History TearJerker / WorldOfWarcraft

* The cinematic trailer makes it clear that Anduin has ''not'' recovered from his trauma from ''Shadowbringers''. Not only is he incredibly disheveled with short hair and a BeardOfSorrow, but he outright says he can't be the hero and leader Thrall and the rest of Azeroth needs after what the Jailer made him do.

* At the base of the Ruby Lifeshrine there's an elderly orc suffering from chronic pain, accompanied by a younger orc. He insists on seeing the dragons, but is also reluctant to actually approach them himself and worries about them learning about his clan. He was a member of the Dragonmaw clan during the Second War, where he slaughtered and enslaved the Red Dragons. Since then he has stood as a hero of the new Horde, fighting against tyrants like Garrosh and Sylvanas. Despite this, he still feels nothing but shame for what he did in the past and forced himself to come just so he could see he hadn't completely destroyed the dragons. Seeing them alive and well only makes him feel more miserable; if you try to reassure him, he simply responds he can never atone for his crimes.

* During the introductory quest to the Ruby Lifeshrine, you come across the empty nest where the black dragonflight eggs were tended, Mother Elion, the last eggtender, standing idle nearby. Talking to her, she explains how the last of their clutches are gone and with it the future of their flight. When you ask why she remains, she simply says in a broken tone, "Hope..."

* Players who completed the Dragonwrath questline in ''Catacylsm'' get a special epilogue quest chain where they finally lay the soul of Tarecgosa to rest. During this chain, Tarecgosa speaks to you and explains that as an unchanging spirit she has been feeling increasingly out of place in a perpetually changing world. While she appreciates you allowing her to live on a little longer, she knows it's time to go.

* When the sword Kingsmourne is broken, out comes the last remaining fragment of Arthas' soul, which is so heavily drained that it is unable to sustain itself and swiftly fades out of existence. Even after all that Arthas has done, it's an almost pitiable end for him, made worse by how it fades out right in front of Anduin and Jaina. The one woman Arthas ever loved has to watch as he finally ceases to exist, and its implied she still feels guilty over not being able to save him in the first place.

** Made even more tragic is that immediately after The Elements leave; that was when Kil'jaeden and The Burning Legion reached out to talk with him. Implying that The Elements really ''did'' want for Gul'dan to wield them and become a respected Shaman, but that The Legion had silenced them to create Gul'dan into just another UnwittingPawn for their schemes.

-->'''Gul'dan''': The Elements abandoned me...

* The ''Harbingers'' trailer for Gul'dan, showing him as a crippled Orc from an unnamed Clan who was cast out of his village for not accepting his role in among his people who did not want him. Afterwards, he goes on a journey to seek out The Throne of The Elements in Nagrand in order to find his destiny, where after reaching the Throne and offering up his services to anyone that could relieve him of his anguish is left in awe [[HopeSpot as the Elemental forces all converge around him and metaphorically holds a hand out for Gul'dan to take.]] Only for when he reached out to have that "hand" pull back and vanish completely as [[SkywardScream Gul'dan screams in anguish at the heavens]] and it begins to rain; [[GrayRainOfDepression which hides his tears]]. Made all the more poignant with a simple statement from him that sums up how unloved he feels he is.

* The ''Warbringers'' trailer for Gul'dan, showing him as a crippled Orc from an unnamed Clan who was cast out of his village for not accepting his role in the village. Afterwards, he goes on a journey to seek out The Throne of The Elements in Nagrand in order to find his destiny, where after reaching the Throne and offering up his services to anyone that could relieve him of his anguish is left in awe [[HopeSpot as the Elemental forces all converge around him and metaphorically holds a hand out for Gul'dan to take.]] Only for when he reached out to have that "hand" pull back and vanish completely as [[SkywardScream Gul'dan screams in anguish at the heavens]] and it begins to rain; [[GrayRainOfDepression which hides his tears]] made all the more poignant with a simple statement from him.

** Some of Sylvanas's flashbacks to the fall of Quel'Thalas and her death at the hands of Arthas when Delaryn infers they're not so different also straddles NightmareFuel; Sylvanas desperately trying to rally the defenders of Silvermoon against the unending undead legions of the Scourge, the look of horror and terror that crosses her face as Arthas's shadow looms over her before she receives the death blow from Frostmourne, and the fact her first/final sight is of the bodies of an elven mother and child she'd helped to safety moments before are what causes her to let loose [[MakeMeWannaShout her first scream as a banshee...]]

