# Deus ex Machina vs. Strong As They Need To Be



## Darth Angelus (Aug 21, 2012)

Hi, all!

Upon reading this other ongoing thread about magic systems someone brought up how magic can be used as Deus ex Machina, which made me think about this trope, and how it sort of relates to another trope (I believe), namely when characters in a story are as strong as they need to be.
The reason I am opening this thread is that I think this topic is different enough from the topic about magic systems that I didn't want to borrow that thread for it, but I wanted to give credit to someone else for making me think of this. So thanks for that!

A previously unknown spell or magical power, suddenly given to a magic user protagonist in order to resolve a difficult situation, was correctly called (I think) Deus ex Machina in that thread. At the same time, I think the other trope is clearly used as well, because there is little or no doubt that said magic user protagonist is indeed strong as they need to be in such a situation.

Upon more careful thought, I have come to the conclusion that the two tropes seem to be rather closely related, at least in the worst cases of the latter, when it is used to suddenly upgrade the skills, powers or abilities of the hero in order to enable them to resolve a difficult situation (rather than the opposite, in which their abilities are downgraded in order for them to be challenged by opposition that should be trivial, according to previously established internal story logic). They both boil down to a situation in which the good side or the protagonists, as they have been established, are (or should be) too overmatched to have any chance of winning **, so some new force needs to be introduced late in the story in order to enable the typically required triumph of the good side.
The main difference seems to be that while Deus ex Machina introduces this new force in a new package, the strong as they need to be tropes puts it into a character that already exists. Because magic powers can be viewed as being either inside or outside the user (they are abilities of the user, but at the same time, they belong to an external system in the fictional world), it seems that the two tropes can actually overlap in that particular case.

So, which of these two tropes is the worst (in cases where they don't overlap, obviously)? In general, I think most readers would like Deus ex Machina the least. After all, almost all speculative fiction uses the strong as they need to be to some extent (I would argue), and a limited amount of it can become suspended disbelief. Where the line (of how much is too much of this trope) is drawn is subjective, I guess. However, personally, I think if the magnitude of the latter is severe enough for it to be comparable to the former, it is actually worse. Aside from making somewhat more sense from the perspective of internal logic, I think Deus ex Machina is at least more honest, because it does admit that a new force is being introduced rather than trying to hide it and pretending that nothing is even slightly off. Of course, in ideal cases, neither is used.

What do you think? Does this make any sense at all? Are these two tropes related? Do you agree with me that they are originating from the same problem? I am not sure, because they do not seem to be linking to each other as related tropes would typically be on that site, so maybe I am missing something.



** Just to develop this further, I would say that (as we would all know) with very few exceptions, any story in speculative fiction, or any other type of adventure or action story in which the drama boils down to a struggle between the good (protagonists) and bad (antagonists), the following two conditions are expected to be fulfilled...
1. The good protagonists are overmatched or at least severely challenged at some point, which means that the bad guys will generally have more or less the upper hand in a major part of the story. If this is not the case, the drama will tend to fall flat.
2. The good guys will ultimately come out of the conflict triumphant, as anything else is unsatisfactory if not unpalatable to the typical audience.
In short, the heroes beat the odds.

Writing any good story like this is largely about coming up with clever ways to fulfill both in a way that makes sense, which takes quite some imagination on the part of the author and is frankly rather difficult. On the other hand, fulfilling either one by itself is easy, if the other can be ignored. The good guys being clearly overmatched and then lose would fulfill 1 but not 2. The good guys being clearly undermatched and then win would fulfill 2 but not 1.
It is the weaker side winning that is harder to explain, for obvious reasons. The stronger side winning typically requires little or no explanation, but lacks drama.

Anyway, I would typically say that both of these tropes generally come down to the author attempting to fulfill both 1 and 2, but failing to come up with satisfactory explanations for how the two can both be true. This could be due to lack of imagination, or that they have fulfilled 1 a just bit too much.



Finally, I wasn't sure whether this thread belonged here or in the SFF lounge, so if some moderator feels it belongs elsewhere, I won't mind at all if it is moved.


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## Jo Zebedee (Aug 21, 2012)

Just to say that magic isn't the only Deus ex Machina out there; I had a character who came in late (because the geography of the story changed to where they were) who came across as such, and it took a fair bit of work to get to the point where they had their own character arc to support their role in the story. So as a term it refers to any device which comes without warning in order to bring about a resolution. 




Darth Angelus said:


> So, which of these two tropes is the worst (in cases where they don't overlap, obviously)?
> 
> I'm not sure it's a case of worse. In fact, if you suddenly up a character's potential to being as strong as they need to be without the background to support it, then that's really just a deus ex machina. If, on the other hand, you've managed to create a character well enough that your readers are prepared to suspend disbelief and believe they are as strong as they need to be, that's different. That's good storytelling.
> 
> ...


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## Darth Angelus (Aug 21, 2012)

springs said:


> Just to say that magic isn't the only Deus ex Machina out there; I had a character who came in late (because the geography of the story changed to where they were) who came across as such, and it took a fair bit of work to get to the point where they had their own character arc to support their role in the story. So as a term it refers to any device which comes without warning in order to bring about a resolution.


