The average novel is two hundred pages long or so. Sometimes there's one page in the mix that makes your heart melt.
Examples:
Moments with no pages
Avielle of Rhia- Avielle of Rhia has Avielle, aka Vianna, a hated Silverskin, who's lost her whole family, her identity, and now the woman that took her in, the first to see her for herself, and she doesn't know what to do, when the people of Postern street call her a friend, and give her gifts- the first gifts she's ever gotten, and promise to take care of her. when she asks why, they all respond with, "because we love you". Princess Avi's own MOTHER believe her incapable of love-or of being loved.
- The ending to Barry Hughart's wonderful fantasy novel Bridge of Birds. If you haven't read it, it's too utterly beautiful to spoil. Read the book. Please. It will make the world a better place if you experience the Grand Finale for yourself.
- Carl Sagan was really good at these, as well as Tear Jerkers, but one that really stands out is the end of Pale Blue Dot. In the future, when human colonists on other worlds strain to see Earth in their sky, they will be amazed by how small and fragile it is and remark on "How many rivers we had to cross- before we found our way
."
- In The Doomspell Trilogy' final installment The Wizard's Promise: The Good Witches come to take back their lost sisters.
- Also when Eric asks for the name of the Witch Jarius who just pulled a Heel–Face Turn for their cause.Eric: I dn't even know your name...
Witch: ...Jarius.
Eric: Jarius... thank you, Jarius. - Also in the Doomspell Series... Yemi. Just... Yemi.
- Also when Eric asks for the name of the Witch Jarius who just pulled a Heel–Face Turn for their cause.
Edward Lear
- The ending of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, after the titular characters get married:And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,They danced by the light of the moon,The moon,
The moon,They danced by the light of the moon.- Actually, the whole poem is one big Heartwarming Moment.
- The ending of Eye of the Wolf. Africa (the boy), having journeyed through Africa (the continent), is reunited with all the animals he met on his journey, in the zoo where his adoptive uncle works.
- In the Faery Rebels, Mark gives up his chance to be healed so that Knife can be human, and they can be together.it's the first time that Knife sees truly how much humans can care.
- Chris D'Lacey's book The Fire Within is a Crowning Book Of Heartwarming. Especially the ending. "Wuzzled off." Cue tears, especially at how sweetly and gently it was handled. Even though they weren't truly able to save the squirrel's life, they managed to find happiness in what they did do for him.
- In The Sweet Far Thing, Pippa goes completely batshit insane, tries to kill her friends, and ends up trapped in a building that was pulled under the ground by extremely vicious weeds. After everything is said and done, Gemma tells Felicity that she believed that Pippa was uncorrupted for so long because of Pippa's love for Felicity, and visa versa, and that such love is probably the strongest magic Gemma had ever seen.
- Also, Kartik's Heroic Sacrifice.
- Gemma, Ann and Felicity watch their friend Pippa, lost to The Dark Side, get swallowed up in her own pride and vanity and a monsterous house. Felicity, the girlfriend, weeps, and Gemma consoles her by saying that the love between Pippa and Felicity was probably what kept Pippa from going evil for so long, and is the most pure, powerful, and wonderful magic of all.
- The entire last chapter of The Graveyard Book. Especially Bod's last conversation with Silas."Um. Silas. If you're ever in trouble, call me. I'll come and help."
"I," said Silas, "do not get into trouble."
"No. I don't suppose you do. But still."
It was dark in the crypt, and it smelled of mildew and damp and old stones, and it seemed, for the first time, very small.
Bod said, "I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want," he said, and then he paused and he thought. "I want everything."
"Good," said Silas. Then he put up his hand as if he were brushing away the hair from his eyes - a most uncharacteristic gesture. He said, "If ever it transpires that I am in trouble, I shall indeed send for you."
"Even though you don't get into trouble?"
"As you say."
- Somewhere in the second half of "Son Of A Witch", when Liir is imagining what stories the scraped faces would say of their lives. The stories come one after the other, with no apparent connection, and then one of them goes, "I loved it when I was alive". The next story is just:"I loved it when I was alive too."
- One is in Halo: The Flood, the novelization of Halo: Combat Evolved. The ODST commander speaks with Captain Keyes regarding the Master Chief, and voices his opinion that the Spartans are a failure and that they shouldn't rely on him, because real honest to god marines are what will win the day. Keyes takes his time to reply, and when he does, he gives a stirring and heartfelt defense of the Master Chief, not just for his useful abilities, but because of who he is and what he's struggled through.
- Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, when Kurt, in his last moments, sees every deceased Spartan, including his students and Sam, giving him thumbs up, right before he detonates the nuke.
- The end of the tenth chapter in the second book of Harry Turtledove's Alternate History World War series. Mordecai Anielewicz, a Jewish partisan, is wandering the Polish countryside posing as a Catholic Pole after escaping from Lizard-occupied Warsaw when he is offered food and lodging for the night by a Polish peasant family. When he leaves the next morning, the patriarch of the family tells him that he figured out that he was Jewish, but offered hospitality anyway, since Mordecai "looked like a man who needed taking in." The chapter ends with:"At times, it seemed like the entire country hated his people. Being reminded that it wasn't so left Mordecai with a good feeling for the rest of the day."
- Another work by Turtledove is In the Presence of Mine Enemies set in a world where the Nazis won World War II and the few remaining Jews are in hiding in small groups of only a few families. One family is close to being caught and under the heels of the SS. Only for the SS investigator to subtly inform them they are free to go and implies he and many members of his organization are also hidden Jews and more than anyone knows survived...
Hercule Poirot
- The Hercule Poirot mysteries aren't really known for this, but a good moment was found in Lord Edgware Dies. Even though the dowtrodden Captain Hastings and Poirot aren't much for showing affection, Poirot tells Hastings over breakfast what great affection he actually does have for him, along with a speech about how much he has helped with cases. The latter part is exactly what Hastings needs to hear after all they've been through. Hastings is so pleased that he can hardly help but brush it off."You are beautifully and perfectly balanced. In you sanity is personified. Do you realize what that means to me? When the criminal sets out to do a crime, his first effort is to deceive. Whom does he seek to deceive? The image in his mind is that of the normal man. There is probably no such thing actually - it is a mathematical abstraction. But you come as near to realizing it as is possible...how does this profit me? Simply in this way. As in a mirror I see reflected in your mind exactly what the criminal wishes me to believe. That is terrifically helpful and suggestive."
- Jack Vincennes' Hope Spot in LA Confidential: after confessing his terrible past mistakes while jacked up on drugs, he comes home to a note from his wife saying she's booked them for a ten day vacation in Hawaii to salvage their relationship. Then, "PS: I know you're wondering, so I'll tell you. When you were at the hospital you talked in your sleep. I know the worst I can possibly know and I don't care. We never have to discuss it. Capt. Exley heard you and I don't think he cares either. (He's not as bad as you said he was.)"
- When he's not being seriously scary (such as lifting a man by the neck with one hand), Bud White is probably having one of these.
- "Scary Captain Ed" doesn't get many of these, but one of them is at the end, saying goodbye to Bud and Lynn:
- Ed: (to Bud) Thanks for the push . . . you were my redemption.Lynn: We should go now.Ed: Was I ever in the running?Lynn: Some men get the world, some men get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.
- This passage, found near the end of The Illuminatus! Trilogy:We have never sought power. We have sought to disperse power; to set men and women free. That is to say, to help them discover that they are already free. Everybody's free. The slave is free. The ultimate weapon isn't that plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every women and every child owns it. It is the ability to say No and take the consequences. Fear is failure; the fear of death is the beginning of slavery. Thou hast no right but to do thy will. The goose can break the bottle at any second. Socrates took the hemlock to prove it. Jesus went to the cross to prove it. It's in all history, all myth, all poetry. It's been right out in the open all this time. [...] All I'm doing — all we've ever tried to do — is communicate with people in spite of their biases and fears. Not to rule them. And what we're trying to communicate — the ultimate secret, the philosophers stone, the elixer of life — is just the power of the word No.
- The end of Isaac Asimov's Positronic Man. Andrew Martin has spent the past 200 years trying to be recognized as a human being. He has become closer and closer as time went by; his heart, his lungs, his stomach, every portion of his anatomy is indistinguishable from those used by humans, especially since they're the same prosthetics so many humans are using in the book. Until, at the end, his case comes before a trial of the world who says, effectively, that the only difference between Andrew Martin, robot, and any human you care to name is that Andrew's immortal, and humans are fundamentally mortal. Andrew accepts this, and decides that he wants to be human, and be accepted as human, more than he wants to live. A matter of days before he finally dies, Andrew Martin is accepted as a human being, as the "Bicentennial Man". Manly tears, dammit.
