Line #1 Tearjerker/Snowpiercer


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/snowpiercer_tearjerker.png]]
2
3	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
4	----
5	[[foldercontrol]]
6
7	[[folder:The Film]]
8	* The scene where Tanya and Andrew's sons, Timmy and Andy, are taken to the front.
9	* There's a somber moment when the tail section passengers are looking out of the windows for the first time in seventeen years, watching a long-frozen and deserted city pass by.
10	-->'''Gilliam:''' Still cold. ''(Beat)'' Dead. All dead.
11	* The SadisticChoice that Curtis is faced with during the battle with the Axe Gang. In front of him, Mason is wounded but about to escape. Behind him, Franco the Younger has a knife to Edgar's throat. He's torn between [[FriendOrIdolDecision saving his best friend or taking a valuable hostage]]. You can see the despair in his face when he turns his back on Edgar, who is then killed.
12	* The HopeSpot that Tanya and Andrew experience when they think they've found Timmy and Andy in the classroom, only to be crushed when they discover they're mistaken. The classroom is for the front-end passengers' children only. Tail-end passengers' children are used for slave labor. What makes it worse is [[LackOfEmpathy how indifferent]] the rich, spoiled children are to Tanya and Andrew's distress when they ask if they've seen them. One of them cheerfully tells Tanya that her son looked like he was going to cry when he was brought through.
13	* The cold-blooded execution of Gilliam at the hands of Franco the Elder. This devastates Curtis and his team, and it's very clear why, after Curtis later reveals what he did to become leader and what he meant to everyone in the tail.
14	* Franco the Elder [[HeroKiller brutally killing Grey and Tanya]]. Especially Grey, who spends his last moments with a knife pierced through his hand and getting twisted around, until Franco slowly drives it into his heart.
15	* Curtis describing what life was like in the tail cars during the first few months of the Snowpiercer. With no food supply, people were forced to do [[ImAHumanitarian unspeakable things to one another]] just to survive, and he was one of the worst among them (bear in mind this is all while he was ''[[TeensAreMonsters still a teenager]]''). The monologue is delivered with so much sorrow that it's heartbreaking, and it really drives home just how much those memories have haunted him for seventeen years.
16	** Even more heartbreaking is the fact that he considers everyone following Gilliam's example, cutting off their own limbs for food in order to save the children, to be "a miracle."
17	* Wilford telling Curtis that Gilliam, the mentor he idolized and respected, [[BrokenPedestal had been working with him the entire time]].
18	* So you've sacrificed everything to get to one man, to kill him and end his reign of tyranny. What if you get to the end of your journey and you do find him? What if he then robs you of any satisfaction by first showing you how powerless you are, and by explaining that everything you've done to get to him has not only gone according to his plan, but turned out better than even he expected? That everything you believed in was built on a foundation of lies? That it's happened before and it will happen again? And worst of all, he tells you that you're now in charge of keeping the cycle going.
19	** Then when you consider the real-world implications of the movie, and especially everything Wilford says...
20	* Imagine never being alone for ''seventeen years''. No real privacy, no place for quiet thought, nowhere you can go to escape because you're stuck in [[CityInABottle a moving tin can with a hundred other bodies]]. It's no wonder Curtis breaks down while standing in the quiet stillness of the Engine.
21	* Wilford casually revealing that Curtis is the first person to walk the entire length of the train is gut-wrenching as well. Himself included, no one has ever cared enough to go and check on the people in the tail-end, and most likely not even the people in the middle cars.
22	* Curtis and Minsoo's HeroicSacrifice at the end to save Yona and Timmy.
23	[[/folder]]
24
25	[[folder:The Series]]
26	!!Season 1
27	[[AC:1 - First, the Weather Changed]]
28	* Layton's reaction to seeing sunlight, and having his first real meal, for the first time in seven years.
29	* It's Old Ivan's birthday, and his wish is an hour alone with the only phone in the tail. They leave him, and he plays classical music which is heard throughout the entire tail, with Ivan looking happy at first. He then looks at photographs of his wife and breaks down crying, unplugging the phone. Then, without warning, [[NothingIsScarier the music stops.]] They go to check up on him and find out that he [[DrivenToSuicide has hanged himself with the power cord.]]
30
31	[[AC:2 - Prepare to Brace]]
32	* Suzanne offering to have her own arm frozen off rather than let her daughter, who's only about six years old, suffer the same punishment.
33	* If you're an animal lover, the cattle being frozen into extinction -- the last of them to fall moaning pitifully as killing frost spreads up its neck -- thanks to the avalanche breaking the windows.
