Spoilers Off applies to all Tear Jerker pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
For a generally upbeat series, there are a lot of sad moments in Ranger's Apprentice.
- Halt discovering and openly weeping over Pritchard's corpse in Tournament at Gorland, especially given how stoic the man is throughout the rest of the series. It's made even worse by its suddenness; up to the epilogue, things were going as well as could be expected and although the reader might have suspected Morgarath would escape given the later books, Mentor Occupational Hazard came out of nowhere.
- The Battle of Hackham Heath:
- Queen Rosalyn's pregnancy with Cassandra is not an easy one and King Duncan decides to send her to an abbey so that she can receive care away from the stress and intrigue of the royal court. When he sees her off, he is clearly very worried and Crowley suspects he'll continue standing in front of the castle, looking at the spot where the party left, long after they're out of sight.
- Queen Rosalyn ends up losing too much blood in her labor with Cassandra. Reduced to a shell of her regular self, she nonetheless calls Crowley and forces him to swear to protect her daughter before falling unconscious again. Crowley knows as he leaves the room that it's the last time he'll see her alive. Afterwards, her royal guard aren't even allowed to hide her grave to prevent desecration, because if Morgarath's forces know the queen is dead, it might spare the lives of others they would kill in an attempt to find her.
- Crowley has to report the death of Duncan's beloved wife to the already beleaguered king. Though luckily the baby Cassandra's presence takes off a little of the sting, the poor guy is still crushed by her early death, and he can't even take time to grieve because of the war.
- Unexpectedly, the warghals even get some tear-jerkers of their own. Left to themselves, they're shy creatures that most likely wouldn't have harmed anyone, but Morgarath turns them into brutes with his mental manipulation and the false idea that Duncan will kill them. The only reason the Araluens do kill them is because they attacked first. All the warghals Morgarath sends into battle at Ashdown Cut die in combat, and afterwards, the ones back in the camp wander around looking in their dead comrades' tents, howling in animal-like grief.
- Crossing over with Nightmare Fuel, we watch Will go from The Pollyanna to a Blank Slate in Book 3, due to the warmweed-and before that, he's treated as below human by the Skandians. Thankfully Cassandra is able to get him out, but still, it's heartbreaking to watch.
- The Kings of Clonmel focuses a lot on Halt's past - it turns out he had a twin, Ferris, who drove him from the country with continual assassination attempts in an effort to seize the throne. Tennyson has Ferris murdered right before fleeing, and the epilogue has Halt visiting his grave. After a bit of silence, Horace mentions that Ferris wasn't a good king (even if he was the only king) before realizing how insensitive that might be and apologizing.
- Halt's Peril: Halt gets grazed by a poisoned crossbow bolt, sending him to death's door before he gets the antidote and pulls through, right in front of an agonized Will and Horace. At one point, Halt wakes up and seems lucid...until he begins addressing Horace as Crowley, meaning that he's still mentally skewed because of the poison. He tells him bluntly that he's pretty sure he won't make it this time and asks him to take care of Will and Horace for him, saying that the two boys could end up being the future of Araluen. Horace, who's been responding in character in a desperate attempt to keep Halt alive and awake, chokes up at this point, and Halt slips into unconsciousness again before he can recover. The young warrior thinks at first that he's already dead.
- Shukin's Heroic Sacrifice in Book 10-he was established as a Nice Guy and Reasonable Authority Figure, and many fans looked forward to seeing him interact with Halt, as well as enjoying his interactions with Horace. Sadly, it was not to be. What's worse is that he knew it wouldn't stop Arisaka altogether, and that he would die just slowing him down-but he volunteers to do it, because he knows it needs to be done.
- And made even sadder, in a way, when we discover his gift to Horace later on.
- The Royal Ranger book begins with a time skip in which a lot of things have changed. Starting with Alyss being dead.
