill anyone in the game if you so choose and are strong enough to do so. For most plot-important characters, killing them will result in a pop-up text stating that the character you've killed was vital to "fulfilling the prophecy" and recommending that you load a saved game from before their death or "persist in the doomed world you created", but that is all. (And some plot-important [=NPCs=] do not give this message.)
** Both ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' play this trope straight, as a large amount of characters related to quests are marked as "essential", meaning they literally can't die before their role in the game is fulfilled. If their health does reach zero, they fall unconscious in ''Oblivion's'' case, while merely kneeling in ''Skyrim'', only to stand up moments later as if nothing happened. This is done to prevent players from breaking entire questlines by killing certain characters, which was a huge problem in ''Morrowind''. However, this can still end up {{Unwinnable}} if essential characters become trapped somewhere where they continuously take damage, like a lava pit.

** [[spoiler:Arya Stark]] racks up a virtually countless number of daring escapes unscathed.

** Deconstructed in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Latent Image", when the Doctor suffers a literal HeroicBSOD due to previously-deleted memories of a medical incident where [[SadisticChoice he had to choose between saving series regular Ensign Harry Kim or]] [[RedShirt Ens. Ahni Jetal]]. The Doctor was programmed to treat patients by prioritizing medical need, but both Kim and Jetal had equal chances of survival, and he selected Kim because he was his friend, and [[LogicBomb his programming couldn't reconcile with his reasoning]].

** Captain Pike in ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' gets his own personal plot armor InUniverse, as he has been shown the future and knows he survives until 10 years past the date the series starts on. In the fourth episode he transfers this plot armor to the ''Enterprise'', driving it into a star and then the edge of a black hole because he knows he must survive, therefore the ship will as well. It does still end 7 crewmembers dying however.

* In ''LightNovel/HumanityHasDeclined'', fairies act as plot armor, in that the number of them you meet is tied directly to how safe you are from danger.

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': Heather in Season 1. Despite her manipulative tactics earning the ire of just about every other player, she repeatedly manages to avoid elimination either by earning literal invincibility or through a ContrivedCoincidence to make another player's elimination seem more immediately necessary. The most egregious examples would be Geoff's and Leshawna's elimination. For the former, despite having wanted Heather gone for weeks and finally having the perfect opportunity to boot her (no invincibility, no immediate issues with other players), they decide to vote off Geoff instead for "being too nice," justifying this sudden shift in attitude with some InsaneTrollLogic. In the latter, the eliminated contestants all have a chance to vote off one of the remaining team players, making it the perfect chance to say a certain someone's name. Unfortunately, so much as saying a contestants name counts as a vote, so when Katie and Sadie mistakenly vote for Leshawna, with many of the other contestants saying they ''don't'' want her voted off while using her name, she gets the boot anyway.
** Several teams in ''WesternAnimation/TheRidonculousRace'' were hit with this.

* ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear'' uses a system that rates {{N|onPlayerCharacter}}PCs by chess pieces, to help [=GMs=] to maintain the [[{{Metaplot}} continuity]] of the overall [[TheVerse fiction]]. Pawns are considered [[NominalImportance nameless extras]], who are [[RedShirt completely expendable]], while the fates of Kings, Queens and Rooks are important figures, who are [[ImmuneToFate intrinsic to historical events]]. This is completely optional, as many players prefer to play the game in [[HouseRules their own way]].

* A non-video game example of StoryDrivenInvulnerability occurs in ''LightNovel/FallingInLoveWithTheVillainess'' with Maria, the DesignatedHero. She ''cannot be killed'' until she's reached "the end" of the world she was somehow summoned to, which happens to match (at least in key events) the rather niche videogame she adores and memorized. Unfortunately, by the time she'll reach this end, [[WrongGenreSavvy her actions due to deluding herself that the world runs exactly like the game she loves, and that everyone else is just an "NPC" with pre-scripted lines and actions]] have earned her so much hatred that even if she gets her "perfect ending as Queen," her reign isn't likely to be long or pleasant.

* A non-videogame example of StoryDrivenInvulnerability occurs in LightNovel/AkuyakuReijoNiKoiWoShite with Maria, the DesignatedHero. She ''can not be killed'' until she's reached "the end" of the world she was somehow summoned to, which happens to match (at least in key events) the rather niche video-game she adores and memorized. Unfortunately, by the time she'll reach this end, [[WrongGenreSavvy her actions due to deluding herself that the world runs exactly like the game she loves, and that everyone else is just an "NPC" with pre-scripted lines and actions]] have earned her so much hatred that even if she gets her "perfect ending as Queen," her reign isn't likely to be long or pleasant.

* Gauron of ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'', at least until ''The Second Raid''. This guy just will not die. Of course, every time he gets defeated, nobody bothers to look for a body, so that might be the problem.

* Konno from ''Manga/{{Limit}}'' has a very thick layer if this, allowing her to survive a bus crash, drowning, and attempted murder. [[AnyoneCanDie The other characters aren't so lucky...]]

