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I can’t believe they swept out of nowhere and totally saved the day!
One of the many key differences between fiction and reality is that the real world has a lot
more stuff happening in it.
An individual person's life experience might seem rather narrow and uneventful, but they're
surrounded on all sides by the turbulent chaos of trillions of other factors - the lives
of the people around them, the complex sociopolitical climate of the slice of the world they inhabit,
the day-to-day weather and its many factors, the gravitational and electromagnetic consequences
of cosmic events billions of years old.
So, much like an object spinning through space, there's always a chance they'll smack into
something unexpected.
A random twist of fate caused by someone halfway around the world they'll never meet or even
potentially know exists causes a ripple effect that dramatically impacts the course of their
life.
An omniscient observer would be able to trace the exact confluence of factors that led to
this specific twist of fate happening, but to Joe Average, these events would seem arbitrary
and surprising - a random intrusion into the otherwise predictable course of their life.
They might credit it to karma or personal merit or the will of the universe, but ultimately…
things just happen sometimes.
This is such a fundamental concept to the way reality works that it's interesting how
gauche it is to use it in fiction.
Storytellers catch a lot of flack for coincidences, happenstances, or really anything that seems
to come out of nowhere.
No matter how realistic it is for unexpected things to happen, a lot of the art of storytelling
is about guiding the audience through a linear journey with an internal logic that the audience
can follow.
Introducing important plot-altering factors with insufficient buildup can feel like it's
breaking some fundamental principle of storytelling.
This is why, for as long as it's existed, the trope of the Deus Ex Machina has been
a smidge controversial.
Deus Ex Machina, latin for "god from the machine", is a concept that originated in ancient Greek
theater.
Tragedies would frequently be resolved by the sudden appearance of a literal god who
would typically be lowered onto the stage by a mechane, a crane producing the illusion
of flight.
Euripides was a big fan of this trope, notably utilizing it in Medea when she escapes in
Helios's golden chariot, in Helen when the Dioscuri appear out of nowhere to convince
the king not to kill his sister for letting Helen escape, and in Alcestis where Heracles
appears out of nowhere to save Alcestis from the underworld.
Aristotle was one of this trope's earliest critics, stating that a story should be resolved
by factors internal to the plot rather than external influences, which he saw as kind
of a cop-out.
Other critics of the trope expressed frustration that protagonists were miraculously saved
from tragic endings, because sometimes we like a good tragedy, and sometimes the sad
ending is thematically important, and sometimes it's more realistic for things to not work
out perfectly for everyone.
But despite the criticism, the Deus Ex Machina was a crowd-pleaser.
A lot of audiences really liked seeing their heroes rewarded with happy endings no matter
how unlikely or contrived they seemed on paper.
The current popular definition of a Deus Ex Machina is a plot device that resolves a seemingly
unresolvable problem via an unexpected, improbable or otherwise unpredictable event.
A villain is killed by a meteor strike or sudden heart attack, a hero avoids falling
to their death by suddenly sprouting wings, a character is rescued from imprisonment by
way of spontaneous alien abduction, etcetera.
Despite the iffy connotations of this trope, many classic stories have featured deus ex
machinas of various kinds - War of the Worlds is a pretty classic example, where the unstoppable
martian invasion is ended by the fact that the martians are revealed to have no immune
resistance to any of earth's diseases, and the common cold spontaneously wipes them out.
Lord of the Rings also features one that Tolkien was aware of and very wary of - naturally
the famous giant eagles that turn up three times through the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
to rescue our protagonists from assorted high places.
Tolkien was terrified of overusing the eagles, because they had the potential to render almost
every threat in the story moot, so he tried to use them as sparingly as he could to avoid
removing the narrative stakes.
Now while classic ancient greek deus ex machinas tended to come out of basically nowhere in
the form of literal divine intervention, that specific flavor of deus ex machina is much
less common these days, and modern deus ex machinas sometimes actually receive sprinklings
of foreshadowing to try and integrate them into the story more cleanly.
