Deus Exit Machina: Difference between revisions
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Taking the [[Game Breaker|most powerful character]] and [[Put on a Bus|writing them out of the story or arc]], to preserve the drama and make things tougher for the main cast.
So you've got a villain running amok, and a designated plucky underdog hero who's been set up to save the day. Looks like time for some heroic derring-do, but
Well, [[Sidekick Glass Ceiling|obviously we can't have that]], and if the character in question is any kind of good guy it would strain belief to have them just sit out the fight for no reason. Sure, you could [[The Plot Reaper|kill them off]] or write them out of the story completely, but they don't have to leave ''forever'', just long enough for the hero to have to face the menace du jour on his or her own. The solution: take the bruiser and [[Put on a Bus|put them on a bus]] for a while. Maybe some other responsibility came up, maybe there's another villain rampaging around somewhere else, maybe they had the bad luck to break a leg and got stuck in the hospital. However it's done, the [[Deus Ex Machina]] is temporarily out of commission, and the weaker heroes have to win the fight on their own.
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On rare occasions, it may be a villain far higher up the [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] who drops by for a [[Final Boss Preview]] to foreshadow the difficulty of future encounters before giving the weaker villain back his Worf Effect. Such a villain may be [[Too Powerful to Live]]. Don't [[Orcus on His Throne|expect to see him again]] outside [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon|his lair]]. If it's a [[Stealth Hi Bye]] then you have a simple case of [[Villain Teleportation]] by a [[Mobile Menace]]. Contrast [[Villain Exit Stage Left]], [[But Now I Must Go]].
Any given
An especially common way to deal with [[Reality Warper
Subtropes include [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]] and [[Achilles in His Tent]]. See also [[Filler]], [[Padding]], [[Put on a Bus]], [[Trapped by Mountain Lions]], and [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]]. For more on this topic, see [[How to Stop the Deus Ex Machina]].
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** Another example of this combined with [[Too Powerful to Live]]: {{spoiler|Jack Rakan, who was essentially invincible, is ultimately defeated due to Fate's newly revealed [[Reality Warper]] abilities. Granted, there's a good plot reason for Fate to have that power, but it seems to have been revealed solely to have an excuse to take out Rakan.}}
** A third example is Evangeline. A vampire and one of the strongest mages in the manga, she easily wipes the floor with Fate when the two encounter one another. However, due to the fact that she's stuck within Mahora Academy grounds, she can't help Negi and his friends when they need her. {{spoiler|When she finally gets a chance to join the final battle, it's over very, ''very'' quickly.}}
* In ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'', a new enemy called IceDevimon appears and "freezes" [[The Hero]]'s and [[The Lancer]]'s [[Transformation Trinket
* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Yusuke sleeps through much of the preliminaries of the Dark Tournament, and only wakes up just before his fight with Chu. In the second round, Hiei and Genkai are tricked into agreeing to take a medical examination, then trapped in a force field for the duration of the round. Yusuke is unable to fight in the semifinals because he is in the extremely painful process of acquiring Genkai's power, and falls asleep after that.
* ''[[Hellsing]]'' does this to Alucard, having him {{spoiler|trapped on a boat whilst London is attacked.}}
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** In ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]],'' the answer to [[The Sentry]] is one [[X-Man|Nate Grey]]. The alternate version of Cable, without the techno-organic infection it takes the constant occupation of the bulk of Cable's powers to repel, is a very powerful [[Mind Over Matter|telekinetic]] and [[Psychic Powers|telepath]]. He underwent [[Power Creep, Power Seep]], and returned after an absence even stronger, so for a while was ''as strong as Jean in full Phoenix mode, all the time, without any of the drawbacks.'' Lately, he burned out his powers opening a dimensional portal, and is down to just telekinesis (how strong remains to be seen.)
