Tear Jerker / Henry Stickmin Series

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

"Goodbye…"

Although the series is mostly known for being funny, there are plenty of moments where it's surprisingly outright sad.

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• Nearly all of the fails are Played for Laughs, but one particular fail in Infiltrating the Airship, as pictured above, isn't. After the airship crashes outside their headquarters and a massive battle starts, an agent of the Center for Chaos Containment (named Wilson Stone) fires a Dark Energy Blaster (a bomb in the remaster). However, the blast disintegrates everything and everyone, including the CCC-headquarters and those in it. While sad Background Music plays, the agent takes one last look at a picture of his family while tears form in his eyes (pictured), and sadly bids them goodbye as the blast envelops him. Even the fail screen doesn't abruptly cut in (just a slow fade-in) or say anything witty about this.
• The original flash version of "Breaking the Bank" ended with a credit sequence featuring sad music ("These Mistakes Are Mine Alone" by Nubbin Ownz) that ends with a shot of Henry being taken to jail in handcuffs.
• The Rapidly Promoted Executve ending may be great due to Henry Stickmin living a luxurious criminal life with the Toppat Clan, however it can still be heartbreaking to betray the government. Captain Hubert Galeforce truly believed that Henry Stickmin had a plan of escaping the Toppat airship to give him Reginald Copperbottom, but is instead met with dummies of Henry Stickmin and Reginald Copperbottom. Upon realizing that Henry Stickmin betrayed him and the government, Captain Hubert Galeforce screams at Henry Stickmin for his betrayal.

  Captain Galeforce: (looks to the airship) HENRYYYY!!!

  • Charles and Galeforce would later appear next to Henry who was flying near them in the Toppat 4 Life ending of Mission. What if they ever noticed each other, or worse, directly confronted each other as outright enemies?
• The Betrayed ending in Complex. Henry calls in the Toppat Clan to bust him out of the complex, making a daring escape on his scooter. Reginald (the former Leader of the Clan) catches him before he misses the jump, but then announces he'd rather have his old position as the Toppat Leader back and drops Henry to his apparent doom. And to make it worse, Word of God confirmed that Henry dies in this ending.
  • Granted, the death doesn't stick, as is revealed by Mission, but the impact isn't lessened by that much. Especially since that, in the Revenged ending (the only route of Mission that can follow "The Betrayed"), he dies again - for real this time (which, just like before, is confirmed by Word of God).
  • Just the look on Henry's face when Reginald reveals his true intentions. It's nothing but hurt and confused betrayal from someone whom he thought he could trust. God only knows what was going through Henry's head as he was falling to his death in the waters below.
  • To cement why Henry has really died at that moment, if you were to look carefully at Henry right as he lays against the rock, he has three final but subtle frames of animation - his entire body seems to "relax" in a slump, his eyes (for a lack of pupils) dilate slightly by a few pixels and his jaw remains hanging open. These are all signs of primary flaccidity, an immediate state the body enters upon death. What makes this realization even more depressing is when Revenged shows up right after, as if to announce that Henry's fate has been sealed.
• Speaking of the Revenged ending: Henry gets augmented with cybernetics and proceeds to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Toppat clan for betraying him. He ends up killing most of the higher-ups (including Reginald, the Toppats' former leader) and crashing the airship into their launch site, but not before Reginald shoots him in the spine in hopes of taking him down with him. The final shot of the ending is a severely injured Henry limping over to a rock and Dying Alone and for real amongst the carnage. Reginald's parting words to Henry sums the whole thing up.

  Reginald: (cough) Well, you got us... (cough) Was it... worth it? (dies)

