History Tearjerker / NightInTheWoods

** There's also the fact that the gang can never tell his parents about how he died, since who would believe that a cult kidnapped him so that they could sacrifice him to a EldritchAbomination? At worst, they'll never get the closure they deserve, and at best, they'll be told a bold-faced lie about their son's death.

''Night in the Woods'' had claimed to be about depression. They weren't kidding.

* A meta-example: Alec Holowka, a developer and composer on the game, [[https://www.pcgamer.com/night-in-the-woods-developer-alec-holowka-has-died/ died at an early age just days after being accused of sexual assault]]. Now that the news has passed, you'll never play the game in the same way again.

*** When Mae finds Bea toward the end of her final hangout, Bea goes into a sad tirade about her college plans being ruined... and then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oDg19Cuu4w "Proximity"]] plays in the background, which is kind of a tear-jerker in itself. Fortunately, Mae has to calm her down, but still...

* This little happy [[http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/320/101/141.png story]] from 4chan.

** Mae is a WomanChild and a college dropout that left due to feeling constantly alienated, only to return to her dying home and learn almost everyone wants nothing to do with her or only remembers the bad things she's done to them or others. Gregg seems to be the ''only'' person who's happy to see her return, minus her parents, and even then, after coming back, her bonding with her friends ends up causing them trouble (reawakening Gregg's crime loving attitude which causes friction between Gregg and Angus, accidentally letting slip on a party Bea invited Mae to that Bea never went to college, causing Bea to run away). Then it's revealed Mae is severely mentally ill (and can't get the proper treatment because the doctor is highly incompetent), has done things that have only alienated her further in the past, and then the woods start acting up...

--> '''Mae:''' But when I die I want it to hurt. When my friends leave, when I have to let go, when this entire town is wiped off the map, I want it to hurt. Bad. I want to lose. I want to get beaten up. I want to hold on until I'm thrown off and everything ends. And you know what? Until that happens, I want to hope again. [[BittersweetEnding And I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something.]]

** Mae is a WomanChild and a college dropout that left due to feeling constantly alienated, only to return to her dying home and learn almost everyone wants nothing to do with her or only remembers the bad things she's done to them or others. Gregg seems to be the ''only'' person who's happy to see her return, minus her parents, and even then, after coming back, her bonding with her friends ends up causing them trouble (reawakening Gregg's crimeloving attitude which causes friction between Gregg and Angus, accidentally letting slip on a party Bea invited Mae to that Bea never went to college, causing Bea to run away). Then it's revealed Mae is severely mentally ill (and can't get the proper treatment because the doctor is highly incompetent), has done things that have only alienated her further in the past and then the woods start acting up...

** Even the background characters lead lives of quiet desperation. One of the two good ol'boys in front of the bar is succumbing to depression. The deer-woman who works the night shift at the video store is a single parent who is living with her mother. The fisherman who fishes in the underground trolley tunnel was abandoned by his wife, if his song is any indication. The art teacher who reads poetry at the library struggles to keep her art classes afloat with very little funding. In the woods behind the church, a homeless man has set up an encampment because he has nowhere else to go.

** Regardless of who you end up confessing her side of the "Killer" incident to, Mae, still concussed from nearly getting shot and falling into a ravine just a few days prior has left her weak and feeling completely useless.

** While a sweet moment in general, it is quite a TearJerker when Mae's mom reveals that Mae is the only successful child after ''many'' miscarriages. It's implied the parents have tried for ages to the point of giving up, only for Mae to make it through. It makes not only her parents concerns for her well-being much more understandable, but adds an entire new [[AdultFear point of view]] about how they must have felt when Mae almost died in the woods and then later disappears in the middle of the night to go to Gregg and Angus’s.

** Even worse is the fact that the sacrifices ''aren't working''. Even a quick glance at the state of the town shows that it's still in a downward spiral, even if it's a slow one. This offers up at least two explanations for this: one, the Black Goat is either unwilling or unable to support the town anymore, no matter what sacrifices are made in it's name. Or... there was never a Black Goat in the first place. All the talks of the Black Goat "singing" to people are nothing more than people getting affected by hallucinating gasses, with other people forming a cult around it. So all the rites, all the deaths, all of the 39 people that have been sacrificed? It's most likely been AllForNothing.

