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Tear Jerker / The Imitation Game

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  • Turing as a young boy finding out about Christopher's death. He's gearing up to confess his crush, with a geekily adorable handwritten note in their shared secret code, and then the headmaster calls him into his office. He's about two seconds away from having a complete breakdown and he can't even say anything, for fear of anyone finding out the truth.
  • Before that, Turing getting shoved under the floorboards and nailed in place by a group of bullies (and before that, getting a plate of carrots and peas dumped over his head). Judging from the teacher's reaction—"only Alan Turing would write a note in complete gibberish"—Adults Are Useless.
  • Turing's sheer panic and desperation when Denniston's officers shut off Christopher. He shoves a wrench into the door handles and tries to barricade the door with his own body, and has to be physically held back while they pull the plug.
  • Hilton pleading with Turing to let them use the broken code to save his brother's life — and they can't, because it would let the Germans know they broke it.
  • Turing's final meeting with Joan. He reveals to her that, when given the Sadistic Choice of two years in prison or chemical castration, he chose the latter, so he can keep working on Christopher. It's sobering to see him display Broken Tears about being crippled in such a manner, and forced to choose it to continue his life's work, all for the "crime" of being gay. It's a big reminder as to why such Cure Your Gays punishments are heavily frowned upon at best and outright outlawed in today's society, and how many innocent people's futures have been stolen from them because the government prefers anyone who doesn't conform to suffer.
  • Joan herself earns Woobie points for being constantly talked down to and jerked around by her parents. As she points out to Turing—one of the few people who unquestioningly believes in her—she has to get people to like her, in order to be accepted in a field where women weren't.
    • Especially poignant when he tries to manipulate her to leave to protect her due to getting entangled in the spy game - it's fairly obvious by what she says that she knows he's lying to protect her and is hurt by his attempt to shun her.
    • Also, when he did propose to her, there was some selfish basis in that he needed to have her around to help break the code. So he simply exaggerated this small truth in order to whisk her away and that does break him because he does cares.
  • Alan Turing committed suicide at age 41.
  • "Turing's work inspired generations of research into what scientists called "Turing machines". Today, we call them computers." It's heartbreaking to think of what he could have done for information technology and for the world had he not been prosecuted and died.
  • The police inspector when he interrogates Turing about his homosexuality. He clearly doesn't want to do this but is under orders.

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