To Never Again Walk on a Summer Day

This is based on stance. Delight don't listing it on a piece of work's trope example list.

Other than beingness one of the better known Batman adaptations, Batman: The Animated Series has its aplenty share of tear-jerking moments, both on the Hurting Hero himself every bit well as enough of his adversaries.

WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.

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• "Eye of Ice". ALL OF IT.
  • When Mr. Freeze accidentally blasts one of his mooks in the legs with his common cold gun, he orders his other henchmen to go out him behind. The other underlings protestation he is i of them, but Freeze threatens to impale them if they don't hurry up and leave. The other minions are visibly heartbroken as they get out, with the man tearfully begging them not to go. Fortunately, Batman thaws him out and saves his legs.
  • The scene where Batman himself is horrified when he finds the video recording that shows him (and the viewers) how Victor Chips became Mr. Freeze via Decadent Corporate Executive.
  • The "summer's day" speech, and the conversation between Batman and Freeze leading up to it.

    Freeze: The snow is beautiful, don't you think? Clean, uncompromising...
    Batman: ...and cold.
    Freeze: Similar the swift hand of vengeance.
    Batman: I saw what happened to your wife. I'm deplorable.
    Freeze: I'm beyond emotions. They've been frozen dead in me.
    Batman: That suit you lot wear — a result of the coolant?
    Freeze: Very expert. A detective to the terminal. I can no longer survive exterior a sub-zero environment. This evening, I mean to pay dorsum the man who ruined my life. Our lives...
    Batman: Even if y'all take to kill everyone in the edifice to do it?
    Freeze: (nods) Remember of it, Batman. To never over again walk on a summer'southward solar day with the hot wind in your face and a warm hand to hold... oh, yes... I'd impale for that.

  • The ending, where Freeze tearfully apologizes to the pocket-size dancing doll that represents Nora in his Arkham cell for non beingness able to save her or avenge her apparent expiry at the hands of Boyle, as a heart-wrenching music box rendition of his theme plays.

    Freeze: I failed you. I wish in that location were another way for me to say information technology. I cannot. I can only beg your forgiveness. (voice breaks equally he starts to cry) And pray y'all hear me somehow, some identify... someplace where a warm hand waits for mine. (lowers his caput in despair as Batman sympathetically watches in through the window from a nearby rooftop)

  • Paul Dini one time said if he were to exercise the episode all once more, he would have concluded it with Freeze weeping in his prison cell at Arkham, his tears turning to snowflakes that would and then slowly settle on the musical figurine. Wow, Dini thought of a way of making this ending even more of a tearjerker!
  • Hands one of the most gut-wrenching parts is the shot that comes afterwards this, just before the credits. We zoom out of Freeze in his jail cell and meet Batman standing on an next edifice, watching him silently. He doesn't say anything, simply because there'southward nothing that you lot can say about this situation. Information technology's nada but a tragedy.
  • What makes it even worse is that, in this episode specifically, Freeze's wife Nora was meant to be dead already. Due to censorship reasons, the producers weren't immune to land this, but it was implied in how Freeze acts. He doesn't human action similar a homo trying to save someone, rather trying to get vengeance for something he's lost. In afterwards episodes, it was revealed that Nora survived, with adaptations like Batman & Robin and Batman: Arkham City taking the road that says Freeze is committing crimes to fund research to salvage Nora, which adds a low-cal at the end of the tunnel of sorts for Freeze. But in "Heart of Ice"? She's already expressionless. If you lot've never considered that before, re-lookout man the episode and listen to everything Freeze says. He talks about the pain of loss, how it feels to lose something and then dear to you. And simply to hammer the point dwelling; scroll upward and read the quote under the image 1 more time, and consider that Nora is expressionless, and Freeze is talking about the afterlife. God dammit, that'due south painful.
• The show's Signature Scene in "Nothing to Fear", which acts as a codifier for the entire series. Bruce, equally Batman, is exposed to the Scarecrow's fear toxin and, while hanging for his life from a blimp, sees a vision of his dead begetter which he rejects. It's a Moment of Awesome and surprisingly moving.

  Vision of Thomas Wayne: Bruce...you are a disgrace.
  Batman: No. No! You are non my father! I am not a disgrace! I am vengeance. I am the night. I AM BATMAN!

• As much as it is Narm (albeit purposefully), Joker legitimately mourning Captain Clown and and then furiously berating Batman for crushing him downward to a cube with a hydraulic press in The Final Laugh.

  Joker: (appalled) You killed Helm Clown... (yelling) YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN!

