The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask/Tear Jerker


 * When you discover that . Part Nightmare Fuel, part Tear Jerker.
 * Then, of course, there's Darmani and Mikau's deaths, which become worse when you realize that you're effectively impersonating them in their societies...
 * Which if one thinks about it, just further exemplifies Link's heroism. Link does what he does, not out of a desire for recognition, or for glory, but simply because it's the right thing to do. And if doing the right thing means having to make the people think their hero is still alive so as to rekindle the hope within them, or letting them attribute all your hard work to another warrior, then so be it.
 * The Cutscene you get after you heal Darmani's ghost will make even the mos hardened zelda fan feel funny. The cutscene starts with Darmani's Ghost smply floating all alone in darkness when suddenly the roomlights up showing all of his goron friends and family cheeing him on with the song of healing playing in the background. It wold go under heartwarming, but Darmani is dead and unable to help his fellow gorons at all. The scene ends with him resigning himself to link in mask form knowing full well he failed his people.
 * He might have failed, yes, but was still so determined to help his people that he lingered behind as a ghost. I take the cutscene as him finally being able to move on, and the Gorons he sees are welcoming him into the afterlife. The mask left behind is his physical body in its prime for Link to use in his stead, so he was able to help after all.
 * Still, that whole sequence is the most soul-wrenching thing in Zelda history outside of . His sheer despair at being helpless to save his people is so thick you'd think you could cut with a knife, and then you find that what killed him is something that's so easy a puzzle for you, which makes it seem ten times crueler. And then you go into the Goron town and have everyone so overjoyed to see "Darmani" back, including the one Darmani was like a father to, and knowing that they're wrong and will have to be crushed all over again... "Tear Jerker" isn't nearly strong enough a term for all this. That is High Octane Suicide Fuel.
 * Playing the Song Of Healing to Mikau: He floats in a blackness when Lulu and his bandmates appear, and he picks up his guitar for a final jam.
 * Which is worse: helping Anju and Kafei reunite barely an (in-game) hour before the moon hits, or, if you screwed up, talking to Kafei after he returns to an empty room?
 * The dialogue between Anju and Kafei makes it all the worse. [[spoiler: "Please take refuge. We are fine here. We shall greet the morning... together."]
 * If you fail to stop the conveyor belt before the Sun's Mask gets to the end (which will really only happen if you choose to let it, seeing as it's a rather slow conveyor and the rooms are easy enough), you and Kafei are trapped inside Sakon's hideout. You can warp out, but Kafei is stuck there. And he won't talk. He just stands there with that blank expression.
 * Then there is the part of the game where you meet a little girl who seems to live alone in a house in the middle of Ikana Valley (a desolate wasteland of death and ghosts). Upon investigating her house you come across a closet and open it... and find a horribly disfigured half mummy/half human object. Turns out that that's her father! Simply imagining all the suffering the girl has had to go through wihout a father and all alone is a large tearjerker.
 * The good news though is that he is healed and and that they become a family again which quite frankly is one of the most touching moments in the game which considering the game, is really saying something.
 * This troper had completely forgotten this scene. On being reminded of it again, she promptly burst into tears.
 * It should be noted that the Deku Butler's son is whom you transform into, most likely. You transform into Mikau and Darmani, so it would make sense because the son is, well-- dead. Skull Kid must have had something to do with it.
 * Epileptic Trees say that Skull Kid killed the Deku Butler's son specifically to fuel the curse he puts on you.
 * The Deku Butler crying in front of the tree during the credits counts as well. He's one of the few to not get his happy ending...
 * This troper likes to think that Link brought Darmani, Mikau, and the Deku Butler's son back to life somehow at the end. It's just Wild Mass Hoping, but it fits with the "Healing" theme of the game.
 * What I happen to find even WORSE is that, in the manga version of this, the Deku Princess apparently had a crush on said Deku Butler's son. She understands that he's dead and at first begins to ask Link if he'd stay there, but takes it back, understanding that he has other things he has to do, and so settles for just being able to see his (the Deku Boy's) face once more. I find this incredibly sweet and very sad, making me hate Majora all the more.
 * The whole story of the swordsman always got me. He's really arrogant and brave for the three days then in the final hours he's hiding and completely terrified that the world is ending. Majora's Mask was a powerful game!
 * Try waiting until the final hours of the third day, then talk to as many people as you can, sadness peaks for characters like the mail man who is so bound by duty that he feels unable to leave.
 * The gate guards also deserve mention. Usually, when you try to leave town as normal Link they stop you because they can't allow a child to go out on his on, but then let you go after they see you have a sword. In the third day, however, they stop you because they are desperate to know if there's an official evacuation order and they they tell you how much it crushes them to still see kids playing around town.
 * Then there's Cremia and Romani, if you see them at night on the final day after you've solved their other problems. Cremia is telling her little sister that she is giving her a Romani mask AND letting her drink some Chateau Romani for the first time (which means she is considered an adult). What makes this a tear-jerker is that Cremia knows the world is going to end tonight -- she knows Romani isn't going to live to see adulthood. That scene certainly makes this troper teary.
