Tear Jerker / The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning

• Triton watching the death of his beloved queen in a pirate attack, followed by him throwing away the music box far into the sea (which Sebastian secretly witnessed).
  • Him yelling out a desperate Big "NO!" complete with a Futile Hand Reach is also quite gut-wrenching.
• Life isn't fun without music, even with many, many years to pass by.
• Sebastian getting arrested.
• Triton lying down all sad with a statue of him and Athena in the background.
  • Ariel does the exact same thing in her room, and decides to slip out as a piano version of the music box tune plays.
• Ariel finding the music box and remembering her mother.
  Sebastian: When your mother died, the whole kingdom was heartbroken. The heart that never healed... was your father's.
  Ariel: It's so sad... He's forgotten what it's like to be happy.
• Triton's heartbroken singing when he thinks Ariel is dead and cradles her in his arms. While Ariel was only unconscious after protecting Sebastian from Marina, who tried to kill him, Triton was devastated and guilty of his actions, believing that after he had already lost his wife ten years earlier, he lost his youngest daughter too because of his decision of banning music.
• The line that makes Triton realize that things are wrong, especially when Ariel uses her mother in her sentence:
  Ariel: I may not remember my mother...but I know she wouldn't have wanted this!
• If you do the math, you'll realize that Ariel was only around 5 when her mom died—what's more, Melody will never get to meet her grandmother, much less have a great relationship with her.
• The mere fact that Ariel, and most of the other characters, spend the majority of the movie depressed. That alone can make the film hard to watch because it's, well, depressing.
• If Athena's death alone wasn't sobering enough, according to Sebastian, Triton's music box for Athena was an anniversary present, meaning she died on their anniversary.
• While the film has a happy ending - music is finally allowed to return to Atlantica, and Triton finally begins to move past Athena's death - it gives some perspective, and Fridge Horror, to Ariel's deal with Ursula in the first movie. After losing a parent at an early age, and being raised by the other who is coldly strict to sometimes ridiculous lengths ^note Triton punishes Ariel early in the film for making her sisters laugh), almost any child or teen would take the first escape they could for a chance at a happier life.