- Dani loses their two best friends from childhood within a short amount of time in the opening. First Alejo gets a Boom, Headshot! from the Yaran military only because he's angry that they're trying to draft Dani and then Lita dies because Dani manages to convince her to go on the doomed boatride to Miami.
- Lita's dying request to get Dani to join Libertad.
- Diego's realization that everyone on the ship is going to be killed because of his attempt to get away from his father.
- Julio's genuine grief over Lita's death and his refusal to let her become a Forgotten Fallen Friend.
- Julio's Defiant to the End and Face Death with Dignity response to Anton Castillo's Cold-Blooded Torture of him as well as his imminent death. We Hardly Knew Ye but he was a character that died well.
- Alejandro's look after his father's death. He is broken emotionally and spiritually by the realization that not only did his father die for him but that the regime he supported really was every bit as monstrous as his family claimed.
- Alejandro departing after the death of Jose Castilo. There's no place for him in the Montero family after their victory and he knows it.
- Diego's scared and horrified reaction to Dani arriving in his father's office during the first assassination attempt as you realize he's broken emotionally and mentally by his experience. His father has made it clear more people will die if he defies him in any way.
- The fact neither El Tigre or Jonrun manage to survive the Revolution and give their lives fighting Castillo's forces.
- Diego being executed by his own father moments before their usurpation. All that character development, undone in a moment of long-built paranoia and anger.
- Anton's breakdown in the last act of the game. It's made clear that his leukemia isn't just a nebulous excuse, he's actively dying. He's reduced to sneezing blood while desperately wondering why nobody else sees things the way he does.
Insanity
- Vaas being manipulated and abused by his own flesh and blood is tragic in itself. He started off as a very noble and idealistic person but Citra's constant pressure and insanity drove him to seek refuge in mind-numbing drugs and the power Hoyt gave him. It's no wonder he turned into the madman who terrorizes Jason, and it helps explain exactly why he'd constantly warn Jason that bending to Citra's every whim would turn out badly for him.
Control
- Despite Pagan's persistence in believing that he's just an innocent victim and it's everyone else's fault he turned out the way he did, his longing for a family with Ishwari, Ajay, and Lakshmana is actually quite heartbreaking. He's constantly having visions of them sitting down for dinner, and whenever he tries to sit with them, they vanish. Ishwari's last words to him are her bluntly stating that they just can't be together.
- The very opening cutscene has a manifestation of Pagan's darker urges, dubbed "The Tyrant", shoot Lakshmana dead at the dinner table. It's all but implied that Pagan, deep down, blames himself for Lakshmana's death instead of Mohan directly.
- Pagan's interpretation of an older Lakshmana is the sweetest little girl on the face of the earth. To rub salt into the wound, she's helping delude him into thinking he's just a victim, as if to taunt him with the fact that it isn't true at all.
- Even the voice of Ishwari joins in the delusion, albeit half-heartedly.Ishwari: You! You could have saved her!
Pagan: Ishwari? That doesn't sound like you.
Ishwari: I'm sorry, my love. (HATE YOU, PAGAN!) I must have been confused. (I HATE YOU!) You did everything you could. - Gang Min, Pagan's father, was horribly abusive to his son, which is one of the few legitimate explanations as to why he turned out the way he did. One night, Pagan just has enough and violently stabs him to death, which actually does give him peace of mind.
- One of Pagan's visions is of his ideal version of his death: taking the bullet for Ajay when a Golden Path soldier tries to kill him. Ajay cradles Pagan in his arms and cries out for his "father". The implication is that Pagan actually was killed by Ajay and this is how he prefers it went down rather than face the truth that the man he saw as his own son was manipulated by the faction that took so much from him into killing him.
Collapse
- No matter how genuinely Joseph tries to atone for his sins, his madness always brings him back to his toxic self-centered fundamentalism - which erupted because his wife (and eldest child) died screaming.
- Joseph feels betrayed by "The Voice", who he assumes to be God. His congregation and his siblings are all dead and he's trapped underground with the person he hates the most, who basically took all that away from him. All the while, the Voice insists that Joseph did everything right and tortures him with his past.
- The Voice shows Joseph what would've happened had his family lived to seek shelter underground with him from The Collapse. Faith cracks from Bliss withdrawal and calls him out for grooming her into becoming his newest "Faith", John's murderous urges start to slip through and he accuses Joseph of only caring about himself, and Jacob nearly takes his own life from the guilt of eating his army buddy Miller to survive, becoming so unstable that he actually shoots Joseph dead.
