Worst use of Deus Ex Machina you've ever seen

[th155]

Stargate: Atlantis ending. Go watch the last episode online. Literally none of that was hinted at before the final episode. I suppose it is because they thought they would have a few more seasons and wanted it to be a 3 episode long plot, which would make it better, but... it still is just stupid.

 

[Spacewolf]

The eagles are literal Deus ex machina as they are severants of the god Manwe the reason that they dont intervene more is that the races of middle earth have to sort sauron out themselves as its their fault he still exists

From the LotR wiki:

Before and during the War of the Ring, Gwaihir rescued Gandalf the Grey from the top of Isengard and again from Zirak-Zigil. The Eagles aided troops of King Elessar at the Battle of the Morannon at the Black Gate. The Eagles arrived in time to overthrow some Názgul, including Khamûl. Gwaihir, with others of his people, rescued Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee from Mount Doom in Mordor after the One Ring had been destroyed.

The eagles did help in the war against Sauron.

only in by acting as balencers Gandalf is basically an angel himself and was trapped by another angel that had been sent to help the people no destroy them. it didnt matter what they did at the black gate all they did was prevent more deaths as victory was already basically cirtain by that point as the battle had nothing to do with what was happening a mt.doom so presumably manos knew what would happen and had told manwe so that the ring barer wouldnt have to die once victory had been achived

 

[Firia]

How did Squall survive the shard of ice to the chest in FFVIII?

Some think he didn't [http://squallsdead.com/]

If those theories are true, then I just now went from "I cannot stand FF8" to "FF8 has a genius and deep plot." I seriously stopped playing the game at.. at.. aw, I should spoiler this.

Spoiler: FF8 spoiler, do not read if you're still playing, will play, or have not played FF8

I can be a sap, and I was okay with the whole gooey romance thing that Squall had going on. But if memory serves, the arch villain of disk one eventually becomes a member of the team later in the game (and undergoes the Magus Effect), and then much later in the game Squall has a sort of flashback, and realizes he knew everyone of his teamates as a child. They all were a part of an adoption place or some such. I was already dragging my heels with the Draw system, and that was the straw that broke me.

I quit playing right there. I hear I was pretty close to the end of the game, and I couldn't care less at the time.

Now, if he was really dead and this was all a dying mans dream? MAD respect for the folks at Squaresoft. Moreso than usual, but that is actually worth something to me!

As a designer, and a story teller, i can say we choose our imagery with care. If that blog isn't exaggerated, then I'd say he's got a case for how the game ends.

 

[Xaio30]

Fate. Every single time it's used.

-Hey! I survived!
-That's because you are destined to win.

 

[MidnightCat]

Anything that involves a prophecy or a "chosen one" irks me. If you're special, chosen by fate and all that to face off against the bad guys and bring your people/country/planet into a better future, you're pretty much set to succeed. I don't have any specific examples (The Matrix, Star Wars - okay, I have some), but anything with a prophecy in it just seems pointless to me.

Also, not a game, but the worst example of deus ex machina I have ever seen - The Dreamers series by David Eddings. I read all of the books in the series out of author loyalty, but damn were they bad. At the end of the last novel,

Spoiler

one of the gods realises that if he goes back in time and kills the bad guy, all of the conflict in the books could be avoided. So he does it. And everything that happened in the books... never happened. Except for a goddess dying, but no one really liked her anyway.

The only consolation is that the character development was crappy and the plot was awful, so nothing much was lost.

 

[Karma168]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95458-Why-Technobabble-Makes-Star-Trek-Suck

pretty much this

 

[repeating integers]

I'm just going to give an obligatory mention to Monty Python and the Holy Grail's "but then the animator suffered a fatal heart attack". I know it's not annoying in the slightest as they were blatantly taking the piss out of writers who do this sort of thing straight faced, but I always feel a thread about Deus Ex Machina is a poorer place without in being commented on.

The end of that movie is another great example, although its more of an anti-deus ex machina.


I've got a great example. Fucking Lord of The Flies. I was like, "What the fuck." And then I threw the book out the window and took an angry piss.

Ah, you see, that isn't a Deus Ex Machina if you're referring to what I think you're referring to.

