--- title: The Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies: Tolkien's Word to Describe It description: One word to describe it all, one word if you can find it canonical: https://time.com/3630280/hobbit-movie-eucatastrophe/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-17T18:00:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:47:06.128Z article:section: History og:title: The Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies: Tolkien's Word to Describe It og:description: One word to describe it all, one word if you can find it og:url: https://time.com/3630280/hobbit-movie-eucatastrophe/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059dac84f1ebbd7a/69876e4df887dcef58e88f82/hbt3-066511r.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Hobbit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies: Tolkien's Word to Describe It twitter:description: One word to describe it all, one word if you can find it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059dac84f1ebbd7a/69876e4df887dcef58e88f82/hbt3-066511r.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's the Perfect Word to Describe Watching _The Hobbit_ > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 17, 2014 6:00 PM UTC  Mark Pokorny—Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 17, 2014 6:00 PM UTC When _The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies_ is released on Wednesday, it will likely mark the end of Peter Jackson’s stint bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels to the big screen. Fans of _The Lord of the Rings_ and _The Hobbit_ have been able to enjoy the films for over a decade now, and so the release of this sixth installment is likely to bring with it mixed feelings: happiness, finality, nostalgia. It will be a combination familiar to Tolkien’s long-time fans, who encountered the same feeling as he wrote the books over the course of decades. Those fans may also be familiar with a word that Tolkien coined decades ago to describe the feeling of something ending the way it’s supposed to: Eucatastrophe. (That’s the positive prefix _Eu,_ as in _euphoria_, plus _catastrophe_.) Here’s how TIME described it in Tolkien’s 1973 obituary: --- > “” --- For one thing, the moment in _The Hobbit_ that Tolkien himself [identified](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/the%5Fletters%5Fof%5Fj.rrtolkien.pdf) as the most “eucatastrophic” is included in the section of the book that’s the source for this movie. There’s also the external eucatastrophe: for those who love the movie, there’s the consolation Tolkien describes, the joy of a tale coming to an end — and for those who don’t like it, there’s the consolation of knowing it’s over. **_Read TIME’s 1966 article about the fad for all things Tolkien, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Hobbit Habit](http://time.com/vault/issue/1966-07-15/page/70/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3630280/hobbit-movie-eucatastrophe/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3630280/hobbit-movie-eucatastrophe/"},"headline":"Here's the Perfect Word to Describe Watching The Hobbit","datePublished":"2014-12-17T18:00:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:47:06.128Z","description":"One word to describe it all, one word if you can find it","url":"https://time.com/3630280/hobbit-movie-eucatastrophe/","keywords":["movies","Books","language"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059dac84f1ebbd7a/69876e4df887dcef58e88f82/hbt3-066511r.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059dac84f1ebbd7a/69876e4df887dcef58e88f82/hbt3-066511r.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Hobbit","caption":"The Hobbit","creditText":"Mark Pokorny—Warner Bros. 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