History Main / DeusExitMachina

** In "[[Recap/PokemonS1E29ThePunchyPokemon The Punchy Pokémon]]", Ash enters a Fighting-type tournament with the Primeape he [[Recap/PokemonS1E25PrimeapeGoesBananas caught four episodes ago]]. It ends with Ash leaving Primeape with another trainer who had entered the tournament so that it can get stronger -- never mind that as a Pokémon trainer, helping Pokémon get stronger is supposed to be Ash's job. The episode [[AssPull offers no explanation]] as to why Ash couldn't adequately train Primeape himself[[note]]One possibility is that this training is so Primeape could legitimately be stronger than the Hitmonchan the other trainer (who runs a local Fighting type gym) entered in the tournament, as Primeape never directly defeated in battle, but instead defeated the Hitmonlee the Team Rocket Trio borrowed, which only beat said Hitmonchan due to the trio cheating during its match[[/note]].

** The Asgard at least ''do'' help out and give technology and whatnot, but [[DownerEnding unfortunately]], [[CloningBlues they have their own problems to deal with]]. If they could have sent in a full Asgard battle fleet, they could have easily walked all over the Goa'uld.

** In-universe, the use of this trope is justified in that the knights of the cross are expected to be good or virtuous in ''all'' things, so when they're not divinely mandated to be somewhere they're easily distracted by helping a little old lady cross the street, if they stop a mugging they'll also make their court date to stand as an honest witness, and so on. Their militant aspect is implied to be god's measure of last resort, so the call to action (and associated "right place at the right time" power) only activate if evil is otherwise inevitable. So long as Harry and his other allies have things in hand, God isn't going to hot-drop his personal SEAL team into the situation. Narratively, the trope is probably used just because Harry would be much less of a TheAloner HurtingHero if his powerful, competent friend were actually reliable.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartscoded'': Mickey once again goes solo against Maleficent and her forces after Data Sora loses his Keyblade. He arrives on the nick of time to save the day by rendering the data of Sora's Heartless powerless for Sora to finish off... And then during the final conflict, Data Roxas purposefully puts him on delay so he can't do anything to help Sora and make the final challenges look easy.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainofMemories'': During Riku's internal conflict with Ansem, Mickey ''does'' provide assistance but as he is in the Realm of Darkness for most of the time, Riku still struggles even with Mickey's support to keep himself from succumbing. When Mickey finally returns, he easily stops Ansem... Only for it to be revealed that Riku has to face Ansem by himself. It's acknowledged he would have defeated Ansem, but Riku decides he has to fight by himself and reserves Mickey for the worst case scenario where he is possessed by Ansem. He ultimately saves Riku from being consumed by the darkness but his role in the game is quite supportive and while he is an assist character, his abilities are clearly quite underwhelmed in order to ensure he doesn't single-handedly finish the fights quickly.

* Conan of REH's ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' series has this happen to him in ''Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn''. He gets captured by Salome's henchmen, and crucified outside the city gates; an Arabianesque fellow who happens to wander by takes Conan down. Conan joins his little bandit gang and spends a good deal of the story pillaging and doing things outside of the city-state of Khauran where most of the story transpires; leaving the young guard to be the hero of his own story.

* This constantly happens to {{Manga/Doraemon}}, especially in the DarkerAndEdgier movies where the heroes often go on adventures and face off against [[VileVillainSaccharineShow serious villains]]. Doraemon is a DoAnythingRobot with thousands of futuristic gadgets in his [[BagOfHolding Pocket of Holding]] that cover almost every conceivable power including {{Reality Warp|er}}ing, so the story usually has him [[TheWorfEffect knocked out]], [[RummageFail too panicked to find a useful gadget]], [[HoldingBackThePhlebotinum separated from his pocket]], or [[PhlebotinumBreakdown have the appropriate gadgets break down]] to stop him from resolving the main conflict in five minutes. Also helping with this trope is that despite having the tools to do tremendous damage, Doraemon [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids was designed as a childcarer]] and not for combat, so he is non-violent by nature, often bringing out only the minimum firepower needed to deter or restrain enemies in self defense.

** Also, Pain's invasion occurred after Jiraiya's death, and Tsunade was in a coma. Either one of those two aiding Naruto during the fight would have drastically altered the fight's progression. Also, several of the more powerful Jonin were away on missions. Might Gai alone would've probably been able to take out a few of the Paths of Pain had he been present.
** Possibly invoked when [[spoiler: Sasuke announces his plans to take over the world. He's savvy enough to wait until after the resurrected Hokage are returned to the afterlife, so that they can't all team up and fight him.]]

