What's the worst instance of plot armour on characters you've seen in TV?

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Skavau@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨Television@lemm.ee⁩

Not just a specific scene, or episode, but characters repeatedly surviving when they shouldn’t.

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slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Game of thrones basically checked twitter which characters are fan favourites and the popular ones get the most plot armour. Which is super funny for a show that became famous for killing off characters.

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- NJSpradlin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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  - slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    To me Bronn was always the worst offender. He was pretty much just a dude, then they realised people like him or his actor so he almost became a main character. It felt like a sitcom at that point. Or Jamie, surviving his hand getting cut off i. The worst conditions ever… Okay i guess. But when he then fell into the lake with full armour and a bronze hand… Of course sidekick Bronn had nothing better to do than watch him and pull him out. Fuck, i just remember how aweful that show got by season 5 or 6. I still can’t believe they were noth of the wall stuck on that lake and were like: you are a fast runner, right? You go and get help, we chill here.
    
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  - CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yep, the waif who was wandering round in broad daylight despite knowing assassins were trying to kill her. And yet was surprised when she got stabbed
    
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- Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I lost interest in the show the second they brought back ppl from the dead.
  
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- CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  The way GoT got is indefensible. The writing got so, so bad and it severely damaged the franchise. It’s just… shit.
  
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  - slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    You know what’s interesting? When GoT went downhill at season 6 or whatever, i still thought that they could turn it around (lol) and even if they didn’t, i could still come back and enjoy the good seasons.
    
    But that’s not true, at least for me. I never seen a show salting the earth so hard that i still never even thought about rewatching it. And i don’t think i ever will.
    
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simple@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Every main character in The Boys, especially in the last season. Anybody remember that scene with Homelander in the ice rink? He apparently turned into a bumbling idiot that fails to catch up with Hughie even though he’s shown to be crazy fast. Then when Homelander finds out where their HQ is, he sends two of the most useless villains at them rather than going there himself and being done with it.

I still don’t understand how this show is so acclaimed despite dozens of instances of lazy writing.

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- ryathal@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  The acclaim is mostly for the first and second seasons which are much better than the latter ones and more closely followed the source material.
  
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  - straightjorkin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I thought season 3 was really good, very tight on the characters constantly shifting motivations, fun bits. 4 was rough, not really a fan of how casually they keep sexually assaulting Hughie and play it for laughs.
    
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- Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  It’s a very different take on superheroes. But yea, a bit too much plot armor considering how many people Homelander kills on a whim. And those aren’t even people plotting his downfall.
  
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kat_angstrom@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The Sheriff from Stranger Things. I think it was in season 3 when he was crawling around in spore-filled tunnels that had already killed people and he just got a mild headache. Not even going to mention the Russian prison in season 4.

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WhatSay@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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The A-Team

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remon@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Rings of Power.

The show immediately starts with our main character causually defeating a troll by herself.

Later, amonst other things, she swam across an ocean and stands in a volcano’s pyroclastic flow like it’s a summer breeze.

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- IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  This is why I’m generally not a fan of prequels. Everyone has inherent plot armor, since we know for a fact that they survive.
  
  As for Tolkien’s universe, I can forgive a certain amount of plot armor, since he structured things to work that way throughout the stories. It’s not just the show runners.
  
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  - Kyle@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Agreed.
    
    “Prequel armor” is like super plot armor because you know the character will never die. At least with plot armor you might wonder if it will eventually get removed.
    
    I’m never worried for them when Galadriel or Elrond are on screen because I know they’ll be just fine and live happily ever after.
    
    I feel the same for Spock in strange new worlds.
    
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- Plum@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  When she swam from Bermuda to Portugal, I gave up on trying to enjoy the show. That was… much too much.
  
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  - Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Indiana Jones and his submarine ride prove you’re wrong!
    
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- morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Tbf Galadriel isn’t just some boneheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle
  
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kokope11i@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Any prequel. I’m watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds. It’s 10 years before the original series. So there is no way Spock, Urua, Chapel, or Pike (well sorta on him) can get too messed up.

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RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
GI Joe supposedly features the best of the best fighting against the best of the worst and no one can manage to shoot anything.

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Albbi@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Groundhog day. That guy survived being stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned.

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- IggyTheSmidge@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Plot armor is literally a plot point towards the end of Supernatural.

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- Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Similarly, The Master Chief (video games, but still) has literal luck on his side.
  
  Also, in Marvel it has been stated repeatedly that “something” keeps popular characters alive. Sometimes it is an actual reality warping character (eg. Franklin Richards) or sometimes explained in a more meta way.
  
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  - toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Huh, I didn’t know that about Master Chief. Doesn’t seem like it fits the vibe of the lore.
    
