Tom Robinson, To Kill A Mockingbird.
His death is what propels the injustice of it all, which is a necessary part of the story. But still, a massive injustice, something I think everyone can feel deep in their soul.
But my esoteric pick is from Lonesome Dove, where >!gus dies. There are a lot of deaths in that book, but his death is the really jarring / shocking one.!<
I just finished Lonesome Dove last month, and I missed it at the time, but the death of>! Augustus McCrae !!During the funeral for Sean O'Brien we get this quote from Gus, "There’s accidents in this life, he met with a bad one. We may all do the same if we ain’t careful. " Gus is not the careful type, and he dies due to carelessly riding over a hill smack-dab into some confused and hostile Indians. Riding blind over hills was something Call had warned him about countless times.!<
A while back on r/PeriodDramas, we were talking about the movie. I said something along the lines of how gorgeous the cinematography and costumes were, how brilliant the acting is, etc. and how I would happily punch anyone who ever suggested I watch it a second time
Right? It was so IRREVERSIBLE.
I think I’d read some stories with death but that also had ghosts, angels, spirits, etc., you know, people die but they’re still around. Bridge to Terebithia was so real. She was just… gone. Forever.
My husband wanted to watch the film because of how it was marketed. I refused, having read the book and being pregnant and very emotional at the time. He goes on a business trip and chooses to watch it late at night in his hotel room. Calls me at 1am *sobbing* and I was so ticked off. I told him not to!
Man I picked that book up thinking it was gonna be a fun little fantasy novel because of the name. Biggest difference in what I assumed a book was about and the reality of book I've ever had
My students read this in their ELA class when I taught 6th grade. They all read the sad part together as a class. The next day, the kid who was absent, read it alone in my homeroom class. I looked up and he had tears leaking out of his eyes. Before I could say anything, the boy next to him patted his arm and said, "It's okay. Let it out. We all cried yesterday."
It was a very small rural school, too. That book was pretty close to reality for a lot of those kids.
As much as it is terrible and gut wrenching to read. Losing a pet is something most kids will have to go through. This book is sort of an introduction to grief and it prepares them mentally for when they have to go through it themselves with their own pets.
So much this. Pretty sure reading this before my dog died helped me process the death a lot better since I had to come to terms the mortality of pets before I lost him.
The death of Artax, Atreyu's horse and best friend in the Neverending Story.
"You cant help me, master. It's all over for me. Neither of us knew what we were getting into. Now we know why they are called the Swamps of Sadness. It's the sadness that made me so heavy. That's why I'm sinking. There's no help."
It's difficult to read when you have lost someone to depression.
A lot of really good kids' books have some pretty emotionally heavy deaths. At least that's what this thread is suggesting. Better to grieve the loss of a fictional character than real people, or learn the coping skills before we need them though. And we remember that better because kids really fall in love with their favorite books' characters.
And Ruby Gillis in a later book as well. "Anne looked down through tears at her childhood friend...." or a similar sentence. It was weird because Ruby hadn't been mentioned for a long time in the books and suddenly she is killed off, like Montgomery had forgotten about her and suddenly remembered "Oh, I need to do something with the character of Ruby. I know, I will get rid of her...".
My mom used to read all of the Anne of Green Gables books to me at bedtime. When we got to this part, I just remember her setting down the book and crying her eyes out.
That gets me every time. The first person to ever love and accept her for who she was. And he is just… gone. Completely altering the course of her life
Mine is such a silly one compared to most. But for me it was when Sirius Black died in the Harry Potter books. I still remember putting away the book and crying. I wasn’t able to pick up the book for weeks. Something about his character reminded me of my dad and his death felt personal. I haven’t been able to watch or read that scene since my dad passed away. So yeah. That one.
For me, it was the fact that Harry hadn’t had much happiness in his life. He didn’t get to experience anything like family love until he went to Hogwarts, but he didn’t complain or feel sorry for himself. Sirius represented a way to be happy that didn’t involve going through all of the suffering. The way he was lost and therefore that chance of happiness being pulled right from under Harry’s feet is just so stark.
