History TearJerker / BorderlandsThePreSequel

-->'''Claptrap's Consciousness (To Athena):''' Who're you, [[HurtingHero confused-warrior-lady with sad eyes?]]\\

With [[VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel the game]] chronicling [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Jack's]] [[StartOfDarkness descent into madness and evilness, and how said road came to be]], it's little surprise that it features [[TearJerker tearjerking moments]].

** Of course, knowing what he's already done to [[AndIMustScream Angel]] makes it worse, because it means the friendly programmer wasn't quite as heroic as he liked to portray himself as.

* Nisha's backstory. An abusive mother, a cowardly father, a dog she loved so dearly turned against her by the very same monster who's been haunting her entire life...no wonder she's such a sadist.

** What's worse is that she was born in bandit country-definitely not a pleasant place to live. This may be where she got her love of killing people from, and given that most bandits are terrible people, she got her {{Jerkass}} attitude from her mother.
* The side-quest “Tales from Elpis” is about the Vault Hunters fetching and hearing about Janey Springs’ old entertainingly bad [=ECHO=] children’s stories. The quest largely comedic all round with the exception of what she says before we get the second [=ECHO=]. It’s the one point in the story where Spring’s optimistic persona falters.
-->'''Springs:''' There might be another one in my old camp. [[DarkAndTroubledPast It got overrun by Kraggons]], [[VerbalBackspace killed my...]] ({{Beat}})....They killed her.

* The Merriff's betrayal, and subsequent back shooting. Jack had actually said he was willing to let him go, and yet the betrayal that followed is... heart-breaking. This is the moment that will define Jack for years to come. The lesson Jack learns is that if you show mercy to anyone, you will inevitably be betrayed. Made worse when you listen to the Merriff's recordings. He honestly regretted everything wrong he'd done...
* Skipper/Felicity's ultimate fate. The future looked so bright, and then she ends up being forced into a Constructor body, has her memory wiped, and has to be effectively killed. Jack even seems to consider the idea of copying her instead, but since it would take days, Jack says [[ShootTheDog they can't afford to wait]]. Since this is during Jack's StartOfDarkness, he still has enough sanity that he sounds genuinely apologetic.

** What makes it worse is that both [[OnlySaneMan Athena]] and [[NiceGuy Gladstone]] agree with this course of action, albeit reluctantly. As the subtitle says; 'If only Elpis had more time.'

* The ECHO logs detailing Athena's backstory, as recorded by General Knoxx. He talks about Athena and how she seems nice enough and he learns about how Athena was planning to meet up with her sister (Jess) and escape Pandora together. He then implores his superiors ''not'' to 'screw her over'. His next ECHO has him calling them out on ordering a hit on the village Jess lives in (knowing full well she lives there) and how Athena wasn't even aware she was killing her sister because she was ordered to use only thermal goggles during the operation. After realising what she'd done, she apparently 'got a little stabby', which is the most we hear about how it affected her. Knowing the full extent of the situation kind of makes an already tragic backstory even worse.
* Even if we already knew it was going to happen, that image of Jack trying to destroy Claptrap, ripping out his stair-climbing wheel and shooting him. Love him or hate him, Claptrap never had the option of rebelling and did nothing but help Jack, but that didn't protect him.