- There's another, more subtle one, shortly afterward; he's on his deathbed, surrounded by friends, and is within minutes of dying. He sees his old mistress, 170 years dead, welcoming him into "heaven", and dies a free human.
- The moment when Andrew is accepted as a free robot, who owns himself. That always gets me.
- Chronicles of Chaos: In the last book of the trilogy, when Vanity is horribly injured, the normally-stoic warlock Quentin babbles frantically in the background, begging deities he doesn't even believe in to spare her life.]]
- War of the Dreaming: Raven's story of how he met his wife; Peter's speech to his son; Wendy's reunion with her parents; Varovitch drawing pictures to remind himself of the future; Oberon welcoming Varovitch to his realm...
- The Golden Oecumene: Phaethon's Love Epiphany—even more effective than most because it happened to somebody else.]]
- John Dies at the End: "Here is everything you need to know about John. John never once referred to you as 'the girl with the missing hand'."
- Johnny and the Bomb has one at the very end, as Kirsty runs to Johnny's house in the rain just to let him know she remembers their adventure (unlike everyone else). It makes it clear exactly who Kirsty is to Johnny: the one person who can actually share in all the weirdness that surrounds him.
- In the Palace of Laughter, Miles and Little( a song Angel) have come all this way so Little can return home, and as she's about to leave, the Null attacks. Miles tries to fend him off, but it's clear that he can't, so Little does the only thing she can- she sings her own, true name, which can never be spoken or sung aloud, lest the angel be doomed to a life as a human. She doesn't have to think about it- she cares more about her friend than her whole existence.*sniff*
- From the (otherwise spectacularly dark) Kushiel's Legacy 3rd book, the boys, eunuchs and women of the zenana cooperating to break into the garden and steal sight of the sun. Then Erich, the Skaldi prisoner there, defending Phedre with the lineHer name is Phèdre nó Delaunay, and she walked across a war into torture and sure death to save her country. From my people.
- After she had spent many hours singing him nursery songs in his own tongue, and essentially been his only friend in a harsh environment. And finally, the climax of the trilogy, when Phèdre speaks the Name of God to banish an angel and save her childhood best friend {It Makes Sense in Context) from an immortality of tortured existence. The Name is a word which cannot be pronounced or understood (it's all a bit magical), but everyone who was present heard it in their own languages. The Name of God? Love. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome.
- From the first book in the Imriel trilogy, the scene where Imriel tells his new friend Eamonn about the horrors he survived as the prisoner/plaything of the Mahrkagir, opening up about things he's never told anyone, and Eamonn just shrugs it off, reminds Imriel that he's not vile even if vile things were done to him, and says that he wishes the Mahrkagir was still alive so he could avenge Imri properly.
- From Kushiel's Justice, after Imri's wife Dorelei has been brutally murdered along with their unborn child, her bodyguard Urist reveals that she had charged him to deliver Imriel safely home to his true love Sidonie if anything happened to her in an especially moving I Want My Beloved to Be Happy moment.
- The end of Silviana de Mari's "The Last Dragon/ The Last Elf" when after they ragtag orphans have made it to their new land, which they name after a fallen friend who saved them, they start to make laws. and it's just so touching, because after they've got several fair laws, one little child says " it isn't forbidden to be an Elf" and Yorsh just nods and writes it down, but he knows that he'll never, ever have to hide or run away again, for the first time in his life.
- and also when Robi is about to tell Yorsh that She's the one in the Prophecy, who he's supposed to marry, but she's afraid, because she thinks that he'll only marry her because of the prophecy. And he looks at her, and says that she's beautiful, and he loves her name before she can say a word. and for the first time since we've met her, Robi smiles.
- The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, gives one to (drumroll please) Jesus. Thanks to advanced technology letting people look into the past, they discover that most of The Bible is either wrong or distorted; for example, he was the illegitimate son of a Roman centurion. The Catholic cardinals get into a deep argument about what to do next. And then someone points out that Joseph still raised the kid, knowing it wasn't his; that the kid grew up to preach mercy and love off his own bat; and that when he faced execution by Pontius Pilate for political reasons, he could easily have rejected his words, and didn't. And then went to his death with zero chance of revival.
- It gets better: the tech they're using produces a minute wormhole, which generates infinitesmal ripples in time-space. You'd need billions of wormholes for anyone to notice. The Catholic Church decide to find out Jesus' last words on the cross... and they can't. So many people are looking at this one spot that the whole area goes fuzzy when you look at it. Billions of people in the future still care about the guy, even though they heard he was completely normal.
- "One sees clearly only with the heart."
