Tear Jerker / Magic: The Gathering

His face was a mask of pain; his body seemed rigid with shock.

As The Multiverse of Magic: The Gathering is vast and filled with many characters, it is expected that some planes and some iconic characters will be met with tragic fates.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Main continuity

• The ending of The Thran. After witnessing the newborn Phyrexia and the fall of Halcyon, Rebbec is offered a chance to become a goddess to Yawgmoth's side. Despite being tempted and having lost everything else (including Glacian), she refuses and closes the portal, trapping Yawgmoth in Phyrexia, before letting herself die to atone for her role in the empire's fall. While Yawgmoth is... well, Yawgmoth, there seemed to be some kind of sincere love between the two. It seems less a Heroic Sacrifice to save Dominaria from a dangerous foe and more the tragic ending of a love story that was never meant to be.
• Dominaria as of Time Spiral. The entire plane has been ravaged by war and destruction, from the fall of the Thran to the Brothers' War to the Golgothian Sylex activation and subsequent Ice Age to the Phyrexian Invasion to the Mirari/Karona incidents. All of its most powerful heroes such as Urza, Freyalise, Lord Windgrace, Bo Levar, etc., have been dead for centuries or died trying to close the time rifts. Once-flourishing societies like Benalia, Amrou and Zhalfir have been ravaged by the ensuing wars or abandoned/lost to time chaos. Slivers have been running rampant throughout the plane for decades and Phyrexian remnants still wander the land, trying to win a war long over. On top of all of that, with the time rifts in full swing, random people and creatures are being ripped from their current place in time and dropped into Dominaria, where they either wreak havoc, have no clue where they are, or DO know where they are and just wonder what the hell happened to home. Just imagine what it must be like for people still surviving there, especially the people that have been alive for multiple wars.
• Elspeth's entire life is one Tear Jerker after another. She grew up on a plane ruled by Phyrexians, which is the height of Nightmare Fuel in of itself. She awakened her spark and escaped when she was thirteen, and for several years travelled the multiverse (including finding her sword on Theros). Then she came to Bant, and made it her home, becoming a knight and finding the comradeship and friends she dearly missed. But then the Conflux happened and her world fell apart around her, leaving her practically broken as Grixis invaded.
  • After that, she wandered again, and when Ajani found her in the arenas of Urborg, she refused to return to Bant because she felt she was unworthy of being a knight.
  • On Mirrodin, she is forced to watch the resistance fail and New Phyrexia rise despite her best efforts.
  • On Theros, she manages to become a hero by slaying the hydra Polukranos and then breaking the siege of Akros. It seems as though her misery is finally over when she and Daxos fall in love and she is a hero, but then Xenagos brings it all crashing down. First, he uses mind-control to trick Elspeth into murdering Daxos, and then she becomes a scapegoat after he ascends into godhood. Blamed by all of Theros, Elspeth struggles on with Ajani's help and finally confronts Xenagos, slaying him with the Godsend.
  • To even reach Xenagos, she undertook the Ordeal of Erebos, which consisted of a Lotus-Eater Machine where she was married and had children on Bant. And she had to reject this illusion to advance. As a reward for this, she gained access to Nyx but also one request of Erebos. After slaying Xenagos, she asks to trade her life for Daxos'. But then Heliod enters, disarming her with ease, taunting her, and then killing her with the Godsend out of sheer spite and jealousy.
  • Thanks to Ashiok, she didn't even get the peaceful afterlife she was promised. As a hero, she should have been granted blessed rest in Theros' version of Elysium. Instead, Ashiok found her and got their kicks by torturing her with constant nightmares about Phyrexians.
• Daxos' ultimate fate is just heartbreaking. Erebos does as Elspeth requests, but he revives Daxos as a Returned who wanders endlessly in search of Elspeth, who by this point is condemned to the underworld.
• The flavor text for the Planeshift version of Slay. "The elves had the edge in guile, skill, and valor. But in the end, only sheer numbers mattered." To make things worse, the art shows the elves of Llanowar being overrun by Phyrexians.
• Sorin finding the long-dead corpse of his friend Ugin on Tarkir. He loses all hope of combating the Eldrazi when he confirms that not a trace of his old comrade remains in spirit, echo, or whatever remaining form but a miles-long-carcass.
• Sorin and Nahiri, The Lithomancer, witnessing the extinguishing of an unnamed plane and its last remnant of inhabitants in 'The Lithomancer'. And the knowledge that this is exactly what has happened numerous times before, and will continue for as long as the Eldrazi roam free.
• The Lunarch's Journal and the defeated reaction of Comitant Dovid about the nature of the nature of Avacyn.
  • "We are livestock. We are unwitting participants in our own cultivation. The church to which I have dedicated my life, the being that I have loved since birth, the boundaries of my world, all of it is a sinister lie. How strange this world is, and how cruel."
• Tarkir's storyline is pretty much one hell of a sad ride. Throughout the Khans of Tarkir uncharted realms, we're offered a distinctive, rich world with several complex characters (aside from the Sultai), albeit dying slowly. Sarkhan goes back in time, and we're given a glimmer of hope for Tarkir's problems to be amended... only to end up with a far worse present, where dragons tyrannise the plane and destroyed everything the clans held dear, like a particularly twisted Ironic Hell:
  • The Abzan are in the new timeline ruled by draconic fascists who, while nicer than other dragons, still impose their morality with an iron fist and kill anyone who dares to worship their ancestors. They literally take babies away from their parents, and while relatively merciful, still operate on a social darwinist level, with Dromoka herself eating the "weak links".
