There are moments in life that break us.
Not dramatically. Not with fire and fury. But slowly, painfully—until the world grows dim, and we no longer recognize the person we used to be. Grief moves in. Shame lingers. Suffering becomes a daily rhythm. We tell ourselves this is just how it is now.
And then, something shifts.
Unexpected. Undeserved. A breath of light in a place we thought no light could reach. A kind word. A song. A story that cracks something open in the soul.
Tolkien had a word for this.
Eucatastrophe: “A sudden and miraculous grace… a glimpse of truth, a fleeting but piercing joy, beyond the walls of the world.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories
It is not the absence of sorrow.
It is the moment sorrow is not the end.
If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore the full scroll series in my latest mini-book:
👉 Get When the Story Turns here
🌿 The Wound That Speaks
Grief is not just pain.
It’s a language.
A language most of us were never taught how to speak. And when the world gives us no map for sorrow, we reach for what feels safe—escapism, silence, distraction. But Tolkien offers another path. He invites us into fantasy not as an escape from reality, but as a space to face it with clarity and compassion.
Middle-earth is full of loss. The Elves grieve the fading of their light. Frodo bears wounds that never heal. Gondor clings to ancient glory, decaying in silence. But these stories don’t wallow in despair. They teach us how to feel grief without being consumed by it. How to carry sorrow without losing ourselves to it. How to wait for the turn of the tide.
Fantasy gives us metaphors that hold truth. It names the things we cannot always explain—depression, burnout, heartbreak, trauma—and translates them into quests, shadows, and burdens.
It tells us we’re not weak for suffering.
We’re human.
Or in Tolkien’s words:
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair.”
🔥 Frodo Failed, and That’s Why He Matters
When Frodo reaches Mount Doom, he fails.
He cannot let go of the Ring. The burden breaks him.
And still—the Ring is destroyed.
Not because Frodo was strong, but because grace intervened through weakness. Because something unexpected, something unearned, something entirely outside his strength—Gollum’s fall—turned the story.
This is the essence of eucatastrophe.
Not victory through might.
But redemption through brokenness.
A reminder that our lowest moments may yet hold the seeds of salvation.
Tolkien wrote:
“Even Gollum may have something yet to do.”
So may we.
If you’re walking through your own fire, or if this part of Frodo’s journey speaks to your wounds,
📖 You can find all four scrolls in the ebook here.
✨ The Healing Power of the Turn
Tolkien did not romanticize pain.
He was a veteran of World War I. He lost friends in the trenches. He knew the taste of death and disillusionment. And yet, he gave us stories that dared to look suffering in the eye—and still speak of hope.
Eucatastrophe is not a cheap happy ending. It’s not “good vibes only.”
It’s the truth that joy can still break in after grief has made its home.
That light can shine even when we no longer expect it to.
That the story is not over, even when we feel like it is.
This is why fantasy matters.
Because in a world that teaches us to hide our grief or suppress our pain, fantasy teaches us to honor it.
To walk with it.
To wait for the turn.
🌒 You Are Not Alone in the Shadow
If you are reading this while sitting in your own darkness—please hear this:
You are not the only one who has wandered far into the night.
You are not broken beyond repair.
And you are not forgotten.
Your story still breathes.
The page has not run out.
Tolkien wrote:
“The shadow is only a small and passing thing: there is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
Fantasy gives us symbols when we have no words.
It lets us see our pain through another’s journey.
And sometimes, when we least expect it, it shows us that the pain was not the end—but the path.
That is eucatastrophe.
And it still happens.
Even here. Even now.
