Worst Deus Ex Machina EVER (That is not "The Horn!" or Thunder Armor) *SPOILERS*

[marioluigifan05]

I don't really consider "The Horn" a DEM, but I know many others do.

Other than Thunder Armor and "The Horn", what's the worst DEM to you (be it a Pokemon, match, etc.)? For me, it's a tie between Trip vs Ash (all), May's baby Squirtle, Tobias's Darkrai vs Torkoal to an extent (Torkoal can take on Registeel but gets beat in one hit by Darkrai? Come on now.), and Skitty vs Dusclops.

~mlfan05

[pokemonsquared]

May in general
Starter boost abilities
oshawott scalchop

[marioluigifan05]

I'm not so sure about the last two (at least compared to other crap in this series), but I agree on the first one.

[An00bis]

Nothing has or (hopefully) ever will offend me as much as Thunder Armor.

I guess if I had to pick something ... Pikachu VS Nosepass in Hoenn was pretty terribly written.

[Caseydia]

I was never bothered by "the horn or any of those moves so much as some others were. Atleast Ash came up with those tactics himself even though they were alittle weird. It showed us that he was a clever thinker when times got tough.

[Spin Attaxx]

Definetly the "Pokémon tears can resurrect the dead" crap in M01. No, the legend the lady speaks of about tears restoring the world WASN'T in the original version. So it came completely out of nowhere. I don't care if they can breath fire or create worlds, POKÉMON ARE NOT JESUS.

I was never bothered by "the horn or any of those moves so much as some others were. Atleast Ash came up with those tactics himself even though they were alittle weird. It showed us that he was a clever thinker when times got tough.

When Rhyhorn can be hurt by Thunderbolt in the games, then I'll take that "clever-thinking" statement of yours seriously.

[AgentPierce]

Cameron not being disqualified after he reveals he only brought 5 Pokemon to a full battle. And then his Rilou evolving into Lucario.

[Angel~]

Ash's Piikachu and May are deus ex machinas created by the writers to get them out of actually having to write decent stories.

[marioluigifan05]

Cameron not being disqualified after he reveals he only brought 5 Pokemon to a full battle. And then his Rilou evolving into Lucario.

That's another one I was going to list, but for some reason, forgot. I know he was fighting with a handicap, but aren't league rules supposed to be strict? What makes this even worse is that he STILL ended up winning...this was arguably worse than Tobias.

[Pokemaniac24]

Ash's Piikachu and May are deus ex machinas created by the writers to get them out of actually having to write decent stories.

What? How so?

[marioluigifan05]

What? How so?

I'm not Angel~, but:

#1: Thunder Armor (though I excluded it as an option)
#2: Look at May's contest matches (Skitty vs Dusclops, anything involving Squirtle, etc.)
#3: Electric attacks hit ground types.

I think that's what she meant.

[Charmed]

Half of Charizard's victories, especially his victory over Articuno. Cameron's victories. Cyndaquil's victories in Johto. Oh, and of course the whole Thunder Armor thing.

[Pokemaniac24]

I'm not Angel~, but:

#1: Thunder Armor (though I excluded it as an option)
#2: Look at May's contest matches (Skitty vs Dusclops, anything involving Squirtle, etc.)
#3: Electric attacks hit ground types.

Oh, I see. I thought she was trying to say that because Pikachu and May are on the anime, the anime could get away with writing not so good stories but yeah, if we are talking about their roles in battles and contests, I could see what she means even though I haven't seen AG in awhile.

[dman_dustin]

I honestly couldn't care less, what the worst DEM was, since that entire subject is completely subjective, and biased, nothing really annoys me in terms of "DEM"

I'm only annoyed by the layout of a battle, not some minor situation that results in a win for someone.

But fine if I had to choose one, nothing is more inexcusable than Pikachu vs Serperior in the league.

Pikachu should've been knocked out, and was knocked out, but Ash's words somehow brought it back into the battle.

