History Heartwarming / BioShock

* In the early parts of [=BioShock=] 2, it's possible to find the audio diaries of an industrialist by the name of Prentice Mill: he apparently founded and owned the Atlantic Express railway, and from what can be heard of him, he was also something of an arrogant jackass. However, private bathysphere travel made his railway obsolete, and the bank crash that followed the New Year's Eve Riots left him completely destitute: his last audio diary mournfully notes that he has no family, no friends, and nobody likely to miss him. So, why is this not a TearJerker? Well, you find this last audio diary on a small shrine in Pauper's Drop, one built specifically for him. It's not known if he only stayed in the Drop long enough to kill himself, or if he made some kind of life for himself; all that's known is that ''someone'' cared enough to leave a memorial to him.

* ''BioShock 2'''s ending, in which [[spoiler: Delta lives on through Eleanor.]]
* In ''Bioshock 2'', sparing [[spoiler: Grace Holloway]]'s life, and [[spoiler:her]] amazement after you leave.

* In ''Bioshock 2'', there's a diary whose owner couldn't be more than 5 years old, named Billy Parsan. In it, he [[spoiler: tells a Little Sister that he thinks she's cute, her Big Daddy reminds him of a Comic Book hero, that he bought her a gift and stored it someplace that no one else could get it, and said he'll wave to her next time he sees her.]] I guarantee you will go "D'awwww!"

* In ''Bioshock 2'', when you get the Hypnotize plasmid, you see a pair of splicers slow-dancing, acting completely enamoured. It was obvious that you were supposed to use the plasmid to turn them against one another, but it brought back fond memories of this troper's home-coming semi-formal. He just couldn't bring himself to harm either of them, and left the area without killing either of them. It was the sweetest thing he'd seen in Rapture for a long time...

* In the early parts of Bioshock 2, it's possible to find the audio diaries of an industrialist by the name of Prentice Mill: he apparently founded and owned the Atlantic Express railway, and from what can be heard of him, he was also something of an arrogant jackass. However, private bathysphere travel made his railway obsolete, and the bank crash that followed the New Year's Eve Riots left him completely destitute: his last audio diary mournfully notes that he has no family, no friends, and nobody likely to miss him. So, why is this not a TearJerker? Well, you find this last audio diary on a small shrine in Pauper's Drop, one built specifically for him. It's not known if he only stayed in the Drop long enough to kill himself, or if he made some kind of life for himself; all that's known is that ''someone'' cared enough to leave a memorial to him.

* The original's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu70sn7GWkc "good" ending,]] in which you grow old with the Little Sisters you saved, and you finally have the one thing you were denied: a family.

* ''BioShock 2'''s ending, in which Delta lives on through Eleanor.

** Even better, Lamb constantly reminds you how shifty Sinclair is and how he most likely only acts out of trying to get a profit. But he never betrays you and even advices you to do the good choice to several situations and even tells you how there is a way to make you human again. In the end all he wants is to do something good after all the bad he did in the past. Not only that but he actually proves Lamb wrong.

** Even better, Lamb constantly reminds you how shifty Sincliar is and how he most likely only acts out of trying to get a profit. But he never betrays you and even advices you to do the good choice to several situations and even tells you how there is a way to make you human again. In the end all he wants is to do something good after all the bad he did in the past. Not only that but he actualy proves Lamb wrong.

* Big Daddies in general draw an inexplicably perfect balance between HighOctaneNightmareFuel and [=CMOH=].

** YourMileageMayVary once you hear a [[EpilepticTrees theory]] on his somewhat annoying way of speaking. [[spoiler: His parents are making him read a message so that they can lure the Little Sister away from her Big Daddy for her ADAM.]]
*** [[spoiler: Considering we also hear from his mother and father, and his mother is a genuinely kind woman and his father is locked away in Persephone, it's possible, but unlikely.]]
*** Look in the area with the gift [[spoiler: A Big Daddy was next to the present.]] [[{{Mikephisto}} This Troper]] came to the conclusion that [[spoiler: the Big Daddy was able to recognize that the boy meant no threat and had come to pick up the present, possibly meeting with the boy there.]] I smiled until the FridgeHorror set in: [[spoiler: The Big Daddy was killed in the resulting flood when the ceiling fell on him.]]
* I played as good and the sequence as the Little Sister in ''Bioshock 2'' really got to me, especially one shot in particular. [[spoiler: The Little Sister looks up at Eleanor, towering above, and you see a Big Sister with a green porthole (and after playing either Bioshock for a while, light colors become ''really'' meaningful) for the first time in the game. Eleanor reaches down to scoop the Little Sister up and remove her ADAM slug, and after a whole game of dealing with screeching, vicious nightmares, the Big Sister suit suddenly seems graceful and heroic. All the while Eleanor is speechifying about how she wants to be good like her daddy taught her to. Awwwwww.]]
** I think the real thing that got to this troper (not the OP) was [[spoiler: the words Eleanor said when you were going to the room to deliver the suit...]]
*** [[spoiler: "I am free. After everything Mother has done to me, I'm alive and sane enough to be curious about the sun. When you rescued my new sisters, I felt every one. And it gave me hope for the first time in years."]]