  • The Jeskai were converted into Ojutai's personal cult, have their own history edited, and are run by an elitistic platform in which dragons can do whatever they want without consequence. Fanaticism has also increased to the point that dissenters are considered heretics worthy of death.
  • While the most warmongering clan, the Mardu were still reasonably honourable and valued altruism. In the new timeline, they have been degraded into murderous, cannibalistic savages that are pretty much Kolaghan's punching bags.
  • The Temur were pretty much forced to become Atarka's personal waiters, always serving her at all times lest they become her next meal (and she pretty much revels in this, starving them and forcing them to hold her praises to remind them of their situation). As if that wasn't enough, she ate away all that they held dear, from their shamanic culture to their notion of family. Now, they're probably the biggest threat to Tarkir as a whole, hunting species to the brink of extinction and conquering new lands to sate their brood master's hunger.
  • Individual characters suffered immensely as well. In the original timeline, Gvar Barzeel and Anfenza were adopted siblings, but now the former was never adopted because Dromoka doesn't allow it anymore, forcing him to stay with the Kolaghan and become a horrible, hateful shadow of his original self, while the latter was murdered for daring to worship her ancestors. Neither of them knew each other, which makes it especially tragic given how well-developed their relationship was on the original timeline.
• Unsurprisingly given how sparks most often ignite, the five Magic: Origins stories will punch you right in the feels.
  • Chandra had to watch as her mother, her father, and an entire village of innocents were slaughtered, and the one who did the slaughtering blamed her for it.
  • Kytheon is sent by the sun god to slay a titan of Erebos that is on a rampage. He and his Irregulars set out to meet the titan and conquer it... just in time for Erebos himself to show up. Filled with arrogance, Kytheon throws his sun-blessed spear at the God, and Erebos casually redirects it back at him. Kytheon calls upon his magic to protect him, but the clash of powers instead releases a shockwave that strikes down all his friends.
  • First Jace discovers that his mentor, the person who took him in when others condemned him as a freak, has been Mind Raping him over and over and using him as a pawn to keep the perpetual war going. In the ensuing mental duel, he wins... but only at the cost of losing all his memories. When the ensuing shock causes him to planeswalk to Ravnica, he can't even remember where he came from, let alone his family or childhood or anything.
  • Lilliana may be the biggest bitch in Dominaria, but watching her desperate attempt to save her brother's life go horribly wrong and raise him as some kind of twisted zombie-thing will still bring tears to your eyes.
  • Nissa's emotions as she watches the elves of Lorwyn slaughtering the boggarts and her connection to the plane's spirit lets her feel each death diminish it ever so slightly.
• Goblins have always been a source of Black Comedy, with all the various horrible things happening to them across time, space, and all the planes of Dominaria being a Running Gag for much of the game's history. Then you read about one of them crying her eyes out over the corpse of her friend and blaming herself for not being fast enough when one of her legs is half crippled, and it doesn't seem all that funny anymore.
• In Home Waters, we learn the story about how Kiora ignited her spark. After accidentally attracting a giant mer-eating serpent with her younger sister, Turi, Kiora desperately led the monster away from Turi, who turned around just in time to see her idolized older sister eaten alive. The trauma of that event ignited Kiora's spark, and she wandered the Multiverse for months before finding her way back. In all that time, both sisters deeply believed to have completely failed the other, and by the time of Kiora's return, Turi had sunk deep into depression, wasting away almost completely.
• The Believers' Pilgrimage is just one long string of tear jerkers, one after the other. It opens with Jace doing a mind-dive on his companion, Jori En, and reliving her memories of watching her friend — the only person who understood the way the Hedrons worked firmly enough to save Zendikar — die. Jace realises he's got to go to the Eye of Ugin to find the answers he needs, but Gideon refuses to help, insisting that the people of Sea Gate are more important. Jori En and Jace set out alone, only to be waylaid by a group of Kor who've given up hope and started worshiping Ulamog. They escape, only to discover Ulamog is working its way towards Sea Gate. Jace insists Jori En return to Sea Gate to warn them, but Jori En refuses -$ whereupon Jace breaks out his powers. She finds herself alone, having spent an unknown amount of time travelling back towards Sea Gate, thinking she was the one who convinced Jace to go on to the Eye of Ugin alone.
• From Shadows of Innistrad, Avacyn, the Angel created to protect mankind and preserve the status quo of the plane, has gone mad, and the card Anguished Unmaking shows that Sorin has no choice but to put her down like a rabid dog... and it hurts.
  "Sorin had created Avacyn, so it was a cruelty beyond imagining, a pain beyond description, that it fell upon him to end her forever."
  • Clip Wings could count for similar reasons.
  It is a grim duty to save the world from those created to protect it.
• On another note, Sorin and Nahiri. Think of what a punch in the gut the current situation is to Sorin. After Nissa messed up the maintenance of the seal of the Eldrazi, Sorin goes out of his way to, in spite of his words of washing his hands of Zendikar, locate Nahiri and Ugin so they can re-seal them. In Tarkir's original timeline, until Sarkhan, Ugin was dead, but he's found alive again in the new timeline. That only left Nahiri, nowhere to be found... and then he returns to his home plane and finds her wrecking the place in spite. Both parties are unaware, in turn, that four other Planeswalkers saved Zendikar from destruction. Nahiri is throwing a tantrum of spite over a problem that has now been solved, and Sorin's home he sought to protect is currently in shambles, with Eldritch Moon on the way to show things can seemingly only get worse.
