Deus ex machina: Encyclopedia II - Deus ex machina - Deus ex machina in fiction works

Deus ex machina - Deus ex machina in fiction works

Deus ex machina - Literature and comics

• In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the kidnapping of Hamlet, alone, by pirates in order to escape his orchestrated death in England is in large part an example of deus ex machina, only toward the climax of the play.
• Shakespeare's As You Like It also has an example of deux ex machina when Hymen comes to the mass wedding to sort out the problems of Rosalind's stay and disguise in the Forest of Arden.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events, particularly The Vile Village, references a deus ex machina, particularly when referring to the Self Sustaining Hot Air Mobile Home.
• In the Edgar Allan Poe story The Pit and the Pendulum, the unnamed narrator has just been pushed over the edge of the bottomless pit when he reaches up and grabs the arm of the general who has led the French army to seize the fortress where the narrator has been imprisoned.
• In Stephen King's novel The Stand, a minor character who has gone insane in the desert returns to Las Vegas with an atomic bomb, which is set off by an electrical charge taking the shape of a hand and destroying the city. However in the complete and uncut version the character has been expanded to play a major role. The characters in Boulder believe the charge to have been the "Hand of God." Many of King's novels have a deus ex machina ending.
• In the Peter Straub/Stephen King novel The Talisman, one of the characters is said to be driving a deus ex machina.
• In The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, an alien artifact known as "the Sleeping God" is used to solve a problem which over 3000 pages have been working through, in less than 5 minutes (or an hour, in the "Tinkerbell/Ketton" events).
• Many comic book characters can be seen as walking dei ex machinis. Wolverine is viewed by many fans of the X-Men comics as such. His mutant powers include an incredibly fast healing ability (making him nearly invincible), enhanced senses, and a skeleton of adamantium, a fictional indestructible metal. Lifeguard, also from the X-Men, is widely considered by her detractors to be the ultimate deus ex. Her mutant ability is to manifest any necessary ability to save lives, which makes her a quick fix for the writers if any characters are stuck in a tight spot. Perhaps the most famous superhero to be labelled a deus ex is Superman himself, as his writers had a tendency to inflate his powers over the years to constantly trump his previous successes. Kryptonite, Superman's only weakness, then became a sort of reverse deus ex machina, which would be called in whenever the writer wanted to explore a conflict which he didn't want Superman to resolve in one punch.
• The endless serial nature of comics also frequently leads to the use of dei ex machinis both to end convoluted story arcs and bring back previously deceased characters, or even both, as was the case with the Clone Saga series of Marvel Comics's Spider-Man.
• The character of Puck ends William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with a decidedly deus ex machina flair.
• In Forever Free by Joe Haldeman, after discovering the entire population of earth has disappeared, the main character meets God, who explains that the universe as man knows it has been one big experiment, which has now been aborted. After a short conversation, God agrees to restore everyone and leave the experiment to "simmer" for another few thousand years.
• Stephen King's Dark Tower series is loaded with DEMs, but they are accepted as it is said that Ka, or Fate, has manipulated events and placed them in the protagonists' path, at one point in the final book a note from King himself to one of his characters is included to save the lives of Roland and Susannah.
• In Molière's The School for Wives, Agnès is suddenly found out to have been betrothed all along to another man, which spares her from having to marry Arnolphe.
• Tintin's encounters involved (more often than not) dei ex machinis to spare his life: heavy weights replaced by wood, a solar eclipse, explosive mines not working etc.
• In Tohru Fujisawa's Great Teacher Onizuka, Azusa has been kidnapped by Teshigawara. Onizuka not being smart enough to investigate it, a whole new character arrives, Makoto, Azusa's sister who is a genius investigator and who manages to find back Azusa and thwart Teshigawara.
• In Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, scientists race to find a way to contain an extremely dangerous extraterrestrial virus. In the end, they fail and the virus escapes into the atmosphere, but conveniently for mankind the virus mutates into a completely harmless form.
• In Richard Adams' Watership Down, Hazel, after freeing the local farm dog to attack the Efrafans, he is immediately pinned by the farm cat and about to be killed until a young girl resident of the farm intervenes by ordering the cat to back away and then takes Hazel into the country to a location which is coinicidentally near his warren. Interestingly enough, the chapter in which the buildup for this event occurs is indeed titled Dea ex Machina.
• In Sharon Shinn's Novels of Samaria, God really is in the machine when it is revealed that the sender of the rain, medicine and seeds from the sky is in fact a highly advanced spaceship named Jehovah that has been instructed to answer the 'prayers' of the genetically engineered Angels. This also provides an opportunity to employ the literary technique in resolving the different crises of each book.
• In Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, the location of the antimatter is seemingly revealed by a vision from God, a true deus ex machina, however it is later revealed to be a deception by the novel's villain.
• In H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (as well as various adaptations), the alien invaders, whose machines and weaponry prove too powerful for humanity to defeat, die out from airborne diseases to which mankind is immune. (Note, however, that this is not strictly a deus ex machina, as the definition for the same requires that the element be a "resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic," whereas in The War of the Worlds the internal logic, and the central theme of the plot, not only allow but require this resolution.)
• In Gene Wolfe's The Citadel of the Autarch (fourth volume of The Book of the New Sun), the protagonist is rescued by an outside agent, who, referring to his own intervention, discusses a dramatic device in which an external force is brough on in the last act to ensure the play ends well (though in keeping with much of the obliqueness of the series, the dramatic device is not explicitly named)
• Clive Cussler, the author of the Dirk Pitt adventure novels, has introduced himself into the plot of a number of his stories so that he may rescue his characters from hopeless situations.
• In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Antonio's entire life is resting on whether or not his ships come to port. It is heard throughout the story that they have all crashed. Yet in the end, Portia tells him all his ships have come home, with no explanation as to how they survived the storms, or why people had believed them all to have crashed.
• In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, throughout the entire story, the protagonist, Ralph tries to maintain order and the chance for rescue by having a signal fire burning at all times. When the antagonist seizes control and savagry succeeds, Jack attempts to "smoke" Ralph out of the forest by setting the forest on fire. The fire from the forest catches the eye of a British Navy ship and comes to the rescue of the boys. The exact opposite of what Jack intended.
• In J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Samwise are rescued by the Eagles as Mordor collapses around them, raising the question of why the Eagles could not have helped more on the outward journey (or taken the Ring to Mordor themselves).
• In Piers Anthony's Xanth series, a Wiggle Storm happens every three or four books when suddenly all enemies work together to fight a common foe.
• In Hajime Kanzaka's novel Shirogane no Majū (白銀の魔獣, the fifth book in his Slayers series of novels, which form the basis for the anime series of the same name), the story's main character and first-person narrator, Lina Inverse, uses a powerful spell known as "Ragna Blade" to defeat Zanaffar in the story's climax. The reader is never informed of the existence of this spell until she casts it, whereupon Lina reveals that she created the spell herself several days beforehand (which occurs within the time frame of the novel's other events).
• In Dan Simmons' novel Hyperion (and the three sequels) there is this thorn creature called Shrike. It is, natives believe, god of pain. On the covers of the book, Shrike is refered as Deux Ex Machina.

