Stop calling it Deus Ex Machina

[Vivi22]

Also, none of my cases or your cases fulfill solving anything.

How about:

friend: Hey, what's this a picture of?
you: it's a picture of a pig. You see, there's a half missing and I've got it here in my pocket *rustle* See?
friend: ah, it has been revealed! thanks, Russel!

gnnnnn'yah.

And hey, you're the one who started picking your nose over the use of 'summarize'

You used a word incorrectly, it completely changed the meaning of your post, which lead to a couple of people quite rightly correcting you. And this example you seem to be using to try and defend your incorrect usage is not an example of a summary either. Well, saying it's a picture of a pig is a summary, but the reveal of the other half is not. And revealing unknown information, in a summary or otherwise is not necessarily a DEM.

You tell people to get off your back, but you're the one who can't seem to acknowledge that he worded his point poorly and that it was completely lost as a result. In fact, you're jumping through all kinds of hoops in some desperate attempt to justify your sloppy wording. If you want people to simply move on then I'd suggest admitting that the way you worded your original point was poor, it completely changed the meaning, which lead to people not understanding what you were trying to say. Own up to the mistake and everyone will move on.

You can try and act like it's a small little thing everyone's harping on, but language is important for conveying meaning and YOU used it incorrectly. Not anyone else. It is your fault they misunderstood, and that is not something to defend. That's something you say "oh, my bad," to and move on from.

 

[Phuctifyno]

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

How about "Duck Sex Mack'n!"

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...

Did you play God From? It's a perfectly suitable name for the story. Granted, it'd be just as, or even more, suitable if they had actually called it Deus Ex Machina... Either way, X sells.

 

[Littaly]

Does a deus ex machina have to specifically relate to the end of a story? One of the most famous and criticized examples in gaming is the one from Final Fantasy VIII, and that one occurs in the middle of the game.

I like arguing definitions of words as much as the next guy, but it doesn't really affect the bottom line about the writing in Mass Effect (and I'm not saying that's what you were implying). The crucible is still kind of out of nowhere, only loosely connected to what has happened before and gives the impression of being a panicked solution thrown in at last minute to save a story that wasn't entirely thought through from the beginning.

 

[Mr Dizazta]

No one said the Crucible was a Deus Ex Machina. It's fucking the Catalyst that is literally a damn Deus Ex Machina.

 

[Gecko clown]

The term Deus Ex Machina first came from Ancient Greece where, at the end of plays, a statue of a god would be lowered by a crane or something and neatly resolve the plot. In modern times it doesn't always have to happen at the end.

An example in a film would be during the Hunger Games when the main character, I cannot for the life of me remember her name, is trapped up a tree and literally out of fucking nowhere there are deadly bees that lock onto the trackers the contestants have inside them. She cuts down the bee hive and escapes. This wouldn't be a deus ex machina if they had introduced the bees earlier in the film.

Finally just because an ending is unexpected does not mean to say it is a deus ex machina.

 

[Gecko clown]

The term Deus Ex Machina first came from Ancient Greece where, at the end of plays, a statue of a god would be lowered by a crane or something and neatly resolve the plot. In modern times it doesn't always have to happen at the end.

An example in a film would be during the Hunger Games when the main character, I cannot for the life of me remember her name, is trapped up a tree and literally out of fucking nowhere there are deadly bees that lock onto the trackers the contestants have inside them. She cuts down the bee hive and escapes. This wouldn't be a deus ex machina if they had introduced the bees earlier in the film.

Finally just because an ending is unexpected does not mean to say it is a deus ex machina.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Enough, I wrote essays on this shit longer ago than I care to remember, neither I, or my teachers had the slightest problem with my interpretation of a Deus Ex Machina

So... you're right, and all of us are wrong... because you wrote an essay on it a very long time ago and nobody told you that you were wrong then?

Brain aneurysm in...
Captcha: one, two, three

rgzxsgrfdrsrdfgrsdgrsdfdgvfsdgfdsfgdsfgdsfds

 

[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.

That one is arguable, on one hand it was never mentioned that that kind of machine was even thought of, on another hand you were kinda always aware that Adam Fenix was always finding new ways to end wars (jacinto, hammer of dawn) so it is not completely DEM that he could have made something like that during his time missing, and he even stated that it wasn't finished because he was trying to save the locust as well (although that would NEVER have worked out, bad blood between them and humans aside they were aggressive and fuck ugly)

How is it arguable?

Spoilers!!

...

A machine that is introduced at the very end that magically kills all the Locust and solves all of humanities problems, introduced by a character we haven't met till now. I mean sure Adam Fenix was mentioned before, but barely.

Anyways, DEM doesn't necessarily mean it has to be some completely unexpected event or twist, it's when God or magic solves all of the stories problems instead of the people involved.

Marcus doesn't solve anything, he just grunts a lot of has an affinity for chest high walls. Anya doesn't solve anything either, she's just a sexist character there to make babies (literally) and create perverted fan work on deviantart.com.

That machine solved all their problems, and it did it in half a second. That's DEM if I ever saw one. :/

 

[The Wykydtron]

Hmmmm, I guess Kumagawa is a walking Deus Ex Machina in Medaka Box, he literally brings people back to life. His power is making things not exist. Your death? Never happened. I just got my arm blown off? Nope, Chuck Testa. It's always played for lols and it's not a serious manga so it's a very lighthearted one. Not exactly a DEM once he gets a solid place in the cast, it's well established later on that he can waltz in and clean up anything regardless.

Then they go and play a curveball, kill a main character then chuck his dead body into a different dimension before he can just be instantly revived. I like that about Medaka Box. Constantly changing the rules. Inb4 he gets revived anyway Lolol.

