Tear Jerker / Epic Rap Battles of History

• The line during the 'Bill Gates Vs Steve Jobs' rap when Bill says, "The whole world loved you, but you were my friend!" right after Steve Jobs dies. They may have been business rivals, but they were also friends, so it's a little upsetting to hear.
• Billy Mays' death, right after delivering his famous 'But Wait, There's More!' line. He clutches his chest, obviously in pain, then slowly falls out of frame, with the next shot revealing his tombstone.
• In Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney, during Abe's verse, no matter how much you have laughed up till that point, it's always heartbreaking to hear how Abe died in real life, especially in Abe's line "I FOUGHT FOR WHAT WAS ON MY BRAIN UNTIL A BULLET WENT THROUGH IT!!"
• Romeo and Juliet vs. Bonnie and Clyde. Even the announcer didn't see it coming.
  • Just the death of Romeo and Juliet was enough to throw Bonnie and Clyde for a loop.
• Vladimir Lenin rapping about how Stalin tore down everything he was trying to build.
  Lenin:[jumps down into the rap battle with great fury] I have no pride for you who ruined everything my revolution was doing to stop the bourgeoisie!... Our whole future was bright/You let your heart grow dark/And stopped the greatest revolution since the birth of Marx!
• Poor Stedman. Just...look at him...he's so sad...And it's even sadder when he and Oprah have been in a very on-again, off-again relationship.
  Oprah: Once you go Oprah...
  Stedman: [pained look on his face] You can't go baa-aack...
• The Ghost of Christmas Future's opening line is mostly horrifying, with just a bit of comedy, but it also reflects Scrooge's fear of dying alone and forgotten.
  Ghost of Christmas Future: You're gonna die!
  With no one to love you and no one to cry!
  Alone by yourself on the bed of your death
  With the stench of regret on your last dying breath!
• Subtle, and a bit undermined by Steven Spielberg Mooning Hitchcock immediately later, but Spielberg's second-to-last line implies that one reason why he's so angry at Hitchcock is because the latter refused to see him when he came to visit his idol and inspiration.
• Stan Lee realizes he gave a diss a bit too far, and confesses how much he misses and respects Jim Henson. Henson simply comforts Lee in response.
  Stan Lee: I'm sorry, Jim. Sometimes, I can't control my rage.
  Honestly, there's a lot of things you can't control at my age.
  But the truth is I-I miss ya, you were gone too soon.
  You were like watching a beautiful sunset... at noon.
  • Just Henson in general... During his verses, the track takes a very somber tone, and he speaks very softly with a somewhat sorrowful look on his face. The disses are quite minimum compared to most rappers in this series, as he seems to spend more time trying to make peace with Lee.
  • For some Henson fans, simply hearing his voice again (or at least a reasonable facsimile of it) 25 years after his death is enough to get them to cry. Henson was very beloved both during and after his life, and with Nice Peter doing such a spot-on impression of both him and especially Kermit, it's like getting to speak to a long-deceased friend.
    • After Stan Lee admits that he feels that Jim Henson died too soon, Henson starts talking about the inevitability of death and how, even when Stan Lee eventually dies, the characters and stories he created will live on forever. It was already sad at the time, but got even sadder after Stan Lee really died in 2018.
      Jim Henson: Aw, Stan, don't be sad. We all have a time to go.
      Kermit the Frog: Yeah... [quietly exits]
      Jim Henson: Most of the Internet thought that you died 12 years ago
      But the Four will always be Fantastic; the Hulk will always be Incredible
      The words you wove within the hearts of heroes are indelible
      There is no beef between us, we're two minds of the same kind
      And there's no man who could ever muck with what we've left behind...
  • It's a small moment, but there's what exactly causes Lee to realize he went too far. He makes a crack about the death of Mr. Hooper and Henson visibly recoils. Fans of classic Sesame Street will remember Mr. Hooper's death as one of the saddest moments in the history of children's television.
  • The implication at the end of the battle is that both of these great men are to be assimilated into Walt Disney's "Empire of Joy". For Dramatic Irony, Disney's reveal happens right after Henson proclaims that "there is no man who could ever muck with what [they] left behind".
  • Disney himself, albeit a bit Fridge. He was just like Stan and Henson at one point, but now he's turned into a soulless monster by his own success.
• Frank Sinatra mocks Freddy for dying of AIDS. Freddy's delivery shows that by his death the disease got the attention it needed for people to work towards a cure.
  Frank Sinatra: You played butthole roulette, and you lost the draw!
  Freddy Mercury: I took one for both teams from a disease no one knew existed. I didn't leave a mark on history; I French-kissed it!
