ACADEMIC PAPER: B+

Fair warning - this was my final paper of my undergraduate program. As such, it may have advanced research that could be confusing. Please do not hesitate to ask questions. I love talking about these ideas.

The following thesis (pp 2) draws upon a lot of pre-existing Tolkien scholarship, but is at its core my own interpretation of both Tolkien's work and the aforementioned pre-existing scholarship.

Pithy TLDR:

Eucatastrophe in Tolkien's works is a matter of characterization, not just plot

Hope Without Gaurantees: Eucatastrophe Through the Lives of Aragorn and Fëanor

Many heroes populate J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium. Elves, men, dwarves, and hobbits span countless books. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are household names between the books, movies, and countless video games. Frodo and Bilbo, Gandalf and Aragorn, Tolkien’s main stories feature epic quests and courageous heroes. But J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, published posthumously by his son and literary heir Christopher Tolkien, features much darker tales for varying length. The longest tale, the Quenta Silmarillion, details the downfall of the elves in Middle Earth after Fëanor, the mightiest of all elves, leads a grief-filled rebellion against the godlike Valar. He fails in his quest, unlike Aragorn, another heir and warrior king. Though both are great warriors and heirs to their respective thrones, Aragorn and Fëanor are given dramatically different endings. Aragorn is heralded as greatest of Mannish kings. Fëanor is remembered as the elf who, though the greatest craftsman, led his people into ruin.

Less known is Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories” which laid out Tolkien’s definition of a fantasy story. Here he coined the term eucatastrophe, the “sudden, joyous turn” related directly to “miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur” which Tolkien calls essential to a fantasy story (“On Fairy-Stories” 283). This is the happy ending, the unlooked-for victory. And though it has often been applied as a feature of plot, this paper argues that in Tolkien’s legendarium, eucatastrophe is also an element of character. The relationship between hope, trust, love, and eucatastrophe can be seen through almost all his main characters. For this paper, I use Fëanor as an example of one who rejects love and Aragorn as one who embraces it. Those that reject love, reject the possibility of eucatastrophe. Those who surround themselves with it, such as Aragorn, ultimately achieve victory as they leave room for eucatastrophe, Tolkien’s most vital element of a fantasy story.

Fëanor: Fallen King of Elves

The story of Fëanor is told in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, compiled and released posthumously by his son. Born the only child of King Finwë and his wife Miriel, Fëanor is described as “the mightiest in skill of word and of hand” of all elves (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 60). Fëanor is uniquely positioned among the elves as the first elf in paradise, Valinor, to lose a parent. Miriel, sapped of her strength with the birth of Fëanor, desires to be allowed to give up her life and rest eternally (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 63-64). In Tolkien’s Legendarium, the elves are not destined to die. They are tied directly to the world through immortality as opposed to Men who are gifted mortality (Odriozola 40). As no other elf had died in paradise, Fëanor faces this concept of death only with his father to comfort him.

The Silmarillion highlights the deep love between Fëanor and Finwë repeatedly. Upon the death of Fëanor’s mother, “all [Finwë’s] love he gave thereafter to his son” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 64). The relationship between Finwë and Fëanor directly influences nearly every event in the rest of The Silmarillion, both in Finwë’s decision to remarry and his eventual death at the hands of Morgoth. Remarriage, just like death, was unheard of in Noldor society in Valinor. But the divine beings, the Valar, permitted Finwë to take a new wife. Even so, “the shadow of Miriel did not depart from the house of Finwë, nor from his heart; and of all whom he loved Fëanor had ever the chief share of his thought,” and Fëanor, bitter over his father’s remarriage, “had no great love for Indis, nor for Fingolfin and Finarfin, her sons” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 65). The lack of love between the half-brothers creates a deep rift in the elves.

Fëanor’s love is given to two categories in The Silmarillion: his father and his creations. Known for his distant wanderings and incredible craftsmanship, Fëanor is rarely described as interacting with anyone but his father, wife, and seven sons. As the greatest craftsman of the elves, “Fëanor was driven by the fire of his own heart only, working ever swiftly and alone; and he asked the aid and sought the counsel of none…save only and for a little while of Nerdanel the Wise, his wife” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 66). Without family, feeling bitterness and anger towards the woman and half-brothers who replaced his dead mother, Fëanor turned to his other love: the works of his hands. In secret, he crafted three jewels to hold the light of the heavens: the silmarils. It is here, in the creation of his works and the isolation from his people that Fëanor’s priorities begin to shift.

