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[LoSboccacc]

Weak because after a 20 panel climax across months nothing read before ultimately mattered, deus ex machina saves the day.

Not everything needs to be ended by triumphant battle and not everything of course need to end in success: compare and contrast roy death.

[GiglameshDespair]

All the elements which lead to this conclusion were set up in previous comics.

[Reelya]

Deus Ex Machina?

This Durkon-inner-battle is the thing that has been building up to this point for the entire time that Vampire Durkon and Inner Durkon have been talking to each other. Remember Inner Durkon told Vampire Durkon that this memory would be the last he showed him, but he had to agree to watch the whole thing through to the end.

So no, this was no Deus Ex Machina, it's the natural conclusion of a subplot that was set in motion a long time ago. All the discussion and memories shared between Vampire Durkon and Inner Durkon was for this precise moment in time, it's thus the opposite of Deus Ex Machina. It also being the moment of Durkon's final death is extra poetic.

[birdy51]

Aye. Deus Ex Machina implies some sort of Godly intervention. Call it clumsy maybe, but it's not completely out of nowhere.

[MrWiggles]

I dont think most folks in this thread understand what dues ex machina means.
The entire durkon arc with his vampire, has been about controlling which memories the vampire sees, durkon trying to convience the vampire of being good. The lack of bad memory for the vampire to actually draw upon. Durkon only means to influence the vampire has been through sharing memories. Ergo, the way Durkon was going to wrestle control of his body, is with memories.

[Arcvasti]

I imagine the Deus Ex Machina accusations are mostly because the whole "Durkon asserts control" thing isn't really something that makes sense for standard D&D vampires and is something that Rich himself made up. Because doing your own worldbuilding using the D&D rules as a base is clearly against the rules.

[Rowanas]

The reasoning for why it worked makes sense, it was developed for ages, resulted in a small window of opportunity and -still- resulted in significant consequences for the party.  I really can't see that there's a single problem here.

[smjjames]

Yeah, a Deus Ex Machina is usually something out of nowhere and completely unrelated, this was built over time. Yes it feels Deus Ex Machina-esque due to the climaxing, but as others have said, it's the buildup of a sideplot that Rich has been implementing since Durkon got vamped in the first place.

[Reelya]

It's more of a "Just In Time" trope. And note, no less that Tolkien was constantly pulling that trope out.

A very similar one was when the allied armies were facing the armies of Mordor at the Black Gate, and are on the verge of defeat, but Frodo happens to destroy the One Ring before they all get killed.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, lots of other examples come easily to mind.  Gandalf & reinforcements at Helm's Deep, or the dawn breaking on the trolls in The Hobbit (in the book, no idea how it goes in the movies).

[scriver]

I'd say Gandalf and the Rohirrim is still a Deus Ex Machina. "Gandalf leaves to go get Eomer seven chapters earlier" isn't enough set up to not make it one, in my opinion. I think this Durkvelopment is one too, by the way. I'd have no problems with it being one, though, but I also think it was anti-climatic. Which is, honestly, a rather separate issue.

[Darkmere]

I'd say Gandalf and the Rohirrim is still a Deus Ex Machina. "Gandalf leaves to go get Eomer seven chapters earlier" isn't enough set up to not make it one, in my opinion. I think this Durkvelopment is one too, by the way. I'd have no problems with it being one, though, but I also think it was anti-climatic. Which is, honestly, a rather separate issue.

This is it. The heroes are delivered from peril by a vague extrapolation on the author's part. They did nothing to facilitate it aside from Durkon who... guessed? at the proper solution somehow. And then died, the end. I'm guessing there's more to it, and he ends up with Hel so this all serves another purpose, but that's just a guess and doesn't help things right now.

Re: Anti-climactic... it feels hasty even if that wasn't the intention. Maybe it's the sporadic timing of the comic itself, but the resolution feels like "cutting the gordian knot" where some things have to happen to keep the story going or wrap up plot threads so the writer/author just Gets On With It Already. That probably wasn't the intent, but the pacing brought on by the plot contrivance to get the story where it needed to be lends itself to it, anyway.

Compare to the last season of Warehouse 13, where the writers struggled to resolve a cliffhanger and give the series closure in 5 episodes, or the final episode of Agents of SHIELD where they had to wrap up a season-long arc and somehow tried to resolve character threads in the last 10 minutes (thankfully this might be fixed since they got renewed).

[Remalle]

New one is up.

To be perfectly honest, I forgot Minrah died. Poor girl, I really liked her.

[birdy51]

Eh. At least they have Valhalla together!

[Madman198237]

I'd say Gandalf and the Rohirrim is still a Deus Ex Machina. "Gandalf leaves to go get Eomer seven chapters earlier" isn't enough set up to not make it one, in my opinion. I think this Durkvelopment is one too, by the way. I'd have no problems with it being one, though, but I also think it was anti-climatic. Which is, honestly, a rather separate issue.

I mean, it depends on how you define a Deus Ex Machina.

In the movies, yes, the Eomer thing is a bit strange and not-really-explained, but even then they set up that there was a force of Rohirrim elsewhere and that Gandalf has a plan (look for me in 5 days and all).

In the books, it's set up even better---Tolkien mentions that a cloaked man on an incredibly fast horse has been seen galloping across the countryside, that Erkenbrand's men have been scattered after the battle at the Fords of Isen, etc. It's clearly established both times that Gandalf is doing something and that something has to do with saving Helm's Deep, because both times the Rohirrim and the Three Hunters *know* that they are outnumbered and risk losing the battle. It's not a Deus Ex Machina here because not only does everyone know that Gandalf is doing something about their problem, they also know about the problem before it happens. Oh, and in the books it's not even Gandalf who saves the day, it's the Huorns anyway.