The Sandman/Tear Jerker
- "24 Hours":
- A group of people in a diner end up tortured and killed by John Dee, with the outside world and superheroes helpless to save them. During the hour where they get their minds back, they beg him to stop and ask him why. Dee replies, "Because I can."
- Judy is a Troubled Abuser. Her ex Donna has broken up with her for this reason, and Judy spends her time in the diner thinking about her, writing a letter of apology before the torture starts. She was not a nice person, but her death has an impact on the story. Rose Walker was revealed to be friends with Judy, and was the last person she spoke with before John Dee started his work; in Doll's House, Rose narrates her disbelief that Judy just died like that. Donna, having a hard time dealing with the grief, renames herself Foxglove for a clean start, and even writes a song about Judy's unusual passing. We hear it in Death: The High Cost of Living.
- "The Sound of Her Wings", where Dream follows his sister Death on her daily work, always make it for this troper, all because of this page. It is just so... real.
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Mother: OOtchacootchacoo? |
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- Here's what makes it worse if you know that these were the signs of SIDS. The baby got sleep apnea at the worst possible time, in a period when it wasn't well-understood. Even their mother hadn't left the room, there was little to nothing either of them could have done to stop it.
- This troper's tearjerker moment for this series was in The Doll's House -- all the little sequences of Jed's adventures in the dream-world, which are all very sweet and cutesy, and the contrast with the panels of what's really happening when he wakes up. I must have read that same comic a million times, and I still sniffle. Every. Single. Time. (They are also in a small way nightmarish -- such as the one where he wakes from a dream about setting loose the verbal gerbils, which are still very cute-looking, to being bitten by rats.)
- Jed is finally rescued, thanks to Gilbert. He's also unconscious and dehydrated because Gilbert deduced he must have been locked in the Corinthian's car and went to rescue him while the Corinthian was at the convention. Gilbert and Rose get him to a hospital, and he agrees to watch over her little brother while she gets some sleep at the rental. Rose paces around the shared house fretting, as her housemates attempt to comfort her.
- Gilbert is revealed to not be a real person, though he does pay his rent on time and defends his friends with a cane. He's a Dream creation, a place called Fiddler's Green. Unlike most of the creations that ran to the real world, Gilbert didn't seek power or an escape from his maker. He wanted to be human, quirks and all. But then he learns his new best friend Rose is the Vortex, and that her powers are awakening. Gilbert goes Oh Crap when Matthew the raven tells him this and returns to the Dreaming immediately hoping that he's not too late. Why? Because Dream is bound by duty and necessity to kill the Vortex, and Gilbert would face any punishment that Morpheus levies on him if it would save Rose's life.
- The confrontation when Gilbert finds Rose and Dream, as Dream is breaking this revelation gently to Rose. Dream doesn't want to do it because Rose is an innocent person, and he does not kill. He says the last time he failed his duty, entire worlds nearly ended. Gilbert comes and hugs Rose protectively. He says to Dream he'll accept any punishment for deserting, but please let him exchange his life for Rose's, as he would die for her. Dream can't accept that, and sincerely apologizes. Not because of Cruel Mercy. It's because Fiddler's Green isn't the Vortex, and never was, and thus his death would accomplish nothing. Gilbert apologizes to Rose, saying he was a failure of a person while giving her a farewell hug. Fortunately, Unity Kincaid comes by, as the young woman she used to be, and asks her granddaughter Rose for her heart, the item that makes her the Vortex. Unity reveals that she was the one that Dream was supposed to kill a long time ago, and someone raping her in her sleep caused the curse to be passed to Rose. She takes the heart, lets it shatter, and accepts her death knowing it means her granddaughter would live.
- Calliope's situation in her story. She knew her time to inspire mortals had passed, but she came down once to bathe in a river for old time's sake. By really bad luck, an author named Erasmus Fry knew how to grab her scroll while holding the flowers of Moly and burn the paper so as to enslave her. He used her for years to become a bestseller author, only to devolve into a husk of a man. Erasmus lies to Calliope that she'll be free upon his death, only to sell her to Richard Madoc in exchange for a bezoar. She becomes so desperate that when hearing her ex Oneiros is the only one who can save her, she hates him but tells the three Fates, "Please send anyone, even Oneiros." Note that Dream is so disgusted by what Richard Madoc and Erasmus Fry did to his ex that he needs little persuasion to provide assistance.
- An off-hand remark in an early book does this, during the story that won the World Fantasy Award to boot. Shakespeare's son bemoans that the only way his father'd care about him is if he died because then he'd make a play about it. The boy's name is Hamnet and he did die, aged eleven.
- This troper cried, for the first time in months, at the end of the A Game of You. She finds it hard to believe that nobody else cried when Death came to pick up Wanda. And she looked so beautiful... This troper also started crying when the woman Barbie was talking to said how nice Alvin looked in his suit, with his hair cut. "She was so proud of her hair."