Just for clarification, I totally agree. It is just one of many possible types of Deux ex Machina.
The reason magic was brought up is that is was the case that made me think about the possibility of Deus ex Machina overlapping the other trope.


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## The Judge (Aug 21, 2012)

It seems to me that this isn't a question for writers so much as a bit of general philosophising/navel-gazing, so I'm moving it.


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## Toby Frost (Aug 21, 2012)

I agree that they are essentially the same trick - pulling a rabbit out of a hat that hasn't been properly shown before it is used. TV Tropes is an entertaining read (after all, they have a page about my book!) but it suffers from too many names for similar things (I also find it hard to take seriously putting Anime before Literature in the examples box. I know it's alphabetical, but still). I'd say the bigger the interruption to the story, the worse it is, so the Deus ex Machina is often the less bearable of the two, although it can change.

As regards the problem of the underdog heroes winning, there are lots of ways to get around it. The enemy can have a particularly nasty reputation, or to have destroyed their enemies so far as a result of the heroes being badly-prepared or so on and only now face opponents who are ready for the fight and not intimidated. Alternatively the villains can make a bad decision owing to some inherent weakness in their command structure (lunacy will suffice - I can't imagine a democratic leader getting "let's invade Russia!" part his generals). Or there's the simple matter of arrogance against cunning. Early success makes the villains believe themselves indestructible, which renders them open to attack. Although stated plainly some of these may look a bit crude, they do all work provided the writing is good enough.


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## allmywires (Aug 21, 2012)

Think this thread is a credit to me, so hooray! 

It's a difficult debate. I personally think deus ex machina with regards to fantasy is an example of a writer's poor planning. In my experience, a couple of my characters have gained certain 'powers' as a result of me being like, 'Right, I need this to happen, what could make this happen?' and a lightbulb going off in my head being like, 'Ah, but what if so-and-so can read people's minds...' IMO, deus ex machina is when you leave it at that.  Expanding on it makes a good plot point and a good story. 

Also, I think this 'strong as they need to be' is just an extension of deus ex machina. In the page it's a 'power previously unhinted at' which for me is as bad as d. ex m. I love giving my readers clues, I love picking up clues in books, I just think it's lazy to whip out 'this fabulous, yet hitherto unmentioned power that will DESTROY/SAVE THE WORLD!!1!!11'


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## Dozmonic (Aug 21, 2012)

The two tropes are related in that they're finding solutions to problems that seem insurmountable. The difference is that we see examples in every day life of the "strong as they need to be" heroism and so can relate to it more than a deus ex machina that just stinks of lazy writing. If a person consistently turns out to be as "strong as they need to be" then it'll again seem lazy because the conflict in the story becomes immaterial.

What you want to have to overcome the lazy aspect of conquering a problem so easily is to have repurcussions that impact the characters involved.


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## Darth Angelus (Aug 21, 2012)

springs, I am also all for unconventional endings. However, I think the happy ending by far predates Hollywood. Fairy tales seem to have had them for centuries. Granted, I haven't carefully researched the subject.
Basically, what I meant was that the antagonist's grand evil master plan (or whatever passes for it in the plot) is expected to be foiled at the end. Other than that, the protagonists can indeed suffer severe hardships and major setbacks.

Toby Frost, I think we are mostly on the same page. It may indeed seem like TV Tropes are splitting hairs sometimes. However, in the defence of that site, I didn't really think of this similarity until today, so I wouldn't say it is too obvious, and even though the two tropes seem to do basically the same thing, they do it in different ways that are superficially dissimilar. Maybe they should be subtropes of a common supertrope. Still, TV Tropes seems to be a sort lighthearted site that doesn't take itself too seriously, so I won't nit pick. I really like it for what it is, and have had major fun reading its articles.
As for the underdog hero winning, I agree it isn't too difficult to make it work of and by itself. Any one of those explanations you brought up can work. As you say, though, they can look crude unless they are well-written. Perhaps it would have been better to say it takes some writing skill to pull this off without making it crude. Also, I think that while it can certainly be done in the scope of the overall story arc, it can become too late. The writer can be cornered (by what they have written earlier) by the time the story is to be resolved.



allmywires said:


> Think this thread is a credit to me, so hooray!


Aye, it was indeed inspired by your post in the other thread. You made the comment that made me see a connection between these two tropes. Cheers for that! 



allmywires said:


> It's a difficult debate. I personally think deus ex machina with regards to fantasy is an example of a writer's poor planning. In my experience, a couple of my characters have gained certain 'powers' as a result of me being like, 'Right, I need this to happen, what could make this happen?' and a lightbulb going off in my head being like, 'Ah, but what if so-and-so can read people's minds...' IMO, deus ex machina is when you leave it at that.  Expanding on it makes a good plot point and a good story.


