Example: at the bottom of a paragraph listing Sophocles's canon we're presented with the following sentence: "(Sophocles) is credited with the introduction of the third actor, with fixing the size of the chorus at fifteen members, and with the first use of scene painting." I love this. It's exactly how I'd hoped theatre had unfolded; that at some point after decades of there being only one actor on stage plus chorus, a writer thought of the extra complexity possible in having two of them and then Sophocles looked at that and thought "You know - imagine what we could do with another one."
Another example, and I should say that though this extract is long, it's well worth reading right through to the end. There are certain phrases I've used often and despite knowing their meaning, I've never been completely sure of their origin. See if you too have an 'aaah haa haa' moment, especially if you're an avid viewer of a certain type of science fiction or fantasy television programme whose storyline has to be wrapped up within approximately forty-five minutes:
See what I mean? Of course, the wikipedia has also covered this, but there's nothing quite like discovering these things quite by chance. Now that I think about it, every Doctor Who story is about a deus ex machina, since the Doctor is effectively a god and the situation has already been set up before he gets there. Which presumably means the TARDIS is Euripedes's crane ...
I think I first came across deus ex machina when I was studying music with the OU and it was pointed out that before the Romantic period (until Mozart's late period probably) the deus ex machina was one of the main ways of resolving plots in opera.
ReplyDeleteAt that point I don't think anyone had used the phrase in Doctor Who to my knowledge, preferring the then in-vogue "technobabble" which was a major point of criticism in ST:TNG. This later transformed in to "anomaly of the week" which was Voyager's main plot device in its early days.
I'm fairly sure "deus ex" started being used shortly after the new series of Doctor Who began and a few of the more "intellectual" fans posted comments over on Outpost Gallifrey. The phrase then spread with lots of people using it without knowing its origin - it's one of those phrases where you can pretty much figure out what it means, if not how to pronounce it.
I remember the other one that proliferated at the time was "middle 8" which was used incorrectly by some to describe the b-motif from the theme tune which Murray Gold for some reason omitted from season 1 (although with precedent as it was often absent during the 70s).
Middle 8 is a pop music phrase but while it's technically wrong to use it, it's close enough to be useful in the context of the discussion.
Yes, I'm bored.
Like you, I enjoy it when the origin of a phrase becomes clear. Unlike you, I've learnt to pretend I knew it all along and tut at the ignorance of others. But then, I'm an academic. It's how we work ;-)
Oh one thing, being serious for a moment, that's not clear from the extracts above. Was the term "deus ex" used to describe contrived endings at the time, or is it a later critical device? I suspect the latter and thought it derived in the 18th century during the Enlightenment as people began to criticise its continued use in, as I said above, opera, but also theatre and novels. Given that it's Latin it seems unlikely the Ancient Greeks used it much. During Euripides's time I think it wasn't seen as contrived but as perfectly reasonable, given the fundamental belief in the supernatural - you can see a parallel in more recent times when God, or Science or Revolution or Emancipation (yes, all with initial caps) would become the theme of the time to reflect popular concerns/beliefs. In Doctor Who you can see this with the embracing of contemporary science in the 1960s that had its roots in the Festival of Britain. This turned into a more cynical approach in the 1970s as science was found to be fallible. To modern eyes these motifs appear somewhat contrived but at the time, perfectly natural. Like watching old TV programmes and noticing that everyone has strange hairstyles and flares, but wondering why you never noticed it at the time...
Also - while I'm at it - I don't think the TARDIS is an example of deus ex machina as it's rarely (if ever) been used as a device to bring a plot to a conclusion, rather it's the device that takes the characters from one situation to another.
ReplyDeleteThe sonic screwdriver may be a better candidate but even then it doesn't quite fit.
The point of the deus ex is that its arrival is not discussed beforehand and is completely unrelated to the general plot but offers a convenient way out. i.e. the heroine is in a dire situation and there is no escape when... a god descends from above to pluck her to safety for no apparent reason (we've had cliff-hanger resolutions like that in DW). It's a convenient escape. It's the equivalent of what I'm sure we've all done at school writing a story that gets more and more complicated and we bring it to an end by hearing a bell that turns in to our alarm clock - it was all a dream! The clock would be the deus ex machina in that case.
But the TARDIS? I'm struggling to see when it's ever been used as a deus ex machina. I'm sure it has. But even in Revenge of the Cybermen when it appears conveniently at the end, it's only a means of getting from there to the next story. If it had materialised around the CyberLeader just as he was about to detonate a bomb and blow Nerva Beacon up, then it would have been a deus ex machina, but it wasn't. Do you see the distinction? Difficult to explain... ;-)
I'm not talking about the TARDIS being used on such a specific level, but as a method of transportation like the crane.
ReplyDeleteBut if you take the Euripedes model (?) he has a morality tale about a woman marrying the wrong bloke or what have you, which is then resolved by one of the gods hovering down via the crane -- deus ex machina.
In almost all Doctor Who stories, there is an already existing status quo and then plot of the story, what we see, is the TARDIS turning up with the Doctor to sort things out (overthrow an evil government, repel an alien invasion), a god in his machine.
Try rewriting something like Fear Her from the point of view of the human, Chloe Webber and you have the story of a girl being controlled by some aliens, who in the final act is saved by the Doctor and Rose.