Warning: spoilers are unmarked.
- Odile’s reaction when Odette pardons Rothbart.Odile (throwing herself down before her in tears and kissing her mantle): Oh, Odette, may God reward you!
- Odette’s court physician Herman Timm might be an occasionally ridiculous Absent-Minded Professor, but he is fiercely protective of her. He doesn’t cower before Rothbart when he believes the latter has regained his magic powers and kidnapped Odette, and is ready to make a Heroic Sacrifice to buy the guards enough time to apprehend Rothbart. Granted, the readers are aware Rothbart is innocent, but it doesn’t make the scene any less heartwarming.
- Abbot Orsino blessing Rothbart to fight the dragon and giving him a wooden cross to wear. When Rothbart, astonished, tries to remind him he is still anathematized, the Abbot tells him it’s his own fault Rothbart got wrongly sentenced, so if blessing him now is a sin, Abbot Orsino will also answer for it himself. Rothbart falls to his knees before him.
- Rothbart and Odette clearing up most of the misunderstandings and confessing their love.Odette: I love her [Odile] best of all, after the Lord God... and... and after you, Rothbart!
- The second-to-last chapter, when Rothbart realizes he hasn’t become a burned monstrosity. Then Odette bursts into the room and cries that their troubles are finally at an end, and he scoops her in his arms and spins her around, laughing happily. Considering it’s Rothbart we’re talking about, the scene just melts hearts.
- The swans returning to Swan Lake in the epilogue.