As discord begins to grow between the elves who followed the sons of Indis and those who followed Fëanor, Tolkien transitions Fëanor from a wandering prince who took great pride in his labors to an elf who “began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save to his father and his seven sons” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 69). With the transition from love of creation to a “greedy love” focused on hoarding his share of creation, Fëanor’s actions become more hostile towards those he hates: his half-brothers.

In a climactic moment of the relationship between Fëanor and his half-brother Fingolfin, the “greedy love” seen in Fëanor’s actions towards the silmarils manifests in a “greedy love” of his father. He draws his sword, a first in paradise, and threatens Fingolfin saying: “Try but once more to usurp my place and the love of my father, and maybe [this sword] will rid the Noldor of one who seeks to be the master of thralls” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 71). Though Fingolfin had been listening in some part to the rumors of rebellion and unrest between the houses, the text makes it clear he had no intention of overthrowing Fëanor or replacing him as heir. Instead, it is the absence of love transforming into despair and madness which causes Fëanor to threaten his own kin.

When Morgoth, Tolkien’s Satan-like villain, destroys the light of Valinor, all Fëanor has left is the love of his father and his creations. When all that remains of the light lies in the silmarils, the divine Valar ask Fëanor to hand them over. He refuses, and moments later, Fëanor’s descent into madness and despair is completed. A messenger arrives to alert the elves and the Valar that Morgoth not only destroyed the light of the Two Trees, but also stole the silmarils and killed King Finwë. Fëanor breaks:

Then Fëanor rose, and lifting up his hand before Manwe he cursed Melkor, naming him Morgoth… and the hour in which he came to Taniquetil, thinking in his madness of his rage and grief that had he been at Formenos his strength would have availed more than to be slain also, as Melkor had purposed. Then Fëanor ran from the Ring of Doom, and fled into the night; for his father was dearer to him than the Light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands; and who among sons, of Elves or of Men, have held their fathers of greater worth? (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 79)

With the death of Finwë and the theft of the jewels, Fëanor finds himself completely without love. In the aftermath, he uses his despairing rage to summon his people to war.

A master orator, Tolkien describes Fëanor’s words upon the steps of the city of Tirion as “filled with anger and pride…he was distraught with grief for the slaying of his father, and with anguish for the rape of the silmarils” (The Silmarillion 82). All the chief objects of Fëanor’s love are gone, and instead of choosing to forgive and love his half-brothers, who are also mourning their father Finwë, he rejects love and places all hope for closure in himself and his strength of arms with a long speech to his people, the Noldorin elves:

‘Vengeance calls me hence…Fair shall the end be,’ he cried, ‘though long and hard shall be the road. Say farewell to bondage! But say farewell also to ease! Say farewell to the weak…Journey light: but bring with you your swords!...After Morgoth to the ends of the Earth! War he shall have and hatred undying. But when we have conquered and have regained the Silmarils, then we and we alone shall be lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda.’ (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 82-83)

In this war speech, Fëanor declares that it will be by their strength of arms and undying hatred that they will defeat Morgoth. 

In the absence of love, Fëanor places all hope for closure in his own greatness. This echoes scholar Clyde B. Northrup’s commentary on Tolkien’s definitions of eucatastrophe and catastrophe: “the difference between joy and grief is so slight that most would find them difficult if not impossible to distinguish. In both emotions we shed tears–tears of joy or tears of sorrow–and like Tolkien’s choice of words to describe both endings, at the center of both are tears” (832). Here, Fëanor does not partake in eucatastrophe. He places his hope in his own actions, rejecting the intercession of the divine. He instead partakes in Catastrophe, the mark of “tragedy, the truest form of Drama” such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Northrup 830; Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” 283).

