History TearJerker / LibraryOfRuina

* The first of many saddening causalities happens to be Lulu at the start of the game, who escaped the Library while her love interest Mars was killed. Knowing that Mars was gone for good, she breaks down in the rain over his loss and makes the rash decision to return to try and reclaim his Book from the Library - an act that ends with her being killed and "Booked", just like he was.
** Mars himself is quite tragic too. The son of a legendary Fixer, he grew up with a dream to become just like his mother and make her proud. Only that he found himself struggling to achieve this goal, and eventually ended up working as a lower Grade fixer. His mother was still proud of him, and excited for him to work his way up the ranks, but Mars felt like he'd failed her and his key page text implies he may have distanced himself from her out of shame. When he's defeated in the Library, Mars is the first person to drop an Objet d'art Key Page - the highest ranked and most powerful class of page you can get. While it's appropriate for early game, and pales in significance to later ones, the fact he has an Objet d'art page suggests he was much more talented than he gave himself credit for, and it's likely his own high expectations of himself ended up crippling his self-confidence.

** Phillip wasn't a brave and upfront fighter at the start and works alongside Yuna, a woman that he adores, and Salvador, an experienced veteran of the Smoke War who mentors him. Salvador is fairly kind to Phillip, but despite his affections for Yuna, she doesn't perceive him as a worthy combatant because of his more cowardly tendencies, and is fairly critical of him before of them. This is heavily implied to lead to him believing that Yuna held much more interest in Salvador, and he assumed she was angling for a physical relationship with him when she suggested they celebrate victory at the Library at Salvador's home. Salvador promised to console Phillip after they were done in the Library, but he and Yuna were tragically killed instead. Phillip then contacted Dawn Office's sister office for help, but everything ended in exactly the same way, which caused him to manifest a brimstone E.G.O. [[HopeSpot Oscar implanted an escape button onto Phillip]] only for the button to teleport him into the 8 O' Clock Circus where the Ringmaster [[BreakThemByTalking tortures him verbally]]. Pluto arrives to the Circus, transforms him into a new Distortion with the help of an unknown force heavily implied to be Carmen, and sends him into the Library, only for the Library to spare him. He flees, wrecks massive havoc in a Nest where his former office is at...and was finally recruited by Oswald, Pluto and Argalia into his ensemble, [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie turning himself from an Anti-Distortion Fixer Office into a force of terror]].

* Tomerry. They were just a couple known as Tommy and Merry who had boarded their first WARP Train, but ended up being one of the first victims of the Reverberation Ensemble's lunacy. They were manipulated by a modified Elena and Jae-Hon into becoming a monstrosity with no idea what they actually are (that is, Elena is an AxCrazy Bloodfiend SerialKiller and Jae-Hon was a grieving man who was also one of the deadliest Distortions of the City), for the sake of escaping the WARP Train, not knowing that W Corp's singularity will instantly undo the suffering of the whole train. This did not end well, and as revealed in the ''Leviathan'' comic, after the true ending the two were still roaming at large as a combined monstrosity that didn't even know who they were and was now serving Iori for whatever reason.

** It was revealed that Angela was created by Ayin based on his [[TheLostLenore lost lenore]], Carmen, but noticing that she doesn't act anything like her he ''barely'' even treated her like a person, but Benjamin does. However, instead of leaving her in dregs, he proceeds to force her into enabling as many outrageous and bloodthirsty acts as he could, namely the Welfare Team Incident, telling her to kill Benjamin to have him manage the time cycles, and deliberately inducing Sephirah Meltdowns while she could do nothing. However, Angela isn't a puppet, and she has free will, leaving her extremely dejected at the end and she decided to undo all of her master's work in an instant so she could regain humanity with the "One Perfect Book", and she came out from the other side completely ready to kill just like Ayin himself. Ayin might had been done numerous monstrous acts demonstrated by the player of ''Lobotomy Corporation'', but this must be one of the worst.
** And much later on, if Hokma's words were to be taken as granted, then the whole Library and "One Perfect Book" thing isn't her idea to begin with...and she's still nothing short of a puppet and an UnwittingPawn in ''Carmen's'' hands (with Ayin heavily implied to be involved because he and Carmen have merged with the light). While [[AmbiguouslyEvil it's not really clear if Carmen was really altruistic in mind or she's a master manipulator with supernatural powers who intends to destroy the City]], every single person you book and (seemingly) kill wasn't for Angela, it was for the unknown, shady entity who often presents herself to be too good to be true.