I don't have a problem with Ash beating Serperior with Pikachu, but that entire battle badly written on both sides.

[1rkhachatryan]

I honestly couldn't care less, what the worst DEM was, since that entire subject is completely subjective, and biased, nothing really annoys me in terms of "DEM"

I'm only annoyed by the layout of a battle, not some minor situation that results in a win for someone.

But fine if I had to choose one, nothing is more inexcusable than Pikachu vs Serperior in the league.

Pikachu should've been knocked out, and was knocked out, but Ash's words somehow brought it back into the battle.

I don't have a problem with Ash beating Serperior with Pikachu, but that entire battle badly written on both sides.

This, we should of been watching Pikachu's funeral the next episode lol. I mean the thing was literally strangled to death and then 1 hit KO'd his opponent -_-....

[Pikafleg]

I totally agree that the "thunder armor" DEM was atrocious and offensive. I really can't believe they did that....for crying out loud find ANY other way (ok perhaps not "any" lol) for pikachu and swellow to win! And because it annoys me so much, I will explain it for those of you who may be confused at what we are talking about- in ash's battle against tate and liza with his pikachu and swellow, he had pikachu summon a thunder from the sky to hit itself and swellow (that's not the crazy part btw), and that gave itself, and more crazily swellow, a golden coating on their bodies that made them more powerful and stuff, instead of doing damage (particularly to swellow).

And while I'm at it, "the horn" is when in ash's battle against blaine a thunderbolt from pikachu aimed at rhydon's horn allowed it to very powerfully effect the GROUND type rhydon and defeat it.

[1rkhachatryan]

I totally agree that the "thunder armor" DEM was atrocious and offensive. I really can't believe they did that....for crying out loud find ANY other way (ok perhaps not "any" lol) for pikachu and swellow to win! And because it annoys me so much, I will explain it for those of you who may be confused at what we are talking about- in ash's battle against tate and liza with his pikachu and swellow, he had pikachu summon a thunder from the sky to hit itself and swellow (that's not the crazy part btw), and that gave itself, and more crazily swellow, a golden coating on their bodies that made them more powerful and stuff, instead of doing damage (particularly to swellow).

And while I'm at it, "the horn" is when in ash's battle against blaine a thunderbolt from pikachu aimed at rhydon's horn allowed it to very powerfully effect the GROUND type rhydon and defeat it.

Guts was treated differently back then and we knew from the very beginning that Swellow can tank electric attacks, even as a Taillow. Thunder Armor makes sense because Swellow has guts, plain and simple. While the gold coloring was over the top, the actual concept of Thunder Armor has justification.

[marioluigifan05]

Guts was treated differently back then and we knew from the very beginning that Swellow can tank electric attacks, even as a Taillow. Thunder Armor makes sense because Swellow has guts, plain and simple. While the gold coloring was over the top, the actual concept of Thunder Armor has justification.

Why they didn't just use Wattson's gym to show off Guts then? Not only would it have made more sense, but it might have been more believable, too.

[1rkhachatryan]

Why they didn't just use Wattson's gym to show off Guts then? Not only would it have made more sense, but it might have been more believable, too.

Cuz Pikachu needed more DEM wins, duh.

[00poke_maniac]

._. I found Thunder Armor cool.

I don't really think there are any big DEMs in Pokemon...it's not like it has a strong plot. ^^; I'm trying to think in some movies but I'm drawing blank.

[CyberCubed]

What? How so?

Just ignore her, she doesn't watch the episodes. Obviously a few of May's wins were very cheap, but far from all of them. And same could be said about any of Misty's with Psyduck (obviously), and a few of Dawn's against Ursula.

[pokemonsquared]

At least psyduck was consistent. It only worked if something hurt its head. Even if confusion was stupidly OP.