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theblips@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
How I Met Your Mother’s crew friendship with Robin surviving multiple breakups with Ted after they pretty much just met her. IRL they would have 100% picked sides with Ted and booted her. Also Marshall and Lily surviving her SF stint

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- scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Lily always was the worst member of the group, and she’s the one who pushed for Robin to stay in
  
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  - Didros@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Haaaaaaavvvveeeee ya met Ted?
    
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zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
In Blue Eyed Samurai, the main character brushes off several life altering injuries like she’s a character in a jrpg.

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SirSamuel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Not exactly plot armor. Well kinda. Definitely loss of suspension of belief.

Obi-Wan escorting Leia under his trenchcoat through a giant active hangar. The chase through the trees earlier in the series was obviously a cost cutting sound stage scene that I could cross my eyes and say “this is like a stage play, sure”, but that hangar scene? Cmon guys, you can do better than that. Put her in a box and push the box with a cart. Like, it could have wheels for crying out loud. You could’ve spent less on a box and a cart then you did on that ridiculous rain coat

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Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Been salty about ‘Superman - The Motion Picture’ since I first saw it.

If he’s fast enough to time travel, why wasn’t he fast enough to stop the rocket in the first place?

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- southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  My head canon:
  
  He was, but didn’t know it until grief and anger pushed him beyond what he thought his limits were.
  
  Kryptonian physiology isn’t really clear in the movies, and it’s barely given hand waves in the comics. But humans are often unaware of what their real limits are. Until we get hit with a strong emotion that bypasses our conscious minds and spurs us into action.
  
  Supes, while extremely powerful, hadn’t faced that kind of loss at that scale before (in the movie at least). He might never have seriously tested his limits (and didn’t on screen), and may even have been scared to test his limits
  
  Remember, supes, Clark, grew up hiding his powers, they made him different in a bad way as much as good way. Why wouldn’t he fear discovering even greater power than he thought he had?
  
  So, whatever the equivalent of adrenaline and cortisol kryptonians have could have been the catalyst. He holds himself to a lesser power all the time because he wants to be as human as he can be. When the chemicals get dumped into his bloodstream, while his mind is reeling with grief, that self inhibition gets abandoned.
  
  There’s even an argument to be made that when he took off, he wasn’t planning to change time, he was trying to escape his perceived failure, running to a way to avoid the grief and pain. With that, he unconsciously flees to the one direction that could give him relief, backwards in time.
  
  Now, it’s obvious the writers meant him to be doing it on purpose, but it’s never outright said to be the case, so we can graft head canon on fairly freely.
  
  But, even if it was clear he was intentionally time travelling (or just reversing time for earth only), that would be a power he would carefully and cautiously use. For him to have know he could do it implies he had done it before, at least once. So, supes being a fairly smart dude, but would be unlikely to tamper with causality casually. Then, with that being the case, him resetting events immediately after they happened, in a moment of grief and anger makes more sense. He was being driven to the extreme and chose to use his most dangerous power because the death toll was just too high.
  
  So, even if we take the writer’s events that way, supes would still have had good reason to not go too fast in the initial attempt, because of the risk of it. He would have had to reach similar speeds to have caught the rocket on the first go, risking greater harm. So, he doesn’t, but the consequences of that choice hit him hard, and he abandons his restraint to save those he loves, and the world.
  
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  - Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Grape minds drink alike?
    
    I liked Smallville for showing Clark gradually learning how to be Superman. I, too, like the idea that he’s got no idea how powerful he can become.
    
    Someone once wrote that the dream fight between Superman and the Hulk would be Hulk hitting Supes and Supes shrugs it off. Hulk gets mad and hits him so hard there’s an earthquake, but Superman still isn’t mussed. Now Hulk winds up and we see Supes flying past the Moon.
    
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ExtantHuman@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Arrow.

In later seasons their tech support eye in the sky character ends up getting into several fist fights with League of Shadow ninja assassins, and holds her own. In a pencil skirt and heels… it’s so dumb

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morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
“And these blast points, too accurate for sand people. Only imperial stormtroopers are so precise.”

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MTK@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Almost all action movies are basically one big plot armour.

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Malgas@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I feel like Handmaid’s Tale deserves a mention. Throughout the series we see June’s peers swiftly mutilated or killed even for minor offenses.

June herself, past a certain point, is Gilead’s public enemy number one. Which would be fine if they wanted to tell the story of her as an activist in exile, or a resistance leader who always manages to escape by the skin of her teeth. But no, she keeps getting caught and nothing ever comes of it.

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kandoh@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The Smoking Man from X-Files has survived cancer, being thrown down the stairs, a missle strike, and getting shit by mulder and falling into a river

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