Fëanor’s fall from an isolated but mighty Prince of the Noldor, renowned for his creations by both elves and divine beings, reaches its climax after the speech at Tirion. Knowing they need ships to reach Middle Earth, he attempts to persuade another faction of elves, the sea-faring Teleri, to rebel against the Valar alongside the Noldor. But they refuse, unswayed by Fëanor’s speech. Their king, ever a friend to the Noldor, attempts to dissuade Fëanor from leaving. Fëanor responds to Olwe, saying “You renowned your friendship, even in the hour of our need…In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still, had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon the walls” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 86). Fëanor’s lack of empathy undercuts his request from Olwe the King, and the King responds in turn: “We renounce no friendship. But it may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly. And when the Noldor welcomed us…otherwise then you spoke: in the land of Aman we were to dwell for ever, as brothers whose houses stand side by side” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 86). Driven into rage, despair, and a catastrophic belief in himself and his cause, Fëanor responds by leading a slaughter of the Teleri elves, stealing their ships, and then abandoning his half-brothers to walk to Middle Earth across the icy north or return to Valinor in shame.

Without love, Fëanor places all hope towards vengeance at any cost, as referenced in the speech at Tirion. He endures the evil to come with that in his mind, not the love of his family. When confronted by the Valar after the kinslaying of the Teleri, Tolkien writes that “Fëanor hardened his heart” and rebuked the messenger, ending his final recorded war cry with “this doom I add: the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 88). So consumed from grief at the loss of his greatest love, his father, and the theft of the object of his “greedy love,” the silmarils, Fëanor rashly heads into battle alongside his sons. Due to his rash vengeance, Fëanor soon suffers a mortal wound in the first battle on Middle Earth, and faces his mortality with bitterness. “[He] knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow [Morgoth’s stronghold]; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and avenge their father” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 107).  Thus the cycle of despair and vengeance in the absence of love continues through his seven sons. Throughout the Quenta Silmarillion, they commit many atrocities in the name of revenge and glory for themselves, including two more elven mass kinslayings. 

Fëanor’s unique upbringing as the only elf child to know death directly contributed to his isolation and obsessive love for his father, Finwë, and his creations, the silmarils. Tolkien explicitly highlights the breach caused by lost love between the members of the House of Finwë as the cause of all troubles thereafter that Fëanor led by saying that “many saw the effect of this breach…judging that if Finwë had endured his loss and been content with the fathering of his mighty son, the courses of Fëanor would have been otherwise, and great evil might have been prevented” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 65). Finwë’s inability to endure the loss of his wife thus mirrors Fëanor’s later inability to endure the loss of his father. 

Time and again, Fëanor chooses to place his hope in himself, not in divine providence or friendship, and harbors bitterness towards those who he refuses to love. Unlike Finwë, Fëanor’s pride moves him beyond the point of seeking a cure to his despair in the form of a companion as his father did with his wife, to seeking a cure to his despair in the form of his own accomplishments and valor. The words spoken to Fëanor after the first kinslaying come to pass in the age following the rebellion of the Noldor: “To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 88). Thus, though initially understood to be the mightiest of all the elves, without love guiding his actions, Fëanor falls well short of heroism.

Aragorn: Heroic King of Man

Aragorn, one of Tolkien’s primary heroes in The Lord of the Rings, also grows up surrounded by both love and loss. Born the heir to a distant and unclaimed throne, his father Arathorn is slain only two years after his birth (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings 1057). Without protection, Aragorn’s mother Gilraen takes him to one of the few remaining elven safe havens: Rivendell, the house of Elrond. Growing up in sorrow is a common thread for many of the warrior heroes of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, as explored earlier in Fëanor’s character analysis. 

Tolkien did not view hope and suffering as mutually exclusive, and Aragorn’s character development from wandering heir to King of Gondor demonstrates this. In outlining the essential elements of the fantasy genre, Tolkien defines eucatastrophe, as the “consolation of the happy ending” which “denies universal final defeat” (Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” 283). Aragorn experiences a moment of eucatastrophe at the Battle of the Black Gate and the destruction of the Ring (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 948). But Tolkien stresses that eucatastrophe “does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance”  (Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” 283). Aragorn’s early loss of his father and, with his arrival at Rivendell, his heritage, mirrors that of Fëanor’s loss of his mother and relationship with the Noldor except for one key feature: Aragorn holds on to love even amidst sorrow.

