Anti-Author Terminology

[No Song so Sweet]

So . . . the author wants to turn the plot in a certain way. Isn't that OK? Because again, I'm not accustomed to seeing these terms in a neutral or descriptive light. They're always used critically, and I think the broad use of these terms has an ultimate effect of restricting authorial freedom of plot device.

It the "plot armor," or whatever the heck it is, is bad, then tell us why it's bad using the kind of language that Jon of the (E)D used above, language that actually means something and can rightfully be used in a critical sense. Of course you can judge the plot, just write about it in a meaningful way, not by jumping on some garbage truck of a fad phase that is, again, used more in this forum than anywhere else in the language.

Plot armor is negative in the sense that it is unrealistic, and unrealistic plot is a criticism to the plot. Saying "plot armor" means "the book's plot is bad in a specific way concerning this character". For example if in a movie somehow the protagonist cannot be hit by bullets for some unknown reason, it is plot armor. If the creator wanted the protagonist to live, he should have written the plot in a way that realistically supports that instead of just giving them extreme amounts of dumb luck. The problem isn't that the protagonist survives, it is that they survive in an unrealistic way. It's not an ambiguous term.

[Squab]

Two questions:

(1) What will you mean when you use it?

(2) What makes you think others will take that same meaning when they read what you wrote?

Two answers:

(1) Author wrote him or herself into a position they could not write themselves out of using the material that already existed in the book, and is not being used to set up a later, even bigger event.

(2) Nothing. People misconstrue shit all the time. Context tends to help.

[RoamingRonin]

Those terms were not created by this forum. I believe the term "Mary Sue" is older than this forum, actually. Like "dues ex machina" and "jump the shark", those terms have now found a place in criticism. Don't try to write them off because some people use them inappropriately.

[Hodor's Dragon]

Those terms were not created by this forum. I believe the term "Mary Sue" is older than this forum, actually. Like "dues ex machina" and "jump the shark", those terms have now found a place in criticism. Don't try to write them off because some people use them inappropriately.

I never said they were created by this forum. But the bolded part is hogwash. Those terms are way too vague for serious literary criticism. Try dropping one of those terms, uncritically, into a paper in an upper-level-undergrad or graduate-level literature paper and I hope you like the color red.

I've seen these terms used a lot on this forum. They almost invariably inhibit discussion because nobody knows what they mean. Unlike words that are in the dictionary.

[Squab]

I never said they were created by this forum. But the bolded part is hogwash. Those terms are way too vague for serious literary criticism. Try dropping one of those terms, uncritically, into a paper in an upper-level-undergrad or graduate-level literature paper and I hope you like the color red.

I've seen these terms used a lot on this forum. They almost invariably inhibit discussion because nobody knows what they mean. Unlike words that are in the dictionary.

You have an over inflated opinion of literature studies. They, unlike the words in you opening post, never actually happen and are imaginary. We would have gained something from them by now otherwise.

[Good Guy Garlan]

I never said they were created by this forum. But the bolded part is hogwash. Those terms are way too vague for serious literary criticism. Try dropping one of those terms, uncritically, into a paper in an upper-level-undergrad or graduate-level literature paper and I hope you like the color red.

I've seen these terms used a lot on this forum. They almost invariably inhibit discussion because nobody knows what they mean. Unlike words that are in the dictionary.

That says more about the inability of literary studies to be anything other than endless scraping to the so-called "canon" in the same way for the last 50 years than it does of the knowledge of the person writing the paper.

[Archmaester Drew]

I agree with the uselessness of the 'Mary Sue' concept, but 'plot armor' and 'plot gift' are part of the vernacular. Language is dynamic and ever-changing. Plot armor has a specific meaning: the relative expectation that a main character will persist to fulfill their arc (e.g., Jon is not actually dead, dead). It is just short-hand; slang. Similarly, plot gift is also just short-hand for deus ex machina-like plot developments. :)

[RoamingRonin]

I never said they were created by this forum. But the bolded part is hogwash. Those terms are way too vague for serious literary criticism. Try dropping one of those terms, uncritically, into a paper in an upper-level-undergrad or graduate-level literature paper and I hope you like the color red.

I've seen these terms used a lot on this forum. They almost invariably inhibit discussion because nobody knows what they mean. Unlike words that are in the dictionary.

Are we always doing serious literary criticism? No. Next you'll be asking me to cite my sources. I'll just use a term more acceptable then like "suspension of disbelief". Same thing.

We know what those terms mean. You do too. You have googled them and it's easy to figure out what the writer is saying through context... If not then just ask. If you think someone is just flinging terms out then call them out on it. That's always fun.