- Barbie recounts to Wanda's aunt that she was the only survivor of their leveled apartment building, thanks to a homeless woman named Maisie shielding Barbie's sleeping body with hers. As paramedics loaded Barbie onto a stretcher, she saw Wanda in a body bag. Barbie was not willing to believe what she was seeing and screamed at them to let Wanda out, that she won't be able to breathe in the bag. Said aunt is transphobic and believes Wanda was a sinner for coming out of the closet; she starts patting Rose's shoulder to comfort her.
- The conversation by the gravestone. Barbie asks Wanda why she's not here, enjoying her life and making fun of Barbie's funeral clothes. She relates that she doesn't understand why the homeless woman Maisie chose to save Barbie, a complete stranger, and Barbie can't find any of her family to either thank them or apologize.
- Barbie scrawling Wanda's given name off her grave with her favorite lipstick and writing her real one. It might've been too similar to a scene from the TV miniseries Roots but it did finish the book in a powerful, emotional bang.
- The ending of the story. Barbie had to leave her dream world behind to save her living friends and still lost one of them. She can't stay with Hazel and Foxglove, who have to prepare for a baby, and Thessaly has gone off to do her thing without acknowledging it was her fault that Wanda died. Barbie admits she doesn't know what she's going to do as a divorcee with no legacy or meaning to her life, only head out into the world, and see what she can make of it.
- The end of "Ramadan," with its flash-forward from Harun al-Rashid's Baghdad to a little boy hearing stories about it in a bombed-out area of present-day Baghdad.
- Orpheus' story, which was already a massive Tear Jerker outside of the series. This one is even worse: his aunt Teleute, Death in Greek guise, warns him that if she agrees to never take him so he can bargain with Hades, it can only be undone by another Endless. Orpheus does think about it, to his credit, but he doesn't realize the implications until he looks back, and registers that he can never reunite with Eurydice, even in death. Particularly the moment when Dream abandons him.
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"I have no son." |
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- There's a line near the end about how when Dream walks off, he doesn't look back. You could take that to mean that Orpheus should have had that much willpower, and then he wouldn't be in this mess. Or you could take it the other way: By not looking back, Dream reveals a level of cold-heartedness completely opposite the temperament of his son (at least on the surface) that led to him and Calliope breaking up, and his life as Oneiros falling apart. It makes Orpheus's failure more forgivable... and because you don't judge him as harshly now, the punishment seems even worse.
- The scene in Brief Lives where Despair reminisces on her last meeting with Destruction, then bursts into tears. Desire attempts to contact her, but Despair doesn't react.
- Is this troper the only one whose heart broke for Delirium when she got to the "I had to be...I had to be... It hurt." part? A single panel drives home the point hard that there's a real, deep sadness underneath Delirium's Fun Personified and Cloudcuckoolander personality.
- From The World's End: "I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn't that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you. I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped. And looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there. But I'll always love her. All my life." Especially when you consider he's talking about Death.
- The fates of Dream's griffin, Dream himself ("Dream? Give me your hand."), and Orpheus, among others.
- What about Fiddler's Green? His demise is the one that always gets me. Those last words reflecting on the small pleasures of his life - "A kiss once...from a friend..." - and then slumping dead. Almost as tear-jerking is the revelation that, following Daniel's reincarnation as the new Dream, he offers pretty much all of the casualties of the Kindly Ones new life. Fiddler's Green is the only one who refuses, as he feels that this would cheapen the whole point of death.
- Or Abel...poor Abel, with the grieving Goldie perched on his chest.
- For that matter, Cain, who does clearly love his brother in their opening scene, but cannot change the nature of their relationship.
- Lyta Hall telling a pregnant Rose Walker to "kill [the baby] now. Kill it before it breaks your heart."
- Thessaly protected Lyta's sleeping form because she owed the Furies a favor, as she tells Dream; it's not because of their breakup. When The Kindly Ones ends, however, Lyta wakes up in her apartment, disheveled and confused, and Thessaly is cleaning her glasses. She gives Lyta a Mercy Lead: take twenty minutes to shower and do whatever she can to leave town, because a bunch of divine beings are coming for Lyta's head. Thessaly also says that she will probably be one of them, so start running.
- Morpheus's death.
- It was Nada's farewell to him toward the end of the funeral that pushed this editor over the edge and into open bawling.
- For this troper, the moment was when the Archangel Duma gave his farewell - one single tear, containing both grief for the fallen and hope at the same time. For the record, this troper is a guy.
- There are way too many moments in The Wake that were Tear Jerkers for this Troper. Despair's speech for one: "And you will forget: Death or life will take him from your minds, I know... But I shall remember him." gave this troper chills.
- This troper is pissed at how scared everyone looked at that moment. Despair's speech is probably the most touching of the sibling's speeches especially when you realize since her first incarnation died, she's known him the shortest amount of time.
