Batman: Arkham Asylum/Tear Jerker


  • The sequence in Batman: Arkham Asylum where under the influence of the Scarecrow's fear toxin, you relive the death of Bruce Wayne's parents. Including a point where you turn into Bruce Wayne as a child and stumble past the corpses of your parents. Eight-year-old Bruce overhears a police officer that is a dick: ("Oh, he'll be fine. Kid like that, with all that money? Yeah, I'm sure he'll be just fine... His butler's coming to pick him up... Hear that? He's got a butler.") Comissioner Gordon's the only one who takes pity on Bruce, which makes it all the more heartwarming.
  • "Why did he do it, officer? Why?"
  • In a minor way, seeing Harley sobbing in her cell after Batman has subdued her kind of reminds you that for all her slavish devotion to the Joker, she's ultimately just a broken woman and another of Joker's victims.
    • Until you look at her in Detective Mode and realize she's faking it (and looking up at you every so often to see if you're buying it), of course...
      • Hell, she's even laid a trap for you, and she WILL gloat.
      • That's still kinda sad. Puddin' said stop the Bat, so he'll be thrilled when he finds out she trapped him there, and gladly let her back on the party list, right?
  • Your first encounter with enemies with guns. An officer says "Please, I've got a wife and kids..." "You don't have to do this!" After killing the officer, the goon says "You're right, I don't have to. I just want to!"
  • Seeing the dozens upon dozens of corpses of innocent guards and doctors throughout the game. This troper kept switching visor modes to see if any of them had a pulse. Easily a hundred good men and women dead, and this is just one time that the Joker will break out. Knowing that Batman will never bring himself to end his archnemesis means that this will happen again, and again, and again...
    • Fridge Horror and/or Fridge Brilliance is invoked once you recall this conversation from the intro sequence where you escort Joker through the asylum.

Aaron Cash: So, you're back. You killed three of my crew when you busted outta here.

Joker: Only three? I'll be sure to try harder next time. What say we aim for a hundred?

  • Both this and Nightmare fuel. Seeing Bruce's parents make this troper in tears after hearing them.
    • The cracks in Batman's voice only make this all the more depressing.
  • Same as above, both this and Nightmare Fuel. While saving Dr. Young from Zsazs, she's crying with her whole heart out, even with smeared make up (realistically disturbing watching a woman doing this on a game). After the bomb blows out on her face, her body, left on the floor, with no one attending or taking it... just left there, all burned out and charred and bloodied. It'll be normal if she just disappears, like in any other game, but in this one, just the unconscious disappear, and because they left after waking up. But the dead stay there, even if they're cops or doctors or whatever other citizen.
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