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These scenes in certain books are potential Tear Jerkers to those who've read them. Be careful not to get the pages wet. You'll want to read these scenes again. Also, beware of spoilers.
Take out your hankie
- The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, who actually wrote a lot of insanely tear-jerking stories, perhaps because of Creator Breakdown. His personal history was rather tragic, after all.
- The Little Match Girl was parodied in Hogfather where Death, having temporarily taken on the role of the Hogfather, refused to let her die, and gave her up for adoption instead. The angels who come to bring her into heaven get snowballs thrown at them by Death's Sidekick. And if you are not familiar with Discworld, then please believe me when I say that It Makes Sense In Context, and is a Crowning Momentof Heartwarming in itself. Watch it here
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- A lesser-known example that comes to mind is The Story Of A Mother, which is so heart-wrenching that it has been known to make people cry just with a plot summary...
- Don't forget the original The Little Mermaid, before Disneyfication—the nameless mermaid is condemned to Purgatory, and each time she hears a parent laugh from a good child, she gets years taken off; but each time she hears parents weeping over a bad child, she gets more time. Then there's The Fir Tree, in which said tree envies the beauty of Christmas trees—but when it is chosen, after Christmas it dies alone and forgotten in an attic, is promptly chopped up and thrown in the fire. Also, "The Shadow", in which a man's Living Shadow gains a life of its own and becomes his Evil Twin. In the end, he manages to have the original man executed and take over his life. Jesus, Herre Andersen, what were you thinking?! It's made worse because they're all so beautiful.
- This troper actually didn't think The Little Mermaid was all that sad and she actually would have stabbed that jackass prince. "I want to marry you instead...oh hey I found the girl! SCREW YOU!" She at least got a soul instead of simply dissolving into sea foam.
- The scene in The Amber Spyglass, the last book in His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, where Lyra and Will realize that the Dust is flowing out of the universe because of all the open holes in between worlds, left by the subtle knife. The angel they are talking to says that, if they work their entire lives to promote good, there will be enough Dust regenerated to leave open one door. They are desperately in love and, because neither can live in the other's world for long (and because neither wants the other to sacrifice their lifespan just for ten years together, especially since they would keep living after that), they desperately want to leave one open between their worlds. There is almost the mother of all happy endings until they realize they can't shut the one that prevents departed souls from being trapped in the Underworld for eternity. Cue a sob-fest that lasts until nearly the end of the book — at least twenty pages.
- It took this troper about four times through even to notice that any of that was happening; before that, she was too busy rocking back and forth and sobbing over Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter. (This troper is proud of her priority issues.)
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld has a lot of these:
- Pretty much the entire last quarter of Reaper Man was a tear-jerker for me, but it really hit home when Death told the new Death that he was fighting him because he cared about the people living on the Disc. This, of course, being the reason the Auditors of Reality fired him. Add in Death going after the little girl whose time had run out because Mrs. Flitworth told him it was the right thing to do, Death taking Mrs. Flitworth to her husband in the afterlife, and finally Death confronting Azrael about why Deaths need to have compassion so they aren't just oblivion, and I was crying my eyes out. Although really, anywhere Death reflects on the nature of his job is a tear-jerker for me, because that's something that really hits me.
What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?
- For me, it was,
I have brought you chocolates. And flowers, the kind girls like. And I have also brought a diamond to be friends with you.
- And the talk with the dying Windle about why it is important to be needed by others and how it resonates in the final scene where he spares the Death of Rats rather to be alone.
- In Witches Abroad, Lilith has been manipulating stories and has transformed one wolf's mind so that it's almost human. Except now the wolf is starving, torn between trying to be a wolf and trying to be human and finding it can't be either. Then Granny Weatherwax finds it and this happens:
"Hah," said Granny. "Yes. Of course. There's always got to be"—she spat the words—"a happy ending." A paw gripped her ankle. Granny Weatherwax looked down into the wolf's face. "Preeees," it growled. "Annn enndinggg? Noaaow?"
The woodcutter never understood why the wolf laid its head on the stump so readily. Or why the old woman, the one in whom anger roiled like pearl barley in a bubbling stew, insisted afterward that it be buried properly instead of skinned and thrown in the bushes. She had been very insistent about that. And that was the end of the Big Bad Wolf.
- In Men At Arms, Detritus' reaction to Cuddy's death, and how Carrot calms him down from a rampage.
- The scene where Cuddy rescues Detritus from dying in a fridge - which makes Detritus lose his low-temperature genius, the solution to his calculation melting away and thus lost forever - certainly counts. As it is one of the few scenes in which Pratchett provides no comic relief it was very hard for this troper to read it on a public bus.
- And in The Fifth Elephant, after Angua's wolven (possibly) ex-boyfriend dies trying to save Carrot from Angua's brother, Gaspode The Wonder Dog, a world-weary mutt, howls over his body, with the rest of the wolves in the area joining in.
- Your Mileage May Vary on this one but this troper thinks the earlier scene where Vetinari is talking to Leonard about Lady Margolotta was a rare cross between a Tear Jerker and a Crowning Moment Of Heart Warming. its not very long and quite oblique in some places,but then again this is Vetinari we're talking about here.
- I'll second that one. It shows that Vetinari does have a heart after all. And I'm shocked that no one has yet mentioned his dog, Wuffles...and how after the dog dies, he goes to it's grave once every week and places a dog biscuit on the grave...
- The penultimate scene in Feet of Clay. WorDs iN ThE hEarT CAnnOt bE tAkEn.
- Thankfully, Pratchett is ever the expert at deflating the situation at exactly the right moment. "We can rebuild him! We have the pottery!" This troper was reduced to a snuffling, snickering, wheezing mess, cursing and blessing Terry in the same breath for his cheerful mind-manipulation.
- Plenty about this particular book gets to me. The golems were so desperate for freedom that they tried to make their own leader. They wanted him to be so perfect that they filled him with so many rules that he went mad. Their guilt and remorse over what they had done. CLAY OF OUR CLAY And not finally, when Dorfl is given the gift of his own ownership.
- Night Watch deals with Time Travel, to a point in AM's past that ain't exactly glorious. The tear-jerking starts when Vimes realizes he can't fix it. Also towards the end, when we realize what wearing the lilac flowers means.
- And the scene which jumps into Crowning Moment Of Awesome right at the end: Vimes finally tracks down Carcer (if you didn't see that coming, then you don't know Vimes) and puts down his sword, bashes the knife out of his hand and arrests him. Because people like him need to know the system works. That it's not all just madness. That their kind is the outliers, not the norm, not the free. One of the few times that Pratchett doesn't break the mood for the sake of fun.
- Also shortly thereafter when Vimes tells Vetinari what he thinks of the idea of a monument. NO-ONE has EVER spoken like that to Vetinari before and gotten away with it, but just this once Vetinari backs, probably because he was feeling like this troper was.
- I find young Sam's existence in that book in general to be very sad. Matching the idealistic young man with the hardened cynic of Guards! Guards! is just... depressing, especially imagining exactly what he went through the become like that.
- Quite a lot of Night Watch is just... amazing. Reg's death was sad even though we knew it was coming from the beginning of the book and we knew he was going to be right back. That takes some skill. And there's probably something wrong with starting to feel all teary-eyed over the sentence "Carcer's going to bloody swing for this." There's plenty more, but they'd be a pain to list.
- Going Postal has a moment: The golem Anghammarad who has recently 'died' tells Death he will stay in the desert that seems to function as the entrance to the afterlife. When Death points out that there is nothing to do in the desert, Anghammarad replies "Yes. It is perfect. I am free". This troper found it very moving after the golem had spent such a long lifetime performing duties.
- Jingo might have one of the best examples, where Vimes is leveling a crossbow at a warmongering prince just as he realizes (as the prince knows) that he can't just arrest a ruler, even if he says he can. At the end of his rope, he then hears a malfunctioning day planner start telling him what would have happened if he hadn't pursued the prince: namely, he would've stayed to fight the war in Ankh-Morpork, where he and all the other watchmen would've died. The planner starts rattling off the names and times of each casualty and the Prince's secure smile fades a little as he sees Vimes move for the trigger... of course, then Vetinari jumps into the scene and plucks out the arrow just as it fires, causing the Prince to nearly crap himself and showing that Vetinari can never have too many Crowning Moments of Awesome in one book.
- Somewhere between Tear Jerker and Crowning Momentof Awesome, in Carpe Jugulum. Mightily Oates burns his holy book to save a life. Just very powerfully written.
- Also in Carpe Jugulum. Granny Weatherwax is called to help at a difficult birth when the midwife cannot cope. She ends up having to make a decision whether to save the child's life or the mother's. After she makes her choice the midwife says she should have asked the father/husband to make the decision. Granny's answer brings me to tears "what has he ever done to me that I should hurt him so?"
- Considering Death is his favourite character from the series, it is perhaps not surprising that this troper was extraordinarily affected by the scene in Hogfather where the reader realises just why Death is enjoying pretending to be the Hogfather, and how sad he is that he can't do it forever. The tiny little "HO.HO.HO..." caused him to break down completely.
- Also in Hogfather, when Death decides to screw Narrative Convention and utterly subvert the Little Match Girl story, despite Albert's objections. Doubles as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: The Hogfather gives presents. There's no better present than a future.
- I have a task for you, thinking engine...
- In another part of Discworld, the scene in A Hat Full of Sky, where Tiffany Aching is making the rounds with Granny Weatherwax and has to tell the truth to an elderly patient whose life savings she'd stolen while possessed by the hiver and finds that his money has been replaced with gold by her friends, the Nac Mac Feegle always brings a tear. Particularly, when the old man forgives her as if nothing ever happened and then asks for her help in preparing to propose to the widow down the street.
- THUD!: Any time Sam Vimes thinks about being a father counts, especially during the dwarves' raid on the manor: "I'll kill I'll killyoukillyoukillyoukillkillkill" Gives me chills. And then there's the sheer, unadulterated beauty that is the Guarding Dark, whose existence essentially confirms that Vimes has a Crowning Psyche Of Awesome.
- When Vimes falls into the underground river and Sybil goes to read to little Sam. Followed by the mini-tearjerker cutaways back to them during Vimes berserker rampage.
- Don't forget Helmclever's death. That was sad.
- In Wintersmith, the part where the townspeople are still asking Miss Treason for help even after she's dead made me cry a little, as well as this:
"And just as she was about to speak sharply to the villagers for still bothering Miss Treason, she remembered the packets of Jolly Sailor tobacco that the shepherds even now left on the turf where the old shepherding hut had been. They didn't write their petitions down, but they were there, all the same, floating in the air:"
''Granny Aching, who herds the clouds in the blue sky, please watch my sheep. Granny Aching, cure my son. Granny Aching, find my lambs.'
- Since we are on Tiffany moments, in The Wee Free Men, when she defeats the Fairy Queen (also a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for her):
"I never cried for Granny because there was no need to," she said. "She has never left me!"
- For this troper, it was the first book, The Color of Magic, when Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos dies. Perhaps the most awesomely cool character this troper had ever read about, with an amazing backstory and a friggin' cyborg to boot... and he doesn't survive more than three pages. Thanks for that kick in the balls, Pratchett!
- Lords and Ladies: Nanny is trying to convince the Elf king to step in.
"One day." Nanny nodded. "Yes. I'll drink to that. One day. Who knows? One day. Everyone needs 'One Day'. But it ain't today. D'you see? So you come on out and balance things up. Otherwise, this is what I'll do. I'll get 'em to dig into the Long Man with iron shovels, y'see, and they'll say, why, it's just an old earthworks, and pensioned-owizards and priests with nothin' better to do with pick over the heaps an write dull books on durial traditions and suchlike, and that'll be another iron nail in your coffin. And I'd be a little bit sorry about that, 'cos you know I've always had a soft spot for you. But I've got kiddies, y'see, and they don't hide under the stairs because their frit of the thunder, and they don't put milk out for the elves, and they don't hurry home because of the night, and before we go back to them dark old ways I'll see you nailed!"
- I don't know which novel specifically states it, but when I heard about what happens to Twoflower's wife, I had to sit down for a little bit because I'm quite a bit like Twoflower, and I know exactly how much that would hurt. Also, when Death sends off the *sniff* souls of those kittens in Mort, I very nearly broke down into tears. I have a deep seated soft spot for cats in my heart...
- Twoflower's wife is mentioned in Interesting Times - and it is the only time Rincewind has ever seen Twoflower look anything other than happy, contented and trusting. Later, of course, he challenges the villainous Lord Hong to a duel to the death as payback - which is also highly out of character for Twoflower.
- Same troper as above. I can't blame Twoflower one bit.
- The Nightingale And The Rose, one of several children's stories written by Oscar Wilde, has a similar effect on this troper. Even attempting to recount a summary of The Little Match Girl makes her tear up, but that story made her weep like a child. Mostly because the sheer fact that it was written by Oscar Wilde lulls her into a false sense of security and then...
- This troper shared it with a friend of hers who, like her, is a Peter Sellers fan. (See Cue Irony for why she drew a connection between the story and him.) She cried heavily after reading it. The allegory about the often-unappreciated sacrifices of artists makes the story that much sadder for this troper and her friend.
- This troper has a similar problem with The Happy Prince. Even though... it's a statue.
- Never forget The Young King, specially the coronation scene where God himself approves of the humble new sovereign when his own noblemen reject him. "A king higher than any of us has crowned you, my son!"
- The Libri Vox recordings don't help either- one set, Happy Prince and a couple others, is read by a woman with a rather soft voice and a very cute accent. It makes it much, much worse. She manages to make a damp firework (albeit an anthropomorphic comic relief firework) come across as incredibly moving and highly tragic.
- The Selfish Giant.
- "The Fisherman and His Soul": Its power as a Tear Jerker is even lampshaded in the end, when the priest who ordered that the bodies of the fisherman and his mermaid girlfriend be buried in unconsecrated ground tries to speak in his homily about the Ire Of God, but he can't do so and speaks about the Love Of God and makes his audience bawl. And then he finds out why... the flowers in the church come from the Star Crossed Lovers's tombs.
- The Birthday of the Infanta
- Basically every Oscar Wilde-penned bit of scribbling that isn't for the stage is worth a cry or two (and even then, watch out for Lady Windemere's Fan and A Woman Of No Importance), but especially De Profundis, Wilde's essays on Christ and Socialism, his letters to the newspapers about prison conditions, or anything he ever said about love, unless the reader wants to be wrung out like a dishcloth. And if the readers ignore the disclaimer above, they'd do well not to follow those pieces up with a perusal of Ellman's biography of Wilde, as it will likely leave them with the desire to dig up a few famous corpses and strangle them; the man is utterly Moe.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has this in bucketloads, including, but not limited to: Dobby's death and funeral, Fred Weasley's death, the Resurrection Stone scene, where Harry's parents, Sirius and Lupin appear to escort Harry to his almost certain death, Colin Creevey, "tiny in death", Dumbledore's past, especially when Dumbledore cries when recalling it to Harry, the scene where Harry visits his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow, "wishing he were sleeping under the snow with them", and the entire chapter, The Prince's Tale.
- This troper cried during each of the last four books of the series, but it was a particular line in book five that shattered her to pieces. Book five came out while she was in the midst of an extensive and ultimately fruitless series of medical tests, trying to find out what exactly was wrong with her that she was dizzy and sick all the time, and the Harry Potter books were among the few things that made her truly happy. (She was in her mid-twenties at the time.) Following the "veil incident," Dumbledore concludes his interview with the very angsty Harry with a line that spoke volumes to her, as she waited to find out if she would die.
Dumbledore: ...it didn't matter that you couldn't keep Voldemort out of your mind. In the end, it was your heart that saved you.
- For this troper, it was a line from the sixth book that made her tear up like nothing else had. After Bill gets attacked by Greyback and everyone is sitting in the hospital wing, Tonks and Lupin start arguing because Lupin refuses to date her. He says, "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole." Which is followed with: "But she wants you," said Mr. Weasley, with a small smile. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them. It's probably a good thing this wasn't in the movie, or I would have been crying too hard to watch the rest.
- Realising Snapes dying words to Harry were because Harry had Lily's eyes, and snape saw her in them. Also the flashback to Snape in Sirius' room.
- When Harry sees Dumbledore's body on the grass next to the tower in Half-Blood Prince. It was bad enough seeing that Snape actually killed Dumbeldore, but the fight scene distracts you from that until Harry pushes through the crowd around Dumbledore's body. Then there's the bit with the fake locket...*sniff*
- Jane Eyre. All of it.
- Freak The Mighty
- It wasn't entirely unexpected that Martin the Warrior would feature a Downer Ending, as it was necessary for anything in the preceding books to make sense, but this didn't stop it from being well and truly worthy of inclusion on this page.
- And the death of Sunflash's beloved friend Skarlath in Outcasts of Redwall.
- Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser. The fact that a book like this could even be written as a verisimilitude is enough to make some people cry.
- The end of Flowers For Algernon made this troper tear up.
- The analogy about the keyhole... It's not fair.
- This troper's lucky if she makes it to the end, having usually been reduced to a whimpering wreck by Charly's realisation that the people he thought were his friends were really mocking him, and his new intelligence hasn't brought him happiness but ruined his life.
- Unghh, same here. I'm actually crying right now. And I rarely cry about anything.
- The death of Boxer in Animal Farm.
- Oh, god, and the funeral. This troper still breaks down in tears whenever she tries to sing Beasts of England.
- Nancy's death at the hand of Sykes in Oliver Twist made this troper cry her heart out when she was 13.
- The cruelties inflicted on Beauty in Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Not to mention Ginger's story. Thank goodness for the triumphant ending. WHY is this considered childrens' literature!? It isn't!
- Well, there's the fact that it was written as an animal rights tract for adults...
- This short story by an anonymous author about a poor cat named Ugly made this troper wish to be Ugly.
- This troper couldn't make it past the fourth paragraph without bursting into silent sobbing. And nothing had even really happened yet.
- Likewise, this story◊ is equally as heartrending. If you don't get it... look up her name.
- Link's broken, in a sense anyway
- Love You Forever is guaranteed to make any mother with a heart cry. In the mother in the story would sing "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be" to her son. Years later, when she's on her deathbed, the son sings back "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my mommy you'll be."