- When the little prince leaves the fox after taming him:
- Little Prince: But you're going to weep?Fox: Yes, of course.Little Prince: Then you get nothing out of it?Fox: I get something because of the color of the wheat.
- Book two of the Masters of Rome series, The Grass Crown, has Gaius Marius' trip to watch the new consul elections with the young Julius Caesar. After a second stroke that forced him away from the battlefield, the legendary commander refuses to leave his house for months so the people don't see him in his ruined, half-paralyzed state. Finally his wife and Caesar persuade him to watch the election, and the whole way there everyone cheers as he walks past, looking past the man as they remember the greatness of his many victories both on the battlefield and in the Senate House, and give him the plaudits he deserves.
- Berkeley Breathed's Mars Needs Moms had the protagonist going from complaining bitterly of all the 'awful' things his mother makes him do, such as eating his vegetables, to realizing how significant and important she is in life after she sacrifices herself and gives her space helmet to her son to prevent him from dying from Mars exposure after his helmet breaks.
- In The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M.T. Anderson, the moment Katie realizes that, as a fictional character she will never age, never go to college, never get married, and eventually become just as much an anachronism as her friend Jasper Dash, a Tom Swift style character, as her friend Lily leaves her behind. Then again, a few short pages later she decides that it really isn't that bad: She has friends and she gets to do what she does best.
The Moon King
- An Irish children's novel by Siobhan Parkinson. It's about a little boy called Ricky with a traumatic past being sent to a new foster home. At one point in the story, an Alpha Bitch called Helen has scared him into running away, Gaslighting him into thinking the family doesn't want him. One chapter is from the POV of a girl in the family called Rosheen, with whom Ricky had become friendly. She starts thinking about the family members who would want him to stay, and then she gets to herself..."And Rosheen herself, well she...she supposed she loved him, really, though she hadn't thought of it like that before. She felt her face getting hot thinking those words, but it was true, she did. If loving somebody is worrying about them when they were unhappy and being glad to see them when you come home from school and them making you smile just thinking about them, well then, yes, she loved Ricky."
- All four stories end with Nine (and in the second and third books, Chris) witnessing at least two ghosts meeting and ascending to Heaven together.
- Nine and her father exchanging quiet "I love you"s in The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed.
- In the final book, Mrs. Rabbski and Mr. Howell become a couple. What makes it even better is that they're now (mostly) on the kids' side now, so it makes you feel really happy for them.
- In Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind, the protagonist, Melody, can't speak because of cerebral palsy. When she gets a "Medi-Talker" she spends an afternoon practicing with it with her mentor and caretaker, Mrs. V. What Melody has to say to her parents when they come to pick her and her sister up is touching.Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I am so happy... I love you.
- The Pickwick Papers is full of scenes that could qualify, but the one where Job Trotter tells Sam how Mr Pickwick saved him and Jingle (bringing about their Heel–Face Turn) stands out."...Mr Weller," said Job, with real tears in his eyes for once, "I could serve that gentleman till I fell down dead at his feet."
"I say!" said Sam. "I'll trouble you, my friend! None o' that!"
Job Trotter looked amazed.
"None o' that, I say, young feller," repeated Sam firmly. "No man serves him but me."
The Powerless Of This World
- Boris Strugatsky's The Powerless Of This World has a rather dark, depressing plot, for the most part. From the very beginning of the novel, the main character, Vadim, is hounded and assailed by a major crime boss and his mooks, becomes a nervous wreck from the experience, while getting no support whatsoever from a Jerkass of a "friend" and some fairly cryptic advice from his Trickster Mentor. He does get some concern, sympathy and emotional support from the rest of his old friends, but nobody seems willing or able to actually help him solve his problem. Unbeknownst to him, however, some of his friends (including at least one major Jerk with a Heart of Gold, or at least with a sense of solidarity) did already begin working on a plan to get the crime boss off his back. This culminates in a Big Damn Heroes moment, which works out perfectly and is followed up by male bonding as the friends reunite. The fact that it was by then made quite redundant doesn't really reduce the heartwarming factor of the scene.
- E. Nesbit's The Railway Children: "Oh, my Daddy! My Daddy!"