* Xiao's run in with the Library is one of the more tragic events of this game. She was a very professional woman who fell for her fellow Association lead, Lowell. She didn't want him to reciprocate her feelings in case they led to her acting irrationally and becoming weak, but the two of them did fall in love and married only a year before the events of the game. Only a year after their marriage a distorted Phillip wrecks havoc against District 22, forcing her association into investigating the Library. The unbeatable abomination took the life of her newlywed husband, and she was suddenly targeted by the force that engineers the Distortions, going completely OutOfCharacter before the voice attempts to take over her. She is able to resist and successfully manifests an E.G.O. of her own. Despite this heroic twist that would render her victorious in many other settings, ''Project Moon'''s universe didn't allow this to happen, and she gets booked alongside her husband and her whole group of elites in combat just like everyone else. The player could be easily forgiven for believing that they were the true BigBad in this incident, paling in comparison to the worst Wings and Syndicates in terms of cruelty.

** This particular blow is softened by the GoldenEnding: since Angela frees everybody who "died" in the Library and Xiao never Distorted, she comes back as a human and has a chance to reunite with Lowell.

** Yan/얀샋ㄷ요&#47924's page story only makes things worse, showing that, underneath his Distortion, he's ultimately ''completely resigned'' to his fate, saying he's simply not fit to break the cycle and that he ultimately would've accomplished more by simply killing himself instead of accepting the Prescript to become a messenger in the first place. The last paragraph is effectively him begging for someone else to succeed where he failed.

* Xiao's run in with the Library is one of the more tragic events of this game. She was a very professional woman who fell for her fellow Association lead, Lowell. She didn't want him to reciprocate her feelings in case they led to her acting irrationally and becoming weak, but the two of them did fall in love and married only a year before the events of the game. Only a year after their marriage a distorted Phillip wrecks havoc against District 22, forcing her association into investigating the Library. The unbeatable abomination took the life of her newlywed husband, and she was suddenly targeted by the force that engineers the Distortions, going completely OutOfCharacter before the voice attempts to take over her. She is able to resist and successfully manifests an E.G.O. of her own. Despite this heroic twist that would render her victorious in many other settings, ''Project Moon'''s universe didn't allow this to happen, and she gets booked alongside her Husband and her whole group of elites in combat just like everyone else. The player could be easily forgiven for believing that they were the true BigBad in this incident, paling in comparison to the worst Wings and Syndicates in terms of cruelty.
** As mentioned in the Phillip case above, it's implied that ''the Library deliberately altered Phillip's escape route, broke him down and spared him'' for the sake of baiting out someone like Xiao and turning them into books, which would 1) Strengthen the Library for it's unknown goal, potentially on the will and orders of Carmen and 2) Make sure the Reverb Ensemble it is sponsoring goes unopposed.

* Speaking of Roland, he might seem like a decent and easygoing guy at first...but as we delve deeper into the game's story...oh gosh. The entry above speaks matters, but there's how he ended up here, which is just AdultFear in its finest form. He was one of the most successful and prestiged Fixers in the City who married his ex-colleague Angelica, and were about to retire as a happy family. Unfortunately, after involving into a blackmail deal with a Fixer Office that inured the wrath of O Corp onto the Office's operator for the sake of getting a Nest permit, he was denied a Nest entry over a cheap excuse, and was stranded in the Backstreets...and then all hell breaks loose. His wife was then killed out of nowhere by the Pianist Distortion, and then when he came back after doing errands for Olivier, she was already dead. The City is already an unpredictable and scary place, but having an ''unprecedented incident'' spawning and killing your wife out of nowhere took the cake as one of the most traumatizing ways one can lose their loved ones. This escalated ''quick'', as Roland then lost it and went onto an insane RoaringRampageOfRevenge cutting down basically anyone suspicious, including suspicious laboratories, whole chunks of Fingers or affiliated syndicates, and even fellow Fixers and innocents. Of course, he lost all of his standing afterwards and there's no choice for him but to go to the Library. Losing your loved one is one of the biggest reasons to lose it in this setting, but Roland's situation is almost as incredible as it is saddening.

