Basic Trope: A main character frequently survives deadly situations simply because they're one of the main characters.
- Straight: Bob is placed in a Literal Cliffhanger over some jagged rocks, falls, and is rescued Just in Time by Alice, while the other Redshirts hit the rocks.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob's foot is touching the rocks before Alice saves him.
- Bob survives because he conveniently remembered/suddenly gained the ability to fly.
- Downplayed:
- Bob doesn't die, but he gets crippled from an attack.
- Characters important to the plot have increased defense and/or Hit Points values for no discernible reason except their plot roles, but they can still be taken out depending on how the Player Character acts.
- Bob and a Redshirt are ambushed by enemy mooks. The redshirt is shot In the Back but Bob is able to gun down many mooks before dying.
- Justified:
- Bob's Applied Phlebotinum alerts Alice to his peril.
- Bob is The Chosen One, and his allies are on high alert to keep him safe.
- The story follows Bob because he literally exhibits plot armor in universe. No matter what he does, he becomes more important to the plot and he is always saved from danger, which is all part of why people think he's The Chosen One.
- The story is a prequel, so it would make sense that Bob won't be killed since he appears in the original story.
- Alternatively, the story ends with a cliffhanger meaning Bob effectively survived before doing any harm.
- Bob is the "Loved Ones" to the Big Bad's Even Evil Has Loved Ones, knows said Big Bad will never allow him to come to any actual harm, and milks this for all it's worth.
- Bob is a Cosmic Plaything and the cosmos have no intention of letting him die.
- Bob's existence is part of a Stable Time Loop and he can't die because of that.
- The reason stories are told about Bob in the first place is because he happened to be the one who survived all the perils.
- Bob is a Barrier Maiden whose death will destroy the whole universe, and thus, the universe itself has self defence mechanisms to keep him from dying.
- Inverted:
- Anyone Can Die
- Red Shirt
- Things are perfectly safe. Bob somehow dies anyway, for no reason other than the plot needed him dead.
- They Killed Kenny Again
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies
- "Everybody Dies" Ending
- Subverted:
- Decoy Protagonist
- It's a Wham Episode where, for the first time, it's shown that Anyone Can Die.
- People with plot armor dies twice as fast.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob comes back near the end of the series.
- Bob is seemingly killed but has faked his death.
- Bob is actually killed but gets magically resurrected.
- Parodied:
- Upon joining the main cast Bob is issued a suit of "Standard Issue Plot Armor™"
- Bob is Driven to Suicide, but continually fails in increasingly improbable ways, simply because he doesn't have permission from the writers to die.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes Bob gets into these situations, and sometimes he doesn't.
- Averted:
- Bob falls on the jagged rocks and dies.
- Bob is never put in a Literal Cliffhanger situation in the first place.
- Enforced:
- The executives fear that if The Hero is killed, people won't watch the show, so the writers are not allowed to kill Bob.
- Bob's actor is on contract for several more seasons.
- Lampshaded: "It's hard to believe you're still alive after so many close calls... It's like someone up there just won't let you die."
- Invoked: Bob temporarily leaves the story in order to blackmail the author into making sure that neither he nor the other main characters die.
- Exploited: Charlie is Genre Savvy and knows that main characters tend to stay alive longer, so he intentionally becomes Bob's best friend.
- Bob knows he can't die, and so volunteered for suicide missions on this basis.
- Evulz knows Bob has plot armour and works it into his scheming.
- Defied:
- Emperor Evulz' Evil Plan to kill Bob is extremely methodical, trying to account for every single variable to avoid giving Bob any chance to make it out alive.
- Evulz sends out Harry, who has successfully disposed of would-be heroes.
- Evulz sends Bob a gift, which is a Red Shirt. Bob wears it and dies offscreen soon after.
- Discussed: "Don't worry about Bob too much. He's The Chosen One, I'm sure he'll make it out of this mess somehow."
- Conversed: "The way Bob keeps surviving those situations is getting boring. It takes all the suspense out of it if we know Alice is just going to rescue him yet again".
- Deconstructed:
- Bob develops Survivor's Guilt due to his inexplicable luck with deadly situations.
- The resident Red Shirts begin to resent the fact that Bob cannot die when so many of them have perished.
- Bob has developed suicidal thoughts and tries numerous times to kill himself, which ultimately fails due to his plot armor.
- Reconstructed: Bob uses his gift for death defiance to face impossible odds and to ensure that he never lets anyone die again, earning the respect of the Red Shirt Army.
- Played For Horror: Bob ends up as a Main Character Final Boss. Due to his plot armour, his former allies are unable to actually do much against him due to Bob's plot armour ensuring that he'll survive anything they throw at him. Bob kills them and proceeds to raze the rest of the planet.
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