For some people, this is enough to classify them as not deus ex machinas on the principle
that a deus ex machina has to fully come out of nowhere to count, but I don't think this
is a particularly helpful delineation to try and draw.
Deus ex machinas exist in a gray area with highly unclear boundaries - some of them are
completely separate from the events of the story thus far, while others make a certain
amount of sense in hindsight.
As long as they unexpectedly enter the story to specifically solve a problem I think they
count.
But there is analytical value in subdividing deus ex machinas according to how much foreshadowing
they receive.
At the low end we've got negative foreshadowing.
These are deus ex machinas that don't just come out of nowhere - they actively contradict
established rules of the story or setting.
These have a lot of overlap with bad plot twists that prioritize shock value over actually
making sense, but in this case they prioritize solving the plot over making sense within
the plot.
This can be frustrating for a lot of reasons, and often makes less sense on a second viewing
with the benefit of hindsight - unless post-deus-ex-machina they do a really good job of explaining why
the story was previously "wrong" about what is and isn't possible.
Examples include a character displaying abilities previously established to be impossible for
them, a person thought to be dead turning up to save the day with no explanation given
for their survival, a supernatural force intruding on a previously completely grounded and realistic
setting, stuff like that.
These deus ex machinas are almost always pretty bad unless they do a lot of heavy lifting
to retroactively explain how the supposed rules they broke were never actually a problem
- for instance, a lot of urban fantasy stories technically start with a deus ex machina when
a character who thinks they're living in a normal grounded setting is abruptly yanked
into the secret world by way of supernatural rescue from peril, which seems like it's breaking
the rules of the setting but is really just establishing the real rules the story's gonna
be working on from now on.
But if they happen late in the game, like a character developing a brand new problem-solving
superpower out of nowhere right when they need it in the finale, it's pretty much always
gonna feel like a rule-breaker.
The Force is pretty bad about this, mostly because it's very loosely defined and every
star wars property is written by different people who need the force to do different
things, so it's pretty much traditional for the force to spontaneously develop new powers
to solve whatever problem the heroes are facing.
Down a hand and hanging over open space?
Telepathy!
Stranded in space away from the action?
Astral projection!
Someone's dead?
Force resurrection!
Ho boy, nobody tell Anakin about that one.
A step up from that we get no foreshadowing.
This is what a lot of people consider the platonic ideal of a deus ex machina - a day-saver
that comes out of nowhere with no overt plot points setting it up that still doesn't really
disrupt the rules of the setting.
We had no reason to think it WOULD happen, but it does make sense that it could happen.
Examples include a character displaying a new skill or ability they recently learned
or perfected offscreen, a previously unintroduced character showing up to save the day, our
hero pulling out a new weapon that hasn't been shown before - basically any scenario
when something or someone previously unseen but still grounded in the established rules
of the world appears to solve the problem.
Almost all classical greek Deus Ex Machinas fall into this category, as they existed in
a setting where gods and heroes regularly meddled with the lives of regular mortals,
so random divine intervention was a precedented concept.
These deus ex machinas often make sense in hindsight even without any foreshadowing - the
example in War of the Worlds demonstrates this, as the audience is given no reason to
suspect the martians would succumb to the common cold, but it does make sense that space
aliens would be unprepared for earth's infectious diseases, since that follows from what the
audience is expected to know about acquired immunity and vaccines and stuff.
These deus ex machinas couldn't necessarily be predicted but do make sense in hindsight.
Then you get cases of low foreshadowing, where concepts that play into the eventual deus
ex machina are subtly planted in the story before they pay off in the big deus ex machina
intervention.
For instance, a character may briefly mention they've been working on a project offscreen
that later turns out to be a badass new weapon, or they might namedrop an ally who later shows
up to rescue them, or they establish some sort of connection to a supernatural force
that later intervenes to save the day.
This is where this trope begins to cross over with Checkov's Gun, where a seemingly innocuous
detail is planted early in the story and pays off in the climax.
