The Doom of Eucatastrophe

[bilbo_baggins]

A single thought occurred to me, and as my original thoughts tend to be already in play I will happily concede to the closing of this thread if the topic is already used.

To bring us to the theme of my thread, I ask the question:

Does Tolkien's idea of Eucatastrophe lead to the undeniable destruction of the story itself? Does a good, all-engrossing story create its own demise?

To explain, in LoTR the plot centers around the quest for the destruction of the ring. Trials and obstruction occur, but are overcome. When the ring is destroyed, the entire plot vanishes. To continue the story would only prolong the inevitable end, and the introduction of another large plot-twisting dilemna would seem too obvious, too soap-opera-ish.

So, the question is, can their be a story that is enjoyable, wonderful, eucatastrophic, and yet not lead to a foreseeable end?

b_b

[Encaitare]

The tale of the Ring's existence is over when it is destroyed, but the plot is not over. Its effects are still evident and the aftermath of the main plot remains to be told.

‘Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?’

‘No, they never end as tales,’ said Frodo. ‘But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended.’

[littlemanpoet]

A fascinating, and dire, question, bilbo_baggins; and the answer you provided, Encaitare, is the same that occurred to me.

However, b_b alludes to something I think we all feel upon reaching the conclusion of the entire story of LotR: a bittersweet sense of something very satisfying having been enjoyed, married to a regret that it's over. It's why we go back and read it over and over again (I'm due), watch the movies, read the Letters, pour over the Appendices, study HoME, and spend inordinate amounts of time here! We don't want the story to end, but it does. So how come the quote Encaitare provided, fails to completely satisfy (at least me)?

I think Tolkien provides a clue by saying that LotR is about death. It's a story about endings. Great things are drawing to a conclusion and merely mundane things are taking their place; the First Age of gods and Elves (and some noble Men) and Morgoth the Great is followed by the Second Age of Numenorean Half Men/Half Elves, a shrunken Middle Earth (Beleriand is lost), and Sauron. Which is followed by the Third Age with its waning of the Elves, and then the Fourth Age in which Elves and hobbits diminish and the mundane world of Men takes over. Myth gives way to legend, gives way to folklore, gives way to history, gives way to yesterday's news.

There. I've gone and depressed myself, and you too no doubt. Time to read a few more Letters of Tolkien, and A Long Expected Party.....

[davem]

Originally Posted by LmP

I think Tolkien provides a clue by saying that LotR is about death. It's a story about endings. Great things are drawing to a conclusion and merely mundane things are taking their place; the First Age of gods and Elves (and some noble Men) and Morgoth the Great is followed by the Second Age of Numenorean Half Men/Half Elves, a shrunken Middle Earth (Beleriand is lost), and Sauron. Which is followed by the Third Age with its waning of the Elves, and then the Fourth Age in which Elves and hobbits diminish and the mundane world of Men takes over. Myth gives way to legend, gives way to folklore, gives way to history, gives way to yesterday's news.

This is possibly taking things a bit off topic, but in a thread I started a while ago - 'The Nazis & a Mythology for England http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=11047
- I posted this quote from an essay in Tolkien the Medievalist by Christine Chism: Middle earth, the Middle Ages, & the Aryan Nation: Myth & History in WWII.

The Lord of the Rings is a tale of the renunciation of mythology & the willed return to history. The Ring - that wierdly empty, wierdly powerful object around which the narrative assembles itself - interrogates the imaginative capacity for world creation itself. Middle earth unfolds, grows more intricate, more peopled, more culturally diverse, more deep as we wander through it, but it blooms forth only in the shadow of its own imminent destruction. The loss of the Ring consignes Middle earth to the joys & depridations of history - & this consignment to history is costly. It is no accident that the loss of the Ring maims Frodo forever & disenchants Middle earth - it is also, possibly, no accident that the Lord of the Rings is the last long narrative that the author completed. And, finally, I argue, it is no accident that the writing of this renunciatory narrative occuoies dark night after dark night, during a time when Germany was mobilising & recasting heroic "'Germanic' ideals" to articulate & impose its own terrifying new world.

