eucatastrophe: piercing joy that brings tears

[Kuruharan]

Squatter:

Some eucatastrophic events can be greater and more decisive than others, but that doesn't make the more minor ones any less deserving of the description.

True. But I still think that a dream can't be a eucatastrophe. I also lay particular stress on "can never be counted on to be repeated." If something happens more than once you start to feel that it can happen the same way again.

Gandalf_theGrey

However, I would say that there are indeed dreams of another nature ... dreams so powerful as to be life-changing. Such dreams qualify as events in and of themselves.

In that point I'm afraid our opinions must respectfully follow slightly different paths. I'm not for a minute denying that a dream can change somebody's life so that they sally forth to do great deeds and wreck eucatastrophies wherever they go, but I personally believe that there needs to be some sort of, well, "action" involved. That a eucatastrophe should be the type of thing that reaches beyond one individual. Of course, the effect of a eucatastrophe for individuals can be intensely personal, but I think that a wider range of characters needs to be involved. It increases the inherent improbability and the miraculousness of the "event."

Nar:
Actually it is an interesting point in The Hobbit that the forces of Good were not really able to assure their victory until Beorn came and killed Blog. So maybe the Eagles coming was not such a eucatastrophe after all. Maybe the arrival of Beorn from hundreds and hundreds of miles away, just in time to smash and slash goblins and kill Blog, was the real eucatastrophe.

Frodo and Sam need not die in a horribly existentialist manner after saving everyone --'Well, you got what you wanted, and it's a cold, hard, ironic universe after all.'

Ahh, wouldn't that version just warm-over the cold, dead hearts of the literary critics.

Hmm, looking over this thread I get the feeling that my mind is very "event" and "action" oriented.

P.S. I also want to make sure that everyone understands that I am talking about events in the story and in the context of the story (defining story as the whole history of Middle earth, as we know it), not the "outside" reactions of the readers. Just making sure. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]