Yeah, agreed. Both tropes are about the writer's poor planning. Of course, if earlier parts of the story have not yet been published, I guess one does not neccessarily need to leave it at that. In the best case scenario, only a few small adjustments in places are required to fix the underlying problem. Of course, in the worst case scenario, the required adjustments would be major and have far-reaching consequences to the overall story. I guess it is best to plan ahead as much as possible to prevent this.



allmywires said:


> Also, I think this 'strong as they need to be' is just an extension of deus ex machina. In the page it's a 'power previously unhinted at' which for me is as bad as d. ex m.


Yes, indeed, the worst cases seem to basically be sneaky versions of Deus ex Machina.



allmywires said:


> I love giving my readers clues, I love picking up clues in books, I just think it's lazy to whip out 'this fabulous, yet hitherto unmentioned power that will DESTROY/SAVE THE WORLD!!1!!11'


Yes, readers will feel cheated if the story is not planned out well, no doubt.

Dozmonic, agreed, in small doses "strong as they need to be" is indeed not as bad as Deus ex Machina, as it is possible to relate to it to some extent. However, repeated usage (as you bring up) or severe cases makes it just as bad, in my opinion.


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## clovis-man (Aug 21, 2012)

allmywires said:


> It's a difficult debate. I personally think deus ex machina with regards to fantasy is an example of a writer's poor planning.


 
Agreed. Used widely by those writers who subscribe to the "Indiana Jones School of Writing", i.e., "I'm just making this up as I go." If you need the cavalry to rescue you at the end, You might need to rethink your whole story approach. But of course, the Greeks did it a lot anyway.


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## Brian G Turner (Aug 21, 2012)

This is one reason why I don't tend to like magic in books - it becomes a deus ex machina device on its own. When faced with any kind of adversity, simply a wiggle of your wrist and adversity is removed. The character does not triumph through skill, merely having the abilities of a demi-god that makes them an effective walking deus ex machina. I think this is a far serious problem in fantasy, than a swordsman who suddenly finds the willpower to fight to triumph with a chief antagonist (cf, the Spnish swordsman in The Princes Bride).

I find it very telling indeed that in Lord of the Rings, magic is very much a background power, used sparingly and incidentally. Gandalf can produce a light on his staff in Moria, which is wondrous, but he certainly does not unleash a firestorm on the attacking goblins.

Perhaps a greater problem with magic is that any powerful character can become a form of wish-fulfillment for the author. A fantasy of being an indestructible alpha male is bad enough - a fantasy of being a walking god is far more lamentable.

Also, for suspension of disbelief, a world in which demi-gods walk the world destroying what thou wilt is not believable for myself. Put a mage in front of an army to destroy another and wipe them out, and immediately you have just destroyed a major agricultural foundation for that faction; in doing so, potentially wrecked their economy. Somehow magic comes with no practical problems for the survival of civilisation.


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## Grimbear (Aug 21, 2012)

> So, which of these two tropes is the worst (in cases where they don't overlap, obviously)?



I don't know, and I think sometimes it's hard to separate them. A 'Strong as they need to be' can easily become a 'deus ex machina'. I agree with allmywires on this.

I'm not fond of either - and so I like best those authors who either avoid them, or disguise them well when used. As long, that is, as the writing is good, the characters strong, the plot and subplots in general imaginative and gripping. I suppose I enjoy best the kind books where the outcome is uncertain, where you are lost as to which side to be on, where realism in characterisation and inter-personal politics is paramount. 

In traditional 'good versus evil' wars - where everything is clear cut. The heroes have to look as if there's a chance they might lose, as you say.



> 1. The good protagonists are overmatched or at least severely challenged at some point, which means that the bad guys will generally have more or less the upper hand in a major part of the story. If this is not the case, the drama will tend to fall flat.



But this does not mean that the only options are the two tropes you mention. To use one is unimaginative and cliched imo.

However, some people don't want to be challenged by what they read. They want some cosy, predictable thing they can fall asleep to at night, where the expected always happens and they don't need to worry too much about the characters.

A writer who does this all the time, whom I don't like, is David Eddings. You can never believe, for one single second, that any of his characters are in any danger, despite being up against mad gods and universal evil from the dawn of time. And you can tell exactly what is going to happen right from the first chapter. But his books sell really well.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 21, 2012)

I said:


> This is one reason why I don't tend to like magic in books - it becomes a deus ex machina device on its own. When faced with any kind of adversity, simply a wiggle of your wrist and adversity is removed. The character does not triumph through skill, merely having the abilities of a demi-god that makes them an effective walking deus ex machina.



But, as in LOTR, magic need not be a deus ex machine device.  

It may be a lot harder to use and have more far-reaching consequences than a wiggle of the wrist and whatever it is that the hero needs to do is done.  It, too, can be a skill, and one hard won at that.  _A Wizard of Earthsea_ is largely about dealing with the consequences when a young wizard over-reaches himself magically without thinking about the force he is unleashing.

There are books where the magicians _don't_ use their powers because they are thinking of what it will mean for the survival of civilization, or at least the world as they know it.