* You check the library's microfiche before embarking on your ghost hunt. If you read the non-ghost related stories, you get the history of Possum Springs...and it's not a happy one. For all the older residents talk about the good ol' days when everyone had a job, it's clear that there ''were'' no good ol' days -- just a history of dangerous working conditions, exploitative bosses and downright lethal terrain.
** Back when it was a mining town, mine bosses decided not to alert two miners to the gas pockets in the areas they were about to dynamite. The resulting explosion killed and maimed many miners, including one poor fellow whose body wasn't discovered until long after his widow had taken their children and moved back to their home country. His funeral had to be handled by the pastor.
** A year after the accident, the bosses had ''still'' not implemented the safety measures required by law. The miners decided to go on strike. The bosses called in the National Guard...who started firing into the crowd after being taunted by local youths. Their indiscriminate attack killed not only many striking miners, but two children who'd been delivering their father's lunch.
** A bizarre gas leak caused disturbing visual and auditory hallucinations for residents in a particular area which subsequently had to be evacuated...but not before a young boy had drowned himself because he heard someone or something "calling" him.

** After her dream encounter with the [[EldritchAbomination Sky Cat]], Mae has an [[CrisisOfFaith existential crisis]] and can go talk with Pastor K about her experiences. If she tells her that she doesn't really believe in God anymore, K tries to assure her that it's alright if she doesn't and admits to Mae that she has problems with her own faith at times, even to the point that she doesn't believe in God herself on certain bad days. She intends for her response to be comforting and non-judgemental, but instead [[AssuranceBackfire Mae gets upset at this revelation]] and lashes out, [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech accusing the pastor of lying to her congregation]] by preaching from the pulpit every Sunday despite not being completely sure of God's existence herself, and ending by asking: [[ArmorPiercingQuestion "then what's even the point of you?!"]] The two separate on bad terms, and while they make up later, at the end of the game Pastor K is still left alone, her altruistic ambitions having come to nothing and struggling with her beliefs. Yet she soldiers on, [[GoodShepherd determined to serve as a spiritual guidance for her flock regardless of her own troubles.]]

* While Mae is lying unconscious in the church after being chased and shot at by the cult, all of the people she's grown close to in town come to visit. Lori M. says that Mae's the only person who was nice to her, Mr. Chazkov breaks down in tears as he talks about stargazing with her, and Selmers says that Mae doesn't deserve all the trouble she's had. It's a very poignant and bittersweet moment realizing how much impact Mae actually has in the community.
* Small one but after nearly getting killed and getting caved in...Mae just ''[[BreakTheCutie collapses]]'' in Gregg's embrace. What makes it more painful is she was ''laughing'' only to then begin sobbing, implying that [[TraumaCongaLine everything she was enduring in the game (disappointing her family, knowing how much they put for her, mental issues, her friends being strained from everything she's done)]] was finally reaching her and she ''just can't take it anymore''.

* If you know (or live in) a DyingTown yourself, much of Possum Springs is painfully familiar: "old faithful" stores that have been there for years suddenly vanishing and being replaced by chains that can afford to take a gamble, the migration of young people out of the area, longtime residents trapped in houses that they can't sell and the town's constant state of being under construction without seeing any real improvements from said construction. The eeriness of a nearly-empty mall, with only a few stores still clinging to life, is particularly haunting, especially the scene where Mae plays with the PA system. Even the appearance of new shops (such as the taco place at the end of the game) feels more like a futile HopeSpot: one more new venture that's almost certainly doomed to go under within a couple of years. There's a desperate sadness that permeates the town -- its inhabitants simultaneously love the place and want/need to escape it.

* When Bea is driving a drunk Mae home from the party in the woods, Mae starts reminiscing about better times when they were kids, and tells Bea to say hi to her mom for her... Before Bea angrily tells Mae that her mom died of cancer in her senior year and lays into Mae with a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech brutal speech]] for forgetting about that and dropping out of college when Bea never got to go in the first place, driving Mae to hysterical sobbing in the process.

--->'''Mae''': Bea/Gregg...I'm scared...

-->'''Mae:''' Bye, you guys. ''({{beat}})'' I love you.

--> '''Mae's mom:''' You were our miracle baby.

* While Mae is lying unconscious in the church after being chased and shot at by the cult, all of the people she's grown close to in town come to visit. Lori M. says that Mae's the only person who was nice to her, and Mr. Chazkov breaks down in tears as he talks about stargazing with her. It's a very poignant and bittersweet moment realizing how much impact Mae actually has in the community.