• Poor, poor Mary Dahl aka Baby Doll. "Why couldn't you just let me make believe?!"
  • For further caption: Mary Dahl is an actress who was Not Allowed to Grow Up—literally. She suffers from systemic hypoplasia, a rare disorder that completely stunted her growth and doomed her to look like a five-year-old child forever. She initially constitute success on a sitcom called Love That Baby, but when the ratings failed, so did her career—no one would cast her in anything because of her childlike appearance. The rejection, coupled with her concrete condition, drives Dahl insane and leads her to assume the persona of "Baby Doll," a mortiferous petty girl. Dahl eventually becomes so desperate to recapture the only happy memories she e'er had that she kidnaps the actors from Love That Baby and forces them to return to the studio for a "reunion." After Batman gets involved, Baby Doll leads him on a chase through a fairground, where, in a hall of mirrors, she encounters a reflection of the woman she truly is—a beautiful, thirty-something actress who looks her own age. Upon seeing it, Dahl realizes that her unabridged life is "made-up and pretend," and goes on a wild rampage, shooting mirror afterward mirror in a drastic attempt to defeat Batman. As she turns to the mirror that contains her developed reflection, she starts to silently cry as she utterly destroys information technology. Batman then approaches her every bit she stares into space, clicking her now-empty gun and helplessly sobbing similar a little girl. She presses herself against Batman'south leg, weeping for the future she'll never have and the by she tin't go back to, and utters her old catchphrase from her show: "I... didn't mean to."
    • When Batman gives the villain a downplayed Cooldown Hug, you lot know it falls into this category.
  • And consider this: Nosotros take the Caped Crusader, robbed of his babyhood, comforting an actress who can't escape hers.
  • And then when she came back, returning to a life of law-breaking considering she thought Killer Croc loved her...merely to discover out Croc was, true to course, playing her for a sucker the whole while. It sent her so far over the Despair Event Horizon that she decided to wipe out all of Gotham via nuclear meltdown.
  • In the original catastrophe of "Baby-Doll", Batman would accept shed a tear while comforting Baby Doll before handing her over to the police. They cut it because DC said Batman isn't allowed to cry.
• "Growing Pains," where Robin helps a scared amnesiac daughter named Annie run away from a super-potent man. Turns out the man is Clayface and Annie is actually a part of him that he's trying to accept merge back with him.
  • Robin's reaction to this reveal; he tells Annie he's going to save her. Her response is "Salvage what? I'1000 not existent." Just and so despairing resignation in her voice, and Robin'southward fierce denials that she is real.
  • Clayface succeeds in absorbing Annie when she tackles him to save Robin. Robin can simply spotter, then threaten Clayface with lethal solvents to bring her back. Clayface reveals he can't, which ways he effectively murdered his child.

    Gotham Policeman: We'll book him on the robberies and B & E, right? Anything else?

    Robin: Yeah. Murder.

  • Information technology was worse if you actually read the comics at the time. At that bespeak, Tim/Robin was notwithstanding early in his solo series and he had a Love Interest his age for whom Annie was a dead ringer and who had a similar proper name. For someone watching who idea the evidence was bringing her from the comics to the screen, the ending is an even bigger shock.
• Really, Batman: TAS was very expert at this. Other especially pitiful episodes include "Mad every bit a Hatter," "Mudslide," "House & Garden," "Deep Freeze," "His Silicon Soul," and "Robin'due south Reckoning." Additionally, it is very hard to recall of a character on the show who doesn't have a Backstory that'southward actually deplorable. Except the Riddler, perchance.
  • Riddler doesn't seem besides tragic a grapheme at beginning, but Give-and-take of God and background information exterior his on-screen appearances makes him very sympathetic and pitiable. Extremely intelligent and frankly quite an oddball, Edward Nygma was always a social outcast, simply hoped to make something of himself by utilizing his intellect in designing a hugely successful video game... only for his greedy dominate to cheat him out of the credit for it and fire him when he tried to sue. Is it really any wonder Nygma sought revenge as the Riddler? And so there's his obsession with outsmarting Batman that pushes him back into villainy afterward an attempted reform.
  • Equally information technology stands, there are perhaps four villains — Sewer King, Dr. Emile Dorian (detailed below), Firefly (since he crossed into the Moral Event Horizon early on), and the Joker — who don't have a terribly distressing backstory.
    • But Joker does speak of his abusive father. Too bad he's probably lying. He might have a tragic backstory... but he's gone through so darn many of them, no one would believe him if he told the truth. Which, in itself, is actually kind of sorry.
    • DCAU'due south Scarecrow doesn't have a tragic past, either. He just liked to frighten things as a kid and that lasted into adulthood. Though he does get some sad moments in The Batman Adventures comics.
• The show's re-imagining of Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter. In the comics and Adam West series, he was a contemporary villain with an Alice in Wonderland theme. Here, he'due south depicted as a lonely genius who's developing Mind Control technology for Wayne Enterprises, but his immediate supervisor treats him like dirt. Tetch falls difficult for Alice, a secretary at the visitor who'due south the only 1 to care for him pleasantly, but she has a boyfriend named Baton. Jervis refuses to infringe on their human relationship... but when she has a fight with Billy, he sees his chance. He plans to woo Alice, but decides that she would never fall for someone like him; he instead develops the Hatter persona to print her, giving her a grand night on the town, albeit toeing the Moral Issue Horizon by using his technology to brainwash people, thus creating the illusion that he's a wealthy high-society gentleman. Unfortunately, he is shut downwards when Billy comes back into the picture with an amends and a proposal. Enraged, Tetch crosses the line firmly by mind-controlling Billy into breaking off the engagement, then abducting and brainwashing Alice. He's somewhen bested by Batman in an Alice in Wonderland theme park. And so, as Tetch is lying below the claws of the Jabberwock, he'southward forced to watch equally Alice (who can't even bear to look at Tetch anymore) runs into Billy'southward arms, moaning out very softly...
  • Somehow made even sadder past the last shot of the weeping Mock Turtle statue.
  • What makes it worse is that we become to run into Tetch's mental breakdown over the whole situation. At the get-go of the episode, he admits that, from a sensible perspective, his interest in Alice is wrong and that he should let her go... but he simply can't. When he briefly brags that his listen command devices could hands make her forget Billy, he stops himself and remarks that brainwashing her in that way would be roughshod ("That would reduce her to a soulless vanquish... no. Not my Alice"). Unfortunately, the combination of briefly assertive that he finally has a shot, using his devices on actual human subjects, and being rejected once more breaks his listen. By the end of the episode, he's completely reversed his previous position and get a violent, obsessive psychopath deeply in denial, blaming Batman for what'southward happened to Alice.