* During the Assassination Island arc of ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', [[spoiler:the students force Koro-sensei into his ultimate defense mode, in which he is rendered immobile for 24 hours. When Takaoka and his hitmen attack the class, the remaining 15 students and the other two teachers have to handle the situation by themselves. The other teachers are incapacitated early in the operation, Irina due to having to distract a lobby full of people and Takaoka due to breathing in a face full of poison gas that he doesn't recover from until the climax, meaning that it's more or less all up to the remaining students]].

** Charizard, being a very iconic Pokémon, could not be easily written out, so per the initial guidelines of being powerful, but not competent, Ash could not reasonably control his disobedient, power-hungry Charizard for the last portion of his journey in Kanto (and it sleeping on the battlefield in the Indigo League even got Ash eliminated from the tournament). He only finally regained the draconic Pokémon's loyalty late into the Orange Islands saga, and following its loss to Drake's Dragonite in the Orange League, proceeded to make Ash's traveling through Johto much easier (aside Falkner having a tough Pidgeot solely to make the first gym leader battle fair). Once the Johto starters were finally being introduced and starting to replace mons on Ash's team, "[[Recap/PokemonS3E18CharizardsBurningAmbitions Charizard's Burning Ambitions]]" has Misty and Brock [[LampshadeHanging remark that Charizard has been making it too easy for Ash to win battles]], and at the end of the episode, Ash leaves Charizard at the Charicific Valley to train with even stronger individuals of its species. This didn't stop it from making several return appearances alongside other benched species (with its involvement in getting Ash his final gym badge in Johto and appearances in the Johto League and Battle Frontier), even being the only one of these to rejoin Ash in [[Anime/Pokemon3 a movie]]. The process behind Ash using it again was simplified to having it move to Oak's lab, allowing it to rejoin his team for the remainder of his journey through Unova, only for it to continue sitting out alongside other retired Pokémon [[spoiler:until Ash defeated Leon and began using all his old mons again in a regular capacity]].

** Charizard, being a very iconic Pokémon, could not be easily written out, so per the initial guidelines of being powerful, but not competent, Ash could not reasonably control his disobedient, power-hungry Charizard for the last portion of his journey in Kanto (and it sleeping on the battlefield in the Indigo League even got Ash eliminated from the tournament). He only finally regained the draconic Pokeémon's loyalty late into the Orange Islands saga, and following its loss to Drake's Dragonite in the Orange League, proceeded to make Ash's traveling through Johto much easier (aside Falkner having a tough Pidgeot solely to make the first gym leader battle fair). Once the Johto starters were finally being introduced and starting to replace mons on Ash's team, "[[Recap/PokemonS3E18CharizardsBurningAmbitions Charizard's Burning Ambitions]]" has Misty and Brock [[LampshadeHanging remark that Charizard has been making it too easy for Ash to win battles]], and at the end of the episode, Ash leaves Charizard at the Charicific Valley to train with even stronger individuals of its species. This didn't stop it from making several return appearances alongside other benched species (with its involvement in getting Ash his final gym badge in Johto and appearances in the Johto League and Battle Frontier), even being the only one of these to rejoin Ash in [[Anime/Pokemon3 a movie]]. The process behind Ash using it again was simplified to having it move to Oak's lab, allowing it to rejoin his team for the remainder of his journey through Unova, only for it to continue sitting out alongside other retired Pokémon [[spoiler:until Ash defeated Leon and began using all his old mons again in a regular capacity]].

** Charizard, being a very iconic Pokémon, could not be easily written out, so per the initial guidelines of being powerful, but not competent, Ash could not reasonably control his disobedient, power-hungry Charizard for the last portion of his journey in Kanto (and it sleeping on the battlefield in the Indigo League even got Ash eliminated from the tournament). He only finally regained the draconic Pokeémon's loyalty late into the Orange Islands saga, and following its loss to Drake's Dragonite in the Orange League, proceeded to make Ash's traveling through Johto much easier (aside Falkner having a tough Pidgeot solely to make the first gym leader battle fair). Once the Johto starters were finally being introduced and starting to replace mons on Ash's team, "[[Recap/PokemonS3E18CharizardsBurningAmbitions Charizard's Burning Ambitions]]" has Misty and Brock [[LampshadeHanging remark that Charizard has been making it too easy for Ash to win battles]], and at the end of the episode, Ash leaves Charizard at the Charicific Valley to train with even stronger individuals of its species. This didn't stop it from making several return appearances alongside other benched species (with its involvement in getting Ash his final gym badge in Johto and appearances in the Johto League and Battle Frontier), even being the only one of these to rejoin Ash in [[Anime/SpellOfTheUnown a movie]]. The process behind Ash using it again was simplified to having it move to Oak's lab, allowing it to rejoin his team for the remainder of his journey through Unova, only for it to continue sitting out alongside other retired Pokémon [[spoiler:until Ash defeated Leon and began using all his old mons again in a regular capacity]].

