Tear Jerker / The Fountainhead

• Anything to do with Catherine "Katie" Halsey, Ellsworth Toohey's niece. Here are some of the highlights:
  • She's an orphan who starts out wanting to be educated and going to college. Her uncle adopts her, starts passively-aggressively breaking her. She never goes to college as a result, and starts to project her resentment on others.
  • Peter treats her as a Disposable Fiancée, mainly due to his mother's influence in thinking he ought to be a Gold Digger and marry Dominique Wynand.
  • The fact that her mouth changes so that it gives "tiny orders" about disinfectant and plumbing while working at the Stoddard Temple, and then taking on a government job at her uncle's behest.
  • Her last scene in the book, where she appears to be a cheerful Broken Bird. Peter on encountering her in the street feels guilty when she invites him for a bite since it's freezing. Once they sit down, at Peter's urging she gives Peter a "The Reason You Suck" Speech but not in the way that he feels he deserves; he wants her to rage at him, to be angry and show that she felt something. Instead she tells him calmly that yes, she did scream at her uncle, forcing him to sedate her, and then fainted in the street after learning he had eloped with Dominique but those were just the conventional ways to react, and being married would be a selfish profession. Peter finds this resignation much, much worse.
• Peter also has his moments due to being a parasite and an Extreme Doormat.
  • His mother practices emotional abuse under the pretense of making him happy. She means well but ends up inadvertently breaking him as badly as Toohey breaks Katie.
  • Every one of his Ain't Too Proud to Beg moments where he asks Howard to design something for him. In the last one, Roark feels pity on seeing how Keating has changed, gaining weight from the stress, and Keating doesn't understand how Roark can help him after smearing him for the Stoddard Temple.
  • He has a great opportunity at Calling the Old Man Out when after Dominique leaves and his mother moves back in, she suggests he ought to get married, and asks if Katie is still an option. He's about to rail at her justifiably, but then realizes that he can't because she's willing to accept anything he throws at her, true or otherwise.
  • When he gets back into painting, Howard tells him bluntly that it's too late for Peter to save himself.
• Gail Wynand is a walking Tear Jerker when he isn't a Manipulative Bastard.
  • Like Roark he started out as an orphan. Unlike Roark, he didn't grow up determined to twist the world to his liking.
  • He has a habit of Break the Badass with artists, starting with Dwight Carson. Dwight becomes a dipsomniac, or in layman's terms, an alcoholic.
  • His section of the book starts with him contemplating suicide. Then he realizes it's just ennui and he can't even find joy in that epiphany.
  • His mirth when Dominique urges him to fire Ellsworth Toohey and describes him as a corrosive weapon that will use the Wynand Papers to control the world.. Gail has no idea what he's up against as he tells Dominique to never mention it again..
  • His attempts to be a Doomed Moral Victor in sacrificing the Wynand Papers to help Howard, and how they ultimately fail. Also his reaction when realizing that Dominique truly loved Roark, hence why she outed herself to the papers.
• Even Roark has his moments
  • He starts out the story getting expelled from architecture school.
  • When he accepts Peter's money but is about to offer it back when Peter offers advice on how to rule his life.
  • His refusal to hire lawyers to defend The Stoddard Temple even with Roger Enright and Austin Heller's help, and saying, "the defense rests". Screw the Money, I Have Rules! indeed.