** Mae is a WomanChild and a college dropout that left due to feeling constantly alienated, only to return to her dying home and learn almost everyone wants nothing to do with her or only remembers the bad things she's done to them or others. Gregg seems to be the ''only'' person who's happy to see her return, minus her parents, and even then, after coming back, her bonding with her friends ends up causing them trouble (reawakening Gregg's crimeloving attitude which causes friction between Gregg and Angus, accidentally letting slip on a party Bea invited Mae to that Bea never went to college, causing Bea to run away). Then it's revealed Mae is severely mentally ill (and can't get the proper treatment because the doctor is highly incompetent), has done things that have only alienated her further in the past] and then the woods start acting up...

* The ending, in all it's [[BittersweetEnding bittersweetness]]. Yes, the gang escaped with their lives, stopped more sacrifices from taking place, and have opened up to themselves and others... but that really doesn't stop all the other bad things in their life. They're still stuck in the dying town of Possom Springs. Mae, though recovering, is still seriously mentally ill. Bea is stuck working at the family business, stuck in poverty and unlikely to go anywhere else. Gregg and Angus' plans (move to a better town together) ''sounds'' hopeful, but as Bea points out, that may be all that it is: [[HopeSpot hopeful]]. Even though the worse is over, it almost feels like [[NowWhat the characters themselves are questioning what happens next]]. At the very least, they have [[TrueCompanions each other, for the moment.]]

** [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome Now in song]] [[https://soundcloud.com/tvma/i-want-it-to-hurt-lyrics-by-mae-borowski form.]]

* One of Mae's doodles in her journal is, "THOUGHT: Come back to life, Granddad." It's also a CrowningMomentOfFunny, since it's accompanied by a sketch of her grandfather as a zombie, but it's a hint towards just how much Mae misses her grandfather, someone who obviously loved her very, very much.

* While Mae is lying unconscious in the church after being chased and shot at by the cult, all of the people she's grown close to in town come to visit. Lori M. says that Mae's the only person who was nice to her, and Mr. Chazkov breaks down in tears as he talks about stargazing with her. It's a very poignant and bittersweet moment realizing how much Mae impact Mae actually has in the community.

** Mae is a WomanChild and a college dropout that left due to feeling constantly alienated, only to return to her dying home and learn almost everyone wants nothing to do with her or only remembers the bad things she's done to them or others. Gregg seems to be the ''only'' person who's happy to see her return, minus her parents, and even then, after coming back, her bonding with her friends ends up causing them trouble (reawakening Gregg's crimeloving attitude which causes friction between Gregg and Angus, accidentally letting slip on a party Bea invited Mae to that Bea never went to college, causing Bea to run away). [[spoiler: Then it's revealed Mae is severely mentally ill (and can't get the proper treatment because the doctor is highly incompetent), has done things that have only alienated her further in the past,]] and then the woods start acting up...
** Bea is working a dead-end job and [[spoiler:envies her former friend Mae to the point of hating her for having the life she couldn't. Her mom's death certainly hasn't helped her, either. It's also implied that one of her co-workers at the Ol' Pickaxe attempted to or succeeded in sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager, and she still has to work with him every day as he's pretty much their best worker.]]

** [[spoiler: Bea implies in the Epilogue that when the two move to the city, Angus will leave him upon seeing he has "more options", which is either cruelly ignorant or depressingly accurate depending on how you interpret her statement.]] On the optimistic side, if you go with Angus to the park, he reveals his backstory, and based on where Gregg fits into it, they might have a more important bond than Bea understands. If you follow his plotline instead of Bea's their relationship comes out stronger than it started.
** Depending on how the story plays out, he can also go from [[spoiler:a relatively upstanding and happy-go-lucky guy despite his aforementioned issues, to a jaded, cynical asshole who commits petty crimes against people who trusted him for kicks]]. All because of ''your'' influence.
** Angus' childhood was genuinely horrifying. [[spoiler: His father beat him, and his mother wouldn't feed him, and would lock him in the pantry, sometimes for whole days or overnight, slamming the door so hard the things in there would fall on top of him.]] And to make matters worse [[spoiler: while his father just disappeared at one point, his mother is now old and ill. And Angus feels like he still has to visit her since she ''is'' his mother.]]

** Mr. Santello plunged into a deep depression after [[spoiler:his wife's death]] and now relies on his daughter to run his business. Poverty forced him to sell his house and move into a small, run-down apartment with Bea.

