) and it's fine as long as you've already introduced that god and given a reason said god might intervene.
But wouldn't using a deus ex machina run the risk of making the reader feel cheated, feel, "Oh, that's convenient."
Just some thoughts.
Is there ever a time Deus ex machina is a good thing?
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Wellington
quote:
Is there ever a time Deus ex machina is a good thing?
Unless you're writing parody, not really. What deus ex machina usually indicates is a failure of foreshadowing - you haven't put the gun on the mantelpiece, so the shot comes out of nowhere, and then you have to explain about the gun and waste a lot of time and everyone is confused and jerked out of the emotion-laden climax and generally irritated.
The standard excuse used is that the writer wanted to "surprise" the reader. Well, my baby brother was always surprised when I "remembered" game rules that meant I won, but I can't say it was a surprise I'd want my readers feeling.
I mean how often does your hero get to the end and then sudddenly God fixes the problem?
Another problem I see is that in a fantasy setting you could think of all magic as a sort of dues ex machina. The hero comes up against a problem and uses magic and over comes it, so magic does all the work and fixes all the problems.
So does anyone have some examples of more subtle but still "bad" examples of deus ex machina? (I'm presuming that pretty much all use of dues ex machina demonstrates the author's inability to come up with a geniune solution to a plotline)
Eg: the ridiculus use of balefire in the WOT world.
But I have seen examples of deus ex machina used, and one I recently ran across was in the works of David Eddings. In his case, he literally had a god come in and fix things when the characters couldn't do it themselves any longer. That was the point I stopped reading his work, BTW. I had never seen a truer form of deus ex machina save for Greek plays.
More subtly, I think most episodes of Star Trek are guilty of this. The number of times they have a five percent or less chance of something working and they pull through....I'm sorry, at some point it would be nice for the characters to win out rather than the statistics god.
And now I must go off and think, because I know I've seen dozens of examples but for the moment I can't place them.
Incredible coincidences or events that spring from a higher power are fine when they cause the conflict in the story, not when they resolve the conflict. Readers won't mind if your antagonist benefits from deus ex machina. Heroes need to earn success, villians can stumble into it.
Have you seen the new King Kong yet? While we could do a long debate on good and evil in that story, Carl Denham is the primary antagonist. Ann Darrow, Jack Driscoll, and Kong himself are the protagonists. Throughout the story Darrow, Driscoll and Kong must constantly save themselves from disaster. They must earn their success. Denham is constantly struggling (and exhibits heroic characteristics of bravery and resourcefulness) but in scene after scene he is saved by deus ex machina.
It's an interesting premise, and instantly sparks the question of what you would do in that scneario, and furthermore, how are you living your life now knowing that history repeats itself for those who do not learn from it?
Any introduction of divine beings or divine powers can ruin a story for me faster than bad spelling and grammar. But it can be done---after all, the ancient Greeks loved those dramas where it happened (usually offstage, though). I liked "Q" in "Star Trek," 'cause he seemed to have some kind of motivation for his actions, puzzling though it was...
It can easily be avoided by simply mentioning the potential early in the story.
For the most part, no problem in the story should be resolved without particular effort of the characters.
If there were a warning, an indication that the god was going to come through the roof, is that the same thing as deus ex machina?
Here is some gray area: "Paul was surrounded by four gunmen, each with their weapons trained on him. There was no way out this time. Hw closed his eyes. He heard the shots. But he didn't feel them hit. He opened his eyes and saw the gunmen on the ground, each with a sniper's bullet through his chest."
Did Paul solve his own problem? Maybe. Just mentioning the snipers isn't enough, though. Paul had to have had some significant involvement in putting those snipers in place for this not to be a deus ex machina. Otherwise, even if you say right off that trained hitmen were looking for these gunmen, it remains deus ex machina. The key is main character involvement. What did he do to solve the problem, whether in the xlimas moment or in the story leading up to the climax? He can't just be a bystander.
Like Christine says, if the character had tried to get somebody on his side, say by going to the FBI with the--patently ridiculous--story about these gunmen being after him, then it isn't "out of the blue" when the HRT shows up and blows the bad guys away. You can even have the guy saved by some literal god (remember Navy Seals ) and it's fine as long as you've already introduced that god and given a reason said god might intervene.
Inkwell
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"The only difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited January 03, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by HuntGod (edited January 09, 2006).]