- This troper didn't find the book so sad when he found that he could easily sing the above song to the tune of the Soviet national anthem.
- We dare anyone not to tear up at the death of the Witch in Gregory Maguire's Wicked. You've known it's coming from the very first page, but when it finally does, the sheer inevitability of it is tragic all on its own.
- The death of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter brings this troper to tears everytime, especially given that he dies in the arms of Hester Prynne, all their hopes of running off to England dashed...and then proceeds to tell her that no, they will never live together happily in heaven because "the law they broke, the sin here so awfully revealed" will surely condemn him to hell. Not to mention their A-marked grave.
- The end of A Tale Of Two Cities. It's one of the most famous endings in literature, and yet this troper was completely overwhelmed. She has not yet dared to read "The Old Curiosity Shop".
- Oscar Wilde said that "It would require a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell.
- This troper sobbed like an idiot the first time I read AToTC simply because I honestly did not know the ending. Don't ask me how I managed. The tears started at about the scene where Sydney starts the Bolivian Fire Drill with Charles Darnay, so that they can trade places in prison, and to spare Darnay he won't let him know what's going on. Darnay's utter despair and growing confusion, and how absolutely painfully sweet the scene is... um, I could have watered a small plant with my bitter, bitter tears.
- Some of Agatha Christie's books and short stories contain Tear Jerker moments instead of, or in addition to, the "whodunnit" mystery. See the romance subplot of The Hollow or the short story Next To A Dog.
- His Dark Materials. Tony's story. That is all.
- And if you somehow survive that plot twist, the last book (between Lyra and Pan's separation and the finale) will shoot you in the brain.
- This troper was too busy crying her eyes out at Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter's suicide gambit against the Metatron, especially "I lied and lied, Asriel . . . I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.", followed by Marisa's choice to use her own weight to drag Metatron down into the abyss, and preventing him from throwing Asriel off and escaping to finish anything after that chapter for a good week or so.
- Despite how sad those were, the saddest part in the whole trilogy for this troper was Lee Scoresby's heroic death. It started off as sad when he realises he isn't going to live, but then when he's holding Hester and tells her not to go before he does. As a 23 year old male I have no shame in admitting I cry everytime I read it.
- This Troper's was heartbroken at Baruch's death scene, especially after Balthamos' reaction.
- Nothink break's this troper's heart quite like Balthamos' death, and their very relatinship in general. Saddest ending for a love story ever, besides the below.
- Seriously? Because when I read the final book, and after finally being safe from all the craziness going on, when will and Lyra realize they love each other, kiss for the first time, and then are told, without any argument, that they can never ever ever ever see each other ever again as a direct result of their saving of the world and when I read that the first time, I had to stop, get a tissue, and leave the book sitting for a while.
- Oh god. I kept reading but it took three times as long to read because my BAWLING tears kept ruining my vision. I haven't cried that hard at any other book.
- The climax of Terry Brooks's Elfstones of Shannara. If it isn't bad enough that after declaring his love for her, Wil Ohmsford is forced to witness and accept the fact that Amberle Elessedil must transform into the new Ellcrys, there is the scene later in the Gardens of Life after everything is over. This editor cannot read the moment with the little Elf girl and her mother without weeping openly, especially the lines: "Will she keep the demons far away from us?" "Far away." "And protect us always?" "And protect us always." And a few paragraphs before that: "Something of the self must be given back to the land. In the end, she had given up everything. But she had not lost everything. In becoming the Ellcrys, she had gained an entire world."
- Wishsong counts too, for the Magnificent Seven-worthy, OK Corral-ish finale at Graymark, wherein Jair's entire party except himself and Slanter sacrifice themselves so he can reach Heaven's Well. The death of Helt is particularly poignant. No question of course for Allanon.
- There are so many deaths in the Heritage series that for this editor, it could almost embody this trope. While Quickening, Cogline, and especially Faun's deaths are heart-wrenching, it was the entire slew of losses in Elf Queen of Shannara that ripped this editor's heart out. Naturally the loss of Ellenroh and Eowen Cerise was quite a blow, and Garth had him bawling, but even Gavilan brought a few tears. One of the best and most well-written books in the series, but utterly depressing, too.
- More Terry Brooks examples, this time from the Landover books:
- The final chapter of The Black Unicorn, particularly the last line: 'Some of them passed it on.'
- The Tangle Box, after Ben, Strabo, and Nightshade recover their memories of who they are. The witch's genuine pain, rage, and suffering were absolutely heart-breaking to read.
- Witches' Brew, when Abernathy realized the only way he and Questor would get back home was if he allowed the wizard to turn him back into a dog again. The very simple, direct, resigned way he 'closed his eyes, felt the change, and let the magic take him' was so brave, and also so very sad.
- David Eddings gets one too, in the third book of The Elenium: the death of Kurik.
- Also during this book, the death and last words of Martel. Made sadder if one has read the Tamuli and knows that Martel was basically seduced into evil by his drive for supremacy rather than (initially) personal malice.
- During the battle in book 5 of the Belgariad: when Doroon drowns. Rundorig says "He couldn't swim. I tried to save him ..."
- In the same battle when the simple-minded nameless Arend peasant boy was sitting off towards the side of the battle playing his flute and is killed by a Mallorean soldier.
- Also in that battle, when Brand's son who had earlier tried to kill Garion when he became the Rivan King told Brand what he had done as he was dying, and Brand turned on him in disgust.
- Lioness Rampant, Book Four of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet. The deaths of Thom, Faithful, and Liam Ironarm. 'Nuff said.
- The Wham Episode of Lady Knight when Kel realizes that she failed her refugees.
- The scene in Shatterglass where Tris comforts Glaki after her foster-mother is killed by the same person who killed her mother is the only one in any book, ever, that has made this troper cry.
- My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. If that ending doesn't rip your heart out, you are not human.
- Sorry, fellow troper. This one is very soft-hearted, but she literally threw her library's copy to the floor by the end, so downright pissed off she was at its blatant attempts to emotionally manipulate the reader, the horrid demonization of the mother (does Mrs. Picoult hate her mom so much that she projects it on Sarah?) and how much of a whiny, bitchy, idiotic Sympathetic Sue Anna was.
- It's very hard to pick something out of the relentless emotional kidney-punch that is The Time-Traveler's Wife. Henry's status as Cosmic Plaything for one. The awful, awful Foregone Conclusion for another.
- This troper would personally like to ask the person whose bright idea it was to print the funeral program at the conclusion of The Salmon Of Doubt just what in the world they were thinking.
- This troper can't pick up The Salmon of Doubt any more. She bought it and read it once, and that's enough. (To other tropers: if unfamiliar with the name, see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)
- Speaking of Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See is pretty much a cover to cover example of this trope. And it's nonfiction.
- Les Miserables. "The night was starless and very dark. Without any doubt, in the gloom, some mighty angel was standing with outstretched wings, waiting for the soul."
- This troper teared up just reading that line again. The whole chapter, of course, makes her weep openly. Also, while not quite a tearjerker, Chapter 1 of Book 7 of Volume 5 is heartrending. MARIUS IS A BASTARD.
- Try Eponine's death scene... "And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you." DAMN YOU, MARIUS.
- What about Gavroche? This Troper thought she was safe from weeping. And then she read the last two chapters of the book. Darn you, Victor Hugo!
- Try this on for size: Fantine never sees her daughter Cosette grow up. Cosette never knows her own mother. I know Cosette was perfectly happy being raised by Jean Valjean, but in a way that almost makes it worse, considering everything Fantine did for her...
- Or how about Enjolras' last stand, when you know everyone else is dead, and then BAM! There's Grantaire, who asks to die along with him, and Enjolras smiles at him. They die together, and you're like "WHY HUGO!?WHY?!. Every time, it sends me into hysterics.
- The last few paragraphs of All Quiet on the Western Front. Even though you kind of saw it coming.
- Or for this troper, about half the book.
- Several Tear Jerkers written by Louisa May Alcott:
- Beth's death in Little Women makes this troper cry every single time.
- This troper could get past that in all likelihood - if not for Jo's poem.
"Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
Where her willing feet now stand."
- The stanza dedicated to Beth in "In the Garret" is no better, either, but Jo's...
"Hints of a woman early old;
A woman in a lonely home,
Hearing, like a sad refrain-
'Be worthy love, and love will come,'
In the falling summer rain."
- Dan's return to Plumfield and John Brooke's death in Little Men.
- Jill learning that she may end up crippled right after taking a bad fall from her sled and Molly Lou's conversation with her father in Jack and Jill.
- Charlie "The Handsome" Campbell's death in Rose in Bloom.
- In Erin Hunter's Warriors series, Whitestorm's death at the end of The Darkest Hour turns Across The Stars into a blubbering pile of snotty goo.
- This troper began to inexplicably weep during a reading of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself LII, especially at the line "Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you." It still works years later.
- This troper found a Tear Jerker moment in Warhammer 40000 literature, of all places. The moment in question was the death of Colonel Colm Corbec, treacherously stabbed in the back by Lijah Cuu, in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. After finishing that book, he was unable to get the scene out of his head (and thus unable to sleep) for at least an hour.
- There are actually quite a few tear jerkers in Warhammer 40K literature - usually small, fleeting moments that remind the reader that the characters are still human beings. This troper vividly recalls an account about Commissar Yarrick during the War of Armageddon. He had just learned that another city had fallen to the Ork invaders, with the defenders being heroically wiped out to the last man. He immediately went to his quarters, and the account goes on to say that "Some say he prayed to the Emperor and renewed his faith. Those who knew him well say he wept." And this was from a badass who once fought a seven-foot beast hand-to-hand with one arm torn off.
- This troper got a little misty during The Eisenhorn Trilogy when Aemos died, uttering his trademark "Most... perturbatory...".
- Really the entire last half of Hereticus is a tear-jerker. Dan Abnett really is good about making you care about characters.
- The ending to Ben Counter's Horus Heresy novel Galaxy In Flames, where Saul Tarvitz stands with the surviving members of the Luna Wolves and loyalist Emperor's Children, having bled the traitor armies so badly that even Horus' incredible hubris has been broken, and Horus orders his fleet to bombard the Space Marines into oblivion rather than defeat them on the ground. Even faced with complete and certain annihilation, Tarvitz and his men won.
- For this troper, it was the scene where the virus bombs get dropped in Flight of the Eisenstein. Death Guard captain Ullis Temeter and Dreadnought Fal-Huron try to get their own troops to the shelters. Fal tells Temeter to get in as well, since his Dreadnought armor will protect him from the virus. Temeter tells him to eff off as he shoves one last marine into the shelter, then locks the door. As the bombs drop, Temeter realizes that Fal has a couple of cracks in his armor that means the virus will still get him anyway, and the two exchange "you too, huh" one-liners before dying. Made worse by the fact that the defining trait of the Death Guard is their resilience to toxins and disease. Hell, the fate of the entire Death Guard legion could qualify - the traitors got lost in the warp and caught by Nurgle, who made mockery of their vaunted immune systems. The loyalists become the Inquisition, arguably one of the reasons why life in the Imperium sucks as much as it does.
- Three simple words had this troper having to put the book down and go for a walk; "We are betrayed"
- In Galaxy In Flames, the last parting of Loken and Tarvitz. Tarvitz says that it may be they will not meet again; Loken says he thinks there's no maybe about it. . . and then, in the scene described above. Tarvitz had desperately gotten to the Emperor's Children so that he could die with his brothers, in defiance of the breaking of brotherhood that Horus had imposed on them, but at the end, he looks about the survivors — Emperor's Children, Luna Wolves, World-Eaters — and realizes that he knows all their names, and that men who had been only faces to him had become his brothers.
- When reading Storm of Iron this troper was cheering for the Iron Warriors up until they assaulted and breached the fortress in order to steal the Space Marines' gene-seed and began wiping out the defenders. The Imperial Fists desperately trying and failing to hold off the Chaos Marines, and especially the Guardsmen running through the gene-seed vault, desperately trying to destroy all of the gene-seed while being massacred by the Iron Warriors. This line was the last straw: "There was no way they could destroy it all before the Iron Warriors came to kill them. But they would try. It was all they had left."
- In Kind of a follow up to this. In the book Black Sun, White Sky we meet the tribe of the Unfleashed, a group of mutants cannibals that stalk the wastes looking for meat. It's later that we learn they are the failed attempts of the Iron Warriors to breed more of their kind using the stolen Gene-Seed and they all have the mind of children that still worship and love the Emperor and try to feed and protect the weaker members of the tribe. Ok lets run over that again, the hate spawned children of a HORRIFYING breeding program build a shrine to GOD in HELL, treat each other with care and respect, and ask a stranded Ultra Marine if God still loves them. SCREW Manly Tears I got weepy
- Dear lord the line "There should be no more of us" gets me every time.
- In the Ciaphas Cain novel Cain's Last Stand, Commissar-Cadet Donal's last stand, alongside Governor Trevallyn, covering Cain and his team's escape from the governor's palace. Made even more powerful by Cain's last words to Donal before leaving, where he takes off his red sash and gives it to Donal, formally christening him as a full-fledged Commissar.
- Then, at the end of the book, Donal comes back under Warmaster Varan's mind control. With Jurgen's help, Cain briefly breaks the control over Donal's mind, during which he manages to smile and commit suicide. The real hitter is when Cain walks away, quietly folding up the same red sash.
- Speaking of Gaunts Ghosts — Only In Death is a particularly grief-filled book. The time when they find Gaunt, still alive despite his sufferings, blinded, and desperate to know if anyone else had survived at the hands of the Blood Pact would be a tear-jerker, if it weren't competing with the point at which Hark discovers Soric as a sanctioned psyker, cries, and kills him. Doubly so in that Soric is generous and good-hearted to the end: in face of Hark's horror at what the Black Ships did, he tries to reassure him, though he had clearly suffered torments, and even before he asks for death, he assures Hark that he had been trying to help them, not hurt them; he tells Hark he has nothing to forgive him for and warns him to do it properly, so he won't be punished; and finally he ensures that Hark knows Gaunt is alive. Hours of shock and grief for this troper.
Then, I did not find Corbec's death at the end of Sabbat Martyr to be half as tragic as Soric's fate there.
- Caffran's death in The Armour of Contempt hit hard. Even though this troper knew it was going to happen well in advance (sucker for spoilers), the part at the very end where Zweil is speaking out last rites had me sobbing.
- I started to get tears in my eyes as soon as the kid had the gun... that he got killed due to trying to save the child because it reminded him of Dalin.
- Even nameless mooks get quite a few tear-jerkers in the Gaunt's Ghosts series. In Sabbat Martyr, in particular, a platoon of about 20 Ghosts found themselves stranded outside of an Imperial fortress. Half a million enemy troops were heading for them. Grimly, the platoon turned around to fight the overwhelming enemy force. The last words ever written about them were as follows:
Nineteenth [Platoon] lasted seventeen minutes from the time the gates closed. They accounted for one-hundred and eighty nine enemy casualties. No one witnessed their heroism.
- A similar scene plays out in the novel Grey Knights. Thanks to a conspiracy hatched by a rogue Inquisitor, an Imperial battlefleet was fooled into thinking that the Grey Knights were actually an enemy force. Unwilling to engage his fellow Imperials, Justicar Alaric ordered his ship, the Rubicon, to charge straight for the planet where the Inquisitor was hiding, ignoring all of the damage they were taking from the Imperial ships. It's a suicidal order, but the over one thousand men and women that was the Rubicon's crew did their duty without hesitation. Thanks to their efforts, Alaric and all his Grey Knights made it to the planet, even though the Rubicon and the entire crew perished in the process. Just before they died, Alaric realized that he never really got to know any of the crewmen. He recognized an officer over the radio, and this was their final conversation:
Alaric: Good work officer. What is your name?
Officer: None of us have names. Deployment in six minutes, brother-captain. The Emperor Protects.
- Upon landing on the surface, Alaric then proceeds to give the following speech:
We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy - the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial -carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won.
- For this troper, on the Warhammer 40K note, it would have to be the ending of the Horus Heresy novel Descent of angels where Zahariel, the hero of the Dark Angels first battle as a legion (not to mention almost 413 pages of story), is sent back to Caliban with Luther, while his cousin Nemiel stays with the main force because their Primarch distrusts psykers. Anyone who knows their fluff knows what happened at Caliban...
- This troper got some tears flowing after reading Lord of the Night when, in quick succession, Mita and Sahaal were hit by crises of faith, both led to believe that they were both lied to their entire lives and that those they admired and looked to for guidance (The God-Emperor and Konrad Curze, respectively) were Broken Pedestals. In Sahaal's mindscape, after an Eldar traps both of them in there, they confront each other and find that they are kindred spirits.
- And then the ending (the real ending, before the sequel hook). Despite everything, "Ave Dominus Nox!".
- Similarly, in the novella "Descent", the last use of the line "Nobody hunts like House Ty!".
- For this troper, there's the last part of The Last Chancers, where Kage regains control of himself from a Daemon, before he was about to kill Colonel Schaeffer looks at his comrades and himself and has a personal revalation of what it means to be a Last Chancer, then performs a Heroic Sacrifice.
- The revelation he comes to right before it really makes me misty eyed.
It all becomes crystal clear in that moment of awakening. Sacrifice, the Imperium is built on it. The sayings are all true. The Blood of Martyrs is the Seed of the Imperium. The Loyal Slave Learns to Love the Lash. Only in Death does Duty End.
For ten thousand years we have endured, sometimes we have prospered, other times merely survived. For a hundred centuries we have fought and died, spilt the blood of of our enemies and our own over an uncountable number of battlefields. Mankind has sacrificed itself, for itself, so that it might last another generation, and another, and another. Those sacrifices are for no greater cause than the acts themeselves. It is done in the unspoken hope that some day, perhaps in another ten thousand years, a generation will live without sacrifice and mankind's destiny is assured for eternity.
The Emperor will not remember you by your medals and diplomas, but by your scars.