 * To add to that. If you talk to them after they leave the barn to go to the house they both say "see you tomorrow", but in different ways. Romani says it as she would if it were any other day seeing as she doesn't know that there may not be a tomorrow. Cremia pauses for a moment, as if debating whether or not to say it when she knows it may not be true.
 * You think the scene when you succeed is bad? Fail at the part where you need to defend the barn from aliens. Romani is taken along with the cows, her fate unknown. Come back the next morning and enter the barn. Cremia is sitting there, sobbing to herself, not even reacting when you talk to her. She sits there for nearly a whole day. Come back the next day, and she'll be outside, staring at you with no emotion at all. The game lacks voiceacting, but you can just imagine her speaking totally monotone. I cried for nearly fifteen minutes. Then I played the Song of Time and did the goddamn thing right.
 * Doesn't help when this troper actually had to do this 15. Freaking. Times. Before she got it right.
 * Really? Just use the bunny hood and run around the barn.
 * This Troper got to the ranch for the first time on the Third Day, not knowing he could use Powder Kegs to get in early. He entered the location, heard the familiar and awesome Lon Lon Ranch theme begin, and as he run up to the main house he see Epona in her pen with Romani sitting on a crate nearby and thought "Yay, I found Lon Lon Ranch!" Then he approached the Romani and saw her staring off into space with a blank look on her face, and entered the barn to find the place empty of animals, with Cremia standing alone in the middle of the barn crying. Five words came to mind "What the hell happened here?" Then this troper went back in time, got to the ranch on the first day when both sisters are bright-eyed and cheerful like Malon was, and you get to set things right so those horrible third day versions of the two never happen. This troper did indeed cry seeing the Ranch as it should be on the third day after such a dark first impression
 * I tried stopping the moon after only saving three of the four giants, just to see what would happen. That was...it wasn't a good idea.
 * Dawn of . * sniffle*
 * Particularly the part with the Skull Kid
 * Seconded. When he starts quivering and the fairies hug him...that's hard. But then, the Giant starts singing the Oath To Order...and I'm gone.
 * It's even better if you've listened to the stories from Anju's grandmother and realize how very, very old the Skull Kid must actually be, and the fact that he spent most of that time thinking that his friends no longer cared about or remembered him.
 * For this troper just hearing the Song of Healing's full version is enough... though that's probably because it conjures up the images that accompanied it in-game.
 * This troper has some small knowledge of meteor hits, and the evacuation attempts really get to him when he realizes that with an impact of such magnitude as the moon, nothing on the planet would survive, no matter how far away they are from the blast, meaning unless you actually destroy the moon, the evacuation attempts are absolutely futile.
 * The game actually makes a point of not-so-subtly implying this. The people that are evacuating are desperately trying to find a safe place, that probably won't be safe. Under many conditions, Anju (and a few others) will relocate to Romani Ranch to ask Cremia for shelter. Unfortunately, people at the ranch are well aware that this isn't going to help, since they mention the ranch isn't safe either. There's also one person who uses a Spider House as essentially a bomb shelter, but whether even that would protect him from the moon is unclear (unlikely though).
 * It would be even worse if it did. Imagine exiting your little shelter, having survived the apocalypse, and realizing you're the only living thing left on the planet. And that's assuming a Class 5 Apocalypse How...now imagine returning to a Class 6.
 * Um... pretty sure Classes 5 and 6 would appear basically the same.
 * This troper got teary-eyed when her older brother told her that the reason the bomber kids were still in Clock Town was because no one bothered to tell them that the moon was going to crash into the town. As annoying as they can be they're freaking kids.
 * I always thought it was because they didn't have anywhere to go. They don't seem to have any parents or anyone else to look after them except each other. I had thought they had just been left behind.
 * The Midnight of the Final Day music, which also doubles as Nightmare Fuel.
 * This is the song of the apocalypse. A song of unfinished duties and lost hope, dreams and goals and personal desires being put to the side as evident destruction awaits us, ready to pulverize us in our eternal unhappiness.
 * The (chicken herding) dude with the mohawk always made me very sad. His backstory is nonspecific, but suggests that he has lead an incredibly lonely, sad life. And then he just accomplishes one thing. And then he's ok with dying. He doesn't ask for his wasted life back. He just wants to do one thing and then die.
 * On the second day, Anju goes to the Clock Town laundry pool in hopes of seeing Kafei. If you talk to her, Anju breaks down crying and admits that she's afraid to talk to him because she'd have to ask why he left, and thinks it's because he doesn't love her anymore. Damn, just... damn.
 * You know what's worse? If you overheard a conversation Anju has with her mother following the night of the second day, her insecurities of Kafei's love to her stemmed from her mom being 100% convinced he left her at the altar for her best friend, Cremia, because according to Mom she's prettier and Kafei will gain much more from the business Cremia has than the Inn Anju tried to run.
