Tear Jerker / Oathbringer

• Kaladin worrying about what happened to his home before he got there.
• Kaladin's homecoming has its happy moments but is still rather bittersweet.
• A parshman telling Kaladin about how his daughter's mother was taken away because she had borne a healthy child like she was livestock instead of a sentient being.
  "I have spent my entire life living in a fog! Every day knowing I should say something, do something to stop this! Every night clutching my daughter, wondering why the world seems to move around us in the light — while we are trapped in shadows. They sold her mother. Sold her. Because she had birthed a healthy child, which made her good breeding stock. Do you understand that, human? Do you understand watching your family being torn apart, and knowing you should object — knowing deep in your soul that something is profoundly wrong? Can you know that feeling of being unable to say a single storming word to stop it? They may have taken your freedom, but they took our minds."
• One of the parshman children asks Kaladin why they're running away from people like him. Kaladin tries to explain a little, but breaks down when he realizes he can't—and doesn't want to—explain slavery to a child.
• For a moment, Shallan becomes convinced that she murdered her brothers on the night she killed her father and has been fooling herself with Lightweaving ever since. As if we needed more proof that Shallan's head is not screwed on right, here it is. Even Pattern is horrified, and he thinks the fact that humans use corpses for everything is funny.
• Venli finding Eshonai's corpse.
• One of Dalinar's flashbacks features an attack on a rogue highlord. In the end, the highlord's young son takes up his father's Shardblade to stand against Dalinar. The next thing we see is Dalinar examining his new Shardblade. Though we later find out that he left the boy alive.
  • It gets worse. The boy grows into a man who leads his city in rebellion against the crown. Dalinar is sent to put it down. His wife talks him into trying to do it peacefully, but it backfires. He resolves to burn the city to the ground, and he does. There are no survivors. Then, he finds out that his wife snuck into the city to beg the leaders to surrender so as to prevent a massacre.
    • The reason Dalinar goes that far is that when he tries to solve it peacefully, he reminds the child how he spared him. Much of the rebellion seemed to imply a traitor highprince was helping him all along, so they resolve to a deal: they will surrender peacefully, and pretend he had been working with Gavillar from the beginning, to lure out the traitor. It turns out it's all a lie, and the supposed traitor was a trap to try to kill Dalinar, resulting in the deaths of many of his elites and almost succeeding with Dalinar himself.
  • Later on, Dalinar has begun descending into drunkenness to hide the screams of the people of the city and the cries of Evi. He's convinced Gavilar is hiding all the wine from him, not realizing that he's just drinking through it that quickly. In his drunken state, he starts hating everyone else, including himself, Evi, and even his sons... the realization of which is what finally drives him to seek out the Nightwatcher.
  Oh Almighty. Oh God. Oh God, please... I've started to hate my sons. Why hadn't the boys learned to hate him back? They should hate him. He deserved to be hated.
• One of Dalinar's flashbacks has him being shown Renarin for the first time and being surprised at how little he feels for him, compared to the surge of fatherly love he experienced when holding Adolin for the first time. The same scene has him being happy to see Adolin and making an effort to bond with the boy despite being exhausted and in a bad mood. Poor Renarin was the Un Favorite right from the word go - and what almost makes it worse is that Dalinar isn't trying to neglect his younger son, it's just that despite his best efforts he can't manage to connect with him like he can with Adolin.
• The Fused don’t exactly care for their descendants very much...
• Venli's reaction when she learns that her once-mate is dead and something else is inhabiting his body.
• Kaladin falls in with two different groups of people: a group of formerly enslaved Parshendi, and a group of soldiers trying to defend the walls of Kholinar. In both cases, it was like how he fell in with Bridge Four. So, naturally, when those two groups meet, they engage in a Mutual Kill that he is utterly incapable of stopping.
• Elhokar dying in the middle of swearing the First Ideal.
• Teft’s guilt and self doubts, even to the point of telling the spren that wants to bond with him to leave repeatedly.
• Renarin sees his cousin killing him in a vision because she's realized that his bonded spren was corrupted. She doesn't, but he doesn't even try to stop her because he thinks his visions can't be changed.
• In a different way, when the inevitable Sanderson Avalanche hits at the climax. First you cry because it looks like everyone is screwed. Then you cry because they show they're not.
• Teft's version of the Third Ideal has bits of awesome (as all the ideals) and heartwarming (because it shows he is starting to move on), but most of all shows exactly how broken he is.
  Teft: I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is... myself.
• "These broken slaves were the only other witnesses to this moment. The final death of Jezrien. Yaezir. Jezerezeh’Elin, king of Heralds. A figure known in myth and lore as the greatest human who had ever lived."
• When Kaladin realizes that he won't be able to save Adolin and is unable to swear the Fourth Ideal to save Shallan and himself from the approaching Fused. He nearly suffers a total breakdown because of this, prompting Syl to suggest that he let someone save him for a change.
• During one flashback chapter Dalinar is so caught up in the Thrill that he almost attacks Gavilar. His stopping and realization of what he was about to do is heartrending.
• Tearjerker, heartwarming and awesome all in one. Odium is trying to turn Dalinar into his champion. Renarin is convinced Dalinar will fall. Odium tells Dalinar to just blame Odium for it all, it wasn't Dalinar's fault. Odium will take his pain. Dalinar is down on his knees. It really looks like Dalinar is gone. Then...
  Dalinar: You cannot have my pain!
• Shallan's attempt at charity. She tries to be Just Like Robin Hood, but food she gives to children is taken by gangs, who force the children to keep waiting out for her. One boy dies hating her.
• Shalash finally meeting Taln after millennia apart — and he instantly forgives her for leaving him to suffer in a literal hell. She doesn't take it well.
  Shalash: You have to hate me! Hate me, please!

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