One of my absolute favourite passages in Lord of the Rings comes at the end of the chapter “The Siege of Gondor” in Return of the King. It is overwhelming in its darkness until, at the end, light and hope break in. It is a fantastic moment of eucatastrophe within the larger narrative, when all... Continue Reading →
The Eucatastrophe of Man’s History
In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien lays out his understanding of how fairytales and all fantasy literature works (or ought to work). There are many ways in which the modern fantasy genre has deviated from this understanding, but then Professor Tolkien was not speaking prescriptively but descriptively. That is to say that while Tolkien does,... Continue Reading →