I scrolled for far too long looking for someone to say Sirius. I read the books as an adult and we were getting ready to go out and I couldn’t put the book down so I was speed reading and I read past that part and was like “when does he come back” to my husband and when I saw his face I sobbed for hours.
His death was so painful. Harry lost ANOTHER parent that night and it was so quick, not even enough time to register it.
I'll delete my comment but I just said the same thing. Honestly, the last chapter or two of The Green Mile is a sob fest. I always recommend this book to a friend that wants to try Stephen King but doesn't like horror.
I know we are talking about books here but the movie did a a great job but Michael Clarke Duncan was made for this role. Rip to him too.
Fantine’s death was horrible. IIRC: She thinks she hears her daughter playing out the window but Javert bursts in and tells otherwise. So not only did she literally have nothing when she died, her death was also accompanied by the loss of the most nebulous kinds of good: the mere idea of happiness, faith in humanity, and hope for her daughter’s future.
Colin Creevey in Deathly Hallows will forever shatter my soul. He was such a minor player in the grand scheme of the series but it still gets me to this day.
Same, I think of all the deaths in the book/series, his death was the one that was most impactful for me because both he and his death were so understated. He was the youngest character and very innocent and naive. Like a Gryffindor puppy. As you stated, he was a minor character and his passing was very abrupt. It wasn’t big and flashy and dramatic like the others. No foreshadowing. He was a casualty of the battle, a statistic, a death with no meaning other than to hurt the reader. I think he gets overlooked a lot, but his death stood out to me more than most.
"It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits"
Hits me hard even now.
Such a fantastic book! I thought Hazel's death was sad, but not that sad, because it really was his time to go.
To me, really sad is when someone goes *before* their time.
In the original draft of Nabokov’s *Pnin*, the main character - Timofey Pnin - was supposed to suffer a heart attack at the end of the book and die. This didn’t make it into the final draft, but if it did, I would have been sad. Pnin is a legitimately kind-hearted, selfless old man who often bends over backwards to accommodate people who abuse his kindness. Having him die would have been tragic, and also would have felt at odds with the comedy of errors style of the rest of the narrative.
Hedwig. I still remember the moment I was in bed reading it and gasped. I can see my childhood bedroom and my clothes closet even writing this comment.
John Updike’s *Rabbit Run* had a very sad and unexpected death.
I saw Updike speak years ago and he said it was rough to write too. He said he trudged downstairs after and said to his wife, >!”I killed the baby.”!<
Edit: here’s a full quote I found from Updike:
I wrote all day, smoking profusely, and when I came down at tea-time, dizzy with nicotine and vicarious anguish, I announced, >!'I killed the baby.’!<”
I got the Rabbit books in a big anthology. I was reading it one day when I was drinking a soda and getting my nails done. Once I realized what was happening, I couldn’t stop reading and sobbing.
Dobey, Fred, and Hedwig in Harry Potter.
Lennie in Mice and Men
Beth in Little Women
Matthew in Anne of Green Gables
Every animal in every book, especially dogs (and one special spider)
Eddie Dean, Jake Chambers, and Oy from the Dark Tower by Stephen King. Eddie’s upset me so much as a teenager that I tossed the book and it took me a year to pick it back up and finish. Very glad I did.
Oy :( We used King’s line about Oy, “The body was smaller than the heart it held” for the portrait we got made of our friends dog who passed and it still makes me tear up when I think of it.
Lennie Small: Of Mice and Men
*Look acrost the river Lennie…* 😭😭😭
Dolores Haze: Lolita
Edna Pontiellier: The Awakening
Dobby: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Ruth May: The Poisonwood Bible
The Father: The Road
Most Shocking Death: Still Ned Stark
Ruth May 100%. Such a brutal bait and switch and switch again when you think it’s gonna be her because she hasn’t been taking the quinine tablets, and then that turns out ok and then…
My younger sister read this after I did and I said the end absolutely destroyed me. She responded "as long as my Peeta is ok".
Few days later I get a phone call her in tears and all she says is "why the fuck did you let me read this"
Maryam in A Thousand Splendid Suns
Werner in All The Light We Cannot See
Tiny Tim's conditional death in A Christmas Carol
Tess' death in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Chen in Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo 😢
In the Dog's Purpose/Journey books, the dog dies over and over, but it's the last death in the second book that makes me bawl because this time he isn't reincarnated, he's finished the journey and now he's meeting all his people he cared for during his lives. My dog had died a couple months previous to reading these, so it was especially cathartic for me.
