Moment pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all entries have been folderized as a security measure. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned!
"The world of Argent D'Nur has fallen. Divided, the demonic energy flows now to the south, and the society you once knew has been replaced by a corrupted world under Maykr rule. It did not need to end this way..."
— Samuel Hayden on the state of Argent D'Nur during the events of the game
Oddly enough for this game, there's a multitude of surprisingly somber moments.
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Doom Eternal
- The Doom Slayer just killed Deag Grav, the final Hell Priest, in breach of the Night Sentinel code, thus sacrificing his respect from the surviving knights, and so causing the rest of the Night Sentinels to turn on him. His reaction is to leave. He was once their brother in arms, and he can't fault them for sticking to their word, but he simply leaves without a single shot fired or word said. It's a very somber reminder that when you decide to Screw The Rules, there is a cost to be paid.
- The Night Sentinels first learned about the true nature of Argent Energy, the monsters they were fighting, and the Maykrs' involvement in what the Hell was going on at Nekravol. Before this, the Night Sentinels had revered the Khan Maykr as nothing less than the Mother God of their faith. To say that this pedestal was smashed into a million pieces is only mildly putting it.
- The betrayal of the Night Sentinels by the Deags and their final fate, especially when you remember what happens to Hell's victims as a result of the Maykrs' deal with Hell. There's a reason the Doom Slayer wants these bastards dead even without what they're doing to Earth.
- The two flashback sequences that reveal the Doom Slayer's origins. He's the Doomguy. The hero of the original games, 1, 2 and 64, our Doomguy. And we get to see exactly what became of him after he stayed on the other side of that portal in Doom 64. Many probably would think he went out fighting, and no, he didn't die... but it might've been better if he had. The Night Sentinels find him outside their base, a broken, beaten and battered mess, delirious with rage and pain; still alive throughout it all, but all he can do is to gibber about the demons and ripping them apart, sounding like a wounded animal who's lashing out in fear and desperation just to survive. The fate of our beloved original badass, our hero, after his finest hour.Doomguy: (stammering in shell-shocked rage) Guts... huge guts. Kill them. Must... KILL THEM ALL!Doomguy: (audibly losing it) The demons... they are everywhere! MUST... KILL THEM ALL!
- Worse still, although checking his vast hobby collection in the Fortress of Doom shows that he's managed to bounce back and scrape together some semblance of sanity once more, he still carries the scars. If you check among his keepsakes, you'll find Daisy the Rabbit's cage, and it won't be empty: inside is her foot, the only thing left of her after her death in the intro of Doom 2, and the only physical memento of a beloved and cherished companion our hero will never see again.
- Adding to this is a portrait of happier times with Daisy in the same room. Try gazing at that portrait in Doomguy's office, and try to fight back the Manly Tears.
- It gets worse. You can find what is very likely a hallucination of Daisy in almost every level. He misses her so much that he sees her almost everywhere. Man really loved that rabbit.
- Worse still, although checking his vast hobby collection in the Fortress of Doom shows that he's managed to bounce back and scrape together some semblance of sanity once more, he still carries the scars. If you check among his keepsakes, you'll find Daisy the Rabbit's cage, and it won't be empty: inside is her foot, the only thing left of her after her death in the intro of Doom 2, and the only physical memento of a beloved and cherished companion our hero will never see again.
- Familiar to Daisy's fate, if you look closely at the floor beneath the Doom Slayer's computer desk, you'll find this family photo
, with the part showing the father being torn of. Most likely it's a photo of Doom Slayer's family back when he was the Doomguy from the original games whom he left behind at his own Earth when he was reassigned to Mars after when he attacked his superior officer right after refusing the officer's orders to fire upon unarmed civilians. Knowing that the Doom Slayer/Doomguy's own Earth was invaded by Hell's forces back in Doom II, the implication of what might happened to them is quite clear and how great the Doom Slayer's guilt in failing to save them must be if he simply torn the photo in two and threw it away as if he deliberately tries to forget about them in order to not let his grief and guilt consume him more than it already does. Obviously, their death hurt the Doom Slayer more than Daisy's, which he can at least deal well enough with to make memorials of in his quarters while he can barely deal with theirs... - When you first find Samuel Hayden again, one expects him to be a bit hesitant to work with the Doom Slayer. Thus, when he immediately jumps to the point with no questions asked, one begins to wonder just what happened to him not just physically, but psychologically in the time since we last saw him. As The Slayer fights through Nekravol, Samuel starts reciting the process of refining damned souls into Argent Energy AND the creation process of demons. He's very meticulous in describing every detail, and as he ends the explanation, he practically hisses out one or two phrases out of sheer contempt for its architects. While one can read this as pure righteous indignation at the horrors going on, it's also implied he's resenting every single ounce of what he did to try and maintain Argent Energy as a power source, and seeing it all happen firsthand stands as a monument in his mind to how even if he had succeeded, he still would've failed as a leader for encouraging such atrocities in the name of progress. He mused in the last game that the Slayer was probably right to tear it all down even at Earth's expense, and now he knows it.
