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Tear Jerker / The Boxtrolls

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


  • The montage of the boxtrolls growing less in numbers as the Red Hats capture more and more of their kind. Gradually, the mood of Fish and Eggs making music together shifts from cheerful to mournful. All the while, Eggs has to watch more and more of his friends disappear on a nightly basis.
  • Eggs' depression when Fish is captured, and his frustration that the boxtrolls are too cowardly to try saving him.
  • When Winnie points out that Eggs is a human, and Eggs protests he's a boxtroll, look at Fish's expression. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss moment. He looks guiltily to the side, indicating he never told Eggs the truth about how he's human. The other boxtrolls just nervously agree with Eggs, unready to admit they haven't been honest with the him.
    • When Eggs looks to Fish to tell Winnie he is a boxtroll, Fish sadly shakes his head no.
  • The truth about the Trubshaw baby legend. Far from the supposed boxtrolls who murdered Mr. Trubshaw and ate his infant son Eggs, Mr. Trubshaw found kindred spirits in the boxtrolls due to their abilities to invent machinery from junk. When Snatcher came to coerce Trubshaw into building a weapon by threatening Eggs, the inventor immediately gave Eggs to the boxtrolls for safe-keeping, but not before he could escape, and Snatcher knocked him out cold and seemingly killed him.
  • When Winnie describes to Eggs what a father is like, she starts to name off all the qualities of a good father. (They play with you, love you, comfort you when you're scared of the dark, always listen to you, and are never too busy for you.) Her expression grows downcast, as though she's admitting to herself she grew up with a father who is none of those things.
  • Eggs' disillusioned attitude after failing to tell Winnie's father the boxtrolls are friendly. He bitterly declares that humans are nothing but selfish and uncaring. He and Winnie depart with heavy hearts.
    • Before this, his being wrongfully scolded by Lord Portley-Rind (for sending his prized giant cheese wheel into the river) can be pretty depressing when you bear in mind that Eggs looked to him as the only father figure he could turn to. From what he heard, fathers are capable of solving your problems, and he truly hoped Lord Portley-Rind would be such a father. But rather than listening to Eggs' announcement that he's the missing Trubshaw baby, he shames Eggs, and over a wheel of cheese no less. So Eggs is forced to leave the party note .
      • This is set up earlier in the movie, when Snatcher deliberately implies to Lord Portley-Rind that Winnie threw his white hat out into the street, just to spite her, for no apparent reason. Winnie's father is so angry at her that he won't hear a word she says.
  • When Eggs warns the boxtrolls they must evacuate their home, the boxtrolls hide in their boxes. Fish politely offers Eggs the latter's box. Disgusted with their cowardice, Eggs angrily shouts "NO, I'M NOT A BOXTROLL!" and backhands the box away. Hurt, Fish cowers into his box, looking at Eggs as though he were one of the humans that persecuted him all his life. It's every parent's worst nightmare for their children to act violently and disown their love. Thankfully, they get better towards the end.
  • The destruction of the boxtroll cave, Eggs' childhood home.
  • Before lashing out at the red hats, Fish is mortified to see Eggs knocked unconscious in his attempt to save his father figure.
  • Eggs crying after watching the boxtrolls be crushed. Thankfully, they are revealed to be fine.
  • A small one near the end when Mr. Snatcher finally gets a white hat and eats cheese in the tasting room. Before he can eat the piece of super-tasty cheese, Eggs tries to talk him out of it, saying it won't change who he is. Mr. Snatcher (who at this point is freakishly swollen due to his cheese allergy) looks at him with a look of desperation, lip quivering and single eye watering as if to say "all I want in life is to be important and respected; is that so much to ask?" True, he is a cruel and despicable man, but in his allergy-riddled state it's hard not to feel a little bit sorry for him. The way he looks at the cheese and sweats as he starts to taste it, it's as if he has a moment of clarity that he knows he may die doing this, but he can't stop now because it's literally all he's ever wanted.
    Eggs: Don't do it. It won't change who you are. Cheese, hats, boxes...they don't make you. You make you.
    Snatcher: (momentary look of sadness before his expression hardens) I have made me, boy. This is my destiny...
  • Even Snatcher's death is pretty sad when you think about it. He only wanted to become a White Hat so he could be somebody and gain respect, yet in the end, Snatcher dies in the act of achieving everything he ever wanted. It's even worse if one takes the prequel fanfic as canon. As that innocent little boy who only wanted to fit in with society, grew up, consumed by his desperation to be liked by Cheesebridge. The fact everyone even celebrates his death during Winnie's story, highlights how his heinous actions will taint the Snatcher name forever. Only being remembered as the monster of Cheesebridge.

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