Besides mamoswine was used in 2/3s of the battles vs ursula, one was a DEM on the other end due to electric working vs ground and the second involved a barrage of attacks not unlike what swellow takes on a regular basis, is a mammmoth supposed to have less endurance than a bird?! now to think about it Swellow is a DEM. The third wasn't even a knockout.

[CyberCubed]

At least psyduck was consistent. It only worked if something hurt its head. Even if confusion was stupidly OP.

The problem is Psyduck was used to cheapen out whenever Misty needed a win, like against Lickitung to win the Princess Festival or against Ash in the Whirl Cup.

Psyduck was used to almost make Misty's battle skills look incompetent until she got a headache to get a win for her. Now if Misty was ever able to control Psyduck's powers that would have been a different story, but it just happened randomly.

[Caseydia]

Definetly the "Pokémon tears can resurrect the dead" crap in M01. No, the legend the lady speaks of about tears restoring the world WASN'T in the original version. So it came completely out of nowhere. I don't care if they can breath fire or create worlds, POKÉMON ARE NOT JESUS.



When Rhyhorn can be hurt by Thunderbolt in the games, then I'll take that "clever-thinking" statement of yours seriously.

It's probably because anime and the games are different. Even you can figure that out.

[pokemon fan 132]

Excluding infamous "thunder armor" here are few i can think from top of my head:
-Ash battle against Frontier brain Tucker: it was easily one of most contrived and poorly written comebacks ever in this show. During whole match Swampert and Arcanine were throwing Ash pokemon left and right with their attacks causing serious damage to Swellow and Corphish. Just to see having them ridiculous comeback getting up after lethal twister compound of water pulse and fire blast knocking down both of Tucker pokemon basically with one measly Aerial ace and crab hammer.

I understand sometimes pokemon can have strong willpower and everything but this was ridiculous, surviving barrage of opponent attacks and overpowering their moves to the point that one attack basically was enough to knock down opponent side.
Now that i think about it writers often played on card of resistance with Ash Corphish and Swellow too much and lame comebacks.

-May win over Ogata Venusaur: Frenzy plant attack is usually enough strong to knock down bigger and more resistant pokemon than Combisken, but once again we saw writers exaggerating with pokemon resistance to justify win from main character. Since May pookemon didn't survived one but two hits from such attack finishing of large pokemon like Venusaur with single sky uppercut and peck prior to that.

Not something which i would call believable in my book. Now that i think about it May Skitty also often won in similar manner.

-Iris battle against Luke in Club battle tournament: This was typical textbook example of deus ex machina device being used to resolve unsolvable problem. Luke Gollet had win in its hands being matter of time when Axew is going to be knocked out with dragon rage being skillfully countered, while scratch not having any effect whatsoever. And just about when Axew was put in corner being ready to be finished of he learned outrage out of nowhere knocking Luke pokemon down. Despite never using it before or being trained enough to warrant learning one of most powerful dragon type moves from nothing.

Whats even funnier was that after that Axew never used this attack only further adding to fact how it was only used to resolve issue regarding Gollet.

Psyduck was used to almost make Misty's battle skills look incompetent until she got a headache to get a win for her. Now if Misty was ever able to control Psyduck's powers that would have been a different story, but it just happened randomly.

I don't think that was really writer intention. Psyduck main purpose was to be source of comedy bringing extra gust to group dynamic by causing negative reactions, or to simply provide moment of tension when Misty was in some important battles making outcome all that more uncertain with his random popping out.

We had opportunity to see plenty of times Misty winning battle through her own skill without Psyduck help, so i don't really think occasional headache from Psyduck side can be used as reflection of Misty competence as trainer.

Not to mention Psyduck headache defeating opponent through psychic attacks cannot even be considered deux machina. When taken in account how it happened on consistent basis being established early in Kanto how pressure on duck head is going to cause big headache allowing to release enormous amount of mental energy in process.
In reality it was Jessie and Ash stupidity in examples you count which net them loses.