Have you ever experienced 'Deus ex machina' in your life?

several times, i had the impression of being saved here and now and to not have to wait until i'm dead. God saved me, loved me, watched me. i apologize for my bad english i'm just on yahoo uk because of technical problems but in fact i'm french

goodnight to you all UKHave you ever experienced 'Deus ex machina' in your life?
I don't know what deus ex machina means, but it sound really, really cool.
I'm afraid the god in my machine is dead...nothing much has happened lately.Have you ever experienced 'Deus ex machina' in your life?
Not really. Not that I can think of off top.
Well that guy summed it up didn't he? LOLHave you ever experienced 'Deus ex machina' in your life?
No, I've only read about it in faerie tales :)
no, no time or money for that
I am in the process of it now and waiting patiently for the finale.
not that I can recall.
Not really. I imagined flying monkies a few days ago. That wasn't me that was Dorothy. Sorry guess not.
Everyday I get in my car and go to work...LOL God has to be in the machina with me! LOL
not that I know of..let me read that definition up there first
The most interesting and unexpected things I've experienced in my life have been very consistent with my unfolding story. In fact, the more consistent I am with my own story, the more likely I am to experience significant but unexpected reinforcement for that story. The way I see it, the narrative that defines my story begins with the content of my heart. The more I give expression to that content, the more magic there is.



Or more directly, no, I don't think I've experienced that very much.
Deus ex machina

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For other uses, see Deus ex machina (disambiguation).

Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that is used to describe an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (e.g., having the protagonist wake up and realize it was all a dream, or an angel suddenly appearing to solve all the plot problems of a story that the characters can't or won't resolve on their own). The phrase 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 that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more palatable, ending. In modern terms the deus ex machina has also come to describe a being, object or event that suddenly appears and solves a seemingly insoluble difficulty (e. g. the cavalry arriving). A classic example of this type of deus ex machina is Homer's Odyssey; a more contemporary example is Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. While in storytelling this might seem unfulfilling, in real life this type of figure might be welcome and heroic, due to the low probability of such an event occurring. It sometimes also can mean, usually in an episode of a sitcom, an event or plot device which does not necessarily solve the conflict of the plot, but demotes the character(s) into the financial, emotional, mental, or geographical state they were in when the episode began, restoring the series' status quo in order to more easily allow another situation in the next episode.



The notion of deus ex machina can also be applied to a revelation within a story experienced by a character which involves the individual realizing that the complicated, sometimes perilous or mundane and perhaps seemingly unrelated sequence of events leading up to this point in the story are joined together by some profound concept. Thus the unexpected and timely intervention is aimed at the meaning of the story rather than a physical event in the plot. This may more accurately be described as a plot twist.



The Greek tragedian Euripides is notorious for using this plot device. The first person known to have criticized the device was Aristotle in his Poetics, where he argues that a good tragedy must remain plausible.





[edit] Linguistic considerations

The Latin phrase (deus ex māchinā, plural deī ex māchinīs) is a calque from the Greek '?π? μηχαν?? θε??' ápo mēchanēs theós, (pronounced in Ancient Greek [a po' m?:k?a'n?:s t?e'os]). It originated with Greek and Roman theater, when a mechane would lower actors playing a god or gods on stage to resolve a hopeless situation. The phrase is often translated as "god from the machine", where the machine referred to is the crane device employed in the task.



The pronunciation of the phrase may be a problem in English. The Latin phrase would originally have been pronounced something like ['de.?s eks 'ma?k??.na?], in other words with machina stressed on the first syllable, and with the ch pronounced as in the word "Mach" — similar to k — but people may be influenced by the modern English machine ([m?'?i?n]), resulting in a mixed pronunciation. Some English speakers face further difficulties in pronouncing the e in Deus [e], which is only approximately rendered as [AY] and is much closer to the ay in day. See also Latin spelling and pronunciation.





[edit] See also

List of deus ex machina examples

MacGuffin

List of Latin phrases

Character shield

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