Tear Jerker / Aurora (2019)

As per troping policy, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

While lots of epic things happen in this comic, Aurora also has a lot of Tear Jerker moments in it as well.

"I can only take this away."

Early Arcs (Chapters 1-11)

• We see Kendal's full backstory in the first chapter, and much like other fantasy heroes' backstories, it is not happy in the slightest: Chimeras have been assaulting anyone coming out of the city of Vash for a while now, in order to starve them out. Vash, the god and ruler of the city, intervenes in order to protect his people, only to learn that the chimeras were just a lure set up by the Collector, an unusual Life mage who collects and dissects souls. She then kills everyone in the city in order to sever Vash's ties with the outside world, then traps his soul in a magical knife and hides in the confines of the Caves. From Vash's bleeding body forms Kendal. Alinua is not wrong when she says that he was surrounded by nothing but death for his entire life in Chapter 2.
  • Kendal spends the second chapter (and most of the story) processing the aftermath of what just happened to Vash and the existential crisis that comes with it. This leads him to develop a huge Chronic Hero Syndrome without any form of self-preservation.
  • At the beginning of Chapter 3, Kendal fights a giant stone golem from his city, and we see how much his thoughts have been eating away at him in the last day or so since he started existing. He even remarks that he's killing the last remnant of his city.
• Meanwhile, when we meet Alinua, she's not doing well either. She assumes she's going to die at some point because she's a chimeric plague carrier, and she later tries to sacrifice herself for Kendal because she wants to do something good before she dies.
  • The chimeric plague itself is bad - every chimeric carrier loses control of their magic as a young child and ends up dying and mutating everything around them horribly, and it's as tragic as it is horrifying. No wonder Alinua is so terrified.
  • Then towards the end of Kendal's fight with the Sentinel, Alinua realizes she didn't want to die and starts crying.
• After Erin is introduced and questioning Alinua, we learn that Alinua was dropped off the edge of the Archipelago Nimbus by her birth parents because she had the chimeric plague, and when she learned what she was, she ran away and lived in isolation for ten years.
• Also after Erin's introduction, Erin is reluctant to accept help from the others at first. He has good reasons for feeling that way, as almost no one is able to survive the Void Dragon's power, but it still stings to hear him say it out loud.
• During chapter 7, Erin tries to get himself killed by cave crawlers just to stop the Dragon from escaping. After being rescued, he's surprised that the group saved him and says that he didn't think he was going to survive. He honestly expected to die down there.
• In the second half of Chapter 8, Kendal is uncharacteristically angry and emotional while fighting the chimera. It's made very clear that his rage is an expression of his traumatic birth and the parallels the chimeras attacking a small town have to the destruction of Vash, and that despite never asserting his personhood, he has kept feeling the negative emotions associated with the death of his city.
• 1.8.18: After wrapping up the chimera with plants, Alinua softly touches its head and somberly apologizes to the creature for not knowing any other way to take away its suffering. She then, out of pity, drains the Life energy of the beast and releases it into the wild, killing it. Half of the page is dedicated to a striking splash panel where Alinua is sitting, dejected, in front of the huge animal, who seems to be peacefully sleeping.
• Falst's entire motivation for wanting to be human is also heartbreaking. Feeling so entirely isolated and dehumanized by the people around him to the point where he was willing to change his own body just to fit into society's standards of normal has a lot of parallels in the real world.
  • The look on Falst's face after the gang almost immediately accept him into the group speaks volumes.
• Doctor Jolon is an absolute monster of a villain. He attempts to manipulate Falst into believing he has no other choice than to be a lab rat for him just to be human, calls him a monster to his face, manipulates the heroes into going after him and uses Falst as a scapegoat for all his crimes, and intends to do some eugenics by trying to undo the ferin "curse".
  • As he's being dragged away, he attempts to manipulate Falst one last time - and Falst has this to say in response:
  I'm a monster, remember?
• 1.10.29: After Jolon is dragged away by Gleicann, Falst solemnly asks Erin if he was lying to him when he said he could make him human. Erin, who's usually Innocently Insensitive, sympathizes with him and tactfully tells him why his plan wouldn't have worked. After this, Falst, dejected, tells him not to be sorry for him, calling his plan "a stupid idea".