* Mae's deteriorating mental health throughout the game ends up causing her to confess the "killer" incident to either Bea or Gregg. [[spoiler: Mae suffered a severe psychotic break during her childhood that resulted in her severely beating another child at a softball game. It's highly likely that she suffers from disassociation, and fears that things in her life will lose meaning as she grows older.]]

** Mae upon returning to her friends after nearly dying decides to [[spoiler: Sacrifice herself to the cult because she's tired of fighting and running. She wants to die . Had Gregg not showed up she might have been sacrificed herself.]]
* The reveal of [[spoiler:Casey's death. All we know was that he was an ordinary guy who wanted to find a better life outside of town; so ordinary the cult thought no one would even miss him if he was gone... which, to an extent, is ''true.'' Aside from the gang and his parents, barely anyone seems to talk about Casey around town ''at all.'']]
** There's also the fact that [[spoiler:the gang can never tell his parents about how he died, since who would believe that a cult kidnapped him so that they could sacrifice him to a {{Eldritch Abomination}}? At worst, they'll never get the closure they deserve, and at best, they'll be told a bold-faced lie about their son's death.]]
* [[spoiler:Mae's speech to the CosmicHorror near the end of the game is downright ''sobering.'']]
--> '''Mae:''' [[spoiler: But when I die I want it to hurt. When my friends leave, when I have to let go, when this entire town is wiped off the map, I want it to hurt. Bad. I want to lose. I want to get beaten up. I want to hold on until I'm thrown off and everything ends. And you know what? Until that happens, I want to hope again. [[BittersweetEnding And I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something.]]]]
** [[spoiler:[[CrowningMusicOfAwesome Now in song]] [[https://soundcloud.com/tvma/i-want-it-to-hurt-lyrics-by-mae-borowski form.]]]]

* Mae's possible fight with her mother is a big one, considering how well the two have gotten along up until that point. [[spoiler:Mae's mother gets passive aggressive about Mae coming back home from college despite all the money they spent on getting her there, then accuses Mae of not caring that they might lose their house. Mae fires back that the only reason her mother cares so much is because she was trying to live her dreams of going to college through Mae to make up for her own failures. The two proceed not to talk to each other for the rest of the night.]] They do eventually make up, though.

** While a sweet moment in general, it is quite a TearJerker when Mae's mom reveals that Mae is the only successful child after ''many'' miscarriages. It's implied the parents have tried for ages to the point of giving up, only for Mae to make it through. It makes not only her parents concerns for her well-being much more understandable, but adds an entire new [[AdultFear point of view]] about how they must have felt when [[spoiler: Mae almost died in the woods and then later disappears in the middle of the night to go to Gregg and Angus’s]].

* [[spoiler: Gregg's big speech to Mae after she runs out to basically let herself die at the hands of the ghost can be this. It definitely is for him.]]
** [[spoiler: Bea's speech as well, if you've bonded with her more than Gregg. She flat-out states that Mae is the closest thing to a sister she's ever had.]]
* [[spoiler:The ending, in all it's [[BittersweetEnding bittersweetness]]. Yes, the gang escaped with their lives, stopped more sacrifices from taking place, and have opened up to themselves and others... but that really doesn't stop all the other bad things in their life. They're still stuck in the dying town of Possom Springs. Mae, though recovering, is still seriously mentally ill. Bea is stuck working at the family business, stuck in poverty and unlikely to go anywhere else. Gregg and Angus' plans (move to a better town together) ''sounds'' hopeful, but as Bea points out, that may be all that it is: [[HopeSpot hopeful]]. Even though the worse is over, it almost feels like [[NowWhat the characters themselves are questioning what happens next]]. At the very least, they have [[TrueCompanions each other, for the moment.]]]]