- Redwall: Blaggut. Nothing specifically that he did, just Blaggut's existence is the entire series' CMOH. He starts out as the typical Ugly Cute Punch-Clock Villain rat, patiently enduring his boss Slipp's abuse, then starts to get second thoughts when Slipp is contemptuous of his being nice to the lost baby mouse and mole they find. Then he cries his eyes out for hours when Slipp kills the badger mother. Slipp gets angry and starts to beat him up again, and Blaggut gets a Moment of Awesome / The Dog Bites Back moment by killing him and going back to the Abbey to face the music. And they exonerate him of all blame and he gets to be one of only two vermin in twenty books whose Mook–Face Turn actually worked out.]] Awwwwwwwwwwww.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
- A Series of Unfortunate Events actually turns out to be one in its entirety. Beatrice is actually the Baudelaires' mother. Lemony wrote the series partly to protect the children he never had, to honor his lost love's memory, and to expose the wrongness in VFD's constant bickering, how no one is right in the matter.
- There was also a much smaller one in the eleventh book, where Fiona is reunited with her long-lost brother, Fernald.
- the end of Shannon Hale's " Book of a Thousand Days. I think the line that sums it up best is this," More than a thousand days i've know her, more than a thousand songs i've sung...but only now does Saren truly begin to heal'.
- If Dashti's entry about finding My Lord( the cat), who has been thought dead for the past hundred pages, doesn't make you grin...nothing will.
- Shannon Hale is full of these. In Goose girl, for example, any time Enna is around and Isi/ Ani is sad, there is going to be a moment. any time.
- Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. A young boy spends every day with his favorite tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, eating her apples. When he becomes a young man, he's sad because he has no money, so the tree gives him her apples to sell. When he becomes older, he wants a house so he can have a wife and family, so the tree gives him her branches to build a house. Later, he wants to sail away and forget his troubles, so she gives him her trunk to build a boat. When he returns, many years later, the tree is sad because she has nothing left to give to him. He tells her that he's very tired ... all he wants is a place to sit and rest, and the tree, who is by now nothing but a stump, offers him a place to sit and rest.
- The short story "Saint Junior," by Sherman Alexie. The story follows a middle-aged man and his wife as they wake up on a snowy morning and watch a rerun of a Michael Jordan press conference while they reminesce about how they met and courted in college. Firstly, there's the husband thinking about how people choose the ones they love—and how he and his wife, every single day, continue to choose each other. And then, finally, they go out into the snow, both of them chubby and out of shape, and play basketball. In the short story collection it's in, it's also placed right after the two most depressing stories in the book, just to make it all the more obvious.
- Linda Sue Park's A Single Shard combines Death by Newbery Medal (""Wherever you are on your journey, Crane-man, I hope you are traveling on two good legs") with Heartwarming Moments: Min: "How are you to help me if you do not have a wheel of your own?" and Ajima: "Be home in time for supper."
Star Trek Expanded Universe
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Ghost Ship: Every time Geordi and Data talk to each other. Every time they look at each other, or look at someone else in regards to each other, you know there's an aww moment coming.
- Culminating when Data tells Geordi that he considers him his best friend before pulling off Geordi's communicator, dumping him on top of a stack of storage equipment that's too high for him to get down easily, locking him in the storage room and going off to risk his hide in an attempt to save the crew from a Giant Life Sucking entity.
- In the Star Trek Online novel The Needs of the Many, Jake Sisko tells the holographic 1962 lounge singer Vic about the ongoing fight for holographic persons' rights, and how it has advanced very far, but isn't quite official legislation yet. Vic dismisses it, saying that his programming isn't advanced enough to handle freedom from his program or holosuite. Then, just as Jake is leaving, Vic and his holographic audience all start singing We Shall Overcome.
- The frame story of the Star Trek: The Original Series novel Final Frontier is Kirk trying to deal with the death of Edith Keeler. Near the end of the novel, Spock tells him this:Spock: Your presence in the past was not wasted. You made a difference for her. In the unchanged past, she lived and she died. That is all. In the altered time, she was loved before she died.
- The Running Man, in the later chapters. Its slightly subverted with the hollow death-threat. Amellia could have had this random, scruffy man whom kidnapped her killed, by simply saying he didn't have a bomb, but, even though he wouldn't have time to kill her under fire from the hunters, she cooperates. Then, at the end, he returns this by giving her the parachute. Following this, it doubles as a Tear Jerker as Ben crashes the plane into the goverment building, destroying the totalitarian monsters that rule the country. Why? They had his wife murdered.
