Two recent posts comment on Tolkien’s concept of eucatastrophe:
From Adam Roberts:
https://medium.com/adams-notebook/two-thoughts-on-eucatastrophe-e2fc62f97a3c
and from Daniel Stride:
https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2021/11/01/on-tolkienian-eucatastrophe-a-reply-to-adam-roberts/
Although I really like Daniel (and interviewed him here) I tend to side with Roberts on this topic. As Roberts puts it:
For a story properly to be eucatastophic it needs to have more than just a happy ending (although it does need a happy ending). It needs to be tending implacably towards tragedy, to frame a sense of inevitable disaster, for ‘good’ to be facing overwhelming odds and certain defeat, such that the final triumph of good is both sudden and unexpected — or (because this is also part of Tolkien’s understanding of the eucatastrophe) both unexpected and not unexpected.
I think this captures the concept fairly well, and Roberts is correct to note that Tolkien seems to believe that the universe actually works this way. That is, regardless of the ‘tragic’ character of life, we can on some level expect that God will fix things in the end.
Stride takes issue with Roberts’ application of the idea, though:
Consider for example, the two great Eucatastrophes of Tolkien’s fiction – the successful Voyage of Eärendil in the First Age, and the Destruction of the Ring in the Third. Neither is a matter of complacent expectation that “it will all come out in the wash.” Neither is about instilling arrogant righteousness in its beneficiaries. And neither is the Hollywood-style Happy Ending so criticised by Roberts.
No, both are the culmination of countless individual efforts, and countless individual choices. The Silmaril and its bearers have their own tangled history, as does the One Ring. And yet neither episode are the pure product of our protagonists’ blood, sweat, and tears. These are, after all, desperate pilgrimages – with the associated Divine overtones in their fulfilment. They are abnormal events, by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t think Roberts is really arguing that these outcomes are the result of complacent expectation, per se, although I think Stride actually underestimates the degree to which some characters do think this. In The Children of Húrin, the Elves Gelmir and Arminas confront Túrin on his pessimistic, Northern heroic outlook:
All the might of the Elves and the Edain united sufficed only to contain him [Morgoth] and to gain the peace of a siege; long indeed, but only so long so as Morgoth bided his time before he broke the leaguer; and never again can such a union be made. Only in secrecy lies hope of survival. Until the Valar come.
Túrin, by contrast, seeks to face his enemy on the battlefield, believing that no eucatastrophe is finally possible. I’ve always thought that the story is actually rather ambiguous as to how this plays out, even in The Silmarillion itself. Sure, the Valar do eventually arrive, but only after a great deal of suffering and death has been allowed to occur. This is, for me, where Tolkien’s sentiment, as expressed in ‘On Fairy Stories’ meets the inexorable logic of his narrative: the eucatastrophe is not, really, a good enough theodicy to seem convincing in the context of a world such as Tolkien builds in, say The Children of Húrin. For Tolkien, eucatastrophe was something of a theological matter, though, as Roberts recognises:
So far as Tolkien was concerned the greatest story — the Christian passion — was also eucatastrophic. This is the story God is telling, through the medium of His creation. Which is to say, Tolkien thought this was the deep structure of the universe as such.
So what is going on here? I think that the concept of the eucatastrophic ending was clearly important for Tolkien, but I don’t think he could get it to work in his major life’s work, The Silmarillion cycle itself. Sure, it’s most successful form, perhaps, happens when Frodo, Sam and Gollum manage to destroy the Ring (unwittingly), and it is in The Lord of the Rings where Tolkien’s theological sentiments find their purest expression. But elsewhere, the story isn’t so clear. Perhaps this is what Stride is getting at when he notes that
What is truly “normal” here is covered by an equally famous Tolkienian phrase, noticeably missing from Roberts’ article – the notion of the “long defeat.” For Tolkien, the Fallen nature of the world meant that things will get worse over time, in much the same way that entropy increases. And this, of course, shows up in his fiction.
I agree with this, but I just take it further. I think Tolkien’s fiction is defined by the struggle, or the tension, between eucatastrophe and the ‘long defeat’, and I tend to think the long defeat wins out, in the end, and perhaps against Tolkien’s theological proclivities.
My reading of Turin's debates with the Elves (most thoroughly featured in his argument with Gwindor in Nargothrond) is that both sides have their points - but, as presented within Tolkien's narrative, both are also wrong. Turin is correct in criticising the sheer passivity of the Elves - sitting around will do very little. On the other hand, Turin's activity is too driven by pride and despair to be healthy (like Denethor he has abandoned any faith in a benevolent world order).
Basically, passive hope for Eucatastrophe is as much an error as is despairing of it. Personally, I prefer Turin's overall stance and sentiment here, if not his actual methods - I've always supported making an effort. And on something like Climate Change, trying and failing is better than not trying at all.
Earendil and Elwing arguably represent a middle-ground between the two positions. They aren't passive (nor is the Silmaril that enables them gained passively), yet they still see some point in appealing to the Valar at all. And, by coincidence, it just so happens that both Earendil and Elwing are part-Elf and part-Man.