Right now you're just sitting there typing with your pinky up.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

In my experience on here, plot armor has two basic meanings:

1. Something good happening to a character you don't particularly like, in which case it's pretty useless as a descriptor because one person's plot armor is another person's, "Well I thought it made sense."

2. Something happening to a character that legitimately seems to push the boundaries of what the author could reasonably get away with, a deus ex that feels like an asspull.

Unfortunately so many people fall back to #1 that when someone tries to argue a case like #2, they're waved off because "plot armor" seems meaningless.

[unitron]

The problem with plot armor is that it protects the characters and not the reader.

If the character needs to be around at the end of the book, we shouldn't find ourselves saying "No way! He shouldn't still be alive after that!", because the author shouldn't put the character in a situation in the first place that should kill the character but doesn't.

[Victor227]

I'm of the opinion that the words exist, and hold some meaning. What I disagree with is that they should be treated with universal disdain. Frankly, I enjoy the fact that characters survive things that a person, or even them, wouldn't ordinarily be able to survive, or that serendipitous things happen to advance the story . Why isn't anyone allowed to be special anymore? Or lucky?

[Hodor's Dragon]

Are we always doing serious literary criticism? No. Next you'll be asking me to cite my sources. I'll just use a term more acceptable then like "suspension of disbelief". Same thing.

We know what those terms mean. You do too. You have googled them and it's easy to figure out what the writer is saying through context... If not then just ask. If you think someone is just flinging terms out then call them out on it. That's always fun.

Right now you're just sitting there typing with your pinky up.

Actually, I have had a great deal of experience with "using" those terms in discussions on this forum. In my experience, they almost always lead the discussion down the road of vagueness and away from the road of substantial discussion. On the few occasions they've actually taken over the discussion, I've found myself with really no idea what the discussion is actually about, and I don't know how to reply.

So no, I'm not just jacking off here, despite the unwelcome personalization in your last sentence. I don't know what the terms mean. I see them used for widely varying purposes, with no consistency. I've seen people asked what they mean when they use the terms, and then seen multiple very different replies in the same thread.

My underlying point is that we're dealing with a significant piece of literature from a significant writer. I salute people who are bold enough to question and criticize his work, but if they do so I think they have an obligation to make their points clear, so that they can be responded to in a clear way. These terms enable people to drop bombs on the author without ever going to the trouble of specifying exactly what they mean, and exactly why this is a point that is worthy of criticism.

[Archmaester Drew]

Right now you're just sitting there typing with your pinky up.

So no, I'm not just jacking off here, despite the unwelcome personalization in your last sentence. I don't know what the terms mean. I see them used for widely varying purposes, with no consistency. I've seen people asked what they mean when they use the terms, and then seen multiple very different replies in the same thread.

"With you pinky up" is an expression meaning snobbish, not masturbation. ;)

[ChillyPolly]

Lets use the most obvious example, the eagles in LOTR. Can't everyone agree thats a plot gift?

Depends on the definition, of course.

I define plot gift as the author wrote him or herself into a position they could not write themselves out of using the material that already existed in the book, and is not being used to set up a later, even bigger event.

Okay, by that definition ... not a plot gift then.

The Eagles are really a victim of the "talking animals are stupid" prejudice possessed by many fantasy readers. However, they are a carefully established part of the story, and everything they do makes reasonable sense in the context of the story.

Now to examine the eagles, they were not mentioned beforehand in any serious context that could not have simply been added in, [...]

This sounds very subjective. Fact is the Eagles definitely were mentioned and established at many points during LOTR, and also during the earlier novel, the Hobbit.

Either way the first real mention is them swooping in and saving the day in the Hobbit,

The subject has suddenly been changed. I thought we were talking about the eagles in LOTR.

Still, even on our first encounter with the Eagles in The Hobbit, this is not quite true. We are introduced to the Lord of the Eagles in his own perspective a page or two before he swoops down and saves the day in the Hobbit, a variation from the normal formula of showing things from Bilbo's perspective, which would have made it even more surprising.

This, however, is part of the entire formula of the Hobbit. Bilbo is a little fellow in a large world, caught in a war of battling forces of good and evil all of which are greater than he is. Virtually everything that happens to him, good or bad, is unexpected. He is not some mega-wise superhero who anticipates all possible dangers and can meet them single-handedly, and the idea that he ought to be (or can be) is contrary to the entire point of the book. Here, for instance, is Bilbo's final dialogue with Gandalf:

BILBO: Then the prophesies and old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion.

GANDALF: Of course! And why should they not prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophesies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don't really suppose that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in the wide world after all!

BILBO: Thank goodness!

then again they show up in the battle at the end to tip the side in the good guys favor.

