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'Character shields' (also known as 'plot armor' or 'plot shield') are plot devices in films and television shows that prevent important characters from dying or being seriously injured at dramatically inconvenient moments. It often denotes a situation in which it strains credibility to believe that the character would survive.

Contents

Origin

Use

Other versions

See also

References

Origin

The phrase originated with fans of the television show ''Star Trek'' to describe combat situations where the ''Enterprise'' is not destroyed, but other ships without major characters aboard are lost. The idea is that important characters shield their ship from damage. It also applies to situations where important characters (the stars of the show) survive difficult circumstances, but a minor character is killed. Expendable characters are sometimes referred to as "Redshirts," since red uniforms in the original ''Star Trek'' indicated security personnel, who were often the first to die in any given episode.

Use

The concept of character shields can be applied to almost any movie franchise or TV series. Police dramas, spy films, and science fiction dramas are particularly susceptible to this plot device, which tends to diminish suspense. Disaster movies and horror movies, on the other hand, often create suspense by putting the main characters in near-constant mortal danger and slowly killing them off over the course of the story. Due to the fact that the main character might die at any moment, many of these types of movies can be said to have "removed" the character shield.
However, an argument in favor of the character shield for films (not so for extended series) is that the narrative follows a given character because they survive through the entire arc of the story. That is to say, the audience could have followed any character, but the story chooses to follow the one who will be the most helpful in transmitting the events.
Minor characters that repeatedly survive dangerous situations but do not express other major character traits are called Wedge-type characters. This is named after, Wedge Antilles from Star Wars: an entirely non-integral character who survives the three original Star Wars films despite taking part in a pivotal battle in each film, during which other characters of equal standing in the story were consistently killed off.
This trait also applies to vehicles (such as jet fighters) in which minor character's vehicles can be destroyed in a few shots, yet the protagonist (who may be using the same type of vehicle) can often survive massive amounts of damage (and in some cases have been shown to even boast better maneuverability)

Other versions

In the Paranoia pen-and-paper RPG, certain NPCs have a shield called "GM Fiat." This prevents them from being killed by PCs or other events.
In the DragonLance series of AD&D game modules, if the players use the pre-generated characters the "obscure death" rule is in force for the first few modules. Characters can appear to die, but must then be returned to the game to avoid plot holes. For example if a character is killed in battle, he's merely knocked unconcious. If he falls from a high cliff, he'll be saved by striking a ledge and rolling into a hidden cave to rejoin the party later. Some NPC's also fall under this rule.
In D&D, characters repeatedly spared from death by the DM, usually in order to complete a story arc, are described as "wearing PC shirts"--probably derived as an opposite to the term redshirt, meaning an unimportant character who dies easily.
The same idea is used in many video games, with most of the NPCs having shields (such as very high character levels or invulnerability), to prevent glitches and preserve the flow of the game. For example, it would cause a plothole if a character appears in a cut scene later in the game, but was killed during play; for this reason, ''Halo 2'''s Sergeant Johnson (as just one example) is invincible during any gameplay he participates in because he is an integral part of the plot; in fact, he encourages the player to "Hide behind me!" during the opening battle. Likely because of his invulnerability various plot devices are often employed to split Johnson and the player apart, this is not unusual as many game developers tend to come up with ways to mitigate the absurd advantage an exploitive player could make of an invincible allied NPC. He was not invincible during the events of '' however, and an easter-egg ending depicts him stranded on Halo with an Elite when it is destroyed by the ''Pillar of Autumn''. This ending is non-canon; Johnson's survival is depicted in the novel ''. A In , important characters appear either through a holographic communication or in areas where the player's weapons are disabled (preventing the player from killing them). It should also be noted that in Final Fantasy Tactics, many plot-important characters who have some degree of importance at the current stage of the game and/or through later events, often appear as 'Guests', who are immune to death. Instead, they are simply knocked out and may be kept KO'ed without fear of penalty. Good, easy-to-recognize examples are Delita Hyral (who remains a guest to the very end) and Algus, who joins you as a guest for a few missions, then becomes an enemy and may die.
In the video game ''Final Fantasy XII'', one of the main characters Balthier states that as he is the main character in his "story" he cannot die. After the final battle of the game, he is seemingly lost, contradicting his theory, but later delivers a letter to the other main character Vaan stating that he indeed survived.
The Aeon Flux shorts are largely a satire of action movie tropes. Perhaps the best known example of this is the inescapable demise of Aeon in every short, a sort of reverse-character shield.
An example from anime includes the series ''Gundam SEED Destiny'' where Kira Yamato, protagonist from the preceding series ''Gundam SEED'', is defeated in battle by Destiny's protagonist Shinn Asuka. It is shown that at the last minute, before Kira's nuclear-powered mobile suit blows up, that Kira manages to disable the reactor and prevent it from completely destroying itself so he can be saved by his teammates. Afterwards, Kira is presented with a better, highly advanced mobile suit which, on top of his developing abilities, leaves him completely unscathed in the following battles including those in which he fights against Shinn once more. As well, in the original series, Kira is somehow "blown clear" of Aegis Gundam exploding straight into a hole in the cockpit of Strike, which he was piloting at the time.
In the webcomic Bob and George, the title characters have ''actual'' shields (plastic-wrap force-fields), to protect them, as well as being protected from pretty much anything, explained by the fact that as title characters, they cannot die. Non-integral characters flaunt this by having a ring of stars surround them which they call "Star Power", claiming they cannot die because they are fan favorites. Star Power is destroyed by the threat of Communism, a reference to Joe McCarthy. This phenomenon was the center of a story arc, in which George goes back in time to discover the explanation behind one of his more far-fetched dei ex machina.
In the TV drama Grey's Anatomy, Meredith Grey, one of the show's main characters, fell into ice cold water and remained there for several minutes. Her boyfriend, Derek "McDreamy" Sheppard, rescued her from the water but she remained in a critical condition. Despite the fact that realistically she might have died, she survived the incident.

See also

★ Achilles' heel

★ Stormtrooper effect

★ Redshirt (character)

References