The ball of electricity that explodes the nuke in The Stand is shot from Randall Flagg’s finger.
I thought the point was that Satan does God’s work, involuntarily. Lame perhaps, but arguably not a DEM.
Regards,
Shodan
Mystery Science Theater 3000: So Joel doesn’t want to host anymore. Mike Nelson is going to replace him. How to get Joel off the Satellite of Love? DEM!
Simply announce that there’s an escape pod onboard in a box marked “Hamdingers”.
I think this validates my Stephen King Rule of Thumb: avoid anything he’s done that goes over 500 pages. Definitely an inverse relationship between quality and quantity in his stuff.
In the Harvard Lampoon’s parody “Bored of the Rings”, the eagle says “thanks for flying Deus Ex Machina Airlines”.
I dunno, maybe…I think it’s Irony, though. Makes a great ending (IMHO).
That’s a great one, ElwoodCuse…I wonder why someone didn’t mention it before? 
I’d say the ending of War of the Worlds is a Deus Ex Machina. Only, in this case it actually works, at least partially because it is an extension of the themes found throughout the rest of the book.
In the book, maybe. In the (excellent) mini-series, something that looks suspiciously of the National Lottery Finger descends and sets it off.
As I recall, it was pretty well established that the valley was going to be flooded. It was the whole reason the guys were in such a hurry to get back to Clooney’s home. He was telling his buddies he had money buried there. The upcoming flooding of the valley is mentioned on their journey a few times. It is mentioned again near the end when his wife tells him she has to have her old wedding ring, which is in the rolltop desk in their old house in the valley to be flooded.
I don’t buy WAR OF THE WORLDS. That was more of something we take for granted–germs, that is; when it was written, even humans could be decimated by the flu–and Wells probably didn’t mean it this way, but it mirrors how the Europeans put the first big dent in the original American population, tho you could argue that the Europeans were the Martians in that case. I guess the point is that we have historic proof that resistance to germs isn’t universal, and germs on Earth are so obvious to us that they shouldn’t need to be written into a story.
To me, the most perfect examples of deus ex machina are in Gilbert and Sullivan. Whose light operas, of course, were largely satires of grand operas. Which were themselves invented around the 1600s as an attempt to revive Greek drama.
Point the first: HMS Pinafore. Humble sailor Ralph cannot marry his beloved Josephine, because she is the daughter of the wealthy, upper class captain. Deus ex machina: Little Buttercup reveals that Ralph and the Captain were switched in infancy, so Ralph is actually upper class and may now marry whomever he wishes. All sing and dance happily.
Point the second: Pirates of Penzance. Having surrendered to the police, the pirates are to taken away to face their punishment. Deus ex machina: Ruth revels that the pirates are actually noblemen gone wrong, and thereby worthy of forgiveness. All sing and dance happily.
Point the third: Ruddigore. Robin lives under a curse and is obligated to do something evil every day or die horribly. Being timid and gentle, he can’t bear to fulfill his duty. Deus ex machina: He points out that failing to perform his daily crime is tantamount to suicide, which is itself a crime. The curse vanishes in a puff of logic. All sing and dance happily.
Point the fourth: The Mikado. Koko’s failure to obey a direct order from the emperor has been proven beyond any doubt. The emperor himself demands an explanation. Deus ex machina: Koko points out that His Majesty’s word is law and is absolute; since the emperor had ordered a thing done, it logically follows that the thing had been done. Impressed with this logic, His Majesty is pleased. All sing and dance happily.
And so on, and so on. The key to the deus ex machina is that is provides a wonderfully convenient (though highly contrived) solution to the problem at hand.
Those last two absolutely aren’t DEM, because the hero saves himself. DEM demands outside intervention. Also, IMO the first two aren’t DEM either - just plot contrivances.
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No, the key to deus ex machina is that it solves all problems without contrivance. God simply turns up and fixes everything - no argument can be made against it.
I’d say Little Buttercup in Pinafore is as close to DEM as it gets. She’s outside the plot machinations until the very end, when she swoops in to say “oops…did I forget to mention that I switched babies?”
I would say that the Ruddigore and Mikado examples are definitely not DEMs, though, because they do follow from the logic of the story. They are practically the opposite of DEM.
Come now, Have you never seen the hand of God before?
Uh, I might have missed somebody else mentioning this, but…
<b>Magnolia</b> is the very first thing that jumps to my head. Frogs anyone?
Oh, good, HTML doesn’t work. Egg on my face!
I know what it’s meant to be. It was just an unfortunate method of showing it at the time.
Forty-six, use square brackets instead of <>'s and everything wil work.
No it isn’t. It’s Latin for “God from the Crane” or thereabouts - as in, a stage crane lowering the actor from the heavens. It was Greek theatre that the Latin phrase described, though.
At the climax of Watership Down, Hazel has loosed the farm dog so it can be lured down to the warren where it will raise General Woundwort’s siege, but Hazel is pounced on by a cat. The chapter closes on that dramatic note, and the scene then shifts to the interior of the farmhouse where the little girl is just waking up, and she, hearing the cat tormenting a rabbit, goes out and shoos it away, whereupon Hazel, getting the once-over from the doctor who is visiting the farmhouse, is given a car-ride back home. However, Richard Adams does suffer enough of a fit of authorial honesty to title the chapter Dea Ex Machina. 