The Sword The Ring And The Chalice
- Throughout the trilogy The Sword, The Ring And The Chalice, it was quite clear that Alexeika was quite infatuated with the uncrowned King Faldain. But unfortunately, Dain was in love with another girl, Pheresa. When we see Alexeika's point of view, we see that that she desperately tried to catch his attention - from showing her excellent fighting skills to unbraiding her hair - and growing increasingly envious of Pheresa. Interestingly, from Dain's point of view, we see that he never acted with anything more than friendship and a leader-to-soldier relationship towards Alexeika. After the war was over, Dain was finally reunited with Pheresa but he realized, over the course of the last book, that he didn't love her anymore. When he met up with Alexeika later on, he found that he had fallen in love with the tough, fierce, swearing female warrior. He even mentioned that a boy's infatuation was a far cry from a man's love. As a little twist, Alexeika was so shocked that Dain had gently turned down Pheresa, she argued with him that he was well suited with Pheresa. However, Dain told her that he was happy with what he had here.
- Dain: (running after Alexeika, laughing) " You little she-cat. Don't you understand anything? I love you."Alexeika: You can't. You don't."Dain: "Ah, but I do." (pulls her into a hug)Alexeika: (gruffly) " I'm a knight. A comrade-in-arms. A horse thief. A warrior-maid."Dain: " All those things. Although you promise to stop theiving horses. I cannot permit my queen to do that."Alexeika: (stunned) " Your queen?"Dain: " My queen. To rule at my side. To give me dispute rather than gentle compliance. To have courage equal to my own. Alexeika, I would rather love a woman who has the passion to make mistakes, just as I make them and the honesty to admit them afterwards, as I hope I will always do, than to spend my life with someone docile and dull."
- In Lost In a Good Book, Thursday loses her husband when he gets erased from time by the Goliath Corporation in order to blackmail her. The rest of history gets rewritten, except that she's still pregnant with his child. When she finally realizes it, there's pure glee.
- From the climax of the same book, Thursday's father deciding to sacrifice himself to save all of life on earth.
- Granny Next giving Thursday the strength to fight mnemnomorph Aornis Hades in her dreams and remember her erased husband.
- From First Among Sequels, we see a sweet Pet the Dog moment: the Goliath Corporation sends a crew to get the McGuffin from a disaster poem. When Thursday gets there, she finds that the poem's characters and the Goliath crew have all frozen to death, except for a little girl, wearing a Goliath thermal jacket.
- Let's just say that if you've read all the way through Tad Williams' Otherland Doorstopper Cyberpunk series, you've been wondering what Olga Pirovsky has to do with J Corp, the Other, and all the other mysterious nastiness that's been going on. Certainly there have been clues seeded throughout the novels, but it isn't until the climactic reveal that we learn the truth:the Other is her son, stolen from her at birth and imprisoned in a satellite as the "brain" of Otherland's operating system. And his name is Daniel.
- In The Other Side of Dawn, when the ferals are about to be evacced to New Zealand...and Ellie realizes for the first time how much she's come to care for them:
- "How had this happened? How had I become so caught up in the lives of these little tackers? One moment they'd been a hopeless nuisance, marching off on their own, getting lost, causing Darina's death; the next, they had wound fifty metres of baling twine around my heart and pulled it so tight that I wasn't sure I could survive the pain of losing them."
- At the end of The Other Side of Dawn, when the Kevin, Fi, Homer and Lee arrive back at Wirrawee, but even more so, when they and Ellie finally get together at Homer's place and they're all just so... happy.
- After Ned Land and Conseil tried to give The Professor Aronax some precious oxygen, they converse More Expendable Than You:"Good lord, Professor," Ned Land answered me, "don't mention it! What did we do that's so praiseworthy? Not a thing. It was a question of simple arithmetic. Your life is worth more than ours. So we had to save it.""No, Ned," I replied, "it isn't worth more. Nobody could be better than a kind and generous man like yourself!""All right, all right!" the Canadian repeated in embarrassment.
- Walk Two Moons, after Sal's grandmother dies.
- This ain't my marriage bed...but it will do.
- At the end of the two page chapter "Souls", Ben and Sal both draw the same symbol representing their soul; an oak leaf within a circle.
- Towards the end of Watership Down, months after their adventures, Hazel happens upon a mother rabbit telling her kits a story ostensibly starring the rabbits' legendary hero El-ahrairah. It gradually dawns on him that the tale is really his story; the tale of his True Companions' escape from Sandleford and journey to Watership Down. Many tears of joy ensue.
- Also the bit where Bigwig is fighting Woundwort and tells him that he will defend that run until he's dead. And this from the rabbit who, in the beginning, was objecting to Hazel's leadership.
