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. A plot device is a person or an object introduced to a story to affect or advance the plot. ... “Moving picture” redirects here. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ...

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. The current Star Trek franchise logo Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. ... The USS Enterprise, (NCC-1701) is a fictional starship in the television series Star Trek, which chronicles the vessels most famous assignment, its Five-Year mission. ... A deflector shield is a fictional technology commonly found in science fiction. ... The typical unlucky red shirt: Lt. ...

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. The police procedural is a sub-genre of the mystery story which attempts to accurately depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. ... The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A disaster movie is a movie that has an impending disaster (e. ... DVD cover showing horror characters as depicted by Universal Studios. ...

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. Wedge Antilles (b. ... Star Wars is an epic space opera saga and a fictional universe initially developed by George Lucas during the 1970s and expanded since that time. ...

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. Paranoia is a humorous role playing game set in a dystopian future similar to 1984, Brazil and Brave New World. ... An NPC from the video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

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 by striking a ledge and rolling into a hidden cave to rejoin the party later. Some NPC's also fall under this rule. For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ...

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. For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ... The term redshirt can refer to: a follower of Garibaldi; a student on an NCAA college sports team who was kept out of competition for a year in order to prolong his or her eligibility; a stock character in science fiction, appearing first in the original Star Trek, who serves...

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 Halo: Combat Evolved 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 Halo: First Strike. A more realistic version of this appears in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion where important characters are knocked unconscious for a while rather than killed if they take too much damage (though once whatever quest they were needed for is finished they are just as killable as any other character) In the previous installment of the Elder Scrolls Series, Morrowind, all characters were killable, but plot-important characters generated a message about the player's actions dooming the world, advising them to reload the game (although it is possible to continue playing, and even beating the game), in essence allowing the player to provide or deny character shields for any character the player could beat. In Deus Ex: Invisible War, 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. An NPC from the video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. ... A cut scene or cutscene (sometimes also referred to as a cinematic) is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no control. ... This article is about the video game. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Halo: Combat Evolved, or simply Halo, is a video game in the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, created by the Microsoft-owned Bungie Studios. ... An Elite wields an energy sword. ... The Pillar of Autumn is a heavily modified United Nations Space Command Halcyon-class cruiser in the Halo: Combat Evolved video game. ... Spoiler warning: Halo: First Strike is a 2003 novel based off the video game Halo: Combat Evolved (2001). ... Deux Ex: Invisible War is a computer game. ... Final Fantasy Tactics ) is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Sony PlayStation video game console. ...

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. Final Fantasy XII ) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console, and the twelfth installment in the Final Fantasy video game series. ...

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. Æon Flux DVD cover Æon Flux is an animated science fiction television series that aired on MTV. It premiered in 1991 on MTVs Liquid Television experimental animation show as a six-part serial of short films, followed in 1992 by five individual short episodes. ... In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. ...

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. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is the second TV series set in the Cosmic Era universe of Gundam. ... Title of the series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (or Gundam Seed) is an anime television series from Japan. ...

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. Bob and George was a sprite-based webcomic which parodies the fictional universe of Mega Man. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... // The phrase deus ex machina (literally god out of a machine) describes an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (e. ...

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)

An Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially leading to downfall. ... The Stormtrooper effect, also called Stormtrooper syndrome ,The Inverse Ninja Principle or The Principle of Evil Marksmanship, is a cliché in works of fiction where the antagonists are unrealistically ineffective in combat against the protagonists. ... The typical unlucky red shirt: Lt. ...

References