In _The Rune of Unmaking_ trilogy, I started out with a world where people are still dealing with the outcome of such a reckless use of magic, and that's why, in the current conflict, the magicians on both sides have to hold back and won't challenge each other in a body.  As a result, the conflict hasn't been resolved, and the war (which is largely being fought by ordinary means) goes on and on.


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## Darth Angelus (Aug 21, 2012)

I said:


> This is one reason why I don't tend to like magic in books - it becomes a deus ex machina device on its own. When faced with any kind of adversity, simply a wiggle of your wrist and adversity is removed. The character does not triumph through skill, merely having the abilities of a demi-god that makes them an effective walking deus ex machina.


Agreed. If magic is overused, and the system isn't well constructed, this can happen quite easily and It has happened a great deal in this genre indeed.
I guess this can be mitigated somewhat by clearly defining the magic system. If there is a set system of rules, it can become almost like a science, and it leaves less room for the author to play around. On the other hand, this approach only mitigates the problem. It doesn't eliminate it. Also, it does this at the cost of reducing the mystical quality of magic.



I said:


> I think this is a far serious problem in fantasy, than a swordsman who suddenly finds the willpower to fight to triumph with a chief antagonist (cf, the Spnish swordsman in The Princes Bride).


Again, agreed. I haven't seen _The Princess Bride_ since I was a child, so I don't remember the scene, but I can imagine the situation. I think that "as strong as they need to be" only becomes a real problem when they go a bit beyond that.



I said:


> I find it very telling indeed that in Lord of the Rings, magic is very much a background power, used sparingly and incidentally. Gandalf can produce a light on his staff in Moria, which is wondrous, but he certainly does not unleash a firestorm on the attacking goblins.


I have also been thinking about the fact that magic plays a very small role in Tolkien's works compared to a lot of other fantasy, and almost none in the major, large scale battles. Gandalf may use it against the balrog, but he certainly doesn't use it to wipe out masses of enemy foot soldiers (goblins and orcs). It is explained why this is so, in one of his other books.



I said:


> Also, for suspension of disbelief, a world in which demi-gods walk the world destroying what thou wilt is not believable for myself. Put a mage in front of an army to destroy another and wipe them out, and immediately you have just destroyed a major agricultural foundation for that faction; in doing so, potentially wrecked their economy. Somehow magic comes with no practical problems for the survival of civilisation.


Yes, and in worlds where the magic is very destructively potent, it makes you wonder about what the point is in training conventional armies.




Grimbear said:


> But this does not mean that the only options are the two tropes you mention. To use one is unimaginative and cliched imo.


Indeed, it is often when this failure of imagination has occured (or when the planning is poor, as allmywires added) that a problem is created, and the author pulls out one of those tropes. That is what I wanted to say, anyway.



Grimbear said:


> However, some people don't want to be challenged by what they read. They want some cosy, predictable thing they can fall asleep to at night, where the expected always happens and they don't need to worry too much about the characters.
> 
> A writer who does this all the time, whom I don't like, is David Eddings. You can never believe, for one single second, that any of his characters are in any danger, despite being up against mad gods and universal evil from the dawn of time. And you can tell exactly what is going to happen right from the first chapter. But his books sell really well.


I can only agree with you on David Eddings. He is not one of the better fantasy authors out there. I only read the first series, years ago, but I do remember that there was never any sense that the protagonists might fail.
But, as you say, such stories sell, so they must appeal to a certain demographic. I don't think it is the most respected type of fiction, but there is no denying some people like it.


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## James Coote (Aug 22, 2012)

Magic should (in my opinion) be non-deterministic. I.e. if you repeat exactly the same spell in exactly the same circumstances, you are not guaranteed to get the same outcome

All too often, magic ends up getting codified and turned into a system,  at which point it stops being magic and instead acts as an alternative  set of the laws of physics. 

This leads to discontinuities in the internal consistency as the author then has to selectively break the rules they just made to allow what they actually want to happen (the underdog heroes beating the powerful overlords or whatever)

If you treat magic as a system, a machine, then it's no surprise when it winds up as the Deus Ex variety


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## Ursa major (Aug 22, 2012)

The difficulty of making the magic random, James, is that it is no such thing: you, as the author, are actively deciding what will happen (unless you really are tossing a coin each time a character requests the use of magic). In a funny sort of way, it's another example of deus ex machina, just one where the needs of the book (and its author) are served rather than those of the characters.

One way round this might be for the magic to follow rules, but rules of which those trying to wield the magic are (mostly) unaware. That way, authorial integrity is maintained, while magicians don't get it easy.


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## James Coote (Aug 22, 2012)

Non-deterministic doesn't necessarily mean random, though in this case I'm being a little pedantic.

It's more how you conceptualise magic. If you hold magic in your hand, it is a tool (a machine). This is often literally the case in fantasy writing. The magic wand or mages' staff or legendary sword of zor.

But if you consider magic as an event, then since time is constantly moving forward and the world constantly changing, no two sets of circumstances will ever be quite the same. Even if the spell cast is identical, even if it has the same outcome or can be categorised by a type of event, all magical events are intrinsically unique

That's why when the kids show their parents where the magical portal to the fairy kingdom was, it has disappeared. The moment has passed and that's part of the appeal. In real life, you think of the times when you thought "wow, that was magic!" and you can never quite replicate it. It was a certain time and place, "you just had to be there"


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 22, 2012)

I like your explanation, James.