Unlike Fëanor, who fears he will be without love once his father remarries, Tolkien writes that “Elrond took the place of [Aragorn’s] father and came to love him as a son of his own” (The Lord of the Rings 1057). In this instance, the cultivated relationship between Elrond and Aragorn also influences all the events of this character’s Third Age tale, just as the troubled but passionate relationship between Finwë and Fëanor influenced the First Age of the world of Middle Earth. Where Miriel, before her death, gave Fëanor the prophetic name of Spirit of Fire, Elrond renames Aragorn for his safety, calling him Estel meaning Hope (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1057). In contrast to Fëanor, who held no love for his half-brothers, Aragorn often traveled with Elrond’s twin sons, who became his foster brothers. 

In addition to the familial love he felt for Elrond and his sons, Aragorn’s stay in Rivendell leads to romantic love. Decades after his arrival at Rivendell, Aragorn first encounters Arwen, Elrond’s daughter who had been staying in the elf kingdom of Lothlorien that whole time. Their meeting is a direct echo of the greatest love story in the Legendarium, the story of Beren and Lúthien. Aragorn, mistaking Arwen for Lúthien, in a daze repeats the same gesture that Beren had done thousands of years prior: “he called out to her crying, Tinuviel, Tinuviel!” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1058; The Silmarillion 165). It is then that they first converse, and Aragorn realizes that she is indeed a direct descendent of Lúthien. From then on, all of Aragorn’s thought is bent on earning Arwen’s hand in marriage. 

Even as he focuses on his love for Arwen, Aragorn is faced with a quest of Elrond before he will allow them to marry. This also echoes the story of Beren and Lúthien, wherein Beren must go on a seemingly impossible quest to retrieve a silmaril from Morgoth’s crown to win Lúthien’s hand (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 168). In the course of the story of Beren and Lúthien, both Beren, the mortal heir without a kingdom, and Lúthien, the most beautiful elven woman to ever live, work together to retrieve the Silmaril. In the process, Beren dies, but Lúthien, in an act of selfless love, pleads for the Valar to restore him to life (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 186-187) at the cost of Lúthien’s immortality. Tolkien scholar Claire Moore highlights the eucatastrophe inherent in the tale, saying that “It is the conquering – even momentarily – of death, a turn towards a (relatively) happy ending, and an overturning of fate” (12). Aragorn and Arwen’s parallels with the story of Beren and Lúthien feature similar stakes: to die for each other and to place hope in one another and a destiny beyond, though no guarantees remain.

Unable to wed Arwen, Aragorn becomes troubled. He echoes some of Fëanor’s tendency towards isolation, saying “Then bitter will my days be, and I will walk in the wild alone” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1059). Neither Elrond nor his mother dissuades him. He is free to choose and must prove his worth to marry Arwen. But he “took leave lovingly” of Elrond nonetheless, and set out on his own (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1059). Unlike Fëanor, however, he does not remain bitter in isolation. Instead, he befriends many of the inhabitants of Middle Earth including Gandalf.  Through his many decades of labor, he becomes to the Men of Middle Earth what Fëanor should have been had he not fallen. Aragorn becomes not only the mightiest of his people, but the most valiant: “Thus he became at last the most hardy of living Men, skilled in their craft and lore, and was yet more than they; for he was elven wise” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings 1059). Through all his actions he works towards the love of Arwen and the friendship of those he meets.

With actions firmly rooted in love, Aragorn’s war council is decidedly different from that of Fëanor’s grand but self-righteous speech upon Tirion. Faced with assaulting the Black Gates of Mordor, Aragorn hosts a war council after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to discuss courses of action. Where Fëanor commanded absolute authority in his kingship, Aragorn, now ready to take the crown, delays entering the city of Gondor until they achieve victory and instead shares council with men of different kingdoms, an elf, a dwarf, and a wizard. Both Fëanor and Aragorn face victories they cannot achieve by arms. Where Fëanor, bereft of love, declared against that counsel that they would do deeds the matter of song, Aragorn, surrounded by friends, realizes that their hope does not lie in themselves, but in others: Frodo and Sam, if they are still alive.

