Pocket Protector/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character is shot, but their life is saved by a small but sufficiently sturdy object positioned exactly where the bullet struck them.

• Straight: Bob is shot, but a Bible in his pocket stops the bullet.
• Exaggerated: Bob is shot, but a matchbook in his pocket stops the bullet.
• Justified: The object is thick enough to reasonably slow the bullet down before it hits Bob's body.
  • The object is magical or blessed or otherwise endowed with great than object-like abilities.
• Inverted: Bob is shot in the only place where he isn't protected.
  • Alternatively: Someone throws a Bible at Bob. Luckily, he was carrying ammo in his pocket.
  • Or: The shot would have been nonlethal... If it hadn't hit the vial of poison Bob was carrying.
• Subverted: The Bible doesn't stop the bullet.
  • Alternatively: The bullet misses the Bible.
• Doubly Subverted: Something else underneath the Bible manages to stop the bullet instead.
  • Alternatively: The Bible slows the bullet enough that it doesn't kill the hero.
• Parodied: The Bible stops one of the bullets, but Bob is shot multiple times. The Bible doesn't stop them all.
  • Bob has numerous Bibles on his person, thus increasing the likelihood that the bullet would hit at least one of them.
  • Bob is shot multiple times, and every single bullet is stopped by a small object he happened to have on his person.
  • Bob has a pacemaker that stops the bullet.
  • The bullet lodges in the Bible Bob had in his chest pocket. Too bad he was shot in the back.
• Deconstructed: It's only a matter of extreme good fortune that the Bible managed to stop the bullet, and even so Bob is still seriously wounded, with bruising and possibly even broken bones around the area where the bullet made impact.
• Reconstructed: Bob is mildly injured, but that's still better than being dead.
• Zig Zagged: The bullet hits the Bible, bounces off, ricochets off the wall, goes through the bible, bounces off a rib and goes back into the bible, lodging there.
• Averted: There's no Bible; Bob simply gets shot.
  • There's no Bible, but Bob manages to avoid getting shot.
  • There is a Bible, but the bullet is a blank.
• Enforced: "It would make for a really tense scene at the end if it looks like the hero's been shot, but he's actually fine. Maybe he has something which could stop the bullet?"
• Lampshaded: "Good thing I always carry my lucky Bible around!"
• Invoked: Bob goads the shooter into taking aim at a location where he has intentionally placed a Bible to stop the bullet.
  • Alternately: Bob always carries something in his pocket for exactly this reason.
• Defied: The shooter shoots Bob in the head.
  • The shooter has loaded the gun with armour-piercing rounds, or bullets of sufficient strength that a Bible stands little chance of stopping them.
• Discussed: "If you're heading into a gunfight you'll want this Bible; guaranteed to stop any bullet, this."
• Conversed: "The odds of the bullet hitting that character exactly where his Bible happened to be must be astronomical, if not completely absurd."

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