Tag Archives: eucatastrophe

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Gamera and “Tolkien Moments”

“Gamera Saves Christmas” cover art by Jarod Marchand.

Happy 2026, friends, fans, foes, and everything in between!

It’s been a while since I updated my website, so I figured I should. Starting this year, I’ll be focusing the site on blogs pertaining to my writing, whether that be updates, reflections, or promotions, etc. Other pieces will be saved for the Substack I’m seriously considering launching as one of my New Year’s resolutions. My working title is “The Words of Nathan Marchand, the Mad Millennial.” Stay tuned for more!

Recently, I finally published an overdue Christmas special for my kaiju podcast The Monster Island Film Vault. It’s a fanfic audiodrama entitled “Gamera Saves Christmas.” Yes, a Christmas special about the (usually) corny giant rocket-powered turtle who loves kids. It was a crazy idea my friend Joy Metter gave me, and after several months of co-writing and, at points, even co-directing, we finally got it done. We took it far more seriously than we had any right to do, but that’s how I roll.

The story’s protagonist, an angry teenage girl named Susan, has a crisis of faith when she’s whisked away to the North Pole, where she meets Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Krampus, and a kaiju reindeer (you read that right!), among other things, and learns that Gamera is, in fact, still alive despite a suicide attack on an alien spaceship in 1980. Belief and faith might seem like obvious themes for a Christmas story, and honestly, I thought that, too, for most of the production. But while I was scrambling to edit the hour-long drama, I experienced what I can only call “Tolkien moments” several times.

While hearing my sister, Sarah, perform as Susan after I added music to the scenes, I got weirdly emotional. The most intense one came toward the end where (SPOILER WARNING!) she takes Santa’s magic Wreath to Gamera to revive him. Susan gives a speech about her struggles and why she’s now angry that when she needs Gamera most, that’s when he “go[es] and dies” (he was defeated by the aforementioned reindeer kaiju). In desperation, she throws the Wreath at him, and to her surprise, he rises to fight his foe again. It was, as Tolkien famously said in “On Fairy-Stories,” a eucatastrophe. It was the sudden turn where the hero improbably survives. Some would call it the “stand and cheer moment.” But it was also the moment where Susan’s faith is also revived. The “resurrection” of Gamera was merely an outgrowth of that. From there, we had the exciting finale where Gamera battles the reindeer, winning this time, which is made even more potent thanks to this.

Later, I experienced two more “Tolkien moments” in quieter scenes with Susan. One was when she spoke with Santa, who told her to hold onto her what she experienced, even when the concerns of adulthood overwhelmed her. It gave me flashbacks to Aslan speaking with the Pevensie children in several of the Narnia books. Then in the next scene, Susan makes the audiodrama’s thematic statement with its final line after being reunited with her disbelieving parents: “Some things…you just have to take on faith.” Gamera’s roar is heard in the distance as confirmation. Then a kinda corny rock song called “Gamera Always Wins” starts playing. These moments didn’t push me to the edge of tears, but I did feel them in my gut.

I’ve heard some say that J.R.R. Tolkien (and also his friend and fellow Inkling, C.S. Lewis) didn’t create stories so much as he “found” them. In other words, he presented the world as it is and how it operates. To put it even more simply, he showed the truth. Beneath this seeming simplicity are the deeper things of life. What appears obvious suddenly overflows with depth and richness. Tolkien called this “sub-creation,” the act of using the “primary world,” which according to his Catholic faith was God’s creation, to fashion another world. Art has a way of reframing things in unexpected ways that helps us see the obvious in new ways. Suddenly, Susan’s struggle with believing crazy things like Santa Claus and a living Gamera brought to mind those times when I grappled with doubts about my own faith. Contrary to popular belief, it’s rarely easy to hold true to one’s beliefs. But the mere words on the page didn’t affect me. I needed to hear my sister’s performance combined with music to get the full impact. Perhaps I should add “Gamera Saves Christmas” to my short list of kaiju stories that nearly made me cry.

Or maybe I was too invested in the kaiju fanfic audiodrama I was creating to be taken seriously. Ha!

Regardless, you can hear “Gamera Saves Christmas” on MIFV”s website, YouTube channel (see below), or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Writers are Sadists

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While I don't hate Steven Moffat, he certainly has a reputation for torturing characters (and audiences). (Image courtesy of Pinterest).
While I don’t hate Steven Moffat, he certainly has a reputation for torturing characters (and audiences). (Image courtesy of Pinterest).

I’ve missed a Thursday or three in my weekly posts the last few months. I should be flogged for that. I’ll probably have to find anorther writer to perform said flogging. Why?

Writers are sadists.

Well, most writers are sadists. Well, closet sadists. (Hear me saying that as the 10th Doctor?)

I’d define a sadist as someone who takes pleasure in the suffering of others. Now, generally speaking, I’d consider sadists to be terrible people (trust me, I’ve dealt with a few). But when you’re a writer—or even just a reader—you have to be one. Sorta.

The backbone of a plot is conflict (and there are nine of them). Without conflict, there is no story. What are essential ingredients for conflict? Trouble, misery, strife, and pain, to name a few. Characters must fight each other, overcome impossible odds, or battle forces (seemingly) beyond their control. As my friend Nick Hayden pointed out: “If a protagonist wakes up fully rested, eats breakfast, enjoys his day at work, comes home to his lovely wife and kids, fiddles on some project, and goes to bed, we might think one of two things: 1.) This is a terrible story. 2.) Uh-oh, everything’s going to hit the fan soon.”

When I attend writers’ meetings—particularly Children of the Wells creative meetings—I’m astonished at how much time writers spend figuring out how to make their characters miserable. Take my novel, Pandora’s Box, for example. I gave Pvt. Brewer the happiest life—career, family, fiancé—much of which she worked hard to get (there’s conflict), but then I took it all away in one fell swoop. If I hadn’t, the book would’ve ended in a few chapters or been terribly boring (like Pamela by Samuel Richardson, a 500-page book I had to slog through in a week during college). I rarely, if ever, wish such misery on people I know, yet I go out of my way to make my brainchildren borderline manic depressants. Yet that’s what makes their triumphs that much more satisfying. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, called this a eucatastrophe: “…the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears….”

This was one of my problems with modern Christian authors for a long time: they were afraid to make characters miserable or include true suffering in their works (at least when it wasn’t an attempt at proselytizing). That’s why their stories didn’t resound with people. I determined when I started writing that I wouldn’t do that. I’m the kind of writer who puts his characters through Hell so their victory at the end is sweeter. I love those “eucatastrophe” moments. It makes the journey all worthwhile.

Perhaps that means writers like me aren’t necessarily sadists. We want our characters to be happy—they just have to survive long enough to reach the ending. (Get it? “Happy ending”? Never mind).