Being in limbo changes your perspective on a lot of things. Politics, money, dignity - you know, the usuals. However, when I first started out, I never thought that it would change my taste for fiction. Or, more specifically, my taste for certain literary devices - like that of the Deus Ex Machina. Now that seems mighty specific you might venture, and you'd be right. I actually didn't realize that I was thinking this way until I finally got around to watching a show that I had been dying to see for the entirety of 2013 and 2014 - Legend of Korra, Book 2.
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| For the record: it's exactly as awesome as it looks. |
I saw the first season in the summer of 2012, and it absolutely sucked me in. It didn't quite hold up to the original Avatar, but it had (mostly) great characters, a thrilling story, and a beautiful ending. Of course, without spoiling too much, the ending had a pretty terrible Deus Ex Machina tacked on to make it worth, but I didn't mind at the time. All it did was restore the status quo to a nice and cozy place that assured me - the audience- that everyone lived happily ever after. Great.
Two years later, the second season ended with an even worse Deus Ex Machina, and this time I wasn't happy. I was enraged. I hated that decision! I cursed the writers for copping out of a real ending! But I was okay with it last time. What happened?
For those of you who don't know, a Deus Ex Machina is an ending trope wherein a god, or gods, or cosmic forces, or some other reality-warping entity/deity, descends upon the action of the work and sets things right. 'Setting things right' could include everything from resolving the conflict for the hero(es) to simply hand-waving the consequences and restoring the status quo. Ancient and modern writers absolutely loved this trope, since it provided an easy (and, for the Greeks, pious) way to resolve the corner that they had written themselves into. Nowadays, it's basically considered lazy writing, but for that particular moment, it was borderline offensive to my soul.
A good story is a struggle. It pits a protagonist with a high-stakes goal against nearly insurmountable obstacles and challenges them to succeed against all odds. We know that they're going to succeed, but we watch for the twists and turns, and to see who our hero really is in the face of such pressure and stress. When the protagonist seems to have the upper hand, we see the conflict escalate to new levels with new developments that bolster the pressure or strengthen the opposition! A Deus Ex Machina is absolutely antithetical to that development. It deescalates the carefully accumulated tension of the climax and demolishes the consequences of our hero's high risk actions. Bad decisions and major sacrifices mean nothing at the end of the day when winner's belt is basically just handed to per-decided victor.
Sometimes, that's exactly what it feels like when you're watching as someone who's depressed and unemployed. You have no skills, no marketable worth, and nobody's willing risk even a salary on you. You're life is a struggle with some major escalations built right in. Rent is coming due, and you won't have enough for food and a place to sleep. Or rather, that was the first month. Then next month, you realize that you won't have anything left to pay for either. You're applying to jobs left and right, and you're not getting any response. You might as well be throwing your resumes into an absolutely useless black hole of sadness and failure. Then, suddenly it's rent day, and your landlord is right there at your door wondering where her money's at. So then what?
According to Legend Of Korra, when it's all on the line - and your world falls under the shadow of total darkness - all you need to do is look inside of yourself and unleash the enormous blue giant of plot resolution to march forth to solve your problems for you. Maybe it will take the form of loads of cash that don't exist. Maybe it will squash your vile landlord into a pulp, or strangle the members of Congress who keep blocking the unemployment extension bill.
Or, maybe you'll just sigh and head inside your now-former-apartment to start packing. I was lucky that that never happened to me. Friends of mine weren't so lucky. A Deus Ex Machina isn't poised to jump in and save you when you don't have a job, so why should it save Korra?
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