But it could also be like the Olympic athlete who is able to do the triple jump or execute a specific difficult dive only part of the time.  He or she knows how to do it, has the capability, but is not able to execute it on a specific occasion when it matters.

Of course, if that is why the event (or non-event) occurs, the writer would have to make it clear that it is not the magic that has failed, but the magician as vessel for the magic (or, alternatively, as the one who shapes the magic) who was unequal to the task.

Other people are not expected to be infallible, so why should the magician trying to perform a difficult and delicate procedure be any different?


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## Ursa major (Aug 22, 2012)

What I was trying to point out, James, was the danger that what you mean to be the non-deterministic behaviour of magic in your story may turn out to be too convenient to the needs of the plot.

All that has happened is that you, as the author, want a certain effect, but you've not given the power to your characters to request it directly (not with much hope of getting exactly what they're asking for). With that comes the risk of drifting into deus ex machina. In effect, you've discarded your disguise - the character requesting something magical and getting it (something that the reader could be persuaded was the result of the magician using their skill, training and learning to come up with an answer) - and revealed that your authorial hand alone is delivering the goods.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 22, 2012)

That can be true at any time a capable character fails to do what he or she sets out to do, Ursa.  It is, of course, always the writer who decides if that character or any other succeeds and the reader knows this perfectly well.  Whether or not a character's success or failure will be credible to the reader -- whether the writer manages to temporarily convince the reader to forget that the writer is in charge of what happens, and not simply chronicling events -- depends on how the situation is prepared for and presented, and how willing the reader is to go along with whatever the writer says.  Win a reader's trust early, and they are likely to believe there is a good explanation for everything that happens.  Once you lose their trust, they question everything, no matter how trivial.


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## Ursa major (Aug 22, 2012)

Very true, Teresa.

I'm just suggesting, in my roundabout way, that the fewer opportunities readers have for seeing the strings being pulled, the better (if only because some of us can't always rely on our writing to do the trick ).


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## Teresa Edgerton (Aug 22, 2012)

Ursa major said:


> I'm just suggesting, in my roundabout way, that the fewer opportunities readers have for seeing the strings being pulled, the better (if only because some of us can't always rely on our writing to do the trick ).



And you are quite right.  

Although giving readers what they want to see (and that could, these days, just as likely be pain and suffering for the characters as a happy outcome) and they may be inclined to swallow anything.  Particularly if you have already convinced them that you are a genius.  Once you fail to deliver what they want and expect, then you have to put forth a greater effort to make the circumstances sound credible.

Convincing them we are geniuses is the trick.  If only we had an infallible formula for that!


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## Darth Angelus (Aug 22, 2012)

James, I can definitely see what you mean about that a too regulated and predictable magic system effectively ceases to be a magic system and instead becomes a sort of secondary reality physics. That would be the inevitable result of demystifying it beyond a certain point, after all. Maybe that is why some franchises call their magic systems by other names, such as The Force in _Star Wars_, or The One Power in Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series. Personally, I don't mind such systems if they are well written, as I find they can be interesting in their own way, but you are right that they generally lack a certain magical quality.

The flip side of this coin is the one which Ursa major is pointing out (I think). If the results of casting a spell are a bit "random", they are basically dancing at the whims of the writer, and the reader knows this. It can become all too easy for the writer to determine the success or failure of a spell by what is convenient for the plot, because no justification whatsoever for either outcome is ever required in any specific case. If the reader gets the impression that this is how the writing was done, suspension of disbelief is seriously jeopardized and much excitement may be lost. I think that the only way the writer might get away with this is to make the "random" results of a cast spell sometimes go against plot convenience (although it may be hard to actually show that is the case), just to prevent the sense of randomness from turning into a feeling that the writer is just making things easy for him- or herself. I can't say have tried that approach, so I have no idea whether it might actually work.
Failing that, I think the only way to use a magic system on a large scale in a piece of fiction and without letting it become a deus ex machina of its own is to sufficiently regulate the system in order to minimize the room to play around with it at your own whims later on. This will demystify things, but I think the alternative is far, far worse.

So, I basically agree a bit with both of you.

Just my thoughts on the matter.


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## James Coote (Aug 22, 2012)

Luck and magic are two different things. Luck is when the 1% chance happens and you're left thinking "hmph, that ought not to have happened", even though you know it's perfectly possible, just incredibly unlikely. Luck forces you to rethink your previous assumptions. That actually it was more likely to happen than everyone previously thought.