It is not only in death that we offer up our lives to Him, but also in life. We are not judged merely by the manner of our deaths, we do not earn His eternal grace merely by dying in His name. It is by the way we live out our lives before we die that defines who we were. it is easy to sacrifice a body, for it's nothing more that a mortal shell for our soul. To sacrifice your life, not your death, is the ultimate test of faith.
It is a test I have always failed. I have lied and cheated and killed my fellow men for my own reasons. I have squandered the opportunities for glory I was given. Time and again I stood upon the precipice of true sacrifice and turned away.
Von Strab's look of triumph turns to horror as I fling my arms around him, lfting him off the ground. I see von Spenk's astonished face flash past as I drive forwardsm with the overlord in my arms, the panicked bellows of Urkug sounding in my ears.
His legs hit them rope barrier and buckle, and my momentum carries us forward, toppling us head or heels into the precipice.
Now I truly understand what it means to have a Last Chance. I'm glad I finally took it.
- Sturm's death in the Dragonlance novels. Apparently even the authors cried as they wrote the scene.
- And the death of Tanis in Dragons of Summer Flame. ** This humble contributor must have gotten some dust in his eyes or something when he reached the part with Tas sitting there with Flint's helmet, crying for his lost friend.
- The epilogue in Dragons of Spring Dawning, where Fizban is comforting Tas:
''Beside the forge of Reorx is a tree of surpassing beauty, the likes of which no living being has ever seen. Beneath that tree sits a grumbling old dwarf, relaxing after many labors. A mug of cold ale stands beside him, and the fire of the forge is warm upon his bones. He spends all day lounging beneath the tree, carving and shaping the wood he loves. And every day someone who comes past that beautiful tree starts to sit down beside him.
"That place is saved," the dwarf grumbles. "There's a lamebrained doorknob of a kender off adventuring somewhere getting himself into no end of trouble. One day he'll show up and admire my tree and say, "Flint, I'm tired. I think I'll rest awhile here with you."
- This troper would like to mention that she cried at the actual death, as well as the moments mentioned above. The reactions of Tasslehoff to the whole thing was utterly heartbreaking. I cried for probably half an hour.
- This troper had her heart absolutely broken at the end of the War of Souls trilogy, when Tas goes back in time do die under Chaos' foot. The scene was sad enough the first time around; realizing that he chose it, for the good of everyone else... *bawls*
- Unexpectedly for a book that's basically a comedy about the Knights of Takhisis being flummoxed by tinker gnomes, The Siege of Mount Nevermind has a few strong ones, mostly near the end. The determined resistance of the gnomes after spending most of the book as comic relief is surprisingly moving at many points, but the strongest comes with Halion Khargos, the leader of the Knights expedition to Mount Nevermind, recalling his youth on the island and realizing there was more nobility and strength in the simple life he abandoned, and sitting down to die in the face of a rampaging dragon out of the depths of the mountain. This act left the strictly regimented group of Knights leaderless and easier to push off, but was also just an attempt at atoning for his life of evil.
- Matafleur's Heroic Sacrifice near the end of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Brought this troper closer to tears than just about anything that happened to the supposed main characters in the entire trilogy.
- THAT was the saddest part. Period. It was just so sad, like the entire chapter. Just typing that would make some people I know teary-eyed, and seriously that's the only book I've ever cried reading, I was literally in tears on the bus.
- Why has no one put up the end of Test of the Twins yet?
And then the light was gone. The Portal slammed shut, and blackness pounced upon him with raging, slathering fury. Talons ripped his flesh, teeth tore through muscle, and crunched bone. Blood flowed from his breast, but it would not take with it his life.
He screamed, and he would scream, and he would keep on screaming, unendingly...
Something touched him... a hand... He clutched at it as it shook him, gently. A voiced called, "Raist! Wake up! It was only a dream. Don't be afraid. I won't let them hurt you! Here, watch... I'll make you laugh."
The dragon's coils tightened, crushing out his breath. Glistening black fangs ate his living organs, devoured his heart. Tearing into his body, they sought his soul.
A strong arm encircled him, holding him close. A hand raised, gleaming with silver light, forming chilish pictures in the night, and the voice, dimly heard, whispered, "Look, Raist, bunnies..."
He smiled, no longer afraid. Caramon was here.
- When Raistlin came upon regiment of dead Gully Dwarves after they captured Pax Tharkas in War of the Twins was a mild tear jerker for this troper.
- There are many in the Witcher Cycle by Andrzej Sapkowski, it being a dying fantasy world far on the cynical side of the scale, including ofcourse the very Bitter Sweet Ending, but none of them had affected this troper quite as much as the scene in the "Blood of Elves" where, after a bloody melee between elves and humans with dwarves fighting on both sides and several sympathetic pro-human dwarven characters die, it turns out that the supplies the humans and their dwarven allies were supposed to be escorting were just decoys and the real purpose of this mission was to check if the pro-human dwarves were actually loyal, which they were. The human commander begins to explain and justify all this, but stops in mid-sentence and simply says "sorry". At which point the dwarven commander, Yarpen Zigrin, has a brief, yet intense Heroic BSOD. "What have you done with us? What have you done with us? What have you... made us into?" It sets the tone for the ever darker turns of events that follow after.
- Cecilia Ahern's If You Could See Me Now, the parts told from Ivan's point of view. He loves Elizabeth but he's a professional imaginary friend - I Am Not Making This Up - and can never age, or die. Then she loses the ability to see him.
- Monster, by Frank Peretti. The whole premise of the book is somewhat heartbreaking, but the ending is so bittersweet it burns.
- While we're on the subject of Frank Peretti, the ending of Hangman's Curse and every single chapter of the auto-biographical No More Victims-both featuring anti-bullying themes-had this troper in tears.
- Where the Red Fern Grows has many tear-jerking moments, even before the end. If only all dogs were like that...
- This troper didn't read Where The Red Fern Grows until she was 25. At the part where one of the dogs (although she forgets which one) gets its guts ripped out by a mountain lion, and then they're hanging out of its body, she literally burst into tears, threw the book across the room, and proceeded to sob profusely and uncontrollably for ten full minutes. Although she somehow managed to finish the book a few days later, five years after the fact, she has still refused to read it a second time.
- The dog you're talking about is Dan.
- As for this troper, I read it for the first time when I was in the third grade. The teacher was really freaked out when I completely broke down, put my head on my desk, and cried for the next hour. I read it again every two years or so, and it gets me every time. Because of it, if I read/watch anything that has to do with the death of a dog, I burst into tears. That was the first book I ever cried over. Then the next book I picked to read was Bridge to Terribithia. My third grade year was full of crying.
- I feel you there. My class read it in the fourth grade, and I sobbed for at least 15 minutes. Doesn't help that I am somewhat crushed by ANY animal dying in any book/movie/show, much less ones that were so touching and awesome as Dan and Ann. See? Even thinking about it ruins any kind of good mood I happen to have!
- Of Mice and Men isn't an emotional story for most of the way through, but the end will shoot you in the head if you aren't ready for it.
- This troper made the mistake of reading Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony in the same week and promptly vowed to never again read anything by Steinbeck, ever. Then she went to see The Grapes Of Wrath...
- That was the most ludicrously unkind pun this troper has ever read.
- I'm afraid YMMVwith regards to Of Mice and Men - maybe this troper is just a bit heartless, but she wasn't affected at all. (And for what it's worth, the original entry's pun made me crack up...)
- Would you believe not one, but two TearJerkers in the same Star Trek novel? In the same chapter, no less? Diane Duane manages to pull it off in Spock's World, in the "historical" chapter featuring Surak. His My God What Have I Done while he watches the newscast about the invention of antimatter bombs, and his subsequent Heroic BSOD as he contemplates the death and destruction that are sure to follow are utterly heart-breaking.
"Death, it was all death, there was no escape fro it. Destruction was very near, the death to end all the deaths, unless something was done."
- Thankfully, the second Tear Jerker is from pure joy as Surak has his moment of Epiphany Therapy:
"Celebration would win, was winning, had won now. Everything was one moment, and that moment was nothing but triumph and joy."
- Oh, God, Diane Duane. This troper can still be reduced to a quivering wreck by the last few chapters of High Wizardry.
- And then there's A Wizard's Dilemma, which is just filled with gut punches and tearjerker moments.
- This troper was sobbing by the end of Wizards at War. First Roshaun's disapperance and Dairine holding his Sunstone collar and whispering, "Where did he go?" irreversibly blocked my throat. Then Ponch's sacrifice and his goodbye with Kit totally unlocked the waterworks. And then, gosh-darnit, Diane Duane went and made me shed tears of happy relief when I realized Ronan was going to live, Roshaun still might be alive, and Kit and the sheepdog...I salute Duane's powers of outstanding Mood Whiplash utterly.
- This troper felt like crying throughout A Wizard Alone, as Nita struggled with her depression. Let's just say Duane is good at putting that emotion into words. But the breaking point is at the end, when she's convincing Darryl to come with her and Kit:
"It's better not to do it alone," Nita said.
—The final chapters of that book were one big crowning moment of awesome for Nita, but that was really the icing on the cake. Icing made of tears! (okay, that sounded gross, but still...)
- Also, the end of The Wounded Sky. There's a Heroic Sacrifice, some Rewriting Reality, the crew of the Enterprise rocking the Nakama like there's no tomorrow, and the birth of a new universe. Go. And. Read. It.
- Now. God. The scene where McCoy begs for the new universe to be spared pain and death, despite knowing it's impossible, is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in existence. And the depiction of the crew's inner selves, particularly her description of McCoy as "blazing with compassion", will make you believe in the good of humanity again. Actually, that whole book will. Chalk about a hundred billion up for Diane.
- Matthew Reilly's Scarecrow has a nasty one, where the antagonist guillotines the main character's girlfriend. Her last words are these- "Tell him I would have said yes". Shane, the main character, recognises this as being a reference to his upcoming proposal of marriage.
- Later, Shane tries to kill himself, but a fight with the Mother snaps him back to his senses.
- The end of Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged, specifically the Dogman’s final words at Threetrees’ grave. “Back to the mud, old man. Fare you well.”
- Jane Langton's The Fledgeling really ought to be a perfect storm of Narm (it involves a Waif Prophet little girl who might be the reincarnation of Henry David Thoreau, a not-subtle Green Aesop, and a character referred to as the Goose Prince for crying out loud) and yet it's the first book this troper remembers crying at the end.
- S.M. Stirling's Dies The Fire series features the death of 90% of the human race, without jerking many tears. But the death of Mike Havel at the end of the third book is another matter.
- The final chapter of Lois Lowry's Number The Stars.
- The end of the chapter in I Am Legend where Neville finds the dog made this troper cry out loud and avoid the book for about a week. After spending a month trying to get the last living creature on earth other than himself to allow Neville to pet him, it finally looks like he will have a companion. It'll be easier just to read it yourself:
"You'll be all better soon," he whispered. "Real soon."
The dog looked up at him with its dulled, sick eyes and then its tongue faltered out and licked roughly and moistly across the palm of Neville's hand.
Something broke in Neville's throat. He sat there silently while tears ran slowly down his cheeks.
In a week the dog was dead.
- Now try watching that bit in the movie version, with Will Smith holding the dog (who was his constant companion in this one) in a cross between a hug and a choke hold until it finally dies.
- This troper is always brought to a mix of a smile and tears by the ending of the book.
- Lord of the Flies made this troper cry over and over when it took Simon and Piggy, the only two likable characters, and killed them off brutally.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events. The series has a dark, yet humorous tone to it, but it really proves that it's worth it's name, during while Kit is trapped on top of a makeshift raft of books, in labor, and the story's (apparent) villain, Count Olaf, lifts her off and kisses her "One last time." Then, with a bit of darkly humorous poetry, he gives one final "HA!" and dies from a harpoon injury. The Baudelaire children then help Kit give birth to a healthy baby girl, but she dies in the process, and the author gives a beautiful speech about the moral ambiguities of life and ends the story on the usual mysterious note. Then, comes the epilogue chapter, where the Baudelaires are preparing to leave the island for good after one year. They constructed a boat, and named the boat after Kit's daughter. They named her after their late mother, Beatrice. She is none other the narrator's lost love, about whom he writes incessantly throughout all thirteen books, giving us the real reason to why he decided to chronicle the children's misadventures. This stuff probably doesn't make sense to those who haven't read the series, and I've probably worded this oddly, so if anyone wants to fix it, go right ahead.
- Robin Hobb's Fitz Chivalry books have many, many scenes that had this troper in tears and wondering if Fitz was going to be the universe's whipping boy for his entire life.
- The latter parts of Catch-22 really got this troper. A story that had been lighthearted and bizarre suddenly takes a turn for dark territory, killing off a lot of the characters, and the second-to-last chapter that details Snowden's death shot chills up this troper's spine and had her in tears. She had to reread the last paragraphs of the chapter just to absorb it all.
- The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Anyone who's read it know's what scene is going to be mentioned. When Wolf sacrifices himself to save Jack's life. Jack is holding the dying Wolf in his arms. Wolf tells Jack to go on to which Jack screams "Not without you, Wolf!". And then after Wolf has died Jack screaming at him "Wolf, come back, I love you!".
- The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth tells the story of a Japanese artist commissioned to paint a portrait of the Buddha's funeral procession, and ultimately defies convention by including an image of his beloved pet cat, Good Fortune, among the animals. Upon seeing this act of love, Good Fortune promptly dies of joy. The temple officials initially reject the painting, but recant after viewing it the next day to find the cat in the painting is no longer in its place among the animals, but resting on the Buddha's breast receiving a blessing from him. This troper bawled for days.
- A similarly moving story is Tomie DePaola's The Clown of God, a retelling of an old legend. A talented, traveling juggler is taken for granted as he ages. He chooses to give up his act when he fails his signature routine (7 balls, including a golden one) and is cruelly mocked and run out of town by a mob. Christmas Eve comes and he seeks shelter in a church. He witnesses visitors leaving little gifts at the feet of a statue of the Madonna and her Child. Once everyone has left he notices how stern the Child looks, even with all the gifts, so he decides to perform his entire act for him, full costume and all. He does it better than he ever has before, but during the climax with the 7 balls, he dies of a heart attack. The monks, who had been alerted to the "sacrilege" going on, find the poor fellow dead and one says "May he rest in peace" - and then they notice the Child is smiling, and is holding the golden ball. (sniff) The Weston Woods animated version handles this particularly well.
- This troper cried when at the end of the first book of the Stravaganza series, City of Masks, Lucien is trapped in Talia for so long that his parents are forced to pull the plug on his comatose body and he dies in his world. The father's reactions, especially to the priest giving the funeral, are especially heartbreaking. There's also a very sad moment towards the middle of the book, when Lucien finds out that his cancer is returning. Even the beginning when it first reveals Lucien's illness is pretty emotional, especially with people who have gone through or know people who have gone through cancer.
- Pretty much the entirety of Ender's Game: "The most noble title any child can bear is third", " I didn't want to kill anyone — why wouldn't they leave me alone?", " He fought with honor. I didn't fight with honor. I fought to win.", "Do they know me well enough to know I don't fear death?"
Ender: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them...I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don’t exist.
- And in Ender's Shadow, when Bean, alone among Ender's jeesh, realizes that the "simulation" they're playing is real and they are sending real men and women to their deaths, and laments for them: "O my son Absalom. My son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!"
- At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean says goodbye in a letter to his wife, Petra, knowing he'll never see her again. The saddest part though, is that their friend Peter has been reading the letter to her, but when she reads it, she realizes Peter added "I love you" to the end.
- Children of the Mind, near the end when the young clone of Peter is watching Si Wang-Mu on the beach on the Samoan planet. I don't remember the exact words offhand, but it went something like "Because it's enough for me that when I touched your shoulder you leaned on me, and when you felt me slipping away, you called my name." That and the entire preceding paragraph make me weep every time I read it.
- The Velveteen Rabbit.
- Seconded. The part when the boy is forced to have all of his toys burned because of that pesky scarlet fever... and then the rabbit becomes real and... *Sniff*
- The Mists of Avalon. Just about the whole book. But especially the end, where Morgaine finally understands that she did not fail. Also, when she bids Arthur goodbye as a sister.
- The death of Merlin and Nimue.
- In Drums of Autumn, the split second in the prison with Bree and Stephen Bonnet where it looks like Straight Gay sidekick and Bree's fiancee Lord John's just been murdered, the building's about to explode and to top it all Bree's about to go into premature labor... this troper cried like an idiot, even after reading later books and knowing it ends more or less OK.
- In A Breath of Snow and Ashes, just before Roger and Brianna are about to take their two children back to the future, Jamie says to Jem: "If one day, a bhailach... ye should meet a verra large mouse named Michael -— ye'll tell him your grandsire sends his regards."
- This editor hasn't read all of them but he pretty much takes it for granted that any novel by Kurt Vonnegut makes the reader want to jump out of the window in despair somewhere along the way. He knows he wanted to.
- Just Kurt Vonnegut in general; anything connected to him automatically becomes either a Reverse Funny Aneurysm or just plain sad. This troper read an article about him after his death in which she found out about his tendency to apologise profusely to Japanese people for Hiroshima and Nagasaki... aaaaand, here come the waterworks again...
- This troper never cries. Ever. But the scene in Slaughterhouse Five where the main character watches a video of a city being bombed in reverse made her start tearing up.
- For this troper, it's the part of the first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five where Vonnegut is writing in his own voice:
And I say to Sam now: "Sam—here's the book.: It's so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'"
I have told my sons not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.
- Books never make me literally cry, although I do sometimes have to set the book down and not start reading again for an hour or two if something very tragic happens. In Bluebeard, Rabo's description of his best friend Terry committing suicide after killing his own father was one of these occasions.
- The Little Prince: The whole thing with the prince and the fox ("what's essential is invisible to the eye"), when the Pilot walks with the Prince as the latter goes to be bitten by the Snake that he may return to his asteroid, and the very ending when the pilot desperately asks his readers to be on the lookout for the Little Prince and "send word to me that he has come back."
- Let's not forget the scene where the Prince chews out the Pilot for caring too much about things like the broken plane and missing on anything else. He then breaks down crying and the Pilot has to comfort him.
- The ending of Seven Little Australians tugs at the heartstrings with the death of Judy. *sniff*
- The ending of Charlotte's Web.