Zuurith Arc (Chapters 12-18)

• 1.15.26: After Dainix is blackmailed into fighting Kendal in the Arena, the anger and guilt start tearing him apart, quite literally. His expression when he's facing Kendal is heart-breaking, and Kendal's response is just as bad.
  • Kendal then realizes that Dainix was not being entirely truthful about the demon he claimed he was hunting, and Dainix corrects him with this:
  "No. I said I needed to kill it."
  • A few minutes into the fight and Dainix's physical deterioration gets even worse, until he seems to completely give up and falls to his knees in what looks like despair.
  • Hearing Kendal try to calm Dainix down is just as heartwrenching. He realizes something is wrong but doesn't know what, and pleads for Dainix to stop attacking and then for Zuurith to stop the fight. Kendal isn't worried about his own safety, he's entirely focused on trying to calm Dainix down.
  • After that fight, Dainix is completely broken down, and asks Tahraim to kill him. Instead, Tahraim helps him work through his issues, and Dainix is obviously very upset and guilty about attacking Kendal in the arena.
• Later, during the Tynan bossfight, Kendal continually puts everyone else's wellbeing over his own, and it eventually culminates in him stabbing himself to summon Vash, all while Alinua is begging him to stop.
  • Alinua in particular is upset by Kendal's self-sacrifical tendencies. After Kendal gets hurt, Alinua gets frustrated with him and asks him how many times he'll make her save him.
  • Kendal's response is even worse -he says "It won't happen again" with a sad smile. He KNEW he was going to summon Vash, and he genuinely thought he was going to stop existing. When Vash leaves, he's confused that he still exists.
  • Later, when Vash shows up and asks if anyone wants to finish Tynan off, Alinua walks up to him and says "Give him back." to Vash while crying.
• Meanwhile, when Erin gets taken out by dragon form Tynan, Falst runs over and tries to save him, but gets caught in Erin's self-fireball without accomplishing anything. Moments later, the Void Dragon takes over Erin, and Falst pulls himself together while still injured just to warn Alinua about it.
  • And then after that, after Tynan is curbstomped by the Void Dragon, Dainix concludes that if Kendal and Alinua can stop him, then the Void Dragon will kill them once he's done with Tynan. The look on Falst's face says it all.
  • Then, realizing that the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed, Dainix hands his poncho to Falst to protect him from himself, and this exchange happens.
  Falst: Don't you get it? He'll kill you!
  Dainix: That's not what I'm afraid of.

Dungeon Arc (Chapters 19-22)