*** Special mentions to ''Jae-Heon''. He was just minding his business trying to revive his son after he was ran over by a road roller, and was quite close to completing it (if his words were to be taken at face value). However, the angry black mask fixer suddenly rushed in and killed his son for no apparent reason, causing him to literally lose it and turn into the Puppeteer whose destructiveness and pervasiveness rivals those of Pluto. It's AdultFear, and also a nice reminder on how easy people do ''snap'' and turn into monstrosities upon the rise of the Distortion phenomenon.

** Even worse? Angela might not even be wholly responsible for the Pianist -- that was possibly a premeditated result of the Seed of Light. Losing the 4 days of light either meant that people will not manifest E.G.O. easily, or incidents like the Pianist or the Puppeteer were to be created on a city-wide scope and potentially leading to A Corp being compromised on an absolute worst case scenario. He was obviously too insane to even care, not being different from most of the members of the Reverberation Ensemble who had crossed the DespairEventHorizon.

** Roland in the other hand manages to be even more depressing than Angela's. Nothing flashy happens here -- it is just emptiness in fine form. After Roland kills Angela and avenges his wife Angelica, the Library and all of its inhabitants within it vanish like a mirage and he returns to the City. Once he goes back, he fell into a deep depression not unlike Carmen a decade before. According to his former colleagues, was overdosing on drugs and alchohol, doing shady businesses and is overall just "not worth meeting" as Olgier said. A while later, his corpse was drifting in a gutter silently with only Astolfo being remotely sympathetic to his demise. This is effectively a legend of the City falling in the most depressingly cynical way possible, and it demonstrates ''the'' consequences of empty revenge for the sake of ''starkly''.

* Speaking of Roland, he might seem like a decent and easygoing guy at first...but as we delve deeper into the game's story...oh gosh. The entry above speaks matters, but there's how he ended up here, which is just AdultFear in its finest form. He was one of the most successful and prestiged Fixers in the City who married his ex-colleague Angelica, and were about to retire as a happy family. Unfortunately, after involving into a blackmail deal with a Fixer Office that inured the wrath of O Corp onto him for the sake of getting a Nest permit, he was denied a Nest entry over a cheap excuse, and was stranded in the Backstreets...and then all hell breaks loose. His wife was then killed out of nowhere by the Pianist Distortion, and then when he came back after doing errands for Olivier, she was already dead. The City is already an unpredictable and scary place, but having an ''unprecedented incident'' spawning and killing your wife out of nowhere took the cake as one of the most traumatizing ways one can lose their loved ones. This escalated ''quick'', as Roland then lost it and went onto an insane RoaringRampageOfRevenge cutting down basically anyone suspicious, including suspicious laboratories, whole chunks of Fingers or affiliated syndicates, and even fellow Fixers and innocents. Of course, he lost all of his standing afterwards and there's no choice for him but to go to the Library. Losing your loved one is one of the biggest reasons to lose it in this setting, but Roland's situation is almost as incredible as it is saddening.

** Roland in the other hand manages to be even more depressing than Angela's. Nothing flashy happens here -- it is just emptiness in fine form. After Roland kills Angela and avenges his wife Angelica, the Library and all of its inhabitants within it vanish like a mirage and he returns to the City. Once he goes back, he fell into a deep depression not unlike Carmen a decade later, According to his former colleagues, was overdosing on drugs and alchohol, doing shady businesses and is overall just "not worth meeting" as Olgier said. A while later, his corpse was drifting in a gutter silently with only Astolfo being remotely sympathetic to his demise. This is effectively a legend of the City falling in the most depressingly cynical way possible, and it demonstrates ''the'' consequences of empty revenge for the sake of ''starkly''.

** Angela's DownerEndng has her become a full human as she always wanted after booking Roland. However, to say that she ended up tragically is an understatement. After booking the traitor that she believed was her sole emotional support with tears on her eyes, she proceeds to kill all of the Sefirot, who were now human, defenseless and standing in her way. Unable to bear the guilt of sacrificing too much to obtain humanity and having been seen all the horrors in the City however, Angela never steps a foot into the outside world with her newfound human body, and the only thing she has achieved is to throw an aimless SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum against the City that the Head considered nothing more than a slight annoyance and the Library downgraded from Impurity to a mere Star of the City, which means it has been integrated into the City's cycle and no longer poses actual threat against it. Cue 13 years later, and she was so bored of the perpetual destruction that she just lets an unknown Bookhunter kill her, achieving nothing in return.
** Roland in the other hand manages to be even more depressing than Angela's. Nothing flashy ever happens -- it is just emptiness in fine form. After Roland kills Angela and avenges his wife Angelica, the Library and all of its inhabitants within it vanish like a mirage and he returns to the City. Once he goes back, he fell into a deep depression not unlike Carmen a decade later, According to his former colleagues, was overdosing on drugs and alchohol, doing shady businesses and is overall just "not worth meeting" as Olgier said. A while later, his corpse was drifting in a gutter silently with only Astolfo being remotely sympathetic to his demise. This is effectively a legend of the City falling in the most depressingly cynical way possible, and it demonstrates ''the'' consequences of empty revenge for the sake of ''starkly''.

