Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What does Deus ex machina mean?

Beautiful question i say. The term Deus ex machina literally means "the god comes from a crane or machine" and refers to 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. 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 it challenges suspension of disbelief; allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, but more palatable ending. In modern terms the Deus ex machina has also come to describe a person or thing that suddenly arrives and solves a seemingly insoluble difficulty. While in storytelling this might seem unfulfilling, in real life this type of figure might be welcome and heroic.





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 video shows you how to say deus ex machina:


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Deus ex machina


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For information about the similarly titled album, see Deus Ex Machinae


Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that refers to 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. 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 it challenges suspension of disbelief; allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, but more palatable ending. In modern terms the Deus ex machina has also come to describe a person or thing that suddenly arrives and solves a seemingly insoluble difficulty. While in storytelling this might seem unfulfilling, in real life this type of figure might be welcome and heroic.





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.





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





Contents [hide]


1 Linguistic considerations


2 Examples


2.1 Literature and comics


2.1.1 Examples in plot


2.1.2 References to the phrase


2.2 Cinema and television


2.2.1 Examples in plot


2.2.2 Examples for comic effect in plot


2.2.3 References to the phrase


2.3 Video Games


2.3.1 Examples in plot


2.3.2 References to the phrase


2.4 Music


3 See also











[edit]


Linguistic considerations


The Latin phrase (deus ex māchinā, plural deī ex māchinīs) is a calque from the Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός ápo mēchanēs theós, (pronounced in Ancient Greek [a po' mɛ:kʰa'nɛ:s tʰe'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 comes 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.ʊs eks 'ma:kʰɪ.na:], in other words with machina stressed on the first syllable, and with the ch similar to an English k, but English-speaking people may be influenced by the modern English machine ([mə'ʃi: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 e in bed. See also Latin spelling and pronunciation.





[edit]


Examples


Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


[edit]


Literature and comics


[edit]


Examples in plot


In William Golding's novel The Lord of the Flies, just as the protagonist Ralph is about to be killed by the band of "hunters" at the end of the story, a naval ship appears from nowhere onto the island. One of the ship's officers rescues Ralph, he and the rest of the boys are then taken away from the island.


In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the kidnapping of Hamlet by pirates allows him to escape his orchestrated death in England.


In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Hymenaios comes to the mass wedding to sort out the problems of Rosalind's stay and disguise in the Forest of Arden.


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 French general who has seized the fortress where the narrator has been imprisoned.


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 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 in The Adventures of Tintin involve coincidences that spare his life: heavy weights replaced by wood, a solar eclipse, explosive mines not working, etc.


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, after freeing the local farm dog to attack the Efrafans, Hazel is pinned by the farm cat and about to be killed until a young girl from the farm intervenes by ordering the cat to back away. She then takes Hazel into the country to a location which is coinicidentally near his warren. The chapter in which the buildup for this event occurs is indeed titled Dea ex Machina (goddess, in this case).


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.


In Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, the location of the antimatter is seemingly revealed by a vision from God, however it is later revealed to be a deception by the novel's villain.


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 rests 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 believed them all to have crashed.


In Hajime Kanzaka's novel Shirogane no Majū (白銀の魔獣, which form the basis for the anime series Slayers), Lina Inverse uses a powerful spell known as "Ragna Blade" to defeat Zanaffar. 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 places it within the timeline of the rest of the book and therefore could have been mentioned.


In the Japanese manga-drama Kashimashi, the main protagonist is told out of the blue by an alien lifeform that "you will die in 30 days." Previous to this statement there had been no indication that the main protagonist would have such a sudden death, thus effectively becoming a plot device.


In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the convict who Pip owed his gentleman's life to, was Pip's crush's father.


In the Batman TV series, Batman's utility belt usually contains something unexpected which extricates him from a seemingly inescapable situation.


[edit]


References to the phrase


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.


In the webcomic, Metroid: Third Derivative, Samus called the degenerated space pirate Joey "Deus ex Machina" after saving her from a near-fatal encounter with Dark Samus.


In the American Television series Lost, an episode is named "Deus ex Machina." This appears to be an ironic use of the term. In the episode, the survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island discover a man-made hatch embedded into the ground; When eventually opened, however, the hatch confuses the plot further rather than resolving any plot lines.


At the end of "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," the words "Deus Ex Machina" are written on the side of the treasure chest at the end of the movie.


[edit]


Cinema and television


[edit]


Examples in plot


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 the character Bobby Ewing who had been killed off.


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.


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".


In the film Adaptation., Charlie Kaufman is cautioned explicitly by screenwriting guru Robert McKee not to use a deus ex machina as a plot device, which he then later does, twice. First, McKee himself gives the character of Kaufman the final hint to escape from his screenwriting misery, which means McKee himself is used as a "Deus ex Machina". Ironically "McKee" could be suspected a "telling name" (McKee =%26gt; "machina") but he is an actual writing instructor. Second, the alligator that dives into the swamp to attack John Laroche prevents him from shooting and killing Charlie.


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 Navy arrives to stablize the situation and kill the dinosaurs.


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 homeworld.


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 having the villains dig it up for no real reason.


In V: The Final Battle mini-series, when the mothership is about to destroy Earth, a young half-alien/half-human girl suddenly reveals her powers by taking the controls of the ship and piloting it out of the atmosphere.


At the end of the anime Mai-HiME the previously "dead" characters are brought back to life in order to fight the final battle by Mashiro, whose powers were supposedly sealed and under the control of the Dark Lord.