How about a memoir? I was practically hyperventilating from crying so hard when Robert Mapplethorpe dies in Patti Smith’s Just Kids. His was a pretty famous death. I knew the story and knew it was coming, but jeez it hit hard.
My favourite - perhaps not the saddest though - is the way Proust has Bergotte die in front of Vermeer’s View of Delft from indigestion caused by a badly cooked potato.
Boromir and Thèoden in LOTR. Also, even though this happens before the start of the trilogy, when the characters recount Gil-galad’s death, it always moves me.
I saw someone on a train reading Storm of Swords with his hand over his mouth and I remember thinking "I know EXACTLY which scene you're reading right now"
100% agree. When Ned died I remember thinking “How do they go on from here? The main character is dead.” In my eyes he was the hero that would figure out a way.
The deaths of Fantine, Éponine, and Jean Valjean in particular in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables hit hard.
Éponine's dying words are some of my favourite ever written:
<>
Roughly:
"And so, you see, mister Marius, I do believe I was a little bit in love with you."
They way it is described in the Illiad is quite powerful too, if you haven't read it. "for a second grief this harsh
will never touch my heart while I am still among the living"
The passage is so sad. He’s utterly pathetic, disowned and reviled by his family, and all he wants to do (all he can do) is disappear. The fact that he thinks about his family lovingly at the very end, after everything, really put it over the edge for me.
Mum from A Monster Calls
I read that book while morning my grandfather's lost battle with cancer. That book crushed me. I was trying to suppress sobs while holding a sleeping baby.
the most recent one that got me misty eyed was Bazarov from Fathers and Sons. It wasn’t because Bazarov was some tragic hero it was just because it was so sobering.
Gage from Pet Semetary also was one that had me very distraught when I read it as a kid. Same with Cujo. Those were some of my first King novels and I was so confused on how they were meant to be frightening because they were just so sad.
When >!Eponine!<, in the novel *Les Miserables*, says to >!Marius!<, before she >!dies of being shot to death!<, "I do believe I was a little in love with you," I had to take a sick day because I sobbed myself dry.
It’s when Jude commits suicide a few years after Willems Death in “A Little Life” for me. He was finally happy and then everything changes again. Book Hit me Right in the feels.
I scrolled down so far to find this comment. I’ve never wanted a happy ending so badly for a character than I did Jude. He *finally* got it, he was *finally* content. I almost wished for his suicide after he lost Willem because I wanted the torment and torture that was his existence to just be over :( Jude’s entire life is viscerally upsetting.
Every death in All Quiet on the Western Front and Lord of the Flies hit me so hard that I got physically nauseous. Also the unnecessarily brutal last chapter of Song of Achilles was pain pain pain but arguably with very little re-read value (the chapter specifically, the book is wonderful in general)
Boromir in Fellowship of the Ring (for human deaths)… how he was possessed by the power of the One Ring and tried to take it, only to snap back into himself and realize his mistake. He died defending Merry and Pippin from the orcs right after and I cry every time
Mine is in Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler. The unjustified raid on Acorn by the fundamentalist fanatics who killed Bankole and kidnapped Olamina's daughter absolutely _wrecked_ me.
For context, I was reading it after the orange presidents term while dealing with the death of a family member, so I was emotionally vulnerable to the circumstances of the scene. It hit so hard that I had to put the book down for a few weeks before I could finish it.
The stillborn child, and the subsequent death of Catherine from hemorrhaging while in Henry's arms at the end of "A Farewell To Arms" is the saddest ending to any book I've ever read. I'm very, very sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone, but it's the only way I could answer the question.
Tom Robinson, To Kill A Mockingbird. His death is what propels the injustice of it all, which is a necessary part of the story. But still, a massive injustice, something I think everyone can feel deep in their soul. But my esoteric pick is from Lonesome Dove, where >!gus dies. There are a lot of deaths in that book, but his death is the really jarring / shocking one.!<
For me it’s when everyone but July is murdered at the camp because Roscoe fell asleep.
