Deus ex machina is Latin for "god from the machine" and is a calque from the Greek "από μηχανής θεός", (pronounced "apo mekhanes theos"). It originated with Greek and Roman theater, when a mechane would lower a god or gods onstage to resolve a hopeless situation. Thus, "god comes from the machine". The phrase deus ex machina has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author to end it in the way he or she wanted.

The pronunciation of the phrase is a problem in English. Traditional ways of saying Latin would have it something like DAY-us ex MAK-in-a, while more modern ways of pronouncing Latin would give perhaps DAY-oos ex MAH-kin-ah, but many people naturally bring in the modern English m'SHEEN, resulting in a mixed pronunciation.

The Greek tragedian Euripides was notorious for using this plot device.

Deus ex machina in fiction works

Literature and comics

• 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. The characters in Boulder believe the charge to have been the "Hand of God." Many of King's novels have a "deus ex" 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.
• 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 Isaac Asimov's I, Robot it is used as a part of the description of the relationship between humans and robots.
• The character of Puck ends William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with a decidedly Deus Ex Machina flair.
• Philip K. Dick wrote a novel entitled "Deus ex Machina".
• 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.
• In The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, the Earth is attacked by highly intelligent Martians, whose superior machinery and weaponry render them all but invincible to any counterattack. Much of the book is spent describing the futility of all attempts to stop the invasion, culminating in the narrator's apparent resignation to his fate. However, at this point it is revealed that the Martians are highly susceptible to Earth-borne bacteria, having had no opportunity to build up antibodies to protect themselves. All the invaders quickly succumb to various diseases, and humanity is saved.

• the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Harry Potter novels all end with DEMs. In the 1st novel Harry's Mother's sacrifice saves him from Quirrel. In the 2nd book Fawkes comes out of nowhere to rescue Harry and in the 4th book, priori incantatem saves Harry from Voldemort. However, it can be argued that these appear as DEMS only because we like Harry are not aware of several things thanks to the limited third person omniscient perspective.
• In Stephen King 's Dark Towerseries, the author's fictional counterpart plays the DEM role when he provides Jake Chambers and Father Callahan with a clue to where Susannah Dean has gone. King does this once more in the final book of this once great series, warning Roland of Gilead and Susannah Dean of the vampire Dandelo.

Cinema and television

• Additional examples are in the films The Joyless Street and Pandora's Box by G.W. Pabst. In Pandora's Box, the movie is ended 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" when the film ends with the entire on-screen cast of medieval characters being arrested by modern-day policemen.
• In The Matrix Revolutions, the third movie of the Matrix series, the Deus Ex Machina is the ultimate power in the machine world. With presumably intentional irony, that godlike machine does provide a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation.
• 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. This is deliberate usage and a prime example of the technique.
• In Adaptation, the main character (who is a screenwriter writing a screenplay of The Orchid Thief ) takes a screenwriting class and is told by the script guru not to end his movie with a Deus ex machina. Because of this, he deliberately uses the device.
• 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 Tinman cry for help, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, produces a snow shower that wakes everyone up.
• At the end of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the treasure chest containing the main character's gambling winnings has the phrase "Deus ex Machina" written on it.
• 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.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Ethics, after Worf apparently dies, he suddenly recovers thanks to an improbable quirk of Klingon anatomy.
• 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 Lost series, the 19th episode is called "Deus Ex Machina".

Music

• "Deus ex Machina" is an Italian avant-progressive rock group formed in the late 1980s who sing in Latin.
• 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 plot that he and the band were emissaries of God.
• 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".