- Also Matthew's speech, and the guilt and rage he felt.
- As well as Thessaly's speech "...And I swore...I swore I would never shed another tear for him," right while she's crying and showing us she actually has feelings other than rage and spite.
- If Delirium's speech doesn't make you feel at least a little tearful, you probably have no soul. "He was my big brother. He really was. I was always a bit scared of him. But I'm not scared of him any more. I'm a bit sad of him instead. Okay. That's all."
- This troper cries for Bast, who gives her speech quietly knowing that it's not long before she dies, too. "And now he is gone. And I am old."
- Hob waking up weeping was one, and the speech right when Daniel-Dream opens the door "...And then, fighting to stay asleep, wishing it would go on forever, sure that once the dream was over, it would never come back...you woke up." With Dream's Star shining in the sky and that feeling that after ten issues...it was over. Amazing.
- I am tearing up just thinking about the scene in The Wake when Hob dreams about meeting Morpheus and a "pavement artist" (who is very obviously Destruction) somewhere.
- Hob Gadling's reaction to Morpheus' death. This is particularly bad when you consider that it comes right after the death of his girlfriend, and that Morpheus was the one person he must have been certain would not go and die on him. You'd think an immortal man would have become used to the people he's close to dying, but instead, his mourning at the grave of his most recent love is painful because of how real it is.
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I thought we'd have longer. It never gets any easier. People you love not being there any more. |
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- Morpheus' confession to Shakespeare in the final issue: "I am...in my fashion...an island."
- What's even more sad and beautiful about that moment is that he couldn't be more wrong. Over all the issues of The Sandman, we see Dream change, and love and need other people and act like a man, and finally leave his kingdom - through death - because at last he realised that he had changed.
- Nuala's realization of Dream's motivation for everything post Brief Lives. "You... you want them to kill you, don't you? You want to be punished for your son's death." The look on Dream's face the next panel is heartwrenching.
- Throughout the series, it's implied that killing one of the Endless brings about terrible punishment, even under good intent. After the climax of The Kindly Ones, Lyta Hall, Morpheus's killer is expressly reminded this, with the further warning that the person who'd done so previously would suffer for all eternity when his motives were purer by far. The penalty handed down is to be allowed to walk away with no further harm done to her -- a Cruel Mercy, as her efforts were All for Nothing, and everything she's done ensured she'd never see her son again, as he'd been reincarnated into the new Dream. It's also unofficial exile from the Dreaming, since Lyta did kill innocent creations that had nothing to do with Daniel's disappearance.
- Even worse, Lyta is now a vessel for the Furies, and there are no takebacks; only her death would free her. If she kills a blood relative, the Furies would release her as a vessel but then murder her in turn. A sequel series reveals that while no one can hurt her for her crimes against Dream and destroying his world, they can try and make Lyta kill a blood relative to attack the Furies indirectly.
- Turns into a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when Daniel!Dream forgives her in the Wake. Later on in Justice Society of America, when she and a resurrected Hector do hero work for the Justice Society, Lyta sincerely atones for her actions. As a result, Daniel is able to lift the exile, welcoming her and his father back into the Dreaming.
- Endless Nights
- Dream and Desire used to be close. Then for fun, Desire made Dream's latest paramour fall for someone else, as a joke. They then don't understand when their brother gives them a What The Hell Hero for breaking his heart, and severs ties. Desire decided their next bit of fun would be manipulating events to sic the Furies on Dream, to kill him.
- "15 Portraits of Despair" in Endless Nights. Chances are one of them will be much too close to home for you to shrug off.
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I am Despair - and all those who despair are me. |
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- Death: The High Cost of Living
- Deedee loses her composure once when Erasmus kills the henchman that wants to sell her ankh for money rather than surrender her. She tells Sexton, screaming, that he may have been a jerk but he's a human being who needs help, and he needs to breathe. They do their best to make him comfortable. Even so, he dies in front of them.
- Sexton is a depressed young man that doesn't know what he wants in life. A girl his age saves him from a trash heap and leads him on the most exciting day that he's had in ages when Mad Hattie forcibly asks them to find her heart. After being suspicious of how Deedee keeps getting free stuff and claiming that she's Death, Sexton comes to see how wonderful she is. They eat breakfast after Mad Hettie saves them from Erasmus, buy a replacement ankh, and chill in Central Park. Deedee feels her time is up, and gives him a peck on the cheek, before standing on the edge of a fountain. Then she falls into the water; at first, Sexton thinks she's doing it on purpose, only she's not responding. He goes Oh Crap and tries to run to her side. Erasmus has her body, but says that she's escaped him, this time. Sexton's face is reflected in the water, mourning. All he can do is call her kindly neighbor, who explains it must have been Deedee's heart that gave out in time.
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