Stories that make you cry

[sally_maria]

After reading a discussion elsewhere I wondered what stories (books, tv, films) always made you cry.

I must admit I'm a fairly easy crier when it comes to fiction but apart from the Lord of the Rings I think the book that affects me most is Guy Gavriel Kay's The Darkest Road - from about half way through the book until nearly the end. It's a very satisfying end in a lot of ways, none of the pain seems wasted or gratuitous, but I can't read it in public because there will be sobbing.

When it comes to TV quite a few of Joss Whedon's deaths seem like too much - more to show that the world is dangerous than truly necessary, but the end of Season 2 of Buffy still breaks my heart every time.

I like it much less in story terms, but Daniel Jackson's deliberate and calculated decision to sacrifice himself to a horrible death to save a planet still has me tearing up after many viewings and many vids.

What stories make you tear up? Do you cry over fiction at all or doesn't it work that way for you?

Comments

[amalthia]

I cry over stories all the time. I never made a tag for fics that made me cry but now thinking about it I'm surprised I hadn't done that already.

I'm know I'm more likely to cry over the written word than TV or movies.

[sally_maria]

It's interesting - I've had people over on LJ tell me that they only cry at books and others that they only cry at TV/Movies, and there doesn't seem to be a particular reason why it should work that way.

[amalthia]

I can cry at both if the story is moving enough. :)

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

I'm a terrible blubber [it was years before I could read Aragorn's demise without tearing up and it still gets me decades later]. I remember blubbing madly at the end of Brideshead Revisited when Charles and Julia split up, and anything involving animals goes right to the tear ducts. I haven't seen 'War Horse' yet as I don't think I could bear it!

[sally_maria]

Tolkien really has a way of hitting you in the emotions, while being so very restrained, doesn't he?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

A few moments in ANZACs.

The occasional scene in M*A*S*H, especially the last episode.

[sally_maria]

It's a long time since I saw M*A*S*H, but the shock of Henry Blake's death is something I remember very clearly.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I cry very easily at books, but quite rarely at TV or movies. Somehow I notice the manipulation of my emotions more on screen, and of course on screen you don't really get inside the character's heads in the same way. Only exception I can think of is the handing out of the weapons to the children and old men of Rohan at Helm's Deep - that gets me every time!

Whereas books... LOADS of Sutcliff. Poor Artos and Guinhumara after they lose their little girl. The death of Ambrosius. Owain when he sees the Red Dragon and knows he has to go back to the Saxons. The whole end of The Shining Company (that's an Y Goddodin retelling so unsurprisingly tragic). Boudicca and her daughters dying in battle...

Death of named animal characters too, but I actively avoid reading stuff that dwells heavily on death of animal characters, I find it too hard. I'm not entirely sure why. I don't cry for Aragorn (maybe a little for Arwen left behind) but Hazel the rabbit dying in extreme old age at the end of Watership Down? FLOODS!

[sally_maria]

The end of the Lantern Bearers always makes me well up a bit, the bitter sweet consolation of family reunion in the face of the oncoming darkness.

Theoden's death definitely gets me in the film, whereas in the book I think I mourn for Snowmane more - but I'm sure that's intended in the way it's written.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

If I started listing all the books and films that make me cry, I'd be here all day. :-) Happy endings, especially hard-won happy endings, make me cry, if anything, more than sad ones.

I'm more likely to cry at films and TV than books, I think, because I'm easily manipulated by music. I regularly cry at least 4 or 5 times in the Return of the King movie, but I'm fairly sure my reaction wouldn't be the same if the score was different.

[sally_maria]

Yes, I know what you mean about the music. I'm sure that's a big part of the impact of Dambusters, to use an example you mentioned Elsewhere.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I don't cry - I am not sure I have that ability whatever the provocation, after my experiences at junior school. That said, if I did, The Time Traveller's Wife would be the one that would do it for me.

I could not stop reading it, and it was like watching a slow motion train crash.

[sally_maria]

Yes, I know what you mean about not being able to stop reading - though I often find that happens with stories I don't really like, where the pain is stupid and relentless rather than cathartic.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I am glad I read it, but I would not choose to read it again. It was an intense experience I don't think I could undertake knowing in advance just *how* intense it would be.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I tend not to cry at such things. adaese, on the other hand, costs us a fortune in tissues.

[sally_maria]

It seems to be a bit gendered, in that some guys have said they don't cry and no women have, but I suspect this is not at all a representative sample. :-)

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

There are, admittedly fairly rare, occasions when I wish I did have that ability, but I don't think that I do.

[chainmailmaiden]

I don't tend to cry at films, TV or books however involved I get in them. An exception I can remember is Hero, the film based on Jing Ke's assassination attempt on the King of Qin. I watched it shortly after my father died, so I think I was particularly vulnerable. It's beautifully shot and has such well staged scenes, but is so sad.

[sally_maria]

I definitely find that my existing mood can have an effect, that I'm more likely to cry if I'm already feeling down for some reason. On the other hand, I am generally a bit of a watering pot, and there are many stories that will make me cry regardless of how I am otherwise feeling.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I cried reading Connie Willis' All Clear yesterday.