  • Not just that, but Freddie's opening line, and sadness in his voice, really drives home that not only was he the subject of homophobia and bigotry throughout his career, but that he's used to the hate he's gotten for his fame.
  Freddy Mercury: You think I haven't heard those things before? You're just a bully who's too scared to go to war.
• It also goes towards Nightmare Fuel, but Jack the Ripper's lines about leaving families heartbroken by his murders, and how he got away with it all are a very firm reminder of what happened in Victorian London. It's as horrifying as it is saddening.
• Pompey the Great being ruthlessly garroted by Catherine the Great after only getting half a line. What really drives it home is how excited he looks at having a chance to battle before being killed.
• While his appearance is awesome, Lincoln's utter shame at how far the Republican Party has fallen is pretty sad. Unlike last time where he dissed both equally, this time he focuses all his fury on Trump who he hits twice. The guy is clearly disappointed with how his party could seriously consider electing someone like Trump.
  "I'm so sick and tired of this ridiculous shit! If this is the best my party gets, then my party should quit!"
• Peter and Lloyd's second battle sees the two launching such vicious attacks on each other that several fans were seriously worried they were watching the final episode.
  • The insults in their first battle were more tongue-in-cheek and surface level. The insults in this second battle are a lot more vicious and personal, as the two are airing out their grievances against each other that have accumulated from working on the show together for 6+ years. It can be rather uncomfortable to watch.
  • The show took an almost two-year-long hiatus after this battle, stoking those worries. True, the fact that they came back for Season 6 means they resolved their disputes, but at the time it was deeply unnerving.
  • As well, buried in the lyrics is the fact that Lloyd mentions he's on edge because he had a fight with his wife the night before.
• "George Carlin vs. Richard Pryor" is quite bittersweet throughout, as we get five legendary comedians of whom the only one still alive at the time is convicted rapist Bill Cosby. In particular, Robin Williams' appearance was the most heartbreaking because of the circumstances of his death.
  • While the other rappers did make light-hearted references to their low points (Pryor makes jokes about setting himself on fire, and Joan to her numerous plastic surgeries), Robin's are much more raw and direct. He looks directly into the camera while saying that stand-up comedy is a hard line of work and that he and the other rappers present have all used drugs at various points (while gritting his teeth as if needing a fix). His final line is even stating that he plans to "set himself free," referencing the suicide his depression eventually drove him to.
• Throughout "Thanos vs J Robert Oppenheimer" Oppenheimer's depressed disposition is strangely sad to watch, especially since Thanos keeps pushing his cancer and his greatest regret into his face.
  • A subtle one is when Thanos insults Oppenheimer for his infidelity, with Oppenheimer simply giving a Thousand-Yard Stare. While presumably regretful for his adultery, that stare gets worse when one realizes that one of his affair partners was Jean Tatlock, who committed suicide out of depression (or was murdered)-and had Oppenheimer married her instead of conducting an affair, it's quite possible he would have been there and prevented her suicide.
• Compared to previous election battles, Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden has a somber and downbeat tone throughout, not helped by Biden's rather wistful delivery and the frequent mentions of the many crises that had heavily affected American lives in recent times (such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or the many protests that happened in mid-2020). It gives off the feel that no matter who wins, it'll be a long time before the US can recover from many of the events and issues that have brought it down (and were still bringing it down at the time of the battle) in the years, arguably, since the last election.
  • Donald Trump mocking Joe Biden's family's deaths and Biden starting his verse talking about the pain of losing his loved ones. He manages to flip it into a hilarious diss calling Trump out for his friendship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, but still.
  • This exchange between Biden and Trump:
  Trump: There's no Blue Wave, forget it, not coming! It's like I tell criminals, Joe, stop running!
  Biden: Was Breonna Taylor running, hm, you dog-whistling fool?
  • In a first for election battles, Lincoln doesn't show up halfway into the rap, or at all. The battle just has the typical 1v1, two verse per rapper format with no third parties. While his reception in Trump vs. Clinton wasn't the best, one can imagine Lincoln outright refusing to throw down with the presidential candidates this time around, given that the candidate he spent most of his verse dissing in Trump vs. Clinton ended up being elected anyway and that the 2020 election ended up being, arguably, just as divisive as the 2016 one.
  • In the outro, the announcer can be heard crying.
• "John Wick vs. John Rambo vs. John McClane" is generally funny and amazing, as expected from a battle of three action heroes. However, Rambo's PTSD is played very realistically; his verse includes some sad strings in the beat, reflective of how his first movie was rather somber in tone, and when McClane tells Wick to "lock [his] mouth in a hole in the ground", the words "hole" and "lock" trigger Rambo's PTSD, causing him to briefly get a vulnerable look on his face before screaming in agony as he presumably has a flashback.