* In the ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' anime, Ash routinely gets rid of his old high level Pokémon to make room for the new models, often leaving them with Professor Oak. The practice officially kicked into gear starting with the transition from Johto to Hoenn, and has been utilized ever since. However, Ash would occasionally bring old Pokémon back every now and then for select circumstances, such as a tournament or a situation that best suited bringing it back, though he phased this out after Sinnoh, using only new species alongside [[SeriesMascot]] Pikachu. [[spoiler:Once Ash defeated Leon and became World Monarch, he was finally able to use his old Pokémon left at Professor Oak's lab again, keeping them in rotation]].
** In "[[Recap/PokemonS1E29ThePunchyPokemon The Punchy Pokémon]]", Ash enters a Fighting-type tournament with the Primeape he [[Recap/PokemonS1E25PrimeapeGoesBananas caught four episodes ago]]. It ends with Ash leaving Primeape with another trainer who had entered the tournament so that it can get stronger -- never mind that as a Pokémon trainer, helping Pokémon get stronger is supposed to be Ash's job. The episode [[AssPull offers no explanation]] as to why Ash couldn't adequately train Primeape himself[[note]]One possibility is that this training is so Primeape could legitimately be stronger than the Hitmonchan this trainer (who runs a local Fighting type gym) entered in the tournament, as Primeape never directly defeated in battle, but instead defeated the Hitmonlee the Team Rocket Trio borrowed, which only beat said Hitmonchan due to the trio cheating during its match[[/note]].
** "[[Recap/PokemonS3E18CharizardsBurningAmbitions Charizard's Burning Ambitions]]" has Brock and Misty Misty and Brock [[LampshadeHanging remark that Charizard has been making it too easy for Ash to win battles]], and at the end of the episode Ash leaves Charizard at the Charicific Valley to train.

** Ash's [[ThrowTheDogABone victory]] in the Alola League, and the rewarded exhibition match against Professor Kukui [[spoiler:(plus [[OlympusMons Tapu Koko]])]] pulled a unique take on his BagOfSpilling: [[spoiler:while his Ultra Beast, Naganadel, returned to Ultra Space, Ash chose to leave his remaining Alolan Pokémon, which consisted of Rowlet, Lycanroc, Incineroar, and his first ever Mythical Pokémon, Melmetal, behind in Alola rather than take them back to Kanto as he did his other Pokémon, feeling they would be homesick if he did take them to Kanto]].

* In the ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' anime, meanwhile, Ash routinely gets rid of his old high level Pokémon to make room for the new models. This is actually played with in the early Johto episodes.
** In "[[Recap/PokemonS1E29ThePunchyPokemon The Punchy Pokémon]]", Ash enters a Fighting-type tournament with the Primeape he [[Recap/PokemonS1E25PrimeapeGoesBananas caught four episodes ago]]. It ends with Ash leaving Primeape with another trainer who had entered the tournament so that it can get stronger -- never mind that as a Pokémon trainer, helping Pokémon get stronger is supposed to be Ash's job. The episode [[AssPull offers no explanation]] as to why Ash couldn't adequately train Primeape himself.

** Periodically, the Justice League are left indisposed so there's a reason the titular team have to be taking on the biggest issues. In the first season finale [[spoiler:the Justice League ''were'' the threat because they were being mind-controlled]]. Partway into the second season [[spoiler:most of the league's strongest members are forced off-world to take responsibility for action they were made to do during said period]], and in the third season, [[spoiler:most are offworld again, this time to rescue metahuman children trafficked into space, while the League also undergoes a schism due to Lex Luthor's manipulations causing several members, most prominently Batman and Green Arrow, to leave the League]].

