A question of sentiment, maybe . . .

[Owlswing]

Is there any character from fiction (any form of fiction) for whom you have shed tears?

[SusanDoris]

Is there any character from fiction (any form of fiction) for whom you have shed tears?

What aninteresting question. The first I think I really cried for, because she was a real person, was Katherine in the book of that name by Anya Seton.
There have been others along the way and it will be interesting to see if they pop into my mind during the next few days.

[Rhiannon]

I’ll have to think too. I cried at a couple of the Shardlake books but if I say when/why that’d be spoilers, and they are so good I don’t want to do that. Other than that, the first that come to mind are Simon from Lord of the Flies and Ginger from Black Beauty.

[Nearly Sane]

Yossarian in Catch 22. Fiver in Watership Down.  And I can't watch the bit in Dumbo where his mother is in the cage but cuddles him with her trunk without being in bits.

[Rhiannon]

I can’t even read Watership Down - the Bright Eyes video slays me every time.

[Rhiannon]

Whatever you think of the Peter Jackson LOTR films, I always cry at the end of Return of the King where poorly Frodo goes on the ship to the Undying Lands and he turns back for one last look at his friends and he’s young and well again.

[ad_orientem]

Sydney Carton, A Tale Of Two Cities.

[SusanDoris]

I can’t even read Watership Down - the Bright Eyes video slays me every time.

I had a pupil in my class once, back in the 1970s, with the sort of keen, natural intelligence and quietly confident manner that is an absolute privilege to teach, whose favourite book was Watership down.  When I said I had not read it,he one day asked if I would like to borrow his book to read it. I accepted and knew one of the things I must say was that I would take great care of it because it had obviously been read many times. And yes, I couldn't not shed tears when Fiver died!

He must be in his fifties now, I suppose. I hope he fulfilled his potential and went to University, but I heard  quite a few years later that he probably had not. This doesn't matter, because he had the kind of quiet leadership qualities that would have taken him to a position of management or something. But that's the sort of thing one never knows.

And now I'm going to be a little sad for myself that I had to stop teaching so suddenly back in 1992.

[Owlswing]

Seeing as it was I who posed the question I suppose that I should make a contribution . . . or two!

One that I cannot escape is the death of Bambi's mother. Another is Valeria in the first Schwarzenegger Conan film.

The one that actually prompted the question is actually two, from Wee Free Men, by Sir Terry Pratchett,  the death of the Kelda and Tiffany's memory of the death of Granny Aching.

And "YES" - before anyone else decides to say it, I am a terminally incurable sentimental old git.

[SusanDoris]

Seeing as it was I who posed the question I suppose thatI should make a contribution . . . or two!

One that I cannot escape is the death of Bambi's mother. Another is Valeria in the first Schwarzenegger Conan film.

The one that actually prompted the question is actually two, from Wee Free Men, by SAir Teryy Pratchett,  the death of the Kelda and Tiffany's memory of the death of Granny Aching.

And "YES" - before anyone else decides to say it, I am a terminally incurable sentimental old git.

Funny you should mention that...! I almost put it in my previous post!

[Nearly Sane]

Sydney Carton, A Tale Of Two Cities.

That's a good one. I didn't cry at it, but can see why.

[Nearly Sane]

I had a pupil in my class once, back in the 1970s, with the sort of keen, natural intelligence and quietly confident manner that is an absolute privilege to teach, whose favourite book was Watership down.  When I said I had not read it,he one day asked if I would like to borrow his book to read it. I accepted and knew one of the things I must say was that I would take great care of it because it had obviously been read many times. And yes, I couldn't not shed tears when Fiver died!

He must be in his fifties now, I suppose. I hope he fulfilled his potential and went to University, but I heard  quite a few years later that he probably had not. This doesn't matter, because he had the kind of quiet leadership qualities that would have taken him to a position of management or something. But that's the sort of thing one never knows.

And now I'm going to be a little sad for myself that I had to stop teaching so suddenly back in 1992.

I can remember finishing Watership Down on the train back home from school, and I remember the light streaming in playing on the book as I sat bereft at having finished the book. So I just went right back to the start and reread immediately. While Richard Adams never quite recaptured the heights of it, imo, I also cried a bit when reading Shardik

[Aruntraveller]

Well as discussed before ( I think) the funeral scene in the film 'Imitation of Life'. Devastating.

