Eucatastrophe is a term that Tolkien coined in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” and that refers to ¨a sudden turn of events in a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and plausible and probable doom¨; it´s in short words the favorable resolution of a situation that by all accounts should have ended badly.
He refered to it, for example in that little misstep from the dwarf as they´re carrying Snowwhite away that made the piece of apple dislodge from her throat and awakens the Princess; although I´m much more partial to using the example of Bilbo not killing Gollum in The Hobbit as a much fitting example, that the fact he refused to partake in an act of senseless cruelty derived, without his knowing at the time, in the ultimate end of the Ring in the fiery pits of Mt. Doom.

Now, I oppose the view that eucatastrophe is a type of Deus ex Machina, things are not solved magically by the will of the writer/a higher being; I don´t find it an analogy for hope or faith either, that would mean that there is no involvement from us, that we become just passive observers of the situation when, in fact, people actively contribute to the developing of the eucatastrophe.
So, how could we comprehend eucatastrophe in its entirety then? It´s possible to do so if we think of it as the unexpected consequences that come from every action we do, no matter how small, and that count positively towards the greater outcome. It´d be more equated with a ´positive butterfly effect´ or with the Nietzschean philosophy of ´act as if every moment would be eternally repeated in time´ than with divine intervention.

And I think that´s something that ties perfectly with the social environment on which we live: Fascism is on the rise, disguised as ¨putting citizens first¨ everywhere, the algorithms and big tech companies support them and do their work in detriment of the whole of humankind and planet. This all has the purpose of keeping people in fear and apathetic, paralysed to take any action.
How do we combat this fear then? Some may argue that fear is fought off by being uber prepared, but trying to be ready for any possible disastrous outcome would just result in the anxiety of grasping too much at once and wouldn´t dispell the paralysis. Others resort to try ´keeping things as they were´, close off borders, mistrust their neighbours, and trying to control every detail of life, which is not only impossible but just makes that fear take root and turn into hate.

I´d rather say that this fear they´re trying to instill can only be fought off by cultivating ourselves in a way that makes us: Flexible enough to adapt to new situations as they unfold, and strong enough to withstand whatever may come. And that´s where the concept of eucatastrophe comes into play, becuase getting ourselves ¨unstuck¨ from that paralysis starts by living, by actually being present and paying attention to every thing and moment that we live through.
If we consider that every fed bird, every saved bee, every kid brought to laughter, every shared resource…Everything counts. And one can never know from which, out of all those human and natural connections, an eucatastrophic moment could rise in the future.

Bringing ourselves out of the zombification by being our most genuine selves is the way by which we keep our humanity alive, and praise its place within the natural world in this beautiful strange rock floating in space we call Earth