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6* The whole fact that Raleigh was linked to Yancy as he was killed by the Kaiju, making the experience all the more traumatic for Raleigh, who felt all of his pain and despair in that moment.
7-->'''Raleigh:''' (''panicking'') It went through the hull! It went through the hull!\
8'''Yancy:''' Raleigh, listen to me. Raleigh, listen to -- (''gets ripped out of the Conn-pod by Knifehead'')
9** Afterwards, Raleigh still has to pilot Gipsy to shore--''all by himself''. By the time he stumbles out of the Jaeger, he is only capable of walking around and mumbling Yancy's name dazedly before collapsing.
10** Look at it from the perspective of the old man and his grandson. They just watched a Jaeger, the pinnacle of human engineering, a walking ''god-like warrior,'' just stumble and fall to pieces before them, and out of the Jaeger walks a single wounded, delirious pilot, when everyone knows that pilots are paired. When the old man falls to his knees beside Raleigh, you can see how horrified and crushed he is just by the implications of Gipsy Danger falling dead in front of him. The Jaegers, humanity's last hope, ''aren't good enough''.
11* The demise of Cherno. While both Typhoon and Striker's pilots were killed quickly, the Kaidonovskys got to enjoy a RasputinianDeath until the Kaiju found the cockpit. The HopeSpot didn't help.
12* Herc and Chuck Hansen's goodbyes to each other.
13-->'''Herc:''' Stacker, that's my son you've got there. ''My son.''
14** The worst part is how it all plays out. Pentecost and Chuck ''know'' they are going to die, and they've already accepted it.
15** Really, Herc's lot in life in general. He loses his wife, his young son, his closest friend, numerous family members, and several of his fellow pilots, and is left with nothing but his dog, Max.
16** The fact that Chuck took the time to say goodbye to Max, and that he openly admits how much he's going to miss him.
17--->'''Chuck:''' Hey, handsome. Oh, I'm gonna miss you. Look after him for me.
18** Everyone knows how much love a dog has for their owner. Now imagine how much sadness Max would feel seeing Chuck go away and not understanding why when he never comes back.
19** Herc sounds utterly broken when he says "They [Raleigh and Mako] are finishing the mission."
20* Mako's flashback, revealing a scared little girl bawling her eyes out after losing her parents in the middle of a devastated Tokyo.
21** Made even worse in the novelization, which reveals that Onibaba's attack coincided with Mako's first visit to Tokyo. She's alone, in a strange city, being chased by a giant alien, not long after her father promised her that 'the monsters aren't real' and that he would find her again. Guess what doesn't happen...
22*** Even worse -- the reason that Mako and her parents had to visit Tokyo in the first place was because her father needed treatment for cancer.
23** There's also the fact that Onibaba appears to ''specifically'' target Mako instead of causing general destruction, and towers high above the buildings despite being a Category II kaiju. Then you remember that this is ''a memory'', tainted by Mako's perception of things. A relatively small monster arrived and wreaked havoc in the city, but as far as a poor, traumatized child was concerned, it was the biggest thing she'd ever seen and it was out to get ''her''.
24* Chuck and Stacker's last few moments before their HeroicSacrifice.
25** Perhaps even worse on Stacker's end. He's essentially taking his closest friend's son to an inevitable death. Considering how close and long Stacker and Herc have worked together, it's very likely that Stacker has known Chuck since he was a little boy, or, at the very least, a young teenager. Just imagine taking someone who you've mentored since they still had ''baby teeth'' into such a terrible situation.
26** The comics reveal that all Stacker thought about after saying goodbye to Mako was his son Jake. Making an internal AnguishedDeclarationOfLove, wishing that he had been a better father to him, and apologizing that he is going to die before they could make up.
27* Mako's final words to Pentecost are "I love you". Doubles as a super-sad BilingualBonus since she says it in Japanese with no subtitles. This was intentionally left untranslated, because as del Toro puts it, her words were only for him.
28* Very briefly, among the scattering of images/memories that show up when [[GeniusCripple Gottlieb]] and Newton drift together interspersed with the shots of the Kaiju is ... a young boy crying and hugging his knees. Judging from the clothes and setting, it's a very young Gottlieb. What happened to him?
29** The novelization states he was bullied as a result of being a ChildProdigy.
30* The fear Mako shows when she thinks that Raleigh died.