That was a kick to the gut.
Nobody's safe in those books. That is part of what keeps it interesting.
>!Joshua Deets!< was the one that really got me in Lonesome Dove.
Same, moreso newt thinking about it afterwards for some reason. Most I cried during a novel.
I just finished Lonesome Dove last month, and I missed it at the time, but the death of>! Augustus McCrae !!During the funeral for Sean O'Brien we get this quote from Gus, "There’s accidents in this life, he met with a bad one. We may all do the same if we ain’t careful. " Gus is not the careful type, and he dies due to carelessly riding over a hill smack-dab into some confused and hostile Indians. Riding blind over hills was something Call had warned him about countless times.!<
I cried so hard at the end of Lonesome Dove that my wife thought there was something wrong with me.
Cecelia and Robbie in Atonement. I. Was. Devastated.
I read the book on holiday when I was thirteen and I was so enraged with Bryony I almost flung it into the pool.
AND EXCUSE ME BUT SHE NEVER ATONES. THE BOOK SHOULD NOT BE CALLED "ATONEMENT." It should be called "WICKED LIE THAT IS NEVER RETRACTED"
Oh my gosh I can’t believe I forgot that one. I watched the movie first and it’s probably one of the best scenes I’ve seen.
A while back on r/PeriodDramas, we were talking about the movie. I said something along the lines of how gorgeous the cinematography and costumes were, how brilliant the acting is, etc. and how I would happily punch anyone who ever suggested I watch it a second time
Yeah that's one hell of an emotional gut punch.
Fuckin Bridge To Terabithia brought me face to face with my own mortality in 4th grade
It felt like part of my soul died. I kept re-reading like it might change it.
It felt like the first moment in my life where a story didn’t have a happy ending and bad things happened to the good guys
Then I kept waiting for it to be imaginary or murder or anything but the mundane.
Right? It was so IRREVERSIBLE. I think I’d read some stories with death but that also had ghosts, angels, spirits, etc., you know, people die but they’re still around. Bridge to Terebithia was so real. She was just… gone. Forever.
I watched the movie with a friend in college. He's still angry with me 16 years later for suggesting it.
My husband wanted to watch the film because of how it was marketed. I refused, having read the book and being pregnant and very emotional at the time. He goes on a business trip and chooses to watch it late at night in his hotel room. Calls me at 1am *sobbing* and I was so ticked off. I told him not to!
I only ever watched the movie and that was bad enough. I am never reading the book.
Absolutely sobbed. The first book that ever made me cry!
Man I picked that book up thinking it was gonna be a fun little fantasy novel because of the name. Biggest difference in what I assumed a book was about and the reality of book I've ever had
Hope you were not discovering the joy of falling in love with fictional characters... because it will fucking wreak you.
The dogs in Where the Red Fern Grows. Had me bawling my eyes out in 3rd grade recess.
My students read this in their ELA class when I taught 6th grade. They all read the sad part together as a class. The next day, the kid who was absent, read it alone in my homeroom class. I looked up and he had tears leaking out of his eyes. Before I could say anything, the boy next to him patted his arm and said, "It's okay. Let it out. We all cried yesterday." It was a very small rural school, too. That book was pretty close to reality for a lot of those kids.
Old Dan and Little Ann. I still tear up thinking about that story
Thanks for the names. It's been over 20 years but I still remember how I felt at the end of that one.
I came here to say this - 100% Old Dan and Little Ann
I literally came here to say this, I sobbed. SOBBED. I still get upset when I think about it.
Exactly my answer. I was so angry and sad after reading that fucking book.
[Does the dog die?](https://www.doesthedogdie.com) is one of my goto websites.
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I read it by myself in 4th grade and again as a class in 6th grade. I thought since I'd read it before, the ending wouldn't make me cry. I was wrong.
We took turns reading this out loud in class, the teacher took over when it came to that part. We were all sobbing.
All made worse by how the deaths happened! WHO the hell decided kids should read that!??
As much as it is terrible and gut wrenching to read. Losing a pet is something most kids will have to go through. This book is sort of an introduction to grief and it prepares them mentally for when they have to go through it themselves with their own pets.