However, if the probabilities still come up as 1%, you're left with that  lingering doubt that you shouldn't be there, and that just maybe in the branching parallel universes, yours is unique. That's both exciting and scary as it implies you have a single, unique chance to do something different this time, to switch the railway points and put the destiny train on a new path

Magic is not luck, not probabilities and random chance. It's the impossible happening, it's the one time breaking of the rules. That's why, when wielded by a character, it has to be non-deterministic. Otherwise it ends up not as breaking the rules, but rather as one set of rules for one person and another set of rules for everyone else

It seems every time the MC is in a tight corner, they dig down and find that extra 10% to kill the baddies, so when it happens again, it's no surprise to the reader. The reader has seen the original magic system / alternative physics, seen its rules broken, and then seen them broken in the same way in repeat circumstances. Subconsciously, they re-write the rules, and it's exciting because they have made a scientific discovery through hypothesis and observation. 

Yes, science in a fantasy story! And in fact, the reader is constantly doing this reassessment for the characters. Yes that action fits with what I expected that character to do. Yes that dialogue sounds like something that character might say.

The problem is the characters in the story don't make the same reassessments. They are still all like ohmygosh I wasn't expecting that. That's how the wise old man can seem wise without the author actually being wise themselves. As the wise man sees what the reader sees, but the other characters don't see.

But it's a false economy as ultimately, most of the cast come off as morons with their heads in the clouds. The characters should question the author's God machines, not in a 4th wall kind of way, but in that they are self-conscious beings that say "hang on, this isn't normal", which then gives the author a great platform to do some foreshadowing



There are plenty of rational ways to get a character out of a jam without using either magic or luck. Perhaps they are on the verge of giving up when they find their adversary was also pushing themselves to the limits and are actually struggling even more than the protagonist, just not showing it. 

If you are really conservative about allowing magic to happen to your characters, when it does come, it is unexpected, and your audience will get that "whoa..." feeling, that spooky sensation of having cheated destiny.

Especially so if you have magic happen say 2/3rds the way through, but you don't have it happen in the dramatic finale. Your characters will feel they managed to do this great feat by way of raw determination and sheer tenacity. However, when they look back retrospectively, they'll will have the uncomfortable sense that they'd have never got to that point had the rules of the game not been broken by this mysterious "magic" earlier on

It's interesting to note that luck can do the same job in the above scenario, which is probably why the two are so often confused


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## Darth Angelus (Aug 22, 2012)

Yes, indeed luck and magic are different. You have described the differences in detail, and I have nothing further to add.
Luck (or really, randomness) exist in real life (in a sense, but I do not wish to open the can of worms that is the philosophical discussion about the nature of randomness for the time being), whereas magic does not (as far as scientific minds can believe, anyway).

When I wrote that magic had "random" results, it was just the lack of determinism that they share that I was getting at.

However, as unexciting as it may look at fiction that way, the writer ultimately has total control over their story. This means that whether it is luck or magic in-story, the results of both are ultimately come from decisions at the writer's sole discretion, and the reader knows this. If there is a 1% chance lucky event that occurs in-story, it will not really (when viewed from an out of story perspective) be a true 1% probability event, but rather something that somehow fit the writer's needs for the story. Similarly, if the one time magical event occurs, it will be for the same reason.
Luck and magic (and indeed, fate) can be grouped together as things whose outcome never need to be justified in any way by the writer. Having many story elements that require no justification is dangerous, I would say, because it threatens the reader's attachment to the story. Generally, a natural, logical flow of events according to the cause and effect principle feels the most real, and having too many effects that are unbound to any in-story cause (that is more than a mere placeholder for an writer's whims) disrupts this flow.
It is not that think they are the same in-story, because they are not, but because their outcomes are determined the same way, from an out of story perspective. I am not sure I would say that they are neccessarily confused, but since they can do the same job, as you say, they still become sort of equivalent in this one respect.

Granted, if the reader is immersed in the fictional world, they will regard luck and magic as different things, as you describe, and forget that it is the work of the writer. However, I think pushing it by using unexplained events too much can break this very immersion.


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## Kylara (Aug 22, 2012)

As an aside...I think it was Pratchett who mentioned somewhere in one of his books something about luck...on the Discworld, a million-to-one chance succeeds nine times out of ten. In order to invoke this rule one must say "it's a million-to-one chance, but it might just work!". And this has some rather amusing consequences :wink:


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## Jeffbert (Sep 16, 2012)

I sometimes find these thing annoying, but more ofter funny. I suppose that the James Bond films establish our expectations for JB using the weapons or other devices that Q gives him earlier in the film, but then, that eliminates much of the surprise. If a guy is in a fist fight, and suddenly pulls a switch bade from his pocket, it does not matter so much that we did not previously know it was in there, because the possibility that he has one is not so remote.  

I watch ADULT SWIM, & one of the programs is BLEACH; it frequently has one guy who has apparently been defeated by an opponent, & is lying there, seemingly on the verge of death, rise, laugh at the opponent who has just finished boasting of his power, & reveal that he has a secret or ultimate technique, that made him invulnerable to the other guy's attack. This goes back & forth, with various combatants on each side seemingly defeat their opponents, boast, then be surprised when the supposedly vanquished ones get up & renew their attacks. If it were not so funny, I suppose I would have given up watching this show long ago.


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## Jeffbert (Sep 16, 2012)

I thought I would be able the edit my last post, but if so, I do not see the button! I had to switch browsers because Opera was just sitting there, hogging >500MB of ram, so that may account for the lack of the edit button.

