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What is 'plot armor'?


aceluby

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I think Tyrion's battle prowess is less "plot armor" and more "GRRM wasn't clear on the physical limitations implied by Tyrion's dwarfism". I remember Tyrion having unusual acrobatic abilities early in the books too; these abilities weren't used to fight or get him out of trouble, he just used them to show off in front of a couple of people once. I don't think GRRM gave him these as a 'plot gift' since they didn't make Tyrion's life any easier, he just didn't realize that Tyrion's disability would make doing things like that implausible.



As far as plot armor goes, I would draw a line between characters staying alive and characters staying alive through contrived circumstances. If you go too far one extreme, you end up arguing that everyone who is not yet dead is alive because of deus ex machina or authorial intervention; this is technically true (GRRM really decides when people die, and it's not really reasonable to suggest that it's implausible for people to survive dangerous situations since, well, people survive danger all the time in real life). It's when the circumstances behind their survival gets contrived (and your mileage may vary where that line is) that it gets contrived.


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Hmm... Arya hasn't really been in that much danger, other than being lost. In fact, for a long time she was extremely safe since she was under the protection of the Hound and he is just about as good as body guards get. Most people held captive at Harrenhal weren't killed, so her escape isn't that unrealistic. Lots of the Night's Watch's escort she travelled with escaped, too.

In the House of Black and White she has received extraordinary protection. So I think that it's not really that far-fetched.

Tyrion, on the other hand, yeah... but I don't care because it makes the story interesting. If I wanted realism then I wouldn't be eagerly awaiting Dany's dragons being ridden. ;)

Arya survived a trip with Gregor, and Rorge and Biter never went after her. She's one of my favourite characters in literature but she's been, umm, lucky.

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His quarry met him sword in hand. He was tall and spare wearing a long chainmail hauberk and gauntlets of lobstered steel, but he’d lost his helm and blood ran down into his eyes from a gash on his forehead. Tyrion aimed a swipe at his face but the man slammed it aside. “Dwarf,” he screamed. “Die.” He turned in a circle as tyrion rode around him, hacking at his head and shoulders. Steel rang on steel, and tyrion soon realized that the tall man was quicker and stronger then he was. Where in the seven hells was bronn? “Die” the man grunted chopping at him savagely. Tyrion barely got his shield up in time, and the wood seemed to explode inward under the force of the blow. The shattered pieces fell away from his arm. “DIE!” The swordsman bellowed, shoving in close and whanging tyrion across the temple so hard his head rang. The blade made a hideous scraping sound as he drew it back over the steel. The tall man grinned… until tyrions destrier bit, quick as a snake, laying his cheek bare to the bone.


The knight came thundering down on him, swinging the spiked ball of a Morningstar around his head. Their warhorses slammed together before tyrion could so much as open his mouth to shout for bronn. His right elbow exploded with pain as the spikes punched through the thin metal around the joint. His axe was gone, as fast as that. He clawed for his sword, but the Morningstar was circling again coming at his face. A sickening crunch and he was falling. He did not remember hitting the ground, but when he looked up there was only sky above him. He rolled onto his side and tried to find his feet, but pain shuddered through him and the world throbbed.


This is two times his ass is saved by miraculous luck. It’s the very definition of plot armor. He specifically says the first guy is stronger and faster than him, he loses his shield, and then gets hit in the head with a sword. That hit on the head didn’t seem to cause him any lasting damage at all, it didn’t affect his ability to fight the rest of the battle when by all means a head wound should have, if not fatal, seen him on the ground unable to fight for the rest of the battle. Then he fights the knight, gets his ass kicked, but manages to use the fucking spike on his helmet to kill the horse. How on earth is that not plot armor? And that’s not to mention that none of the wounds the knight gave him caused any lasting harm to tyrion at all. He gets a motherfucking Morningstar to the face, and is fine. Yeah, that’s plot armor.
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Something that people invented to bitch about characters they don't like, and why they aren't dead.

:agree:

Those characters posters like are of course resourceful and brave or simply lucky while exactly the same outcome would be "having plot armour" in the characters posters don't like and want dead.

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I'll grant that Tyrion has been very lucky, but I don't think his battle performance is totally unrealistic. Some characters are hideously unlucky, some have middling luck, some have great luck. Nothing unrealistic about that.

This sums it up really well, IMO.

It's thrown around when a character you dislike hasn't been killed/punished/brought down yet. Frankly I hate it, for that very reason and try not to use it if at all possible.