However, these deus ex machinas will still feature surprises for the audience - it's
only lightly foreshadowed, so the audience probably can't guess exactly how it's gonna
play out.
A couple decent examples of this can be found in the season 1 finale of Last Airbender,
where Princess Yue sacrifices herself to restore life to the moon spirit.
While this is an unprecedented idea, Yue's connection to the moon spirit is established
earlier in the same episode - she explains to the gang that she was healed by the moon
spirit as a baby, resulting in her hair turning white.
This plants the idea that she has a lasting connection with the life of the moon spirit,
but it's still a bit of a surprise that in the finale she can give that life back.
Similarly in the same episode Aang and the ocean spirit team up to waterbend a kaiju
and wreck shop on the fire nation, which is, again, new, but it's based on two established
factors - firstly, Aang, as avatar, is the bridge between the human and spirit worlds,
and can commune and connect with spirits in a way nobody else can.
And secondly, in the avatar state Aang can do a whole buncha stuff he can't normally
do, including huge feats of waterbending.
So despite being something we've never seen him do before, Aang briefly combining with
the ocean spirit to absolutely tear up the fire nation fleet isn't so unprecedented that
it feels like it comes out of absolutely nowhere.
It's not as random as if, like, Sokka did it.
And then there's some stories where the deus ex machina has high foreshadowing.
These are stories where the deus ex machina isn't just hinted at early in the story, it's
straight-up established.
It might've even showed up and affected the story before its big problem-solving deus
ex machina debut.
An established character turns up to rescue the heroes, a powerful supernatural force
known to respond predictably to specific stimuli is motivated to aid the heroes, an established
checkov's gun turns out to be very effective when fired - these are all cases where the
deus ex machina does come out of nowhere to solve the problem, but we already know the
basics of what it'll look like when it does.
You might question how this possibly counts as a deus ex machina, if the audience knows
it's something that can happen and could thus theoretically anticipate its intervention
- but just because something has been established to exist in-story doesn't mean it can be relied
on to show up when it's most convenient.
An example of this sort of deus ex machina is the giant eagles that save Sam and Frodo
in Lord of the Rings - as mentioned, this is the third time in the series they've rescued
our heroes from high-altitude peril.
They're a strongly-established narrative presence the audience knows and understands - the only
reason it feels like it comes out of nowhere is that the eagles are established in-story
to be kinda fickle and unreliable, so the audience and characters aren't expecting them
to swoop in out of nowhere and save the heroes no matter how many times it's already happened.
They're still regarded as a pretty massive deus ex machina by audiences and tolkien alike.
Now it might be tempting to assume that deus ex machinas are better received when they
have higher levels of foreshadowing, and feel more arbitrary and cheap when they have lower
foreshadowing, but in my experience that's not really the deciding factor for how much
a deus ex machina is going to annoy the audience.
There are plenty of no-foreshadowing deus ex machinas that are very well-liked for sheer
coolness factor, and plenty of high-foreshadowing deus ex machinas that get some flack for being
disappointing or anticlimactic.
It's not a clean single-variable problem, but from what I've seen, there are a few key
factors that determine how well a deus ex machina goes over:
The first distinction is between deus ex machinas that help the heroes and deus ex machinas
that solve their problems for them.
Helper deus ex machinas might give the heroes an edge in combat that evens up a previously
very unbalanced playing field, or they might kick in to help smooth over a happy ending
after the heroes have already done the hard part of the big bombastic fight scene or the
complicated heist mission or the climactic final showdown.
Solver deus ex machinas, in contrast, might one-shot the villain themselves or quickly
and cleanly render the whole threat moot.
Solver deus ex machinas essentially replace a potential climactic final showdown with
an external solution that nullifies the problem without ever involving the protagonists.
This is liable to frustrate audiences much more than helper deus ex machinas, which typically
just make it easier or even possible for our heroes to win without taking that victory
away from them.
There's a difference between a fairy godmother giving the hero a magical sword and a fairy
godmother contracting the Fairy Corps of Engineers to blast the evil emperor's doom castle with
a whimsy-powered railgun.