[Robbie]

When I was younger I read 'The Well of Loneliness' by Radclyffe Hall, more than once; the scene where Stephen has to euthanise her horse, Rafferty, the words she says to him and he 'says' to her never failed to have me in bits and just thinking about it now has me welling up. 

I am often in tears because of situations characters experience in books, film and TV.
In sympathy with a couple of instances mentioned by others:- Ginger in Black Beauty (more than Ginger but her particularly); Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities.

Intrigued by Katherine, Anya Seaton, mentioned by Susan. I read something by her when I was a youngter, I will try and find it because if it impressed Susan it must be good.

Various scenes from 'The Hour' film.

I was very emotional in the film, 'Gandhi'.

Owl: - I am a terminally incurable sentimental old git.

Me too.
Anything involving children and animals - (not excluding adults).

[Rhiannon]

I can remember finishing Watership Down on the train back home from school, and I remember the light streaming in playing on the book as I sat bereft at having finished the book. So I just went right back to the start and reread immediately. While Richard Adams never quite recaptured the heights of it, imo, I also cried a bit when reading Shardik

The book that got me like that was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. My heart broke at finishing it and the only way to make it even vaguely bearable was to go back and start again. I think that’s the only book I’ve ever cried at simply because I’d finished it.

[Rhiannon]

Ok, there’s a scene in A Murder is Announced (Joan Hickson version) where Miss Murgatroyd (played by Joan Sims) is murdered (sorry for the spoiler) and is discovered lying in the garden in the rain by her partner, Miss Hinchliffe, played by the vastly underused Paola Dionisotti. I can get through the scenes around that now without crying but for a while I couldn’t.

[SusanDoris]

Intrigued by Katherine, Anya Seaton, mentioned by Susan. I read something by her when I was a youngter, I will try and find it because if it impressed Susan it must be good.

Thank you! Actually, I re-read it (i.e. listened to a talking book) a few years ago. It could not have the same impact, of course, and its wording sounded a  bit dated, but nevertheless, the description of life in a mediaeval castle was good. There is quite a lot about Katherine on wikipedia too, but the fictionalised story is more accessible.

[Nearly Sane]

Jenny Agutter running up the platform in The Railway Children - Niagara Falls...

[SteveH]

Jenny Agutter running up the platform in The Railway Children - Niagara Falls...

Indeed. Industrial-strength tissue scene.
In novels, the death of Madge Wildfire in Scott's 'Heart of Midlothian' is rather affecting, and I shed buckets in the last chapter or two of C.S.Lewis's 'The Last Battle'.

[Rhiannon]

Indeed. Industrial-strength tissue scene.
In novels, the death of Madge Wildfire in Scott's 'Heart of Midlothian' is rather affecting, and I shed buckets in the last chapter or two of C.S.Lewis's 'The Last Battle'.

Why? Because Susan got left out for wearing lippy?

[SteveH]

Why? Because Susan got left out for wearing lippy?

No. Leaving Susan out just to make a sanctimonious point infuriated me. Other parts of it, though, were real tear-jerkers.

[Samuel]

Jenny Agutter running up the platform in The Railway Children - Niagara Falls...

Oh god yes.

The end of the film Iron Giant, where he flies of to intercept the nuclear missile... Jesus, even thinking about it gives me a lump in my throat!

I read Atonement at university and, at the end, felt like Ian McEwan had personally reached into my chest and ripped out my still beating heart before throwing it on the floor and stamping on it. I have held a grudge against the man ever since.

I think the Kite Runner was the book that came closest to making me cry.

[Samuel]

One that I cannot escape is the death of Bambi's mother. Another is Valeria in the first Schwarzenegger Conan film.

I bloody love that film! The music is a particular highlight. That whole sequence following Valeria's death is ace.

[Rhiannon]

I cried when Heather died in Highlander.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I cry reading so many books or watching so many films that it's not worth writing a list. I am a joke in my family for this very reason.

But I didn't cry when Bambi's mother died. Though I did in other Disney films.

I cried watching E.T when E.T almost dies and then comes back and is smuggled out by Elliot and his friends and they are being chased by the authorities and he levitates their bikes over the cars acting as a road block.