(She goes on to note)
However, I think that Tolkien's construction of Englishness in his characterisation of the Shire is to be distinguished from Hitler's Nordic nationalism, chiefly by its self-positioning as always already tiny, precarious & half lost. It emerges in the shadow of a destruction so inexorable that nothing could recover it - neither a triumphant political, cultural, & military nationalist program (which would destroy it further as Saruman shows) nor a past-sanctifying politics of heritage. The Red Book that Frodo bequeaths to Sam ends in blank pages open to subsequent narration. We are continually reminded that the Shire is a part of Middle earth & that the parochialism of Hobbits is both delusory & idiotic. An open-bordered country, an open-ended history book, & a need to open the minds of parochail inhabitants to the larger world they inhabit - all offer interesting resistances to traditional nationalisms.

[bilbo_baggins]

Originally Posted by Encaitare

The tale of the Ring's existence is over when it is destroyed, but the plot is not over. Its effects are still evident and the aftermath of the main plot remains to be told.

True Encaitare, in a way. The plot of the ring is over, but there is a new piece of tale that erases/rewrites the entire structure of the tale. It begins a completely different story.

So, if it seems that Tolkien's intent was to write a melancholy story, about the "end of all things" (frodo to sam), and to portray "a red day, a sword day, ere the sun sets!" then he did quite what he set out to do. Doesn't his purpose reflect in the Silm, where the quests and actions of the Elves are met with disaster and death, unleashing terrible sorrow? Perhaps Tolkien suffered from depression....

b_b

[littlemanpoet]

Perhaps Tolkien suffered from depression...

From reading the biography and the Letters, Tolkien had a mixed life of great highs and deep depressions; moments of joy and love as well as severe traumas and tragedies. But such a life experience could bring to us Beren and Luthien as well as the trek across Mordor.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by bilbo_baggins

So, the question is, can their be a story that is enjoyable, wonderful, eucatastrophic, and yet not lead to a foreseeable end?

The question to me is whether that kind of story is any good. A story can have moments of eucatastrophe, but then if it keeps having such moments, then it starys dangerously close to being an interminable saga, a soap opera. That's where many fantasy series fall down for me; they just go on and on and on. LotR does not, it has a finality. Obviously, things must be tied up, and there is much which preceeds it, but the core story of LotR is effectively over once the Ring is destroyed. It isn't a shaggy dog story, it's perfectly plotted and ends when it must.

Tolkien realised that this had to be the end of the stories from Middle Earth - he tried to write of the fourth age but found that he could not produce anything remotely as satisfying. In fact, the experience of trying seems to have disheartened him more than a little. When I read what he had tried to write, I too felt a little depressed. It drew a line under any notions I might have had about more stories from the fourth age; I realised that LotR really had been the ultimate story as far as Middle Earth was concerned.

It made me think, what is better? More Tolkien or the best Tolkien could offer?

[Tinuviel of Denton]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It made me think, what is better? More Tolkien or the best Tolkien could offer?

On the one hand, living in a society like this one, where everything is published in serieses (is that even a word?) of ten or twelve or what have you, it would seem to be kind of obvious that 'More is better!' At least according to the publishers, anyway.

But the thing about publishing dozens of books, all in the same series, seems to me to draw it out unnecessarily and by the time we get to book five or six, we're wondering why the author won't just make an end already. (I think there's only one series where I haven't wondered that, and that's George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.) Things like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth serieses are all very well and good, but you have to wonder; would they be better if the authors had spent all the time that Tolkien did on LotR...

I have to say that 'the best Tolkien could offer' is a great deal better than it would be if he had lived now and succumbed to the pressure of printing book after book after book that only stretched out the story and didn't enrich it.

Endings are good.

(And that was awfully garbled and rambly. Your pardons all.)

[Encaitare]

However, b_b alludes to something I think we all feel upon reaching the conclusion of the entire story of LotR: a bittersweet sense of something very satisfying having been enjoyed, married to a regret that it's over.

It's like leaving good friends behind when you move away -- they are still there in their own world, but you know that you can't be with them any longer. You still have fond memories, but you realize that memories are mostly all you're going to have -- this is why we read the supplementary works, as lmp said.

I think Tolkien provides a clue by saying that LotR is about death. It's a story about endings.

Oh, I definitely agree with that. Many great things are coming to an end; the Elves are passing over the Sea, taking something beautiful and wonderful with them. Now that I think further about it, though, the quote I provided earlier still applies, but it's like I said about leaving friends. The stories/histories will presumably continue, but our little window into Middle-earth closes.