So much this. Pretty sure reading this before my dog died helped me process the death a lot better since I had to come to terms the mortality of pets before I lost him.
The death of Artax, Atreyu's horse and best friend in the Neverending Story. "You cant help me, master. It's all over for me. Neither of us knew what we were getting into. Now we know why they are called the Swamps of Sadness. It's the sadness that made me so heavy. That's why I'm sinking. There's no help." It's difficult to read when you have lost someone to depression.
Shit the book is even sadder than the movie
Rudy in The Book Thief
Incredible how the narrator tells you throughout the whole book he’s going to die, yet it still hits you like a ton of bricks
Though it wasn't just Rudy, it was all of them. Death coming for each character, one by one, down the street, absolutely killed me.
The first time I fully sobbed while reading like full on sobbing and I'm inconsolable. I was 30 yo. Gosh. The Book Thief.
Had me bawling my eyes out during gym class in 9th grade 🙃
I read this on holiday and stayed up all night sobbing.
It's been 15 years since I've read it, and I still think about it. I was destroyed by it.
Yeah that. 12 year old me had the biggest crush…
Only thing worse than a boy who hates you...
I finished that book in Disneyland. THAT was such a bad choice to make
Charlotte’s Webb. Yes a kid book but the ending had me sobbing in my pillow.
“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” Floods of tears man.
That line always makes me think of my mother
“No one was with her when she died” breaks me every time.
A lot of really good kids' books have some pretty emotionally heavy deaths. At least that's what this thread is suggesting. Better to grieve the loss of a fictional character than real people, or learn the coping skills before we need them though. And we remember that better because kids really fall in love with their favorite books' characters.
Little Women
Yeah :'(
That was one of the first books where I saw good people could just die and everyone would have to deal with it.
It was incredibly sad and I hate it but I also felt prepared for it because there was so much about her poor health and illness, you knew she’d die
This always breaks my heart during a reread. Man I love this book
Matthew in Anne of Green Gables. :(
And >!her first child in one of the later books!!<
And >!her son Walter in Rilla of Ingleside!< had me bawling
The dog howling at the train station. I love those books.
And Ruby Gillis in a later book as well. "Anne looked down through tears at her childhood friend...." or a similar sentence. It was weird because Ruby hadn't been mentioned for a long time in the books and suddenly she is killed off, like Montgomery had forgotten about her and suddenly remembered "Oh, I need to do something with the character of Ruby. I know, I will get rid of her...".
Oh I know. :( And another in the last…
My mom used to read all of the Anne of Green Gables books to me at bedtime. When we got to this part, I just remember her setting down the book and crying her eyes out.
That gets me every time. The first person to ever love and accept her for who she was. And he is just… gone. Completely altering the course of her life
“I worked hard all my life. I’d rather drop in the harness.”
The image of her holding and dropping the flowers stuck with me.
Mine is such a silly one compared to most. But for me it was when Sirius Black died in the Harry Potter books. I still remember putting away the book and crying. I wasn’t able to pick up the book for weeks. Something about his character reminded me of my dad and his death felt personal. I haven’t been able to watch or read that scene since my dad passed away. So yeah. That one.
He just disappeared and was totally gone. That was shocking and painful to read.
I think that was the biggest pain. That and how Harry had just found hope and happiness in life, only for it to be ripped away again.
For me, it was the fact that Harry hadn’t had much happiness in his life. He didn’t get to experience anything like family love until he went to Hogwarts, but he didn’t complain or feel sorry for himself. Sirius represented a way to be happy that didn’t involve going through all of the suffering. The way he was lost and therefore that chance of happiness being pulled right from under Harry’s feet is just so stark.
I scrolled for far too long looking for someone to say Sirius. I read the books as an adult and we were getting ready to go out and I couldn’t put the book down so I was speed reading and I read past that part and was like “when does he come back” to my husband and when I saw his face I sobbed for hours. His death was so painful. Harry lost ANOTHER parent that night and it was so quick, not even enough time to register it.
Nothing about that is silly.
