User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 369: The Place Prayers Reach, Review and Commentary/@comment-3273232-20140131121659/@comment-1359322-20140204172518

Well the reason why it became like this is because Mashima wanted Jellal to be one of the "key" to make him relevant to the arc. He also wanted face to be released and at the same time wanted Jellal to survive, so he tied everything together and created a solution but it was a little too convenient, almost to the point of contrived, thus the plot armor-like situation.