The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim/Tear Jerker: Difference between revisions

** After careful consideration, ''this'' troper went the extra mile and gave her life purpose by {{spoiler|inducting her into the Blades.}} Her reaction afterwards, a combination of wonder, joy, and excitement, was the true [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].

* {{spoiler|Tullius' death}} at the end of the Stormcloak questline. {{spoiler|After seeing his beloved Empire, Tamriel's last bastion of hope against the Thalmor Dominion, crumple around him, utterly powerless to stop it, he can only watch as you and Ulfric butcher his [[The Lancer|Lancer]] and men like animals before being captured and set to be executed himself. His final words, in a voice full of sorrow and pain, are to lay into Ulfric for essentially handing the Dominion their victory. Ulfric's response? Ignore him and casually order the executioner to get on with it. [[Sarcasm Mode|Way to go, Dragonborn]].}}

** I won't lie. I felt absolutely awful after killing {{spoiler|Ulfric}}, and it compelled me to do something: instead of [[Kick the Dog|looting his corpse]] (standard operating procedure for dead enemies), I pulled him up so that he was sitting on his throne. Then I took out the sword I'd been using for over a hundred days, my best weapon, which had seen me through countless battles, and laid it gently across his lap before turning around and walking out the door. ''Krosis.''

* A note found on a bandit's corpse east of Whiterun can leave you feeling horribly guilty. The note is from the bandit's father, begging him to stop running with the wrong crowd and that he'll get in serious trouble one day if he keeps being a criminal. He had no idea how right he was....

** It gets worse. Braig says if his daughter had lived, she'd be twenty-three. He's also been in the mine the longest, aside from Madanach. Borkul the Beast has been imprisoned for twelve years. That means Braig's daughter couldn't have been more than ''eleven years old'' when the Silver-Bloods and the Jarl had her executed.

** When I escaped the mine, I decided that the Forsworn had to be wiped out immediately after {{spoiler|Thonar Silver-Blood}} was killed. My primary target was Madanach, but I also had to make sure the rest of the escaping Forsworn were dealt with as well, lest they bring further harm to the innocent people of the Reach. They were shocked and caught entirely off-guard by the betrayal, but the only Forsworn who actually ''hurt'' me to harm was Braig. When I came upon him, fighting off two Markarth guards, I stopped my rampage and spared him, moving on to Madanach and dealing with him before making my escape.

* In the Mind of Madness quest, you'll meet Sheogorath who is filled with as much mirth and hammyness as you can imagine, asking you to clear out the mind of Pelagius. It's a fun and clever quest...But when you stop and see just how fucked up Pelagius' mind was, it can be quite harsh. Especially when watching the manifestation of his self-esteem get beaten down.

** Doubles as a weird sort of [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Moment of Heartwarming]] for Sheogorath. He's the Prince of Madness, but enlists your help in making Pelagius (comparatively) sane.

* Near the Guardian Stones is a (barely) hidden shrine to Talos, where people were continuing to worship him in violation of the law. Sadly, someone ratted them out to the Thalmor, but the agent who knew couldn't find the place with a squad 7 times. Finally, Elewyn told him to go find it himself and stop wasting their resources. ''This time he found it.'' And he killed 4 people, a couple who were worshipping and priests, but they didn't go down easy. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|They took the Thalmor agent with them]]. Since Elewyn didn't care what happened to the agent, the Thalmor don't believe that there is a shrine here at all and with his death, they will never know. So anyone can worship there, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|saving potentially hundreds of people from being killed by the Thalmor.]] Still, [[Nightmare Fuel|there is that spy.]] So who knows...

* In Solitude, after Roggvir's execution, this troper encountered a small girl. I talked to her. This is what she said:

* The plight of Azura's last loyal follower. After completing Azura's quest, she tells you that Azura will no longer give her any visions. She confesses that she has no idea what to do without Azura's guidance after spending most of her life worshiping her. She becomes one of your Followers mostly because she can't think of anything better to do with her life.

* In one particular part of Eastmarch (the area south of Windhelm with all the geysers and hot springs), one can find a single giant gazing forlornly at the corpse of a mammoth, which apparently became mired in the springs and died. The giant is completely non-hostile, and will not react even if the player goes up and touches him. He'll turn to regard the player sadly, but as soon as you leave, he'll just go back to looking straight at his big furry pet, never abandoning his silent vigil. This troper, playing his heartless assassin character, was truly moved by this poignant, easily-missed event. {{spoiler|[[Mood Whiplash|He then decided to end the poor giant's heartache]] [[Back Stab|in the only way he knew how.]]}}

* This troper wound up pursuing a dragon bounty and, as usual, spent the majority of the journey trying to FIND the bugger's hunting grounds. About halfway through the search, we came upon a small shack out in the woods. Two burned corpses stood in frozen terror just outside next to a pile of firewood. Inside the shack was note from the woodsman, describing how he and his wife had seen a dragon fly overhead every day or so. His wife urged him to move them to safer lands, but he figured that like any other beast, if they left it alone it would leave them alone. It became clear that this was precisely why this dragon had a bounty in the first place. When Lydia and I finally got to its roost, it was the first time we had ever caused a dragon to crash and skid across the ground, landing face-first in the altar on which it had nested.