Agreed.

It's natural that when characters die in a story, there will be reasons both internal and external to the story. Internal reasons include them being in a dangerous situation or making a string of poor decisions, while external reasons include how their death serves the story structurally or thematically.

The term 'plot armor' implies it's some kind of cheating on the part of the writer, but it's just a natural part of storytelling. 'Plot armor' also implies it's unrealistic, but as a poster above said, there's a difference between a character surviving a dangerous situation, and characters surviving in a contrived way. People survive dangerous situations in real-life all the time, so to imply that a dangerous situation should automatically mean death is taking things to extremes.

Besides, If the only reason Tyrion survives the battles is because GRRM needed him to survive the battles, then GRRM could have simply chosen to have him not participate in the battles at all. The "plot armor" argument kind of defeats itself in that respect.

This is two times his ass is saved by miraculous luck. It’s the very definition of plot armor.

Well those scenes you posted are also examples of awesome and entertaining writing :P So if that's plot armor, then I'll have more of that please.

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Tyrion has an almost literal example of plot armour, without which he would be dead. Being small is a disadvantage in itself in battle. Having dwarfism (which is more than simply being short, mind you) is basically a non-starter.



And for those saying he'd have gotten training in weapons, I think you need to go back and reread Tyrion's own memories of his childhood, and how Tywin treated him. He certainly didn't groom him to become a knight and kill people on the battlefield.



Other people have a more loose definition of the term, in where no matter how badly they mess up, they somehow manage to avoid the repercussions (unlike say Theon, who messes up badly, but then gets to suffer horrendously as a result).



The people in this category include Dany (too many examples of horrible decisions, yet she's still in charge and has people loyal to her, for some bizarre reason. Also, her plan to steal the Unsullied only succeeded because the Essosi are apparently brain-dead), Cersei (I don't quite see her little walk as apt repercussions for her series of monumental mistakes, inkluding her far-fetched plot to kill her husband which miraculously worked), same thing with Stannis, though at least he suffers a defeat at Blackwater for his stupid decisions (though his defeat of Renly takes a Deus ex Machina indeed).



Arya is in a class of her own, she is an unabashed Mary Sue, the wunderkind ninja-assassin nine year old. Urgh.


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Usually it just means you know a character won't die in certain circumstances because they play a crucial part in the plot. For some it is derogatory term used to attack a character.

This is a misunderstanding. The target of the attack is the author, for being inconsistent.

Also, the term is not to be confused with "plot gift". The latter is used to attack readers who think that a character is to be appreciated or overcoming certain challenges, even though such an interpretation is false.

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Tyrion has an almost literal example of plot armour, without which he would be dead. Being small is a disadvantage in itself in battle. Having dwarfism (which is more than simply being short, mind you) is basically a non-starter.

And for those saying he'd have gotten training in weapons, I think you need to go back and reread Tyrion's own memories of his childhood, and how Tywin treated him. He certainly didn't groom him to become a knight and kill people on the battlefield.

Other people have a more loose definition of the term, in where no matter how badly they mess up, they somehow manage to avoid the repercussions (unlike say Theon, who messes up badly, but then gets to suffer horrendously as a result).

The people in this category include Dany (too many examples of horrible decisions, yet she's still in charge and has people loyal to her, for some bizarre reason. Also, her plan to steal the Unsullied only succeeded because the Essosi are apparently brain-dead), Cersei (I don't quite see her little walk as apt repercussions for her series of monumental mistakes, inkluding her far-fetched plot to kill her husband which miraculously worked), same thing with Stannis, though at least he suffers a defeat at Blackwater for his stupid decisions (though his defeat of Renly takes a Deus ex Machina indeed).

Arya is in a class of her own, she is an unabashed Mary Sue, the wunderkind ninja-assassin nine year old. Urgh.

Basically, if something happens in the books you don't like, it's "plot armour".

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Basically, if something happens in the books you don't like, it's "plot armour".

Nope. In fact there are several of those I "like", as far as I can see how they propel the events of the story forwards, such as Robert dieing or Tyrion not getting offed in the battles. It's the manner of how it happens that bothers me.

Vice versa, there are events I found it hard to "like" such as the Red wedding, that still made sense in the narrative of the story.

So, I'm afraid it's not as simply brushed away as you'd like.