  • Promises New and Old gives some insight on why Nahiri's friendship with Sorin fell apart. The first time the Eldrazi escaped, Nahiri was forced to reseal the Eldrazi on her own since Ugin and Sorin didn't respond to her call for help. When she finds Sorin, she is overjoyed and almost speechless when she sees that he's alive, believing him to be dead since he didn't come to her aid on Zendikar. Sorin, informs her that he didn't receive the message due to the protections he put around Innistrad interfering. To twist the knife yet further, Sorin tells Nahiri to go bother Ugin instead and implies that he could easily have killed her when her spark ignited. This understandably breaks Nahiri's heart and sets her on the road that leads to her lashing out on her old mentor in Shadows Over Innistrad.
  • Nahiri hates Sorin so much that she crosses the Moral Event Horizon. All those cults, the cryptoliths, the Drownyard? It was all to lure Emrakul to Innistrad, and let Her do the rest of the wrecking. Nahiri has become what she hated being viewed as, and just doesn't care.
  • War of the Spark cards reveal that they're still trying to kill each other on Ravnica, even as Bolas comes perilously close to taking over the Multiverse.
• I Am Avacyn gives us the death of Avacyn shown on Anguished Unmaking... but in first person. Before Avacyn could kill Jace and Tamiyo, Sorin comes to intervene, whom she finds that she cannot harm, until he explains to her that it is because he was the one to create her and made her to be loyal to him. Avacyn's madness starts to subside, and she has a horrible Heel Realization before starting to blame Sorin for allowing her to be corrupted. Sorin finds that Avacyn is able to harm him because she had lost all faith in him. After a long and drawn-out battle, Sorin is forced to erase her from existence bitterly, Innistrad losing its only protector.
  I am Avacyn. I am to protect. But I have not protected.
• Sacrifice follows the story of childhood friends Mia and Wilbur and their growing infatuation for each other, only for them to slowly drift apart as Wilbur is drawn in to the town's growing fear and obsession with the legend of the "Gitrog Monster", which Mia disparages as a myth. She persists in her affections for him, however, and later goes into town where the villagers decide that since Mia does not believe in the Gitrog Monster, she will become a sacrifice to the beast in order to keep it from devouring them all. It doesn't work, and the Gitrog Monster eats them all in response, but Wilbur manages to save Mia and pull her to safety. Immediately afterwards, Mia Goes Mad from the Revelation, and to show her fealty towards the Gitrog Monster, she stabs Wilbur in the chest and offers him up to it, while cradling him affectionately in her arms. A tale of young love cut tragically short by the horrors and madness infecting Innistrad.
• A Real Life example: Mark Rosewater's emotional Drive To Work Podcast #306 in which he paid tribute to Christopher Rush, the influential Magic artist and dear friend of Mark's who had died the previous day. Maro mostly holds it together for 30 minutes, but starts breaking down from the point where he tries to talk about his wife's fondest memory of Chris. The worst part is the very end, when Mark attempts his standard up-beat outro while he's clearly in floods of tears. It's heartbreaking.
• As of spoilers of Eldritch Moon and Uncharted Realms, Emrakul is on Innistrad, and everything is being warped by Her mere presence. Bruna and Gisela, whom had joined Avacyn's bloodthirsty crusade, have been warped into something that looks akin to the Thing!
• Uncharted Realms gives us the brief tale of the child Maeli in Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon. The boy ran from home and was soon sought and brought back personally by Avacyn herself, before the angel descends into madness. Weeks pass, and soon insane angels are set upon his home, his fearful mother ushering him to run into the forest as blood-stained wings descend. He, in his running, soon comes upon a kindly old woman. She gives him a stuffed bunny, invites him to live with her for as long as he likes. This being Innistrad, the warning signs are there, and sure enough, disaster happens, just not how it would occur without Nahiri's and Emrakul's influence on the realm. One night, he sets to dinner with her, and with his first slurp of soup... the old woman's chest suddenly bursts open into a mass of writhing limbs and the now-monstrous woman gives chase to the terrified child in a mad frenzy. He runs and runs until he somehow, still carrying that bunny, makes it to a squad of Cathars, all the while praying for Avacyn to protect him... and then, to crush the boy, a mad angel descends, not to protect him, but to declare to his face that Innistrad's protector is dead, and now there is only Emrakul. Then, the blade comes down, all the while he begs and prays in his mind.
• Kessig Prowler's flavor text gives a sad view on the state of the local lycanthropes, and reads thus:
  In the wake of Emrakul, some werewolves' human forms were lost forever. A different kind of transformation has taken place.
• The card Peace of Mind in Eldritch Moon, especially to anyone who has lost a loved one to dementia.
  Not all minds touched by the Eldrazi turn to raging psychosis. Some simply withdraw from this world into memories of a better one.
• In Release, we catch up with Ajani for the first time since Theros, and his actions on Kaladesh are interspersed with a flashback of him visiting Tamiyo on Kamigawa. From that, it turns out that part of his reason for throwing himself into his Rage Against the Heavens was so he didn't have to think about Elspeth's death.
  Ajani: "I went among the people. I told them her story, as I'd witnessed it. They had to know. They had to remember. It had to matter. I walked and spoke, and did not rest until the words had taken root, and were growing on their own. It was important. And it meant... I didn't have to think."
