Hey there ! Is there a trope or a scpecific scnario or a something that you can’t really point out but that ALWAYS makes you cry or tear up or to which you are very sensible for no apparent reason?
Cause when I was in middle school I watched the anime Vampire knight and the relation between Zero and his twin brother Ichiru always made me very sensitive, especially SPOIL how it ends SPOIL (you’ve been warned) the fact that they’ve hated each other for YEARS but that in the end, in the very end Ichiru was willing to fully sacrifice himself for his brother because with all this hate there was deep love and caring too. Their final scene if I remember always killed me, maybe because I cried but mainly because it really hurted
So I thought that I was very sensitive to characters who sacrifice themselves (and I am, I HATE it - well I love it because it makes me feel the show strongly but I hate it because it really hurts for no reason it’s a show !) and especially when you thought they hated each others and they thought so themselves, maybe it was the choc of the revelation
Then yeaaars later I played a game DMC 5 with someone who had already played it. The game is about (it’s a very reduced explanation of the plot) the heros Dante and his twin brother Vergil who hates him and has always been jalous of him and want nothing but power, and for that betrays endlessly his broher. That’s on the 1 2 3 DMC. Now I was playing the 5 and SPOIL as the game advanced we realized that the relation betwween the two brothers was having a lot of importance in the plot and that Vergil is betraying Dante and that Dante is pretty much aware of it but lets it go. So the climax was approching and the tension was being build, and then it hit me that it was most probable that as things were presented, maybe in the end, one of the brother (I assumed Vergil because Dante is the heros and Vergil is the one who needs a redemption) would choose to sacrifice himself for the other. Just the thought of it and picturing in my head the way the scenario would go if so, the emotional impact it would have on the characters, etc I was doing that for a good 20 minutes and when I was sure it was what was gonna happen I was almost crying (nothing HAD HAPPENED IN the game), hurt and willing to stop playing now just so I would not witness it ! Because I remembered that it clearly was the same pattern as the Zero and Ichiru’s one and how much it did made me feel sad, but I loved the DMC characters more so it would hurt even more.
But then I was told that it was not at all where the game was going, and that I had put myself throught all that for nothing
But still at least I had really understood that this sort of trope was my weakness. What was it : two brothers who hate each other and hurt each other their whole lives, but in the end when a true choice has to be made, one of them is fully willing to sacrifice himself for the other, and has been his whole life, the other one having been fully unaware of it. Usualy this trope whould be seen from the perspective of the good one who we know doesn’t truly hate his brother and is mostly reacting to attacks but still has not so much of a remorses when they are in conflict, and fights for real too.
Bonus Star Wars 9 Ben’s death
Of course Ben’s death hit me hard, but for far too many reasons and I still now can’t really say which reason is the biggest one : I won’t name them all but they’re not that hard to guess, but one of them can be that’s it’s because he is willingly choosing to sacrifice himself after a whole trilogy of fighting, and that it’s a huge proof of love for Rey. So it does follow the pattern of my others exemples, but in Ben’s death case I can’t say if it’s the main reason, cause the other are so strong too.
BUT ! This month I found a clip of a show I liked a few years ago, The Middle. So I rewatched a few episodes in no specific order and at some point I watched SPOIL a scene from the final episode. The show is about a family, the mother the father and the three kids the boy Axl, his sister Sue and their younger brother. Due to the proximity of age, Axl and Sue are often shown fighting during the show and as teenagers it’s very rare to see any love between them, so when those scene happen it’s sweet. SPOIL During 9 seasons, they go from fighting teens who prank eachother and fight, to young adults in college with the sister openly saying she loves her brother but the brother showing it sometimes but still never truly saying it and showing it as much. So the relation is from Sue’s perspective somehow. But in the final episode, Axl is about to leave to another state and Sue is asking him for a moment together to say goodbye but he keeps joking and avoiding it, but in the end Sue reproches to him that he from himself went to have a goodbye moment with their younger brother who didn’t ask for anything, but that he still refuses one with her. And that’s when let go of a “because it’s harder to say goodbye to her!” ....and that’s where I lost it and started to ugly cry, and wonder WHY ?!
There is no sacrifice here, so it goes beyond the sacrifice trope (I could be moved by 2 different tropes, sacrifice and the one in the final scene of the Middle, but I really felt the same way and it’s hard to say but I know that those scenes act in a similar way on me). I think what touched my in that final scene is : 1) the restrain of feeling that finally go out and the fact that the deeper hidden they where, probably the stronger 2) the fact that Sue (let’s say the reciever) had no idea it was this deep, and had lived thinking she was the only one who loved in the relation 3) the fact that the one who thought he/she was the one who loved more, is eventually proven wrong and the one who was hiding it, the one the audience doesn’t an access to his feelings, is the one who loved the most ALL this time. As an audience it also makes you see every past scene differently and to me that’s very moving
Thank you for taking this trip with me, it had always intrigued my to understand why some scenes, some tropes move us so much sometimes and how it is all subjective. In the end, I think I finally understand those exemples show two of my weaknesses in fiction :
2) the willing sacrifice trope : they choose to sacrifice themselves. It does move me a lot and is propably my second weakness
1) but the very first one is - I don’t know how to call it actually - the one shown in the Middle and that is also present in the other exemples : they don’t know themselves that the other loves them and the first character can’t show it because he hids it, and the most restrained the stronger. This trope could be described as the revelation that a character (the giver) has actually loved another character more that he could show, in other word the switch between apperance (they fight, A doesn’t like B as much) and truth (actually B, FOR ALL THIS TIME, loved A as much or much more, because in the case of Vampire knight and DMC 5, the proof of this is SPOIL the final sacrifice).
That’s how my two weaknesses are connected and why for all those years it seems so confused to me => the sacrifice trope kills me when it’s the proof of my weakness unamed trope
So I do hope it was a funny ride for you too, and if it was please think about you own weaknesses in fiction, those scene that really got you, a very distinct feeling that crush you and you can’t stand. If you find those pleease tell me I’d love to talk about it !
The 100 Season 1 SPOIL When I thought Jaha or Kane were about to sacrifice themselves, and especially when we really thought Jaha was dead.
Captain America 1 SPOIL : Bucky... why did he have to sacrifice himself... and it gets sadder with the movie Civil war SPOIL because we see Steve not giving up on him !! But in vain...
Rose of Versailles : SPOIL Oscar’s death and sacrifice has killed me since I was propably a kid and has for many years. I think it’s actually from this scene that I realized sacrifice in fiction was my weakness
NB. Well I guess now I have to find out why those trope get to me so much...but I guess I’m a bit afraid of the answer lol Anyway it already was a good digging in my psyche, I’ll leave it for later - and besides, I actually have no clue about the “why”
tl;dr : I am very sensitive to tropes that involve sacrifice (Vampire knight, DMC, TROS) and two close characters who don’t know how much the other loves them until one brutally breaks down. Those trope make me cry hard. I would love to know what are the tropes that make you incredibly sad, that you feel far too strongly, please let me know !
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