Contrived Coincidences in Fiction don't bother me

They really don't.  In Patrick Willems' notorious Plot Holes videos he says they're acceptable at the start of a story but not at the finish, I can't even concede that.  I think a lot of people underestimate just how many resolutions that everyone loves have a level of contrived coincidence to them.

Describing the T-Rex saving the day at the end of Jurassic Park as a Deus Ex-Machina isn't really true, not only was she part of the story but she was really too important not to feature into the climax.  But it was awfully coincidental, she was last seen on the other side of a now reactivated fence.

And it just occurred to me as I was working on this post that that ending qualifies as a Eucatastrophe, a term J.R.R. Tolkien coined.

Eucatastrophe is a neologism coined by Tolkien from Greek ευ- "good" and καταστροφή "destruction".

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."

― Letter 89

In his On Fairy-Stories Tolkien describes eucatastrophe further:

"But the 'consolation' of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite — I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the “turn” comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality."

― On Fairy-Stories

And indeed the most notorious Eucatastrophe Tolkien wrote is largely a contrived coincidence.

Ya know what really ancient narrative can be accused of being very contrived?  The Book of Esther.  Think about it, so much of the book revolves around things like the King having just randomly read the right random thing in the chronicles at exactly the right time.

The late Chuck Missler used to say in response to those objecting to Esther because God is never directly mentioned, that Esther is all about how coincidences are God working undercover.  And since I support Death Of The Author I can apply that theory about coincidences to any fictional Coincidence that helps save the day in a story I really like whether their secular writers like me doing that or not.

"What about Coincidences that result in bad things happening?" you may retort, well Romans 8 which Chuck Missler also liked to quote, says "All Things Work Together for Good".  Ya know I'm surprised we don't mention that verse more often when arguing for Universal Salvation.

Let me end this post with one particular contrived coincidence I like that many fellow fans of that Anime may have never thought to think of as one.  Back in June I made a post on the character arc of Misaka Mikoto in A Certain Scientific Railgun S.

Spoilers below.

 In summery it's about her learning the importance of turning to her friends for help.  During the Febri Arc, the third act of the season, in episode 21 Misaka is thinking of doing again exactly what she did in the prior arcs and try to handle everything by herself.  But then at exactly the right moment Kongo calls her to talk about something perfectly relevant, by sheer coincidence.  And that helps her make the right decision in that end.

I've watched most episodes of this show 3 times now, on both the second and 3rd viewing this Chuck Missler on Esther argument entered my mind when this scene came up.