Bigwig: My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.- At the end, when an old and weary Hazel suddenly starts feeling better than he ever had in his whole life... then turns and sees his own dead body laying in the grass. He feels just a fleeting moment of regret, then happily bounds off to join all those who've gone before.
- The Gathering Storm has one in the form of Verin]]'s final moments. After revealing herself as a mole and giving Egwene 70 years' worth of research on the Black Ajah, something that can only be done at the hour of a Black's death, she lies back, preparing to die with "the soul of a Brown."]] Egwene's response:
- Egwene: "Your soul is not Brown. I can see it...Your soul is of a pure white, Verin. Like the Light itself." Sob.
- Rand gets an amazing one as well in the climax of The Gathering Storm. In the height of his madness, atop the mountain that serves as a tomb for his past incarnation, trying to find a reason why he shouldn't take the Godlike mass of Power he's channeling and obliterate the world to just end the misery of the cycle of reincarnation and rebirth, and what does he come up with? "Because each time we live, we get to love again."
- One every third page in Anna Baltzer's Witness in Palestine, an autobiographical account of an American Jew working with peace organizations in the Occupied Territories. Let's just say that in complete contradiction of American and Israeli myth and being given copious reason to the contrary by Israeli authorities, the Palestinians' attitude towards Anna and towards Americans and Israelis in general are overwhelmingly positive. (Considering the state Israel and the Occupied Territories have been in the past 60+ years, it should come as no surprise that there are an equal number of Tear Jerkers.
- In High Wizardry, the moment that the Lone Power finally gives in and admits its errors.
- "It fell down, a great disastrous fall like a lightning-stricken tower's, and wept darkness with desire for the Light."
- And another in Wizards at War, when Nita and Kit visit their Wizard Seniors,Tom and Carl, after they win the big battle. The last time Nita had visited them, neither remembered the fact that they were wizards, because they had both lost their magic. The kids knock on the door, and wait anxiously. After a few moments:
The inside door opened. Tom and Carl were standing there looking at them."Uh, hi," Nita said.The silence lasted for a few moments. Then Tom said, "We are on errantry...and boy, do we ever greet you."He held the screen door open for them. Nita tackled Tom, and the hug went on for some time.
Other
- One of the oldest Irish poems in recorded history, 'Pangur Ban', was written by a young monk about his pet kitten, Pangur Ban, chasing mice. Yes, even in the eighth century, they had Kindhearted Cat Lovers. Go Awww.
- Every single story in every single Chicken Soup for the Soul book ever is either this trope, a Tear Jerker, or both.
- The ending of the short story Dandelion Girl. *Sniff*. You'll have to excuse me, there seems to be something in my eye... tears. The story's too good to explain why, even under spoiler tags (those things are Schmuck Bait anyway).
- SO many things in Book 10 of The 39 Clues. Just... you have to read it, there's too many to list.
- The Once and Future King. Most of the book, really. When "Wart," all his life treated well but missing a place in the world, is crowned king, and Merlyn is the first person to refer to him as King Arthur. The first scene Guenever and Lancelot have in "The Candle in the Wind." The third and final time Lancelot saves Guenever from being burned at the stake, when Arthur — despite years of betrayal on their part, which he's only discovered recently — cheers him on. Oh, and the ending. The ending.
- Summer of the Monkeys. A boy with a gang of monkeys he somehow obtained from a zoo. At the end, he sells the monkeys for money to help pay for his little sister's operation (she's a cripple and this is to help her walk.) The book ended with the two of them running like mad across a field...together...*sniff*
- Make Ways For Dragons by Thorarinn Gunnarsson is about a fey-like good dragon named Dalvenjah FoxFire who followed a monstrous evil dragon to Earth to fight. She meets a human, Allan, and they get along very, very well and she even teaches him magic. But he can't keep the magic, because the only way would be to keep the magic Name he would have; which being Dragon magic, would transform him into a dragon. She defeats the evil dragon, and she and her daughter are about to go....when she asks if she'll come with him as a dragon and he accepts.
- In Alison Goodman's "Eon: The Last Dragoneye", Ryko, probably Eon/Eona's most faithful friend, spends all of about a chapter hating her after finding out the truth. Then she stays to save him instead of running after her former friend Dillon, who has stolen the black folio, which they were trying to keep away from him and his master.Ryko: "You should have run after him. You should have run after him. But I'm glad you stayed."