    Tetch/Hatter: I'll cutting that cowl off your cervix before yous'll take her! I've waited my whole lonely life for her!!

    Batman: And then all you've waited for is a puppet! [Tetch briefly hesitates] A soulless niggling doll!

    • Taken fifty-fifty darker in "Trial" where he admitted that if he couldn't have her, he would as soon impale her. When that confession is compared with his early remark well-nigh refusing to even consider brainwashing Alice, we realize only how far Tetch has gone. He even looks legitimately horrified after he realizes what he's said.
  • Saying Mad Hatter had a tragic backstory when he obsessed over a daughter and didn't respect that she only liked him as a friend is really pushing information technology, although she never made information technology explicit that she merely liked him as a friend and seemed equally oblivious while out on their "appointment" after she and Billy had broken upwards. Information technology'south also possible that she but didn't meet Tetch every bit a possible suitor at all, instead misinterpreting his kindness as the actions of a good friend... whether or not that makes information technology worse is upward to yous.
    • YMMV, but it'southward not entirely unreasonable to empathise with a lonely person who gets picked on by their dominate and has an unrequited trounce. He handles it extremely poorly, and that'south what makes him a villain, but where we see him at the first of the episode is a relatable place for a lot of people. And made far worse when Paul Dini revealed that this version of the Hatter was based on a man who'd committed a workplace shooting for like reasons.

      Dini: With the Hatter, I made somebody who is technologically brilliant, but who lives in this dream earth and was probably ridiculed as a child; everybody used to telephone call him names because he looked geeky and looked like the Mad Hatter. He actually had a poster of the Mad Hatter up. He liked Alice in Wonderland. When he came up with a mode of controlling people, of a sudden, they were able to do his will, and he loved information technology, and he was able to bring his fantasies of Wonderland and living happily ever after to life. Simply the chief reason he did it was he was in love with somebody, and he didn't want to use that power to command her because he knew that he'd lose her, but ultimately, he had to. That drove him over the border and collection him crazy, so there's an element of sorrow to that character—unrequited love taken to the nth degree.

  • By "The Worry Men," Tetch has completely embraced his Mad Hatter persona, which reduces him to picayune thievery. Batman Lampshades this.
• Dick's farewell to his circus friends in "Robin's Reckoning: Office ane" has always brought tears to Bruce Timm's eyes.
  • While Dick's parents' death is pretty potent, what's really strong is Bruce and Dick's flashback talk near the cease of Office one, when Bruce sees quite a scrap of himself in the acrobat.

    Bruce: You keep thinking..."If just I've washed something differently. If only I could've...warned them." But there isn't anything y'all could've done. There isn't anything either of us could've done.
    Dick: [looking at Bruce'southward parents' portrait] Your mom and dad?
    [Bruce nods]
    Dick: Does the injure ever become away?
    Bruce: I wish I could say "yep." Simply it will get better in time. For y'all. That I promise.
    [The two hug]

• "Deep Freeze" has two particular moments, the first being where Victor, having finally found the means to cure Nora, realizes that he has to give it up so that she won't lose the world she loved. The 2d is where he decides that he'd rather stay behind in Oceana to die with her than relieve himself.

  Freeze: We're together again...my dearest...

  • And there's the part where he tries to talk Walker out of the procedure.
    • In "Cold Condolement," Freeze finally realizes his dream of Nora existence revived, except at this point he's a complete shell of his erstwhile self, thinks himself also much of a freak to reveal himself to her, and tin can only scout from the shadows as his former wife (possibly an amnesiac at this indicate) falls in dearest with her physician; all of this shatters any humanity he had left.
• "Old Wounds" is one of the worse tearjerkers in the DCAU as information technology shows the events leading up to Dick's carve up from Bruce/Batman. The worst part is if you become back and picket the serial from the kickoff, y'all tin really see their relationship slowly break down over fourth dimension due not just to the clash in their personalities and ideologies, but also Bruce's growing obsession and struggle with his own inner darkness. Truth be told, by the time Dick returns to moonlight in Gotham as Nightwing, he isn't and so different from Bruce, but it'southward too late to salvage any relationship they had and he'south generally seen working with Tim and Barbara or else on his own, and then Batman Across reveals that Bruce and Dick never truly reconcile, and while the elderly Bruce will occasionally reminisce almost past adventures with Barbara and Tim, he never talks well-nigh Dick. In one episode where Terry asks to infringe a adapt, he comes across a coat with initials on the inside.

  Terry: (sees initials in glaze) Who'southward "D.G."?

