Tyrol
- Although some fans consider this moment to be Narm-y, the moment where Rivals where Robin sings 'The Red Sarafan' to Joey, who is critically ill after being immersed in icy water while trying to rescue another girl, and pulls her back from the brink. Even Dick and Jem are struggling to keep it together.
- In-universe, the Passion Play at Oberammergau in The Chalet School and Jo. Even the naughty American girls are moved to tears by it, and Joey is so overcome with emotion that she faints on returning to their hotel.
- The climax of The Chalet School and the Lintons, when Mrs Linton, who is seriously ill with tuberculosis and an inpatient at the Sanatorium, has a severe relapse because she thinks Joyce has been expelled. Both Gillian and Joyce go to visit her, along with Joey, and Joey has to go into Head Girl mode and repeatedly tell Miss Linton that Joyce has not been expelled. And Gillian's backstory in general is this - she's only fifteen, but is Promoted to Parent due to her mother's illness and has Joyce to deal with. Unlike Joyce, Gillian is only too aware of the severity of her mother's condition.
- Margot Venables' backstory in New House. See the YMMV page for details.
- The deaths of Mlle Lepattre, Margot Venables and Florian Marani, Maria and Gisela's dad in The Chalet School in Exile. Margot at least dies offscreen and it's implied the move from the Tyrol to Guernsey finished her off. When Mlle Lepattre's death is announced to the school, Cornelia Flower - who's not exactly a sensitive person - faints, and Simone Lecoutier is struggling to keep it together and has to take time off. Maria doesn't know that her father is dead, only that he's missing, and she goes through a serious Heroic BSoD later in hospital after helping Cornelia and Violet Allison rescue a pilot from a burning plane. Joey goes to see Violet and Cornelia and talks to them for a bit and tells them about her new triplets, but when it's Maria's turn, she just sits with her and sings to her, and Maria cries in her sleep. The nurse looking after her is relieved because everyone was so worried about Maria's mental state.
Armishire
- Joey's Heroic BSoD in Highland Twins, when she receives a black-edged telegram saying Jack has drowned at sea. Daisy and Robin are in bits, having never seen her like that before, and they beg Madge and Jem to come over and help. Madge is unnerved by Joey's eerie calmness and begs her to cry, but Joey can only laugh bitterly about 'the fortune of war'. Then Anna brings the triplets in - and Joey just breaks. It takes Jem giving her sleeping drugs to calm her down. Even after Joey finds out that Jack is alive, she's never really the same afterwards.
- Betty Wynne-Davies' My God, What Have I Done? moment after being revealed as the one who told the Nazi spy about the Chart of Erisay. Miss Annersley not only expels her because of the sheer horror of what she was prepared to do to get back at the McDonalds, but also because she knows Betty's life will be a living hell if she stays on, since the school all know what she did. It's also a Sympathy for the Devil moment as we find out that Betty has a miserable home life - her parents are dead and her guardian is a cold-hearted old man who couldn't care less about her. Equally saddening is the fact that Betty's 'friend' Florence refuses to say goodbye to her or have anything to do with her before she leaves, while former friend Elizabeth Arnett is the one who begs Miss Annersley to reconsider, and blames herself for Betty's Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
- The death of Jacynth Hardy's aunt in Gay from China, and Jacynth's subsequent Heroic BSoD, made even sadder by the letter which her aunt wrote for her before she went into hospital. She knew it was likely she was going to die and wanted to say goodbye to Jacynth.
St Briavel's
- Grizel's Heroic BSoD when she accidentally sets Len Maynard on fire by carelessly discarding a match. As she later tells Biddy O'Ryan, she'd had a letter from her stepmother refusing to let her access her money, which she needed to help start a business in New Zealand with Deira O'Hagen, and was in a bad mood and not thinking straight, but she has enough presence of mind to throw a rug on the burning basket to stop the fire spreading, while Carola Johnstone puts Len's burning clothes out. Grizel is so shaken by the possibility that she could have killed Joey's daughter that Matey has to spike her coffee with a sedative, just to get her to sleep. Biddy tells Miss Annersley, who tells Joey in turn, and although Joey is angry at first, she can't help but feel sad for Grizel on seeing how miserable her old friend is.
Switzerland
- The death of Jessica Wayne's disabled stepsister Rosamund in Coming of Age. Jessica goes home to visit her family and has a chat with Rosamund. Rosamund becomes tired and tells Jessica they'll talk more about the Sale tomorrow...and dies in her sleep.
- Miss Bubb's Sympathy for the Devil moment, where she collapses at the Sale due to a combination of stress and malnutrition (she's penniless and barely eating enough to keep her going, and the teachers insist on taking her for breakfast earlier in the book because she's clearly starving). Even if she was awful to the staff and pupils in Gay from China, it's still sad to see how far she's fallen.
- Naomi Elton's backstory in Trials. She wanted to become a dancer, but the car crash that killed her parents also disabled her, and she now has to walk with a stick due to muscular degeneration. She also suffers from terrible back pain. She wishes the accident had taken her pretty face rather than her legs, and is jealous of other girls who can move about freely without being in pain. As a result, she's a Broken Bird who's lost her faith in God, believing He doesn't care, resents the other girls and keeps them at arm's length...until Mary-Lou intervenes.
- The death of Lilian, Matey's sister, in Excitements. It's one of the few times we see the more vulnerable side of Matey, and she has a minor Heroic BSoD while staying with Joey and Jack. She buries herself in work to try and keep her mind off her sister's death, and Jack has to talk her into taking time off because she's at breaking point. And then there's this linenote :Matey: Apart from Eric, there's almost no-one left to call me Gwynneth now.
- Ruey Richardson's Heroic BSoD in Ruey when she gets a letter from her brother Roger telling her that her father is going into space. Margot sends for Joey because Ruey is in a state, and Ruey cries in Joey's arms because she thinks her father doesn't care about her and her brothers. Joey does her best to reassure Ruey that her father does love her, he's just crap at showing it, and that his obsession with space travel was one way of coping with his wife's death, but inwardly, she is furious at Professor Richardson for abandoning his children and thinks he should be locked up in an asylum.
- The death of Mary-Lou's mother Doris in Reunion, made even worse by the fact that her father, stepfather and grandmother had all died early in the series. To make matters worse, Doris died of a pulmonary haemorrhage, a particularly painful way to die. Mary-Lou tries to keep it in and be her usual cheerful self, but Joey sees through it and encourages her to cry.
- Grizel is revealed to have had a rough time of it lately, with Deira marrying a mutual friend and the two of them selling their business. During a walk, she hurts her back while rescuing Len and has to go to hospital, and Jack is concerned for Grizel's wellbeing, as she's clearly at the end of her rope (and it's implied she might even be suicidal). Luckily, she falls in love with Dr Neil Sheppard and things start to go right for her.