In the series 5 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "The Game", the crew of the Enterprise are influenced to do the bidding of an alien race as a result of a psychotropic reaction caused by an addictive game introduced to the ship. They are rescued at the end of the episode when Data, who had until this point been deactivated by members of the crew already under the aliens' influence, enters and uses a flashing light to remove the addictive psychtropic effects of the game, and thus cure the entire crew.


In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey God literally provides the deus ex machina by giving Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan access to Station, who in turn build the "good robot uses". This allows everything to be resolved.


In the movie Ocean's 12, director Steven Soderburg introduces the FBI official to be Matt Damon's character's mother. She signs their release forms and allows them to escape custody.


Near the end of Ice Age, Diego shows up alive and well, after a previous scene where he had implicably died and been left behind. Diego explains his sudden miraculous recovery as "nine lives."


[edit]


Examples for comic effect in plot


This is not specifically the use of the device in comedy, but the specific comedic use of a deus ex machina that at least some of the audience is expected to appreciate as such.





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 an alien spaceship 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 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. The character Norbert then exclaims "Where in the name of deus ex machina did that T-Rex come from?"


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 the British sitcom Bottom, Ritchie and Eddie are trapped atop a crumbling ferris wheel. Facing certain death they pray for their lives - literally. God's hand promptly appears and Ritchie and Eddie, looking stunned climb aboard. Normality is restored when they announce to the audience they don't believe in God; the hand dissappears and they fall to their doom.


In the Disney movie The Emperor's New Groove, a chase occurs where 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 pulls out a map of the chase and says "Beats me. By all accounts it doesn't make sense.", showing the characters' awareness of the deus ex machina that has just been perpetrated.


In Dodgeball the chest of money Peter wins at the end of the tournament has the words "deus ex machina" on it.


[edit]


References to the phrase


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.


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 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.


In The Daily Show segment, "This Week in God", Stephen Colbert uses "The God Machine" (also called the Machina Ex Deus) as a physical, floating button to introduce the topics.


In Donnie Darko, Donnie gasps 'Deus ex Machina' near the end of the movie when a knife is being held to his throat. This occurs shortly after Karen Pomeroy mentions the term 'Deus ex Machina' to him.


[edit]


Video Games


[edit]


Examples in plot


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. Another interpretation is that the main character JC Denton by changing the world (i.e. curing the plague) is the 'god from the machine' that changed the world for the better. Also since he is cybernetically enhanced and genetically engineered, he is literally a 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 example is the so-called Devil Gene, that apparently renders the bearer immortal.


In Metal Gear Solid, the ending finds Solid Snake and a companion 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. A virus known as "FOX-DIE", unknowingly injected into Solid Snake to spread throughout the base, 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.


Throughout the Resident Evil series, a recurring theme is that the 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 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", 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 of the game that the existence of a machine which destroys the parasites internally is revealed.


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.


In Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, The Prince, after killing Kaileena for the first time, seems desperate and angsty. Suddenly, while wandering the caverns beneath the Island of Time he finds a mural that shows he can go back and time and change his fate using an artifact called the Mask of the Wraith.


In Star Fox Assault, Peppy Hare crashes the Great Fox into the aparoid homeworld's shield, in order for the Star Fox team to get through. The Great Fox is shown exploding, seemingly with no way out for Peppy, but in the epligoue, it was revealed that Peppy miraculously escaped through some sort of escape pod.


In Freespace:The Great War, a Shivan superdestroyer, the Lucifer, is equipped with an energy shield that renders it impervious to all Terran and Vasudan weapons. As the Lucifer closes on Earth, survivors from a destroyed Vasudan science station land on a planet where they discover technology that will enable them to track the Lucifer into subspace where its shields will not work.


In Fire Emblem, three Fire Dragons are summoned near the end. When all seems hopeless, Brammimond appears and revives Ninian, whom Eliwood manslaughered earlier in the story. She then summons an ice storm which kills two Fire Dragons and severely weakens the other.


[edit]


References to the phrase


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 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 Armored Core 2, Deus Ex Machina is the name of an enemy 'AC' that you fight in arena mode.


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.


[edit]


Music


Deus ex Machina is an Italian avant-progressive rock group formed in the late 1980s who sing in Latin.


Norwegian singer Liv Kristine (from Theatre of Tragedy) named her first solo album, released in 1998, "Deus Ex Machina".


The Smashing Pumpkins album MACHINA/The Machines of God (followed by an internet-only release MACHINA II/The Friends %26amp; 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.


Deus ex Machina is the title of a track from the Brighton-based artist Backini's second album Re:Creation.


Also a song by the band Laibach, on their album Jesus Christ Superstar.


[edit]


See also


MacGuffin


List of Latin phrases


The Deus Ex Machina Cycle is the title of an opera by Elodie Lauten (1996).





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Categories: Cleanup from October 2005 | Latin phrases | Narratology | Continuity errors





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Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers|||Literally, the god from the machine--it refers to a sudden and not very believable happy ending to a story, as if all of a sudden a god came out of a machine and killed the bad guy.





The expression is Latin, but I seem to think it was the Greeks that tended to actually end their plays that way.|||God from Machine. In the old days, no one could play God in plays (for He is too great), so machines had to play God.|||WHY DON'T YOU ASK A FRENCH OR SPANISH TEACHER...I COULD'VE SWORN U WEREN'T SMART...

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