  (Bruce walks off without answering)

  • Worse even so, Bruce is noticeably colder with Tim than he was with Dick. He plainly cares for Tim, merely their relationship never had the father/son vibe that Bruce had with Dick. Information technology's not until tardily in Batman Across with Terry that we run across Bruce start to have that sort of trust and fatherly relationship once more.
    • This could likewise be a tearjerker for a different reason. Before being taken in by Bruce, Dick was raised past loving parents, only Tim's father was a neglectful lowlife. Bruce/Batman, who was always a main at reading people, saw that Tim would only respond to a father figure who was cold and distant.
  • Besides one thing that many people very likely missed is a certain particular when Tim becomes Robin. He borrows Dick's arrange that Batman keeps on display, just Dick existence an adult, information technology shouldn't fit Tim. That's because the suit on display is kid-sized. In other words, Bruce had happier memories with Dick as a kid than an developed, which is why he put that suit on display rather than the adult ane.
  • At that place's likewise the part where we see Dick was gonna propose to Barbara. But and then he finds out that Barbara is Batgirl and have secretly been working with Batman. Dick was so upset with this revelation that he broke-upward with her. Despite the Will They or Won't They? moments since he returned as Nightwing, they obviously never got dorsum together as shown in Batman Beyond.
• In "Possibly to Dream," already a highly emotional episode if ever there was one, ends with the Mad Hatter launching a tirade against Bats when he asks the Hatter why he trapped him in a ideal dreamworld. The Hatter is quite mad, just it's delivered with such anguish...

  Batman: Why. Why did you lot exercise it? Why?
  Mad Hatter: Yous, of all people, take the gall to ask me that?! You ruined my life! I was willing to give you any life you wanted... just to go along you out of mine!

  • Bruce accepting the dreamworld as reality, and for about a couple minutes of screen time, we get to see him truly happy for the first time...always. His desperation as he searches for a coherent volume too as the look of pure anguish as he realizes which is his true life is tear-inducing.
• "See No Evil," aside from being prime horror. We accept Lloyd Ventrix, a creepy ex-con whose sometime wife and immature daughter accept a restraining society against him. So he steals some material that allows him to brand an invisibility arrange, poses as his girl's imaginary friend Mojo, swipes valuable jewelry for her to gain her trust, and finally attempts to kidnap her. Batman intervenes, Ventrix is exposed and foiled; and the episode ends with the girl telling Batman that she and her mother are going to motility away, where "Daddy" will never find them. The whole episode is heartbreaking.
  • The scene where Batman tells Lloyd'southward ex-wife Helen what's going on, which makes her realize who "Mojo" really is. She runs into her house to cheque on Kimberly, only to notice to her horror that'south it'southward too late. The window to Kimberly'south room is wide open up, and Kimberly is gone. Helen badly crying out her daughter'due south name before breaking down in tears in gut-wrenching.
• It's incommunicable to not go teary-eyed in the ending of the episode (and Trope Namer) "Mad Beloved." Poor Harley Quinn.
  • The tearjerker value of any episode featuring the Joker mistreating Harley will be increased after seeing "Mad Love."
    • After Harley manages to housebreak Batman on her own, she states that she wants him out of the way and then she and Joker can be happy together, leading to his laughing at her naivete and this exchange:

      Batman: You fiddling fool. The Joker doesn't love anything except himself. Wake up, Harleen—he had you pegged for hired help the minute yous walked into Arkham.
      Harley: That'southward non... no. NO! He TOLD me things! Clandestine things he never told anyone!
      Batman: Was it his line about the abusive father? Or the one virtually the runaway mom? He'southward gained a lot of sympathy with that one.
      Harley: Stop it! You're making me dislocated!
      Batman: What was it he told that one parole officer? Oh, yes. "In that location was just one time I e'er saw Dad really happy. He took me to the Water ice Evidence when I was seven."
      Harley: (Tears up) ...Circus. He said it was the circus…
      Batman: He's got a million of them, Harley.
      Harley: ...You're wrong! My Puddin' does love me, he does! And now y'all're gonna die and brand everything right!

    • Batman manages to convince her that Mr. J won't believe her without his trunk as evidence. She and then calls the Joker, who's infuriated at her, providing the motion-picture show and line for this. He then pushes her out a third-story window onto some crates in the alley beneath. After a few lines of dialogue betwixt him and Batsy, the photographic camera and so pans onto Harley's cleaved body...

      Harley: My fault... I didn't get the joke.

  • And it goes From Bad to Worse. At the end of the episode, information technology looks like Harley is about to swear off the Joker for good and reform...only to find a flower in her cell proverb "Feel better soon - J."

    Harleen Quinzel: Never again. No more obsession, no more craziness, no more Joker. I finally see that slime for what he is: A murderous, manipulative, irredeemable...
    [Notices the flower on the nightstand]
    Harley Quinn: ...affections!

    • The original comic had a more than haunting line that was more straight in the passive-aggressive battered wife syndrome parallels (and the final line is an homage to the song "He Hitting Me (And Information technology Felt Like A Kiss"), the musical Carousel, and the stage play Lilliom that explores those dark themes:

      Dr. Leland: And then, tell me, Harley—how did it feel to be so dependent on a man that you'd give upwards everything for him, gaining nothing in return? [leaves]

      Harley: [bitterly] It felt similar...

      [sees flower with "Feel better soon - J"]

      Harley: [dreamily] It felt like a osculation.

