When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his lecture On Fairy Stories, he invented a new word. He used it to describe the moment prior to a story’s positive conclusion when everything seems to have gone against the hero and left them without hope. In a fairy story, it is at this moment that the tables are turned by some unthinkable good fortune. Disaster is avoided and the road to success is revealed.
He called this moment by the neologism “eucatastrophe.” The prefix “eu” means good (as in eulogy—to speak well of someone). It is a positive event that turns everything upon its head.
The pinnacle example of this for Tolkien was the example of Christ’s resurrection. He often described his view that the Christian story was the greatest of all mythical stories not only because it was a tremendous story but because it was true. It was with this witness that he led C.S. Lewis to a renewed faith. Tolkien knew that when everything was darkest on the cross, God was preparing the eucatastrophe that would introduce hope to the world.
When Tolkien wrote, this was a technique that was often in play. When Bilbo angers Smaug and the dragon flies to destroy the city of Dale but at the very last moment, an archer’s arrow enters his only unarmored spot and brings him to the ground. Or outside of the mountain when Thorin and the elves of Mirkwood and the men of Dale appear to be about to lose the battle to the goblins, Beorn and the Eagles arrive just in time to turn the tide. Or the Rohirim answering the call of Gondor just as the King of the Nazgul is about to enter the city. Or Frodo being fully possessed by the ring, and then Gollum biting his finger off and falling into the fire of the volcano.
The best stories have that moment of turning. Tolkien told these so well, because he had experiended the ultimate eucatstrophe in his heart.
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