• In the Lance Tooks graphic novel The Devil on Fever Street, Satan falls in love with a mortal woman; order is restored when the saintly Black Lily Baptiste is mortally struck by a driverless truck bearing the words "Dusek's Machines" printed on its side.
• In Bored of the Rings, Frito and Spam are rescued by Deus Ex Machina Airlines (parodying Frodo and Sam being rescued by eagles at Mount Doom, in the original Lord of the Rings stories).
• In the web comic Cat and Girl, Deus Ex Machina is referenced in a strip [1] that was also later adapted into a hoodie [2].
• In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot it is used as a part of the description of the relationship between humans and robots.

Deus ex machina - Cinema and television

• Many plot devices, events, and characters in the popular television series LOST have a decidedly Deus Ex Machina element (in the 'destiny' sense of the definition, not the 'unlikely happy ending'). "Deus ex machina" is also used as a title for one of the episodes.

• Possibly the least satisfactory deus ex machina to the audience is the revelation that all or large parts of what has gone before were "all a dream". This was perhaps most notoriously used in Dallas, where an entire season was "unwritten" to allow the resurrection of a character who had been killed off.
• Additional examples are in the films The Joyless Street and Pandora's Box by G.W. Pabst. In Pandora's Box, the movie ends when, for no apparent reason, the main character is murdered by Jack the Ripper. Similarly, in Medium Cool, the final scene ends with the lead characters being killed in a car accident.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail employs the device, in combination with "breaking the fourth wall" in several places. While attempting to enter a cave, the knights of the Round Table are attacked by a bloodthirsty rabbit which they can't overcome, but they manage to kill it with the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch, which has been heretofore unmentioned. Having entered the cave the knights are then attacked by the Ravenous Black Beast of Argh, with no apparent hope of survival. At this point, it is revealed by the narrator that the film's animator suffered a fatal heart attack, obliterating the animated monster. Later, the film's final battle sequence is suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the police, who immediately arrest the entire on-screen principal cast of medieval characters, allegedly for murder.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian also utilises the Deus Ex Machina for comedic effect. In one scene Brian falls from the top of a high tower, only to be saved by alien space ship that happened to be passing. He is taken on a joy ride through the solar system before the space ship is shot down and crashes at the foot of the very tower he had just fallen from. A bystander who witnesses all this remarks, "Ooh, you lucky bastard!"
• In The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) acts as a deus ex machina, in that his timely arrival provides a means for the machines and the humans to unite after they have been fighting for centuries, and a truce to be called. With intentional irony, the machine figurehead is named the Deus Ex Machina. It is voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.
• In the movie Donnie Darko, Donnie is considered a Deus ex Machina because he solves the mystery of why the universe is coming to an end, and he saves it. The phrase also comes up at a few times in the movie (i.e. When Donnie is pinned down by the bully he mutters: "Deus ex Machina, Our saviour")
• In the end of the movie Donnie Darko, Donnie actually says the phrase, although it is very difficult to understand. Most people agree on that fact that the deus ex machina in this story refers to the car that appears in that same scene, right after Donnie whispers the phrase. Others think that it refers to the jet engine that crashed (crashes) into Donnie's bedroom (the central fulcrum defining the "before" and "after" within the entire film). Some say it refers to the character of Frank, who solves his impossible problem of not "dying alone" and putting the future back to where it belongs. This is deliberate usage and a prime example of the technique.
• In Adaptation. one of the "Ten Commandments of Screenwriting" esposed in the screenwriting class the main character takes is "Thou shalt not use a Deus Ex Machina ending." In an ironic twist, the movie ends with what's arguably an Deus Ex Machina ending, albeit in a highly original way: the 'bad guy' is miraculously attacked by an alligator in a Florida swamp. However, early in the movie there's a brief establishing shot of an alligator in that same swamp. Thus, while this is technically not a DEM it's still a 'cheap' way to tie up the plot -- and certainly loyal to the movie's zany self-referential nature.
• In The Wizard of Oz, just before Dorothy and her companions reach the Emerald City, the Wicked Witch of the West produces a giant field of poppies that puts Dorothy, Toto and the Cowardly Lion to sleep. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man cry for help, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, produces a snow shower that wakes everyone up. Also, in the scene where Dorothy misses the Wizard's balloon, Glinda appears and tells Dorothy she had the power to return home the entire time, meaning the Ruby Slippers. When the Scarecrow asks in disbelief why didn't Glinda tell Dorothy about the Slippers, Glinda casually responds that Dorothy would not have believed her and had to learn it for herself. It is difficult to think Dorothy would not have believed Glinda after all the strange things that had happened to her in Oz.
• In the episode "Operation: Annihilate!" from the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series, Spock is infected by an alien parasite which has overwhelmed a Federation colony world. Discovering that intense light will kill the parasites, Spock volunteers to be exposed to this light. He is cured, but also blinded. In the end, he miraculously recovers his sight, explaining that as a Vulcan he has nictitating membranes that protect his eyes from the intense solar radiation on his home world.
