Your helmet is a masterpiece of UNSC military technology. Motion tracker, VISR tech, vision modes and HUD for offensive capabilities, while defensively, it is heavily armored, projects the cranial energy shields, and protects you from radiation, vacuum, chemical, and biological attacks. None of which will help you if you do not have it on. Which the Prometheans took advantage of. As would any competent enemy.
WHERE'S MY HELMET?!
— Gordon Freeman bemoans this trope, Freeman's Mind
Man, they knew what they were doing when building this suit. I must've taken a dozen bullets and it hasn't even punctured it. I'm really wishing I found that helmet.
— Gordon Freeman lampshades this trope, Freeman's Mind
Here's the Hound, not wearing a helmet. That guy's not wearing a helmet. This guy just had his head smashed in, he wasn't wearing a helmet. That one, the guy that got his throat slit, if he had been wearing a helmet, that wouldn't have happened. I'm wearing a helmet right now. Everybody should wear a helmet... There once was a Superbowl where Thurman Thomas, of the Buffalo Bills was going to be in the Superbowl, but he was unable to find his helmet, so he didn't actually start the Superbowl game. Shoulda had his helmet... See, see Tyrion there? He's wearing his helmet... but he just took it off, and as you see he'll rue it... That guy should have been wearing a helmet.
— George R. R. Martin's commentary track on Game of Thrones, "Blackwater"
Sweetheart: So our success condition here is "angry swamp monster hiding in the sewers."
Unity: Yup.
Sweetheart: And we're sure we're the good guys.
Unity: Well, yeah. The other guys wear these helmets.
Unity: Yup.
Sweetheart: And we're sure we're the good guys.
Unity: Well, yeah. The other guys wear these helmets.
Man, we had the longest debate - this was for years - one that I was not uncharacteristically totally wrong in the very beginning, but I felt very strongly, was that soldiers can't have helmets. [...] I wanted players to be really invested in their particular soldier, and if you put helmets on them, they all look the same, they're gonna look the same! So that was the big - it drove both the character artist crazy and it drove the military aficionados crazy because they're like "What, you're sending these soldiers out into combat with no helmets?" and I'm like, "It's plasma, they're gonna die anyway, they don't need helmets."
— Jake Solomon, lead developer for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, "XCOM Retrospective - Legacy Devs"
The existence of the helmet is proof that the human being is not smart. Think about the circumstances that led to it being created. We were engaged in certain activities that were cracking our heads. We considered the situation. And rather than choosing to avoid these activities, instead we decided to make ourselves little protective hats, so that we could continue our head-cracking lifestyles. The only thing dumber than the helmet is the helmet law, which is a law designed to protect a brain that is functioning so poorly that it's not even trying to prevent the cracking of the head that it's in.
"I've always been curious: Were you just absent from class the day they taught about helmets?"
— Julia Greenhilt, The Order of the Stick
Oblotai: I still can't believe they weren't wearing helmets.
Farsight: Pride is the ruination of both warriors and kings.
Farsight: Pride is the ruination of both warriors and kings.
— Warhammer 40,000, Farsight: Crisis of Faith, regarding the Space Marines the T'au had just killed
Dredd: I'm wondering when you'd remembered you left your helmet behind.
Anderson: Sir, a helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities.
Dredd: Think a bullet might interfere with them more.
Anderson: Sir, a helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities.
Dredd: Think a bullet might interfere with them more.
— Dredd