--> '''Germ:''' [[spoiler:[[WhamLine My brother would've visited.]]]]
* When Bea is driving a drunk Mae home from the party in the woods, Mae starts reminiscing about better times when they were kids, and tells Bea to say hi to her mom for her... [[spoiler: Before Bea angrily tells Mae that her mom died of cancer in her senior year and lays into Mae with a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech brutal speech]] for forgetting about that and dropping out of college when Bea never got to go in the first place, driving Mae to hysterical sobbing in the process.]]
--> '''Bea:''' [[spoiler: What happened to you? You used to be smart!!! You used to be cool! You used to be worth talking to! Why did you even come back? Oh, did college not work out for you? Was it inconvenient? Were you not in the mood? I would have ''killed'' for that. I still would. I'd kick you out of this moving car right now if it meant I could go to college.]]
** It gets much worse later on when you find out [[spoiler:Mae really ''did'' have a good reason.]]
* In a strange way, [[spoiler:the cultists of the Black Goat. Yes, they sacrifice minorities and people they deem "useless" to the town to an {{Eldritch Abomination}}... but they make it very clear that they don't ''enjoy'' doing this. They simply feel that the constant sacrifices are [[IDidWhatIHadToDo necessary in order for the town to return to prosperity]]. Mae even realizes that the cult is made out of people who have "lost something"; and they're trying to reclaim it anyway they can. It doesn't in any way possible justify their actions, of course, but it does provide an interesting explanation of why they do them.]]
** Even worse is the fact that [[spoiler:the sacrifices ''aren't working''. Even a quick glance at the state of the town shows that it's still in a downward spiral, even if it's a slow one. This offers up at least two explanations for this: one, the Black Goat is either unwilling or unable to support the town anymore, no matter what sacrifices are made in it's name. Or... there was never a Black Goat in the first place. All the talks of the Black Goat "singing" to people are nothing more than people getting affected by hallucinating gasses, with other people forming a cult around it. So all the rites, all the deaths, all of the 39 people that have been sacrificed? It's most likely been {{All For Nothing}}.]]
* The BookEnds of Mae's journal. "R.I.P., Granddad" to [[spoiler:"R.I.P., Casey."]]

* Bittersweet tears in the ''Weird Autumn'' edition, if you choose to have Mae take a nap in the church library when Candy suggests it. [[spoiler:The ghost of Mae's grandfather appears, and silently watches Mae sleep, smiling. Even in death, he still adores his granddaughter... but he vanishes before Mae can wake up and see him, let alone try to communicate.]]

*** [[spoiler: Bea implies in the Epilogue that when the two move to the city, Angus will leave him upon seeing he has "more options", which is either cruelly ignorant or depressingly accurate depending on how you interpret her statement.]] On the optimistic side, if you go with Angus to the park, he reveals his backstory, and based on where Gregg fits into it, they might have a more important bond than Bea understands. If you follow his plotline instead of Bea's their relationship comes out stronger than it started.]]

** Depending on how the story plays out, he can also go from spoiler:a relatively upstanding and happy-go-lucky guy despite his aforementioned issues, to a jaded, cynical asshole who commits petty crimes against people who trusted him for kicks. All because of ''your'' influence.

--> '''Mae:''' [[spoiler: But when I die I want it to hurt. When my friends leave, when I have to let go, when this entire town is wiped off the map, I want it to hurt. Bad. Until that happens, I want to hope again. [[BittersweetEnding And I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something.]]]]

*** [[spoiler: Bea implies in the Epilogue that when the two move to the city, Angus will leave him upon seeing he has "more options", which is either cruelly ignorant or depressingly accurate depending on how you interpret her statement.]] On the optimistic side, if you go with Angus to the park, he reveals his backstory, and based on where Gregg fits into it, they might have a more important bond than Bea understands. If you follow his plotline instead of Bea's their relationship comes out stronger than it started.]]

** [[spoiler: Bea implies in the Epilogue that when the two move to the city, Angus will leave him upon seeing he has "more options", which is either cruelly ignorant or depressingly accurate depending on how you interpret her statement.]] On the optimistic side, if you go with Angus to the park, he reveals his backstory, and based on where Gregg fits into it, they might have a more important bond than Bea understands. If you follow his plotline instead of Bea's their relationship comes out stronger than it started.]]
** Depending on how the story plays out, he can also go from [[spoiler:a relatively upstanding and happy-go-lucky guy despite his aforementioned issues, to a jaded, cynical asshole who commits petty crimes against people who trusted him for kicks. All because of ''your'' influence.]]

*** [[spoiler: Bea implies in the Epilogue that when the two move to the city, Angus will leave him upon seeing he has "more options", which is either cruelly ignorant or depressingly accurate depending on how you interpret her statement.]] On the optimistic side, if you go with Angus to the park, he reveals his backstory, and based on where Gregg fits into it, they might have a more important bond than Bea understands. If you follow his plotline instead of Bea's their relationship comes out stronger than it started.]]