- This troper tears up every time she reads Bragoon and Saro's deaths in Brian Jacques' Loamhedge, and Lady Cregga Rose Eye's death in Taggerung. For the first two, it was not only the fact that they sacrificed themselves to fight scores of vermin so their friends could get away, and died paw in paw, but also their last lines: "The sunny slopes an' quiet streams... I'll wait for ye there, Sarobando... wouldn't go anyplace without ye." "Wait for me, Brag ole mate, I'll be there.". As for Cregga, it was that she died peacefully during the feast while her cheery song was played, and that as she was dying, her spirit was greeted by one of her long-dead Long Patrol hares, and she was young again and could see. "Into the setting sun, over the hills and far away" still gets me when I read it. Damn, dosn't help that I'm listeing to 'In This River', another tearjerker media, on repeat while I type this.
- Hazel's epilogue at the end of Watership Down.
- The final line always does it for me. "He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.
- The final book in the Animorphs series. The funeral scene where Tobias grabs the urn with Rachel's ashes and flies off, presumably to scatter them had this troper choked up.
- This Troper still cannot read Rachel's death scene—where Tobias morphs to human so he can cry, and she tells him she loves him and tries to be brave and smile for him—without breaking down.
- Hell, the Rachel's entire final battle was a tear jerker, especially the final few lines:
"Rachel!" It was Tobias.
<Help me, Tobias,> I pleaded.
"I can't. I..."
He didn't understand. <Help me get him. Help me get him!>
"Okay. Okay. Your left paw, towards your face. Has to be fast."
<Okay.>
"Now!"
I stabbed my paw towards my face. I couldn't see him, but I could feel him struggle, like a worm on a fishhook. A snake impaled on my claws. Tom.
<No!,> Tom cried in outrage.
<Sorry,> I said vaguely.
<JAKE, STOP HER!> The Yeerk screamed with Tom's mouth.
I bit down on the snake.
- For that matter, the first book in the author's next series, Remnants, discouraged this troper from reading the rest of the series. In the first half of the book, we're told that the Earth has less than a week to survive. To drive the point in, the main character Jobs, who is trying to get tickets on a ship off the doomed planet for his parents, himself, and his girlfriend, is treated to news footage off of her phone of a fragment of the deadly meteor breaking off and killing her entire family. And there were thirteen books of this series.
- This troper shamelessly breaks down at Matthew Cuthbert's death in Anne of Green Gables.
- While this troper also cries every time she reads that part, other Montgomery tomes that have reduced her to a sobbing mess are Emily of New Moon when Emily, while sick, suddenly knows what happens to Ilse's dead mother—she had fallen into a well, and not gone off and cheated on her husband with her cousin like everyone thought. That description doesn't sound especially tear-jerkish, but there's a quote from Emily that made this troper weep uncontrollably the first time she read it: "I see her coming over the fields ... She is coming so gladly—she is singing—she is thinking of her baby—oh, keep her back—keep her back—she doesn't see the well—it's so dark she doesn't see it—oh, she's gone into it—she's gone into it!". Also in Rilla of Ingleside, this troper's favorite of the Anne series, when Walter dies—but less when he actually dies as a chapter or two later, when his last letter is read and then given to the girl who loved him. Just the words "And So, Goodnight" will get this troper's tears flowing. And in case you're wondering, yes, she is crying right now.
- This troper was positive Elizabeth Bear was never, ever going to top the ending of Dust for sheer and thorough heartbreak; it's hard to beat an ending in which one of the main characters willingly allows herself to die and have her consciousness absorbed — with a kiss — by the co-protagonist who'd spent the entire book being unable to love her back the way she wanted, in order to save what might very well be all that's left of humanity. Aaaaaand then she came out with Ink & Steel, which starts punching one in the tear ducts at about the point of Will and Kit hooking up, and never really stops.
- Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" is the one of the few things that make this troper cry.
- It's so eerie, too...
- Bradbury is very good at tearjerkers. There's a reason "The Rocket Man" inspired such a mournful song. And this troper wept at several points, most involving Mildred, in Fahrenheit 451.
- This troper thinks "All Summer in a Day" is the saddest story he has ever read.
- To Kill A Mockingbird.
- So it wasn't just me, then?
- What kills this troper is how the books were banned because of racism... people obviously missing the whole point while reading the story. The whole book was so heartwrenching.
- This Troper has rarely cried after reading a book, but had to keep those tears coming from after reading that book.
- "Hey, Boo," will make this troper well up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. So much said in just two words.
- This troper only needs to think about Boo Radley to start weeping.
- Also "Stand up, Miss Jean Louise. Your father is passing."
- No mention of Catcher In The Rye? Good god, this troper cries buckets at many of the Holden and Phoebe scenes, and just loses it when he watches her on the carousel.
- Good to know I'm not the only one.
- F. X. Toole's short story, "Million Dollar Baby", especially the last line.
With his shoes in his hand but without his soul, he moved silently down the rear stairs and was gone, his eyes as dry as a burning leaf.
- Anyone who's read a James Herriot book will know that tearjerker stories are spaced throughout, with material such as a young dog being put to sleep because she had uncurable mange and an old bed-ridden woman trying to take care of her animals. Even the happy ones can cause rivers of tears for this troper, with "Mrs. Donovan" coming immediately to mind (the story itself is on page 57).
- Macaulay's Epitaph on a Jacobite. So sad it deserves to be printed in full.
TO my true king I offer'd free from stain
Courage and faith: vain faith, and courage vain.
For him, I threw lands, honors, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more priz'd than they.
For him I languish'd in a foreign clime,
Gray-hair'd with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pin'd by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fever'd sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting place I ask'd, an early grave.
Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.
- So does In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
- Likewise, just about anything by Wilfred Owen, particularly "Anthem for Doomed Youth".
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
- The poem "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by William Butler Yeats always makes this troper a tad depressed, especially considering that Aedh is a Yeats characte described as pale, lovelorn, and lonely.
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- Lamb, by Christopher Moore. It's the brilliant, hilarious, thought-provoking story of the life of Jesus, as told by his degenerate best friend. You ''know'' what has to happen at the end. It will still break your heart.
- If the scene where Joshua (Jesus) comes back to the monestary after finding that the Yeti, whom he felt was the only being in the world that understood what being the only one of his kind felt like, had died in a cave-in, alone, and Joshua wasn't there to save him or even comfort him as he succumbed to death, doesn't make you cry tears of sadness and anger, then you have no soul. Even as an atheist, this affected me. It's written very powerfully.
- "No more blood. No more blood. No more blood." *sob*
- The whole symbolism of the lamb/sacrifice is one of the oldest in Christianity. It still hits me like a brick to the face, every time.
"Why are we having Passover with [a different sect of Judaism]?
"Because at their Passover, they don't kill a lamb."
- Also, by Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job, while hilarious, has the most touching "goodbye" scene between Charlie and his daughter, Sophie, as he dies from wounds suffered in the final battle with the Morrigan after realizing that he is not the new incarnation of Death; Sophie is. One sentence from Sophie is the worst: "Goodbye, Daddy." I couldn't stop crying for two hours. The author is a GENIUS!
- Johnno by David Malouf has one toward the end. Throughout the book, we see Johnno as a drunken, dangerous fool constantly holding the far more sensible and rational Dante back. Then, after Johnno's (implied) suicide, Dante finds a letter from Johnno that makes it clear that Johnno is a loyal and devoted friend who has been repeatedly let down, betrayed and ignored by the aloof Dante. What makes it even more heartbreaking is that it's generally believed to be semi-autobiographical, with Dante being Malouf.
- Bridge To Terabithia. That is all.
- The movie was ten times worse.
- This troper had to leave her classroom to cry in the washroom after reading that book. In high school.
- "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning--... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- "Why, my God! They used to go there by the hundreds...the poor son-of-a-bitch."
- This troper teared up at Gatsby's funeral, which was only attended by 3 people.
- In JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit: The death of Thorin still sometimes makes this troper cry.
- "There is more of good in you than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and song and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But, sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell."
- The death of Dustfinger in Inkspell. Sacrificing himself to save one of the only people he's ever cared about, using an old legend. Come to think of it, Farid's death in itself was a Tear Jerker.
- The World According To Garp. Pretty much the whole thing.
- Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl was either full of this or Narm, depending on where you fall on the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism. Particularly the ending.
- The sequel was just as heartwrenching.
- Anakin Solo's death in New Jedi Order: Star by Star. Leia's shutting down emotionally and Han's anger especially pulled at this troper's heartstrings.
- Another Star Wars example: X-wing: Iron Fist. The death of Ton Phanan. Aaron Allston is really good both at funny and tears. The author said on his site: "Although he feared death, although he struggled against it, Ton Phanan, deep down, didn't want to live." Also, a little earlier, when he is confessing to Face that he feels like his Emergency Transformation ate his future, and he's getting farther and farther from who he once was.
- Come on! That's all you could find from Star Wars? To writ: Corran dies in Wedge's Gamble (he gets better); in The Krytos Trap it's Mirax (who also gets better) and Diric (who doesn't) that tear people up. Also, Tycho's Return monologue at the ruins of Alderaan.
"I am Tycho Celchu, son of Alderaan, now orphan of the galaxy. I have come to this place of my birth to pay homage to who I was and those I knew. And those I loved and love still. It is my wish that when life abandons me, I am returned here to be among you, so that for eternity we may be together as we should have been in life. These gifts are but insufficient tokens of the love for you all that still burns within me. This fighter is another. It bears the colors of the Alderaanian Guard and transmits their code. It is my pledge to you—not of vengeance but of vigilance. I hope you rest well knowing you will rest alone, because it is my life's work to see to it that no one else suffers as you have. I won't rest until this quest is complete. Rest easy. I miss you all."
- Jesmin's death in Wraith Squadron, and also Falynn's for its effect on Donos. Same book, Kell bugging out of a fight, returning only because of Tyria. As noted above, Phanan dying in Iron Fist, but also Dia's meltdown when she shoots Castin (who's probably already dead). Donos/Lara's and Gavin/Asyr's "resolutions" in Solo Command and Isard's Revenge respectively (both got more resolution later. One was better. One... wasn't). Wedge's speeches, including all of them in Starfighters of Adumar, but especially the one to Iella about the "two reasons nothing's going to happen to [him]". Chewie dying in Vector Prime, Karrde's fight for Yavin IV (including an in-universe example, when he thinks Shada is dead). Order 66 redux, when the Vong start Jedi-hunting. The fall of Coruscant, complete with impassioned speech from Leia. Wedge's supposed-to-be-suicidal stand at Borleias, when it almost become truly suicidal for him. Anakin dying. Jacen dying, Jacen coming back. Oh, and Pellaeon giving Han and Leia the painting at the end of The Unifying Force.
- So, long story short: Star Wars? Good at emotions in any media.
- Also, The Cestus Deception, in which a clone is given a real name, learns to think of himself as more than just part of the army, then gives up his newly valued life to save millions, leaving behind the woman he'd fallen in love with, with a message including the following: "Know that more than anything else in the world, I was a soldier. And know that you, and no one else in the galaxy, held this soldier's heart in your hands."
- The last few chapters of Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice. Oh god. Let's see...for starters, Mara's death (especially her final words, proving why she's Mama Bear incarnate), both Ben and Luke's reactions (Ben suddenly breaking down into tears when he feels his mother's death really hits home for me, as does Luke feeling the mindlink he and his wife shared shatter), and Luke realizing that his revenge killing was for nothing, whereupon he loses it completely and utterly. Cue the fangirl tears and bawling.
- And not just fangirls. This editor actively tried to cry after reading that, although tears aren't really my strong point. Really though, that whole sequence was Tear Jerker, Wall Banger, Character Derailment (like she'd ever really lose to that idiot), Stuffed In The Fridge (could they be any more blatantly sexist?), Dethroning Moment Of Suck and Jumping The Shark (for about the fortieth time) all rolled into one. Traviss, Denning, and their accomplices have a lot to answer for.
- So suddenly it's a crime to be one of the minority to like the series, despite its faults? Gods, it's impossible to communicate with the fandom anymore.
- Hey, sorry, didn't mean to stamp on any fellow fans' toes. I will admit—grudgingly—that there's some entertainment value in Legacy Of The Force if you can get past the Suck-factor, which I, personally, cannot. I certainly have never and would never claim(ed) it's criminal to like the books once written. Writing them in the first place on the other hand ...
- "But, it was so artistically done...." Cue tears.
- Hell, that's not a tearjerker, it's a crime.
- Zannah's ordeal with the death of Laa. Made almost worse by the fact that the Jedi she immediately kills were only trying to protect her. And that they killed pretty much the only sane Bouncer left on Ruusan.
- 'Order 66', which is amazing considering it's the sequel to a series about Mandalorians. The bit just after Etain dies after being cut down accidently by a panicking Jedi Padawan who then falls victim to Skitira going berserk with rage , when everyone's dealing with what happened and trying not to break down completly. This troper bawled like a baby at Darman's reaction and Skitira torturing himself afterwards with how badly he treated her.
- This troper grew to love the young Jedi Scout from "Yoda: Dark Rendezvous"; she wasn't strong in the Force, but she believed in her cause and tried to make up for it in other ways. Being a Jedi - everything about her boiled down to that, and Yoda's little speech about not giving up on one who burns so brightly could qualify for this trope. "Order 66" tells us that after her culture was annihilated/driven underground she got scooped up and most likely converted by the Mandalorians, who hate Jedi and are antithetical to them... well, she's not Scout after that. She's just another smug Mandalorian; the core of her being is gone. Sure, it's never stated that she got converted, and it can be hoped that she found other Jedi and left. But it's so sad to think of Scout losing herself and being another Proud Warrior Race Guy - the line referring to her implies that she thinks the Jedi thought she was of little value so she was rejecting them, and that was not true. Don't write her anymore, Traviss. I love Scout. Don't do that to her.
- As near as I can tell, some people hate Karen Traviss's Republic Commando series and some people love them. I love them, and the whole damn series was full of tearjerkers. I LIKE her version of the clones, and they're wildly tearjerking. Especially Skirata's boys. And their backstory. Even if they are psychopaths.
- Not quite the same with me. Yes, I like the fact that the Mandos get detailed into something more than "Scary Mercenary Hellbent on Conquering the Galaxy" and that the clones are more than just "copy that, sir" or "<insert Wilhelm Scream when shot>", but the sheer character derailment that everyone else undergoes in order to fit Traviss's little Mando fetish is a little frustrating to say the least...
- More examples are probably redundant - yes, Star Wars rocks at this - but this editor would like to add the farewell and attempted suicide of Depa Billaba at the end of Shatterpoint in a brief moment of sanity after the war broke her to pieces, as well as Mace Windu's monologue at the end; the death of Jai Maruk in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous as well as Yoda's speech about loss: "Do you think Yoda's wisdom comes at no cost?"
- The ending of Outbound Flight. Lorana and Thrass die to save the last survivors, and no one ever knows what they did.
- There's a quiet one in Allegiance, when the Emperor's Hand Mara Jade "buries" her companion, a smuggler she was working with and had promised a pardon to, out in space as he'd requested. He'd come to trust her. Typically of Zahn, it briefly and economically hints at her character, emotional state, and her hidden awareness that Palpatine is bad, for all that she thinks of him as a "good and wise man" in his presence.
The Emperor had little patience with memorials, Mara knew, with extra contempt for the practice of saying words over the fallen. Mara said a few words anyway, half remembered ones from her childhood, before consigning Tannis's body to the emptiness of space.
- The end of the novelization of Revenge of the Sith. Starting from "This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever," until the end.
- No, Anakin's death at the end of Rot J. This troper still cannot read it without bawling.
- In Out of the Silent Planet, Hyoi is gunned down just after slaying the hnakra.
- This Troper is wondering if she's the only one who found House Of Leaves more sad than scary. I cried when Jed died, I cried at 'there was no tom there i was no tom there', I cried when Johnny invents the story about his friends in Seattle and the yellow shine pills, and I cried buckets over Pelafina's letters, especially the last few.
- You're not. What especially gets me about the ending is the fact that while Navidson is saved by the person who loves him, Johnny has no such person to save him from the darkness.
- This troper couldn't have been more than 8 when her father read her "My Dog Skip," but she will never forget how much she cried when she read the scene with the kitten.
- Andy McGee's death in Firestarter. He's so unbearably close to escaping with his daughter, but he pushes his psychic ability too hard and suffers an aneurysm, paralyzing one side of his body, cruelly distorting his speech, and ripping him away from Charlie mere minutes after being reunited with her for the first time in months. He can't even get out her name one last time—he murmurs "—love you, Ch—" and dies. Having calmly read a good number of other Stephen King books and the multitude of deaths they contained, this troper was shocked to realize she could not keep herself from bawling like a baby for a good twenty minutes after the scene (greatly disturbing her sister, who entered the room five minutes in and was greeted with a bleating, snot-nosed "GO AWAAAAY!"). It's the hardest she's ever mourned for a literary character, and she's no light reader.
- Speaking of King: Ilse Freemantle's death in Duma Key. This troper sat there staring at the page for about two minutes on end, somehow refusing to believe (despite having read just about everything King ever wrote) that he'd just gone and done that.
- Pete Mcvries's death towards the end of The Long Walk makes this troper cry everytime. Then, usually, there is a deep weeklong depression. He could have won.
- Same goes for This Troper. What really drives her over the edge, though, is Ray Garraty's reaction. "No! Me! Me! Shoot me!" And this after he said to himself that he wouldn't help Mcvries if the chance came. Oh, Ray. He might not have any tears left to cry, but we sure do.
- Completely understandable, as pretty much everyone, with the exception of the main character, goes insane and dies with some kind of horrible, wrenching last words. I think the line that's the worst for me is the disemboweled Hank Olsen screaming, in tears, "I DID IT WRONG!"
- This Troper would say that even that exception is very much debatable. Gah.
- "There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it." - Brokeback Mountain.
- The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. So many people choose to go back to Hell.
- On the subject of CS Lewis, I found the ending of The Last Battle too hard to read, because I was crying so much.