It quickly becomes clear that the Free Peoples could not win the war. Gandalf begins their counsel by stating it outright: “This war then is without final hope, as Denethor perceived. Victory cannot be achieved by arms” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 878). This directly contrasts Fëanor’s assertion that all the Noldor needed to defeat a divine being was their sharpened swords and courage. If they could not defeat Morgoth, none could. But Gandalf reminds Aragorn and the assembled company that they do not have to win victory themselves: “[Sauron’s doubt will be growing…Therein lies all our hope. We cannot achieve victory by arms, but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it be…We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but small hope for ourselves” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 880). Aragorn’s gathered war council reaches the understanding that without eucatastrophe, there will be no victory for themselves. But they reach peace with this. 

Tolkien Scholar Linda Greenwood also connects love with hope saying, “The only absolute in his great epic is hope…This, in turn, is motivated by a faith that is uncertain about the possibility of a successful outcome. Love is the only element that keeps the two alive” (173). For Aragorn at the council, love for his friends, his people, and Lady Arwen who waits for him on the other side of the war is what keeps him hopeful in the face of uncertain victory. A eucatastrophe could occur, Frodo could destroy the ring and they all survive, but there is no guarantee when they draw up plans for walking into a trap.

Just as Arwen’s predecessor Lúthien aided Beren in battle against evil, so too does Arwen for Aragorn. But instead of traveling on the quest with him, Arwen instead weaves a banner “long in the making” for him to unfurl. Accompanying it are the words “The days now are short. Either our hope cometh, or all hope’s end. Therefore I send thee what I have made for thee. Farew well, Elfstone!” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 775). This brings comfort to Aragorn and he unfurls it upon the battlefield, much to the amazement of both sides: the sigil of Aragorn’s house. This is an indisputable declaration of her love and support for Aragorn. Thus she, just like Lúthien, enters into a moment of eucatastrophe. Tolkien and feminist scholar Nancy Enright highlights this while also drawing attention to Tolkien’s explicit linking of eucatastrophe with his Catholic faith, saying: “Of all the characters in The Lord of the Rings, Arwen is the one who makes the Christ-like choice of mortality out of love. And her decision, though rooted in her love of Aragorn, becomes part of 'the eucatastrophe'… that saves Middle Earth” (Enright 97). Arwen, along with the support of Gandalf and other warrior heroes of Middle Earth, provides Aragorn with the foundation of love he needs to walk into a fight he cannot win.

With the decision made to leave the bulk of their forces to guard the civilians of Minas Tirith, Aragorn leads them to the Battle at the Black Gate. He says, “We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 880). This line directly relates to eucatastrophe, a hope in a miraculous happy ending that cannot be guaranteed to occur. Aragorn chooses to place his hope in the other, not in himself, in direct contrast to Fëanor. Aragorn knows he cannot win the war and he accepts it. But he also accepts that there are forces beyond his control working, such as the ring-bearer somewhere in Mordor, which may yet save them all. And so he embraces death.

Death: Gift or Curse

Aragorn’s death and Fëanor’s death stand in many ways as direct contrasts to one another. Aragorn dies in bed. Fëanor dies on the field of battle. Aragorn’s death comes at the end of a long stretch of peace as king. Fëanor dies soon after his arrival in Middle-Earth after the rebellion he leads. However, we see the effect of love on hope most clearly in the similarities between the two deaths: the presence of their loved ones beside them.

Fëanor’s death comes almost immediately upon his return to Middle Earth. Driven by what Tolkien scholar Brian Rosebury calls Fëanor’s “primal sin,” his obsessive love for the silmarils, as well as his need for revenge for his father’s murder, Fëanor becomes reckless (10). Fëanor drives the enemy forward by himself, not realizing how many soldiers and other monsters Morgoth has in his fortress. However, Tolkien states that “even had he known it would not have deterred him, for he was fey, consumed by the flame of his own wrath” (The Silmarillion 107). Fëanor feels the loss of his two sources of love: his father and his silmarils. Thus, “Fëanor was surrounded, with few friends about him” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 107). Abandoning his sons to continue his despairing quest for vengeance forward, he faces imminent defeat alone. 