  • The worst Tear Jerker, however, is right after that:
  "In the stories my people tell — the old ones, the ones that matter — the hero loses her mentor. She lives, grieves, and moves on to save the world."
  The clouds rumbled. Poofy-headed rain charms spun and danced on their strings. Nashi didn't know what Tamiyo would say, so he said nothing. Sometimes Tamiyo said nothing, and that was the right thing.
  At last, Ajani whispered, "It should have been me. Not her."
  His big hands were shaking. The sharp hidden claws, the long tooths, the arms like tree trunks.
  "My hero is dead," he said, hoarsely. "And all she wanted, all she fought so hard for... was just a home. The simplest thing. The smallest."
  • Ajani hasn't let go by the end of the Kaladesh storyline, and detectably stumbles over his words as he tries to find the right ones to properly honour Elspeth with his oath.
  When you grieve, you're not leaving someone behind, Hixus had told Gideon once. You're carrying them with you. And one person can only bear so much.
  [later]
  "I have seen—" he said, before his voice cracked.
  Liliana looked away in disgust. Or embarrassment.
  "We don't have to do this now," said Nissa.
  "No," said Ajani. "No. This is right."
  The leonin breathed deeply.
  "I have seen tyrants," he said, "whose ambitions knew no limits. Creatures who styled themselves gods, or praetors, or consuls, but thought only of their own desires, not of those they ruled. Whole populations deceived. Civilizations plunged into war. People who were simply trying to live... made to suffer. To... to die."
  His left hand gripped the hem of his white cloak tightly. It had Bant-style stitching, Gideon noted. And it was too small for the leonin. What — and who — was the big cat carrying with him?
  "Never again," said Ajani. "Until all have found their place, I will keep watch."
• The Kaladesh storyline introduces the Aetherborn, a race of extremely short-lived genderless people made up of aether who make the most of their short lives by being hedonists who regard parties almost religiously. Several of the stories focus on Yahenni, an aetherborn who's already made it far by living to be a whole four months old. It's obvious how their story is going to end. But that doesn't make Yahenni's final story, in "Renewal," any less sob-worthy. They host their Penultimate Party — an aetherborn's literal going-away party, which always ends with the aetherborn's death — while their body is literally falling apart. As they sit dying, Nissa decides to confide in Yahenni the truth that Kaladesh is only one world of thousands, and that aetherborn are literally made of the stuff of worlds. Yahenni dies triumphant, scratching the ears of their best friend's pet hyena, knowing that they are becoming one with the Multiverse.
  • What makes it even more of a Tear Jerker (but with a note of Heartwarming), is that for Yahenni, death is not a forgone conclusion. Yahenni is one of the rare aetherborn who can extend their own lifespan by draining the life of others. Yahenni uses that power to survive long enough to help the renegades deal with the Consulate, but afterwards chooses to let themself die rather than live through the death of others.
• The Commander 2015 set provided two characters who met with terrible fates. While it is stated above that Daxos became a Returned, we are shown that Ezuri, one of the more notable elves on what is now New Phyrexia, has been perfected by Jin-Gitaxias and is being used against the remaining forces.
• From Hour of Glory, Rhonas dies. And in his last moments, Bolas' falsehoods are ripped away and he sees the truth for the first time in decades, realising that the God-Pharaoh he served and exalted had actually twisted Amonkhet beyond recognition. And worst of all, that the horrific monstrosity who killed him was none other than his brother god, turned into a nameless abomination by Bolas.
• The entirety of Favor, told from the point of view of Hazoret.
• The Hour of Eternity, told through the eyes of its citizens. The zealous faithful to "The God-Pharaoh" even as she is killed by his Eternals; the warrior who fights two Eternals alone to try to save as many people as she can in her last breaths; the lover who is killed by his beloved, corrupted by the enchantment of the Eternals; a faithful follower of Oketra, whose continued faith in her dead god leads to a single strike on Nicol Bolas, only for her last effort to be swatted aside and for her to be killed by Eternals; the last breaths of a man who never took the Trials, yet gave his life to protect a child who may not have survived the same onslaught that wounded the man. It embodies all the ways Nicol Bolas has corrupted its people, how he is destroying them, and the last heroic acts of its people, from the warriors to the civilians.
• The Hour of Devastation. Nicol Bolas breaks the Gatewatch. Completely.
• The entire backstory of the Plane of Amonkhet is this mixed with Nightmare Fuel even before The Hour of Eternity happened. It's an entire culture who have been brainwashed, from the gods on downwards, to dedicate their entire lives to training rigorously in the hopes of becoming immortal servitors of the God-Pharaoh through a final, invariably fatal "test of worth". In reality, they're blindly sacrificing themselves to join the ranks of an ever-growing army of the undead, and Nicol Bolas decided to do this to them on a whim, after learning that Amonkhet was rich in the undead-bolstering Lazotep.
  • And the reason for the Hour of Eternity? Is because Nicol Bolas is just that Stupid Evil. Instead of taking his enormous army of Eternals and waiting for the Amonkhetians to replenish them, he decides to take what he has and then wipe out the plane. He has neither rhyme nor reason for doing so, he just feels like doing so. Though, as noted by Nissa, Amonkhet was already dying, and Bolas has honestly admitted to being just a petty sadist way back in his confrontation with Tetsuo Umezawa.