  • "Mad Honey" is probably 1 of the greatest episodes in the serial because it doesn't back downwardly on calumniating relationships. While most of the interactions betwixt Harley and Joker are Played for Laughs (the final act in "Harlequinade," for example), "Mad Love" shows simply how obsessed Joker is with getting Batman in means that "The Man Who Killed Batman" only hinted at. And to see him snap at her the way he did was horrifying considering she is a fan-favorite and the writers and animators tried hard to make her cute, quirky, and adorable. Usually when she's happy, it makes at to the lowest degree some fans hearts melt and when she finally sees the Joker for what he is...the Joker knows only what to do to make her come running back. "Mad Dear" wasn't the beginning episode to show their calumniating cycle, only it didn't hold annihilation back in showing how devastating abuse can be.
    • The animators and writers taking their time in fleshing out Harley earlier this episode is a reminder that people who are trapped in the cycle of corruption are real people with hopes, dreams, and unique personalities who fell in love with the wrong person. Fridge Horror sets in when you larn that some abuse victims terminate upwardly severely injured or fifty-fifty dead.
• Bruce'southward guilt-fueled dream in "Two-Confront, Function ii." "Why couldn't you save u.s.a., son?"
  • The Ii-Face arc is absolutely heartbreaking. With the start episode, information technology starts uncomfortable every bit we meet the angry side of Harvey coming out more than and more than. Information technology ends with his confront getting scarred so badly that it destroys his listen, and the scene where he walks out and is seen by his fiance Grace is the capper. Simply information technology gets worse in the second office, whether information technology be his constant thinking about Grace and longing to be with her, Grace's shock at realizing that she accidentally led Thorne to Harvey which was farther proof to Harvey that life is ruled by hazard, and capping it with his complete psychotic breakdown when he tin can't detect his money, having a closer resemblance to an animal than a homo. It finally ends with Batman going to a fountain afterwards telling Gordon that in that location's e'er hope, wishing Harvey luck, so flipping the coin in as it lands heads upwardly. The arc rivals "Heart of Ice" for the biggest Tear Jerker of the series.
  • Bruce's line "I will save you" after having the nightmare of Harvey and his parents is a huge Tear Jerker for two reasons. One for people who have read the comics before and know that there'southward no real hope for Harvey. And the second is for people who have loved ones suffering from severe mental illness and know that they tin can't save their loved ones from their inner demons every bit much as they long to.
  • And how nigh the very last time we see Harvey? He goes even crazier and develops a second alternate personality chosen The Judge, a personality and then separate from his "normal" ones that it tries to kill him. Batman stops him eventually and sends Harvey back to Arkham. Nosotros meet Harvey in his cell, in a straitjacket, every bit he plays out a court scene with himself on trial, proverb "The People versus Harvey Paring. How does the defendant plead?" And all poor Harvey can practice is brokenly say over and over once again, "Guilty... Guilty... Guilty..."
    • And this IS (was) the final time Harvey Dent appears in the unabridged DCAU, aside from an alternate universe version, leaving the viewer with the impression that he spent the rest of his life in that jail cell, saying nothing else.
    • Justice League vs. The Fatal 5 offers an extremely pocket-size ray of hope - he's still in Arkham Asylum post JLU, but Harvey seems to be somewhat in control, and tries to assist Starboy fit in.
  • What was notable well-nigh this evidence was that the transformation episode was not Harvey's first appearance in the series. He was a recurring character in a few episodes that showed him to exist an honest man working for the proficient of Gotham and a great friend to Bruce Wayne. This made the events of "2-Face" fifty-fifty more than heartbreaking.
• "Over the Edge," flow. Even though it's All Simply a Dream, it is still mayhap the virtually emotionally intense episode. From Batgirl's death to Gordon and Bruce's reactions, to Bruce telling a teary-eyed Tim to leave for his ain good. And in the last scenes of the dream, seeing how broken both Batman and Jim had get only upped the sadness.
  • I of the more poignant parts is that it's subtly implied that Gordon is well-enlightened of how his vendetta confronting Batman is both irrational and turning him into a monster himself, but after sacking Wayne Manor and ordering the arrests of Alfred, Dick, and Tim, in that location'southward no going dorsum, and he knows it. All in all, let's just say there's a reason it's said no parent should ever take to bury their child.
• "Feat of Dirt"

  Matt Hagen: I'm not an actor anymore, Teddy. I'one thousand not fifty-fifty... a man.

  • The final confrontation in Part 2. Batman defeats Clayface past showing him headshots and product photos from his ruined acting career, which confuses his transformation ability and sends it out of command. To end it, Clayface rips into a nearby control console and electrocutes himself. He collapses and, for a moment, changes from the monstrous Clayface to the handsome Matt Hagen. Then he morphs into his disfigured post-blow face, the face up he started all of this to endeavor to get rid of. In the end, it's nevertheless the face he ends up dying with. His expiry ends up being a "scene", but in the moment, it's extremely centre-wrenching.
• Clayface's final moments in "Mudslide." Equally his only hope of redeeming himself or always being human once again melts away, he miserably looks up at Batman and admits defeat:

  Clayface: As well late, Batman. Pall'due south going downwardly... for good this time.

