I'm joking with the meme, but it's an interesting how plot armor unintentionally places value on people's lives in fiction.

It's telling that censorship laws decide who it is and isn't acceptable to kill. Just thinking about violence against sentient robots and how that's normalized in things like Samurai Jack.

Like we know the robot has thoughts and feelings, like they'll try to run to save themselves or plead for mercy, but a character can still heroic after essentially killing a non-human who's acting like how we understand humans.

I feel like there's something dangerous in how easily we can depict appropriate targets of violence. Not just robots, but anybody deemed as less than human are allowed to be more put at risk.

us-foreign-policy

Unnamed people are killed in superhero fights all the time. But unless they are of a class of characters like protagonists, they are collateral damage at best.

I think Plot Armor as a trope needs more class consciousness and awareness around how deciding who gets to be protected is often an unconscious political belief.

What about you though? Any tropes in media you'd like to see explored more or written with a leftist understanding?

  • Crowtee_Robot [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Just stay the hell away from time travel. It can be neat and thought provoking when done with enough thought put into it as a central conceit, but more often it's just a narrative ass-pull that causes more problems than it solves.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The exception that proves this rule, when its done in a comedy. The series Red Dwarf has a few episodes where time travel or time running backwards or a time portal are used and its funny. I think the movie James vs Himself has got some funny parts too.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The worst time travel stories are "oops we did a fucky wucky and broke the timeline but if we go back and clumsily recreate what happened it will all be fine" asspulls. Butterfly effect, what's that?