• In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Sacrifice of Angels, the USS Defiant went into the Bajoran wormhole to face a gigantic Dominion invasion fleet that vastly outnumbered the combined forces of the Federation and Klingons. After talking with Sisko, the aliens that lived in the wormhole simply caused the fleet to vanish into nothingness.
• In the television series Doctor Who, in the final episode of the 2005 season (The Parting of the Ways), the Doctor's companion Rose forces the TARDIS console open, and her subsequent access to the time vortex grants her manipulative powers over time and space, which she uses to rescue the Doctor. This is a deus ex machina in both the traditional literary sense (an ending is contrived by appealing to arbitrary, previously undisclosed elements) and a humorous one (Rose gets her godlike abilities from the TARDIS machine). See also Boom Town.
• In the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Satan grants the boys a wish after they kill his manipulative boyfriend. They wish for everything to go back the way it was, and Satan complies- including reviving many main characters who were killed in the war.
• The seventh (and final) season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer concludes with a series of unlikely events to save the world from the near-impossible to stop evil. Buffy receives an amulet from Angel which Spike uses conveniently to destroy the Hellmouth and the scythe used to activate every slayer is introduced by making the villains dig it up for no real reason.
• Nearly every episode of The Fairly Oddparents ends in a deus ex machina, due to Timmy Turner having fairy godparents and wishing a bizarre situation back to normal. Timmy also uses magical items/other fairies when his fairy godparents are unavailable for whatever reason.
• In Megas XLR, when Coop is stuck in a bad situation, there is usually a new part installed into Megas before the episode started, which usually makes him victorious.
• In Stay, the upcoming Marc Foster film, the whole movie is explained as a dream coming from someone other then the main character. Apparently, Henry (Ryan Gosling) is dying after an accident and created characters based on those who tried to rescue him.
• In the anime series The Big O, the protagonist summons a giant robot at the climax of each episode. Not only does does the robot serve as a Deus ex machina in the literal sense, but is referred to as a mega-deus(albeit pronounced "duce") and occasionally a "God" in the series. References to theater are frequently used in the series.
• In the cartoon The Angry Beavers, at the end of the episode Moby Dopes, during which the two main characters are terrorised by a Killer Whale in their pond, it is suddenly eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex. One of the characters then exclaims "Where in the name of dues ex machina did that T-Rex come from?"
• In the final episode of My-HiME, with most of the characters either dead or practically catatonic (and completely stripped of their powers), Miyu (who is, coincidentally, an android) destroys the pillars into which the HiMEs' powers were absorbed, releasing Mashiro from her ice-like prison, who then proceeds to resurrect all of the characters who had been killed and restoring the powers of the HiME who were defeated, even going so far as healing the eye that Nao, one of the still-living characters, lost.
• In V: The Final Battle mini-series, when the mothership is about to destroy Earth, a half-alien/half-human girl comes out of nowhere and puts her hands on the control panel and starts glowing and the threat is eliminated.
• In the film Jurassic Park, Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and the two children are trapped in the main building about to be attacked by a pair of Velociraptors. All of a sudden, a T-Rex comes out of nowhere and proceeds to kill the two raptors allowing the main characters a chance to escape.
• In the film Jurassic Park 3, when the main characters are fleeing and at the end of the film, as soon as they arrive at the beach, the US Army arrives to stablize the situation and kill the dinosaurs, a blatant D.E.M.
• In the film Clash of the Titans pretty much the entire plot is one big Deus ex machina. Perseus receives magic armour and weapons that he finds simply leaning up against statues, for example. The writer, Beverley Cross, doesn't even bother to make the main character earn them in any way, and they don't serve to help him solve his problems -- they solve the problems for him every time. All Perseus does is show up. Of course this is a movie about the gods literally interfering in the lives or mortals, so it's somewhat forgivable.
• In the Disney movie The Emperor's New Groove, a chase occurs where the main character, the Emperor Kuzco (who has been turned into a llama) and his friend Pacha are being pursued back to the palace by Kuzco's evil advisor Yzma and her assistant Kronk. During the chase, Yzma and Kronk are struck by lightning, and fall into a gorge, leaving Kuzco and Pacha seemingly free to return to the palace. Upon their return, they discover that Yzma and Kronk are already there, and when Kuzco asks Yzma how they got back before they did, she looks confused and asks Kronk. Kronk says "Beats me. By all accounts it doesn't make sense." This is a humourous use of the DEM.
• In an Astro Boy episode, Professor Ochanomizu is stabbed to death by Ham Egg while they are detained on an alien spaceship. After Astro defeats the aliens, he finds out that the aliens have a scientific device to bring the dead back to life, and so Astro resurrects Ochanomizu, bringing the cast back to normal.
• In the Futurama episode Godfellas, Bender is returned to Earth by God after being stranded in space with no hope of rescue. He crashes to Earth a few feet in front of Fry and Leela, provoking the response "This is by a wide margin the least likely thing that has ever happened" from Leela.
• In Magnolia frogs rain from the sky, and after that every pending issue on the plot is solved.
• In Dragonball Z, a technique called the Genki Dama, or Spirit Bomb, is often used by Goku to destroy a foe who could not be beaten by normal fighting styles.
• In most Power Rangers series, the episodes have at least one Deus ex Machina - examples are summoning giant one-hit weapons or the sudden appearance of other, more powerful rangers.