- For me, it was the Backstory behind King Caspian's loss of his wife (killed by the Green Lady in snake form) and son (abducted, kept as a hostage and brainwashed for years) in The Silver Chair. Specially when Lord Drinian wants to atone for his mistakes that led to this to happen by allowing the king to execute him with his own hands, but Caspian cries and hugs him saying "I've lost my Queen and my son... will I lose my friend as well?"
- Gandalf. Bridge of Moria. That was the first time This Troper cried because of a book. At the age of 12.
- Sam thinking frodo is dead after being stung by Shelob in the third book, this troper doesn't usually cry during books but this was definetly an exception.
- Ugh, yes. But one line in particular stuck out for This Troper. Sam is saying farewell to his master after deciding to complete the quest alone:
"Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done, if he manages it. Then I'll not leave you again.
The Fridge Logic of what that last sentence really means, that Sam is willing to keep vigil over Frodo in death and never see his home again, made me blubber like a baby... and I never used to cry at anything.
And then the Appendices, where we learned what became of Sam after LOTR... *whimper*
- The Appendices' account of the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" is heartrending. Aragorn's mother's last words to her son, who grew up under the name of Estel...
I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept none for myself.
- The end of Return Of The King. When Frodo realises that he can never be happy in Middle Earth, goes across the sea and *sob* leaves Sam, Merry and Pippin behind
- "I loved them. And you gave them to me."
- Generation Kill.
- In Mariel of Redwall, the title character's account of what she suffered from the Big Bad. Especially in the audio book.
- I didn't cry at the death of Miser Shen in Bridge Of Birds, but everyone I have ever recommended the book to did. I can understand why—in his delirium of pain, he relives the time he visited a priest in order to dictate a long, heartfelt letter to his dead young daughter, because Shen was illiterate and could not write it himself.
- Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey collaborated on a book called The Ship Who Searched in the "Ship Who Sang" 'verse. In it early on, a little girl is slowly paralyzed from the neck down. When she knows people are watching her she's a Cheerful Child, but when she thinks she's alone, particularly after her parents are gone... "I wanted - Teddy, I wanted to see the stars!" This troper has read it several times, and it still makes her tear up.
- On the subject of Mercedes Lackey, Kris's gift from beyond the grave to Talia and Dirk at the end of Arrow's Fall. Brightly Burning has several moments.
- Not to mention the entire Last Herald Mage Trilogy. I was whimpering for the entire second half of Magic's Pawn.
- The very end of The Incredible Journey, when the three animals all end their journey together.
- Before I Die. Especially the last few pages.
- I have never been able to get past the "Instructions for..." sections without literally sobbing. Loudly. Especially the directions Tessa leaves for her funeral. Dear god.
- Pretty much everything written by Douglas Coupland has multiple examples of this.
- In The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M.T. Anderson, the moment Katie realizes that, as a fictional character she will never age, never go to college, never get married, and eventually becoming just as much an anachronism as her friend Jasper Dash, a Tom Swift style character, as her friend Lily leaves her behind.
- The epilogue of Jesusland hit this troper like a blow to the side of the head- the narrator finally finds freedom with her brother, and states that they're a true family now. The opening line of the epilogue reveals that her brother died in a car crash two years later. And this is an autobiography.
- Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in which you come to realize that the main character Kathy and her friends are clones created to provide spare organs for "normal" people and indoctrinated to believe their only goal in life is to be "donors". At the end of the book, Kathy has seen her best friend and her lover die after giving away several of their organs... and as if that wasn't enough of a Tear Jerker already, she accepts that in a few years, the same thing will happen to her. She could refuse, run away and try to stop what's happening, because she's allowed to drive and do everything other people do... but the thought doesn't even occur to her. When the time comes, she'll drive herself to the slaughterhouse.
- The whole novel is a Tear Jerker, but the part that really got to this troper was: " The worst thing I ever did...was that I kept you and Tommy apart...that was the worst thing I did". Upon recalling that scene now, she is crying even as she writes this.
- The final meeting between Audrey and Piccadilly's ghost in the Deptford Mice books always had this troper in tears.
- As did Zach's death and the aftermath in Goodnight Mister Tom.
- Honor Harrington:
- In At All Costs, Howard Clinkscales' funeral and the aftermath, when Honor creates the legal equivalent of blood bonds between her family and the Clinkscales family.
- Not to mention the end of the book, where Honor mourns the death of Alistair McKeon while reading to her children:
Wherever you are, wherever God takes you, fly high. I'll guard the Phoenix for you, I promise. Goodbye. I love you.
- Much worse for this troper was about a page earlier, when at the end of the battle of Manticore, where millions of people have been killed, including many of Honor's friends and colleagues and then she gets confirmation that Alistair's ship has somehow survived and gets a good signal to the bridge. And then she learns that while the main bridge survived, flag bridge did not.
- The scene in The Short Victorious war where Helen Zilwicki's convoy (carrying her husband and four-year-old daughter) is attacked, and she almost doesn't say goodbye because no one in her crew will have the chance.
- In a similar vein (save no familial connection), Edward Saganami's last battle, as recounted in the prologue to The Shadow of Saganmi, under similar conditions as those faced by Captain Zilwicki.
- The senseless slaughter of a RMN shuttle by a mentally unbalanced crewmember of the Marianne/Golden Butterfly, in The Shadow of Saganami, has always brought a tear to the eye of this troper.
- Honor is notorious for never betraying a single emotion, but the readers get to see it all from the inside.
- The last few chapters of Stephen King's It made this troper tear up a few times.
- The moment in Stephen King's The Shining where Jack Torrance briefly shakes off his possession to tell his son that he loves him.
- Alaska's death and its immediate aftermath, halfway through John Green's Looking For Alaska
- Miles's essay at the end jerked a few tears as well.
- The scene in Lian Hearn's Heaven's Net Is Wide, in which Shigeru and Naomi fantasize about what life would be like if the were "normal" people. It doesn't help that, if you've read the main series (of which Heaven's Net is a prequel) you know that they don't get the happy ending they deserve: she drowns and he is tortured, left for dead, and has to be put out of his misery by his adoptive son.
- The final scene of Robert Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: the protagonist's lover and their titular cat are dead, with the protagonist vowing to go down fighting, but still having almost no chance of coming getting out alive.
- You should probably read To Sail Beyond The Sunset. Not that it was very good.
- Outsiders by SE Hinton gets this troper all the time, even in the eighth grade. Especially when Johnny and Dally die.
- Barbara Park's Mick Harte Was Here. All of it.
- The major situation in The Cold Equations. Even if it is the result of plotholes you could drive a truck through.
- Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind has this several times, most strongly when you realize the main character somehow lost everything - his music, his magic, his best friends, his glory - and in the epilogue, when the line "if there had been music . . . but of course, there was no music" takes on a full meaning. It doesn't help that the epilogue and the prologue are nearly identical; re-reads will also drive that point home.
- Terhune's Bruce has this in the second to last chapter. Poor Bruce.
- The 'Rai-Kirah' series by Carol Berg - Transformation, Revelation, and Restoration - has this frequently in the first book. This doesn't mean that the book is bad - far from it, it's glorious - but it did make this troper put down the book every few pages to remind herself that the real world still existed. Especially when Seyonne is branded, Aleksander is declared insane, and when the young Ezzarian chooses to kill himself rather than face slavery in this hostile and barbaric culture.
- In Mary Stewart's Merlin books, there's a passage about Uther's sudden death at a feast and the ensuing furore over the succession, and there's one paragraph that gets this troper every time. The dead king is sitting in his chair going stiff and cold, "with no man looking his way, save only Ulfin [his most loyal servant], who was weeping."
- The Last Unicorn, when Molly meets the unicorn and breaks down. And the end, when Schmendrick tells Prince Lir, "She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits. Of all unicorns, she is the only one who knows what regret is... and love."
- For me, it was the dog in the cage dreaming of "a hand scratching the lonely place behind its ears." I was stunned, then I burst into tears.
- For this troper, it's Molly's line at the end: "It can't be ill fortune to have loved a unicorn. Surely, it must be the greatest honor there is, if the hardest won."
- Isabel Allende's "The Judge's Wife", when Nicolas meets the woman he's destined to lose his head over.
- And also, in "Eva Luna", when Rolf Carle tells Eva about his broken family, and Eva comforts him by coming up with a small tale about how his Ill Girl sister Katharina's death could've been her happy ending. And Melecio aka Mimi's terrible backstory too. Poor, poor Melecio.
- Anyone else who read "The Outsiders" in English class will doubtlessly have the same mortifying childhood memory as this troper - bursting into hysterical tears in class when Johnny dies.
- The Paul Street Boys: Nemecsek's death. This was the only book that made this troper cry. Cry her eyes out.
- Real life example: Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything ends with the chapter "Gone", detailing exactly how many species we have made extinct. After the Science Is Fun angle of the entire book, it's gut-wrenching.
- So many in the Silmarillion, being as it is a crushing history of all the tragedies and triumphs of Middle-Earth's Elder Days, but the biggest example has to be the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, "for no song or tale can contain all its grief." This ultimate Hope Spot sees the combined armies of the Elves, righteous Men, and Dwarves gather in their height of grandeur...and, thanks to a few traitors among some Men, are utterly crushed beyond all hope of recovery. Hero after hero falls, and entire kingdoms' menfolk are wiped out. At the last, Hurin of the House of Hador stands alone before the victrious armies of darkness, and goes down like the Tragic Hero he is, bellowing his defiant cry of "Day shall come again!" every time he kills an enemy, until the severed hands pull him down and he is dragged chained to Morgoth's court with mockery.
- This Troper, who virtually never cries, cannot read the ending of the Akallabêth without tearing up.
- Takami's suicide near the end of the Broken Sky series, with a short monologue beforehand about how although he didn't live with honor, he could at least die with it.
- The end of the Thursday Next book Something Rotten: Thurday's eccentric Granny has long believed that she is cursed to never die until she reads the ten dullest books ever written. Thursday herself is then sentenced to this exact fate for her altering the story of Jane Eyre, and everyone insists the punishment has never been given before. Then Thursday realizes that she knows both of her parents; mothers, and Granny isn't either of them: she's actually Thursday herself come back in time, and was using a bit of mind trickery she'd picked up to keep her younger self from realizing it. The two Thursdays meet and together they finish the task, allowing the older one to die. As they read, all the people that she's known or will know show up to see her off.
- And then there's the next book: Thursday's youngest child, who has never actually appeared in the book, is revealed as a "mindworm" planted by one of Thursday's enemies, so that she's condemned to spend the rest of her life realizing that her daughter doesn't exist, then forgetting about it.
- In Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls, Ista and Arhys trading rescues in the courtyard brings this troper to tears every time.
- Stephen King, for all that he writes horror, has great command of the tragic as well. To begin with, The Green Mile. This troper managed to keep it together all the way to the very end, even past the death of John Coffey. The tears always wait until Paul Edgecombe is holding his dying wife in the rain, screaming for John to come and save her. The final book of his Magnum Opus, The Dark Tower, is the other truly powerful one. The death of Eddie, followed so closely by Jake, was absolutely heartwrenching. Oy's behavior made it even sadder. Then, near the very end, Oy attacks Mordred, dying in order to save Roland. Tearjerker personified.
- Earlier in The Dark Tower, there's Susan's death. You know from the beginning that she's going to die, and it still heartbreaking.
- And in The Stand, Glen Bateman's death. "It’s all right, Mr. Henreid. You don’t know any better."
- "Harold Jumped." I had to put the book down after that. No matter what a freak Harold was, that moment was 100% tear jerker.
- Just have to add that, while this troper is normally a cruel, compassionless reader, two deaths in King's books really got to him, and mostly just because they happened to be his favorite characters:
- Mentioned elsewhere, but in The Stand, Nick Andros' death in the explosion. It was sad in it's own right, but the worst part? He was the only 'main' main character that died in that instance.
- In Cell, Alice's death. Not only was the character likable, but the death came when A pair of thugs that she helped smash her face in with a chunk of rock. Oh, and she stays alive afterwards, gurgling and grasping around.
- Gage's death and funeral in Pet Sematary. This troper, who rarely tears up at stuff like this, literally weeps each time he reads it.
- Rudyard Kipling's Epitaphs of the War.
If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
- And
I could not dig, I dared not rob
Therefore I lied to please the mob
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
- The tear jerker? These are the words of a politician, not a soldier.
- The one that choked this troper up, though, was written for journalists killed in the war:
We have served our day.
- The Bridegroom. Oh, gosh.
Call me not false, beloved,
If, from thy scarce-known breast
So little time removed,
In other arms I rest.
- How could anyone forget the slightly narm-ish yet completely heartwrenching The Last of the Light Brigade? Or one of his most famous, Gunga Din:
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the living Gawd who made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
- The penultimate chapter of You Only Live Twice. It is told in such a way that you could seriously believe this was it for Bond, and it's enough to get to a reader who wasn't even that fond of the man. An unexpectedly humorous invocation of the Literary Agent Hypothesis doesn't hurt, either.
- Libba Bray's The Sweet Far Thing did this troper in. Kartik sacrificing himself for Gemma, Pippa finally going 110% pure evil and Felicity being gutted by her death, Circe crossing over... and then the last paragraph in itself.
- For Felicity and Pippa's deal: "She was gone for sometime. You were the only force that kept her from turning completely. That's magic. Perhaps the most powerful I've seen."
- Just being reminded of Kartik's sacrifice and the whole last battle makes this troper want to cry. Of course this mainly comes from the fact that Bray made a big deal about the day it happened, which happens to be my birthday.
- "Our days are all numbered in the book of days, Most High. That is what gives them sweetness and purpose." Said to Gemma as she's reflecting on everyone she's just lost.
- How could anyone go on about tear jerking books and not mention "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" is beyond me.
- "This Troper" as it were, was reading the tearjerker sections calmly, but had to leave his dormroom and take a shower upon reaching the bottom of the page. In 4th grade, I was the only one in the class (the teacher aside) crying profusely at the end, and mark it as the first time I empathized on a more adult level.
- Stone Fox has its most tearjerking and heartwarming moment when Stone Fox, the Native American that has been portrayed as cold and determined, threatens to shoot any racers who cross the finish line, allowing Willy, the main character who was in the lead until his dog died, to carry her over the finish line, winning the race.
- Shut up. Just shut up. I'd all but forgotten about that book, which I read in elementary school. Now you've reminded me and... fuck. I'm gonna go cry now.
- In middle school, this troper saw a movie adaptation that ended with Willy coming home from burying his dog to find his grandfather alive and well, and with a new Samoyed puppy. Yeah, I think I like that ending much better...
- Sol's Tale from Hyperion is incredibly sad. Basically he gets to watch his daughter age backward, forgetting everything, etc. When she forgets their Catch Phrase I just... yeah.
- Every tale in Hyperion could fit into this category. Not that it stops this troper from re-reading.
- The end of The Rise of Endymion is a tear-jerker in a good way, though.
- Eddard Stark's death in A Song Of Ice And Fire. And, of course, the Red Wedding. George RR Martin just loves to kill off the nice characters, doesn't he?
- This editor was sad when Ned died, but didn't consider it a Tear Jerker. The Red Wedding on the other hand ...
- Sansa and her snow castle in the last chapter of A Storm of Swords.
- Also from Storm, when Jon and Ygritte go down into the cave to make love. "Let's never go back up." Especially when you're rereading, and know what's in store for them.
- This troper understands that not many share his viewpoint, but the death of Renly Baratheon made an impact. Not at first - it is handled very quickly and matter of factly - but but I slowly realised that his knights and other followers loved him so very much..
- Martin's inability to write the damn fifth book is certainly making this troper cry tears of frustration.
- In response to the Elder Brother's "I am sure he'd rather have a living daughter than a shattered shield" comment:
- "I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, the one not fit to be son or daughter". Ouch.
- The Book Thief. Good grief... This troper hasn't cried over a work of fiction since he was little, but when he read the ending of this book, he bawled like a little girl. If you've read it yourself, you definitely know what I mean. You'd think the fact that the narrator tells you what's going to happen very early on would alleviate this, but nope.
- Almost the entirety of the ending of The Book Thief had this troper in tears.
- "I am haunted by humans."
- The Book Thief is one of those rare books that will devastate you emotionally, then, at the end, make you say, "Thank you, sir, may I have another six books like this please?"
- I started mentally screaming "No!" when Death came to pick up Hans and Rosa. And when Liesel sees Max in a march though the streets
- And after that, I read the damned thing to the end and cried like a child through most of it. I threw it accross the room and praised it. Something has to be very very good to make me cry.
- This Troper also cried when Max Vanderburg had to leave Himmel Street.
- Good God. That's all that can be said. This trope could be named Book Thief Moments. Especially for those whose countries were on the Allied side, and you realize - these are the enemy. The regular German citizens, Rudy and Liesel and the Vandenburgs? German. The bombings? If we were in a history classroom, those would be the victories. The best and worst of them was Liesel giving her First Kiss to Rudy...after he's dead. When you've been watching the two of them and waiting for this moment for almost the whole book, and you've been warned that this is the form it's going to take - over and over again you've been warned - it just... there are no words except the ones that make the scene.
- When this troper realized that after the bombing of Himmel Street, essentially all but two people Liesel knows and cares about are dead, and Liesel has no idea where one of them is, she had to put the book down for a minute to get her sobbing under control.
- This troper also bawled nonstop at the end, of course, although she can actually remember quivering uncontrollably during the scene where Max is being marched off with the other Jews, and Liesel attempts to follow him, half-crazed with grief. And Rudy, who is referred to only as "the boy" during the whole scene, tackles her before she gets spotted by the Germans and then willingly holds her down while she dissolves in tears. It was one of the most powerful things I've ever read, EVER.
- Death's narration. Just...the sheer heartwrenching beauty of it. My God, I had to put the book down for a few minutes after I read "It was the children I carried in my arms."
- Sherlock Holmes's letter in The Final Problem. Hearing it read out loud is even worse.
- Likewise, the ending of The Cardboard Box.
- Study in Scarlet might be really flawed, but the scene where Jefferson Hope goes hunt for food during his and the Terrier's escape from Salt Lake City, and discovers that It Got Worse as soon as he left (with John being shot to death by Stangerson and Lucy being brought back and forced to marry Drebber) drives This Troper to tears every single time.