34
35	%%[[AC:3 - Access is Power]]
36	[[AC:4 - Without Their Maker]]
37	* Josie sees Miles, but is unable to talk to him without blowing her undercover mission.
38	* This episode reveals that there used to be a colony of bees saved on board the train…until a colony collapse disorder killed them all.
39
40	%%[[AC:5 - Justice Never Boarded]]
41	[[AC:6 - Trouble Comes Sideways]]
42	* Suzanne finally succumbing to infection and dying. Poor Patterson is so overwhelmed that it takes him a few moments to figure out how he wants his mother's body to be taken care of.
43	** Winnie kissing her doll and placing it next to her mother.
44
45	[[AC:7 - The Universe Is Indifferent]]
46	* Zarah, out of fear of losing her unborn child, betraying Josie to Melanie.
47	** When Josie is taken into custody, Big John tries to help, only to be held back by several Tailies.
48
49	[[AC:8 - These Are His Revolutions]]
50	* Big John's HeroicSacrifice holding off the jackboots, and Layton's reaction to learning about it.
51
52	[[AC:9 - The Train Demanded Blood]]
53	* Lilah and Robert realizing that the car has been detached from the rest of the train, and their daughter is now alone on the other side.
54	* The uncoupling of the cars got rid of [[TyrantTakesTheHelm of a more tyrannical revolution]], but at the cost of sacrificing many good people who were taken hostage by said tyrants, dooming them to freeze to death. We get to see them [[FaceDeathWithDignity try to keep calm]] as they assimilate this.
55
56	[[AC:10 - 994 Cars Long]]
57	* Jinju and Till breaking up.
58	* Ruth's face after her confrontation with Melanie. In the space of a day, she's lost her idol, her potential lover and many of her friends, and the train's future looks totally uncertain. After Melanie leaves, the angry CommanderContrarian immediately disappears -- she just looks lost and ready to cry.
59	* Good news: there are more survivors. Better news: Melanie's daughter is with them. Bad news: [[TheRealRemingtonSteele The real]] Mr. Wilford is their leader. [[FromBadToWorse That won't end well.]]
60
61	!!Season 2
62	[[AC:1 - The Time of Two Engines]]
63	* With the threat of an invasion by Big Alice, Layton is forced to declare martial law aboard Snowpiercer and has to send some of the Tailies back to the tail, because they're the most experienced fighters left on the train. He's dangerously close to a FullCircleRevolution.
64	* Layton tries to send an invasion force into Big Alice, hoping to seize the train and force Wilford to make concessions. Instead, it's a complete curbstomp; several of the troops are killed or maimed, and they're forced to flee back to Snowpiercer. Even the backup plan of taking one of the hospitality workers and dragging him back to Snowpiercer as a hostage fails. While the tactic worked on Snowpiercer, because Melanie actually cared about her employees, the real Mr. Wilford doesn't care about ''anyone'', and thus instead of capitulating, he stops the trains, fully prepared to risk killing off what little remains of humanity to demonstrate that he's in charge.
65	* Melanie is finally reunited with her daughter Alex, but after seven years of brainwashing by Mr. Wilford, Alex believes that she left her to die in order to steal Snowpiercer.
66
67	[[AC:3 - A Great Odyssey]]
68	* We get a better glimpse of Alex and Wilford's relationship, and it is deeply toxic, with him gleefully reminding her how much power he has over her.
69
70	[[AC:4 - A Simple Trade]]
71	* Till about to break down and cry and getting survivor's guilt when she visits the Tea Room. She notices pictures of all the people who died during Layton's Rebellion; Santiago, Big John, Clay, Walter Fleming, and a father with his ''baby'', just to name a few.
72	* Miles finally gets to see Josie again, but he and the tail sadly have to watch her go to Big Alice to get better treatment, though it's also a bit heartwarming, as they give her a hero's send-off.
73	* Miss Audrey's past with Mr. Wilford is both tragic and horrifying. She was a high-class escort at 18, serving Wilford exclusively, and in exchange for a place on Snowpiercer, he made her cut her wrist. Though he did save her and fulfilled his promise of granting her a spot, it's no surprise why she's scared of him.
74
75	[[AC:8 - The Eternal Engineer]]
76	* Icy Bob is sent out into the Freeze to sabotage the train. While he succeeds and manages to get back aboard Big Alice, the cold has badly damaged his body, and Wilford has no further tactical use for him, so the Headwoods are ordered to shift their focus to restoring Josie. As she attends to a dying Bob, Mrs. Headwood laments that she and her husband will never see what Bob could have been if Wilford hadn't wasted him on such a small task.