It is only the arrival of his seven sons that results in Fëanor’s fatally wounded body being removed from the clutches of Morgoth’s balrogs. They carry him to safety, where Fëanor insists they halt for “he knew that his hour was come” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 107). In the arms of his sons he neither expresses love for them nor apologies for tying them to a hopeless quest. Instead, he orders them to hold to their unbreakable oath of vengeance against any who withhold a silmaril and “avenge their father” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 107). In Tolkien scholar Amy Amendt-Raduege describes Denethor’s attempted murder-suicide of his son Faramir in the darkest hour of the War of the Ring, saying it “betrays the responsibilities of leadership, resulting in the needless deaths of the soldiers under his command, and his final act is the ultimate expression of betrayal, against his people, his son, and himself” (31). Fëanor’s rebellion and death results in the same: the near-total destruction of the Noldor elves, the deaths of his sons, and, at the end of the long war against Morgoth, the sinking beneath the waves of half of known world. By forcing his sons to hold to their oath, he seals their fate: “For so sworn, good or evil, an oath may not be broken, and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world’s end” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 83). The oath Fëanor and his sons swore against Morgoth, which Fëanor refused to let them abandon upon his death, caused nearly all the suffering in the First Age of the world. He showed no love for his sons as they tried to comfort him at his death.

There is no hope in pursuing the Oath. Fëanor and his seven sons know this. After the Kinslaying of the Telerin elves, the Valar send Fëanor a final message. In the first half, the Valar speak of how the oath will drive all their actions, and yet in the end betray them. In the second half, it speaks directly to the threat of death: 

For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 88).

Upon receiving this “Doom of Mandos,” Fëanor’s half-brother Finarfin and some of his followers repent and turn back. But Fëanor speaks for the rest, and laughs in the face of the Doom. Thus, when Fëanor is dying with his sons by his side and orders them to keep to their oath, he does so with full knowledge that they cannot win this war (Tolkien, The Silmarillion 107). Though in Amendt-Raduege’s book she uses Denethor to show “pride and despair are necessarily linked,” Fëanor is also “unwilling to believe in the worthiness of anyone other than himself, or even that anyone else is capable of resisting the Enemy” who allows others to die in sacrifice for his (37). He may not die by suicide on a pyre like Denethor, But Fëanor does act so arrogantly in his lonely madness that in his death he dooms the entire First Age. 

By contrast, Aragorn’s death comes not on the field of battle, but at his choosing and in bed with his wife standing at his side. After the victory Frodo and Sam win with the destruction of the One Ring, Aragorn receives his crown and reunites what was once the northern kingdom of Arnor with the southern kingdom of Gondor. Thus, he becomes the first King of the Reunited Kingdom. Elrond permits Arwen to marry him, though Tolkien states that “The Third Age ended thus in victory and hope; and yet grievous among the sorrows of that Age was the parting of Elrond and Arwen, for they were sundered by the Sea and by a doom beyond the end of the world” (The Lord of the Rings 1062). Arwen becomes mortal, and she and Aragorn will face their end together. 

Aragorn’s death begins after 120 years of his reign. Upon realizing he has done all he can as king and his son Eldarion is prepared to reign, he gives his son the heirlooms of his house and kingship (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1062). Arwen accompanies him as he goes to the bed prepared for him. Aragorn tells her he has been given “the grace to go at my will, and give back the gift [of long life]. Now, therefore, I will sleep” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1062). Arwen, who until this moment has not fully understood what it means to die, tries to argue with him. But Aragorn knows it is his time and tells her: “‘but let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair’” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1063). He holds on to hope in better things to come after death, though there is no certainty of a Christian-like heaven in Tolkien’s Legendarium.

Aragorn and Fëanor both express knowledge of their impending death. Where Fëanor disregards the love he should hold for his sons and instead dooms them to seek revenge for a hopeless oath, Aragorn gives his son his throne when he feels the time is right. Aragorn also seeks to console Arwen, though he does it without disregarding her fear: “‘I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world’” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1063).  Aragorn, though content in his choice, is not above fear or sorrow at his impending death. But he bears great love for his wife and his people. It is due to the love he feels for them, and the love they return, that he dies in peace. Eldarion, therefore, becomes king of the Reunited Kingdom before Aragorn could “wither and fall from [his] high seat unmanned and witless” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1063).  As Greenwood states, in Tolkien’s work, “Love turns death into a gift and transforms defeat into victory” (171). The love Aragorn feels gives him hope in death, and his love for his family and people gives the kingdom hope with a new king.

