Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.
Crona's flashbacks of having the brutal Medusa for a mother who used her/him as a test subject. And the following scenes of Maka finally getting through to Crona.
Maka telling Chrona that she'll be his/her/whatever friend, and he breaks down because no one has ever been friendly to them in their life, let alone make an attempt to befriend them. In the anime, the special end animation just drives it home.
Tsubaki being forced to kill her own brother, Masamune, to avoid him killing even more people.
Mifune's death after the situation between him, Black Star, and honour comes to its jarring conclusion. And he then dies while Tsubaki is helping him back to Angela, turning into petals as Masamune did earlier on.
The Clown chapters, when Maka's hallucination starts out as what looks like a cute flashback to her as a very little girl, talking to her Papa. We even see a similarly little Black Star. And then, out of the blue, Spirit falls to the floor and Maka can't get him to wake up. Another Maka with half a mask on her face turns up (the Clown causing this vision), and tells little Maka that her daddy is dead.
Episode 48, with Shinigami being shot by Asura to protect the bystanders, and Kid's reaction. His look of utter shock and distress is brief - because he gets mad instead - but it's enough. You also have the fact that Shinigami holds Spirit out of the way of a direct hit, when he could have used him to block the 'bullet', and it's made somewhat worse if you take the shots of Kid immediately before to mean that Asura was deliberately aiming for the boy.
While many fans seem to feel that Maka's reaction to the Book of Eibon was unnecessary and dragged out too long, it does show the Badass Bookworm's personal insecurities in a way that remind you she's still just a girl who doubts whether she's 'good enough' (Okubo contrasting the mundane and personal with the surreal and screwed up, as per usual). Given her great ambitions, it was to an extent a relevant reminder, if a heavy-handed one.
Patty and Liz being forced to write a last will and testament before leaving to fight the Kishin. That really drove home just how dangerous this mission is considered, and felt like a realistic element of sorrow. Then they realise they have no one to leave anything to...
Not sure if soundtrack examples count, but just listening to "Salve Maria (Peace Be With You)" seems to be particularly evoking of sadness. It just gives that feeling of sadness and loneliness...
In chapter 74 the Envy Chapter of the Book of Eibon delivers a harsh Break Them by Talking speech to Maka. It's enough to reduce her to tears.
Later, in episode 96, there is Maka and Soul meeting up with... the fully Face Heel Turned Chrona.
YMMV • 
Radar • 
Quotes • (
Funny • 
Heartwarming • 
Awesome) • 
Fridge • 
Characters • 
Fanfic Recs • 
Nightmare Fuel • 
Shout Out • 
Plot • 
Tear Jerker • 
Headscratchers • 
Trivia • WMG • 
Recap • 
Ho Yay • 
Image Links • 
Memes • 
Haiku • Laconic • 
Source • Setting