Anyway, In a shootout scene, one guy's semiautomatic pistol jams, & as he is trying to clear the bad round, the enemy leaps out from behind the trash can (or whatever he was hiding behind) & captures the poor guy. Now we ask: which one is the protagonist, & does it make the sudden weapon failure *Deus ex Machina* or not? 

Clearly, if the good guy's weapon fails, we find that believable & interesting, but if the villain's gun fails, it makes things *too* convenient! *Deus ex Machina* in its most obvious form, especailly if the odds had been against the protagonist. If this occurs after a long drawn out battle, & it favors the hero, do we sigh in frustaration or in relief? 

In magic, it was earlier said that the wizards all used moderation, lest they destroy the whole place. Somewhat like the nuclear arms race, nobody dared use a nuke, for fear of starting an all-out nuclear exchange. But in magic, is there a leap from the conventional spells to the doomsday spells, or is there a continuoum? If a continuoum, it seems that the wizards would each be too tempted to use just a little bit stronger magic than the other guy, & this would eventually result in the doomsday spell being used.


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## assasin (Sep 17, 2012)

bit of a necro here

I'll post anyway.

 every magic system should have a clear cut set of rules. If an author wants magic to be mysterious he/she doesn't have to tell the reader that; but an author still needs to have a very clear idea on the limitation.

On another topic, It'd be a fairly interesting experiment for an author to role a dice whenever something random comes and plan the rest of the story based on the dice roles.


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## psychotick (Jan 12, 2013)

Hi,

Someone once described Deus Ex Machina as the god of plot devices, which I always liked. However in terms of which is worse as tropes go, I'd say neither. It's how they're written.

Sometimes a deus ex machina can be really good. The end of Buffy springs to mind where the witch breaks fairly much every rule in the series, making all the potential slayers actual slayers so they could close the hellmouth. This was good because it was brilliantly unexpected and cool. At the same time strong as they need to be can be cool too, where you believe the hero always had that last little bit left for that final spurt, or else had a tiny secret knowledge, a little bit of a plan always waiting.

Of course it can be really bad as in all those terrible dragonball cartoons where everyone seems to keep screaming for no apparent reason as they simply attain new powers. (And by the way - if they're martial artists why don't they ever hit one another?)

It comes down to the writing.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Tyler Danann (Jan 13, 2013)

Both is my answer, albeit a balanced approach of either.  In my books the good guys have high-technology to overcome or at least match lesser and more diabolical foes.

No godlike entity as such to save the day as they have to assume the mantle of gods fighting other dark gods etc.  With more vulnerable mortals to fight at their side it kind of brings together the DEM and purely physical strength.


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## Jonathan C (Jan 31, 2013)

I think I need to say- the difference between the two tropes is that "strong as they need to be" is more than just the ability of a character to overcome an opponent or obstacle they have no business overcoming; its also when they struggle against opponents or obstacles they should be able to smack down easily; for example, Superman struggling to defeat Lex Luthor, a more or less normal human being, long after its been demonstrated that he can drag a planet through space or travel thrice the speed of light.

And that is the difference between them.


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## Darth Angelus (Feb 1, 2013)

Welcome to the forum, Jonathan!

I think I agree with you for the most part. Strong as they need to be goes both ways, increasing or decreasing the powers and abilities of characters for plot demands.
However, my point was that the tropes overlap. I think new powers as the plot demands can be seen as a subtrope of either. They are essentially the same story coherence flaw, and logically equivalent, unless I am missing something.
In short, I find it peculiar that Strong as they need to be get tends to get so much understanding from the audience (the attitude us that you are a pedantic geek if you point out incoherent power levels, according to some people), when deus ex machina is considered so bad. Just because you suddenly introduce the new element of power hidden into an already existing character, instead of in the form of outside help, it doesn't make it one squat better, in my opinion.


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## Jonathan C (Feb 2, 2013)

Strong as they need to be is usually in long-running and action-orientated series where the audience doesn't really expect a particularly strong continuity. They might _prefer _it, but when they hold it against the work it will probably be on the grounds of said work just following the pattern of the stuff that came before it. 

Deus Ex Machina, on the other hand, transcends genre and pops up across all fiction, and applies to a much wider range of scenarios than just super-strong individuals an what they are doing. In other words, it is a lot more common and more likely to be critiqued as a result, especially by literary critics and others, and can be applied to genres where, rightly or wrongy, the standards are higher. 

Plus, Strong as they need to be ceases to be a Deus Ex Machina (I wouldn't say they overlap in the cases you have in mind- its more like SatNtB is a sub-trope of DExM) if it happens enough times, as the fact that there is precedence for it- and usually, by that point, some kind of explanation and set-up no matter how lame-, means that by definition it is not a Deus Ex Machina. A true DExM is, by definition, devoid of set-up or precedent, and comes completely out of nowhere- if it doesnt, then it usually becomes a Chekov's Gun or something similar. Which is another reason why it annoys some people, because a Chekov's Gun is very, very easy to set up, so Deus Ex Machina is most likely to appear in works that don't have a lot of planning (hence why it shows up so much in Stephen King- he _never _plans; he just writes with the flow). 