* Near the start of the expansion you meet Sendrax, a rather excitable and eager Drakonid nervous about her first assignment of welcoming mortals to the Isles. She even has unique voicelines that are [[{{Adorkable}} pretty endearing]] about just how enthusiastic she is to welcome you. Eventually, the two of you find the first attack of the Primalists on the Red Dragonflight, and relays to the player that its her duty to ensure the safety of the eggs the Primalists have captured, giving you a quest to save clutches of them... only for the eggs to hatch into BrainwashedAndCrazy whelpings the second you get close to them. You have no choice but to MercyKill them, and each time you do so Sendrax is audibly ''devastated'', mumbling broken apologies for being unable to save them. And just to rub salt in the wound, she ends up pulling a HeroicSacrifice to save the last egg from being completely corrupted, leaving the player with a somber run back to get the egg to the safety of the Ruby Lifeshrine. The fact she goes on to be a ForgottenFallenFriend only makes it worse.

* Senegos' death. For the first time in milennia, a blue dragon passes away peacefully, and it turns out Senegos, up until this point, was a case of MilesToGoBeforeIRest: He had promised his daughter - Stellagosa's mother - that he would protect the Azurewing until the blue dragonflight was restored. To that end, he prolonged his life unnaturally, using ancient artifacts and magical incantations so that he could see the day come when his promise was fulfilled - he ''went those miles'', and now, with the restoration of the blue dragonflight, he decides to finally rest. If you return to the Veiled Ossuary that you helped him restore during the preceding quest-chain, you'll find Stellagos and Emmigosa updating it to reflect his passing:

** Or its somewhat differently tear-jerking Horde equivalent. As opposed to freeing a lost loved one you take the wedding pendant of a dead man who had devoted his life to destroying the Forsaken back to his grave on the request of his now Forsaken wife, who wants nothing to do with him. Upon reaching his grave your greeted by a sad little bit of text detailing how lonely the grave looks and how the man will be forever forgotten.

* D.E.H.T.A's questline in Northerend is capable of wringing tears by having you to free elephant babies from painful traps and prevent poachers from killing baby deer, but Blizzard really manages to shake those players who have been paying attention to the in-game lore with one of the final quests. The druids will send you on a quest to murder Harold Lane who oversees the hunter's camp. Many of the players don't probably remember him by the time you receive the quest, but he's one of the hunters you hunt with in Nagrand, namely the wounded man who is delirious from infection, his condition growing worse with every quest, and prior of coming to Northrend, the player is left not knowing whether he'll pull through or die due to his injuries. All that characterization, only to find out through his subsequent poaching activity that he was never a person worth saving in the first place.

* The "Fall of The Lich King" trailer. Despite [[MoralEventHorizon everything that he has done]], you will probably shed ManlyTears again for Arthas' demise, as he seemingly remembers who he was and regrets all the atrocities he had brought in his final momments. This is doubled with Bolvar's HeroicSacrifice in the same cutscene.

* The newly revamped Scarlet Monastary and Scholomance offer several:

** The razing of Teldrassil is heartbreaking, but on Alliance side you get to see first-hand what's happening. The city is in flames, innocent civilians whose only crime is living where Sylvanas wants to conquer panic and die while she seemingly burns their home out of pure spite instead of occupying it. You have a quest to save as many civilians as you can, but... it's nearly impossible to save any high number, with the 3 minutes you're given, out of nearly a thousand civilians you'll be able to save just over 50 if you're aggressive about it, only to pass out from the smoke and be saved by Mia Greymane, who then collapses from her own smoke inhalation as Genn panicks over the possibility of losing his wife. He ends up chucking her through the portal to Stormwind as the player follows, while the second-in-command of the Priests and Priestesses of Elune and her young apprentice stay behind to perish in the flames, futilely trying to heal the survivors that can't make it through.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hndyTy3uiZM Warbringers: Azshara]] shows us the destruction of Zin-Azshari first hand. While its rulers may have betrayed Azoroth to the Burning legion, the city itself was still a center of culture, art, and learning in its heyday and could have been so again after the legion's defeat. Yet that bright future is literally swept away by a massive wave tall enough to eclipse the sun. [[FromBadToWorse Then the view descends from the distant, toppling spires to the panicking people below]]. While Azshara herself may have been complicit to the legion's atrocities, thousands of civilians are still dying in terror for the folly of their leaders.

* Unlike in the Siege of Orgimmar where those who sided with Garrosh were basically written off as irredeemable, Saurfang quietly notes that those who sided with Syvanas are Horde too, brothers and sisters in arms.

* Anduin has ''not'' forgotten how Wrathion started the chain of events that culminated in his father's death at the Broken Shore, and he [[TalkToTheFist makes it crystal clear]] that he is ''not'' forgiving him for it any time soon. While Wrathion laughs it off (and admits that he does deserve the scorn), its rather sad when you remember the kinship they once shared in ''Mists''.

* The moment when a lot of players realized that even the Titans, the closest thing to BenevolentPrecursors that the Warcraft universe was thought to have, are far more [[BlueAndOrangeMorality inscrutible]]; Algalon the Observer's ''massive'' FreakOut when he realizes that the (several million ''million'') beings that he destroyed via [[ApocalypseHow Reorigination]] at the behest of the Titans were people with free will and emotions instead of the mindlessly obedient automatons he thought they were.

