YMMV / The Southern Reach Trilogy

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Between her complete disdain for all social interactions and completely analytical, unsentimental state of mind, the biologist doesn't seem to be psychologically normal. Several characters in "Authority" even point out how unusual her behavior is, but nothing concrete is ever said.
• Jerkass Woobie: Lowry. Despite being a thoroughly detestable Smug Snake responsible for sending hundreds of people to their deaths on pointless and insane expeditions, it's hard not to feel pity for him considering that he clearly suffered extreme, lifelong trauma inside Area X and is now obsessed with trying to conquer it as a form of revenge.
• Nightmare Fuel: Lots of it, but Control's encounter with Whitby above the janitor's closet must surely be among the most disturbing and just plain creepy scenes in recent literature.
  • The creation of Area X itself. It starts with Saul enjoying himself at a local bar, until he sees an apparition of Henry standing in the corner, which immediately causes the brightness within him to intensify. Before the night is over, everyone else in the bar is driven to insanity and Body Horror by the energy radiating from Saul, including such details as the piano player bashing the keys and screaming incoherently until his fingers break apart, and people screaming in fear until their voices warp into inhuman shrieks.
  • The footage of the very first expedition in Authority. It's primarily blurry footage of people running through the woods, expedition members babbling to each other in unknown tongues, and the outline of something massive snaking over the entire horizon.
  • The closing pages of part 3 of Authority have Control absently reach for a handle to a door, only to find that it's not there and is just a wall instead. He touches the wall to feel it breathing. Part 4 manages to get worse, with the psychologist, or maybe just a replica, returning to the Southern Reach... and taking the border of Area X with her. Control is so terrified and so badly shaken that he can barely think as he flees the Reach.
• Tear Jerker: Saul and Gloria saying goodbye to each other on the beach near the end of Acceptance. Even though neither of them know what's about to happen, it's clear to both that this is the last time they'll ever be able to see each other.
  • Taken further on the very last page of the series, a letter from Gloria to him telling him how much he meant to her. For someone who started out seeming almost as spooky as Area X itself, she becomes perhaps the tragic core of the entire trilogy.

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