Of course, whether or not a work has a lot of planning or not isn't too important in determining if the work is _good _(plenty of bad works exist where interesting plots and good characters are sacrificed for the sake of The Plan), but if a Deus Ex Machina shows up in a work that has a lot of mystery and tension, it can feel very cheap. How bad a DExM is, or how bad SatNtB is, really depends on the work and how much slack the audience / reader is willing to give it.


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## Darth Angelus (Feb 3, 2013)

Jonathan, yes , I guess you are right in that Strong as they need to be is usually in long action-oriented series. Really, it is only applicable in genres where combat plays a prominent rule, and particularly ones that are based on defining levels of strength and skill. Deus ex machina would really be more universal.

However, I am not sure I agree that Strong as they need to be is a subtrope of deus ex machina, because there are cases where it would not be. Deus ex machina is supposedly only solutions, to begin with, so it could just as well be a form of diabolos ex machina. I guess that deus and diabolos ex machina follow the same basic pattern, though, so this may just be a nit pick. Also, even when it is not working for evil (which it is not, most of the time, I think), Strong as they need to be does not have to be dealing with an unsolvable problem. It can just be rule of cool taken a bit far, if not outright taking over.

I am also not sure I'd accept that repeated usage of Strong as they need to be would eliminate deus ex machina. After all, a work can use deus ex machina could also be used repeatedly in a work of fiction. If that standard you mention of requiring there to be no precedent for something to be deus ex machina, wouldn't that make repeated deus ex machina not be deus ex machina, either. That would be paradoxical, if not outright contradictory.
Strong as they need to be is about a character displaying a level of power previously unhinted at, so in the specific case, it is not established. That makes it a sort of deus ex machina, in cases where it is used to solve an unsolvable situation, in my book. Just because the trope has a precedent in the work's writing style, it doesn't change the fact that the specifics of the character's skill and power is not pulled out of thin air. The trope still follows a sort of deus ex machina pattern.

Anyway, I think that Strong as they need to be is frequently a really lame trope, often just as bad and sometimes even worse than deus ex machina.


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## Jonathan C (Feb 3, 2013)

Darth Angelus said:


> However, I am not sure I agree that Strong as they need to be is a subtrope of deus ex machina, because there are cases where it would not be. Deus ex machina is supposedly only solutions, to begin with, so it could just as well be a form of diabolos ex machina. I guess that deus and diabolos ex machina follow the same basic pattern, though, so this may just be a nit pick. Also, even when it is not working for evil (which it is not, most of the time, I think), Strong as they need to be does not have to be dealing with an unsolvable problem. It can just be rule of cool taken a bit far, if not outright taking over.


 
Well, I meant insofar as they two tropes overlap, it is usually when SatNtB acts as a subtrope, not that it is inherently one.

Probably a poor choice of words on my part.



> I am also not sure I'd accept that repeated usage of Strong as they need to be would eliminate deus ex machina. After all, a work can use deus ex machina could also be used repeatedly in a work of fiction. If that standard you mention of requiring there to be no precedent for something to be deus ex machina, wouldn't that make repeated deus ex machina not be deus ex machina, either. That would be paradoxical, if not outright contradictory.
> *Strong as they need to be is about a character displaying a level of power previously unhinted at*, so in the specific case, it is not established. That makes it a sort of deus ex machina, in cases where it is used to solve an unsolvable situation, in my book. Just because the trope has a precedent in the work's writing style, it doesn't change the fact that the specifics of the character's skill and power is not pulled out of thin air. The trope still follows a sort of deus ex machina pattern.


 
Not quite. Its more about how their power level fluctuates over time- often, there is indeed some kind of justification, if a contrived one, since again it usually applies to long-running series. _At first _they might be pulled out of thin air, but the longer the story goes on, the more likely some sort of reason will be given (eg. a common one is that the characters in question have mental blocks of some kind).

So, its more a question of the context deciding whether it is pure De us Ex Machina or not, or just a (sometimes annoying) borderline example.



> Anyway, I think that Strong as they need to be is frequently a really lame trope, often just as bad and sometimes even worse than deus ex machina.


 
It depends on how it is used. Usually it is pretty lame, but it gives characters a chance to have their feet in two different worlds and be challenged in both of them. It also usually brings some kind of character development with it, if there is a good enough reason. Its not all bad.


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## Darth Angelus (Feb 3, 2013)

The way I read the trope, it is pretty much when there is no justification for the fluctuation in strength or skill. It is not about intense training. It is not about the power of friendship or love. The article is pretty clear on that. It is just about power on plot demand.
The way I interpret the trope, it is about sudden fluctuations in power, by orders of magnitude, in a very unnatural way. This trope is certainly not invoked when a character is getting gradually better at a skill over time, as part of their character development, at least not if it follows anything that remotely resembles a learning curve.
Also, an absurdly contrived justification might as well be no justification, because there aren't many cases where you can't come up with one.


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