Spoiler

It was established early on that they needed smoke to draw the attention of ships. In the last book, the boys lit the island on fire in their hunt for Ralph, to flush him out. This created a hell of a lot of smoke, which the navy ship then saw. It was what TVtropes likes to call Chekhov's Gun.

OT: Ooh, I know the answer to this. Half-Life 2 episode 1, the Vortigaunts suddenly arrive to teleport you and your not-girlfriend away. It was not previously known that they could do anything like this, and they don't show up once (nor are they mentioned, except once immediately afterwards) throughout the rest of the episode. On top of that, there's no given reason they couldn't just teleport you all the way out of City 17, rather than just to the foot of the tower (which was about to explode catastrophically). God, it actually seems like the Vorts were trying to kill Freeman by taking him out of the G-man's inter-dimensional hidey-hole and placing him next to a ticking time-space bomb.

 

[Pappytech]

The Bible, naturally. I mean, how the fuck is it possible that this hasn't been posted yet?

Eh, the Bible doesn't really count as deus ex machina. Since it's established that God is all powerful, and likes helping the Israelites/Jesus/New Testament Church, He can do pretty much anything he wants.

If the Bible was a work of fiction, then this would be considered pretty bad storytelling. But, it's not DEM.

 

[valleyshrew]

FFXIII Vanille and Fang turn into "Ragnarok", or use it or whatever, not quite sure what the word is grammatically. It's just about the most blatant god power ever in a game. They turn the whole planetoid to crystal including themselves. Least satisfying ending ever. In FFVII you faced sephiroth and beat him with ur normal game powers, and sure Holy materia kinda saved the world by getting rid of the comet, but it didn't feel so blatantly overpowered as you had to search for it and the lifestream was a much better mythology than fal'cie nonsense.

 

[Ranorak]

It seems that deus ex machina is not a clear concept to many people.

A unexpected plot twist is not a deus ex machina
A new fuction of a existing tool is not a deus ex machina
A strange powerful weapon that was given to the hero in act 1 but only used in act 3 is not a deus ex machina

A hidden item/power/skill that has never been mentioned before and is revealed to help the protagonist carry on the plot. THAT is a deus ex machina.

Sensu beans have been mentioned a lot in the series and aren't deus ex.
it would be, if Goku was losing his battle with Frieze and suddenly revealed he had one more bean hidden in his shirt.

 

[Moc]

i direct you to every last turn in every episode of yugioh ever

In my opinion this became worse during "YuGiOh GX" or what it was called: First the protagonist drops to 100 hitpoints, then he draws "Pot of Greed" which he uses to draw two cards which he could fuse or combo with another card he already had on his hand. Then he bashes his opponent into pieces from like 2800 Hitpoints.
I once had a theory about the card "Pot of Greed": When you have 100 Hitpoints you have a higher chance to draw this card because of the heart of cards

There's a better example in GX. In season 3, the main protagonist (Judai) has turned evil and if dueling a secondary protagonist (Jim)

It's a two part episode, and between episodes Judai literally gains 100 extra lifepoints from nowhere, he wins the duel with 50 lifepoints left. If you follow the duel from start to finish, at no point does he activate any effect that grants him those extra 100 points, he should have lost but doesn't through 100% unjustifiable Deus Ex Machina.

Well, I lost sight over Yugioh! after the first series was over, real life was calling. But I read your story and this almost made my jaw drop, this is just lame

 

[Porecomesis]

One that comes to mind for me (and please correct me if this doesn't directly fit into the definition of a Deus Ex Machina) is anytime in a action movie, book, game or whatever. During the final battle when the main character is losing horribly to their enemy, they witness their love interest get killed.This then gives said main character a sudden surge of power due to his/her love that gives them the strength to take down their enemy just as they're about to be beaten.

Or is that just a tired cliche that I can't stand? Either way, it's an annoying plot device. >.>

I understand your frustration and I know where you're coming from with this, but in times of extreme emotion, it is possible for one's physical capabilities to be amplified to a great degree. I'll quote tvtropes.org, to save time:

The human body itself has this in a fashion; when the "fight or flight" instinct kicks in, the body releases massive amounts of adrenaline. This allows ordinary schlubs to pace Olympic sprinters, lift/push something a dozen times their own weight, keep running from something chasing them long past when they should have collapsed from exhaustion, and in some rare cases even see things in slow motion and high detail that would make Hollywood special effects artists faint. Of course, the body isn't like this all the time because it tends to tear muscle and sinew, break bones, dislocate joints, cause heart attacks...