• At the end of the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the treasure chest containing the main character's gambling winnings has the phrase "Deus ex Machina" written on it. (The joke being that the prize money will be the thing that solves the problem in a flash)
• Deus Ex Machina is the name of the ship Joel Robinson uses to escape from the Satellite of Love on the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• An episode of Stargate SG-1 is called Ex Deus Machina. This is a play on words to mean "former god".
• In Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water Deus Ex Machina is the name of one of the flying ships that Gargoiles from the Neo-Atlantides used to attack the Neo-Nautilus.
• The 19th episode of the TV show Lost is called Deus Ex Machina. In the episode Locke dreams about a crashed plane, located somewhere on the island. He believes that if he finds the plane, the answer to his problems will present themselves, specifically how to open a mysterious hatch buried under the ground. The plane is found, but does not directly reveal any answers, and instead leads to the death of Boone; however, at the end of the episode a bright light shines from the hatch. The suggestion is that Boone has been "sacrificed" to the island, in the fashion of an angry god.
• In Season 2 of Sex and the City, when Samantha is no longer blackballed thanks to Leonardo Di Caprio "Ex Machina"
• In The Simpsons episode Thank God It's Doomsday, after the rapture occurs and Homer Simpson is taken to heaven, he asks God to reverse what has happened. God agrees, then proclaims "Deus ex Machina" and normality is restored magically.
• In Olive, the Other Reindeer, a movie by Matt Groening, Olive finds a package marked, "To: Olive, From: Deus ex Machina". It contains a metal file which she uses to free herself from captivity in the back of the evil postman's truck.