*** This gradually begins to be subverted with a few season 1 heroes also joining the Justice League and having larger roles in the story, first with Zatanna and Rocket, then Kaldur'ahm as the second Aquaman. Season 3 additionally turns this around with Black Lightning being one of the members of Nightwing's Team faction (although he had to resign from the Justice League in the process), and [[spoiler:being the one to expose Lex Luthor]], alongside Batman [[spoiler:providing the vital intel for the heroes to know Terra was a spy all along, yet still allow her to reform]]. While Season 4 initially has Superman [[spoiler:captured and nearly killed by the machinations of General Zod, once freed he joins the season's final battle, though the enemies being Kryptonians evens the playing field]].

Well, [[SidekickGlassCeiling 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 [[ThePlotReaper 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 [[PutOnABus 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, [[ProtectorBehindBars maybe they were arrested]] and are showing SelfRestraint. However it's done, the DeusExMachina is temporarily out of commission, and the weaker heroes have to win the fight on their own.

* The dragon in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' sequels suffers from this. She's off-screen except for a credits scene in the sequel (due to being pregnant, it turns out), and in the third installment, the first thing the villain's group does is throw a net over her, taking her out of the equation for some time. In the fourth movie, she's back to being an enemy because of the alternate timeline.

** The Eagles are used as DeusExMachina on several occasions in Lord of the Rings books to solve a particular problem, but for the purposes of this trope then vanish until next time despite the fact that they could easily bypass most of the trip using them, with even less justification for it given in the movies. This point is repeatedly parodied in several Lord of the Rings [[WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded HISHEs.]]
*** Tolkien himself was concerned about having used the Eagles in this manner and has hinted in some of his writings that the Eagles have a special connection to Eru and only appear at times of dire need, so they really ''are'' this trope.
*** It has been pointed out the eagles probably would have been seen by Sauron and intercepted. Also the ring would probably have corrupted them.

* [[spoiler:Claire Stanfield]] of ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' isn't quite written out of the light novels, so much as WordOfGod has stated he'll never get his own story arc or book since he'd just [[AxCrazy solo the entire cast]] in under thirty pages.

* Happens repeatedly during ''LightNovel/CoffinPrincessChaika''. Because Fredrica, in [[OurDragonsAreDifferent her dragoon form]], is capable of tearing apart any threat facing the heroes in five seconds flat, the plot has to invent reasons for her to be incapable of joining any fight the heroes find themselves in.

* Fox Spirit Chizuru is BroughtDownToNormal prior to a major battle in ''LightNovel/{{Kanokon}}'', giving OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Kouta the chance to defeat TheDragon by himself. It's a bit of an unusual example, because normally they work together anyway to defeat their enemies, but Chizuru usually prompts their fusion and she's in control during it, and Kouta still needed her around so ''he'' could possess ''her'' (usually it's the other way around) during the fight, but he still does the work himself.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the ridiculously powerful Xellos always seems to disappear at the most inconvenient times...or, even worse, is deliberately unhelpful. This is initially justified by his apparently flighty and unreliable personality, and later even more justified by the revelation that [[spoiler:he is actually a very loyal and reliable agent...''to the other side''. Likewise he can only be as helpful as he wishes as long as he doesn't arouse suspicion]].

* In the 7th ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novel, Mikuru gets [[spoiler:kidnapped by some hostile organizations]]. What follows is a [[spoiler:carchase with Mori and Arakawa from the organization]]. Of course, Kyon ''could'' have just [[spoiler:called Yuki for help, since she's just about omnipotent]]. This is justified by a) there was not much time and Kyon was in serious panic and b) He doesn't like to rely on [[spoiler:Yuki]], because he already owes her enough. The best thing is when Kyon actually ''thinks'' what would have happened if [[spoiler:Yuki was involved]]. To quote the man himself:

** In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'', Star-Lord's plan to save Xandar from Ronan includes Yondu accompanying the Guardians aboard Ronan's ship, the Dark Aster. During the dogfight against the Kree, Yondu is shot down, telling Quill that he's on his own. The audience is shown exactly why Yondu was taken out of the fight, when he singlehandedly takes out a squadron of Sakaarans with only his Yaka Arrow.

* [[spoiler:Claire Stanfield]] of ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' isn't quite written out of the light novels, so much as WordofGod has stated he'll never get his own story arc or book since he'd just [[AxCrazy solo the entire cast]] in under thirty pages.

* In ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'', According to WordofGod, this is the reason [[TheAce Genzo "SGGK" Wakabayashi]] is PutOnABus: Because he's one of the strongest goal keepers in the world and there is only a couple of players who can score a goal on him. So he was removed from half of the manga and went in Germany to train, leaving [[ButtMonkey Yuzo]] [[ShrinkingViolet Morizaki]] in his place.

