Stop calling it Deus Ex Machina

[Joseph Harrison]

Deus Ex Machina is a too-easy un-foreshadowed solution to the plot that occurs at the end of a story. Now while I feel like most people understand what Deus Ex Machina is and when it is used I feel like people are a little to quick to call Deus Ex Machina, even when they shouldn't be.
For Example: Mass Effect 3
Many people's criticize Mass Effect 3 by saying that the Crucible is Deus Ex Machina when simply that isn't that case. The Crucible is foreshadowed in Lair of the Shadow Broker, isn't easy to build and you find out about the Crucible a the starting of Mass Effect 3. A Deus Ex Machina would be if at the end of Mass Effect 3 you discovered that the Reapers were deathly allergic to cream cheese and you used that to defeat them. It wouldn't make sense unless in Mass Effect 1 this dairy related weakness was hinted at.

Sure the above example may not be A+ writing but it isn't Deus Ex Machina.

Any questions, comments, rebuttals or other examples of things unjustly accused of Deus Ex Machina?

PS: I apologize to any Cream-Cheese theory believers who have yet to finish ME3.

 

[Doom972]

You misunderstood, people refer to the Ghost Child, which is almost a literal god from the machine, not the crucible.
It's a new character that appears at the end of the story to bring resolution to the plot. Fits the definition of Deus Ex Machina perfectly.

 

[DoPo]

Deus Ex Machina is a too-easy un-foreshadowed solution to the plot that occurs at the end of a story.

I don't think that's the definition. 1. it doesn't have to be at the end 2. it doesn't have to be "not foreshadowed". It is a sudden unexpeced solution, yes, but tell me, who the fuck expects a seemingly omnipotent being to show up and do actual fucking magic? It completely breaks the rules of...well, everything, to do things that are not supposed to be possible. OK, unless the EC fixed it, I see no way, in hell, aside from magic/deus ex machina to merge organics and synthetics. Across the whole universe. At once. Synthetics suddenly growing DNA. Yeah. Sudden - check, unexpected - fucking check.

 

[kyogen]

If you could just get people to stop pronouncing it "deuce," it would be nice. Definitions can wait.

 

[ResonanceSD]

If you could just get people to stop pronouncing it "deuce," it would be nice. Definitions can wait.

But then how will we know who the people are who make references to things they have no idea about? HOW?

 

[kyogen]

If you could just get people to stop pronouncing it "deuce," it would be nice. Definitions can wait.

But then how will we know who the people are who make references to things they have no idea about? HOW?

Ok, you've got me there. Fair point. "Deuce" it is.

 

[Vegosiux]

Imagine if there was another Deus Ex sequel called Deus Ex: Machina.

Then you'd be pretty fucked, ey?

I think naming a game "God From" was pretty fucked in the first place...

But, as far as ME3 goes, the Harby-kid fits the DEM definition to the l-e-t-t-e-r.

 

[ResonanceSD]

but back on topic, let's just go ahead and call it by it's proper name.

"A SHIT ENDING".

 

[Nomanslander]

Don't bring up Mass Effect 3, if there's ever been a topic of games I've really grown tired of hearing, it's been this one. :/

Anyways, on topic, I don't think anyone will argue Gears of War 3 didn't go out with a blatant Deus Ex Machina.

 

[FalloutJack]

Buh?

Ah, no no no no... The CATALYST, the kid made of energy. That's Deus talking, because until then, I had no fucking clue as to how we were going to beat ALL of the Reapers. That was their "Get out of game free" card.

Also, who else immediately thought of Xenogears upon reading the title?

 

[crazyrabbits]

Many people's criticize Mass Effect 3 by saying that the Crucible is Deus Ex Machina when simply that isn't that case. The Crucible is foreshadowed in Lair of the Shadow Broker.

If that was foreshadowing, it was the most unintentionally obtuse and vague foreshadowing in the series. I remember - I played it. Liara says something about, "the Shadow Broker thought there might be more Prothean technology out there." The way that statement was worded, it seemed like the Broker was looking for a measure of hope, not that he had suddenly discovered the key to saving the galaxy.

The Crucible itself wasn't even a Prothean weapon - it was some patchwork device that different races kept adding to over the years (which in itself has a ton of story-related problems - why didn't the Prothean scientists on Ilos know about it, for example?).

The Crucible is as much a DEM as the next example. The only hint prior to its reveal in the finale is a one-off comment by Vendetta about something related to it (a controller, I think), but even that was very obtuse. It had no real foreshadowing outside its own game, and it (and the motivation behind the enemies of the trilogy) comes completely out of left field.

The concept of a DEM is very rigid.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Actually its more about when the writer writes himself into a corner and some events, usually an act of God, saves the hero's butt. It's when you're surrounded by ten thousand ninja's and your hero is dieing, THEN SUDDENLY A BOLT OF LIGHTING HITS THEIR SWORDS AND KILLS THEM! It refers to the writer saving the hero by some means rather then the hero overcoming obstacles. The God is the writer and his means of saving the hero is some device or machine that he puts into the story.

Course, if it bothers you could just do what the rest of the people do and post this clip:

 

[teh_gunslinger]

A deus ex machina is tool used by playwrights to summarise plots to the audience and make connections that they might not have seen, in short to 'cheat' a way out of a complex plot. Gandalf plays a deus ex machina when he comes back to Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas in The Two Towers and fills them in on just about everything.

An example of a deus ex machina in gaming? Uh, I can't think of one right now, it'd be someone who comes along and suddenly explains everything that is happening in one go. I suppose it might be possible in a game being told as a long flashback with narration from someone in the future, because that someone would be able to tell you what was going on, but I don't think anyone ever gives up everything and glues it all together...

Weird.

That's certainly not what a deus ex machina is. Gandalf returning from the dead may be, but I don't actually think it is. Deus ex machina has nothing to do with exposition.

An example from gaming is the last 5 min of Mass Effect 3. Bioware wrote themselves into a corner and could not resolve the plot. Thus they pull the star kid out from absolutely nowhere, he has no connection to the rest of the plot and he hand waves it all away with magic. It's one of the most literal uses of deus ex machina (it's an actual god from the machine) and a very clumsy one to boot.

Euripides was very fond of using this technique and was even poked fun of by Aristophanes for doing so in a great number of his plays. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing it, but you have to be a good playwright to do it.

 

[Sir Mate]

Deus ex machina merely means 'divine intervention'.
It is considered bad writing becouse it can come out of nowhere ,and is all powerful , so it is able to solve the problem effortlessly.

And the god child ending was total BS.

 

[UBERfionn]

You misunderstood, people refer to the Ghost Child, which is almost a literal god from the machine, not the crucible.
It's a new character that appears at the end of the story to bring resolution to the plot. Fits the definition of Deus Ex Machina perfectly.

Why has nobody quoted you yet?

He speaks the truth!!

 

[Woodsey]

If you could just get people to stop pronouncing it "deuce," it would be nice. Definitions can wait.

Or spelling it Dues as well. Eugh.

 

[Squilookle]

I remember getting unreasonably rubbed the wrong way when someone declared that the end of the Incinerator bit in Toy Story 3 was deus ex machina. I thought it was plenty forshadowed- it just did a better job than most of making us forget the forshadowing while it was busy holding us spellbound in horror.