Deus ex machina - Video Games

• In Deus Ex, part of the story concerns an artificial intelligence (known as Helios) that believes its destiny is to rule mankind as an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being. Thus it is truly the titular god from a machine.

• In the Tekken series of video games, several members of the Mishima family have been the victims of acts of violence that would kill almost any human being, and very often that would be the resolution of the conflict which the game was based around. For the character Kazuya in Tekken 4, the Deus Ex Machina is the G Corporation, had "brought him back to life" after being thrown into an active volcano. The other DEM is the so-called Devil Gene, that apparently renders the bearer immortal.

• In Final Fantasy VII, the end seems inevitable when Meteor is about to crash into the planet, and the only thing that can stop Meteor, Holy, is not strong enough to deflect it, and Meteor barrels through Holy. Just when the end seems near, the planet itself, apparently at the behest of Aeris, uses its Lifestream (the planet's life force) to stop Meteor, which (apparently, given the after-credits ending of the game and the sequel) worked, and the planet is saved (at a certain cost). This can be seen as a god as directly interfering (as the planet's lifeforce can be considered the game's god).

• In Metal Gear Solid, the ending finds Solid Snake and a companion (either Otacon or Meryl Silverburgh, depending on a choice the player makes) trapped under a crashed Jeep after attempting to escape Liquid Snake and the bombing of the island. Liquid, armed with an assault rifle, staggers forward, about to kill the two. The deus ex machina occurs when a virus known as "FOX-DIE" (unknowingly injected into Solid Snake to spread throughout the base, killing the terrorists and silencing the hostages) activates, causing Liquid to suffer a fatal heart attack. It is later revealed in a special section of the sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, that Naomi Hunter, the woman who programmed FOX-DIE to kill Solid Snake because he killed her brother, Gray Fox, set FOX-DIE to randomly activate at no predictable time after it came into contact with Snake's DNA. Liquid and Solid were both clones of the same man, and therefore genetic twins.

• The ending to Conker's Bad Fur Day is a deus ex machina. While Conker is battling the "alien," he gets help from an imaginary game programmer who gives him weapons.

• In Xenogears, Deus is an extremely advanced intelligent weapon of mass destruction, created by an advanced civilisation of humans to destroy entire planets. It is made of both artificial and organic components. When it crash-landed on a planet, Deus was able to populate it with humans by using its organic replication plant in order to produce sufficient genetic material to rebuild itself. Therefore, God really was in the Machine, since Deus created the humans of that planet.

