The magical way Rick Grimes avoids Walker bites in The Walking Dead

It’s the magical way that our The Walking Dead heroes can escape being bitten — they are wearing an invisible suit of ‘plot armour’.

PLOT armour. It’s the only thing that stands between you and the zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead but, sadly, not everyone can have it.

TWD is known for killing off major characters — with two of the biggest dying in the first episode alone — but it’s also known for miraculous tales of survival from being eaten by Walkers.

These escapes have no rational explanation, particularly when other characters meet their end in almost exactly the same way. So fans have come up with the term “plot armour”, to highlight how having the writers on your side is the only true defence in a plague of Walkers.

obviously real armour is extremely useful but plot armour is something magical — it comes and it goes.

Rick Grimes, as the main character, is of course the one who has been miraculously saved the most but, cruelly, some have had amazing escapes only to be devoured a few episodes or series later, as they apparently forgot to put their Plot Armour on that morning.

The most recent example of plot armour for Rick was in the first episode, when Negan told him to retrieve the axe from a crowd of Walkers. Rick finds himself hanging onto the ladder of the RV while a Walker hangs onto his leg, biting furiously at the air but, miraculously, missing Rick’s leg. He just couldn’t chew through the plot armour in time.

But Rick’s plot armour has been saving him from years.

Let’s go back to series one, when a fresh-faced Rick Grimes gallops a horse through Atlanta and is surrounded by hungry Walkers. The horse gets taken down and eaten but, somehow, not one of them thinks to bite Rick, allowing him to crawl into a tank for safety.

Then, in the prison, angry prisoner Tomas throws a Walker at Rick. The Walker actually lies on top of Rick, turning its head frantically as it tries NOT to bite him long enough for Daryl to come to Rick’s “rescue”.

Although, let’s face it, Daryl could have kicked back and had a smoke first, because there was no way that Walker was getting through Rick’s plot armour.

Still at the prison, Rick wanders off to hallucinate about Lori and finds himself surrounded by Walkers while The Governor attacks their home.

Again, they manage to bite lots of air but can’t chew through the plot armour. They even line up nicely, one behind each other, to make it easier to avoid chomping on Rick until the Dixon brothers can get there and save his bacon.

Daryl also has an impressive set of plot armour.

Think back to the farm, when Daryl searches for missing Sophia and falls down a cliff, where he hallucinates about brother Merle. He wakes up to find a Walker chewing on his SHOE, giving him enough time to kill the beast.

That’s right, the Walker could have bitten him anywhere but decided to start with his shoe. Contrast that with the infection storyline at the prison, where Carl’s mate Patrick dies from the flu, reanimates and chooses the THROAT as his first target for a bite, ensuring his victim cannot call out.

Then Daryl gets held down by the rogue cop in Atlanta and pushed towards a Walker, who avoids biting Daryl’s hand long enough for Daryl to pull its head off. He does that by feeling over its face and sinking his fingers into its eyesockets, yet the Walker can’t manage to bite the hand that’s trying to be fed to it.

His brother Merle also shows off a nifty line in plot armour after he captures Michonne, fending off a Walker with his foot while trying to jump-start a car. Sadly, that plot armour didn’t save him from The Governor.

Contrast that with the prison walker that sank its teeth into Hershel’s leg the moment he walked past, or the one with its hands tied behind its back that still managed to chomp Big Tiny in the prison. Forget plot armour, that one had plot teeth!

Glenn was one character who had an impressive set of plot armour — although it didn’t work on Negan, only zombies.

He dodged death by Well Walker, by roaming Walkers in Atlanta, while tied to a chair at Woodbury and, of course, when he and Nicholas fell into the herd on their way back to Alexandria. That was amazing plot armour, where they bit everywhere but on him. It’s amazing what you can find in old dumpsters.

But the absence of plot armour can be brutal.

Look at Tyreese. When he had plot armour, he could get out into a herd of Walkers while on a mission to get medicine to save the people back in the prison. He could stroll through that massive herd, hitting them with his hammer and emerge unscathed.

When we first met him, a member of his group, Donna, got chomped doing the same thing against a much smaller number of zombies.

A little later Tyreese can wrestle a zombie out through the ivy of a covered car workshop and have it miss his arms a dozen times.

Then he forgets his plot armour and gets bitten by Noah’s little brother.

Bob Stookey was wearing plot armour when a zombie bit him and managed to get the exact spot where he had a bandage. Sadly, it didn’t work in water, where the charity store zombie got him.

And it’s not only the heroes that have plot armour.

Andrea locked The Governor into a warehouse with a dozen Walkers and he emerged unscathed, then he lowers his old mate Martinez into a pit of them and they thoughtfully only bite Martinez’s head, not The Governor’s hands that are holding said head.

Shane was also able to hold back the door of a bus — while he and Rick were arguing over what to do with this kid called Randall — against a horde of Walkers. He even had time to cut his hand, smear blood on the door and stab a Walker in the head, all while holding the door shut effortlessly.

When Beth’s boyfriend Jimmy tried the same trick in the season two finale, the Walkers ripped open the door and bit him to pieces.

He should have taken the time to put on his plot armour.

So who has plot armour this season? Well, most of them, it seems. Dwight, Tara and Rick have all had ridiculous escapes.

But that could change at any moment ...