* Done as straight as an arrow for both the MainCharacters of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', and the one time that they were thought to have died was a DisneyDeath. Also, any character that winds up allying with them for an extended period of time also survives, [[spoiler:with the only exception being Ozel in ''Evolution-R'']]. This is averted in the novels when [[spoiler:Millina and Luke, Zelgadis and Amelia's replacements, wind up dead (Millina is poisoned and Luke, as a host of [[{{Satan}} Shabranigdo]], is killed in battle), but they were more [[SatelliteCharacter distant]] in helping Lina and Gourry than Zelgadis and Amelia were]].

* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', Kirito survives being beaten to within an inch of his life three times, drawing with Kayaba in what was supposed to be a DuelToTheDeath, narrowly avoids getting stabbed to death because his enemy was blind in one eye courtesy of their earlier fight, and avoids being poisoned on account of a PocketProtector stopping the needle, all by the mid-point of the second season.

** Nagito Komaeda is his year's [[BornLucky Ultimate Lucky Student]], and he's even ''luckier'' than Naegi, so he keeps the plot armor despite not being the player character. Early in the story, [[spoiler:he sets up a situation where he'll be murdered, only for someone else to shove him out of the way and unintentionally take the bullet]]. Even more absurdly, later on Nagito [[spoiler:has to play RussianRoulette, but he feels a one-in-six chance is boring and loads ''five'' of the six chambers instead of just one. He ''still'' wins by getting the single blank chamber, just as he expected]]. [[spoiler: When he eventually ''does'' die, it's [[ThanatosGambit all part of his plan to let Chiaki graduate]] by making her responsible for his death.]]

Compare ContractualImmortality (a meta trope where a character cannot truly be dead since his or her actor hasn't left the show) and RuleOfEmpathy (which may give Plot Armor to sympathetic non-protagonist characters, including villains). SurvivedTheBeginning usually involves characters developing Plot Armor after an initial bloodbath.

* ImmuneToSlapstick: A character who is never the target of phyical comedy.

* ImmuneToSlapstick: A character never gets hurt by a gag.
* IronButtMonkey: A character repeatedly survives various improbable tortures just to be laughed at ''because'' he or she is a ButtMonkey.

** [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] and [[ExploitedTrope exploited]] in Literature/TheScumVillainsSelfSavingSystemRenZhaFanpaiZijiuXitong. Shen Qingqiu, a very GenreSavvy man who was transmigrated to a {{Troperiffic}} [[HaremGenre stallion]] webnovel where the protagonist has this trope constantly applied to him, manages to defeat a monster that has them both trapped and bound - he convinces it to attack the protagonist, knowing that the novel's universe won't let their "chosen son" to be permanently harmed. Sure enough, a ceiling column improbably drop onto the monster, which frees the protagonist and distracts the monster long enough for Shen Qingqiu to free and re-arm himself.

** The antagonist of ''Foul Detective Satori'' has thus far become infamous for [[spoiler: evading the title character, Reimu, and everyone else that has tried to capture her, and has without fail taken out every person she's targeted, even those who actively attempted to protect themselves against her, even briefly getting her claws into [[RealityWarper Yukari]] offscreen, a character many fans believe she should not have even survived an encounter with]].

** The antagonist of ''Foul Detective Satori'' has thus far become infamous for [[spoiler: evading the title character, Reimu, and everyone else that has tried to capture her, and has without fail taken out every person she's targeted, even those who actively attempted to protect themselves against her]].

** Inn the Battle of Blackwater, Stannis Baratheon and his soldier storms the beach outside King's Landing and he gets as far as the top of the wall, fighting off several Lannister soldiers. More are closing in when the retreat is called. The scene changes and the next time we see him he is back at Dragonstone assessing the failure of the invasion.

** In the first movie, Ash Ketchum throws himself directly into an attack by Mew and Mewtwo, and gets TakenForGranite. Being the protagonist, this naturally doesn't last for long, as he gets revived moments later when the Pokemon literally cry him back to life, something that is never mentioned or hinted at again.
** In the XY series, Ash throws himself to certain death on three separate occasions and not once suffers so much as a single injury for his recklessness. He jumps off of Prism Tower to save his Pikachu, jumps off of a plane along with his Goodra, and jumps into a ''volcano'' alongside his Talonflame, each time getting rescued at the last moment before anything bad happens.
** Another bad habit of the show is its tendency to have the main characters' Pokemon take ''far'' more damage in battle than their opponents, yet somehow pull off a victory with much less effort. One such example is Ash's Johto League match against Gary, where Charizard somehow tanks Golem's Magnitude, Blastoise's Hydro Pump, Skull Bash, ''and'' Bite, before one-shotting both of them in return.
** Serena, despite her limited progression as a battler and her lateness to discover a goal, has sparsely failed in ''anything''. Her Pokemon have never fainted once in battle due to either her opponents being Team Rocket or being accompanied by a stronger trainer or dumb luck, while the showcases never conveyed her as losing without a serious folly by one of her team, her act always considered the most popular up until the finals.
** Despite these examples, the anime is also infamous for being one of the most iconic subversions when it comes to the seasonal TournamentArc. While Ash's loss record is a butt of fandom jokes, his friends don't fare much better, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter always coming short of winning their own tournaments]]. Dawn particularly stands out because she managed to fail the first appeals round of her Pokemon Contests twice in a row, even though her predecessor May never failed an appeals round despite some objectively worse performances (though this is also a ZigzaggedTrope, since it was a ForegoneConclusion that she'd enter the Grand Festival and thus win enough contests to do so).