31** This deserves further mention. Think of everyone Mako has already lost by this point: her entire family when she was a child, several Jaeger pilots (Chuck, the Wei triplets, etc.) whom she has likely known for many years, and, mere moments earlier, her adoptive father. Now imagine her thinking she had just lost someone whom she shared a strong mental connection with. It isn't too much of a stretch to think that in that moment, she probably felt like she was cursed to lose every single person she was ever close to.
32* The novelization, and likely cut scenes, show why Chuck has such a big chip on his shoulder towards his father. With only an hour before the fourth Kaiju, Scissure, would be nuked, Hercules could only guess as to where his wife and son would be. Herc picked his son to save and never found out whether his wife died via Scissure or nuke. Every time father and son drift, Herc knows his son begrudges him but they still love each other. Despite any decent parent preferring their child be saved instead of them, Chuck still has unresolved anger. Drifting somehow makes it better and worse.
33** And then, in spite of everything, Chuck ends up being killed by a Kaiju, anyways.
34** One of the deleted scenes included on the DVD had him calling out the fact that Herc never raised Chuck to be anything, and that the only reason they're still together after all this time is because they're Drift-compatible, so they don't even need to talk to each other outside the Conn Pod. The look on Herc's face is heartbreaking.
35--->'''Chuck:''' After Mum died, I spent more time with these machines than I ever did with you.
36** Honestly, Chuck's whole life in general. He's been raised since early childhood to be the perfect Jaeger pilot, has an extremely strained relationship with his father, displays many of the unhealthy habits and emotional issues that are commonly attributed to {{Child Soldier}}s, and willingly sacrifices himself without a second thought to his own future. In the books, Chuck's greatest wish was to be able to live his own life and make decisions for himself, instead of always having the fate of humanity pressing down on him. He never gets to experience this.
37* "Well, my father always said, he said if you have the shot, you take it. So let's do this."
38** This was the first and only time Chuck referred to Herc as his father, not the derisive "Old Man/Dad". Herc's reaction as he closes his eyes, his expression a mix of pride and grief, makes this scene all the more heartbreaking.
39* When Pentecost reveals he'll be Chuck's copilot, he and Mako have a quick heart to heart about her protecting him. The look on her face is heartbreaking, since she already lost one father, and she's about to lose another.
40** That little chin tap Stacker gives Mako to get her to stop crying, even though he's close to crying himself.
41* A more subtle one: when he meets Raleigh for the first time, Newt says that "only his mother calls him 'Doctor.'" This becomes much sadder after finding out that Newt was an illegitimate child from an affair his dad had with a married woman, and was raised solely by his father's side of the family; his mom probably calls him Doctor because they don't have a close relationship, supposing they have one at all.
42* A brief moment in the prologue is when you see the outline of an entire ''group'' of people holding hands on top of a ledge above the wreckage of a city. Combined with Raleigh's monologue that there was nothing humanity could do to stop the Kaiju, [[DrivenToSuicide it's heavily implied they're all going to jump]] [[TogetherInDeath together.]]
43* When we first see Raleigh after Yancy's death, he's working on the Wall in Alaska ... and then comes the news that the Wall at Sidney was breached and the city was saved by Striker Eureka, a Jaeger that was about to be moved to Hong Kong, and the workers realize that [[AllForNothing what they're doing is useless]]. And all this happens mere minutes after the revelation that three men fell to their deaths the previous day, with the implication that deaths on the construction crews are a ''daily'' occurrence.
44* The fact that Raleigh was essentially poisoned by his visit to the Precursor world, and eventually died. Mako obviously takes his loss very hard, and is described as essentially visiting with his "ghost" through the Drift.
45* As revealed in ''Ascension'', Viktoriya's background. She is raised by her grandmother and grandfather, and mentions being attacked and bullied by other children for being an orphan. Her grandmother tells her her parents were Alexis and Sasha Kaidanovsky, but it quickly becomes apparent that this might not be true, as the grandmother also has a propensity for drinking, and seems to be slightly mentally unstable (at one point telling Viktoriya to watch out for "Kaijus who are the same size and shape as humans").[[note]]though on a HilariousInHindsight note, this ''actually'' happens in ''Anime/PacificRimTheBlack'' with the Boy, a benevolent and friendly Kaiju who can take on human form[[/note]] At the end of the novel she suffers a near-death experience and sees her grandfather standing over two graves and lamenting the loss of his child. Mako does some digging and gives Viktoriya some closure, telling her her parents were actually a foreman at a petrochemical plant and a mathematics teacher who both perished during a Kaiju attack when Viktoriya was very young.

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