Pressfield is psych major and an amateur classicst. Being the latter explains his writing in this style.
Peace,
Scott
The heros are CONSTANTLY being cornered by some nasty superhuman badguy, then literally falling through a hole in the floor or something equally physical and implausible, so they can live to run away another day.
But it actually works. And I enjoyed the series. Maybe because, as Doc Brown said, it makes things worse for the protagonists. Their falling through floors and whatnot often makes their lives only temporarily okay before they are confronted with an even more impossible situation.
Also, Simon Green has some awesomely badass characters, and you really want to know more about them, despite the plot devices.
Is it a case of DEM if a god takes human form and no one knows that he is one until he chooses to reveal it?
I had the idea of setting something like a god in human form in my fantasy novel after reading that some anceint cultures believed that the gods could appear in any form at any time.
Anyone?
In my opinion DEM often occurs when a writer thinks up a 'great' new idea part-way through the writing but fails to go back through the material already written and add the elements at logical points that make it work in the end.
The same goes for flashbacks. Often, it seems, a writer gets to a point in their storytelling and realise Hey, I need to explain this in greater depth to make the idea work but instead of taking the time to go back to the point in the story where the information could and should have been presented, they just go ahead and writes it as a flashback.
It's a bit lazy and makes me feel somewhat cheated.
Is it DEM in your story? That depends. Does the hero resolve his own problems or does he get into a sticky situation the the god has to save him from? If your god simply acts as an observer, perhaps even as a counselor, then I do not think you have a DEM situation at all. But the moment he/she steps in and saves the day with his/her infinite godly powers then, I'm afraid, it is DEM.
Ask yourself this: How did the hero solve his problem?
He does the deus ex machina in such a subtle way especially in Alien years but in some of his other works that you just go "eh" and keeping reading.
In The Matrix it seemed like DEM the first time I saw it, but watching it again it was a little less surprising. They made up for it by having the second movie have no ending.
But for some reason, it *worked* in his novels, probably due to the era in which he wrote. They are almost a written version of the old movie serials like Flash Gordon, complete with handsome heroes, stunningly beautiful maidens to be rescued, evil villains plotting to take over the world and cliffhangers galore. Fun stuff.
I think the reason deus ex machina doesn't work as much anymore is due to the increasing sophistication of readers. As science progressed and the Information Age came into being, people in general were more insterested in why things worked the way they did and Science Fiction in particular picked up on that trend.
But the pendulum is swinging the other way a bit. Heck, Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is almost nothing BUT deus ex machina, and it works because the whole series is a farce (in the literary sense).
In fact, go to Wikipedia and look up "deus ex machina." It has a wonderful listing of places it has been used in modern writing and cinema, even by such greats as Asimov.
[This message has been edited by krazykiter (edited January 10, 2006).]
I don't see the God in human form as a case of DEM, simply because the characters this being interacts with are unaware of it, and the one that does know, well people thinks she's ill.
He helps, but only when the hero is so close to death, other then that he is an advisor to her lover, then he is gone. The only other god in the tale is stripped of his power, so it's fair. Each are limited on the use of their influence & power.
quote:
He helps, but only when the hero is so close to death, other then that he is an advisor to her lover, then he is gone.
This is the DEM. As an advisor, it's fine. A god who has been stripped of his power is fine (even a little intriguing). Whether or not the main character knows that another character is a god is irrelevant to this discussion (though certainly important in your work).
When the main character does not solve his/her own problem or even have a hand in it you have a DEM.
Problem: Character X is close to death.
Solution: Someone he has been travelling with turns out to have been a god in diguise and saves him.
Main Character's Role in Solution: ???
He can have help. His role in the solution doesn't have to be physical. If you want this story ot have religios overtones, for example, his role may be to suddenly realize that Character Y is a god and pray to him for help. Simply praying for help won't work, though. Inviting DEM in doesn't make it any less so. 
Or perhaps the main problem wasn't the hero's death. Let's look at this situation:
Problem: World coming to an end
Solution: Character X travels to the pit of fire to kill the leader of the Orks
Main character's Role: He travels to the pit of fire to kill the leader of the Orks
Result: Character X is on the brink of death
Now if you have a god come in and cure the main character as a reward for being the hero it's better. It's still a baby DEM, but it's not in relationship to the BIG PROBLEM, the story problem. It's a solution to a minor problem that resulted from solving the big problem.