The Quenta Silmarillion Eucatastrophe-less

[Aiwendil]

Bethberry wrote:

This is, to me, what accounts for the kind of frustration which Imladris has identified here.

This is interesting. I had always considered the compromise between mythology and theology to be one of the strong points of the Silmarillion, that which elevates it above both the purely mythological (i.e. ancient) and the purely theological (i.e., in this case, Christian). I suppose one person's profound satisfaction is another's insatiable frustration.

This is why, for me, the question of whether the eucatastrophe 'exists' in the text or in the reader is a fruitless dichotomy. It exists where the reader brings his or her mind to bear on the story

Which is to say (and please forgive my pedantry) that it is subjective and dependent on the reader (for in either case it's dependent on the text). Certainly there is some event that occurs in a reader's mind on reading the relevant text. We may as well call this "eucatastrophe". But that definition does not answer the question: is there an object in the text itself that we could define as the "eucatastrophe inducer" for lack of a better term (i.e. if we reserve "eucatastrophe" itself for the event between the book and the reader)?