Batman: Arkham City/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Joker's death. He was a terrible, lunatic murderer, and anyone who says that he deserved to die has a solid argument. But the magnitude of the situation, the slow pacing, the quiet credits, and what happens in the middle of the credits, there's such an emotional impact. And when you realize that this may well be the last time we hear Mark Hamill's Joker, it really does feel like something important, something you've known since childhood, really did die.
  • During the Playable Epilogue, Walking up to any of the Harley statues and activating it plays her message: sobbing uncontrollably. We know he was a bad influence on you, Harl, but you still loved him, didn't you?
    • Watch the reactions of the members of the Joker gang gathered around the theater as Batman walks out carrying Joker's body. Harley just... collapses.
  • One of the Riddler's interview tapes has him imply Hugo Strange has a Batsuit hidden behind a secret panel in his office, that he sometimes wears in private, sobbing into his hands and wondering if he's really worthy to replace Batman. It does a good job of hammering home how, despite his bluster, Hugo Strange is a pretty pathetic person.
  • Paying your respects to Bruce Wayne's parents.
  • Batman's hallucination of his parents standing behind a white light when he's close to death from the Titan blood.
  • The death of Talia al Ghul. The pain in Batman's and Talia's faces as Talia dies is pretty sad. Joker's Kick the Dog Too Soon line is somehow both funny and enough to fill a player with hate-filled vengeance towards the villain due to the sadness of that scene. Of course, Talia probably isn't Killed Off for Real because of the Lazarus Pit but it is still sad.
  • Harley's pregnant. While this first seems like good news for her, there's a lot that makes it very likely more of a Tear Jerker. Considering the baby was conceieved while Joker was sick, if the Titan has the ability to be based on to offspring, the baby could easily be deformed in someway; it's more than likely that the baby will be taken away from Harley after it's born; And, worst of all, who's to say she'll even give birth to it? The pregnancy test was no doubt taken sometime before the start of the game, and she couldn't be too far along. A lot of the things that we can assume happen to her could have resulted in miscarriage. Not to mention the possible Titan-based damage present in the baby itself could cause the baby to die before it's born.
    • Titan isn't the only thing in Joker's body during Arkham City. He's always had traces of the original Joker Venom in his veins, as well.
    • The new DLC hints that the pregnancy test might have given her a false positive. When coupled with the fact Joker's dead and she has a gang she has no idea how to run, you can't help but feel sorry for her, psychopath or not.
  • Hearing Victor Freeze give insight into how he feels about his past is quite heartbreaking.

Freeze: Have you ever seen a flower die? Watched something that was once so beautiful, so full of life, collapse and rot from within?

  • After you defeat the Mad Hatter you can enter his lair where Batman will tell him never to mess with his head again. The hatter replies that all he wanted was a friend and bursts into horrible sobbing that is truly heartbreaking to listen to. Listening to his interview tapes, he is a killer but it is also obvious that the poor man is completely delusional and needs serious help which he's not going to get. Hearing Hugo Strange manipulate the poor bastard into helping him is also horrible.
  • When you're in the museum and you see the exhibits Penguin has set up. One of them contains the taxidermized hyena pets of Harley's/Joker's. Harley LOVED her babies, and Penguin just murdered them and set them on display.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Batman:_Arkham_City/Tear_Jerker?oldid=1088281"