Deus Ex Machina

Today’s topic is the Deus Ex Machina, the ‘God out of the Machine,’ which is a writer’s tool you should use sparsely, if at all. Because it’s actually outright cheating, you see. You’ve written yourself into a corner and instead of going over twelve chapters and changing the way the story went, you just bring up some kind of ‘out of jail free’ card and let the heroes get away with it.

One of the most definite versions of the Deus Ex Machina I even encountered is actually perpetrated by God himself in the Goethe version of the tale of Faust. Now, usually, Faust is your standard guy who made a deal with the devil and, in most versions, the deal goes something like this: the devil serves him for a certain number of years (usually ten or twenty), then the devil gets his soul. There’s lots of those stories in folklore, not just about Faust.

Goethe wanted to make a different point, a point about how humans should always strive for knowledge, and so he fiddled with the story. He gave it a prelude in heaven, where Mephisto and God made a bet to see whether or not Mephisto could tempt Faust, an avid scholar, to stop striving for knowledge and just live a nice life.

Mephisto set to work, using Faust’s frustration about not being able to understand certain things, and offered him a deal, which was similar to the regular one: He’d serve Faust in any way, give him access to whatever he wanted, but once Faust was content with his life, his soul would fall to Mephisto. Faust agreed to the deal and they started it off by making the old scholar young again (because what fun is living life to its fullest when you’re old and cranky?). Soon afterwards, Faust spotted Gretchen, a very pretty and rather opinionated young woman whom he wanted, so Mephisto had to organize everything. But, as is to be expected when you make a devil arrange your love life, things went awry, Gretchen’s brother came home at the wrong time, Faust had to kill him and to flee. Gretchen stayed behind, her mother died of the shock over her son’s death, and Gretchen was pregnant (which means Faust got what he wanted). Once Faust learned about Gretchen’s fate (she killed her newborn, because it seemed the only way out of her situation, and was to be executed as a child murderess), he had Mephisto take him to the prison and offered to free her, but Gretchen preferred to accept her fate and her soul was saved by God (who might already have been hatching his plan or just have been a little more forgiving than those who interpret his word on earth). This is where the first part of Goethe’s play ends.

There’s a second part, though, where the story is finished. Due to being a lot more complicated, the second part is rarely performed these days, but let’s talk about the absolute end. After a long trip through human history, Faust has his own realm, Helen of Troy for his companion, and, finally, utters the words Mephisto has been working hard for: he wants things to stay the way they are. Because, had Faust really stood by his principles and never wavered, they’d still be at it today and the play would never have ended. So, good news for Mephisto? Nope, because now God shows he’s not playing fair. As Mephisto is about to snatch Faust’s soul, which is now his by right, Gretchen appears and pulls Faust off to heaven. Mephisto has done all the work, but he doesn’t get his payment. Poor devil.

And this last step is actually the Deus Ex Machina. Goethe had written himself in a corner over the many years it took him to compose the full story (almost sixty from first idea to finished second play). He’d already had a full play out, so he couldn’t just rewrite half of it. So he cheated and made Gretchen - who, if we’re honest, had no reason whatsoever to save Faust - pull his price from right under Mephisto’s nose. He didn’t want to see Faust punished, as he should have been. By rights (and traditions), Faust’s story shouldn’t have had a happy ending. Deals with the devil don’t have a happy ending normally. Even if people get away from hell, they usually get some kind of curse put on them.

The Deus Ex Machina can also take the shape of a character suddenly coming to the hero’s help without good reason, an enemy suddenly being weakened (again without good reason), or information turning up out of nowhere to help the hero win. The old Greeks already knew about that trick and they, unlike us modern people, had a lot of gods, so in their stories, it’s less unlikely for one of them might take an interest and help a mortal for some reason. Sometimes just in spite of another god or because they were bored. Greek gods were larger-than-life humans, after all. Modern religion doesn’t afford us that much logic with this trope, so it has become a problematic one. It simply isn’t logical, even within the logic of the story.

If you really, really, really have no way out of a corner you’ve written yourself into, you might consider using a Deus Ex Machina, but I recommend always trying to find another way out first. Rewrite, if necessary. Leave the God in the Machine.