• Out of all people, Angrath turns out to ''be'' one. Everything about him can be seen in a whole different light: the fact that he seems not to have a crew, his ruthlesness, his interest in other planeswalkers...
  Magic Story Team: Angrath was a family man on a plane we haven't been to yet. He has two adorable daughters, and whenever he wasn't at work as a blacksmith, he would travel the Multiverse to bring them back presents. He went away on a weekend holiday years ago and ended up on Ixalan, and when he tried to return home, he could not.
• The first chapter of Return To Dominaria starts right after the Gatewatch gets curbstomped by Bolas at the end of Amonkhet, and their reactions, bickering and arguing with each other about what to do next, are pretty heartwrenching, not helped by the fact Jace is still missing on Ixalan, and for all they know, he's quit on them. Nissa outright quits the Gatewatch to go back to Zendikar, and Chandra blames herself for not being powerful enough and leaves to get stronger, promising to come back.
  Nissa: I'm sorry, but my watch is over.
  Chandra: We failed Amonkhet because I was too weak!
  • As bad as she can be, Liliana returning to her hometown for the first time in a century, only to find it falling apart and underattack from the Cabal's undead is pretty sad, as anyone whose ever come back to their home town to find it not the way they left it can easily relate to. There are even ghost stories about "the undead brother and the evil sister" giving you a pretty good idea why she didn't want to come back. The worst part of it all? Her last demon-contractor is there, running the Cabal, and what has he done? Made Liliana's own brother into a lich in his army, just to spite her. Her reaction is a classic example of Even Evil Has Loved Ones.
• And it gets even worse in the second chapter. Liliana lays her brother to rest with the Chain Veil's power, but their reunion as his soul is freed right before he is laid to rest is hardly heartwarming. Josu blames her for their family's downfall because their entire family perished trying to lay him to rest or to find her. He spends his final moments calling Liliana the "Curse of Vess". Gideon overhearing all of this, tries to express sympathy for Liliana. Sympathy she angrily rebuffs, deciding to channel her rage and grief and guilt towards ending Belzenlok instead.
  Josu: You killed me. You killed them. It is you, Liliana. It will always be you. You are the curse of the House of Vess.
• In chapter 5, Jhoira learns about Karn's return and is overjoyed....until she learns about Venser's fate way back in Scars Of Mirrodin from Ajani, who presumably heard about it from Elspeth. Ajani wisely leaves her to grieve in private.
• The end of the Return To Dominaria Arc gives a major Yank the Dog's Chain moment to Liliana. She's absolutely thrilled to have finally killed all her demon contractors, and seems to finally be developing into a more heroic character. Cue Bolas arriving at the last second, with the reveal that killing her demons means he now has ownership of her soul. If she tries to disobey him in any way she'll age into dust. All her Character Development since joining the Gatewatch, only to find herself Trapped in Villainy.
• As said in Guild to Order, Part 1, The storyline of Guilds of Ravnica will be written in Film Noir style. It means that the jolly and energetic place we used to see is no longer it. It'll be melancholic and dark, lack of the liveliness so many fans loved about Ravnica.
• How about THE ENTIRE WAR OF THE SPARK TRAILER? it's about Liliana as she watches a girl trying to save her younger brother during Bolas' attack on Ravnica, only for them both to be crushed by the falling debris. This pushes her to turn against Bolas....only for the dragon to keep good on his threat and make her burn from the inside. All to an even sadder and softer cover of an already tear-jerking song that perfectly captures her situation.
  I tried so hard. And got so far. But in the end. It doesn't even matter.
• Gideon saves Liliana by taking the price of breaking the pact onto himself, sacrificing his own life.
• As if to drive home the point that Gideon is dead, the card "Rest in Peace" from his Signature Spellbook series shows a memorial to him, in the form of a giant statue of him in his "Oath of Gideon" pose.
  • The epitaph reads, "I will keep watch," the Arc Words on each Oath given as a new Planeswalker joins the Gatewatch.
• Nicol Bolas definitely deserves his punishment, and it's hard to feel sorry for him, but when you consider his Freudian Excuse, it can tug a bit at the heartstrings: The very first thing Bolas experienced in life was being trapped and unable to escape without the help of his brother. Now, he is trapped again, but there is no help to be gotten from his brother. Nicol Bolas, who spent his first minutes trapped. Nicol Bolas, who was named by his brother before he named himself. Nicol Bolas, who above all else, never wanted to feel weak again, is now trapped forever, reduced to what he considers an insect.
• The Chandra comic is pretty much all a character exploration of Chandra's fear and survivor's guilt after the war on Ravnica.
• The backstory of Basri Ket. He's a former initiate from Amonkhet who absolutely idolized Oketra, strictly following the God's teachings of solidarity since he was young. When the time finally came for him to complete Oketra's Trial, he successfully led his crop to victory and, upon personally claiming Oketra's arrow to finish the Trial, was so elated at gaining his god's favor that his spark ignited. After finally learning what he was, he eagerly returned to Amonkhet... Only to find the aftermath of the Hour of Devastation. Ouch.
• From Strixhaven, the card Confront the Past.
  Why, Gideon? Of all people, why save me?
• The second short story of the Crimson Vow storyline is a major Kick the Dog moment for Olivia, which is written heartwrenchingly from the perspective of Sorin Markov. Olivia kidnaps Edgar, Sorin's grandfather and one of the few people in the world he truly cares about despite their conflicts, and essentially brainwashes him into becoming her groom. Sorin is tied down by blessed silver and left screaming desperately for his grandfather to resist it, but to no avail. And to further kick the dog, Olivia has also kidnapped and brainwashed some of Sorin's most hated relatives to attend the wedding, reveling in the suffering it causes Sorin to have to act courteous while at his lowest.