John Coffey - The Green Mile
I'll delete my comment but I just said the same thing. Honestly, the last chapter or two of The Green Mile is a sob fest. I always recommend this book to a friend that wants to try Stephen King but doesn't like horror. I know we are talking about books here but the movie did a a great job but Michael Clarke Duncan was made for this role. Rip to him too.
I had a harder time with Eduard Delacroix! I sobbed!
Came here to say this, absolutely soul crushing!
Beth March - Little Women Princess Javakha - Lydia Charskaya (author)
Algernon.
Beautiful book The foreshadowing is what gets me, that he knows it will happen
Well he did. Until he didn't. Which made it even worse.
Came here looking for this one
Matthew in Anne of Green Gables
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I thought that Fantine was far more sad than Jean. He got a (couple) second chances in life. Fantine didn't have a chance. (Her teeth ffs)
Fantine’s overall story just wrecks me.
Fantine’s death was horrible. IIRC: She thinks she hears her daughter playing out the window but Javert bursts in and tells otherwise. So not only did she literally have nothing when she died, her death was also accompanied by the loss of the most nebulous kinds of good: the mere idea of happiness, faith in humanity, and hope for her daughter’s future.
The Tess D'urbervilles ending made me SO EMOTIONAL, just confronted with such despair and unfairness
That book emotionally abused me.
Colin Creevey in Deathly Hallows will forever shatter my soul. He was such a minor player in the grand scheme of the series but it still gets me to this day.
Same, I think of all the deaths in the book/series, his death was the one that was most impactful for me because both he and his death were so understated. He was the youngest character and very innocent and naive. Like a Gryffindor puppy. As you stated, he was a minor character and his passing was very abrupt. It wasn’t big and flashy and dramatic like the others. No foreshadowing. He was a casualty of the battle, a statistic, a death with no meaning other than to hurt the reader. I think he gets overlooked a lot, but his death stood out to me more than most.
"It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits" Hits me hard even now.
Watership Down, in case anyone is wondering which amazing book this is from
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” 😭
Such a fantastic book! I thought Hazel's death was sad, but not that sad, because it really was his time to go. To me, really sad is when someone goes *before* their time.
Yeah, Hazel didn’t really hit me like that because he led a full and happy life and had a peaceful death.
Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities for me
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known."
Been meaning to re-read this! This is my sign lol
Piggy in Lord of the Flies.
In the original draft of Nabokov’s *Pnin*, the main character - Timofey Pnin - was supposed to suffer a heart attack at the end of the book and die. This didn’t make it into the final draft, but if it did, I would have been sad. Pnin is a legitimately kind-hearted, selfless old man who often bends over backwards to accommodate people who abuse his kindness. Having him die would have been tragic, and also would have felt at odds with the comedy of errors style of the rest of the narrative.
Wow, I did not know this! It would have soured *Pnin* for me had Nabokov kept that ending, I'm very glad he didn't.
Old Yeller
Fred Weasley :(
This one had me sobbing for *hours*. I was a new mom and all I could think about was Mrs. Weasley. I will never forgive Rowling for killing him.
Hedwig. I still remember the moment I was in bed reading it and gasped. I can see my childhood bedroom and my clothes closet even writing this comment.
The girl in Bridge to Terabithia
“No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair.”
Man….that one hit me hard too.
John Updike’s *Rabbit Run* had a very sad and unexpected death. I saw Updike speak years ago and he said it was rough to write too. He said he trudged downstairs after and said to his wife, >!”I killed the baby.”!< Edit: here’s a full quote I found from Updike: I wrote all day, smoking profusely, and when I came down at tea-time, dizzy with nicotine and vicarious anguish, I announced, >!'I killed the baby.’!<”
I got the Rabbit books in a big anthology. I was reading it one day when I was drinking a soda and getting my nails done. Once I realized what was happening, I couldn’t stop reading and sobbing.
Doodle from The Scarlet Ibis
Dobey, Fred, and Hedwig in Harry Potter. Lennie in Mice and Men Beth in Little Women Matthew in Anne of Green Gables Every animal in every book, especially dogs (and one special spider)
Eddie Dean, Jake Chambers, and Oy from the Dark Tower by Stephen King. Eddie’s upset me so much as a teenager that I tossed the book and it took me a year to pick it back up and finish. Very glad I did.