Lots of people showed up at the Battle of the Five Armies: Thorin's troop, Gandalf, the Men of Laketown, the Wood Elves, the Dwarves of the Iron Hills, the Goblins, the Wolves, the Eagles, and Beorn. And it was not as though we were not warned, earlier in the story, that the Lord of the Eagles might intervene in any Goblin mischief he got wind of.

Bilbo spend virtually the entire battle unconscious. Win or lose, the outcome of the battle had little to do with Bilbo.

It's pretty much true of any battle that it can tip the scales if fewer forces show up on one side of the other. Maybe the problem, in this case, is that these particular forces were talking animals.

I believe its the same in the main series, pop in twice to save the day when nothing else that was written into the story could have been used.

Gandalf's rescue from Orthanc was carefully set up. Gandalf made a request of Radagast, Radagast complied, and Gwaihir showed up at Orthanc as a result.

Their arrival at the battle of the Gate was arguably a bit unexplained, since it is not explained why they showed up at this particular battle exactly when they did. But perhaps all troop movement need not be laboriously explained. It is fairly well established by this point that the Eagles have a history and a policy of making trouble for Orcs whenever they can.

Nor did their arrival turn the tide of the battle. The destruction of the Ring did that.

It did provide a means for convenient rescue of Frodo and Sam. But we were actually warned of their arrival at the Black Gate several chapters before Frodo and Sam found themselves in need of a convenient rescue.

This is the clearest example I can think of but there's no reason it couldn't apply to something in ASOIAF. I'm inclined to say that GRRM is a better writer [...]

I don't equate unexpected events with bad writing. GRRM tries to surprise us whenever he can. Who'd a' thunk that throwing yourself into a bonfire would cause fossils to hatch into dragons.

[Hodor's Dragon]

"With you pinky up" is an expression meaning snobbish, not masturbation. ;)

I know what it means, it refers to me primly drinking tea. It's personal, and I don't welcome it.

[Pecan]

Ok, how would you call the eventuality of a character that escapes from danger in a ludicrous and implausible manner in repeated circumstances, straining credibility and breaking the reader's inmersion in the narrative and any attempt of realism?

Bad writing?

[Tynned Lannistark]

I think the terms plot armor and plot gift are often used here in the context of people thinking a character they dislike gets special favors from the author because he likes the more as if they were some kind of teacher's pet getting extra points that they don't deserve in a class test.

In this context I can understand the OP. But I don't find it offensive , I find it amusing.

I think the fact people treat the characters as if they have a life of their own , outside of the head of the writer who created them and are entitled or not entitled to certain rights is only a prove that GRRM is a very good writer or at least a master in character building.

Moreover, think that the fact GRRM has proved in the past he is capable of killing major characters and ones he likes is what gets people to complain.

Did anybody complain in Harry Potter that Harry and Voldemort have plot armors?

As for Mary Sue characters - they do exist, no doubt, but in ASOIAF??? I find it hard to believe given the nature of characters in this story that any one views them as Mary Sue.

[Visenya Stark]

From what I've seen in this forum, any living character (that people don't like) has plot armour. :bang:

[The Human Abstract]

OP was on to something about how hollow these terms frequently are but went way too far with it.

Of course they have meaning.

[Hodor's Dragon]

OP was on to something about how hollow these terms frequently are but went way too far with it.

Of course they have meaning.

Absolutely yes, of course they have meaning. I'm not saying people are just going abba gabba babba; when people use the terms they are thinking about something. The problem is not that they don't have meaning, it's that they don't have agreed meaning, by which I mean that when I use the term then you know what I mean, and we could probably agree to a certain test that would show whether the term is met.

The only one of those four terms that comes close to having an agreed meaning by that definition is "plot armor." But while "plot armor" probably means something close to "this character must survive this encounter in order to perform some role later in the story," if you look through this very thread you'll see some definitions of that term that aren't all that close to that one.

And "plot armor" is by far the most definite of those terms. The other three are dead vague. I might say "plot gift" or "Mary Sue," and I might mean something, but you'd only be guessing, or at best estimating, what I mean, because those terms aren't even close to having an agreed meaning.

Finally, even if we did have a definite meaning for it, do we really need a term like "plot armor?" Do we need a generic insult to throw at the practice of keeping a person alive during the middle of the story because that person is important to the story? If we need it, do we need to throw it around like Hershey's kisses on Halloween, i.e., at whatever moves? Does that promote communication and conversation?

Take the imperial storm troopers in the Star Wars movies. What if I said:

(1) The first two or three times you see the storm troopers always miss are pretty convincing, but eventually you see that they're just using the same plot device to escape danger over and over and over until it becomes really silly.

Or what if I said:

(2) "Luke and Leia and Solo had plot armor."

Which of those two sentences had more meaning, (1) or (2)? If you wanted to reply to me and start a conversation, to which of those sentences would it be easier for you to direct a meaningful reply?