History Heartwarming / RangersApprentice

* Daniel's HeroicSacrifice, for a man he barely knew. Doubly so when one realizes that the man he died saving would be Will's other father figure.
* In the prequels, Halt, despite having a well-earned distrust of royalty, still chooses to put his faith in Duncan based solely on [[VitriolicBestBuds Crowley's]] word. Doubly so even after they hear about atrocities being committed by "Duncan."
* In Book 9, Will and Horace (and [[PragmaticHero Halt]], after just a little convincing) delay their pursuit of Tennyson to bury some murdered Scotti farmers just because it's the right thing to do.
* In the same book, when he hears that Halt is dying, Malcolm leaves his community and joins Will immediately. The interactions between the group as they treat their injured member also count.

* While challenging Tennyson in Book 8, Halt impulsively signs Horace up to defeat Killeen and Gerard, trusting that the young knight will be willing and able to handle the two bruisers. That's a lot of faith. And none of it is misplaced.

* The beginning of Book One has a subtle but powerful one. Will has grown up as a ward of the state in Redmont Fief (Baron Arald takes in orphans whose families have died "in service" to the fief). They are raised in the castle, he pays for their upkeep, educates them, and when they reach apprenticing age, makes arrangements for them to be apprenticed in a profession of their choosing (provided they have the capability for it). And if the orphan child isn't apprenticed to a craft, he or she goes to live with a farming family to work the land (it's mentioned that it happens very rarely and the craft masters do their very best to accommodate the orphans), so they ALWAYS have somewhere to go. For comparison, normally the possible apprenticeships available to a child are confined to said child's parents occupation and what influence they may have with other craftmasters. But the children in the Orphan Ward are given the opportunity to go into any career they wish (provided they can prove themself to its Master). We don't know if this is normal for the Kingdom of Araulen and the other fiefs do this or if Baron Arald is the exception.

* Combined with Funny: After Horace is carried into the healer's tent following his duel with Morgarath, Rodney storms up and starts bellowing at him. As a woozy Horace tries to sit up, Rodney immediately, and very gently, tells him to sit back and rest.

* In book three after Will and Evanlyn, aka Princess Cassandra, have been captured (at the end of the second book), Halt asks for leave to go and rescue them. When he's told no (the kingdom is in chaos after an attack) Halt basically goes and gets himself banished for a year ''ALL SO HE CAN GO AFTER WILL''. And partway out of the Kingdom he runs into Horace who tells him he's (Horace) gotten leave from Battleschool (Knight training) to go with him.
** That's right. Sir Rodney, the strict, letter-of-the-law Battleschool head, gave Horace leave and his unofficial blessing to them both.
** What Halt did to get himself banished has two punishments, death or banishment. After hearing this the King (a friend of Halt's) laid down the sentence of a year's banishment, using a loophole in the law (while the law lays out the punishment it ''never specifies any specific duration'', despite the implication of the law being banished for life). Notably even the Chamberlain, whose duties include advising the king on the law, goes with it.

* Two major ones occur in the sixth book. The first is when Will breaks the mind control on Alyss by stating that he loved her. The second occurs after what starts out as a downer ending. Will parts with the dog Shadow. Will isn't sure Alyss was in a state of mind to comprehend this declaration of love, and Alyss isn't sure if Will's declaration of love actually happened or was merely a dream. Will returns home, sad and alone with nothing going quite right, and after a few days he receives a letter from Alyss stating that she loved him.

-->"He (Will) began to laugh. And somewhere, the laughter turned to tears and he was sobbing uncontrollably--immense sobs that racked his entire body and floods of tears that coursed down his cheeks. And he knew the tears were the ones he had never been able to shed for Alyss. They were for her. And they were for Maddie. And they were for him. Most of all for him."

** Arald also knows the circumstances of the orphans in the ward, meaning he keeps apprised of their upbringing and progress. A senior baron, the most powerful person in the fief and one of the most powerful in ''the kingdom'', stays up-to-date on the education of a bunch of orphans.