• Throughout the Resident Evil series, there's a recurring theme in which the player's character receives a rocket launcher or a similarly powerful weapon from an ally while fighting against an otherwise indestructible creature (usually the game's final boss). In the original Resident Evil, the player as (either Jill or Chris) receives a rocket launcher from a helicopter pilot (Brad Vickers) while fighting against the final boss, the Tyrant. Likewise, in Resident Evil 2, during either of the "2nd scenarios" (as Leon or Claire), the player receives a rocket launcher from Ada while fighting the Tyrant 003 (a homage to this scene was featured in Resident Evil 4). Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and Resident Evil Code: Veronica featured similar situations, in which a weapon needed by the player was conveniently located nearby during the final battle (a railcannon and linear launcher respectively). During the events of Resident Evil 4, Leon and Ashley are implanted with the "Las Plagas" parasites by the main villain, Saddler, and it isn't until the very end in which the existence of a machine which destroys the parasites internally is revealed.

• One character in Kingdom Hearts II, Naminé, has a Deus ex Machina background. Rather than simply discarding Naminé as a character, she was revealed to be Kairi's Nobody. However, the 'nobody-creaton' process described in the game makes it impossible for Naminé to be Kairi's Nobody. Nomura explained this as "Naminé is a special kind of Nobody." This explantation is a deus ex machina, allowing Naminé to exist, even without explaining her 'special' status.

• At the end of Half-Life 2, Gordon Freeman is saved by the mysterious G-Man who freezes time, seconds after Gordon destroyed the Combine citadel with him and his allies still in the building.

• In Mega Man Zero, Zero is seemingly unable to defeat a boss, but an unknown spirit gives him a sword that can.

• A strange and in some ways groundbreaking game called Deus Ex Machina, created by a company called Automata was released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in October 1984, and ported to other platforms (ex., Commodore 64) later.
• In Maken X, on the opening screen the words "deus ex machina" are heard, and the premise is a sword with the ability to control people and take any form, everyone it "brain jacks" is left in a sort of purgatory within the sword itself.
• In Star Wars: Republic Commando, the final level aboard the 1 Acclamator-class assault transport Prosecutor is called Deux Ex Machina. The player's commando team is required to defend itself against incoming droid squads, while slicing several computer terminals. Slicing the terminals turns on the Prosecutor's automated turbolaser turrets, enabling the Republic ship to defend herself against a Trade Federation Droid Control Ship.
• In Final Fantasy X-2, Rikku has a dressphere named Deus Ex Machina. But in that world there are lots of robots called Machina and Rikku's people are the only ones who use them so it's more a reference to her people helping her in battle than to God.
• In Armored Core 2, Deus Ex Machina is the name of an enemy 'AC' that you fight in arena mode.
• In Advance Wars Dual Strike, Von Bolt's Power is named Ex Machina.
• In Mega Man X: Command Mission, the enemy boss Great Redips possesses an attack called Deus Ex Machina, which hurls several meteors on the player's party.
• In World of Warcraft, the Paladin class of characters possesses an ability termed Divine Intervention, which both nominally and functionally references deus ex machina. The ability sacrifices the paladin to protect the targeted player from harm and remove the targeted player from combat. This ability represents the interference of an external force to effectively save a player from otherwise certain death.

Deus ex machina - Music

• Deus ex Machina is an Italian avant-progressive rock group formed in the late 1980s who sing in Latin.
• Deus ex machina is also a Polish emo band formed in 1998.
• Norwegian singer Liv Kristine (from Theatre of Tragedy) named her first solo album, released in 1998, "Deus Ex Machina".
• The Smashing Pumpkins penultimate album MACHINA/The Machines of God (followed by an internet-only release MACHINA II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music) took its title from an abbreviation of the phrase. Frontman Billy Corgan wrote the concept album based on the media's exaggerated characterization of the band members. "La deux Machina" is also the name of an unreleased instrumental track recorded in the "MACHINA" studio sessions.
• Deus ex Machina is the title of a track from the German metal band Schmerz's self-titled album.
• Deus Ex Machinae is also the name of the first album released by the SID metal band Machinae Supremacy.
• Electric Skychurch has an EP entitled Together in which the first song is entitled Deus and the last Deus ex Machina.
• Deus ex Machina is the title of a track from William Orbit's classic 1993 album Strange Cargo III.
• Deus Ex Machina is the title of a track from Mars Volta's guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez solo project called A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume 1 released in 2004.
• La Muy Bestia Pop a venezuelan industrial/experimental-rock band has an album entitled Deus Ex Machina
• Moi dix Mois's album Beyond the Gate includes a song titled Deus ex Machina.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Deus ex machina in fiction works", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki