Tolkien (and other loves of my life)
Tag: Providence
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Why Eru Didn’t Trip Gollum: Con-Creation in The Lord of the Rings
Here’s a question: in the climactic moment of The Lord of the Rings, who was responsible for the Ring’s destruction? Was it Frodo? Gollum? Maybe Sam? Alternatively, was it Eru? Is there a sense in which we could say it was Sauron, or even the Ring, itself? There’s a reading …
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Eucatastrope and Teleology
I am trying to determine if Tolkien would say the “Joy beyond the walls of the world” that he associates with the experience of eucatastrophe requires a metaphysical or teleological dimension. Obviously, if Tolkien views the Christian Incarnation and Resurrection as the most potent Primary World examples of eucatastrophe, it seems to me that he…
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Reckoning Nothing of Wizardry or War
Within The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had a particular love for the paragraph in The Return of the King when the horns of the Rohirrim sound, announcing what may be the second most famous eucatastrophic moment in the story. My favorite line, however, has always been the paragraph that precedes it—cock crow: “And in that very moment,…