** By proxy: the Mogu were initially introduced as {{Generic Doomsday Villain}}s. Once you obtain a series of scrolls detailing their backstory, Lorewalker Cho muses that in fact, the Mogu did everything they did [[WellIntentionedExtremist because they thought it was for the best]]/[[WellDoneSonGuy it was what the Titans would have wanted]]. During this, he walks around in a circle, while various images of major charaters from ''Warcraft'' lore and their children appear near him to illustrate the point.

* In Mists of Pandaria, after the Jade Serpent tells you that she's dying, ready to transfer her life force into the huge statue you've just retrieved the last of the jade they needed to finish to create a new guardian, as she flies you back to the Jade temple, saying she's tired and needs to rest... the Horde and Alliance start a battle at the foot of it. [[WhatAnIdiot Despite being specifically shown what happens in Pandaria when someone acts aggressively]], they do it anyway, and the statue that had been worked on for a hundred years is destroyed, and a huge sha (aggression given form and life) pops out of the ground and wrecks both armies. The Jade Serpent ferries you out of the zone, saying maybe it's best if you make yourself scarce for a while, and she'll have to hang onto life for a while longer.

* At the base of the Ruby Lifeshrine there's an elderly orc suffering from chronic pain, accompanied by a younger orc. He insists on seeing the dragons, but is also reluctant to actually approach them himself and worries about them learning about his clan. He was a member of the Dragonmaw clan during the Second War, where he slaughtered and enslaved dragons. Since then he has stood as a hero of the new Horde, fighting against tyrants like Garrosh and Sylvanas. Despite this, he still feels nothing but shame for what he did in the past and forced himself to come just so he could see he hadn't completely destroyed the dragons. Seeing them alive and well only makes him feel more miserable; if you try to reassure him, he simply responds he can never atone for his crimes.
** Returning at a later date reveals the elderly orc has passed while cradling a whelpling in his arms, with his companion griefstricken. The dragonkin offer to store what is left of his lifeforce in a vessel as a memento, which the companion accepts. He then takes his friend's axe and returns to the nearby inn to think about what he's just seen, while the young whelping follows along. Eventually he decides to move on but obviously is still torn by his friend's death.
* During the introductory quest to the Ruby Lifeshrine, you come across the empty nest where the black dragonflight eggs were tended, Mother Elion, the last eggtender, standing idle nearby. Talking to her, she explains how the last of their clutches are gone and with it the future of their flight. When you ask why she remains, she simply says in a broken tone, "Hope."
* Sindragosa tasks you with stopping rebels from opening the deepest level of the Azure Vaults, frantically warning you that what is hidden there must not be released. Rather than some terrible weapon or secret, it's the child of Malygos and Sindragosa whose experiments with wild magic mutated his body and drove him mad. After killing him, Sindragosa reveals that she and her love had tried everything to save their son but were forced to seal him away when they left the Isles. Even though she is only an arcane memory of the real dragon, she still mourns the loss of a child but accepts that perhaps this was the only mercy he could be given.

** Various Dialogue options pop up when talking with the Mag'har in Orgrimmar tell that even though they are willing and able to fight for the Horde, [[StepfordSmiler they deeply miss their homeworld and everyone that they were forced to leave behind.]]
-->"What fate did our brothers and sisters meet?"
-->"Warchief Hellscream is almost certainly dead. If he fell, he died a hero's death."
-->"I still dream of Draenor. Does my home still remain? Aggh. [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan It does no good to think on such matters]]."

** Returning at a later date reveals the elderly orc has passed while cradling a whelpling in his arms, with his companion griefstricken. The dragonkin offer to store what is left of his lifeforce in a vessel as a memento, which the companion accepts. He then takes his friend's axe and returns to the nearby inn to think about what he's just seen, while the young whelping follows along.

** Ysera knows the only being capable of replacing her in Ardenweald, but she hesitates to tell Tironde who. Malfurion gently explains to Tironde that Ysera is unwilling to ask him to take her place. Tironde is shocked at the realization she will once again be separated from her love for the sake of their people and pleads that there must be another way. In the end she accepts what must be done and walks with Malfurion into the forest until he falls into a deep slumber.

* At the base of the Ruby Lifeshrine there's an elderly orc suffering from chronic pain. He insists on seeing the dragons, but is also reluctant to actually approach them himself and worries about them learning about his clan. He was a member of the Dragonmaw clan during the Second War, where he slaughtered and enslaved dragons during the Second War. Since then he has stood as a hero of the new Horde, fighting against tyrants like Garrosh and Sylvanas. Despite this, he still feels nothing but shame for what he did in the past and forced himself to come just so he could see he hadn't completely destroyed the dragons. Seeing them alive and well only makes him feel more miserable; if you try to reassure him, he simply responds he can never atone for his crimes.