** Claptastic Voyage's climactic scene: Jack outright murders Claptrap while Wilhelm and Nisha sadistically chuckle and give a high-five in the background, and Athena facepalming while shaking her head. Neither of them lifted a finger to help him, and ''all'' of them thought (to varying degrees) that he was an annoying waste of time. This is also preceded by shots of every Claptrap unit in the game short-circuiting and dying, from the Customs Claptrap to HAL Claptrap the Scav Claptrap, finishing up with the climatic scene mentioned before.
*** Although the closing scene of the DLC has Athena saying that's not exactly what happened and that she had no idea Jack was going to kill off Claptrap's product line, so that part may have been Claptrap embellishing.
*** Claptrap's also been the most hated character, in-universe, in the series up to this point. Almost ''nobody'' likes him-from the Vault Hunters themselves, to bandits, to all the [=NPCs=] that can speak. Sure, he's liked by Angel and Steve and Janey and possibly Karima, but pretty much the entire population of Pandora and Elpis despise him and would happily see him die. And if he did die, nobody would give a damn.
*** During said montage of dying Clap-trap units, [=B4R=]-BOT is shown at Moxxie's bar, and begins to stutter, spark, and topple over. While this, happens Moxxie can be seen clasping her hands over her mouth with a look of horrified shock. At the end of the montage Athena (who if you play as her gets to know Claptrap on a more personal level) turns away in disgust. This means that not everybody hates Claptraps as much as they let on, which can make the ending less of a tearjerker or more of a tearjerker depending on how you look at it.
* The Handsome AI mission sheds some light on Jack's childhood. It's... not pleasant. His mother passed him off to her own mother when his dad died, and his grandmother regularly beat him, and [[DisproportionateRetribution murdered his cat when he didn't make his bed]]. Made worse by the fact that Jack dismisses this as 'usual stuff' so nonchalantly in a bored tone, like it's a normal, everyday thing for everybody. It goes to show that even before the Pre-Sequel started, Jack had a warped perspective of how things are and should be.
* Pickle's ECHO Logs in the Claptastic Voyage DLC. Turns out the reason he wanted to get onto the Bosun's ship so badly wasn't to steal the tech onboard, but to recover his parents' ashes. Makes you feel sorry for the little guy.
* The Claptastic Voyage DLC gives a view into Claptrap's mind and his self-image. It's... not pleasant, with his failures compounded by the fact that he genuinely wants to help but can't. He's also fully, painfully aware of how much everyone else hates him, to the point that he suspects that anyone who ''does'' seem to tolerate him (such as Janey Springs) is just lying to avoid hurting his feelings.
** The entire Overlook section of the DLC. It starts out funny before MoodWhiplash sets in; Overlook seems to worship Claptrap as the greatest thing ever, singing songs and putting up decorations in his honor. These are quickly revealed as false memories, covering up what ''really'' happened. Claptrap's consciousness tries to get you to leave them alone, which makes it initially seem like the events were embarrassing for him, but the reality is that they were tragic; Claptrap tried to help with a tournament festival, but set up high-grade explosives instead of fireworks, killing about half the town in the process. Despite this, Karima still trusts him to deliver medical supplies to a makeshift hospital, in the hopes that people will forgive him if they see his heart is in the right place. He accidentally starts a fire, killing more people, and Karima's husband is among them. And while the explosives were an idiotic decision on the robot's part, the fire was a honest bit of klutziness that could happen to anyone... and that's the story of how Claptrap got run out of Overlook, and why the town has so few surviving members when the Vault Hunters in ''Borderlands 2'' show up.
*** It makes a line of the BraggingThemeTune sung during the false memory of the Claptrap festival seem like a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: "He wouldn't hurt your mom or dad/Won't hurt you or me..."
** Once you reach his subconscious, he asks you to help him find Hope and Self Esteem, which would help him go anywhere. When you reach them, they've been corrupted by Jack into Despair and Self-Loathing.
* Claptastic Voyage has a side mission that follows the hilarious hi-jinks of Claptrap's superego, as he endeavors to save a DamselInDistress from a moustache twirling villain, which quickly [[MoodWhiplash whiplashes]] when the 'damsel' turns out to be a representation of Felicity Rampant, who insists that Super-Ego-Trap ''isn't'' the hero of the story that he thinks he is, but the villain. Claptrap's superego briefly tries to own his villain role before breaking down about how he just wanted to save Felicity and doesn't understand what he did wrong. This could easily be interpreted as Claptrap being unable to reconcile the heroic image of himself as a Vault Hunter with the extreme guilt he feels over Felicity's fate.

* The end of the ''Claptastic Voyage'' storyline. Jack uses the H-Source to destroy all Claptraps. Complete with slow-motion footage of every single memorable Claptrap across the Presequel dying as they are permanently shut down. It then ends with Handsome Jack gunning down Claptrap himself in his office while his "friends" Nisha and Wilhelm laugh and high-five, before he's dumped in the frozen tundra with the rest of the destroyed Claptraps. In the end, it's only Shadowtrap himself that keeps Claptrap operational despite the damage until Sir Hammerlock finds him.

* During the last Boss Fight Shadowtrap reveals through the mouths of Zed, Lilith, and Tannis, that he has seen everything through Claptrap, and [[WhatTheHellHero calls them out on everything they did]], working for someone as obviously awful as Jack.