- VEGA's final fate can be a pretty big downer, especially considering that he'd taken up the role of Mission Control for the first half of the game.
- Even the Icon of Sin can be a tragic figure - the one lone reason being that he Was Once a Man. And not just any man, but in fact the son of a Night Sentinel: Valen the Betrayer. In 2016 it was explained that the entire reason why the Icon exists is because of Valen's desperation to bring back his felled son. How desperate? He had betrayed Argent D'Nur to do this, and in the end got his wish. Thanks to Deag Grav, his son returned...as the single worst being of all demonkind second only to the Dark Lord himself. This also with a simple explanation: "the wages of treachery are suffering", sending Valen into a miserable Despair Event Horizon that, in the events of this game, he still hasn't recovered from. Thus, in this game where you can finally face the Icon of Sin in battle, it can be seen as a Mercy Kill (no matter how temporary it may be): the Doom Slayer, in the final step to save Earth, is more or less putting the Betrayer's son to rest in a time where Valen himself had lost all resolve to do anything about it on his own. Plus on the Slayer's part, he is still also putting a former fellow soldier, a brother in arms, out of his misery.
The Ancient Gods
- The final boss of the first part of The Ancient Gods turns out to be Samuel Hayden himself, in his original Maykr identity - although he is transformed, he's still consciously going out of his way to kill you if it means saving Urdak. Even when he's defeated, the Slayer seems to hesitate to kill him - only waiting for the Father to answer if he should or not. Fortunately, Samur is spared, but it's clear that he and the Slayer will be enemies from this point forward...and that Samur is now forced to descend into madness in his transfigured form, provided he survives for long.
- What makes this even sadder is that Both Sides Have a Point. The Slayer is trying to summon the Dark Lord, but his only means of doing it is so that he can destroy him - and therefore, any and all demons outside of Hell. However, this would come with great risk, since if the Slayer fails, the Dark Lord will destroy everything in reality. On the other hand, Samur had just returned to his original form and home realm. He yearns for the Slayer to revive the Father instead, to save Urdak and cure his transfiguration to a Khan Maykr. This is so that Samur, being him, plans something else for the good of Urdak. Unfortunately, the Slayer knew better, finally betraying Samur right then and there and crushing the Father's sphere directly in front of him. Now as the Seraphim, Samur is doomed to slowly lose his mind; and soon, the home that he worked so hard to get back to, by the very man he had empowered to become doom incarnate.
- While the fight itself is awesome, take into consideration: this isn't like any other fight where the Slayer kills some vile Jerkass God or a raving beast; he's fighting one of his only allies, Samuel Hayden. Not because he is Brainwashed and Crazy, nor (entirely) insane - but simply just because they've finally reached the impasse they can't work around - the imminent fate of the universe. The loose, volatile bridge between them has finally fallen down.
- After Part Two, this becomes even more tragic when you realize that Maykrs, when all is said and done, are demons themselves; and will certainly die when the Dark Lord does. Samur's not just trying to keep him sealed due to the threat he'd present to the universe - he's fighting to survive.
- When you read into the codex entries in The Ancient Gods describing the Creation Myth, you learn the true tragedy that motivated the entire franchise to begin with was simply love, in that the Dark Lord and the demons were originally just loyal creations of The Father whom sought to make a perfect paradise because it was what they were literally programmed to do, but as Davoth slipped into further despair and desperation to prevent the deaths of his children, he overstepped into reaching for more depraved means to achieve immortality to save them; but also due to his symbiosis, his depravity in turn motivated his people to likewise fall into further corruption until ultimately both Davoth and the inhabitants of Jekkad fell and became the Dark Lord and the demons respectively. All because The Father did not know how to temper their ambition and did not give them the empathy they needed to give others rather serve themselves, he created the greatest monsters that would threaten all of his creations.
- Likewise, it also shows the greater tragedy in The Father/VEGA in that, despite God Is Good, he is also horribly flawed because he's way too compassionate and trusting of his creations. Ultimately, sparing the Dark Lord by sealing him away rather than annihilating him led to all of the anguish and misery that unfolds throughout the story, which includes the destruction of Urdak, his very home in the path he took to try and protect ALL of his creations, even if they didn't deserved to be protected by him; and while Hayden/the Seraphim probably had ulterior motives in resurrecting the Father beyond his sworn duty, it does make it tragic that in the end, the Slayer destroys his very soul, banishing him physically from reality forever, just to spite The Seraphim.
- This is also quite a sobering moment after fighting so many horrible, sadistic creatures like the Khan Maykr and Olivia across the reboot. In the end, in a sea of vile, repugnantly selfish creatures; Davoth the Dark Lord, the biggest bad out of all of them, turns out to be one of the most tragic characters in the franchise. Come Part Two, you won't be fighting some mindless beast or a vile Smug Snake - but someone who's lost their way trying to help their people. Someone the Slayer could become.