* This constantly happens to {{Manga/Doraemon}}, especially in the DarkerAndEdgier movies where the heroes often go on adventures and face off against [[VileVillainSaccharineShow serious villains]]. Doraemon is a DoAnythingRobot with thousands of futuristic gadgets in his [[BagOfHolding Pocket of Holding]] that cover almost every conceivable power including RealityWarping, so the story usually has him [[TheWorfEffect knocked out]], [[RummageFail too panicked to find a useful gadget]], [[HoldingBackThePhlebotinum separated from his pocket]], or [[PhlebotinumBreakdown have the appropriate gadgets break down]] to stop him from resolving the main conflict in five minutes. Also helping with this trope is that despite having the tools to do tremendous damage, Doraemon [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids was designed as a childcarer]] and not for combat, so he is non-violent by nature, often bringing out only the minimum firepower needed to deter or restrain enemies in self defense.

* WordofGod is that this is why [[spoiler:Discord abandons the Equestrian dimension]] at the end of ''[[Fanfic/TheDearSweetieBelleContinuity What's Done in the Dark...]]''.

*** In a non-combat version, most of the MCU's best scientists and engineers, including Shuri, Hank Pym and Selvig are killed in the Snap. This leaves Tony Stark as the only remaining person [[spoiler: to invent Time Travel. Had anyone of the other characters have been left, the Avengers would have gone to them and Tony would have remained retired.]]

** The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} of these was probably in the third volume when Hiro was given the mind of a 10-year-old to prevent him interfering, before Arthur Patrelli [[spoiler: completely stripped him of his power]]. WordofGod says that they were trying to write out time-traveling powers from the storyline so they wouldn't have to keep doing this to characters.

** VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 is the game that introduced the aforementioned SuperMode, and the canon ending is that Sonic collects all of the Chaos Emeralds at the end. So naturally the ''first'' thing that happens in VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog3 is newcomer Knuckles ambushes Sonic and steals all of the emeralds, forcing the player to collect them again. After this, similarly to the Dragon Balls, the Chaos Emeralds would scatter across the globe after all seven were used.
** In the Classic games, every playable character at the time had a SuperMode of their own. After ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', Tails and Knuckles inexplicably lost theirs and Sonic, being TheHero naturally, is now the one of the few capable of going Super. Later games would introduce other characters with the ability to go Super, but Tails and Knuckles never get theirs back. VideoGame/SonicHeroes does have them fight alongside Sonic in the final boss, but WordofGod claims they weren't "true" super modes and Sonic simply lent them the power. WordofGod has also invoked this trope by claiming "only male Hedgehogs can go Super" locking pretty much everyone but three characters from ever using them.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''

* ''Anime/PatlaborTheMovie'': Like the rest of the ''Franchise/{{Patlabor}}'' franchise, the film focuses on the RagtagBunchOfMisfits that is Special Vehicles Division 2, rather than Captain Shinobu Nagumo's more by-the-book Division 1. [=SV1=] would have been a major asset at the climax, so they're written out of the action early by establishing that the unit is in the process of upgrading from their converted construction Labors to the purpose-built Type Zero, [[spoiler:which is discovered to have been infected with the same ComputerVirus sabotage as the civilian Labors that keep going berserk and therefore is not deployable]].

** In "[[Recap/PokemonS1E29ThePunchyPokemon The Punchy Pokémon]]", Ash enters a Fughting-type tournament with the Primeape he [[Recap/PokemonS1E25PrimeapeGoesBananas caught four episodes ago]]. It ends with Ash leaving Primeape with another trainer who had entered the tournament so that it can get stronger -- never mind that as a Pokémon trainer, helping Pokémon get stronger is supposed to be Ash's job. The episode [[AssPull offers no explanation]] as to why Ash couldn't adequately train Primeape himself.

* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' The Nonary game's digital roots are the keys to escape. Certain doors on the ship contain numbers painted on them in red paint. These numbered doors can only be opened when the numbers of bracelets verified have a digital root of that number. If the digital root of these numbers is not the number on the door, the RED will read "ERROR" and the screen will clear. The number 9 is an extremely valuable and versatile number, as it is the only number that will not change the digital root of the number it is added to. This means that the bearer of the number 9 bracelet can more easily control his fate than the other players, as he can join any team whose digital root is 9, even teams of two. So the number 9 bracelet is given to a SacrificialLamb character in the game's prologue to increase the stakes.