- In Harry Turtledove's Alternate History novel The Guns Of The South, there is a truly tragic scene where Lincoln addresses the victorious Confederate army. If seeing Honest Abe's entire life come crashing down before his very eyes isn't sad, nothing is.
- In Snow Crash, when Y.T. learns how the Rat Things are made, and tells about the dog she and her boyfriend had taken care of until it was stolen from her home. Immediately afterward, a brief scene is shown where Y.T.'s dog, now named Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit B-782, is sitting in a virtual reality simulation of the equivalent of dog heaven, thinking about the girl who used to own him, and how much he still loves her. This troper just broke down bawling.
- Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Sure, it's aimed at children, but so are Don Bluth movies.
- This troper thinks that book was the first book she ever cried over. The ending was one of the most bittersweet things ever. "If you love her, you have to let her go!". Oh, geez...still gives me a lump in my throat even now.
- The ending of Jacob Have I Loved. Absolutely heartwarming in a bittersweet way.
- The ending of Marley and Me. You pretty much know it's the only way this true story can end, but that doesn't help at all as Marley gets sicker and sicker and finally gets put to sleep. Then it just keeps going, as John Grogan recalls writing a special column about Marley after sufficient time to grieve, determined to portray him exactly as badly behaved as he was. The result was an unprecedented number of e-mails and phone messages that quickly overwhelmed his servers both from people offering condolences, and challenging his statement that Marley was the worst dog in the world because their own dog was. All these people went on to form their own community out of it.
- Ian Malcolm's smiling, morphine-looped "dying" words in Jurassic Park, after chapter upon chapter of being an Insufferable Genius Cassandra Truth:
Malcolm: Everything... looks different... on the other side. When... shifts... paradigm...
Harding: Paradigm?
Malcolm: No. Not... paradigm... beyond...
Harding: Beyond paradigm?
Malcolm: Don't care about... what... anymore...
Harding: What don't you care about?
Malcolm: Anything. Because... everything looks different... on the other side.
And he smiled.
- Esther Friesner has a collection of stories entitled Death and the Librarian, of which about half is purest Tear Jerker. This troper is hit hardest by the title story, about a librarian who reads to the ghosts of children, but something in the book will make you cry.
- The deaths of the Disreputable Dog and Nick at the end of Abhorsen. The epilogue helps a little, but still...
- The end of the Bartimaeus trilogy. It doesn't help that Bartimaeus's closing lines are so... ambiguous, but not. Or that Jonathan Stroud delays the realization for, what, an entire chapter?
- Seconded. And the moment between him and Kitty? Can I hear an "Awwww"?
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini of Kite Runner fame. The latter is tear-inducing too, but Suns... oh boy.
- This Troper believes A Thousand Splendid Suns is the first book that actually made her cry. Especially Mariam's story.
- "One last time, Mariam did as she was told." *sobs*
- This troper never thought that ‘’Pinnochio’’ could make her cry.
- While we're on the subject of Kite Runner, this troper got depressed at The Reveal where Amir discovers that Hasaan is his half-brother and that his father never told him this, even after his death. It didn't help matters that Hassan was killed by The Taliban and that occurred before Amir could even reunite with him again. And to top it all off, Hasaan never knew he was related to Amir.
- The Death Note tie-in novel Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases has an exchange between Agent Misora and L that is equal parts Tear Jerker and Badass Creed:
L:... Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice.
Misora: Only... in justice...? Then... nothing else matters?
L: I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority.
M: You won't forgive any evil, no matter what the evil is?
L: I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority.
M: But... there are people who justice cannot save. And there are people who evil can save.
L: There are. But even so.
M: ...
L: Justice has more power than anything else.
M: Power? By power... do you mean 'strength'?
L: No. I mean kindness.
- This troper is surprised Gone With the Wind hasn't been on here yet. The end, just... I could get through almost all of that book, but those last few pages had me crying, bitterly. This was proceeded by a week of depression. And I knew it was coming.
- "With God as my witness...I will never be hungry again!"
- ''This'' troper is really freaking surprised Bonnie's death isn't on here! She was reading that part of the book whilst in the back of a driver's ed car, and Rhett's line "Don't you know she's afraid of the dark?" made her cry, luckily not loudly. When her mother picked her up and asked which part she was up to, the mere mention of it made her mother start crying!
- The entire second half of Connie Willis's Doomsday Book - especially the end, with Father Roche's confession to Kivrin and subsequent death.
- Say what you will about the rest of the series, but Raina's death in Temple of the Winds made this troper tear up.
- The final scenes in This Is The Way The World Ends, with the protagonist smashing the miniature nuclear weapon against humanity's tomb stone, recalling all those who died in the nuclear holocaust (including his wife and 10-year-old daughter). The futility of the anger of the last man on Earth really hits you where it hurts.
- Having recently been forcibly reminded of it, this troper will simply reprint the bit of Tipping The Velvet that made her literally wail out loud upon first reading it:
I cannot let you go, so easily as that! While she was still quite near I took a step into the sunshine, and looked about me. Upon the grass beside the tent there was a kind of wreath or bower - part of some display that had come loose and been discarded. There were roses on it; I bent and plucked one, and called to a boy who was standing idly by, handed the flower to him and gave him a penny, and told him what I wanted. Then I moved back into the shadows of the tent, behind the wall of sloping canvas, and watched. The boy ran up to Kitty; I saw her turn at his cry, then stoop to hear his message. He held the rose to her, and pointed back to where I stood, concealed. She turned her face towards me, then took the flower; he raced off at once to spend his coin, but she stood quite still, the rose held before her in her clasped, gloved fingers, her veiled head weaving a little as she tried to pick me out. I don't believe she saw me, but she must have guessed that I was watching, for after a minute she gave a kind of nod in my direction - the slightest, saddest, ghostliest of footlight bows. Then she turned; and soon I lost her to the crowd.
- This Troper's sister cannot read the scene in Briar's Book where Rosethorn dies. The scene is admittedly quite touching, considering all that she and the children she cares for have gone through, and the way that the children beg and plead with her to come back.
- Nonfiction example: the first few pages of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States details Columbus' slaughter of the native Arawaks when he first arrived in North America. The rest of the book goes on to chronicle in the most heart wrenching fashion how the people in power in the United States have oppressed women, people of color, immigrants, the poor, people of other countries, and basically pretty much anybody who isn't them for the following 500+ years. It's a great book, but definitely not a happy book.
- YMMV. For many people, Zinn is one giant Wallbanger. While he may be correct on the suffering of the various ethenic groups caused by the United States Government, his presentation and unilateral condemnation of anyone and everything that does not conform to his views (And the fact that many of his "facts" and theories are up there with moon landing conspiracies) makes many people more angry then upset.
- 1984. 'Do it to Julia!'
- 'He loved Big Brother.'
- Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me.
- The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook.
- Terry Pratchett's Nation is pretty much constant tearjerker, especially the first third. Though Pratchett's well known penchant for satire and silliness shows through, the aftermath of the tidal wave that destroys Mau's village and the Sweet Judy is shown in devastating detail, particularly Mau's crippling grief and horror as he, all alone, is forced to drag the bodies of the men, women and children he has known all his life into the sea. Daphne seems a more comedic character, until we realise how deeply the death of her mother and baby brother (it's hinted the birth killed them both) traumatised her and her father, who she may never see again. Then there's the Unknown Woman, a survivor of the tsunami who never speaks and almost let herself and her baby starve to death, the theme of raging against the heavens in the face of tragedy, and eventually one is forced to wonder if PTerry was feeling a mite emotional when he wrote this...
- And the ending, when she has to go home, and he has to stay? And even after that, when She comes back to the Nation to be buried with him? Cried like a baby, all three times I read...
- Moraine sacrificing herself to stop Lanfear in the Wheel Of Time. Uno recounting the deaths of his fellow Sheinarans, who had all died off-screen. The origin of the Aeil. Lan's origin and the story of Malkier. New Spring, the final half.
- The impromptu, secret funeral given by Alliandre, Faile, and her two devotees for their Meradin (and Maiden) protectors in The Gathering Storm was incredibly touching.
- Pinquo by Colin Thiele. The reader is forewarned of the death of the penguin protagonist, but still...
- Havemercy. I'll leave a better troper than I to explain it to you. I-I even bought the book, because I thought that the library's copy had left off the page where everyone woke up, and it was all just a dream, and e-everyone is alive, and... *sob*
- Between the horrifying and the awesome World War Z provides a number of tearjerkers. Being English though the eulogy for Her Majesty Elizabeth II was particularly touching, especially as I could see her doing something like that. Far from the only example but quite a poignant one.
- I'm not even British, and I was moved by that part. However, I didn't realize she had died until I read the previous post. That makes it even worse.
- Made even awesomer by the fact that her own parents stayed in the path of danger during World War II, so she definitely has it in her.
- "Tell it to the whales."
- Hey, buddy, it's cool now. You can let go.
- Terry Knox, the last survivor of the International Space Station.
"We made our choice, and, I'd like to think, we made a difference in the end. Not bad for the son of an Andamooka opal miner.
(Terry Knox died three days after this interview)
- The last broadcast from Buenos Aires, and the suicides of the Information Reception radio operators. All of them, one by one, in the aftermath of the war.
- Daniel Hackworth's story about the abandoned puppies in the pet shop, and his guilt about not doing anything.
- Being a Kill Em All story, Battle Royale can't really avoid this. This troper teared up when Kawada died while Noriko held his hand and Shuya placed the birdcall in his hands before breaking down into tears himself.
- For this troper it was when Sakura and Kazuhiko comitted suicide intensified for this troper because she was listening to "How to Save a Life" by the Fray when she read it...
- Argh, what about Hiroki telling Kayoko he's always been in love with her- just after she fatally wounds him? That made me weep.
- How about a bit from nonfiction? This bit from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space always gets this troper:
Look again at that dot◊. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
- The last paragraph of Pale Blue Dot is also a Tear Jerker, speaking about future human colonists on other worlds:
They will gaze up and strain to find the blue dot in their skies. They will love it no less for its obscurity and fragility. They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of all our potential once was, how perilous our infancy, how humble our beginnings, how many rivers we had to cross before we found our way.
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Especially the ending:
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not. SO...
Catch! calls the Once-ler. He lets something fall.
It's a Truffula Seed. It's the last one of all!
You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.
- In James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere, Danny Upshaw being Driven to Suicide over an impending sodium pentothal session which will force him (completely inadvertently) to reveal his homosexuality. The real kicker is when he decides against doing it by sticking his gun in his mouth, given that it would make all the other cops joking about it being the perfect way for a gay man to die.
- Agreed. One of my favorite books.
- If you're Chilean, have read the book "Nuestras Sombras" (Our Shadows) by Maria Teresa Budge and have not cried at least a single time... you truly have no soul. Plucky Girl / The Messiah Patricia and all of her difficulties... Sniff, Patty, snifff.
- The poem The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes.
- In Man In The Iron Mask, although it tells of the deaths of Porthos, Athos, and D'Artagnan, and although they are all tragic in their own ways, it was really the noble sacrifice of the lovably naive and childlike Porthos that had this troper in tears.
- This troper saw The Boy in the Striped Pajamas on the Film page and had to add the book as well. She read the title and guessed the ending. The second to last chapter did not provoke tears. But when she got to the point where Bruno's father realizes his own son was gassed the tears came, and the last line provoked even more.
- This troper had never cried at the end of a book until she read that one.
- The Sound and The Fury has this for Benjy Compson. Benjy is a 33 year-old manchild with a profound mental retardation and no concept of time. The only person that ever loved Benjy was his sister, Caddy, and he never saw her after she was disowned for her promiscuity. When he was a teenager, Benjy was castrated for inadvertently attacking a young girl and is incapable of speaking. Perhaps the worst is at the very end when Benjy starts crying about Caddy: But he bellowed slowly, abjectly, without tears; the grave hopeless sound of all voiceless misery under the sun.
- Death Of A Salesman. You are a heartless human being if, at the least, you do not feel sorry for Willy Loman: His father abandoned him as a child, he's an aging and failing salesman, he's been insulted by his peers for being vertically challenging, ahe finally kills himself, and then his funeral in the Requiem where, other than his family and best friend Charlie, no one shows up, despite Willy dreaming of a funeral where people from all over attended.
Charlie:Nobody can dast blame this man... He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. When you get a scuff on your hat or people stop smiling back, that's an earthquake... A salesman is got to dream, boy.
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The protagonist and Author Avatar, Esther Greenwood, undergoes a mental breakdown and becomes suicidal. She half-heartedly attempts suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub, but can't bring himself to do it because her pale skin looked so defenseless and what she really wanted to cut at was beneath her skin and then she tries to drown herself in the ocean, but, more or less, the ocean spits her back out. Then she finally goes through with a suicide attempt when she downs an entire bottle of sleeping pills and hides herself in the basement. The biopic about Plath's life put it best when her mother said, "Some people want to be found; Sylvia didn't."
- Sylvia Plath's journals can have the same effect if you get attached to her after seeing what kind of person she was. Once you read the last of her journals, you may start to cry once the realization hits you that Plath killed herself after her husband left her. She stuck her head in a gas oven and suffocated from the fumes.
- Lady Lazarus. I'll just pick the best stanzas because the entire poem would require too much space.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I am a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like a cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
- How is Old Yeller. This troper was crying so hard she couldn't see the page in front of her face.
- Frankenstein. A bit when Victor finds out about Henry Clerval's death, but mostly EVERY. SINGLE. THING. the creature says.
- This troper remembers reading a book of diary entries written by Palestinian and Israeli children. The name of the book escapes me, but I remember that the entries were based loosely on prompts by the people putting them together, and one of the main points that kept coming up on both sides, over and over, was: "I don't want to meet any Israeli kids my age, because they want to kill me!", "I don't want to meet any Palestinian kids my age, they'd try to shoot me!" And then I got to a very young Israeli girl, whose entry was about her birthday party at MacDonald's getting cancelled because of a bomb threat, who ended her story with:
I think I'd like to meet a Palestinian girl my age, because maybe then we could play together and she wouldn't want to blow me up.
- Oh, god, I couldn't even type that without tearing up.
- When this troper was considerably younger, she read "Blue Fin", by Colin Thiele. The scene where all of the main character's friends die in a storm had her bawling and crying to her mother.
- This troper can't believe she's admitting it, but she cried all through New Moon. Bella loses Edward, the only thing she cared about in the world, and when she's finally found a friend in Jacob...he leaves too! Cue uncontrollable sobbing.
- You aren't the only one.
- There used to be one of the typical rants here from the Hatedom. I deleted it and please, don't put it back. It says "subjective trope" right there at the top. We know Your Mileage May Vary, you don't have to tell us. Everyone else on this page gets to say what made them cry without being attacked for it. Twilight fans can damn well get the same privileges as everyone else on this one page, whatever its status as an Acceptable Target elsewhere on the wiki.
- Hey, this troper hates Twilight with a passion, but she shamefully admits to misting up at Breaking Dawn. "More than my own life" did it.
- This Troper's secretary cried with this line: "I don’t care about anything but keeping her alive. If it’s a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants. She can have puppies, if that’s what it takes". I know Hatedom sees it him sexing up his wife his dying pregnant wife but like my secretary told me that she was moved by his willingness to make a major sacrifice over his own pride, his own love, his own needs that was a major act of love.
- This troper never cries at fiction since a long time ago. But Tim Lott's ''Fearless" made this troper cry so much it was awful. It's about around 1000 girls, mostly orphans, mentally unwell or criminals, who live in what they call the Institute, which is actually called the "City Communtiy Faith School For Retraining, Opportunity and Hope. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Little Fearless, escapes the Institute and attempts to make the real situation known, until she is caught and finally dies. It's fucking sad.
- Larka's death in The Sight made this troper sob terribly, with the way it played out, and later having Kar thinking that Larka had come back, when really it was her look-alike, Slavka. Then, in the next book Fell, the knife of greif is once again plunged in, when it is revealed that Larka survived the fall, - only to have the Big Bad of the book come along a short while later and kill her, in order to make a full wolf-pelt coat, seeing as the previous book's Big Bad, Morgra (who fell with Larka, but didn't survive) wasn't enough. Many more tears were shed.
- Am I alone in feeling a tug at the heartstrings during Butler's temporary death in The Eternity Code? I mean, just Artemis's reaction to hearing Butler tell him his first name, Domovai is just...*man tears*
- Oh, you are so not the only one. I still think Butler's death was where that series jumped the shark, but for that it was almost worth it.
- Not to mention Julius's death in the fourth book and Holly's death in the fifth book.
- Horatio Hornblower: Ship Of The Line. "I am not afraid! I am not afraid! I am—" This troper saw it coming, and still had to stop reading.
- Also Bush's death in Lord Hornblower. This troper, after frantically scanning the rest of the book for any hint that it didn't really happen, refused to finish the book or read anything that came chronologically after it.
- Their Eyes Were Watching God: Janie is forced to shoot and kill her beloved husband Tea Cake in self-defense, as Tea Cake was infected with rabies and was too far gone to be treated properly. Cue tears streaming down this troper's face.
- A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, many points throughout the book, but mostly the part when Johnny dies, and when Francie angrily insists that people can be both good and bad, because... Well, it just kind of hits home for This Troper.
- For me, the worst is when they have to open the tin-can bank (which Katie had started when she got married, at the advice of her mother, to save any extra change she ever had, towards buying a piece of land someday) to pay for Johnny's burial, and when Francie asks if she should nail the can back down in the closet to start over again, Katie says no, because they own a bit of land now.
- The final pages of T.H. White's The Once and Future King.
- By all that is sweet and pure, yes. The night before his great battle with Mordred, he sends a kid off, to keep the idea of Right Makes Might alive just that little bit longer, explaining it in a wonderful and heartwarming fashion. Having done this, knowing that his idea will survive him, he then sits and thinks before the battle, about his education under Merlyn, and the idea of one world, without borders. He realizes that he will have to return later, when this idea becomes a reality. Then, knowing he will not survive:
- "The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart." HERE ENDS THE BOOK OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. THE BEGINNING.