• "Second Chance". The end. Just spotter it without a modest drop.
• The show fifty-fifty makes you care nearly Villain of the Week characters who never show upwardly again. In "Tyger, Tyger," you're introduced to Dr. Emile Dorian, a deranged geneticist, and his cosmos, a cat-man hybrid named Tygrus. Dr. Dorian has Selina Kyle/Catwoman kidnapped to be transformed into Tygrus' mate. One tin can be forgiven for beingness indifferent towards the fauna at the start, just then you find out he's sentient and capable of spoken language, he thinks of Dorian as his father, and pretty much the only reason he's an antagonist in the episode is considering Dorian told him that Selina would abound to honey him in one case Batman was out of the way. He's eventually persuaded that Batman isn't his enemy, just this angers Dorian, who ultimately blames Selina for "ruining" Tygrus and tries to shoot her. This, in plow, angers Tygrus enough to plow on Dorian, and he proceeds to tear the lab apart while Dorian desperately tries to at-home him.

  Dorian: I only wanted yous to be strong, to show no weakness, no compassion!

  • Upon existence confronted once and for all with the reality that Selina definitely does not want to remain a cat-person, he gives her the canister with the antidote and bids her adieu. Selina tries to persuade him to come with them, saying there's naught for him on the doctor's island anymore. His response is delivered in a voice completely devoid of emotion, which somehow makes it even more depressing:

  Tygrus: There's cipher for me anywhere.

  • And this setting could have provided the perfect opening for Shazam!'s Mr. Tawky Tawny in the DCAU; a tiger human being who refused to surrender to Tygrus' despair and sought out man society.
• There are scenes throughout the series that make information technology pretty clear just how strongly Bruce feels that his parents' deaths were his fault.
  • A cracking instance of that is when Batman returns to the spot where his parents were shot with Dr. Leslie Thompkins, the adult female who originally helped to comfort him as a child.
• "Birds of a Feather": You lot will compassion the Penguin. In this episode, Oswald Cobblepot is released, fully intending to retire from crime...and finding that, without his criminal friends, his life is pretty void of companionship ^note Too Truth in Television, every bit this is function of why recidivism rates for crime and drug use tin be and so high. He meets up with Veronica Vreeland, a shallow former Beloved Interest of Bruce Wayne'due south, and a male friend named Pierce Chapman (it's never shown whether they're romantically involved) who's an ever bigger Jerkass than she is. They determine to charm themselves by pretending to like Penguin and bringing him into high society, being inspired by the fact that the nearly-talked about party of the year involved The Joker crashing it and holding people earnest. The Penguin falls for it, going and so far as to plan to propose to Miss Vreeland. Even Batman congratulates him on the new direction of his life (although still incomparably unconvinced that he'due south truly reformed). Unfortunately, Oswald finds out that they were playing him for a fool the whole fourth dimension and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Veronica and her Upper-Class Twit of a friend. Batman stops him and the saddened Penguin returns to prison, musing ironically to himself: "I guess it's truthful what they say. Society is to blame. High society."
  • After Oswald came to her defence force and fought off some muggers, Veronica could actually have been falling for him, and the conversation where The Penguin found out about the plan to use him was because Veronica was chatting with Pierce virtually having 2d thoughts nigh the entire thing.
  • This line from Penguin, afterwards he realizes he'due south been had and kidnaps Veronica and Pierce in revenge:

    Veronica: Oswald, if information technology'south money you lot want, I tin become yous more...

    Penguin: SHUT Up! All I wanted from you, dearie, was a little friendship. [sadly] That would have cost you nothing.

  • The look on Veronica'southward face when the Penguin delivers his closing line while being arrested. The guilt she feels is going to haunt her for a long time.
• A subtle 1 in "Fauna Act," in which Dick and Tim visit the quondam'southward circus home.

  Tim: This must've been a fun place to abound up.
  Dick: [looking upwardly at the trapeze] It was.

• Poison Ivy's introductory episode "Pretty Poison," where she accidentally kills her mutant flytrap plant, and so sets her whole greenhouse on fire. You actually feel sorry for fiction's ultimate eco-terrorist when yous meet the look on her face at what she's done.
  • For that affair, even though she escaped at the cease of the episode "Business firm and Garden," where she tried to have some kind of a family and normal life (even though information technology was all a fake) left yous feeling some pity for Pamela.
    • Somehow, it manages to get even worse. While Pamela does retire from existence Toxicant Ivy at that point, she leaves behind one concluding vegetable creature to pose as her in Gotham to distract Batman and keep Harley company, accounting for her change in appearance in-between the 2 series. At one bespeak during a fight with Batgirl, the new Ivy is hit with weedkiller and finds herself breaking down. She attempts to seek out assistance for what is happening to her and...
• Selina badly searching for Isis in the early scenes of "Cat Scratch Fever."
  • Plus when she does this afterwards, every bit she'south starting to succumb to the furnishings of the disease. To make matters worse, she got infected afterward she was scratched past one of the infected animals at the lab... Isis.
• Almost all of "I Am the Night," which starts with Bruce despondent over how crime will always be no matter how many small battles with information technology he wins, and his spiral of low getting worse when he blames himself for Gordon being shot.
  • Bullock doesn't make things whatever ameliorate. He tells Batman he should have been there for him and that Gordon was counting on him, fifty-fifty maxim that Batman is just as responsible as Gordon's shooter. Feeling more than depressed, Batman swings away. And Bullock tells him it'southward not over, "I own't talking nearly law! It's about you and me!" Though Bullock seems like an insensitive jerk, he truly cares almost Gordon every bit Batman does. His anger stems from his belief that Batman causes more impairment than good to the metropolis.
• In "Sideshow," Killer Croc escapes into the wilderness and is taken in by a group of ex-sideshow performers who think he's escaped his own barbarous circus masters. Eventually, Batman finds them and his true nature shows itself, and every bit he'south taken back to prison, the "seal boy" who offset found him asks why he didn't just retire from his criminal life and stay with them in peace. Croc'due south response is surprisingly insightful (for him, anyhow): "You said y'all could be yourself out here, recall? I guess that's what I was doing: Being myself."
  • The sheer heartbreak of the seal boy, and the other well-meaning ex-carnies, upon finding the peace of their village existence violated, is pretty depressing unto itself. They seemed so happy to find a new friend.
• Tim overhearing that his male parent is dead in "Sins of the Father."
• "Mean Seasons." The reveal that Agenda Girl's face is perfectly normal and cute, just she'south so psychologically screwed up from the fashion the modelling industry treated her that she but sees the flaws in it.
  • Made fifty-fifty worse with the Reality Subtext, as Sela Ward, who voiced Calendar Daughter, was told the exact same thing when auditioning to become a Bail Girl ^note "What we actually desire is Sela, but Sela x years ago" (though, thankfully, she didn't go crazy as a result).