  • Playing through the more positive endings first, such as Triple Threat, makes it so much worse. In other timelines, we see Henry is clearly thrilled to be working with Charles and/or Ellie and in some paths, with him as a downright hero. If Henry dies in the aftermath of the Triple Threat ending, Charles and Ellie would be absolutely broken, mourning Henry's death for years, never forgetting him. In the Revenged timeline, Henry dies completely alone with no one to remember him or even bury him. He betrayed Charles and the Government and never formally met Ellie and helped her break out of the Wall. One must wonder what was going through Henry's mind in his last moments if he wished he'd done things differently.
  • Hell, it's just as depressing if you've played through other endings where Henry joined the Toppat Clan first. If Henry were to die in the aftermath of any of those endings, especially in "Toppat King" and "Toppat 4 Lyfe", the clan would posthumously revere him as one of, if not the greatest leader in the clan's history. In "Toppat Recruits", he still has a loyal friend in Ellie, and managed to impress Reginald enough that he welcomed them as Toppat Clan members despite Henry stealing the Romanian Ruby from them. And in the "Toppat 4 Lyfe" and "Toppat King" endings, Henry proves his worth as the Toppat Leader and earns the respect of Reginald, who not only gracefully cedes leadership of the Clan to Henry but actually chooses to save his life when a similar scenario to the end of The Betrayed plays out in the Toppat King ending. showing that Reginald genuinely has the best interests of the Clan in mind, and that the only thing Henry needed was an opportunity to show his quality to Reginald first. An opportunity he will now never have.
• The Valiant Hero ending of Mission. Aboard the Toppat space station, it looks like Henry and Charles are about to escape the exploding space station, but a Toppat goon strikes and pulls Henry out. Charles proceeds to throw Henry back into the escape pod... and then the door seals behind him. Cue Henry being Forced to Watch as the space station detonates with Charles still on it. Unlike the other endings, here, Henry looks absolutely despondent, as if he's suffering from a titanic amount of Survivor's Guilt. The final shot is of Henry solemnly saluting Charles's grave.
  • This is often considered the saddest moment in the entire series, mainly due to how well-executed it is, combined with Charles' Sacred Cow status.
  • It's also hard to stay dry-eyed while he says his final words to Henry.
    Charles: We did it, though, we got 'em. Pretty good plan... You could say it was the greatest— [plan]
    • If you turn on subtitles, his full sentence is on full display. But when the base blows up, cutting Charles off, so does the subtitle. It happens so quickly you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd finish his last words.
  • The only time in the entire series where Charles shows any panic in his voice is when he yells at Henry to leave the station. Even for his last words, he composes himself (presumably, for Henry's sake).
  • "Valiant" can be assumed to just mean "brave", and that's not wholly incorrect. However, the exact definition is "possessing or acting with bravery or boldness". What did Charles call himself again?
    "I'm the BOLD ACTION MAAAAAAAAN!"
  • The "MISSION COMPLETE" accompanying this ending. It hammers home that this isn't some laughable "MISSION FAILED" scenario, and that Henry will have to live with the loss of Charles.
• The outcome of the Toppat Civil Warfare ending, the one that punishes you for your treachery. Ellie escapes The Wall by herself, follows Henry to the airship, and calls him out for leaving her behind, leading Reginald to overthrow him via Walk the Plank. In the end, Henry and Ellie are on opposite sides, with former has lost almost everything. Given how well they work and get along together in the routes that follow the "Convict Allies" ending to the point that Ellie developes an Undying Loyalty toward Henry, seeing them like this is jarring.
  • This line from Ellie is a real Player Punch:
  Ellie: I helped you escape, and you just... left me...
  • To make even more unsatisfying, it is notably the only one that outright ends on a cliffhanger, which is implied by the "MISSION COMPLETE" text with a question mark at the end. Although we never see how either side will get their fate, it's possible Henry and his gang would have been difficult time fighting against Ellie's army of Toppats (likely hundreds of them) without being helped by the Government he double-crossed.
  • Toppat Civil Warfare also makes what was a funny Telltale reference in Complex EXTREMELY Harsher in Hindsight for anyone replaying to go a different route (which someone trying to go for 100% Completion will very likely do):
    Ellie will remember that.
• In the Master Bounty Hunter pathway of Mission, Henry's entire squadron is unceremoniously killed off by the Right Hand Man. And not as part of a fail, but as part of the correct choice. Made worse by the fact that this happens with barely any fanfare at all.
• Pretty much everything that happens to Dave Panpa, which can be read in his bios. First he gets fired from his job after not checking a package he delivers to Henry, and this leads to Henry escaping the prison. He bounces back though, getting another job as security for the museum that holds the Tunisian Diamond, which later gets stolen by Henry. After this, he later gets imprisoned by the Toppats for unknown reasons. In one Mission timeline (Toppat Civil Warfare, the only path where he appears), he ends up getting roped into the titular civil war after escaping with Henry and his loyalists and in the other, Revenged, he presumably ends up being an innocent casualty who dies due to the airship colliding with the orbital station (while he was still confined there). His Mission bio states that after spending so long in a cell with nobody to really talk to, "his life will probably never be the same". Poor guy just can't catch a break.
• In a way, the Multiverse Correction ending. It's essentially Puffballs United saying goodbye to the player, after his entire work of creating the series is done.

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