** Both [[DownerEnding Downer Endings]] following the reception. For Angela, after killing Roland, things then spiral as she then kills the Sephirah again and continues to spread her Library until 13 years later, where she lets herself be cut down by a Fixer who reaches her. For Roland, he kills Angela while her back is turn, which kills everyone inside the Library except for himself. Without anything else to live for, he's killed by his enemies at his lowest point, his dead corpse found sinking into the gutter as Astolfo sadly notes that this is the fate for a man who was consumed by killing.

** Even worse? Angela might not even be wholly responsible for the Pianist -- that was possibly a premeditated result of the Seed of Light. Losing the 4 days of light either meant that people will not manifest E.G.O. easily, or incidents like the Pianist or the Puppeteer were to be created on a city-wide scope and potentially leading to A Corp being compromised on an absolute worst case scenario. He was obviously too insane to even care, not being different from most of the members of the Reverberation Ensemble who had crossed the DespairEventHorizon.

** Mars himself is incredible tragic too. The son of a legendary Fixer, he grew up with a dream to become just like his mother and make her proud. Only he found himself struggling to achieve this goal, and eventually ended up working as a lower Grade fixer. His mother was still proud of him, and excited for him to work his way up the ranks, but Mars felt like he'd failed her and his key page text implies he may have distanced himself from her out of shame. When he's defeated in the Library, Mars is the first person to drop an Objet d'art Key Page - the highest ranked and most powerful class of page you can get. While it's appropriate for early game, and pales in significance to later ones, the fact he has an Objet d'art page suggests he was much more talented than he gave himself credit for, and it's likely his own high expectations of himself ended up crippling his self-confidence.

* Tomerry. They were just a couple known as Tommy and Merry who had boarded their first WARP Train, but ended up being one of the first victims of the Reverberation Ensemble's Lunacy. They were manipulated by a modified Elena and Jae-Hon into becoming a monstrosity with no idea what they actually are (that is, Elena is an AxCrazy Bloodfiend SerialKiller and Jae-Hon was a grieving man who was also one of the deadliest Distortions of the City), for the sake of escaping the WARP Train, not knowing that W Corp's singularity will instantly undo the suffering of the whole train. This did not end well, and as revealed in the ''Leviathan'' comic, after the true ending the two were still roaming at large as a combined monstrosity that didn't even know who they were and was now serving Iori for whatever reason.

* Speaking of Roland, he might seem like a decent and easygoing guy at first...but as we delve deeper into the game's story...oh gosh. The entry above speaks matters, but there's how he ended up here, which is just AdultFear in its finest form. He was one of the most successful and prestiged Fixers in the City who married his ex-colleague Angelica, and were about to retire as a happy family. Unfortunately, after involving into a blackmail deal with a Fixer Office that inured the wrath of O Corp onto him for the sake of getting a Nest permit, he was denied a Nest entry over a cheap excuse, and was stranded in the Backstreets...and then all hell breaks loose. His wife was then killed out of nowhere by the Pianist Distortion, and then when he came back after doing errands for Olivier, she was already dead. The City is already an unpredictable and scary place, but having an ''unprecedented incident'' spawning and killing your wife out of nowhere took the cake as one of the most traumatizing ways one can lose their loved ones. This escalated ''quick'', as Roland then lost it and went onto an insane RoaringRampageOfRevenge cutting down basically anyone suspicious, including suspicious laboratories, whole chunks of Fingers or affiliated syndicates, and even fellow Fixers and innocents. Of course, he lost all of his standing afterwards and there's no choice for him but to go to the Library. Losing your loved one is one of the biggest reasons to lose it in this setting, but Roland's situation takes the cake in terms of scope.