    Batgirl: She's beautiful.

    Batman: She can't come across that anymore. All she sees are the flaws.

• "His Silicon Soul." One time again, the writers took something that could have hands been another stock superhero show story and fabricated information technology into something poignant and tragic. Duplicant!Batman is an Iron Woobie, you can't help merely feel sorry for him/information technology. Merely especially, particularly when the Duplicant's tomato gets squashed flat.

  Rossum: You don't understand. You're not a human being's mind in a robot's body. You're a robot. Period.

  Duplicant!Batman: Y'all're lying! It's not possible! I know my family unit and friends! I remember names, faces, birthdays! I have memories! A past!

  Rossum: Yous have information. Information. Nothing more. Do you lot remember your first buss? Your favorite vocal? The last fourth dimension you tasted a actually skilful steak?

  • Made worse when he believes he killed Bruce and is stricken by guilt. Realizing the scheme HARDAC built him to complete will kill many more people, he sacrifices himself to foil information technology. Bruce wonders if this meant the duplicate had a soul of his own.

    Duplicant!Batman: NOOOOOO!! I've taken a life! I've killed a man. [goes back to the Batcomputer, which HARDAC has almost finished uploading itself into] My metropolis...my people... What accept I done!?... NO!!! [destroys the computer]

    [Subsequently, while Bruce and Alfred clean up]

  • Before the two above-mentioned scenes, there'southward Alfred fearfully backing abroad from Duplicant!Batman, assuming that something terrible has happened to Bruce shortly after discovering the duplicant in the library. When the duplicant starts moving toward Alfred over again, Alfred attempts to attack the duplicant, but the duplicant catches Alfred's weapon and tosses it aside, trying to assure Alfred that it's actually him. The duplicant pleads with Alfred to help him discover out how he ended up as a robot, but Alfred activates the secret passage to the Batcave and flees inside, ignoring the duplicant's pleas.

    Alfred: You're one of Rossum'southward duplicants!
    Duplicant!Batman: Duplicants? What do you lot mean? [begins budgeted Alfred once more]
    Alfred: What have you done with Primary Bruce?! [attempts to strike the duplicant with the golfing lodge, but the duplicant grabs it and tosses it aside]
    Duplicant!Batman: Alfred, it's me! I need your assistance. I take to find out what's happened to me. [Alfred begins backing away once again] I'm not going to concluding long similar this! [Alfred backs into the clock, so reaches around the clock and feels around for the switch to activate the passage before he finds it and presses it and edges around the opening clock and into the passage] Alfred, expect. Please!

• Whatever origin story. The BTAS villains are tragic.
• Re-watching the serial after viewing Batman Across: Render of the Joker. Seeing Tim as a happy, cheerful child and knowing what the Joker does to him is painful.
• A blink-and-you-miss-it example, but in "Christmas with the Joker," when Robin can't believe Batman has never seen It'southward a Wonderful Life, Batman responds that he "couldn't go past the title screen." It says an awful lot most Bruce'due south life that he can't stand up a picture show title that literally says a wonderful life. Though later on seeing it, he admit it has its moments.
• In the episode "Chemistry," Bruce has fallen in beloved. He tries to explain what he'south going through to his partners:

  Bruce: Everything's inverse for me in the past few weeks. The hurting of my parents' deaths... It's still there, but it seems smaller. And there's a new feeling now.

  Barbara: Which would exist?

  Bruce: It's a lightness. A sense that things will work out for the all-time.

  Tim: It'south called happiness.

  Bruce: Whatever information technology is, I like it.

