Dragonlance/Tear Jerker

• Sturm's death in the Dragonlance novels. Apparently even the authors cried as they wrote the scene.
  • And the death of Tanis in Dragons of Summer Flame.
  • This humble contributor must have gotten some dust in his eyes or something when he reached the part with Tas sitting there with Flint's helmet, crying for his lost friend.
  • The epilogue in Dragons of Spring Dawning, where Fizban is comforting Tas:

Beside the forge of Reorx is a tree of surpassing beauty, the likes of which no living being has ever seen. Beneath that tree sits a grumbling old dwarf, relaxing after many labors. A mug of cold ale stands beside him, and the fire of the forge is warm upon his bones. He spends all day lounging beneath the tree, carving and shaping the wood he loves. And every day someone who comes past that beautiful tree starts to sit down beside him.
"That place is saved," the dwarf grumbles. "There's a lamebrained doorknob of a kender off adventuring somewhere getting himself into no end of trouble. One day he'll show up and admire my tree and say, "Flint, I'm tired. I think I'll rest awhile here with you."

• • This troper would like to mention that she cried at the actual death, as well as the moments mentioned above. The reactions of Tasslehoff to the whole thing was utterly heartbreaking. I cried for probably half an hour.
  • This troper had her heart absolutely broken at the end of the War of Souls trilogy, when Tas goes back in time do die under Chaos' foot. The scene was sad enough the first time around; realizing that he chose it, for the good of everyone else... * bawls*
    • And then, after Tas dies in his Heroic Sacrifice, he sits down next to Flint, who has been his best friend and companion in the whole story, and, seeing that Reorx's forge's fire has been put out, Tas convinces Flint to turn it on again. And a new star appears on the sky... Damn, I cried loads when both things happened.
  • Unexpectedly for a book that's basically a comedy about the Knights of Takhisis being flummoxed by tinker gnomes, The Siege of Mount Nevermind has a few strong ones, mostly near the end. The determined resistance of the gnomes after spending most of the book as comic relief is surprisingly moving at many points, but the strongest comes with Halion Khargos, the leader of the Knights expedition to Mount Nevermind, recalling his youth on the island and realizing there was more nobility and strength in the simple life he abandoned, and sitting down to die in the face of a rampaging dragon out of the depths of the mountain. This act left the strictly regimented group of Knights leaderless and easier to push off, but was also just an attempt at atoning for his life of evil.
  • Matafleur's Heroic Sacrifice near the end of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Brought this troper closer to tears than just about anything that happened to the supposed main characters in the entire trilogy.
    • THAT was the saddest part. Period. It was just so sad, like the entire chapter. Just typing that would make some people I know teary-eyed, and seriously that's the only book I've ever cried reading, I was literally in tears on the bus.
    • What probably made Matafleur's Heroic Sacrifice so sad was just reading a plot summary of it, consider that even though the character was just introduced...we learn that Matafluer is an old dragoness who apparently acts as a mother to the captured kids and women. But upon seeing a weapon made to fight dragons, she starts having memory relapses of seeing her own children fly off to war to be killed, begging them not to and for them to come back. Then the kids start coming in and see her going crazy and start yelling stuff like "No! No! Don't hurt our dragon!" and they have to be perusuaded to get out and say bye to her only she's too hysterical to pay attention to them. It sounds like it's over but then finally another dragon comes to get all the characters and prisoners, but Matafluer shows up and flies at the dragon who wants to hurt her children. He breathes fire at her but she doesn't care and just pushes him into a mountain and kills them both. They also say that you can her her saying "My children..."
  • Why has no one put up the end of Test of the Twins yet?

And then the light was gone. The Portal slammed shut, and blackness pounced upon him with raging, slathering fury. Talons ripped his flesh, teeth tore through muscle, and crunched bone. Blood flowed from his breast, but it would not take with it his life.
He screamed, and he would scream, and he would keep on screaming, unendingly...
Something touched him... a hand... He clutched at it as it shook him, gently. A voiced called, "Raist! Wake up! It was only a dream. Don't be afraid. I won't let them hurt you! Here, watch... I'll make you laugh."
The dragon's coils tightened, crushing out his breath. Glistening black fangs ate his living organs, devoured his heart. Tearing into his body, they sought his soul.
A strong arm encircled him, holding him close. A hand raised, gleaming with silver light, forming chilish pictures in the night, and the voice, dimly heard, whispered, "Look, Raist, bunnies..."
He smiled, no longer afraid. Caramon was here.

• • When Raistlin came upon regiment of dead Gully Dwarves after they captured Pax Tharkas in War of the Twins was a mild tear jerker for this troper.
    • Definitely. Especially the way it's described. When Raistlin first sees them, he's confused, and wonders if time has already been changed, as the history books never mentioned a gully dwarf regiment at the battle. Then comes the horrific realization, and as sorrow, anger, and bitterness pass over his face:

"No," he said to himself bitterly, "the pitiful sacrifice of these poor creatures was not left out of histories because it did not happen. It was left out simply because--"
He paused, staring grimly down at the small broken bodies. "No one cared..."

• The short story "A Painter's Vision" from the anthology Love And War. It's just... impossible to describe and do it justice. It's heartbreaking and beautiful and utterly destroys you inside.
• Caramon's death in the hands of Tas' and his reaction to it.