• The feature vignette of Neon Dynasty's legends shows that Ao (the reincarnation of the white dragon Yosei) is traumatized by his death and prefers to avoid humanity, though he still helps those in need.
• Any moment when a beloved Planeswalker is compleated by Phyrexians:
  • At the end of Neon Dynasty, Tamiyo has been compleated by the Phyrexians, the first planeswalker to be so. She now considers the monsters her family... while her real family had just vowed to do anything in their power to find her. Ouch.
  • The noble Ajani, a heroic figure ever since the first planeswalker cards were revealed, was finally compleated into a phyrexian monster in Dominaria United. His last acts as a free person is realising in horror what he became, struggling until his programming overwhelms him. To make matters worse he fully gave in to compleation because he wanted to be accepted, showing that him being banished from his tribe had lasting trauma on him.
• The entirety of the Brother's War set story:
  • The flashbacks complement the book in how War Is Hell. Kayla bin Kroog, Urza's wife, has to see her son die, her nation's technology and future crumble, and can only move herself and her people westwards for the hope of a better survival (which history claims they do).
    • Tawnos, Urza's apprentice, arrives at Penregon, relaying the events of Urza's supposed death to Kayla. Tawnos says that Urza asked of her to remember him as he wanted to be, and not who he was. Bitter at the loss of her son and the endless war her husband caused, Kayla responds that though she won't celebrate, she is glad Urza is dead, and that she will not honor his request, remembering him as the brutal warmongerer he was in life.
    • Tawnos tries to use his skill in artifice for something good, building civil constructs to help with the rebuilding and survival of Penregon. Sadly, a fanatic band of survivors arrive, calling the constructs demons and attacking Penregon. Kayla asks Tawnos to use his civils to defend the city. Though he does so, Tawnos is disillusioned with artifice, finding that it's good for nothing but death and war, and quietly leaves the city when the battle is over.
    • Kayla's story puts the focus on her difficult role as Queen, describing in tragic detail how she spent over a decade putting on a brave face for the people of her city, remaining a stoic exemplar for the people to rally around, while at the same time screaming and crying in her room every night until her throat is sore and her head is aching, trying desperately to find some kind of outlet for the boundless anger, grief, and pain she carries with her from everything she lost to Urza's war. During an especially bad night, she goes out to the abandoned manor she constructed during her early reign, screaming out all her pain and loss and expecting to die from the cold by morning. Which is when she discovers her outlet; Pyromancy.
  • In the present, Elspeth and Chandra deal with Ajani's compleation and Jaya's death, and Nissa is sure the bonds the Gatewatch once had are broken.
  • We see Tezzeret's point of view and learn what is driving him. From childhood, he was being used as a pawn by people more powerful than him. From his father, to the Seekers of Carmot, to Bolas, and now Elesh Norn. All of them sought and are currently seeking simply to use him as a pawn and then throw him away, and he has never been able to escape the vicious circle.
  • While time traveling, Teferi describes moments of mass death like great wounds in the flow of time, caused by so many lives and possible future choices being snuffed out all at once.
  • In the final episode, Teferi and Urza have a chance to talk in a frozen time just as Urza activates the sylex. Teferi tells him about who he will become, that he will spend thousands of years fighting the phyrexians, and that the phyrexians will yet return after his time. Teferi himself admits to himself that a kinder man would have given him a comforting lie, and the knowledge clearly weighs heavily on Urza.
  "Thousands of years of this," he whispered. "Gods, I'm not ready."
• The final chapter of the Brothers' War focuses on Nissa, who still hasn't reconciled with Chandra after their breakup, or with Jace after the events of Zendikar Rising. She and Chandra have an argument about Chandra's bloodlust for the Phyrexians after Jaya's death, but with the phyrexians attacking and Chandra going to Ravnica to coordinate with Jace, they don't have time to reconcile their differences. Nissa ends up going with the strike team to New Phyrexia, while Chandra remains on Dominaria to keep watch, and because Chandra left to see her mother for possibly the last time, they never get the chance to say farewell to each other. And according to leaked All Will Be One cards, they may never have the chance.
• Arguably the entirety of Phyrexia: All Will Be One's story. After losing Ajani and Jaya in the second invasion of Dominaria and barely eking out a victory in the present era of the Brothers' War story, a strike force of planeswalkers (consisting of Kaya, Jace, Nissa, The Wanderer, Kaito, Elspeth, Lukka, Nahiri, Vraska, and Tyvar) sets out for New Phyrexia in a last ditch attempt to save the Multiverse. From the start, things go pear-shaped in a hurry, with the team being separated on entry to the plane. Nahiri and Vraska are both infected in the early stages of the operation, with Lukka's attempts to bond with a Phyrexian beast leading to his compleation. Jace attempts to save Vraska, leading to his infection at her hands, and Nahiri attempts a Heroic Sacrifice to stop both her and Vraska from being used by the enemy. The Wanderer is unable to help anyone as some aspect of Phyrexia is interfering with her ability to remain on the plane. After an arduous journey, Elspeth, Kaito, Tyvar, Kaya, and a deathly ill Jace manage to make it to their objective, a Phyrexianized World Tree, called Realmbreaker. They are too late, as it's already connected to a number of planes, ripe for conquest. Jace, having fully crossed the Despair Event Horizon, attempts to destroy the tree, over the objections of the other survivors. They don't know what will happen to the connected planes if Realmbreaker is destroyed, leading to Jace being killed by Elspeth, who subsequently disappears. Finally, Elesh Norn appears, with a compleated Nahiri in tow. Jace is resurrected by Norn into the service of Phyrexia and the last dagger is delivered... Nissa is revealed to have been captured and compleated by Lukka. Woof.