But on the flipside, sometimes if the heroes are in a fully impossible situation the audience
doesn't mind as much if a deus ex machina fully bails them out rather than just giving
them a little nudge.
This is especially true if the heroes have already run themselves ragged trying to solve
or escape the situation and the audience just wants to see them get a break already.
If a narrative situation is already really unfairly skewed against our heroes, it seems
less frustrating to an audience to see random or unprecedented acts of fate pitch in to
help tip the scales the other way.
And sometimes our heroes are faced with problems that are just really beyond what they can
be reasonably expected to handle.
A deus ex machina might be needed to solve the impossible part of the problem, while
the parts that are just really hard are left as an exercise for the protagonists.
And finally I've seen a lot of goodwill towards deus ex machinas that were just f*ckin sweet.
This is by far the most subjective judgment of the bunch, but if a deus ex machina is
just really damn cool most people won't complain about it.
The T-Rex randomly swooping in at the end of Jurassic Park to kill the raptors and let
our heroes escape?
Absolutely rules, no notes.
The protagonists of Promare randomly getting a giant robot literally named the Deus X Machina
just before the final showdown with the main villain and his giant robot?
Hell yeah, zero complaints.
This factor is I think less structural than the other ones discussed - for instance, both
of those examples also fulfill one of the other factors, respectively "the heroes have
already run themselves ragged and deserve a break" and "the deus ex machina just gives
the heroes the tool to solve the problem rather than solving it for them" - and it's also
a lot harder to control for "coolness" as a factor when writing.
Still, it is worth noting that deus ex machinas can be fun enough to offset the potential
dubiousness of how well this trope integrates into the story overall.
Because that's ultimately what the deus ex machina struggles with.
By its nature, this trope is disconnected from the story it takes place in.
It intrudes on the expected progression of the story and bends it in a new direction
- typically by saving characters from certain death or failure.
And while it can be very satisfying to see protagonists facing seemingly impossible odds
and finding a way to succeed anyway, I think there's actually a lot of merit to putting
a character into a situation that's way over their head and then rescuing them later.
It's like there's a habitable zone of storytelling - on one side there's the space of zero conflict
where stories can't happen because they're too boring, and on the other side there's
the space of much too ridiculous threats where stories can't happen because the protagonists
have zero chance of surviving.
But the deus ex machina allows stories to edge into the danger zone of extreme threats
- the heroes get to try their absolute hardest in the face of impossible odds and then the
intervention of the deus ex machina actually gives them a chance of succeeding in the face
of this ridiculously overwhelming threat.
Normally they'd just be doomed to failure - the deus ex machina gives them a chance
of success that'd otherwise be fully impossible, and until then the audience gets to see how
the characters navigate a situation they genuinely don't see a way out of.
I think part of the reason I've never really minded this trope is because it's basically
just the good version of how narrative antagonists work, and nobody complains about that.
Bad stuff is allowed to hit the heroes out of nowhere with no warning all the time.
Things are allowed and even expected to go catastrophically wrong with no warning.
If the heroes ever describe their plan onscreen, the plan is pretty much one hundred percent
guaranteed to fail at every possible turn to force the heroes into desperate improvisation.
Beloved characters will be suddenly and tragically killed, villains will inexplicably survive
falls off cliffs and into active volcanos just so they can turn up and ruin our heroes'
lives all over again.
The universe of a fictional story is allowed to be an arbitrary and uncaring place only
when it screws over the heroes to a frankly ludicrous degree.
A deus ex machina might be a narrative shortcut that lets the author easily bail the heroes
out of an impossible situation, but it's no lazier than a diabolus ex machina that randomly
screws our heroes over for quick and easy conflict.
Sometimes, good things really do just happen, and sometimes that random easy twist of fate
enables really cool stuff.
Like a T-Rex.
Or a giant robot fight.
Or our heroes surviving the dang movie.
Especially after a long, complicated and exhausting struggle to succeed, sometimes we just wanna
see our heroes get a goddamn break.
So… yeah!
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