J.R.R. Tolkien called the sudden joyful turn in a story a eucatastrophe in his essay “On Fairy-Stories.”
Tolkien coined eucatastrophe from Greek elements meaning a good or favorable catastrophe. In the 1947 essay, he described it as the sudden turn that produces joy at the point when disaster seems overwhelming. For Tolkien, this was not merely a convenient plot twist; it was a defining emotional feature of the fairy-story.
He connected the idea with the possibility of hope and called it the highest function of fairy-stories. Tolkien also argued that a eucatastrophic ending should not erase earlier suffering. Its power comes from arriving after genuine danger, loss, or apparent defeat.
The term is often confused with deus ex machina, which usually refers to an externally imposed or insufficiently prepared solution. Tolkien’s eucatastrophe instead describes a meaningful reversal and its emotional effect. He regarded the Resurrection of Christ as the ultimate example, while also identifying eucatastrophic patterns in his own fiction.