77	* Boki is given proof that Wilford, a man he had revered for his whole adult life, sees him as little more than a pawn to be manipulated and disposed of. He bitterly hands over his Wilford token to Layton, and suggests that Layton shove it up Wilford's ass the next time they meet.
78	* Thanks to Wilford's machinations, Layton is deposed and Roche is captured. As they board Big Alice, Roche watches helplessly as his wife and daughter are put in the drawers as hostages to ensure his good behavior.
79
80	!!Season 3
81	[[AC:2 - The Last to Go]]
82	* Early in the episode, it's revealed that Mr. Headwood died of influenza during the TimeSkip.
83	* It turns out that newcomer Asha was part of an ill-fated colony that set up inside an old nuclear power plant. As the world froze, they tried to stay warm using the radiation, but most of her fellow survivors developed cancer and died agonizing deaths. Eventually, her nephew got thyroid cancer and she was forced to put him out of his misery, after which she was alone until Layton found her.
84	* As Wilford gloats over finally capturing Ruth and how he's going to put her arm out one of the ports, he points out that while he commissioned the ports to be built as a means of threatening the Tailies, he never actually left instructions on ''when'' or ''how'' they were supposed to be used. The whole cruel procedure may very well have been Ruth's invention, born out of her resentment of constantly being sent to the tail every time they acted out. As it is, Ruth is utterly resigned to the prospect of losing her arm, saying that she wouldn't even accept a prosthetic.
85
86	[[AC:3 - The First Blow]]
87	* Thanks to some brilliant maneuvering, Layton and his crew manage to retake the train and arrest Wilford with minimal casualties. But poor Strongboy is brutally murdered by Kevin, and as Till frees Roche and his family from the Drawers, she discovers that while Roche and his young daughter are fine, Mrs. Roche's pod failed and she froze to death.
88
89	[[AC:4 - Bound By One Track]]
90	* Alex finding her best friend's body aboard the detached Big Alice cars. The poor girl is still clutching her stuffed doll.
91	* Pike calling out Layton for leaving the resistance to fend for themselves, bringing up Strongboy’s death and revealing both the last Australians died of influenza.
92
93	[[AC:6 - Born to Bleed]]
94	* Pike is genuinely offended by Layton and Zara's suspicions that he might hurt their infant daughter to get back at Layton.
95	* Layton tries to settle things with Pike by "Old Ivan's Way", a high-stakes negotiation session where the two parties must either make a compromise or fight to the death. Layton tries making numerous offers to appease Pike, including giving him power and naming him as Liana's godfather, but Pike wants nothing to do with Layton's plans for New Eden, and so he forces them into a knife fight, even though it's painfully obvious that Pike will lose. And of course, he does, bitterly cursing Layton as he bleeds to death.
96	-->"I hope you find it frozen."
97
98	[[AC:7 - Ouroboros]]
99	* Zara and Josie have a frank talk about their complicated relationships with Layton, with Zara suspecting that Layton's only with her because they have a child together, and that without Liana, he'd probably leave her again.
100	* After wandering through his subconscious, Layton comes across the awful truth that he didn't want to confront -- the dragon's blood tree that he saw in his visions wasn't a prophecy, it was in a photograph in Asha's locker at the nuclear power plant.
101
102	[[AC:8 - Setting Itself Right]]
103	* Asha confesses to Layton that she lied about her fellow colonists dying of radiation poisoning. In reality, she poisoned them in a paranoid attempt to protect her nephew. Of course, he ended up dying of thyroid cancer anyway, so it was AllForNothing.
104	* Asha performs a HeroicSacrifice to fix the scrubbers and save the train.
105
106	[[AC:10 - The Original Sinners]]
107	* She may have brought it on herself, but L.J.'s death is still quite sad - dying totally alone and unloved, with her parents dead, her husband gone and her dreams of power crushed. She can't even call out for help as she struggles to breathe.
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder: Comic]]
111	* The conclusion of "The Escape", in which Adeline freezes to death, and Porloff looks over an empty train and realises he's the [[SoleSurvivor only one left]].
112	* The ending of The Crossing, in which the train goes across a frozen ocean with caterpillar treads to try and find the source of some music. Unfortunately, it's an automated signal, and there was nobody there.
113	* Terminus gives us one last tearjerker before the [[EarnYourHappyEnding ending]]. Puig, Timmy, Yona, and all the others decide to leave the only place apparently capable of giving shelter for an uncertain future, except for one person who stays behind because he has cancer. The train leaves with only him watching, and he walks back, hanging his head.
114	[[/folder]]
115

Context Tearjerker / Snowpiercer