History Main / SwissArmyTears

* Literature/{{Rapunzel}}'s tear cures blindness in her prince charming.

* In ''Literature/TheSnowQueen'', Gerta's tears wash the ice/mirror shard out of Kai's eye; her kiss melts the lump of ice around/in his heart.

** In 'WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', Belle brings back the Beast after his DisneyDeath and turns him human again by weeping over him. Technically, it's her AnguishedDeclarationOfLove that breaks the spell, but her tears prove that love just as much as her words do.

** Belle brings back the Beast by weeping over him in ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast''.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' is a notable aversion, since the movie is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's ''Literature/TheSnowQueen'', and stories based on that often use this trope because the original does. In this story, an ActOfTrueLove is the only thing that can save Anna from being frozen solid. [[spoiler:It's implied that Anna [[HeroicSacrifice protecting her sister through sacrificing her own life]] is what melts Anna's frozen heart and breaks the curse]].

* The end of ''Film/TheNeverendingStoryII'' movie. [[spoiler:Tears allow for 'wishing from the heart' instead of the mind and grant Bastion an extra wish.]]

* In the movie ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}: [[Anime/InuyashaTheMovieAffectionsTouchingAcrossTime Affections Touching Across Time]]'', Sango sheds tears when forced to fight the mind-controlled Kirara and one of the drops happens to fall just on the mind-controlling device, thus empowering Kirara to snap out of it.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek 2}}'': The FairyGodmother had business cards that would summon her if anyone shed tears on them. Fiona shed tears, and got her, complete with the musical number. When Puss stomped on Donkey's hoof to make him shed a tear, they got voicemail.

* At the end of ''Literature/LandOfOz'''s ''Literature/TheCowardlyLionOfOz'', the title character is turned to stone, and the tears of all his friends bring him back to life ("For tears are more magic than anything else, when it comes to melting stone").

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "A Nightmare On Killmotor Road" the triplets, Webby and Lena spend time in a shared lucid dream. Unbeknownst to the others, Magica has been stalking Lena throughout. Her goal is to reclaim her lost powers. This culminates with the cast involved in a literal tug of war with Magica (Who has seized Lena by the neck.) Even forming a chain does little to help, until Webby's tears land on Lena.

* The ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpy'' episode "The Littlest Giant" has Stimpy the "Little Giant" leaving the giant country in exile and sob all over and filling farmer Ren's dried up well with his tears. They both become friends as a result.

* In ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheCastleOfTheUnderseaDevil'', it was Shizuka's tears dropping on Doraemon's pockets which awaken the tied up [[SentientVehicle Buggy]], prompting Buggy to forcefully eject himself from Doraemon's pocket and make a beeline into destroying the main villain. Never mind they're currently ''underwater'' in that scene.
* In ''Anime/FairyTailDragonCry'', Natsu [[spoiler:gets impaled by one of the spikes from Animus' dragon form. Happy and Lucy cry over Natsu, one of Lucy's tears goes into his mouth, waking him up and continuing his fight with Animus despite his injury.]]

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', Anzu/Téa (as the Magician of Faith) cried in mourning for Jounouchi/Joey's sacrifice against Bakura and this activated her flip effect. As the Magician of Faith, she can move one magic card from her player's graveyard to his hand.

* The end of ''Film/TheNeverendingStory II'' movie. [[spoiler:Tears allow for 'wishing from the heart' instead of the mind and grant Bastion an extra wish.]]

* At the end of ''Literature/LandOfOz'''s ''The Cowardly Lion of Oz'', the title character is turned to stone, and the tears of all his friends bring him back to life ("For tears are more magic than anything else, when it comes to melting stone").

* Occurs in episode 4 of ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger''. In this instance, a child in the Continent of Despair who fears his mother to be dead begins to lose hope, and, due to the nature of this realm, [[TakenForGranite turns into stone]]. His mother's tears, when they are reunited, return him to normal.
** {{Invoked|Trope}} in one of the ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'' when the red ranger thought it'll heal Speedor's rustiness from the MonsterOfTheWeek. [[spoiler:Not only it [[AvertedTrope didn't work]], it even appeared to make Speedor [[InvertedTrope more rusty than before]].]]
** Also [[InvokedTrope invoked]] in episode 4 of ''Series/HikoninSentaiAkibaranger'', where Yumeria/[=AkibaYellow=] cries so that her tears can snap a supposedly brainwashed [=AkibaBlue=] out of an evil trance. There's just one problem: her helmet prevents her tears from working.

* Used in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime''. The cure to the Shroob infection that devastated Mushroom Kingdom in the past was Baby Tears. Though it was somewhat subverted in that Professor E. Gadd whipped up a 'chemical equivalent' to do the job en masse.

* Inverted and also used in ''VideoGame/LegendOfMana''. Anyone who cries for a Jumi (basically [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elves]]) will turn to stone, but the Jumi's own tears have healing powers. [[spoiler:Both of which actually happen at the end of the Jumi arc.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CartoonsThatNeverMadeIt'': "Salt 'n' Slug" is about a rather unorthodox InterspeciesRomance between a salt shaker and a slug. [[BlackComedy Salt predictably ends up accidentally killing Slug]], but Slug is miraculously resurrected when her mortal remains are hit by Salt's tears.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'' special ''Fairy Idol'', when Norm the Genie crosses the MoralEventHorizon by brutally crushing Cosmo and Wanda with a giant wrecking ball, Timmy ends up in tears, depressed at how crappily he had treated him earlier in the special, prompting them, in their full body casts, to float up to the air, as if to demonstrate a straight example of this trope, only to end up becoming a subversion when they disintegrate into fairy dust. [[spoiler:Even THEN, though, they reveal themselves to have already gotten better by themselves, thus double subverting this trope.]]

* In the Grand Prix-winning Rene Laloux short ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXn6d13YC0&fmt=18 Les Escargots,]]'' A down-on-his-luck farmer discovers that crying on his lettuces makes them grow large and healthy. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of attracting [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever snails the size of Mack trucks]] which go on a rampage in the nearby town once they've picked his field clean...

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS1E5PizzaDeliveryHomeSweetPineapple Home Sweet Pineapple]]", [=SpongeBob=] loses his pineapple home after nematodes drink it dry, leaving a little "pebble" behind. Near the end of the episode, he plants it in the ground, and a single tear falls on it, restoring it back to normal ([[ButtMonkey on top of Squidward]]).

* ''WesternAnimation/SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperforceGo'': [[spoiler:Nova]]'s tears plus a LoveConfession break [[spoiler:Sprx]] out of the [[ArtifactOfDoom Object of Hate]]'s control.