* A very minor one but when exploring the area outside Whiterun after doing the Imperial Quest Line I found a single Stormcloak soldier in a small camp. The poor guy's side had lost the war and now he is all alone in the world just barely outside of an Imperial held city. Eventually I just [[Mercy Kill|mercy killed]] him.

* The Old Orc. For a bit of elaboration, you may come across an orc in the wilderness while traveling, standing over the corpses of ''two'' sabre cats. If you talk to him, the very first thing he tells you is "I am waiting for a good death." If you ask him to explain, he will tell you that he is too old to become a chieftain or take a wife, and that to simply lay down and die would not please his god, Malacath. You then have the option of telling him that perhaps ''you'' could provide the death he seeks...

* This troper accidentally shot Lydia with a bow, killing her, and didn't realize it for three hours. I was on the verge of tears as I went back through my saves, partially because I was such a horrible person and partially because I had lost so much progress.

** This troper also accidentally killed Lydia, and didn't realize it until I'd already fast traveled a few places and overwritten the last autosave I had where she was still alive. The most recent save I had other than that was at Saarthal, probably about 12 hours before. Cruel as it was, I didn't want to go through all those hours of gameplay again. So I carried her body out to the river and let it drift off. It took some work to keep her from just washing up on random shores, but I eventually managed to let go of her in exactly the right spot. She floated off with the current, just as the sun was coming down in the distance.

** Another Lydia story. This One gave her allegiance to the Stormcloaks. When it was time to attack Whiterun, this One did not want Lydia to be harmed. This One ordered Lydia to follow her during the invasion. It was a success and Lydia survived, but when Jarl Balgruuf the Greater gave his dissapointment, saying "You? A Stormcloak? I thought you were better than this!" the ackward positions made it look like Balgruuf was speaking to Lydia, ei. the woman who he hired into his service! A few days later and during a dragon hunt, this One could not find Lydia anywhere. Returning to the Whiterun house, this one found Lydia sitting in her room and [[Drowning My Sorrows|drinking mead]]. (Yes, simple game mechanic, but given the context...) [[Mood Whiplash|This One felt like cheering up Lydia]] by [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|marrying her]].

* During the Butcher Quest, if you did not correctly deduce who the killer was or if you were not quick enough to catch him before he killed again, another young girl dies. This time, however, she was an elf, not a nord. Given the racist mindset of Windhelm, the guards and people are more concerned with the killer still on the loose (if you accused the wizard) or just plain don't care about her at all (her corpse will not despawn, but no one will pay mind to it after the completion of the quest). This troper went through 3 tries to ensure that the killer was dead before he could commit the deed to avert this one.

* This troper was wandering the area around Riften when he came to a small cave. Looking around I found it to be pretty empty except for a journal that explained that the author had been on hard times and found work with a friend who had discovered a gold mine only for the mine to be dry, he goes away for a few days and returns to find that his friend has ran off and abandoned him. Just as I was about to leave I decided to checked the place again. Behind a waterfall there is a few gold veins and a skeleton crushed at the waist by some fallen rocks. A double tearjerker; The writer never finding his fortune and the friend dead and disgraced.

* On the topic of dead followers (and long story): I had finished the Vaermina daedric quest, letting Erandur live and destroy the staff, and decided to have him follow my character. I became very fond of him as we wandered around Skyrim. After a scare where I thought he'd died, I decided that even though Erandur isn't a marriageable NPC, I'd do a console-code hack to marry him. My mistake was deciding to wait until I'd turned in my most recent quest, {{spoiler|returning Jarl Balgruuf's axe to him. This takes you directly into the Stormcloak's assault on Whiterun, so I armed up and rushed into the fray. In the battle, I lost track of Erandur. It was only while listening to the Jarl's victory speech and praise of the fallen soldiers (which was tear-jerker enough) that I realized Erandur wasn't with me. After searching all over and fast-traveling, I realized he was gone for good. I wandered numbly around Whiterun for a while, trying not to cry because my family was in the same room. The timing made it rather beautifully poetic, and very very painful.}}

** I just want to point out that Erandur is essential and is probably back at where you found him, alive and well, waiting for you...

* A very poignant moment for someone playing a Nord who is always a little doubtful about the Stormcloaks and still supporting them because they fight for the right to worship Talos, is speaking with Solitude's court wizard, Sybille Stentor. Her words can cause a rare sense of guilt and shame. "Because the Dominion is a sleeping beast that Skyrim cannot slay alone. Because many Nords are part of the Imperial army even now. Because the food and resources we get from the Empire are important to our people. Because even if we can't openly worship him, Talos the god was once Tiber Septim the man, and this is his Empire."

* Reading the books to catch up on what has happened since Oblivion. Hearing about everything from the destruction of Cloud Ruler Temple, the burning of the Cheydinhal Sanctuary, and, worse of all, you find out that Ocato made a fantastic Emperor, and rebuilt Tamriel. And after briging the Empire to an age of prosperity it hadn't seen in years... the Thalmor had him killed.

 

[[Category:Video Games/Tear Jerker]]