  • At first it's funny, as Bruce regards happiness as a completely foreign emotion. Then you realize that Bruce regards happiness equally a completely foreign emotion.
• In "Paging the Offense Md," Bruce pays the bail for Matthew Thorne, a disgraced doctor (who used to exist friends with fellow doctors Thomas Wayne and Leslie Thompkins) with the misfortune of having a criminal offense lord for a brother, request only that Thorne tell him about his father.
• Maxie Zeus'due south backstory is likewise pretty tragic. In this version, he has no "dark origin story" or Moral Event Horizon, and he isn't even really evil. He was merely a regular businessman who seemed to have gone into delusional insanity overnight, though for i second he seemed to have snapped dorsum to normal merely for his insanity to take over again.
  • Getting electrocuted by his ain weapon and falling on his head seems to take driven him permanently into insanity. When he'due south sent to Arkham, he believes he's returned home to the 'true' Olympus.
  • The story is even more tragic for his girlfriend Clio. She truly loves him and remembers the times when he was withal normal (equally shown in her picture of them), but she is powerless to help him and forced to watch his sanity deteriorate. The worst office? During the climax, she nearly manages to go through him and for a brief moment, Maxie seems to come back to his senses... simply for the Zeus personality to take over.
• "It's Never Too Tardily," the episode about the criminal offense boss and his priest brother. Seeing the flashback of how the priest lost his leg.
  • As well every bit Arnold Stromwell'south (the mob boss) horrified expression when he has said flashback and the way he ends up bursting into tears in his brother's arms. Yous can conspicuously see that the guy never forgave himself for the accident that price the leg of his brother.
  • In general, this episode tin make you sad for Stromwell in a Jerkass Woobie/Alas, Poor Villain kind of way. This guy is a textbook case of Being Evil Sucks. He'southward a powerful law-breaking boss, has money and power. Proficient for him. His empire is as well crumbling because of the rising of Thorne's own criminal empire, he's divorced from his wife, estranged from his brother, and he is afterward horrified to find that his son has get sick because of the drugs his own organization was selling. At least, his story ends on a rather happy note, every bit he'south convinced by Batman and his brother to surrender to the police and close down his empire. He may end up in prison, but he'due south now at peace with himself and ready to make apology.
• In "Harley'south Holiday," it's pretty unfortunate that Harley was declared cured and released from Arkham perfectly ready to start a new life. Only for 1 tiny misunderstanding ^note She buys a apparel, merely walks away with it before the clerk tin can remove the security tag, but Harley doesn't hear her calling her to come dorsum because she'southward listening to music on her headphones, causing the alert to go off equally she leaves, causing security to deal with her, with her thinking they're accusing her of stealing the shirt dress considering of her reputation, causing her to snap and revert back to her psychotic means to undo all of information technology within 10 minutes.
• "Beware the Gray Ghost": During Bruce's childhood, his idol and hero was The Grey Ghost who was portrayed by Simon Trent. Merely now, Simon is a man living in poverty in a 1-room flat, unable to notice whatsoever work because people merely think of him as The Grayness Ghost and don't take him seriously. Later hearing he'southward been turned downwardly over again, he angrily shatters the picture of him as The Gray Ghost and knocks over merchandise and mementos he had kept from his celebrity days before collapsing to the floor sobbing. The fact that he's voiced by Adam West probably doesn't aid.
  • In fact, the whole episode was written for West to bulldoze that nail in. Bruce Timm has stated that if they hadn't been able to get W to do the part, they'd have scrapped the whole episode.
  • Trent's line "And so, it wasn't all for nothing..." is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, especially with West'southward passing in 2017.
• "The Forgotten" had a surprisingly effective moment where Bruce has a dream where he's walking through a homeless neighborhood and stops to give cash to some of the nearby people. Shortly, more join in, begging for cash, leading Bruce to simply stop and shed a tear at the realization that he can't help them all. It really humanizes Bruce and drives home his sense of guilt and responsibility for the people he'due south unable to assistance, not just as Batman either.
  • That's by no means the only moment: When Riley and the amnesiac Bruce are stuck in the Box, slowly roasting alive in the desert sunday, Riley begins to accept an emotional breakdown, crying about how he'due south showtime to forget things about his family and how he's never going to see them once more. Then, this outburst gives Bruce'south hidden the last piece of the puzzle it needs, and he remembers himself as a child with his parents, merely for the happy retentivity to exist subsumed by their looming, disintegrating headstone.
  • Additionally, Fridge Horror sets in hard when you remember the horrifically vicious and unsafe weather condition in the camp. Lethal cave-ins? A regular thing. That guy Boss Biggis made an instance of? Near certainly dead.
• "Showdown": The restrained sadness in Ras' voice, as he explains that he took too long to find his son, who is now bilious and across his ways to restore.
• Man-Bat's sudden shift from ferocious snarling to cringing shame, when Francine enters the lab to observe her transformed husband attacking Batman. Bestial or not, Kirk'due south alter-ego still cares for her and conspicuously can't stand up to take his married woman run into him like that.
• "Read My Lips." The dynamic between the ventriloquist (a heretofore unnamed Arnold Wesker) and his Split Personality Scarface, channeled through his dummy, is unquestionably a bizarre thing to watch play out. And yet this, their debut episode, ends in a tragic moment, when in the scuffle between Batman and Scarface's Mooks, the Scarface dummy is practically disintegrated by gunfire intended for Batman. The ventriloquist reacts with a blood-curdling scream, and collapses to the floor, belongings any is left of Scarface, and crying his eyes out at the loss of his "boss." Suddenly, this isn't some weird spectacle anymore; it's the heartbreaking anguish of a human with serious issues, at a Despair Consequence Horizon, and in desperate need of professional help. (As the Bittersweet Ending makes painfully articulate.)

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TearJerker/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries

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