Plot Armor
Immersion-Breaking Certain-Death Counters
Have you ever heard a story in which “our hero” miraculously survives one near-death experience after another without a scratch? Have you found yourself rolling your eyes at this as you make snarky remarks about the oh-so-obvious “plot armor” with which the author has outfitted the protagonist?
It’s immersion-breaking, isn’t it? Personally, I know that I’ve watched many an animated feature with a “certain-death counter” running in my head.
One or two of these, I can excuse. But when I start running out of fingers to count them, I find that I stop caring about the safety of the hero quite as much as I did at the start.
“Go ahead! Let him take all of the risks,” I say to myself, “Why not? He has plot armor! He’ll live forever.”
It’s understandable for those of us who are merely watching to feel this way.
Confidence is Cool
But I wonder whether the hero shares my apathy? I wonder if he even knows that he is wearing a full suit of thick, hardened, tempered plot armor? Probably not. But he acts like he does.
Despite my occasional annoyance at his utter indestructibility, I can’t help but admire the courage with which these heroes charge into utterly impossible tasks. Courage is compelling. Confidence is cool.
In truth, I like it when heroes act like heroes and put themselves at risk to do the right thing, with or without plot armor. But what, you may ask, does this have to do with imagination?
Simply this. When we can imagine our proper place in the story, we gain the courage to play our parts. Understanding our own roles as characters in the Author’s story gives us the confidence to act boldly. I assert that we must first think of ourselves correctly, using our well-trained imaginations, before we can expect to act bravely in the midst of a broken world.
Know yourself. Then act accordingly.
Act Like You Know
As a middle-aged man, I have slowly learned this over the past four decades. I treasure my knowledge of my place in the great story. I steward it. I remind myself of it. I imagine my place at the end of the story.
As a father, understanding my role, I have diligently invested in my daughters’ imaginations. I have both bought and written stories to help shape them. This is bearing fruit, and I rejoice in their growing maturity. Every day, they are becoming ready to take their place in this broken world.
Today, we all live on a battlefield. Our world is at war. Courage is needed. Confidence will be tested. I don’t actually believe that this is new or unique to our day and age, but it is true of us, as it has been true of those before us. I know that each generation of Davids must face their own Goliaths.
I hope that, like David, I will fall asleep only after I have accomplished my King’s purposes in my generation. But I want my children to do the same in their generation, and my grandchildren in theirs, and my great-grandchildren. That will only happen if they can faithfully imagine themselves taking their place in this great story. For there is a great story that is being told by an incredible Author.
Fortunately, it’s not my story. It’s His. That’s good news for me.
Armor for the Battle
But there’s more. Check this out. As a believer in Jesus, I have “plot armor.”
As the song, “He Will Hold Me Fast” reminds me, “…when I fear my faith will fail, He will hold me fast.” This gives me faith to act boldly according to His will. I don’t know whether my plans will succeed, but I know that his purposes can’t fail.
I know this, and it isn’t a passing fancy or a fleeting idea.
No, instead it has become a core belief – reinforced by layer upon layer of thick, hardened, time-tested, well-tempered stories that I have heard and believed. These stories convince me that my King has done great deeds on behalf of those who came before me. He’ll do the same for me. This is armor – “armor for the battle, strong enough to last the war,” as City Alight has written in the song, Christ Is Mine Forevermore.
Arming My Children
Knowing this, I give my children stories. Sending them out into the world without the ability to imagine themselves in the story would be like sending them unarmored into a warzone. Imagination is the squire of the soul. It arms us for the battles ahead of us, just as real-world squires did for their knights of old.
Imagined worlds are training grounds, preparing young souls to meet real challenges. Real dangers. In stories, we see what the characters do. We’re inspired to follow their examples. In our own lives and our own stories, although we may face one near-death experience after another, a soul well-armed with knowledge of the end of the story will face dragons and storms with courage and confidence.
As the Author wills, that soul will come through both the fire and the water, bearing with them honorable scars gained from fighting the Lord’s battles. May this be true of me and of my children.
In the hope of this, I give those I love stories to read so that their imaginations may soar!
Breaking Immersions, or Breaking Illusions?
But, one may argue, your stories are fantasies, not real life! Isn’t it important to be realistic? Didn’t I start this conversation by complaining about eye-rolling-worthy immersion-breaking nonsense?
Yes, but there is an important difference here. Instead breaking our immersion, our story-fueled imaginations break through our illusions. And oh! How we need our illusions to be broken!
For we are not finally bound by the brokenness of the world. J.R.R. Tolkien argued this in his essay, “On Fairy Stories”, asserting that it is not wrong for prisoners to imagine the world beyond their prison-walls.
“Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.”
The World Beyond our Walls
Our imagination can show us the worlds beyond our walls. In the same essay, Tolkien goes on to say,
“Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the ‘happy ending.’ The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.”
It is a great consolation and joy that this broken world is not all there is, and neither is our very real pain in the midst of our struggles the end of the story. C.S. Lewis wrote of this in The Weight of Glory.
“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door … But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
This is the Author’s promise to those of us who take Him at his Word.
Plot armor. It’s not all bad.
Michael Somerville is the author of several short stories, as well as an in-progress high-fantasy series called the Tales of the Broken Realm. He loves telling stories of hope about ordinary characters doing their small part to help heal a broken world. By day, he pays the bills as a hands-on storyteller and project manager, leading and envisioning professional teams in the "real-world", even as he is busily building and illustrating imaginary worlds in his evenings and on the weekends.
Outside of work and writing, he enjoys a wide range of hobbies, including playing music with his family and friends on keyboard or guitar, drawing, sculpting, painting, sewing, and blacksmithing, or walking the length of the Appalachian Trail in his home neighborhood in the Shenandoah Valley, where he serves as a Board member on his local civic association.
Most important to Michael are his family and his church. Michael and Jessica celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2026 and are happily raising three wonderful daughters. He serves actively in his local church, playing music on Sunday, teaching the older elementary kids, and leading a small group of wonderful saints. He hopes to hear "Well done" one day, and plans to keep serving his true King until then.
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