Quote:
Originally Posted by sirbruce
A lot of writers are warned away from Deus Ex Machina endings. It's good advice; it's a lazy way out and can make the ending seem forced and emotionally unsatisfying. I'm sure slush readers see a lot of such endings. But I also think that there is a difference between *bad* Deus Ex Machina and *good* Deus Ex Machina.
After all, a casual review of the record will show hundreds of great novels with Deus Ex Machina endings. The Andromeda Strain. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (actually, most of the HP books). Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Tear of the Gods. The list is endless.
But there's a subtle distinction here, and that is in most cases where it is successfully used, the Deus Ex Machina is not blatant or totally unexpected, but foreshadowed. It may be surprising, but it involves an element previously woven into the story which may be integral to the plot. Afterwards, the event "makes sense".
When you write your heroes into a corner in the Ultimate Confrontation, there's really only two ways to proceed: either they save themselves through talents already well known, or they must be saved by somebody/something else. One can always classify the latter as a type of Deus Ex Machina, but it's not necessarily a bad one. If in the end the hero gets rescued by his best friend whom he thought had left ("I've been following you all along!"), this can actually be good for the story. Of course, the less foreshadowing there is, the more contrived it feels and the louder the cries of Deus Ex Machina from the audience, but even in those cases plenty of novels seem to get away with it.
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I think you answered your own question. If it's foreshadowed then it's workable, i.e Han returning to help Luke at the end of Star Wars. Han is a pivotal character in A New Hope and his return is a facet of his true nature. If on the other hand we'd never seen Han before and he came swooping down out of nowhere to help Luke, then it wouldn't work.