- The Time Traveler's Wife is constructed of these - but the most poignant scene was Henry's "meeting" of Alba in the museum - and her joy at seeing him since he has been dead for several years.
- The end of Ptolemy's Gate, when Nathaniel's heroic sacrifice]] is just like Ptolemy's.
- Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn pulls one of these off at the end when Rachel the Dragon is reunited with Simon.
- The Mouse and His Child, in the end, where Manny finally lets himself become a true part of the family. The bit with the wedding, or where the seal becomes part of the mouse family. The WHOLE ENDING is full of those.
- Slaughterhouse-Five has a lovely description of a war film that Billy watches backwards: bombers undamage German cities by pulling bombs back into their planes, the bombs get shipped to factories to be disassembled, and the minerals get sent back to specialists, who "put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so that they would never hurt anybody ever again."
- The poem Invictus by W.E Henley is a wonderful tribute to the human spirit overcoming all obstacles. I'll quote just the last verse:It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.- Inverted by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy Mc Veigh, who used it as his final statement before being executed.
- The end of Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams, where Maijstral comes to the realization that he might not be such a coward after all. Because of Ronny Romper.]]
- The scene which includes following from Lord of Light:"You may not have this man, oh Death," said the Master of the North, "For he belongs to the world, and we of the world will defend him."
- There are a few very specific reasons for this, other than the fact that the world itself seems to be rejecting Yama's attempt to destroy the false Buddha, Sam. Namely, where it takes place, hinting at Yama's coming Heel–Face Turn.
- The Gods of War, fourth book in Conn Iggulden's Emperor series, has one following the Battle of Pharsalus. Caesar orders that no one may kill the traitor Brutus if he is found, and when he finds him himself he grants him forgiveness in a rather heartwarming scene (two scenes, to be picky).
- The ending to It's Kind of a Funny Story. In spades.
- In the 9th The Saga of Darren Shan book, Killers of the Dawn when Mr. Crepsley dies. Paticularly how Darren mentions how he was his greatest friend...
- In Zenna Henderson 's Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, when Peter asks if he and his sister will be sent away because they are half Terran. Valancy says, "Oh my people, my people! Of course not! As if there were any question." Given Valancy's own story, this is especially heartrending.
- In This House of Brede has a powerful scene in which a nun must go to sleep, even though she wants to stay awake to pray for a dangerously ill friend. As she's leaving the chapel, two other nuns who have never really liked her — or each other — come in to pray in her place. These prayer relays, held by nuns in enclosed monasteries for people they may or may not know, are one of the endearing things that inspired Rumer Godden to write the book.
- In Then There Were Five, when Mr. Melendy is bidding against the villainous Mr. Crown for a pair of horses.
- Siobhan Parkinson's "The Moon King" where the troublesome foster child Ricky has gone missing. One of the other children Rosheen has been acting as a surrogate sister to him since he arrived and she is incredibly worried by his disappearance. The narration then says "and she supposed she loved him".
- Rosemary Wells's "Bunny Planet" series is filled like this. Especially when a bunny queen named "Janet" shows them "The Day That Should Have Been" where you see a sweet dream sequence with the bunny being in a very peaceful mood. And the scenes where the bunny queen takes them to Bunny Planet and you see her cradling the sleeping bunny.◊
- Ann Hood's The Obituary Writer features Vivien Lowe, the titular writer. Despite the very tragic nature of her job, she helps people find solace with their loved ones' deaths by focusing the obituaries on what made them unique while they were alive, rather than focusing on dates and causes of death. Such as helping a woman come to terms with her husband's death by addressing his ability to perfectly imitate bird songs.
- The ending, while a Tearjerker, has a moment of this when Vivien, now Peter's mother Birdy on her deathbed tells Claire that she shouldn't waste her one beautiful life on grief and instead focus on how things will recover.
- The ending to Rosemary Wells's 1998 book Yoko where Timothy and Yoko are seen having lunch with eachother.◊ Since nobody wanted Yoko's sushi and Timothy never got a chance to try the other students' lunches from different cultures. Yoko was the only one that had't gotten picked but Timothy joined in. Since the class would usually trade their lunch, Yoko trades her sushi to Timothy while Timothy trades his peanut butter and honey to Yoko. This was changed in the Animated Adaptation where both are seen eating sushi together.
- The end of "Let's Get a Pup!", Said Kate, which involves Kate and her two dogs Rosie and Dave sleeping on the bed together. Also, the fact that when Kate and her parents realise they want Rosie, they don't take Dave back, but rather adopt both dogs.
