What's your never-ending tear-jerker?

Where the Red Fern Grows gets me every time.

Well, I think I have a new tear-jerker. Ouch, man.

Doesn't exactly help that one of my earliest memories is my mom reading this to me when I was, like, 3.

D;

edited 19th Sep '11 7:16:26 PM by sirnoob

The Iron Giant

And on a more serious note - The Book Thief. This book has me sobbing every time I even think about it. It's beautiful.

The 'Superman!' bit?

edited 14th Oct '11 3:22:34 PM by InverurieJones

Man, The Book Thief... I think I teared up seeing the picture-book Max made for Liesel where he drew himself as a bird.

Duncton Wood...Siabod. Damn. And Duncton Found...damn.

House of Leaves, as of late.

God, Danielewski sure knows how to deliver his tragic deaths.

I used the knife

I saved a child.

I won a war.

God forgive me.

The end of changes, the Harry and Mouse reunion in GS, Jurassic Bark and Heaven's Feel Normal End.

edited 14th Oct '11 8:37:49 PM by TheCuriousFan

The Prince's Tale in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows,the added scene makes it even worse

Also Schindlers List and that little girl in red among the corpses

And the last words of Thorin from The Hobbit

Finally I third the Grey Havens chapter,oh and add to it "The Scouring of the Shire"

Although the The Princes Tale part was moreso in the movie,it only stung when written

edited 21st Oct '11 1:27:51 PM by terlwyth

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
gosh i love that book so much

@Inverurie Jones: I think we can safely say the "Superman..." bit is the saddest moment, yes. I cried a little then. But there was an earlier scene that had me tearing up as well. When the robot thought Hogarth was dead. He seemed truly devastated.

edited 15th Oct '11 8:51:27 AM by whataboutme

The Iron Giant is really just a fountain of them. Although it does have its lovably lighthearted moments. Hogarth saying grace, anyone?

Sadly, a piece of fiction or non-fiction is yet to drive me to tears.

But there had been chilling moments. For example, the ending of The Book Thief, when things go down.

edited 17th Oct '11 10:37:40 PM by chihuahua0

I was reminded of this one recently, from one of the Gaunts Ghosts books (I think it's called Only In Death?). When Hark discovers Soric, who had been dragged away to the Black Ships previously, and mercy-kills him. I cried my eyes out, and I'm tearing up a little thinking about it.

edited 17th Oct '11 11:59:26 PM by LoniJay

In literature, there are very few things that have made me come close to crying. Of all people, HP Lovecraft has done it once, with "Alienation". Here it is:

His solid flesh had never been away,
for each dawn found him in his usual place,
but every night his spirit loved to race
through gulfs and worlds remote from common day.

He had seen Yaddith, yet retained his mind,
and come back safely from the Ghooric zone,
when one still night across curved space was thrown
that beckoning piping from the voids behind.

He waked that morning as an older man,
and nothing since has looked the same to him.
Objects around float nebulous and dim—
false, phantom trifles of some vaster plan.
His folk and friends are now an alien throng
to which he struggles vainly to belong.

And, on a completely different note, there's this xkcd strip.

edited 18th Oct '11 12:47:12 PM by JHM

I have yet to cry from any book myself, but some Reader Punches that really caught me in the gut were

Rue's Death (Hunger Games)

My best friend is a third child, so the entire Shadow Children series was jarring in elementary school.

Where the Red Fern Grows. My 3rd grade teacher (and a good half of the class) cried while reading it aloud in class.

Of Mice and Men! Oh god, why!? That's all I can think of at the moment.

Oh man, that xkcd strip. I never thought it was possible to make a Your Mom joke poignant.

edited 21st Oct '11 6:00:52 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?

_________________________

Sam Vimes reading his son's favorite bedtime story to him, from miles away, underground, possessed by a spirit of pure vengeance, in the midst of a one-on-everything melee... and his son hears him.

_________________________

The first thyng Tak did, he wroten hymself.

The second thyng Tak did, he wroten the Laws.

The third thyng Tak did, he wroten the World.

The fourth thyng Tak did, he wroten ay cave.

The fifth thyng Tak did, he wroten a geode, ay egge of stone.

And in the gloamyn of the mouth of the cave, the geode hatched and the Brothers were born.

The first Brother walked toward the the light, and stood under the open sky. Thus he became too tall. He was the first Man. He found no Laws, and he was enlightened.

The second Brother walked toward the darkness, and stood under a roof of stone. Thus he achieved the correct height. He was the first Dwarf. He found the Laws Tak had written, and he was endarkened.

Then Tak looked upon the stone and it was trying to come alive, and Tak smiled and wroten: "all thyngs strive." And for the service the stone had given, he fashioned it into the first Troll, and delighted in the life that came unbidden.

These are the thyngs that Tak Wroten!

edited 25th Oct '11 6:07:56 PM by Wryte

The End of Les Miserables, the end of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and the end of My Side Of The Mountain always make me cry.

But the one that makes me for hours every single time is Mostly Harmless. He put on a little light music instead.

Just about anytime Death displays his incredible humanity is either a CMOA, CMOHW, Tearjerker, or some combination of the three, but there's a scene in Hogfather that does it especially. For context, the Discworld's equivalent of Santa Claus has gone missing, and Death is filling in for him on fantasy-Christmas Eve with the help of his crotchety manservant, Albert, who explains the different holiday traditions, beliefs, and tropes for him as they go along. Things are off to a rocky start, but Death is optimistic. Then it turns out the next stop is for The Little Match Girl, and it's in his normal capacity. Death is confused as Albert explains the trope, coming to the conclusion that that's just how things have to go.

[edit: On second thought, he's the scene from a very faithful film adaptation of the book:]

The most touching part is the sense that this is really what Death wishes he could always be, but he has to be Death.

edited 29th Oct '11 12:34:21 AM by Wryte

Not sure if it's never-ending yet, because it's only been a week since I reread it properly, but Animorphs. #54. Rachel! I ended up bawling, literally curled up in a ball weeping.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Snape's memories are playing, when he's outide the Gryffindor common room trying to say sorry and it just won't work, because he has gone too far and he can't- and its right, and it's horrible. Because there's no way for his life to go well, not without ripping apart the story, but still...

Innumerable parts of A Song Of Ice And Fire, the main and less YMMV-depending ones being

• The death of Ned Stark
• The destruction of Winterfell
• The Red Wedding

The endings of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, both games.

The first time, I shed quite a few tears before rightening myself.

The next game, I knew a scene like that was coming up and I was like Don't fucking cry....

It happened again, another few tears came down.

It's been awhile since a game could do that to me. The last time I cried like that was Marble's death.

The ending of Lord of the Rings and the climax. Sam and Frodo accepting death is just...it breaks me after all they did. As does Frodo's leaving because he can't recover from PTSD and Sam's moving on to be successful and awesome without his master.