* All through both games, you pretty much see the Big Daddies as monsters. Sure, as you learn more about them you start to see them as victims of Rapture as much as the Little Sisters are, but the best feelings you tend to have for them is pity.
** Big Daddies in general draw an inexplicably perfect balance between HighOctaneNightmareFuel and [=CMOH=].
* Even playing as Delta gives you the feeling of being a sort of Frankenstein's monster.

** Fridge Brilliance / Horror - after what Lamb did to ''you'' with the very same plasmid, years ago, you'd have to be as much a monster as she is to inflict the same on another. "So," the game asks, "are you?"

* In ''Bioshock 2'', sparing [[spoiler: Grace Holloway]]'s life, and her amazement after you leave.

* BioShock 2's ending, in which Delta lives on through Eleanor.

** Big Daddies in general draw an inexplicably perfect balance between HighOctaneNightmareFuel and CMOH.

* The moment in Fontaine Futuristics that Sinclair says that he feels sorry for big daddies. It was good to know that the current Atlas-analogue was a good person.

* In Bioshock 2, when you get the Hypnotize plasmid, you see a pair of splicers slow-dancing, acting completely enamoured. It was obvious that you were supposed to use the plasmid to turn them against one another, but it brought back fond memories of this troper's home-coming semi-formal. He just couldn't bring himself to harm either of them, and left the area without killing either of them. It was the sweetest thing he'd seen in Rapture for a long time...

-->[[spoiler: '''Grace:''' You had me under a gun... and yet you just walk away? No monster alive turns the other cheek. No ''monster'' does that. A ''thinking'' man does that.]]
** [[spoiler:[[ArcWords A man chooses.]]]]

--->[[spoiler: '''Grace:''' You had me under a gun... and yet you just walk away? No monster alive turns the other cheek. No ''monster'' does that. A ''thinking'' man does that.]]
* In Bioshock 2, there's a diary whose reader couldn't be more than 5 years old named Billy Parsan. In it, he [[spoiler: tells a Little Sister that he thinks she's cute, her Big Daddy reminds him of a Comic Book hero, that he bought her a gift and stored it someplace that no one else could get it, and said he'll wave to her next time he sees her.]] I guarantee you will go "D'awwww!"

* I played as good and the sequence as the Little Sister in Bioshock 2 really got to me, especially one shot in particular. [[spoiler: The Little Sister looks up at Eleanor, towering above, and you see a Big Sister with a green porthole (and after playing either Bioshock for a while, light colors become ''really'' meaningful) for the first time in the game. Eleanor reaches down to scoop the Little Sister up and remove her ADAM slug, and after a whole game of dealing with screeching, vicious nightmares, the Big Sister suit suddenly seems graceful and heroic. All the while Eleanor is speechifying about how she wants to be good like her daddy taught her to. Awwwwww.]]

** Saving each Little Sister is a minor [=CMOH=] in itself: you put a hand to their brow, hear them gasp/sigh as everything goes white and a few bars of Garry Schyman's achingly sweet violin theme play. When you can see again, she thanks you and scampers off to the nearest vent.

* In Bioshock 2, there's a diary whose reader couldn't be more than 5 years old named Billy Parsan. In it, he [[spoiler: tells a little sister that he thinks she's cute, her big daddy reminds him of a Comic Book hero, that he bought her a gift and stored it someplace that no one else could get it, and said he'll wave to her next time he sees her.]] I guarantee you will go "D'awwww!"