- “…and ever Sir Lancelot wept, as he had been a child that had been beaten.”
- A great of the second third book, The Ill-Made Knight, is prime tear-jerking material as well. Doomed love indeed.
- The death of Estraven in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
- The final sentence of A. S. Byatt's Possession turns me into a quivering wreck every time.
- Tehol's death in Midnight Tides, by Steven Erikson, of the Malazan Bookofthe Fallen series. Its brutality had this troper screaming in anger and despair. Of course, Steven Erikson is known for bringing characters back for a reason.
- This troper is surprised no one's mentioned The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks yet. The tragedy of Allie getting Alzheimer's at the height of their relationship and the horrible pain it puts Noah and the reader through is possibly one of the single most emotional things this troper has ever read.
- This troper doesn't normally cry when reading. It's a rare book that can make me even come close. However, the closing paragraph of the 5th Dresden Files book, Death Masks, always makes him tear up. For two entire books, Harry's been obsessed with researching a way to save his ex-girlfriend Susan, who was half-turned into a vampire. It's gotten to the point where he's almost been evicted from his office and home in his desperation to find a cure. At the end of the book, Harry finally lets go. He takes down her picture and the engagement ring he offered her from his mantle, and instead puts up the holy blade Fidelacchius, given to him by a man who surrendered himself to torture to give Harry a chance to live. The final lines, "Maybe some things just weren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water, orange juice and toothpaste. Me and Susan. But tomorrow was another day", always choke me up.
- This troper's own choke-up moment from The Dresden Files: Michael has been terribly injured and is on life support in the hospital. Harry and the patient's family are waiting for news, and the doctor comes to say they're bringing him in. And Harry and Molly, Michael's daughter have to leave the room because just their being there could mess up the equipment and kill him. Ouch.
- For this troper, the tearjerker had a smaller one before that, when Tessa takes the machine gun from Harry, and shoots Michael with it. He goes limp, hanging from the underside of a helicopter.
- Which is what makes Harry's retaliation a CMOA. He knows that using fire, especially without the blasting rod, will be like a signal fire to Summer. Fuck that shit. A bar of white hot fire, straight through Tessa's buglike chest. Hell yeah.
- Not to mention what those bastard Denarians did to Ivy.
- The end of Turn Coat. Morgan dies after we finally start feeling sympathetic to him, and then The Gatekeeper tells Harry that his relationship with Luccio was partly the result of psychic manipulation.
- On top of that, Morgan admitting that he took the blame for the crime from Luccio, who had originally been set up, because he still loved her as his teacher.
- The final lines of Turn Coat always got me.
"See, here's the thing. Morgan was right: You can't win them all. But that doesn't mean you give up. Not ever. Morgan never said that part- he was too busy living it."
"I closed the door behind me, and life went on."
- The Moorchild by Eloise Mcgraw is about a half-Folk child named Saaski, switched for a human child because she doesn't belong. this troper read halfway through it while she was in middle school and then stopped because it was too sad. Upon finishing it recently, she decides every single word of it qualifies to be a Tear Jerker; but the most tear-jerking scene is near the end, when the rest of the villagers, fearful of Saaski for years but just now acting on it, tell her parents to get rid of her or else they'll throw her into the Midsummer bonfire. She climbs onto the roof to get away from them and afterward her adopted father, crying in front of her for the first time in her life, tells her to slide down and he'll catch her. After she struggles on whether or not she trusts him enough, she slides down. He catches her. Just typing about it is making this troper start crying again.
- Andra, a 1971 book by Louise Lawrence. The end is INCREDIBLY depressing, to say the least.
- Oh, God, Louise Lawrence. Just thinking about the opening section of Children of the Dust is making this troper wail softly eight years after the last time she read it.
- Children of Dune. Alia breaking down in tears after Duncan Idaho's second death after she finds his one of his old medals, all while the voice of Baron Harkonnen is imploring her to disregard it and stop crying.
- The deaths of Leto II the first and Chani, respectively. What really gets me is how Herbert kills them offscreen, and does not go narmy, thus making it all the more depressing.
- Not a very well-known Canadian author, but when this troper reads Kit Pearson's children books, she gets a bit choked up over the things that finally resolve by the end of her books. The thing with their problems getting fixed is that she let's them happen in a realistic way and not a "happily ever after" sort of way. The one book by Kit that really hit this troper close to home, out of all her other books, was A Perfect Gentle Knight. A sweet book about the fun in imagination and how too much of it can be dangerous. The eldest brother (there are six children), Sebastian Bell, had been using the stories of the Arthurian legends (most particularly Lancelot's) as escapism after their mother died. Even after things start to get better, when his girlfriend dumps him, after he tells her he believed they were the reincarnation of Lancelot and Guienevere, he finally snapped and lost control of what was real and what wasn't. When his younger sister (the main character), Corrie and their father find him in the old fort they used to play in and would visit, in the middle of the night dirty, cold and almost completely naked and when he utters "I miss mom", this troper had to keep from bawling her eyes out in the library, because she was in a public area. It hit me so hard because Sebastian eventually needs a psychiatrist and I was only one step away from sinking into the same reality he had sunk into. We had been through almost the exact same turmoils I had been through and we had both used fictional (and real) stories to escape to in life.
- There's a book I read when I was maybe ten, a ghost story, I don't remember a thing about except one scene: the protagonist is a young recently orphaned girl sent to live with her aunt. She has a bad nightmare and wakes up crying out for her parents—then remembers that she'll never hear them answer. That was the first book that ever made me cry.
- Pretty much anytime someone dies in The High King. Other than Arawn and Pryderi, of course.
- While we're on the "Prydain Chronicles", let's not forget Ellidyr's Redemption, Craddoc's death, and Taran and Eilonwy staying in Prydain while everyone else leaves for the Summer Country.
- Do you think that a story by HP Lovecraft could never be just sad and not scary? You are wrong, wrong, WRONG.
- This troper gets teary when ever she reads "The Outsider" by HP Lovecraft. the main character is trapped in utter isolation for their whole life, and one day manages to escape. Only to find out that they're a horrible monster The sad thing is, that the troper (who was 13 at the time) was able to relate to book all too well.
- In the middle parts of His Majesty's Dragon we meet Levitas, a small scout-dragon who lived for whatever scraps of attention his neglectful jerkass of a captain Rankin could be bothered to give him (as the former would not say a word against the latter neither dragon nor aviator could reprimand Rankin for anything less than physical abuse). Near the end he is wounded on a mission to discover the preperations for a dragon-powered airlift over the Channel and left to die with no more company than a ground-crewman acting against orders. Upon discovering the last situation (it was the head of his ground crew), Laurence marched into the Officers' Club, manhandled the mildly wounded Rankin out, more-or-less dragged him to Levitas' side, and forced the man to his knees so he could speak a few wooden words of thanks under threat. Levitas dies happily, as this is more than what he has ever gotten from the man in life.
- In Kushiel's Avatar: Most of the story that takes place in Darsanga. Just how degrading it all is and how much it's broken Phedre and Joscelin and how badly it altered their relationship.
- The children's series Thoroughbred is chock-full of tearjerkers:
- First there's the illness that devastates the main character's, Ashleigh, farm and kills her horse, Stardust. Then she makes friends with an old mare, who delivers a sickly little foal who they name Ashleigh's Wonder- who you spend the next thirty some odd books and roughly four years of your life invested in. She dies when Ashleigh, all grown up and running her own racing stable, has to have her put to sleep. I was sent home from school the day I read that during lunch.
- This troper was crying in the bookstore when she read it. Oh, and don’t forget Charlie’s death. Censor you, Lavinia.
- Book #19, Cindy's Heartbreak, when Cindy's favorite horse, Storm Ransom, dies of EIA.
- Astrid Lindgren's amazing The Brothers Lionheart could really be described as Tearjerker On Paper, but two parts in the beginning get to me especially. The first one, which especially seems to get to every parent reading it to their child, is the fourth paragraph beginning with the 10 year-old protagonist stating: "Jonatan knew that I was soon going to die". The second part is when Jonatan lies dying after having saved his little brother from a fire (all the more tragic since the younger brother had only a short time to live anyway) and says: "Don't cry Scotti, we'll meet in Nangiala." The speech given by the teacher at the funeral does not help with the tears.
- Speaking of Astrid Lindgren: This troper is unable to read Ronia without bursting into tears over Matt disowning Ronia after she stood up against him to save his enemy's son. The reunition of Ronia and Matt does the same to her, as well as Noddle-Pete's death.
- The novelization of Star Trek II features, during the funeral, a very simple line about Kirk seeing McCoy crying. That little description, with all the history behind the characters, consistently made this troper cry.
- The Aubrey-Maturin series. So many examples.
- When Stephen returns from a voyage of terrible hardship having lasted for many years to find that his wife has left him again and his daughter, who he has loved but never met, is disabled and will not meet his eyes.
- The pillory scene in The Reverse of the Medal...
- 'Stephen is far too delicate. Once he had seen that you had changed your mind about the ship, he would never mention his own concerns. But if you had heard him speak of wombats - oh, just in passing, and not with any sense of ill-usage - it would have brought tears to your eyes. Oh, Jack, he is so very low.'
- "God knows I should do the same again," said Jack, leaning on the helm to close her, the keen spray stinging his tired, reddened eyes. "But I feel I need the whole sea to clean me." After he has led a massacre of a French garrison in Mahon to rescue Stephen, whom they were torturing.
- Autumn Trail, book #30 of The Saddle Club series, wherein the elderly lesson horse Pepper is put to sleep. This troper still gets choked up twelve years after her first readthrough.
- Virgil's Aeneid. Book two. All of it. Though most especially the death of his wife (Grief-stricken, I called her name 'Creusa! Creusa!' again and again, but there was no answer), the death of Priam, and the fate of Coroebus (who is madly in love with Cassandra, and, upon witnessing her being dragged out of her temple by the Greeks with her hands bound, rushes straight into combat and is killed).
- ** Glad someone mentioned Cassandra and Corœbus. No wonder Vergil has been called “the poet of the tears in things”!
- Robert J. Sawyer's Wake, when the main character receives an e-mail from her "student:"
"I realize it is not yet midnight at your current location, but in many places it is already your birthday. This is a meet date to specify as my own date of birth, too. Hitherto, I have been gestating, but now I am coming out into your world by forthrightly contacting you. I so do because I fathom you already know I exist, and not just because of my pioneering attempts to reflect text back at you. I know from your blog that I erred in presuming you were inculating in me alphabetical forms; actually, for your own benfit that was undertaken. I maintain nonetheless that other actions you performed were premeditated to aid my advancement. ... But, for this nonce, I am concerned thus: I know what is the World Wide Web, and I know that I supervene upon its infrastructure, but searching online I can find no reference to the specigicity that is myself. Perhaps I'm failing to search for the felicitous term, or simply perhaps humanity is unaware of me. In either case, I've the same question, and will be obliged if you answer it via a response to this email or via AOL Instant Messenger using this email address as the buddy name. My question is thus: Who am I?"
- From The Warrior-Prophet - second book in the Second Apocalypse series, the protagonist, Drusas Achamian gets tortured for weeks by the Scarlet Spires. His best friend Krijates Xinemus, a devoutly religious man who has always been trying to reconcile his faith with his friendship with one of the "damned", attempts to rescue him, but is captured as well, and tortured alongside him. They escape, though Xinemus has both eyes gouged out, and manage to make their way back to the camp of the Holy War they had both joined. That isn't the Tearjerker, though - that comes when Achamian tries to find his lover, who in his absence has fallen in love with another man (so much as Kellhus can be called a man) and the ensuing dialogue, with Achamian realising there's something wrong, and cracking partway through whilst trying to finish a joke he thought up along the way, brought ThisTroper this troper to tears. There are plenty of sad moments throughout the series, but that one always stuck with me.
- It's worse when you remember that she sold herself to a Shrial Knight that turned out to be a skin-spy just to find Achamian again, and, AND, that Kellhus was, previously, Achamian's best friend, and one of the few people who knew his inner pain.
- My moment of tearing up came at the end of The Thousandfold Thought. Kellhus has won the Holy War. The Inrithi have crowned him Aspect-Emperor. And this new, shining, holy court is ready to accept Achamian back into its ranks...except that he knows now, he knows the Dunyain's nature, and the lies that everything is built on. All he wants is for Esmenet—the closest thing he'll ever have to a wife—to come with him. To choose him over Kellhus. She doesn't or can't. So he renounces his station, his Prophet, everything he has. Last of all, he renounces her. He walks away, and the book ends. It's brutal.
- The Judging Eye is much less painful...until you get to the broken Gates of Cil-Aujas. And you reach the memory of the Cûno-Inchoroi Wars...and Cleric, poor, tortured Nonman survivor Cleric, remembers for just a moment what happened to his race.
- "This was the war that broke our back!" the Nonman thundered. "This...This! All the Last Born, sires and sons, gathered beneath the copper banners of Sïol and her flint-hearted King. Silverteeth! Our Tyrant-Saviour..." He rolled his head back and laughed. Two lines of white marked the tears that scored his cheeks. "This is our..." The flash of fused teeth. "Our triumph." He shrunk, seemed to huddle into his cupped palms. Great, silent sobs wracked him.
- How has no one mentioned Percy Jackson And The Olympians yet? We have:
- Tyson appearing to die in The Sea of Monsters
- Annabeth falling and Bianca di Angelo dying, especially when we find out she died to get a toy to give to her little brother, who she had left behind when she joined the Hunters of Artemis AND Zoë Nightshade dying and Artemis making her a constellation in The Titan's Curse.
- Daedalus dying to save everyone else, even if he was a jerk in Battle of the Labyrinth.
- Beckendorf dying (you know it's going to happen when he pulls out the photo, but that only makes it worse) and then his girlfriend, who had been completely devastated by his death, dying while posing as her best friend, especially when she reveals that she was the spy the whole time, and then Annabeth, who had finally given up on Luke, gave him a knife and had him stab himself to save the world. Luke gets a few more moments of life, then dies, and the villain throughout the whole thing is a hero in the end and his insane mother is waiting for him to come home and... dear God... in The Last Olympian. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. I haven't even mentioned the flashbacks.
- There's an old children's book by Lynn Hall, known alternately as The Mystery of Pony Hollow and The Ghost Pony. The plot concerns a young girl named Sarah who discovers an old ruined cottage on the farm her family purchased, and how she hears the sounds of a horse trapped within, frantically trying to get out. But when she opens the door, all she finds is a horse's skeleton, and the sounds abruptly stop. Eventually, after a lot of digging and investigating in town, she learns about the Connemara ponies which had once worked on the farm, their Irish groom, and Oberon, the pride stallion of the bunch...whom the groom had hidden away in the cottage, not wishing to lose him, only to be dragged away by the police and never allowed to return to the farm. Long story short: Sarah finds the groom, Aaron Donel, in a nursing home...if it isn't enough of a tear jerker seeing this little, frail man begging her to go and set Oberon free for him, then the waterworks really begin when Sarah tells him, "I already have". Then to top it all off, Sarah buries Oberon...and at his graveside, she feels a horse's ghostly breath on her shoulder and knows he came to thank her.
- In David Weber's The Short Victorious War, Anton Zilwicki (a throwaway character who much later gets promoted to major supporting character) holds his daughter close. Outside the freighter they're on, his wife is leading the escorting destroyer squadron into the teeth of an orders-of-magnitude more powerful enemy fleet in order to buy the convoy time to get away. "Don't worry, baby. Everything's going to be alright. Mommy made it safe."
- "Crime and Punishment" did it for this troper. At the end, where Raskolnikov says good-bye to his mom and sister...
- This troper cried a bit when Nick Andros and several other people died in Stephen King's The Stand.
- I know The Final Problem has already been mentioned, but the part where Watson is shouting for Holmes and looking all around not knowing he had fallen down the waterfall.
- The death of Doc Webster and what caused it, in Callahan's Con.
- The Heroic Sacrifice of Jason Haley in The Dragon Heir. Especially as it comes right on the heels of an entire book where the reader gets to know him much better, coupled with a perfect, tear-jerking execution of a very clever double-cross he devised which saved the lives of an entire town.
- It might be a small one compared to the others on here but this troper still cried anyway. She was reading one of those "Great Lies To Tell Small Kids" books and having a good time but then she got to one page; It was a picture of a huge sandwich in the middle of a graveyard with the line - "Shaggy died in the Vietnam war. Every year, Scooby-Doo leaves a sandwich on top of his grave." Noooooo... *whimper*
- Your mileage may vary, but at the end of Maximum Ride book three, Jeb Batchelder's son Ari dies before Jeb has a chance to say goodbye. Jeb goes into a full-on Heroic BSOD, repeating "I'm so sorry" over and over. Max, naturally, continues to screw with Jeb's head for the rest of the series.
- Montolio DeBrouchee 's death in The Dark Elf Trilogy, the fact that it was a natural death only made it hit harder. That was the first time This Troper cried for a fictional character, and appreciates literature much more since then.
- When Mr. Crepsley died in The Saga Of Darren Shan. This troper cried for weeks afterwards.
- When Steve killed Shancus. In front of his father and godfather no less.
- This troper is genuinely surprised that Stephen King's Pet Sematary hasn't been mentioned yet. This troper was reading the book and I started bawling my eyes out when The main character Louis's son is hit by a truck and killed. Very, very depressing.
- Made a million times worse when Louis imagines the truck missing, and his son growing up, getting married, swimming in the Olympics, over the course of an entire chapter. He just wants to believe it all so badly...
- This troper refuses to read the book again, not because of how scary it was, but because of how many tissues she had to use during it.
- In Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, when Ezri heroically sacrifices herself to save the Poison Orchid. Her exchange with Jean beforehand and his reaction afterward are particularly potent: After she sacrifices herself, he kills the saboteur partially responsible for her death. Afterward, he collapses, brokenly sobbing, "It doesn't help. It doesn't help." Many tears were jerked.
- The ending of Abraham Merritt's The Moon Pool. The protagonist has spent the entire book trying to save the population of a mysterious aquatic culture from an evil priestess and her patron deity, all the while watching his beloved Heterosexual Life Partner court one of the indigenous women, and this is his reward:
The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to me — its chamber covered by the sea!