  • With Gideon dead in the War of the Spark, and Nissa and Jace compleated, it leaves Chandra and Liliana as the last members of the original Gatewatch that was formed to fight the Eldrazi. And with Ajani compleated and Teferi lost in time, Chandra, Liliana, and Kaya are the last of the Gatewatch, period.
• Naturally, March of the Machine has plenty of tragedy before the heroes pull through.
  • Tamiyo is slain by The Wanderer in the midst of corrupting Boseiju, right before Nashi's eyes. Even though a memory of her is able to return as a story, the mother he knew is gone.
  • Vraska's invasion of Ravnica, which mingles between the Phyresis bringing out her worst self, a piece of her mind trying to fight back, and her own memories of being persecuted as a child with other Gorgons. The Azorius would forcibly blind any and all Gorgons they imprisoned, and Ludmilla (formerly a Golgari leader) tried her best to comfort them in the cells. It was her death among many other Golgari that started Vraska down her long path of vengance, and now she's come to pay it back to the entire plane. And worst of all, she's (seemingly) killed by Ral, one of her friends and fellow Guildleaders looking for redemption after helping Bolas.
  • Wrenn has been trying to make her way to Realmbreaker and connect with his spirit in the hopes that she might slow or halt the invasion. When she gets to the seedcore her current tree Seven, who she'd only just bonded with a year or so ago, is torn apart by Nissa, then she herself is dismembered by the other Phyrexians. A dozen Mirran survivors sacrifice her trying to hurl her close enough to Realmbreaker so she might connect with it, and when she finally does she finds a shy and terrified sapling drowning in oil. She manages to protect him and coax him to grow, and while they have time enough to surge with power and take control of the situation, they both soon know that the same fires protecting the two of them will consume them at this rate. And they decide that's alright if it means stopping Phyrexia.
  • Errant, who was so happy that her father was able to put his Maestro duties aside and attend her wedding, never got a chance to go on her honeymoon because of the invasion—and she has to lure her now compleated father to his death in order to help stop the bulk of the invading forces, all while he begs her to submit so they (and her wife Della, and all other Capennans) can be together once more.
  • Wrenn lands on Zhalfir, she and Eight barely hanging on, drifting in and out of conciousness. She knows she's almost gone, but she and Teferi are able to hold the connection long enough to amass an army and say goodbye to each other.
  Wrenn: It was so nice to meet you, Teferi. I hope whatever remains of me will remember.
  Teferi: Whatever remains of me will always remember my friend, Wrenn. A hero whose name precedes her.
  • After Phyrexia's defeat, Ajani and Nissa are left catatonic, Melira is dying, and there are only a handful of other Mirrans left standing. Melira decides to use what remains of her powers to try and cleanse the Planeswalkers of the last of their corruption, and succeeds, but at the cost of her own life.
• The rift between Rowan and Will, which grows throughout Wilds of Eldraine until things finally snap.
  • For starters, their parents are dead, and the trauma of being unable to save them during the invasion weighs hevily on the twin heirs.
  • Will is constantly judged as too weak to be High King, even by his own sister, and constantly doubts himself.
  • Rowan, desperate for a way to keep her people safe, aligns herself wth Eriette and duels Will to a standstill. Will eventually wins, proving himself strong enough to lead, but at the cost of humiliating his sister and spurrig her to flee to parts unknown.
• There's a small moment in the backstory of Lost Caverns of Ixalan, where the Planeswalker's guide describes the creation of Aclazotz. A figure from the previous world who feared death, he hung back as the next world was being created and killed a child God before it was born. Because the rest of the Pantheon within the plane were a family, their reaction to one of their own being slaughtered is nothing short of horrified, and they are consumed with grief and rage as they fight to imprison Aclazotz in vengeance.
• Kaya is guilt-ridden in Murders at Karlov Manor due to leaving the defense of Ravnica to others while she traveled across the multiverse trying to stave off the invasion. She knows she saved countless lives fighting elsewhere...but in Ravnica, many consider her a traitor for abandoning them.
  • And then her closest ally on the plane, Teysa Karlov, becomes one of the murder victims. Kaya's grief enters a new state as she throws herself into investigating the crime basically as a way to avoid confronting the collective trauma she's endured. And even though she knows Death Is a Slap on the Wrist for many people in the city, especially the Orzhov, she mourns that as a spirit Teysa will never be able to experience the joys of life like food or warmth.
  • The murderer ends up being [[spoiler Oba, one third of Trostani]]. During the invasion Trostani's connection to the Worldsoul caused them to experience every trauma of the dying and compleated Ravnicans, so Oba took the brunt of it into herself so her sisters would be unscathed. The compounding grief also caused her to see every bad deed someone did as a crime against the plane, from the morally suspect but ultimately noble actions during the invasion to the smallest slights against another person. The other dryads are shocked, unaware their sister was so traumatized as to take such drastic actions, and when Oba is finally calmed the entire system goes into torpor trying to figure out how to possibly hold them accountable.