** Happened to the original [[Cable]], too. He got rid of the technovirus, ''levitated an entire island while battling the [[Silver Surfer]] at once,'' burned himself out doing so, and was left with limited powers. Now the technovirus is [[Not Quite Dead]] and even ''those'' powers are reduced by the need to once again play [[Sealed Evil in a Duel]].
* [[Goo-Goo Godlike|Franklin Richards]], the son of [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Reed and Sue.]] His powers make him one of the most powerful beings in existence... or would, if there wasn't always something holding him back. The various powersets he's had, and will have according to various future stories, are just what little of his omnipotence slips through the [[Power Limiter
* This is the reason why minor criminals in [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] ''[[Superman]]'' comics [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|would often have Kryptonite]].
* In DC's [[Final Crisis]], the [[Legion of Doom|Secret Society]] sends Clayface to blow up the Daily Planet, badly injuring Lois. This, and a [[Time Travel]] subplot to stop [[Evil Counterpart|Superboy-Prime]] kept [[Superman]] from interfering with most of the crisis {{spoiler|until it's too late to save [[Batman]]'s life}}. The [[Brown Note|Anti-Life Equation]] keeps much of the other major heroes occupied (not to mention [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]) and leaves the saving of the world up to a few, mostly less-powerful heroes, including [[The Flash]]. {{spoiler|Well, [[Back From the Dead|Flashes...]]}}
* From DC Comics: So there were American superheroes in the 1940s, right? But having superheroes involved in World War II would be a [[Game Breaker]] that would disrupt the idea of the DC universe's similarity to the real world. So the Justice Society and their fellow patriotic heroes took a major
** This wasn't canon at the time; the Spear of Destiny/Holy Grail was only brought up several decades later. At the time, they just had a lame explanation about Clark Kent failing the eye exam to join the army because he got excited and used his X-ray vision to read the eye chart in the next room. They just kinda hoped nobody would notice that Superman never took the time to head over to Germany, grab Hitler, and end the war in 1942. Another twist was that the Spear turns off any superpowers when they cross enemy lines.
** There was a Superman story published during [[World War II]] in which Superman told thousands of cheering GIs: "You fellows don't need my help!" This was of course to explain why Superman didn't end the war in five seconds. And of course, during the Golden Age, Superman's powers were much weaker than they were later on: it's possible that he wasn't even able to fly across the Atlantic.
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== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'', a backdoor traps Neo hundreds of miles away while Trinity and Morpheus fight the [[Nigh Invulnerable]] Twins, then Agents for the duration of the long highway scene. In ''Revolutions'', Neo ends up trapped in a train station for most of the beginning.
* In ''[[Dogma]]'', God is unavailable, since he went golfing and was incapacitated while doing so. While this is going on, two angels banned from Heaven find a loophole that allows them to return to Heaven. Doing so would be against God's word and would destroy the universe. So,
* This happens several times in the second and third ''[[The Karate Kid]]'' movies. Mr. Miyagi is able to easily defeat any adversary, so of course for Daniel to have fights of his own, Mr. Miyagi must be away or kept out of the fight for some reason. Most notably is probably the final confrontation in the second movie when the main antagonist {{spoiler|drops the bridge into the water, leaving him isolated with Daniel and Kumiko while Mr. Miyagi is only able to watch the Fight To The Death that ensues.}}
* Luke Skywalker pulls this in ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' while receiving a [[Training From Hell]]. He does it again, [[Return of the Jedi|next movie]], when he confronts Vader. He tends to continue this pattern throughout the [[Expanded Universe]] stories.
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** Giles does get to off {{spoiler|Ben/Glory}}, though.
** Willow, post magical power-up, was also removed this way at least once. Anya points this out at one point, noting that the "trap everyone in the house" spell they're under should be no big deal for a witch of Willow's power, but she's still going cold turkey.