I do, however, have a problem with this when it somehow works with a machine someone is piloting (Zoids Fuzors) or with magic, unless the magic is tied to the human body.


As for me, I played a game called 'RPG Shooter - Starwish' on kongregate.com, and characters left and right suddenly announce that they're either from a mystical race or a pirate lord. Once, this happened TWICE in the same scene, with almost no lead-up whatsoever. This might not be the worst example as I have a poor memory, but still.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Is still counts with Lex Luthor though, he can just erase Lex Luthor knowing anything about Superman's fortress of solitude. Coupled with the fact that the plot device is only introduced to make sure Lois doesn't know about Clark, it is Deus Ex Machina IMO

Maybe its a one off ability. Like that Deus Ex Machina crystal from the fourth movie.

 

[dyre]

Macbeth.

Oracle: "You really only have to worry about dying when the forest moves from here to there, and no man born of a mother's womb can kill you."
Macbeth: "Oh lol, looks like I'll have no probl---"
Scout: "Sir, the enemy army is moving the forest by cutting down branches to use as cover (wtf)!"
Macbeth: "Oh, shit. Well, at least no man born of a mother---"
Macduff: "Ohey Macbeth, did I ever tell you I was born from a C-section?"
Macbeth: "FFFffffffffffffffff---"
*head chopped off*

Point A) Witches. Sorry, it just had to be said.
Point B) I think you might be missing the point here. The idea is that Macbeth sees a series of seemingly impossible circumstances and takes them at face value, when really the witches were making a riddle of the conditions of his doom. Macduff isn't some random character that comes from nowhere and says "Hey, I'm a person that fits that description!", he's an established character who's link the Macbeth's demise is well established by other events in the story (See first prophecy, ie. Beware MacDuff). The fact that the prophecy is made in the way it is is meant to solidify MacDuff's position as MacBeth's destroyer.

bleh, the witches acted as oracles >_>

Fair point on that one. So I see Shakespeare wasn't drunk while writing Macbeth. It appears he did foreshadow it with that "Beware MacDuff" line, so we'd know Macduff would be the killer. But the whole "I was untimely ripped from my mother" or whatever was just such an LOLWUT moment (maybe that sort of thing was more common back then?) that I felt it should have had a bit of foreshadowing.

 

[goldendriger]

People pulling new powers in Naruto, is sort of ok - this is how these kind of series work, and try to stay interesting (excluding here of course the main character, who only has two boring techniques, just cause)

Naruto (being one of the worst written characters in all of anime) still takes the cake though, with the ending of the pain arc. "Oh gawrsh, you're the hero, guess you'll hit me now, with a technique I have shown to easily dodge, and shrug of. Oh, and now that you totally convinced me WITH DA POWA OF FRIENDSHIP, let me just ressurect every character I killed off, and die in the process, completely sucking any moral dilemma or impact from the last thirty episodes"

Okay, what?
Thats not DXM Pain was shown to have control over life and death, so that doesnt come out of no where, as for Naruto pelting him with Rasengan, thats not DXM either, Naruto played it smart, which could be DXM in itself since he's supposed to be a 'tard. The only DXM around Naruto is Sasuke, he can suddenly use a curse mark which crippled him last time, perfectly well within seconds? he gets Mangekyouomgwtfbbq Sharingan and within minutes knows how to use it as well as his genius brother who spent 10 years learning the damn thing.
But what takes the cake is Juugo who can heal Sasuke against Bee "Using his curse mark" which Sasuke lost by that time and he's never shown that ability before or since.

 

[That's Funny]

Is still counts with Lex Luthor though, he can just erase Lex Luthor knowing anything about Superman's fortress of solitude. Coupled with the fact that the plot device is only introduced to make sure Lois doesn't know about Clark, it is Deus Ex Machina IMO

Maybe its a one off ability. Like that Deus Ex Machina crystal from the fourth movie.