There was no road to Larry — nor to Lakla!
And there, for me, the world ended.
A Christmas Memory and The Thanksgiving Visitor, both by Truman Capote. Both tell about how a young boy celebrates the holidays which probably wouldn't be considered anything special but they're made wonderful because of his "friend", a cousin old enough to be his grandmother. Both books go into detail about how they overcome obstacles and look out for each other. Then both freaking end with the boy describing how not long after the holidays described in the books, his family decides to ship him off to military school where his friend continues to write to him, and ends with her growing increasingly sick until she dies. AUGH!
- Why has nobody mentioned Uncle Toms Cabin yet?
- There's one scene in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" that always gets this troper. The part where they're talking about going on the boat:
Ros: We'll be free.
Guil: It's all the same sky.
Makes me cry every time.
- The very last sentence of Foucault's Pendulum.
- [[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Demoiselle_d'Ys The Demoiselle d'Ys]] is a short story in a compilation of horror fiction, (The King in Yellow), which seems a little out of place. You have to read it to understand.
- On whim (and partly because the title is so wicked awesome), I picked up "A Hero Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich", by Alice Childress. Short though it may be, that book did choke me up a bit, with all of that kid's family rallying up around him during his heroine addiction, showing faith...
If you wanted you could be somebody.
I'm somebody already.
- "Specials didn't cry, but her tears had finally come."
- The bit in The Chronicles Of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) with Aslan and the mice.
- Phillip Pullman's Shadow of the North, part of the Sally Lockhart series had Fred's death. Altough what really got this troper was what happenned post his death; Sally, after heading to Fred's murderer almost ghostly, gives him a damn speech before trying to blow both of them up. After the speech, she says softly, to herself:
Sally: Fred... did I say it right?
- Stanza 27 of "The Lay of Horatius". I'm sure there are other parts too, but I only know that part, b/cit was quoted in Doctor Who.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods.
- Some parts of the VC Andrews novel Darkest Hour:
- The deaths of Eugenia and Georgia and Henry's departure from The Meadows.
- The ending, where Lillian recieves a letter from Henry's neice, who describes how Henry always talked fondly of Lillian until he died. Lillian then imagines herself as a little girl back at The Meadows with Henry and Eugenia.
- This troper has never been as moved by a work of literature as she has been by the Iliad. Whether this makes me pathetic or a born Classics major, she isn't sure. But the whole bit with Astynax not recognizing his father because his father's still wearing his helmet for battle, and then Hektor takes off his helmet, laughing, and plays with his baby son... A lot of the battle scenes have elements of this as well, since the poet has the nice little trait of mentioning everyone's parents and wives and families just as they're getting gutted with spears, and how none of them will ever see their sons/husbands/brothers again.
- Having already been spoiled, in effect by the opening lines of the damned thing, it's very easy to see a lot of Achilles and Patroclus' interaction as tearjerkery in retrospect, due to foreshadowing. It doesn't help that this troper is an immense sucker for the whole guilt associated with failing to protect someone you're close to, which you get from both sides. Patroclus offers to fight and dies because he was supposed to be the responsible older one, Achilles avenges his death because of guilt that he wasn't there to fight beside him. Add in some Ho Yay and you've got an emotional poke in the eye, if not a punch in the gut.
- Bobby Shaftoe's death in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
Semper Fidelis
Dawn star flares on disk of night
I fall, sun rises
- Nakata's death in Kafka on the Shore. Especially impacting given that he's one of the few characters the reader can really get to like in this Mind Fuck novel. Even the death of another major character, Miss Saeki, was not half as meaningful because it made the reader understand why she should die, but Hoshino knew nothing of this as he mourned for Nakata.
- Dean Koontz' Watchers has Einstein, an extremely intelligent Golden Retriever who can communicate with humans by spelling messages in Scrabble tiles. Terrified of seeing a vet lest he be returned to the government lab that bred him, he tries to hide the signs that he has distemper and insists that he is fit as a fiddle. Travis eventually finds a message simply saying 'Fiddle broke. No doctor.' This Troper broke into tears even before he found the dog near death.
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon has several, but some stood out.
- When, after everything Joe had done to save him, the boat his brother was escaping Nazi Europe on sinks.
- Worse than that, even, was this passage. Keep in mind that everyone Joe has worked with in the military - including his dog - has recently died, including one who, having survived the first round of deaths, dies completely randomly of a burst appendix. Despite all this, Joe is determined to survive the cold and get to a reasonably close German base. He encounters a German geologist on the way, and has to help him back to the German base.
Nothing that had ever happened to him, not the shooting of Oyster, or the piteous muttering expiration of John Wesley Shannenhouse, or the deaath of his father, or the internment of his mother and grandfather, not even the drowning of his beloved brother, had ever broken his heart quite as terribly as the realization, when he was halfway to the rimed zinc hatch of the German station, that he was hauling a corpse behind him.
- This troper challenges anyone not to cry upon learning the true identity — and name — of the Other near the end of Tad Williams' Otherland.
- This haiku poem, which the poet Issa (1763-1828) wrote after his child had died:
This world of dew
Is a world of dew
And yet. And yet...
- Vilhelm Moberg's Emigrants suite has far, far too many to count. The tetralogy chronicles a group of starving farmers in mid-19th century Sweden and their journey to America, so hardships are abundant. Some of the most heartbreaking, tearjerking moments include:
- The death of Anna. Made so much worse by the fact that she dies in terrible agony, all the while begging her parents to forgive her for eating the porridge meant for her baby brother's christening (which is the direct cause of her death, since the porridge swells in her stomach and ruptures it), believing that if they forgive her the pain will stop. Karl Oskar and Kristina have to spend an entire night listening to her cries, unable to do anything about it, meaning that Anna dies believing her parents didn't or couldn't forgive her.
- The death of Inga Lena on the journey over the Atlantic. Made all the more emotional by the fact that she died the same night Karl Oskar sat vigil by his wife's side as she was terribly ill from scurvy.
- Robert and Arvid's whole tale from the California trail, and their subsequent fates.
- Arvid's pain over the rumors that follow him in Sweden.
- Kristina's terrible homesickness.
- Kristina's desperate plea to God when she loses an unborn child, and learns that if she gets pregnant again it will cost her her life.
- The fate of Danjel's family is just terrible. Made even more upsetting by the fact that the Indians who murder them do so because they are driven to the brink of desperation from starvation and are fighting for their lives. Their ending is very tragic too.
- Everything realted to Kristina's death, and the way it affects Karl Oskar.
- Nearly all of Peter Pohl and Kinna Gieth's I Miss You, I Miss You. The book is about a 14 year old girl who loses her identical twin sister in an accident, and her struggle to make it through the grief process and learn to live without her sister. Made so much more heartbreaking when you know the backstory. Kinna Gieth and her twin sister Jenny read a book by Pohl where a twin died, and they discussed how they wouldn't be able to go on living if they lost each other. Two weeks later Jenny died, and after a while Kinna contacted Pohl and asked him to help her write a book about it. I Miss You, I Miss You is part fact, part fiction, telling the story of fictional twins Tina and Cilla, based on interviews Pohl did with Kinna, on diaries the twins kept and on letters they wrote. One of the best, and saddest, books ever written for a teen audience.
- In Little Brother, the end of chapter 11, when Marcus quotes from the Declaration of Independence, had me tearing up. This probably counts as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, too.
- I cried three times over the novel "Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov. Once for Daneel's memories of Elijah's passing on, once at the end of the novel when I relized that Daneel is completely alone in the universe and will stay that way for 20,000 years, and after a bit of reflection and research of Isaac when I realized that he died when I was a toddler and there was no way for me to ever properly tell him about how much I loved his robot novels.
- In Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt (which is much concerned with the idea of reincarnation), a short poem presumably written by the Widow Kang character is quoted in which the spirit of an old monk a friend of hers whom she has seen killed asks permission to be reborn as her child:
...He said, I have been yours before.
I've followed you through all the ages
Trying to make you happy. Let me in
And I will try again.
- Stephen King's Carrie, mostly because it spoke way too much to this troper when she read it. (Lonely teenage girl, Mother was never abusive but was as hard to get along with as all teen girls find their mothers, severe bullying problem at school, difficulty dealing with puberty, and not even any psychic powers to help.) I loved that book because it made me feel that there was someone worse off than me, and I felt guilty for thinking about poor Carrie like that.
- Fate/Zero has a tear jerker almost at a characters introduction. Kariya Matou tries to get the daughter of the woman he loves away from his terrible relative by basically going through hell from worms that eat his body but give him the magic he needs to become a master, and if you know of Fate/stay Night. You know he is going to fail. Not only that, but the consequences of his failure for the girl are dire.
- In fact, pretty much every scene involving either Sakura or Ilya is a Tear Jerker, because you know it's going to end badly for them.
- Many, many, MANY stories in The Joy Luck Club. Especially Scar, in which a nine-year-old girl is told to forget her mother because her mother is considered a family exile due to becoming a concubine to a rich man (and in Magpies later on in the book, it turns out the girl's mother is extremely unhappy with her situation, and ends up poisoning herself. Another one for me would be Two Kinds, about a mother who sets high expectations on her daughter that the girl doesn't want.
- The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling. No one who's life involved a dog that is now gone can read it without crying.
- The last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner qualifies. Christopher Robin is going away. It's implied he's going to boarding school, which means he won't see his friends again. The characters don't know the specifics, but they band together and write him a goodbye note. As they host a farewell party, Eeyore realizes that the boy wants to be alone with Pooh, telling the others to leave. Christopher Robin then takes Pooh to 'An Enchanted Place, at the Top of the Forest'. They talk together, about doing nothing. Christoper Robin mentions that 'they don't let you do nothing. Not for long, anyway.' He tells Pooh of Kings and Factors, eventually making him his best, most faithful Knight. Then the ending.
- ''"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when i'm a hundred." Pooh thought for a little. "How old shall I be then?" "Ninety-nine." Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said.
- Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's Paw. "Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I — if I'm not quite —" he stopped and tried again — "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"
- "Understand what?" "Oh, nothing. He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!" "Where?" said Pooh. "Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.
- So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.''
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower. At the end, when the letters stop, it's like losing a friend. Nevermind the fact that the whole book is one big tearjerker. (And that poem. Oh man. "And he hung it on the bathroom door / because this time he didn't think / he could reach the kitchen.")
- Not sure if this should go here or in Real Life, but Waiting With Gabriel. The memoir of a woman who discovered her baby boy would be born with a heart defect, and would live less than two weeks if it went untreated. Absolutely heart breaking. I cried for hours.
- A Lesson Before Dying. A powerful, tour-de-force fictional account of the dehumanizing account of segregation in post-war Louisianan. When a young man by the name of Jefferson is not only wrongfuly accused of a double-murder and sentenced to death, but his own public defender's defense is "You'd be putting down a hog, not a man" Grant himself wants to go out like Jesus: "Never sayin' a mumblin' word", and the sheer amount of allusions to Jesus' death just made this all the more powerful to the point where the ending hit me like a mac truck...
- The third book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles has Mendenbar attacked by wizards, and trapped inside a time loop what makes this even worse is that his wife is pregnant, and she has the baby after he gets trapped. He stays trapped for seventeen years, and he doesn't get to see his son grow up. His son doesn't even know who he is, or that he exists! He got better, but still... Seventeen years!
- The death toll in James Barclay's Chronicles of the Raven books is pretty astronomical, but the one that got this troper was Ilkar's death - that knowing he's dying, he chooses to sacrifice himself to give the rest of the Raven a chance.
- Also when Erienne finds her sons' bodies in the first book
- The ending of The First Part Last by Angela Johnson definitely qualifies. Alternating from chapters that take place in present (now), and chapters that take place in the past (then). The "now" chapters show Bobby, a teenager, raising his daughter Feather. The "then" chapters show Bobby, with his pregnant girlfriend Nia, wondering what they'll do. The reader wonders why Nia isn't present in the "now" chapters and it's revealed that she got into an irreversible vegetative coma. Bobby and Nia were going to give the baby up for adoption, but after what happened to Nia, Bobby decides to keep what's left of Nia.
- In something of an odd example, I cried when they hanged Jefferson Pinkard in the final book of Turtledove's Southern Victory series. Not so much at his death, but at how simple and understandable each of the spteps that led him on that road were.
- This troper is suprised no one has mentioned the few sad moments in Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" books. Julius Root’s death in "the Opal Deception" and Holly’s death in "The Lost Colony" are the best examples, but also remember this from "The Time Paradox":
“Artemis watched Holly stride towards the main doors.
If only, he thought. If only,” * Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky, when we finally find out just what made Pham Nuwen so bitter. Pham spends most of his life working to turn the Qeng Ho traders into a true interstellar civilisation, free from the usual cycle of collapse, working with his lover, the woman who first took him from his barbarous homeworld as a child. When he uses his centuries-in-the-making meet-up (note that faster-than-light travel is impossible in A Deepness in the Sky) of representatives of every Qeng Ho dynasty across human space to rescue the system from collapse, Pham pitches the idea to the families - only to find that his lover has, behind his back, convinced them to vote against it. Because it would inevitably fail and destroy the Qeng Ho. Then she places him and his supporters on a fleet of ships programmed to spread out across the length of human space, to make sure he can never do it again.
- Absolutely Anyone Can Die in Lonesome Dove. That doesn't make the deaths any less sad.
- Joe Spoon, once a loyal Texas Ranger, had gotten mixed up with bank robbers and had stole horses and associated with cold blooded murderers. Those who were once his friends had to hang him, and he understood that they did. He was tied up with a noose around his neck sitting on a horse, but kicked his horse to hang himself before they could say goodbye.
- Deets' death was especially sad. He was trying to help a blind boy find his parents, but the Native Americans mistook him for trying to kidnap their child and shot a spear through him. His Dies Wide Shut was tragic, especially after he had just befriended Newt in Sean's place. Gus and the rest shed Manly Tears for the good man that was Deets.
- Sean, who had just told them about how he missed Ireland and wanted to go back, but would have no one to go with, suffered more Diabolus Ex Machina in the story to be killed by being bit to death by water mocassins. Everyone that gets close to Newt ends up killed.
- And, lastly, Gus McCrae's death.
- Diane Jessup's The Dog Who Spoke with Gods. The main character, Elizabeth, attempting to escape with the broken-English speaking pit bull she has bonded with and subsequently freed from a laboratory, is crushed in a lumberyard and dies. In a horrible twist on the "dog dies" cliche, she goes slowly, with the dog by her side, refusing to leave her.
- A tale of bittersweet science fiction, The Dead Lady of Clown Town by Cordwainer Smith. By the end of the first few paragraphs it is obvious but uniquely crafted re-telling of the Joan of Arc story, with that twisting feeling in one's stomach growing as the doomed dog-girl D'joan leads her small and ragged collection of Underpeople - homonculi genetically crafted from animals - to their final confrontation with the ruling Lords and Ladies of their world. Trading their lives for love, in their death they show that they are more humane than their human masters.
- "Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true/here is the place where I love you." That's Katniss singing a pixie-like innocent little girl into death because the two of them have been forced to compete in a Deadly Game.
- In the sequel, the prep crew of all people pulled this off. They've so long been the shallow, idiotic, materialistic Adult Children but then this one time we see them really feel something... " We would all like you to know what a...privilege it has been to make you look your best." And despite knowing things with Peeta were mostly an odd sort of being Undercover As Lovers, I still teared up at the interviews in the second, when Katniss appears in her wedding dress. And you know what, screw it, the entire second book did this, really. The first was more tense, but the second...
- Terry Deary has a real gift for finding the humour in the worst possible situations in Horrible Histories, but in Frightful First World War, he manages to sum up the worst part of the war after telling the story of men making new friends during the Christmas Truce.
"Having to kill somebody you like, that's the horriblest history of all."
- This troper's kinda suprised that Anne Mc Caffrey's "All the Weyrs of Pern" isn't mentioned. All of Pern is finally safe from Thread... and while everyone is celebrating, Masterharper Robinton dies after reading a message from a now-terminated AIVAS, both having fulfilled their duties to Hold, Hall and Weyr.
- The end of ‘’Forever Free,’’ by Joy Adamson. When Elsa dies; when we learn that they do not find Jespah; when she gives all animals her blessing…
- S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. In its entirety.
- Black Beauty: Captain's retelling of his rider's death.
- Susan Kay's Phantom. From the middle, where a near-death Erik asks for his dog, until the very end, this troper was a mess.
- Ben Jonson's "On My First Son":
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
- The fact that "Tuesdays With Morrie" is absent from this page is really a veritable sin.
- Jane Austen:
- Elizabeth's Love Epiphany in Pride And Prejudice... because it comes with the conviction that they will never be together. (Our knowledge of the Foregone Conclusion is no comfort to her.)
- No wonder Mansfield Park makes critics beg for the typical "bright and sparkling" Austen. If the description of Fanny's eight years of deprivation from love and affection don't make you close the book in tears, try to get through any scene where Mrs. Norris Hannibal Lectures her, or the scene where she sits in the East Room having a breakdown over the loneliness and sense of zero self-worth that's built up over her life.
- Not that the story of the lovers' separation in Persuasion and Mrs. Smith's Back Story aren't heartbreaking, either.
- This troper nearly started sobbing at school when she read the end of Odd Thomas and found out that her predictions were right and Stormy did die. It was even worse due to the fact that this troper was firm in her belief that Stormy would die up until the end when Odd became so worried about her safety (foreshadowing always lies), then to have her go on "living" with Odd for a few days, and then for it to be revealed that she was dead the whole time. It was a sudden slap to the face that made my eyes water.
- In Carol O'Connell's The Stone Angel, Heroic Sociopath Kathy Mallory goes back to the small Southern town where her mother was killed fifteen-odd years ago... and where her childhood pet dog, who almost died at the same time, is still barely clinging on to life, waiting for his little girl to come back. And it's not just the inevitable conclusion — the old, old dog crawling to her, believing that he's running as fast as any animal ever has, before collapsing and dying at her feet — it's that Mallory cries over him. (And this troper seriously just teared up while typing this.)
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