*** Look in the Area with the gift [[spoiler: A Big Daddy was next to the present.]] [[{{Mikephisto}} This Troper]] came to the conclusion that [[spoiler: The Big Daddy was able to recognize that the boy meant no threat and had come to pick up the present possibly meeting with the boy there.]] I smiled until the horrific realization came in: [[spoiler: The Big Daddy was killed in the resulting flood when the ceiling fell on him.]]
* I played as good and the sequence as the Little Sister in Bioshock 2 really got to me, especially one shot in particular. [[spoiler: The Little Sister looks up at Eleanor, towering above, and you see a Big Sister with a green porthole (and after playing either Bioshock for a while, light colors become really meaningful) for the first time in the game. Eleanor reaches down to scoop the Little Sister up and remove her Adam slug, and after a whole game of dealing with screeching, vicious nightmares, the Big Sister suit suddenly seems graceful and heroic. All the while Eleanor is speechifying about how she wants to be good like her daddy taught her to. Awwwwww.]]

** Fridge Brilliance / Horror - after what Lamb did to ''you'' with the very same plasmid, years ago, you'd have to be as much a monster as she is to inflict the same on another.

* Minerva's Den. We FINALLY get a guy, C.M. Milton, who goes to Rapture who 1)Isn't a complete ass. 2)Smart enough to see through Ryan, Fontaine, Atlas, AND Lamb. 3)Resists one of the primal temptations and [[spoiler: shuts down the AI construct he made of his departed wife, knowing that it wasn't her or what she would wanted.]] At the end we see this poor man's grief, and how he refused to let it break him or twist him like so many others in Rapture. [[spoiler: And the best part is that HE LIVES!]]

* In bioshock 2, when you get the hypnotize plasmid, you see a pair of splicers slow-dancing, acting completely enamoured. It was obvious that you were supposed to use the plasmid to turn them against one another, but it brought back fond memories of this troper's home-coming semi-formal. He just couldn't bring himself to harm either of them, and left the area without killing either of them. It was the sweetest thing he'd seen in rapture for a long time...
** One of them even brought a gift!

* Heck, there was a Crowning Moment in the very first trailer ever shown for the game. We get a savage battle between a Big Daddy and the player ending with the player getting gored to death by the Big Daddy's drill. Then a camera cut to the Little Sister cowering on the ground. The Big Daddy stomps into view towering over the little girl, it's drill still covered in blood, and reaches out it's huge hand to help her up. That single shot let me know that this game would be different.
* All through both games you pretty much see the Big Daddies as monsters. Sure, as you learn more about them you start to see them as victims of Rapture as much as the Little Sisters are, but the best feelings you tend to have for them is pity.

* In bioshock 2, when you get the hypnotize plasmid, you see a pair of splicers slow-dancing, acting completely enamoured. It was obvious that you were supposed to use the plasmid to turn them against one another, but it brought back fond memories of this troper's home-coming semi-formal. He just couldn't bring himself to harm either of them, and left the area without killing either of them. It was the sweetest thing he'd seen in rapture for a long time...

*** [[spoiler: "I am free. After everything Mother has done to me, I'm alive and sane enough to be curious about the sun. When you rescued my new sisters, I felt every one. And it gave me hope for the first time in years.]]

* If you've been saving the Little Sisters throughout the first game, you'll see all of them playing in [[spoiler:Tenenbaum's sanctuary]]. They basically start heaping praises onto you and say you're going to save them. That fact alone can give you the fuzzies.

* The original's "good" ending, in which you grow old with the Little Sisters you saved, and you finally have the one thing you were denied: a family.

** I remember finding myself torn at that part. I wanted to kill her for being so cruel to me just because she was told I was a monster, and then... I just couldn't.

* If you've been saving the Little Sisters throughout the first game, you'll see all of them playing in [[Tenenbaum's sanctuary]]. They basically start heaping praises onto you and say you're going to save them. That fact alone can give you the fuzzies.

Even playing as Delta gives you the feeling of being a sort of Frankenstein's monster.
Then near the end of the game you can [[spoiler:see the world through the eyes of a Little Sister]] and one of the first things you see is [[spoiler:a two story high golden statue of a Big Daddy in a heroic vein looking something like a knight Templar or a paladin. Also all of the other statues you pass during the mission are of Big Daddies being heroic- protecting people and defeating monsters.]] It's nice to know you're a hero to someone after all.