Hope as Trust: Estel and Eucatastrophe 

It is through Aragorn we see the successful relationship between eucatastrophe and character. Traditionally, the word has been applied as a plot moment, such as the arrival of eagles in moments of battle. But it is more than a plot point. As Tolkien says, “in the ‘eucatastrophe’ we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater–it may be a far-off gleam or echo of Evangelium in the real world” (“On Fairy-Stories” 286). He relates the consolation of the happy ending to his Catholic faith. Eucatastrophe is not the only concept that he coins by drawing on his Catholic upbringing. In Letter 181, Tolkien describes the relationship between Death in his works and the essence of his elves and men. There he coins the term “hope without guarantees,” a concept related directly to Eucatastrophe (Tolkien, The Letters of JRR Tolkien 336). Aragorn’s death, as previously explored, relied deeply on faith in goodness beyond the bounds of the world as contrasted with elves.

Tolkien further explored this concept in his short work “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” which his son collected in the book Morgoth’s Ring. Though Tolkien is explicitly not allegorical, his writings do exemplify and incorporate his ideals (Tolkien, The Letters of JRR Tolkien 329; Cannata par. 2; Greenwood 173). In The Athrabeth, the wise woman Andreth bitterly explains to the wise elf lord Finrod the human perspective on death, that it is something they fear and hate. In doing so, they discuss two competing definitions of hope:

'Have ye then no hope?' said Finrod.

'What is hope?' she said. 'An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.'

'That is one thing that Men call "hope",' said Finrod. 'Amdir we call it, "looking up". But there is another which is founded deeper. Estel we call it, that is "trust". It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience but from our nature and first being. (Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring 320)

This hope based in trust, Estel, is a eucatastrophic hope. It relies on trust. Tolkien fan Laura Cannata draws this connection from The Athrabeth as well, writing that “The foundation of hope is trust in Ilúvatar and from this, to a lesser extent, the ability to trust in others besides oneself” (par. 8). To have trust in others, one must not reject love. Tolkien, an expert in linguistics and fond of giving characters prophetic names, could not have mistakenly give Aragorn a second elven name of Estel. Eucatastrophe is connected intrinsically to character. It necessitates the presence of love, trust, and Estel hope. 

By contrast, Fëanor embodies the lesser version of hope: Amdir. He has a kind of hope in himself, in what he knows and understands. He is prideful. He knows of his greatness and seeks to use that to achieve his ends. But this hope, when it stands alone without Estel, rejects trusts. When discussing the non allegorical but Catholic moral nature of Tolkien’s work, Greenwood states “a world in which faith without faith becomes faith” (171). Middle Earth has no established church or faith in it, and yet for the heroes of the world, there is understood a pervasive faith–a trust–at the foundations of everything. With Fëanor’s rejection of trust, he is rejecting love. And a rejection of love is a rejection of eucatastrophe. 

A Catholic, Tolkien’s relationship to God is one of faith. As previously explored, in his letters Tolkien denies the allegorical nature of his works and yet also acknowledges the influence of his faith. More explicitly, this is stated in Letter 142: “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” though not in allegory, but in influence and morality (Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 244-45). Estel hope resembles the concept of faith. It is trust more than belief due to previous experience. Tolkien also states that “The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation” (“On Fairy-Stories” 286). Even rejecting any notion of allegory, it is clear that as a Roman Catholic, Estel hope is what Tolkien believed superior to a fleeting hope in previous experiences. Greenwood draws the connection between love and faith saying, “In Tolkien’s work, love motivates faith to reach beyond the boundaries of the known, to rekindle hope in the midst of the uncertain.” This faith is trust. This faith is Estel. 

As seen in these two characters, it is worth examining eucatastrophe not exclusively as a plot device, but as intrinsically related to character traits. How Fëanor responds to his childhood trauma and loss of his father and the Silmarils precludes eucatastrophe. If he cannot love, he cannot trust. If he cannot trust, he does not leave room for intervention from the Valar or Iluvatar, the Creator god as we have seen Tolkien’s connections between Estel hope, faith or trust in others and the unknown, and Amdir, hope in one’s self and what one knows. Fëanor becomes a villain despite his glorious beginnings. By contrast, Aragorn, aptly renamed Estel, does not permit his trauma to control his actions, embracing love. And so he becomes one of the greatest and most recognizable of Tolkien’s heroes: an embodiment of the power of eucatastrophe.

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