I don't keep track of these things much though, there is a literal Deus Ex Machina in Future Diary however. Literally Deus Ex Machina, the god that governs the laws of causality and reality decides he wants to play a game. That is the only reason why 12 people have to fight each other to the death with future powers.

 

[direkiller]

Deus ex machina merely means 'divine intervention'.

Deus ex machina= god from the machine

It is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.


The name comes from Greek/Roman plays that ended with a god let down from a crane to sort out the problems at the end.

 

[direkiller]

Does a deus ex machina have to specifically relate to the end of a story?

No it can be any seemingly insurmountable obstacle overcome by new shiny power/person/thing that was never explained foreshadowed.

 

[aguspal]

OMG


DEM: FAIL ENDING.


/thread.


I mean, everyone knows they suck, everyone agrees than they are a MASSIVE fail, just leave it there. ...(well so long as the story is an important element of any give game. If it is not or if it dosnt take itself seriously, I suppused a deus ex machina wouldt matter in that case).

...

A machine that is introduced at the very end that magically kills all the Locust and solves all of humanities problems, introduced by a character we haven't met till now. I mean sure Adam Fenix was mentioned before, but barely.

Anyways, DEM doesn't necessarily mean it has to be some completely unexpected event or twist, it's when God or magic solves all of the stories problems instead of the people involved.

Marcus doesn't solve anything, he just grunts a lot of has an affinity for chest high walls. Anya doesn't solve anything either, she's just there to make babies (literally) and create perverted fan work on deviantart.com.

That machine solved all their problems, and it did it in half a second. That's DEM if I ever saw one. :/

Oh wow, I loved this was pretty funny and awesome, good job.

 

[bobhome2]

I always thought the Crucible itself was a MacGuffin, while the God Child was Deus Ex Machina. See, I chased people around the galaxy for... some kind of progress on this device which would do "something." And it turns out that that something-device is ruled by a literal God who solves all the problems.

So, to me, a MacGuffin with a resident Deus Ex Machina.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Better than "day of sex macarena" which is how so many do pronounce it.

That is absolutely what I'm pronouncing it as from now on.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

But the God Child is pretty much a literal interpretation of what a Deus Ex Machina is. The ending of ME3 being the use of a MacGuffin and a Desu Ex Machina isn't really something you can debate against.

 

[Nomanslander]

OMG


DEM: FAIL ENDING.


/thread.



Oh wow, I loved this was pretty funny and awesome, good job.

Yeah, but then again, I take back saying that Gears couldn't be arguable, because based on a theory of mine, I guess also anything can be if you look at the technicalities.

For instance, I didn't know Raiders of the Lost Ark was considered a DEM since the ark of the covenant was foreshadowed on many occasions to be dangerous and "not of this earth." Based on some technicality that would exclude it as a DEM. But it's also still a glorious example of DEM if anything has to be said about it. God kills the Nazi's at the end while Indy is tied up and left helpless to do anything about it.

Of course, the idea is that DEMs are a thing to be frowned upon in lit/movies/games. In Raiders, the DEM was one of the best parts of the movie and worked marvelously. UNLIKE the Gears example I made earlier.

 

[kenadian]

As others have said, the Catalyst is the Deus Ex Machina (almost literally). The Crucible is just a giant fucking MacGuffin.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

People tend to use Latin and Greek words to make themselves sound smarter than they relly are, and this is nothing new. George Orwell mentioned this in his essay "Politics and the English Language," back in the 1940s. Deus Ex Machina just means: "The workings of God" or "An act of God." Though often you can just say that something is "contrived" or even "came out of nowhere" and actually have a clearer meaning to what you are saying.

Of course, if Orwell could not stem the tide of English Language abuse, I doubt that I can either, but I'll give it a shot:

"Canon" cannot refer to fictional occurences. Please stop using it to make yourself sound like someone who cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality.

It is "Toe the Line," as in, to push against a boundry, not "Tow the Line", as in to repeat a line or saying.

"Locality" is not synonymous with "Location." "Locality" refers to both time and place, and is most often correctly used in physics in reference to space-time.

I could go on, but I will stop my rant there.

 

[ign0rantc0nsumer]

I think people start calling "Deus Ex Machina" when it looks like the writer has "painted themselves into a corner" and no resolution seems realisitic, so the writer throws out an unexpected object, character or event, which helps wrap things up nicely. The Crucible was not necessarily Deus Ex Machina but the Star Child seemed like it to me.

If the Crucible turned out to be a gigantic weapon that cruised around taking down fleets of reapers (after millennium of extinct alien species working on it), wouldn't have seemed at all like Deus Ex Machina. It wouldn't have suddenly sprung into existence to resolve the plot, it would have a massive undertaking that countless unseen minds and hands had worked on.

But the fact the Star Child pops up at the end and says I'm the Catalyst, and we are going to wrap up this galaxy wide threat with a few cut scenes ... that seemed the writer ran out of space and/or couldn't think of a realistic solution. And the fact that Repears were quasi- involved in creating the instruments of their own destruction (the Citadel and the Relays) seemed kinda stupid to me. (At least I think the Reapers built them, the plot got kinda Matrix 2 at the end).

I personally would have loved the cruising around in a giant Crucible fighting Reapers in a space battle but the game engine wasn't set up for that.

 

[ResonanceSD]

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

"A SHIT ENDING".

I thought it was a great ending, if you look at it from the Indoctrination Theory (I will consider that canon even if the developers won't!)

"it was all a dream and then I woke up, thank you for listening to my short story".


Was a terrible idea in grade 3, is still terrible now.