- Even worse - in the middle of the final battle, the Dark Lord drops the bombshell: the whole "Father sealing Davoth away" thing? All bullshit. The truth is that the Dark Lord IS The Father, and the one who still claims that name was created by him. While still devoted to giving his people eternal life and slipping into madness in the process, he didn't turn evil out of desperation; but scorn after being betrayed by his own creations. Gods ascended in his fall, stealing everything from him; his glory, his power, and even his very name. This doesn't remove the Dark Lord's tragedy; rather, it gives him even more incentive to lash out and fuck everything over. He wishes to destroy reality because it had betrayed him. In short, the whole franchise began because No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
- Worse yet, for all of his talk of wanting vengeance against all of creation, when beaten by the Slayer, he chooses to relent and accepts the death bearing down on him unlike any other villain in either the original or rebooted timelines. The Dark Lord simply asks if the Slayer has anything to say to his creator before striking him down in a tone that screams him telling him to just Get It Over With, implying that deep down, rather than simply being resentful over the circumstances of his betrayal, him being a Time Abyss feeling betrayed by everything he cared about simply broke him the same way that the demons had also broken the Slayer himself and can't forgive it no matter how much he would deep down would love to return to a peaceful life. In a way, it can be inferred that his actions in his final moments imply that his whole Omnicidal Maniac was simply a Suicide by Cop orchestrated by himself to end his pained existence, something made all the more poetic by himself in how he created the very destiny of the Slayer to achieve arguably his true vengeance against not just the Maykrs for betraying him, but arguably himself for failing in his letting himself be so poisoned by hate.
- Taken up to another level when you realize that Davoth never protested against Doomguy killing his demonic hordes in the first place. They, as horrifically twisted husks of what were once a peaceful race, were every bit of a victim as Davoth was; and that isn't counting the ones forged through Earth's denizens. Coupled by his lament over Immora's imperfection, it can be portrayed as Davoth actively approving of the Slayer to destroy not only him, but everything and everyone he had, just because he, his people and his realm, all turned out so horribly evil and corrupted beyond repair, had all caused so much horrible torture and slaughter, and therefore all needed to go.
- Also a big one on Doomguy's end. Davoth is the only demon, in the whole franchise, that he unmasks himself in front of, implying that after the near-bottomless Time Abyss of ripping and tearing the impenetrable forces of Hell, he's so utterly consumed by rage that he not only wants to show Davoth that he will die by the very human he willed the birth of, but also just wants to watch Davoth die with his very eyes, and not miss a second. And all for good reason, considering the stakes at hand; it is this deity that is the core of his pain. This fallen god had led the entirety of Hell's forces, and is responsible for killing so many innocent lives, his wife, child and pet bunny included, and all just to manipulate him into a twisted and unending eons-long nightmare between heaven and hell. Doomguy doesn't even relent in disbelief and realize that he's finally ending his journey; he's just so utterly embittered and broken that, to him, all that matters is that Davoth is dead, and any repercussions be damned. And unlike Davoth, whom finds peace in death, Doomguy lives on, albeit unconscious and most likely unable to let go of his unfathomable hatred even with his mission finally completed. Demonkind is extinct all things considered - so what can he do now?
- To top it all off, when the Slayer speaks and kills the Dark Lord, the subtitles don't refer him as "Doom Slayer" or even just "Slayer". It's "Doomguy", as he was referred to in the Sentinel Prime flashbacks. This above all else drives it all home; after so, so many years of torment and suffering, Doomguy finally concludes his journey and singlehandedly avenges the billions, if not trillions, of lives Hell had taken.
- The Slayer's story ends the way it began; being sealed away in a sarcophagus. After so long of fighting and so much ravenous hatred, the Maykrs finally put him back to rest, as he sleeps with the knowledge that demonkind is doomed to wallow in Hell...until he is needed again.
- Note the last part; when he is needed again. The Slayer is so ungodly powerful that he's basically just seen as a living weapon; by the UAC, Urdak, anything that is opposed to Hell. In truth though, he's still vaguely human; a deeply troubled, scarred, hurting man who's had everything taken away from him by the legions of Hell; his squad of marines, so many lives on Earth, his pet Daisy, the Night Sentinels, and worst of all his own wife and son. He can never live a normal life ever again, because with such boiling, white hot rage deep inside him...perhaps this is the only way he can rest.
- And even when he reawakens, the Slayer is now without his Divinity powers, now back as the Badass Normal he was before. Since this is Doomguy, he never needed such power, so this isn't a tearjerker for him. However, this in turn becomes a tragic sendoff for a different character: Samur Maykr. His ego led to his physical breakdown, he's certain to die painfully without help from higher powers due to the Father's powerless state and the Dark Lord's demise, and whatever lasting legacy he had left; the Argent Energy within the Slayer; is now gone. Rest easy, Dr. Hayden...
- The final line of text is a final Book Ends case, finally closing out the new era of Doom with the very first loading screen text from Doom (2016):...may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