 * To add to it, the family's already been through a similar incident, as the above conversation and another at the ranch reveal; Anju's father left at some point, and her mother had spent some time hoping he'd return one day, to no avail. She's come to believe it's happening all over again to her daughter. Sure, she turns out to be wrong about Kafei and Cremia. Still, given that she's just trying to keep Anju from through the same heartbreak she did, especially at a time when their own survival is in danger, it becomes a little more understandable why she'd say those things...even though said backstory gives Anju even more reason to feel that Kafei might have abandoned her, possibly eloping a close friend of hers.
 * The meeting that decides the fate of Clock Town; nobody's the bad guy, it's a room full of people who can't or won't understand the magnitude of what's happening. Of particular note is the guard commander strenuously arguing in favour of a full evacuation inside the room, then instantly snapping "the mayor's orders are absolute!" when questioned outside as if he's trying to remind himself of that. The fact that they're debating having a carnival everyone ought to be happy and excited about only makes it worse.
 * The Ikana soldiers. There's something terribly sad about soldiers who felt such loyalty to their captain that they won't abandon their posts even in death.
 * What I always found touching is that you can tell certain soldiers that their jobs are finally over,they salute you one last time and then disintegrate. They couldv'e finally rested whenever they wanted to, but were/are that determined. Deep stuff.
 * The soldiers, you say? How about the Skull Keeta himself? The scene right before you get his mask...* sniffle*
 * Here's something you may not've realized. It's possible to help everyone with their problems and still finish the game... except for 1 exception. Do you want to stop Sakon from mugging the old woman? That means Anju and Kafei will never be reunited. Want to help the young couple get married? That means you're allowing a nice old lady to get robbed. In terms of gameplay the choice is obvious, but you'll probably have to wrestle with the morality of allowing a local business to suffer for someone's relationship (and vice versa).
 * On the bright side, the lady seems to shrug this off and her son seems more concerned for his mom's safety than the fact that their stock was taken.
 * Gorman, of all people, ends up getting one of these with your help. With the carnival canceled, Gorman doesn't know what to do anymore, seeing as their huge gig got blown at the same time. Unless you intervene, the guy will spend two straight nights being drunk and miserable at the local milk bar, with his troupe none the wiser. Said intervention being to play the song "Ballad of the Wind Fish" in the bar, this song being the catalyst of Gorman getting into show business in the first place. The effect on him is... touching, considering his overall unpleasant demeanor throughout the game. After deciding to come down with the facts to his troupe, he hands you a mask that is a literal Tear Jerker to all observers. Especially to his even more unpleasant brothers. A short, yet very emotional sidequest.
 * Also, if you do it on the first day, he won't go back to the bar the second day, instead opting to stay in the inn and playing cards with the juggling brothers. Nothing big, but still leaves you with the feeling that he's becoming nicer.
 * Showing the mask to the Gorman brothers is a minor one as well. Seeing their brother's face, they weep for their wasted lives.
 * Majora's Mask is such a Tear Jerker-fueled game that even the commercials are bawl-worthy.
 * Holy shit, what the fuck was THAT?
 * Makes you kinda sad when you consider that the commercials for Majora's Mask all featured a kid saving the world by beating Majora's Mask in three days...
 * The Moon's Tear, when you think about it. The moon is crying. Even it doesn't want to go through with this. This Brawl in the Family strip manages to sum it up pretty well.
 * I'm surprised no one mentioned the monkey in the Deku Temple. I can't remember it exactly but if you go back immediately after he tells you to rescue the princess, That was one of the main reasons I tried my best to free that princess...I didn't want that to be on my hands for the rest of the game...
 * Am I the only one who felt horrible There was just something about the way  I mean, I know how horrible that mask made everyone's lives in Termina, but still... It gets me every time.
 * The Postman sidequest. It all resolves around the postman and his inability to flee the city because its not on his schedule. If you play the game a certain way, you can finally make it so that he is ordered by his boss to flee the city and override the schedule. Upon receiving the news, he simply jogs out of the bar he was in slowly and happily proclaims his freedom. He finally removes his hat and runs out of town, finally going back to what he has always done best, being the running man from Ocarina of Time. A Zelda fan should understand why its so touching.
 * Am I the only one who tears up at the questions of the Lunar Children ("I wonder... If you do the right thing... Does it really make... everybody... happy?" "Your friends... What kind of... people are they? I wonder... Do these people... think of you... as a friend?" etc.) It makes me think that they aren't the bad guys; they're just misled and ignorant. And very lonely.
 * Yes, the Goron Elder's Son has Most Annoying Sound going for him, but he's just a little kid missing his father and, on top of that, it's doubtful that anybody has managed to explain "Darmie's" death to him, as young as he is. He's lonely and probably scared; no matter how well he knows the other Gorons, sometimes there's no substitute for a parent. This will definitely hit some people harder than others.
 * While it's not as bad as some of the other things listed here, failing to defend Cremia's wagon on the second day is still fairly sad. She just seems so... disappointed with herself for not being able to make the delivery.