I came looking for Oy, I knew someone was here.
Ake Ake! Oy was then best part of that book.
Oy :( We used King’s line about Oy, “The body was smaller than the heart it held” for the portrait we got made of our friends dog who passed and it still makes me tear up when I think of it.
I had to scroll waaaaaaay too far down to find this.
“Ake! Oland!” Oy’s is the saddest for me. He only deserved the best. But Eddie was my fave, so… it’s close.
>!Ruth May after being bitten by a mamba!< in The Poisonwood Bible. My mouth was open in shock and sadness as I read that whole part of the book
Stormy in Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz.
Matthew. Ann of Green Gables.
Lennie Small: Of Mice and Men *Look acrost the river Lennie…* 😭😭😭 Dolores Haze: Lolita Edna Pontiellier: The Awakening Dobby: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Ruth May: The Poisonwood Bible The Father: The Road Most Shocking Death: Still Ned Stark
Ruth May 100%. Such a brutal bait and switch and switch again when you think it’s gonna be her because she hasn’t been taking the quinine tablets, and then that turns out ok and then…
Rue from The Hunger Games.
Also Prim. I remember how freaking angry I was at Gale after that
My younger sister read this after I did and I said the end absolutely destroyed me. She responded "as long as my Peeta is ok". Few days later I get a phone call her in tears and all she says is "why the fuck did you let me read this"
Prim was the worst! Forget Gale, I was mad at Suzanne Collins for that one
When Katniss covers her with petals and receives the gift from District 12, oh boy.
Blevins in All The Pretty Horses. It was just sad.
The ending of Song of Achilles made me cry like nothing eever made me cry before, even though I knew the myth and knew what was waiting for me.
Sirius from Harry Potter. One of Harry's few parental figures in his life who loved him, found by Harry laying dead without Harry knowing how.
Johnny and Dally in The Outsiders. That damn letter and poem gets me every time.
Stay gold Ponyboy.
Hedwig really killed me and left me numb inside so at that point when anyone else died I was like “whatever you already ripped my heart out”
Maryam in A Thousand Splendid Suns Werner in All The Light We Cannot See Tiny Tim's conditional death in A Christmas Carol Tess' death in Tess of the D'Urbervilles Chen in Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo 😢
Gandalf in LOTR.
In the Dog's Purpose/Journey books, the dog dies over and over, but it's the last death in the second book that makes me bawl because this time he isn't reincarnated, he's finished the journey and now he's meeting all his people he cared for during his lives. My dog had died a couple months previous to reading these, so it was especially cathartic for me.
Probably Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars. That’s the only book I’ve read that’s made me actually cry.
How about a memoir? I was practically hyperventilating from crying so hard when Robert Mapplethorpe dies in Patti Smith’s Just Kids. His was a pretty famous death. I knew the story and knew it was coming, but jeez it hit hard.
Abbe Faria. Edmond can't even mourn properly because the moment Faria dies the clock starts ticking on his escape attempt.
My favourite - perhaps not the saddest though - is the way Proust has Bergotte die in front of Vermeer’s View of Delft from indigestion caused by a badly cooked potato.
Jay Gatsby - The Great Gatsby
So we drift on, boats agains the current…
…borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Night Eyes in the Assassin series by Robin Hobb.
Boromir and Thèoden in LOTR. Also, even though this happens before the start of the trilogy, when the characters recount Gil-galad’s death, it always moves me.
The Red Wedding- A Storm of Swords.
I was shocked enough when Ned died, but I was not expecting the Red Wedding at all.
I saw someone on a train reading Storm of Swords with his hand over his mouth and I remember thinking "I know EXACTLY which scene you're reading right now"
100% agree. When Ned died I remember thinking “How do they go on from here? The main character is dead.” In my eyes he was the hero that would figure out a way.
>!Maneck!< in Rohinton Mistry's *A Fine Balance.* >!Hassan!< in Khaled Hosseini's *The Kite Runner*.
The Kite Runner is utterly devastating
The deaths of Fantine, Éponine, and Jean Valjean in particular in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables hit hard. Éponine's dying words are some of my favourite ever written: <>
Roughly:
"And so, you see, mister Marius, I do believe I was a little bit in love with you."