• Outlaws of Thunder Junction has some rough times for Kellan after finding his dad. As soon as Oko realizes that Kellan's his son he ropes him into his gang, forces him to endanger innocent lives (despite promising he wouldn't), and ultimately abandons him multiple times in the name of the treasure in the vault. And poor Kellan keeps trying to rationalize to himself that Oko will come around and accept him until the last moment.
  Kellan: I didn't search for you across the Multiverse for treasure. I'm not your crew; I'm your son. I wish you could've seen the difference.
  • In Annie's backstory, we learn that she's been caring for her now chronically-ill nephew after he was poisoned by Akul. It's a very melancholy scenario as it's clear her attempts to keep him healthy are only making him go more stir-crazy being trapped in her house, and while he still loves her he's growing to resent her care. Eventually she comes home to find him preparing to leave back to the Atiin home-plane. He bids her farewell and hopes she'll come back home one day herself, but her guilt is too strong to return home. It's why she's all alone when the story begins.
  • Another side story features Nashi arriving on the plane to train in his late mother's story magic, and repeatedly fail to do so. His growing frustration is made worse by the fact that Tamiyo's story memory is essentially a recording that can only repeat what Tamiyo did in life with none of the warmth. We then learn that his attempts to mirror her have been what he's done his whole life in an effort to fit in with her. Plus he harbors a growing resentment for many other Planeswalkers—The Wanderer for killing Tamiyo before she could've been cured, Kaito for assisting her, and all the walkers who managed to be successfully de-compleated because they proved Tamiyo could have been saved if given the chance and her death was, in his eyes, meaningless.
  • Vraska's presence throws Ral for a loop when he sees her. He tries to speak with her and figure out how she's even alive, but it's clear that she a) holds a grudge against him for leaving her for dead, and b) is so guilt-ridden by her actions while compleated that she'll do anything she can to try and make things right.
  • The reason Ral sympathizes with Kellan and cooperates with him? Ral also understands what it's like to have a difficult relationship with one's father. We don't get any details, which almost makes it worse.
• The epilogue chapters, which would have been the story for The Big Score, detail just what happened to Jace and Vraska during the Invasion and the following year and a half.
  • Remember when Elesh Norn assumed Jace had read her mind and simply left because he already knew what she wanted? She was right. She gave him the same command she'd give to the other Phy-walkers: Go Home. This is your atonement. Jace's Phyrexian self interprets it as atonement for both abandoning his home and simply defying Norn in the first place, and soon he realizes he's leading an army of Phyrexians and slaughtering hundreds of Vryn militia. When he manges to wrest control, he's horrified.
  • When he's able to get Vraska and the two crash into his mother Ranna's living room, there's clearly a part of him that fears his mother won't help them—either because she's angry at him for disappearing for such a long time, or because he caused so much carnage during the invasion, or because she might see Vraska as some kind of monster and hurt her.
  • Ranna asks if Jace disappeared because Alhammarret failed to protect him, and he's almost immediately overcome with guilt. She asks him to show her what happened, so he gives her the whole story.
  Alhammarret, betrayal, forget, forget, forget shame, remember love, love, mom, this is my love, save us, we did not ask for this.
  • After they're healed, Jace and Vraska muse on what to do now and consider starting a family. It's sweet, but their conversation shows that they're both still on the bad side of a Despair Event Horizon.
  Vraska: Does it make sense to raise a child in this Multiverse? Is repair even possible?
  Jace: I'm sick of repair. What is the point of repair when everything will fall apart anyways?
  Vraska: The Multiverse is too broken to fix.
  • They're healed and ready to put their plan in motion. Jace planeswalks away—and Vraska can't follow, because she was pruned and didn't even realize it. She has a full panic attack as he returns and searches her mind, her soul, but her spark is gone. It pushes her to cry for the first time in front of Jace, and the glimmer of a future the two had been planning together suddenly breaks even more than before.
  • The ending is cute, hopeful even, but there's an ominous quality to Jace and Vraska's plans now that they have Loot. They've been consumed with grief and guilt, fear that the Multiverse is too chaotic to sustain even a glimmer of hope unless it does something drastic. A phoenix feather is a recurring image in the story, and while it's a symbol of rebirth...it burns something down first.
  They talk about how one war will forever follow the others, and how this Multiverse bends only toward suffering. Suffering their kind accelerates.
  And they talk about how sometimes at night Jace still feels the power of the sylex dancing across his nerves.
  They agree that the most just option is the one that clears a future for all, and they mourn that the cost of that freedom will be high. Repair does not clean. Restoration does not erase. But rebirth … rebirth does both.
  

Alternate continuity

• In issue #10 of Magic (Boom!), the death of Jace Beleren. As part of the plan to leave Marit Lage on Amonkhet with the undead as worshippers, Jace had claimed he would create a thought-copy of himself as bait, since he was the beacon Marit Lage navigated after. As the other planeswalkers depart to safety, Vraska realizes that Jace lied; He can't create a false beacon, and will have to stay behind to die. Vraska refuses to leave him behind, and they whisper their final words to each other as the light of Marit Lage's meteorite surrounds them. Only for Kaya to show up just in time to save Vraska, but having to leave Jace behind. While Jace looks surprised, he lets go of Vraska's hand and smiles sadly at her as she is taken away.
  Jace: Go on and live, then, Vras...

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