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Nope. In fact there are several of those I "like", as far as I can see how they propel the events of the story forwards, such as Robert dieing or Tyrion not getting offed in the battles. It's the manner of how it happens that bothers me.

Vice versa, there are events I found it hard to "like" such as the Red wedding, that still made sense in the narrative of the story.

So, I'm afraid it's not as simply brushed away as you'd like.

But you're saying anything that isn't likely is "plot armour". Well sometimes unlikely things happen in real life. Plenty of people live very dangerous lives and they pay off. More importantly, most of the time if you do something stupid or dangerous in ASOIAF, you do suffer for it, it fact that's something the series is known for. For example you talk about Robert's death, but we know Cersei had other plans like that, like trying to get him to fight in the melee, and that's just in the short time we could see the situation. I don't see anything Arya has done as that unrealistic. She's sneaking around and killing (unnotable) people by stealth, not besting great warriors in combat.

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Something that people invented to bitch about characters they don't like, and why they aren't dead.

:agree:

The only reason you notice plot armour is because unlike the Tolkiens, Rowlings or Lewis of fiction, Martin only gives it to a couple of his characters not ALL of them.

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:agree:

The only reason you notice plot armour is because unlike the Tolkiens, Rowlings or Lewis of fiction, Martin only gives it to a couple of his characters not ALL of them.

Which makes it a noticeable flaw. His approach, his style, the ideas in his book are all very different from the authors you mentioned. Why complain that he is measured with different standards?

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But you're saying anything that isn't likely is "plot armour".

Not at all. Jorah's victory because Qotho's sword stuck in his hip was unlikely. But I don't consider Jorah to have plot armor. Likewise with Bronn and the statue falling precisely on Ser Egan. When something like that happens once, I'm okay with it. When it keeps happening time and again, it starts to look awfully like plot armor to me.

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Well technically every character has plot armour up until they die. Unlike in real life, the author is obviously in complete control here. Take Gared from the prologue. It would have been perfectly reasonable for him to be killed by the Others, but instead he was beheaded by Ned Stark. He had plot armour throughout the prologue. In its most basic sense it is therefore unavoidable and it's not a problem. It's only problematic when it becomes very obvious and breaks the suspension of disbelief.



In Harry Potter for example, it's not really problematic. Harry is the central character of the series, so he can't die before the series is over. For the entirety of the first six books, and for most of the seventh we have an understanding with J.K that she can't reasonably kill off and continue to tell the same story. So we accept that he's always going to find a way out of things. And of course it helps that most of Harry's day-to-day actions don't really carry a huge risk of death, if any.



It's somewhat more problematic in ASOIAF. There is no immediately apparent central character and even when though it's pretty clear at this point who the major players in the end game seem to be, there's still more than one of them. So there's no covenant with the author. That coupled with the very high stakes, and Martin's willingness to kill off characters can make it very jarring indeed when certain characters like Tyrion, Jon and Dany get put through the ringer and come out still alive.

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Which makes it a noticeable flaw. His approach, his style, the ideas in his book are all very different from the authors you mentioned. Why complain that he is measured with different standards?

My point is that you notice it more because yes 3 or 4 characters continually have it rather than the entire cast.

If you read any of the other works you know instantly which characters are going to make it (more often not over the thousands of villans who will die despite being told how much more powerful they are)

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Not at all. Jorah's victory because Qotho's sword stuck in his hip was unlikely. But I don't consider Jorah to have plot armor. Likewise with Bronn and the statue falling precisely on Ser Egan. When something like that happens once, I'm okay with it. When it keeps happening time and again, it starts to look awfully like plot armor to me.

That was literal armour!

With the Egen fight, wasn't Bronn looking like the favourite anyway? That was just part of the fight, a touch to make it a bit different, not a deux ex machina when a character looked done for. He could have just as easily said "Egen continued to tire, and then Bronn had his opening, Egen lunged past him and Bronn caught his neck with his sword. Blood poured out as the old knight fell and shook violently".

By the way, the ending to Dragons should have ended any talk of plot armour.

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It's a delicate balance. He can either put the characters he wants aroung till the end in dangerous situations or the story arcs of his protagonists will be uneventfull and boring. And let's face it, there is no objective line to be drawn between probable and improbable.



Convoluted, clumsy, awkward, inconsistent with in-story set rules and implausible are legitimate complaints, though they are still subjective. Terms like "plot armor", "plot device" and "plot gift" are stating the obvious.


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