eucatastrophe: piercing joy that brings tears

[littlemanpoet]

Helen: "Since there seems to be more than one voice insisting that there can only be one eucatastrophe, one revelation, per book, I'm a bit baffled."
Kuruharan: "Who has said that?"

Uh, me. But I am modifying my view to take into account Marel-fluim's pov idea. So on one hand there is the thematic eucatastrophe, that being the destruction of the Ring and defeat of the Dark Lord against all odds, and on the other hand there is character eucatastrophe; for Frodo it is arguably Gollum biting off his finger and thus saving Frodo from evil; for Sam, perhaps it is not dying in Mordor after all; and so forth. I would argue that Sam jumping into the water is not eucatastrophe, but characteristic exhibition of his loyalty. Whereas wonderous because Sam's loyalty is wonderful, not eucatastrophic precisely because it's the kind of thing Sam would do.

You know, there is a side of me that dislikes analyzing Tolkien and the LotR into the ground like this, and I only do it so as to keep Tolkien's terms true to their original intent. What I'm trying to say is that Helen is quite right in pointing us to the many beautiful strands in the tapestry that is LotR.