Character shield

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.
Origin
Fans of the television show Star Trek originated the term to refer to the fact that the Enterprise always survives while other ships without any major characters are regularly lost. The writers implicitly shield any ship carrying important characters, i.e., the stars of the show. It also applies to situations where important characters survive difficult circumstances after minor characters are killed. These expendable characters are sometimes referred to as "Redshirts", as security personnel in the original Star Trek wore red shirts and were usually the first to die in any given episode.
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 films and horror films, 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. As the main character might die at any moment, many of these types of movies can be said to have "removed" the character shield. A handful of television series have done so, notably Lost, Tour of Duty, Spooks and, to a lesser extent, Babylon 5.
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—often turning out to be a secondary character who narrates the last scene, such as in Red Dawn and We Were Soldiers, each of which is capped by comments from a character who first appears partway through the action.
In some film franchises, character shields are valid only for the duration of a single film, as major characters are killed off to wipe the slate clean for a new film. Alien 3, for example, begins with the deaths of Newt and Hicks, although the whole point of the previous film was their rescue.
The killing of a major character also keys in to the audience that a situation is dire, or that the killer is a villain to be taken seriously. The infamous shower scene in Psycho in which Marion Crane is murdered disoriented and shocked viewers who were not used to seeing the main character being killed less than halfway through the film. Sometimes, as in Scream 3, Friday the 13th Part 2, or Halloween: Resurrection, a star of the earlier film will appear at the beginning of the new film in a cameo, only to be killed off. The fifth season of the television series 24 famously used such a device to wipe out almost every cast member who had participated in the first three seasons.
Sometimes a character shield even allows a character to return from the dead, though this is usually accomplished through technological or supernatural means in sci-fi and fantasy works. Notable examples include the sacrifice of the character of Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and his return in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and the death of Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring, and his return in The Two Towers. (It may be noted, however, that Gandalf was already long-established as a supernatural character at this point, in both the reader's and the author's minds.)
Minor recurring 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, "I-Was-There-Too" 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 or greater standing in the story were consistently killed off.
The Star Wars prequel movies are a particularly good example of displaying character shields. Since the prequels have to match what was set in the original trilogy, certain notable characters have to survive in order for the events to fit. The most prominent examples being; Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Palpatine, Yoda, C-3PO and R2-D2.
This character shield also applies to vehicles (such as cars, space ships or jet fighters) in which minor characters' vehicles can be destroyed in a few shots, yet the protagonist's (who may be using the same type of vehicle) can often survive massive amounts of damage (and in some cases also boasts better maneuverability). An example of this is the protagonist Jason Bourne's vehicle from the car chase in the film The Bourne Supremacy, where despite being involved in multiple traffic accidents which incapacitate his pursuers, his car (a Volga, which, while somewhat more rugged, is inferior to its Mercedes rivals) is still able to operate. The Yamato in the anime Space Battleship Yamato also has a similar character shield where it survives grievous damage while other, sometimes larger and newer ships are easily destroyed by enemy fire.
A character shield can also be referred to as "PC glow", referring to the metaphorical glow around player characters (PCs) that shields them from commonplace death. In many console RPGs, resurrecting a fallen player character is fairly trivial when the PC dies in ordinary battle; only special circumstances may kill a character with PC glow. A party member may be permanently killed in a cut scene by a primary villain or by giving up his or her life to save the other party members or the world, but never by generic enemy grunts in a generic battle. Commonly, instead of being "killed" by an enemy, a defeated character will be simply "knocked out" (KO'd) or rendered unconscious so as to minimize or avert the finality of death. This is commonly seen in RPGs where attacks in a normal battle scene are more or less nonfatal (such as the standard soldiers in Final Fantasy 7, whose guns deal negligible damage). However, during cutscenes, such weapons can be fatal.
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.
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 unconscious. If he falls from a high cliff, he'll be saved by striking a ledge and rolling into a hidden cave; thus to rejoin the party later. Some NPCs also fall under this rule.
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".
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. 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 the player as a guest for a few missions, then becomes an enemy and may die.
Another version of the above is when the player is given the objective to protect a certain NPC. This is often employed in Warcraft and Starcraft series of games. Whenever the player is given a character important to the story to control, one of the objectives is to protect said character from death (otherwise the mission is failed). In Warcraft III, a boss such as Mal'Ganis, Cenarius or Tichondrius all have 'Divine' type armor, which can only be damaged by Chaos damage. This is only granted to the player's troops after fulfilling an integral part of the quest, which has great ramifications later in the game. Only by gaining the power to defeat the boss can the level be won and the plot can advance.
In the video game Half-Life 2 and its subsequent Episodes, at various points the player is assisted by various NPCs. NPCs which are vital to the storyline, such as Alyx Vance, are given a very rapid health regeneration system - others, like Dog, are given a very large amount of health points instead. The death of a story-vital NPC results in failure; however, it is very difficult to allow such an event to happen.
In the video game Final Fantasy XII, one of the main characters, Balthier, views the events of the game as a "story" casts himself as the leading man, and confidently states that the leading man never dies. After the final battle of the game, he appears to have died, but later "steals" his airship the Strahl back from his friends Vaan and Penelo, leaving behind a letter as proof of his survival.
In Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, some characters at certain times are unable to die. For example, during Chapter 1, the Mage-Thief Imoen wears an un-removable belt that makes her unable to die. The belt will allow her to fall to 1 hit point, at which point she will panic and run away, regardless of any further damage done to her; Imoen is central to the game's plot, and her death would spoil the story. In Baldur's Gate II, even characters that are "invincible" to normal combat tactics may be killed by draining any of their statistics to 0.
Alternatively, in the satirical internet-comic Concerned, based on Half Life 2, the main character survives many certain death situations (fired out of a cannon etc.) for no reason, but at the end, it is revealed that he had a god-mode cheat on which prevented his death until the point where he had to die.
The PC Game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind allowed the killing of major NPCs. However, if this was done the player was given a message that the 'prophecy' was broken. This meant the main quest and effectively the game could not be completed in the traditional sense. The player could literally "change the course of history" by completing the game in a very obscure and much more difficult way. The sequel The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (as well as Fallout 3, which utilized the same game engine as Oblivion) revised this to make certain NPC's unkillable, they could only be knocked unconscious. This was to prevent disruption of the plot by the player or random encounters between the NPC and monsters, although several characters that were previously unkillable could later be killed, with several of these previously plot-important characters participating (and possibly being killed in) major battles later in the game.
In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the character Revolver Ocelot may be defeated after a battle but never killed. As the game is a prequel, any death of a major character results in the player losing the current game and the game declaring a 'Time Paradox'.
In many video games, playable or allied characters can die during battle, but are easily resurrected. In the X-Men: Legends series and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance a playable character who dies can be resurrected at any extraction point for a small fee. In the Kingdom Hearts series allied characters Donald Duck and Goofy can die in battle, but will come back to life automatically after a period of time. This is also true of Alphonse Elric, a non-playable ally who battles alongside Edward Elric in the Fullmetal Alchemist games. Ed can also revive Al quickly using alchemy at any time during a battle. One notable exception is the Fire Emblem series, where characters who die cannot be resurrected.
In Nintendo's Fire Emblem series of games, specifically Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, playable characters considered essential to the plot who are killed in action are removed from the player's roster of usable characters in subsequent battles, but still maintain their position within the protagonist's party during the game's cutscenes. The explaination given is that they are not killed, instead they are seemingly dealt a wound that permanently cripples their abilities in combat. However, nonessential characters (such as secret characters) are permanently killed in the same situation.

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