In Response To: Re: details of the story=Cool. Execution in H2=Cra (mr_mcmurder)
: "Deus ex machina" means "god from a machine." It was a
: term coined by the Greeks when plays were derided for having an
: intractable situation, when suddenly, a contraption built under the stage
: would produce some such god right between the conflicting characters, and
: he would solve it out of the blue. It completely destroys the story
: progression, and the viewer is left wondering what the hell of even
: following the story in the first place was, because it is not obeying any
: rules that were set up previously.
: As I stated, the conflict was that the Master Chief was falling to the bottom
: of a lake, unconscious (or maybe you will argue he was
: "sleeping/waiting" a la Chuck Norris, and we can have a whole
: polemic discussion about that), and that the Arbiter was falling down a
: huge pit-chasm hole thing.
: Gravemind saves them both, and then puts them together and sends them off on
: two quests, all while hitting us over the head with how their characters
: are very different, so perfectly different, in fact, that the viewer is
: sorry he got reminded about that fact.
: A deus ex machina is a sign of poorly put together writing. It shows the
: writer has essentially written himself into a corner, and he has to simply
: break out of the whole action he has set up to get out of it. Gravemind as
: a character may not be stupid. The god Apollo in and of itself is not,
: either. But when Apollo pops up from under the stage, or Gravemind is
: catching bodies falling down bottomless abysses left and right and them
: lecturing them about how they are a yin and yang, just in case the viewer
: doesn't know, you are out of the story, and you suddenly don't care,
: because apparently the writer doesn't, either.
Did you ever, for one second, honestly, think that the Master Chief was actually going to DIE when he fell in the lake? I sure as hell did not. It was more of a way to INTRODUCE Gravemind, rather than Gravemind saving him.
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