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I read fiction to evoke emotional reactions. Some of my favourite books or movies are ones which make me cry - though not all my favourites do. Here are some scenes, or authors, or books, or movies, that conistently make me cry:
  1. Certain scenes in books by Lois McMaster Bujold: the last paragraph of The Mountains of Mourning, for example, when Miles evokes the murder victim. Or the scene in Shard of Honour where Cordelia has defended the Butcher of Komarr to her mother, and her mother, baffled, says, "Why do you admire him?" and Cordelia replies, "I don't know. But when he's cut, I bleed." And there is the meeting of Aral and Miles as we come close to the climax in The Warrior's Apprentice. These scenes are precious to me.

  2. The endings of certain Dorothy Dunnett books, especially The Ringed Castle: "There is no land uninhabitable or sea unnavigable. They made the world to hang in the air." Or Lymond in despair quoting Chaucer: Here is non hoom. Here nis but wildernesse.

    I would in general say that I don't usually cry over Dunnett novels, but there are some notable exceptions. I remember hearing one of the death scenes from The Disorderly Knights on audiobook while being driven to my hotel by a friend I was visiting - and by the time I got to the hotel, I was blubbering. (Discerning readers can probably guess whose death I am talking about, or at least, narrow it to one or two.)

  3. In the movie The Russia House with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, a middle-aged bookseller gets mixed up in international espionage and at one points visits Katya Orlova in her home, which is chaos - her kids and her mother are all talking, and in the midst of domestic chaos he declares his love for her. It's the mixture of mundane domesticity and romantic drama that I love here.

  4. Two songs in the musical Billy Elliott, which I have not seen, though I've seen the non-musical movie and listened to the CD of the musical many times. The first song that always makes me cry is "The Letter", which is about the letter given to Billy by his late mother. The second is "Electricity", which is about how Billy feels when he dances.

  5. The Tom Smith song, "A Boy and his Frog", about Jim Hanson and Kermit.

  6. The song "Two Little Boys" by Rolf Harris, which pushes all my slash buttons.

  7. The ending of A Tale of Two Cities - not the last paragraph with the famous passage, but the scenes leading up to it.

  8. Four scenes in The Lord of the Rings movies:
    1. the death of Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring
    2. the moment in which Aragorn, having been offered the Ring by Frodo, closes his hand over it and says, "I would have followed you into the very fires of Mordor."
    3. The moment in The Return of the King where Aragorn is about to lead the charge against the Black Gates of Mordor, and says, "For Frodo.". All the more powerful because it took me by surprise.
    4. In The Return of the King, after Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor, he stops Frodo and the Hobbits from bowing to him, saying, "You should kneel to no one." Then he and the people of Gondor kneel in honour of the Hobbits.

  9. The episode of Britain's Got Talent in which Paul Potts first sang.

  10. Doctor Who: the end of "Doomsday". Rose and the Doctor lose each other. Yeah, it really got to me.

  11. The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.

  12. "The Bishop's Candlesticks", which is a part of the novel Les Miserables that I studies in French lit somewhere along the way. I was reminded of it, because it's one of the questions in the King William's College Quiz - one of the few questions I could answer.

    This is how I recall the story: Jean Valjean is on the run from the law, starving, and comes to a town where the kindly Bishop gives him a good mean and a roof over his head for the night. Desperate, Jean Valjean steals the Bishop's silver candlestick in the middle of the night and makes a run for it. The police catch him, and bring him to the Bishop. "We caught this man with your silver," they tell him.

    "There must be some mistake," says the Bishop. "This is my friend, and the silver candlestick was my gift to him. But he made a mistake - I gave him the matching set of two candlesticks, and he left one of them behind." Then the Bishop gives Jean Valjean the second silver candlestick.

    That's the only part of Les Miserables I have actually read, but the musical makes me cry copiously, it's so heroic.

  13. A scene from the Johnny Quest comic book by William Messner-Loebs, issue #25, a story called "Butch". Bandit was a dog belonging to the young hero, and in this particular story, he is kidnapped by villains and renamed "Butch". The imprisoned dogs are talking about their 'pack leaders', each predicting how their owners will come to rescue them. Bandit doesn't say anything until they press the issue. "I don't have a pack leader," he confesses. "What about the boy you were talking about?" they ask him. "Oh, him," says Bandit, embarrassed. "He's not my pack leader. He's my brother."




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