[DoughnutHole]

A character’s explained powers saving them isn’t plot armour, it’s just armour.

E.g. a superhero whose power is having impenetrable skin surviving a hail of bullets isn’t plot armour - it’s an explained part of the story. A character survived because of their nature as a character.

Plot armour would be a hero who does not have any particular resistance to bullets running through a hail of gunfire and surviving. It’s an extremely improbable outcome which ruins suspension of disbelief. The only reasonable explanation is that the character survived because the writers wanted to keep them alive. That’s plot armour.

[aspenmayer]

I don’t agree that this is how the term plot armor is commonly used, but I won’t disagree with your desire to use the term in that way.

[DoughnutHole]

plot armor

noun

used to refer to the phenomenon in fiction whereby the main character is allowed to survive dangerous situations because they are needed for the plot to continue.

[aspenmayer]

Yeah, that’s what I originally posted. So why are you disagreeing with me when you said:

> A character’s explained powers saving them isn’t plot armour, it’s just armour.

[DoughnutHole]

The important bit is

> because they are needed for the plot to continue.

ie. A character should die in this situation but survives because their death would be inconvenient for the writer.

A character surviving because of a predefined power is consistent with the fiction. They didn’t survive out of the writer’s necessity but because they had already been written as someone who can survive such a situation. That’s competent writing.

You’re trying to define plot armour as just… any character surviving a dangerous situation? That makes the term completely meaningless. It’s meant to denote bad, lazy writing whereby an important character improbably survives despite it not being justified by the rest of the fiction.

Additionally, from the very TVTropes article you linked:

> “Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person (or one of several) who can't be removed from the story. Therefore, whenever Bob is in a situation where he could be killed (or at the least very seriously injured), he comes out unharmed with no logical, In-Universe explanation.”

A character’s survival being well justified in-universe makes it not plot armour.

[aspenmayer]

> “Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person (or one of several) who can't be removed from the story.

The original post we’re both replying to referred to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who is literally the main character of the series. I’m not sure if you’re speaking generally, but I’d say that her powers are not well justified in-universe, to the degree that even supernatural beings in her narrative setting are flabbergasted at her hardiness. I stand by my statement that she definitely has plot armor, as the show is literally named after her.

[DoughnutHole]

The fact that plot armour applies to main characters does not imply that main characters necessarily have plot armour.

Buffy having a high survivability is pretty consistent with her defined powers (general resistance to harm, fighting abilities, accelerated healing). It’s not enough to just say she survives fighting monsters.

A good example of clear plot armour in Buffy is the named vampire characters. The random baddies disintegrate the second they’re touched by sunlight whereas Spike survives stretches of sunlight multiple times. This violates the established rules of the fiction for the sake of protecting an important character.

Another example is the rest of the gang of kids managing to survive fighting vampires on their own without Buffy. Early on they have no established powers and while the various monsters are demonstrated to be tough to take down even by someone with superpowers.