• 1.19.4: Alinua, after trying her hardest to keep herself together, finally breaks down when Kendal is on death's door even as she's healing him. She's tearful, she desperately tells Kendal that he cannot do this to her, and she doesn't even react to Falst gently covering her up with a cape.
  • Later, Tess takes it upon herself to comfort Alinua, sharing her own backstory in the process. She lost a lot of time in that house and left. Alinua falls asleep in Tess's arms, and Tess can only give a sympathetic pat.
• 1.19.32: Erin looks like he's freaking out as he analyzes Kendal's health to make sure he's not dead. If you look closely, his hands are shaking.
• Kendal is absolutely distraught in his dream sequence. He feels like a failure because he couldn't save Vash. The lost souls of the people of Vash don't think that's true and have to pull Kendal out of his Heroic BSoD, and special mention goes to a six year old child who is overjoyed simply because Kendal remembers him and his mom.
• Meanwhile in Alinua's dream sequence, Alinua desperately asks Life why she did everything. Life shows her a memory of unintentionally releasing a mutative wave by attempting to move, and Alinua can't bring herself to be mad at Life for the Chimeric Plague because Life is just trying to figure out how to exist in her current state.
  Alinua: You didn't need a vessel. You needed a microscope.
  Life: I NEEDED EYES THAT DID NOT HATE WHAT I HAVE BECOME
• Falst is also upset by what happened in the Tynan fight, and when Dainix correctly guesses that Falst is projecting his own guilt onto Dainix, Falst is very upset and lashes out. They're interrupted by a robot attacking before it can go any further, but Dainix looks hurt by Falst's outburst.
  • Then when the robot DOES attack, Dainix tries to save Falst from the robot, but fails, and they both fall into the dungeon.
• Falst and Dainix then proceed to go through absolute hell as they try to navigate a dark, mazelike dungeon while Falst is injured without knowing where the exit is.
• First, after Falst saves Dainix (who is still knocked out) from a cave crawler about to eat him, the cave crawler says "ssssssSSSSTARVING", which leaves Falst badly shaken.
• After the giant spider fight, Dainix has to convince Falst to accept treatment, and Falst at first denies because he thinks its his job to tank hits so no one else has to. When Falst does accept treatment, he explains his symptoms in such detail and with such casualness that you get the feeling he's experienced all of that before. Dainix's expression really sells it.
• The cave crawler fight is quite painful:
  • When Falst realizes there's a horde of cave crawlers, he starts shaking, and it's very clear that he has trauma over this topic (revealed later).
  • Then Dainix tries to fight the cave crawlers but can't bring himself to hurt them because they're people, to which Falst yells that they aren't anymore.
  • After Dainix uses a flashbang on the horde, Falst seems to fully dissociate into a traumatic flashback, as he fights the cave crawlers on autopilot and doesn't respond to Dainix's attempts to get his attention. Based on the contents of the flashback, we can assume that Falst's mother turned into a cave crawler.
  • While Falst is fighting the cave crawlers, one of them manages to badly wound him, and Dainix has to carry him out. While attempting to block the door with fire, he almost changes into his Crucible form by accident due to the stress, and Falst ends up injuring himself further by hitting the door so it collapses out of guilt. This ends up being so taxing that Falst collapses of his injuries afterwards.
• Dainix has to heal Falst after the cave crawler fight with an antiseptic that is evidently quite painful -Dainix looks sympathetic, like he's had to take it before, and when it's applied to Falst's wound, it's so caustic it audibly makes a "SSSSSS" sound. Falst wakes up due to the pain and accidentally claws Dainix while disoriented.
  • Dainix feels guilty that Falst got hurt because he couldn't kill the cave crawlers, yet when he got wounded, he broke his own principles. Up until recently, he killed monsters to protect his people, and never had trouble drawing a hard line between the two -and when he was imprisoned in the gladiator arena, he refused to kill because it was the one part of himself he still recognized.
  • Then, Falst shares his backstory in more detail -he was a little kid when his mom got sick, and his dad left to get healers. Falst had to care for his mom that entire time, and his mom sang to him -and when she got worse, she still hummed. Then, after three days of nothing, Falst's mom changed into a cave crawler and attacked him. Falst had to escape into the rafters and hide from his newly turned mother for who knows how long, getting very hungry and being afraid that he'd also turn into a monster. When dad came back, Falst had to watch him kill his mom. Dainix's reaction says it all.
  • After that, Falst uses a lacrima to sneakily heal Dainix's shoulder because he feels guilty for accidentally clawing Dainix earlier.
• During the fight against the slime monster thing, things quickly go wrong very quickly when the monster attacks. It uses some kind of psychic attack that makes Dainix have flashbacks to his traumatic memories and leaves him quite shaken, and then when Falst gets careless trying to fight the thing, he also gets hit with the psychic attack -and he looks terrified.
  • After Falst is stunned by the psychic attack, the monster slams into his injured side and knocks him into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. Falst is left helpless on the ground, barely able to move, and as the monster grabs him and tries to use its psychic attack again, Falst looks like a scared little kid as he desperately begs, terrified of the idea of getting hit with it again.
• 1.22.20: Everything about this page. Just... this page.
  • Dainix starts changing into Crucible form just to save Falst from the slime monster -the Godzilla Threshold has long since been crossed, and Dainix knows this, and is desperate to get out.
  • Then he tells Falst that he himself can't do anything, but that Falst can, and hands him a stone lacrima and asks him to save them both. He's clearly straining himself to hold back on transforming completely, and he's already struggling to communicate due to the change.
  • Falst thinks he can't do anything at first and protests, and he looks so exhausted and worn down -and when he realizes what's going on he looks almost panicked.
  • Then, right before fully changing, Dainix tells Falst "I trust you" with a heartrending look on his face, clearly desperate to get out of the situation. There's so much to unpack there. Dainix cares about Falst, deeply, despite them having literally met earlier that afternoon, and he is relying on Falst to get them both out of this situation alive. Falst has probably never heard someone say that to him in his life because he's spent most of his life alone due to Fantastic Racism, and up until this point he likely never internalized that his friends actually like and care about him.

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