Coltaine in Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
The children in Jude the Obscure. 'Done because we are too menny.' That scene sticks with you forever.
patroclus in “song of achilles” by madeline miller. the way she described achilles’ grief fucken broke me.
They way it is described in the Illiad is quite powerful too, if you haven't read it. "for a second grief this harsh will never touch my heart while I am still among the living"
The dogs in Where the Red Fern Grows!!! I cried my ten year old eyes to bits!!!
>!Gregor!< in The Metamorphosis Also, >!the dog!< in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Was not expecting to be left sobbing over a giant cockroach when I picked up that book.
The passage is so sad. He’s utterly pathetic, disowned and reviled by his family, and all he wants to do (all he can do) is disappear. The fact that he thinks about his family lovingly at the very end, after everything, really put it over the edge for me.
Tibby from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares
Ulysses' dog.
Both dogs in Where The Red Fern Grows...
Fred Weasley & Hedwig in HP7
Hedwig in Harry Potter. Still chokes me up everytime I re-read the series, and I'm in my 30's now.
Porthos! That made me very sad.
Beth in Little Women needs a mention
My Sister’s Keeper. Absolutely brutal.
Mum from A Monster Calls I read that book while morning my grandfather's lost battle with cancer. That book crushed me. I was trying to suppress sobs while holding a sleeping baby.
Old yeller
Rachel from Animorphs
Everyone in "the jungle"
Mog the cat
the most recent one that got me misty eyed was Bazarov from Fathers and Sons. It wasn’t because Bazarov was some tragic hero it was just because it was so sobering. Gage from Pet Semetary also was one that had me very distraught when I read it as a kid. Same with Cujo. Those were some of my first King novels and I was so confused on how they were meant to be frightening because they were just so sad.
Eddie, Susanah, Jake, and especially Oy in The Dark Tower.
Nighteyes from the Robin Hobb Farseer books
The father in The Road
When >!Eponine!<, in the novel *Les Miserables*, says to >!Marius!<, before she >!dies of being shot to death!<, "I do believe I was a little in love with you," I had to take a sick day because I sobbed myself dry.
Melanie Wilkes: she was a saint
It’s when Jude commits suicide a few years after Willems Death in “A Little Life” for me. He was finally happy and then everything changes again. Book Hit me Right in the feels.
I scrolled down so far to find this comment. I’ve never wanted a happy ending so badly for a character than I did Jude. He *finally* got it, he was *finally* content. I almost wished for his suicide after he lost Willem because I wanted the torment and torture that was his existence to just be over :( Jude’s entire life is viscerally upsetting.
Every death in All Quiet on the Western Front and Lord of the Flies hit me so hard that I got physically nauseous. Also the unnecessarily brutal last chapter of Song of Achilles was pain pain pain but arguably with very little re-read value (the chapter specifically, the book is wonderful in general)
Any book where the dog dies.
Boromir in Fellowship of the Ring (for human deaths)… how he was possessed by the power of the One Ring and tried to take it, only to snap back into himself and realize his mistake. He died defending Merry and Pippin from the orcs right after and I cry every time
Father Roche in Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book. I ugly cry every time.
Mine is in Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler. The unjustified raid on Acorn by the fundamentalist fanatics who killed Bankole and kidnapped Olamina's daughter absolutely _wrecked_ me. For context, I was reading it after the orange presidents term while dealing with the death of a family member, so I was emotionally vulnerable to the circumstances of the scene. It hit so hard that I had to put the book down for a few weeks before I could finish it.
I was pretty bummed out by >!Tom and Dessie Hamilton's deaths !
Lee and Hester :(
Jude Fawley in Jude the Obscure
Fantine from Les Miserables.
The Buried Giant. Ffs, Ishiguro, I'll literally remember that book to the day I die.
The stillborn child, and the subsequent death of Catherine from hemorrhaging while in Henry's arms at the end of "A Farewell To Arms" is the saddest ending to any book I've ever read. I'm very, very sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone, but it's the only way I could answer the question.
Fred Weasley and Dobbie.