I cried in the theatre at the end of Journey's End.

I cried at the end of Blackadder Goes Forth.

And lest you think I only cry when there is a world war involved, I cried reading Connie Willis' Domesday Book, and RA MacAvoy's Book of Kells. And yes, Buffy.

Time Travel, War, and especially Time Travel AND War do it for me.

Books more than films or theatre.

I cry more over fiction than I do over non-fiction. With Real Life, I think a more active response is needed, fiction gives me the opportunity to just be sad, without any of the other reactions to loss.

[sally_maria]

Yes, I think you are right about fiction as opposed to RL - as you say, in RL there are things to do rather than simply being sad.

I did wonder though if there would be people who felt that fiction wasn't worth getting upset over, because, well... it's fiction. On the other hand, I suspect that's a response you're less likely to find among fans, where investment in fiction is part of our modus operandi.

[rustica.livejournal.com]

Buffy seasons 2-3. The film about CS Lewis, Shadowland. OMG, The English Patient: never will I try to get through that again. I missed the whole of the second half because I couldn't see the screen or hear the dialogue, and I have no idea how it ended.

Books? I'm not sure I can think of any books that make me cry. Other emotions yes, especially fear, but not tears. I wonder why?

[sally_maria]

I think our responses to fiction are as individual as we are - I may cry more over books, but I'm not sure how much that is a function of reading in private as opposed to watching TV with family or friends.

[emperor]

I cry at films and TV and everything, all the time.

[sally_maria]

It's good to know I'm not alone in tearing up at emotional moments on a regular basis.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the end of Buffy 2 are my dead certs

Oddly, since being married to someone who is weepy at sad bits in films / TV, I appear to be much more likely to be weepy. Which is a bit embarressing when you're watching Up with a 13 year old or Strictly with your mother.

[sally_maria]

I think social pressure (in either direction) does definitely have something to do with it - if I'm in public I'm usually less likely to cry, unless I'm with someone who is also doing so.

[apademek.livejournal.com]

Books far more than TV or cinema, although the gravestone in the last Dr who did produce a sniffle. LotR the Grey Havens. Harry Potter, the death of Fred Wesley and when Harry sees the bodies of Remus and Tonks laid out in the Great Hall.

[sally_maria]

I was definitely crying over the climax of Deathly Hallows, and the end of Half-Blood Prince as well.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

For absolutely predictable crying, I don't know how many times I've read L.M.Alcott's Good Wives, but the obvious chapters in that make me cry Every.Single.Time (also the later relevant poem and associated stuff.)

Also, I saw Titanic a few times, and always cried at the montage of the sinking - I think in this case the combination of the very effective music and visuals with the knowledge of the reality of what had happened was very powerfully moving. (I thought most of the Rose-and-Jack storyline - hey, that sounds familiar!! - was a bit rubbish, but the real-life tragedy was effectively conveyed, and I felt they paid it due respect, it wasn't cheapened by just being the backdrop for the romance or anything. But I know lots of people hated the film, which is fair enough.) Similarly for powerful combinations of music and visuals, I agree with Bunn about the arming the children and old men at Helm's Deep and will add the intercutting of Faramir's charge with Pippin's song (and I agree with LoA about manipulation by music, especially combined with a particular type of visual, esp wordless and slow-mo apparently.) For the *book*, the Grey Havens always makes me cry.

Continuing my theme of agreeing with other people, I'll second Muuranker on the end of Journey's End as well. As with Titanic, I think the knowledge of the reality of the trenches was a factor there, though the effectiveness of the fictional portrayal of it is another part of the whole. Ditto Les Mis. So I'm possibly particularly vulnerable to crying at real events when portrayed through a fictional medium, or at least an artistic one (e.g. Wilfred Owen's poems.) But certainly there are whole swathes of not-real-life-type fiction that equally powerfully affect me (see Alcott, Tolkien, Antony Hope, well, far too many to list!)

As for crying in public, I'm not particularly embarrassed about crying in cinemas or theatres. What I have found slightly awkward is crying in front of the children, not because I think it's a bad thing, but because it tends to involve things they don't really understand yet. For instance, I took El to the cinema a couple of years back to watch UP, and was giving him a sort of running commentary on some of the bits thus "look, they're imagining baby shapes in the clouds, and now they're decorating a nursery because they're going to have their own babies ...oh." And there was a lovely children's book called Once There Were Giants that I just could not get through without sobbing, and it wasn't even sad really, it was just time passing (also I was pregnant with Fro then post-natal at the time so massively hormonal!) so really hard to explain to El why I was crying.

Whoa, long answer is long! :-)

[sally_maria]

Long answer is good. :-)

Good Wives, definitely, but I have to confess I've never actually seen Titanic. Not through any hate, but I tend not to seek out things that have completely sad endings, as opposed to the grief being part of the story.

I hadn't thought of the problem of crying in front of the children, though it makes a lot of sense. These days Mum can get a bit red-eyed about things, but usually when I'm filling up as well - when I was a child she did a very good job of keeping a stiff upper lip, at least when I was around to notice.