Let's just agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

[sub][sub] I certainly don't want to have an argument over whether or not Superman's should just kiss his enemies to make them forget about certain things. Although that would be an interesting battle strategy[/sub][/sub]

 

[Retronana]

How about the manga Berserk in where everyone were trap in that God Hand thing? Out of nowhere a skull knight suddently appear and save the two main characters.

Technically that was a massive deus ex machina but I generally let it slide as it takes major balls to kill off the majority of your characters in one nightmarish slaughter. It also kind of compensates for the extreme amount of dread you feel when *THAT* thing happens (you know I'm sure)

Still though you find out that Gatts+Caska's death may have been a blessing considering what happens later in the series so...Yeah it's a deus ex machina that's good for us, not for the characters.

 

[Pappytech]

Macbeth.

Oracle: "You really only have to worry about dying when the forest moves from here to there, and no man born of a mother's womb can kill you."
Macbeth: "Oh lol, looks like I'll have no probl---"
Scout: "Sir, the enemy army is moving the forest by cutting down branches to use as cover (wtf)!"
Macbeth: "Oh, shit. Well, at least no man born of a mother---"
Macduff: "Ohey Macbeth, did I ever tell you I was born from a C-section?"
Macbeth: "FFFffffffffffffffff---"
*head chopped off*

Point A) Witches. Sorry, it just had to be said.
Point B) I think you might be missing the point here. The idea is that Macbeth sees a series of seemingly impossible circumstances and takes them at face value, when really the witches were making a riddle of the conditions of his doom. Macduff isn't some random character that comes from nowhere and says "Hey, I'm a person that fits that description!", he's an established character who's link the Macbeth's demise is well established by other events in the story (See first prophecy, ie. Beware MacDuff). The fact that the prophecy is made in the way it is is meant to solidify MacDuff's position as MacBeth's destroyer.

bleh, the witches acted as oracles >_>

Fair point on that one. So I see Shakespeare wasn't drunk while writing Macbeth. It appears he did foreshadow it with that "Beware MacDuff" line, so we'd know Macduff would be the killer. But the whole "I was untimely ripped from my mother" or whatever was just such an LOLWUT moment (maybe that sort of thing was more common back then?) that I felt it should have had a bit of foreshadowing.

You guys do realize that you've been saying "The Scottish Play's" true name, right? I do not envy your curses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scottish_Play

There definitely was some build-up to Macduff killing MacBeth, so I can't say it's DEM. It is a good play though.

 

[Kryzantine]

I'm reminded of this one detective story I read, which was a locked room mystery where in the last chapter, a snake spontaneously breaks down a board wall and attacks the detective, revealing itself to have been the killer the whole time; absolutely nothing before that was helpful in solving the case.

Speaking of which, detective fiction does this a lot; some writers put in a vital clue about 2/3rds of the way through the story so the reader can't figure it out first. I hated that.

 

[Starke]

The James Bond gadgets.

Seriously, whenever Bond got in trouble (in the good James Bond's that is) he would always have the perfect gadget for the occasion. It got a little old for my tastes. (this is probably gonna recive some hate)

Yeah, no, this. Especially in Casino Royale. In a movie where there were no other weird psychotic gadgets, why is his car rigged up to work as a crash cart? It makes the Cigarette Lighter in License to Kill look downright intelligent and coherent.

James Bond actually has very few of these. All of his gadgets are explained well in advance in the movie.

I'd be inclined to agree with you except for how ridiculous these get at times, he gets issued a car that turns into a submarine right before he drives off a cliff and into the Mediterranean Sea? An ejector seat that will throw the person in the passenger seat out of the car? There's an idea, and he's issued this before the only time we have a mook climb in the car with him. The above Aston Martin Defibrillator from Casino Royale deserves mention because it comes out of freakin' nowhere, it's something he could do with the goddamn car battery, and, I'll admit, I'm not a toxicologist, but how the hell does shocking yourself out of cardiac arrest stop the effects of digitalis?

Now sometimes these gadgets make (some kind of) sense, like the cleats on his car's tires when he's running around in an arctic environment, but others are just freakin' insane, like the explosive pen in Goldeneye.