Please don't list this on a work's page as a trope. Examples can go on the work's YMMV tab.
Tear Jerker: All Quiet On The Western Front
Kat's death. "You are not related, are you?" No, we are not related. No, we are not related. Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more."
The ending. "He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."
Or maybe THE ENTIRE DAMN THING!?! Seriously, the main characters friends either die, lose their mind, or something! He lost everything!
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear."
Considering that, the ending is the best thing that could happen to the protagonist. Which doesn't make it less of a Tear Jerker, but the rest of the book is worse.
Especially the part where he comes back home and sees his books, his writings, everything he was... and realizes it doesn't move him at all, because he isn't that person anymore, and never will be.
"Here is the mad tale of Detering."
Behm. Oh, good heavens, Behm.
Franz's death. Oh God, Franz's death. I find myself hating that doctor more than I should.