** In one episode, Xander is forced to stop a group of zombies from blowing up the school, something that would be a minor annoyance to the more powerful
** Buffy runs away from her friends and mother after having to kill her lover. They manage to hold down the fort, though not nearly as well without Buffy. Some spend an entire summer wishing she was back or actively trying to find her.
** In Season Eight, during the first arc, evil witch Amy traps Buffy in a nightmare while she attacks the Scooby Gang's new castle HQ with an army of zombies. {{spoiler|They are saved by [[Deus Ex Machina|Willow]]. However, this was Amy's plan; she is able to capture Willow for her boyfriend, who wanted revenge on Dark Willow almost killing him, and also to lure Buffy into the grasp of the [[General Ripper]] hunting her. However, Amy's plan backfires when Buffy is able to use what in the dream Amy trapped her in to defeat Amy}}.
** Several times in season 3, Faith disappeared for an episode so that the presence of a second Slayer didn't make the Threat of the Week to easy to beat. Most notable is "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S3/E12 Helpless|Helpless]]", where Buffy is robbed of her powers by the Council; there's a brief line at the start saying that Faith is "on one of her unannounced walkabouts", and no more mention is made of her.
*** That one may have an in-universe explanation; {{spoiler|Giles}} was the one giving Buffy the stuff that took her powers away, and for the Cruciamentum to work, Buffy had to do it alone without another slayer to help her. [[Fridge Logic]] would suggest that it was {{spoiler|him}} who sent Faith away in the first place, probably on a wild-goose chase, and just didn't tell Buffy. It still counts as this trope, but the Council needed Faith out of the way just as much as the writers did.
* Rare [[Sixth Ranger
** Udonna from ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'': whenever the rangers have a problem that she should be able to solve in a matter of seconds, she is nowhere to be seen, let alone mentioned.
*** And of course, the original ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' had Tommy and his "swiss cheese brain" that would cause him to forget important things (like his morpher on at least one occasion) and be unavailable to fight the [[Monster of the Week]]. This had a [[Real Life]] explanation as well, since Tommy's Japanese counterpart pulled a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and wasn't around nearly as much, a problem rectified by Toei producing brand-new suit footage for the second season.
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** Subverted in "In Darkest Night, Part I", which very conspicuously pointed out that Supes was busy with an earthquake in India...only to have him show up halfway through the episode anyway. He mentions that he finished early because the earthquake was "only" a 4 on the Richter Scale.
*** It should be noted that a 4 is at the point when you can hear the China rattling in the cabinets, but there's very rarely any serious damage. Not something that requires Superman, seeing as over a dozen earthquakes around that magnitude happen a day.
** And in the episode "Patriot Act," the entire rest of the League is busy, so the five non-powered heroes who were available are sent to walk in a parade in Metropolis, later to be joined by two (also non-powered) reservists to deal with the newly superhuman General Eiling. They get absolutely thrashed, but did it in a pretty awesome way, especially with Shining Knight's [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] in which he talks down the overly patriotic Eiling with his own American
** In the episode "Chaos at the Earth's Core", the miniature red sun of Skartaris weakens [[Supergirl]]'s powers almost to nothing.
* In the film ''[[Justice League: The New Frontier]]'', [[Superman]] is struck down by the big alien monster and everyone thinks he's
* In the series finale of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', [[Obi Wan]] Iroh refuses to fight Fire Lord Ozai
** In "The Desert" episode, Katara has to lead the group because Aang's too upset over Appa, [[Intoxication Ensues|Sokka is high]], and Toph can't see (she's blind and senses vibrations) because of the loose sand they're walking on.
** Appa himself: he lives and breaths this trope for the entire series. For the record, Appa is a ten-ton (that's twenty thousand-pound) flying creature with horns. Yet he's only in three battles throughout the whole series and only attacks people in one of them. Case and point: in "Jet" he is literally five yards behind the group as they're walking through a forest, but as soon as they stumble into a Fire Nation camp and get attacked, he's no where to be seen. The writers don't even give him an excuse, he's just gone.
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