Chapter 2 of Volume 1 is where we can find the first instance of a deus ex machina in said comic. In this particular chapter, we have Chaos and Iris Irine searching for a face mask.
How convenient is it that the face mask they're looking for suddenly shows up right where they are? Is this contrived or a mere coincidence?
It seems like deus ex machina actually. After all, we don't even know exactly where those 2 are, so how believable is it that the very thing they're looking for suddenly shows up right where they are? It's like the face mask just showed up, so they wouldn't have to go through the trouble of locating it or it just showed up because they had no idea where to find one.
The Valkyrie and the swordsman are winning or would have won the fight when, all of a sudden and seemingly coming from out of nowhere, Chaos suddenly remembers that he's Balder and is thus able to summon Nidhogg.
Seriously, is that really supposed to be believable? How can he just suddenly remember that he's really a god when he didn't even believe Fenris Fenrir when the latter was telling him about all of this earlier?
In this instance, it appears that the resident main character is the deus ex machina. It's like he just had to remember his past identity and that he has all this power because if this didn't happen, then the heroes would have lost.
Another example can be found in Chapter 38 of Volume 5. This is the part where Chaos, Loki and Skurai were engaged in a very long battle, which lasted for several chapters.
However, before anything more can transpire between those 2, guards of Prontera suddenly and conveniently show up to attempt to arrest the fighting duo.
It's like the guards just had to show up now in order to prevent the men from fighting anew. After all, if they were going to show up anyway, why is it that they're only appearing now?
This fight between the 3 men has been going on for a long while already and so many people had already gotten injured because of this. Furthermore, the trio weren't exactly being quiet during the battle. It didn't even seem like they cared how much noise they made or how much damage and destruction they caused to Prontera.
As such, are we really supposed to believe that the guards only found out about this fight just now? Couldn't they hear it from where they were? Didn't they see the hurt and panicked people? Wasn't there a single guard near where this fight was taking place?
Why is it that these soldiers showed up only now when so much has happened already? Why didn't they show up before the fight could really start? More than that though, another question that warrants being asked is exactly what is the point of this little interlude?
Why did the guards have to act as the deus ex machina and show up to prevent our resident main characters from continuing their fight? Is it that this is necessary because, if the guards don't show up, then Chaos will end up losing to Loki and there is no other way to prevent this other than to introduce a deus ex machina?
This could have been a good opportunity for Loki to tell Chaos exactly why he wants to kill the latter. The hero could then tell the assassin that he's not the one responsible for what had happened to the Assassins' Guild.
We could have seen how Chaos would try to prove his innocence and whether or not Loki would believe him.
Then, perhaps, we could have even seen the assassin explain to the main character what he knows about the Dragon Knights. After all, the protagonist wants to know more about this and it appears to be relevant to the plot. Unfortunately, none of that happens.
What do you think of these scenes in the manhwa wherein we got what appeared to be deus ex machina? Do you think that these scenes could have and should have been done differently?
*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by CoDLia (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to represent Chaos who has the same messy and spiky hair as the figure in said image
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget
