Tear Jerker / We Must Be Killers

• Everything about the 67th Hunger Games in Fixed to a Star, where Executive Meddling leads to an arena full of Careers and twelve-year-olds. The fear and anguish of those kids, and the self-loathing Claudius feels about having to kill several of them make for ugly reading.
• Brutus's mother being denied permission to visit her son after the Games in To Love a Beast. It is also mentioned in that story that no matter how well the parents of future volunteers in District 2 prepare themselves, whether their children die in the arena with blood on their hands or come back in coffins, their parents inevitably end up divorcing over the pain (although Brutus's parents hope to break the trend). They even get told that this will happen before signing parental consent forms for their children to train, but they do it anyway due to desperation to provide better for themselves or their kid, patriotism, the occasional selfish motive, or a desire to protect kids from reaping.
• In "Down for the Count", Misha's tribute dies when an opponent poisons her food and she dies thinking Misha or the gamemakers did that and asks why in confusion, looking at the camera.
• Practically every moment in The End is the Beginning is the End, Shadows Fall, and The Price of Celebrity, as District 2's Family of Choice grapples with having to send two of their own back into the Quell, with Brutus not being sure he has it in him to kill their old friends and Lyme desperately trying to coax or drill a will to survive into her best friend.
• Then, there are the scenes with the district coping with the death of Brutus, especially when Devon admits that the idea that Brutus died a good death (which is a Motivational Lie from Ronan to keep the victors from turning on the Capitol because he wrongly thinks that is the path that will keep them alive and safe) doesn't make him feel the least bit better.
• As heroic, understandable, and beneficial Lyme and Claudius's decision to defect is, the fact that they do so without telling Lyme's surrogate daughter Misha or even trying to take her with them leaves her in a deep funk.
• District 9 victors Cora and Burt are married, with a daughter and grandchildren. Burt goes into the 3rd Quarter Quell while Cora doesn't, and spends some of his last hours on Earth talking about their family before dying minutes into the Quell, while Cora can only watch in grief. Even worse, she has to tearfully vote against ending the Quell and saving him the night before when Snow offers the mentors a Deal with the Devil, because she knows that, with Snow's twisted mind, saving Burt will probably mean sacrificing another member of their family.
• In Make Us Proud:
  • Alec spends hours watching his brother Creed suffering from a mortal wound in the arena. Throughout the ordeal, Alec is comforted and accompanied by fellow trainee Felix. When Felix becomes a tribute two years later, he is brutally killed by a pack of mutts (which is also shown to have a strong effect on his mentor Devon in another story).
  • Alec’s appeal to his parents to take the Rebellion's pardon offer rather than let themselves be executed for Honor Before Reason sentiment. His efforts end on a hopeful note after he recruits a family friend to help, but even that may not be enough after their last exchange.
  Alec: I'm a doctor. When someone comes to me with a broken bone, I don't try to argue against the accident that caused it. The bone is broken. It needs to mend. And — if Two is going to survive, it needs people like you to be in it. I need you.
  Joseph: Alec. I don't expect you to understand. You're young and you think everything should work out the way you want just because you want it to. It’s not all pride, you know. You think we're foolish, dying for a cause. Have you ever thought that this world is not one worth living for?
  Alec: No. I do know what that feels like. I know you're scared. But you can't just decide to give up because the world isn't working the way you want it to anymore. Or are we only proud and brave when things are in our favour?
  Joseph: You're not entirely wrong. But this isn't my world anymore, or my fight. Building a new world out of the ashes, that's for young people like you. Im going to die for the one that burned.
  • Alec keeps hoping his friend Selene survived the war after he doesn't see her among the Peacekeepers who remain loyal to Snow and are executed, only to eventually learn she died on the front lines.