The first time Ayla is cursed with death, everyone in the clan turns away from her and acts as though she's truly dead. This includes Creb and Iza, even though it breaks their hearts, especially as Creb himself was forced to curse her. He burns Ayla's belongings, including her special medicine bag which Iza had made for her. Ayla cries and begs him to stop, and though he hesitates, he makes himself burn it, at which point Ayla flees the cave. Creb later admits he nearly didn't burn the medicine bag because he couldn't bear Ayla's pleading. While this would be horrible for anyone to go through, the fact Ayla is only around nine or ten years old makes it even worse.
The first time Broud rapes Ayla, she is so traumatized she simply tells Iza that Broud beat her for defying him to explain her injuries. After Broud begins raping her regularly, she becomes deeply depressed. She stops taking care of herself, barely eats, and has to force herself to get up in the morning. Her family become increasingly concerned and upset by Ayla's emotional state, but they don't know how to help her or even fully understand how Broud's abuse affects her so badly. The thing that makes the whole situation worse? Ayla's only ten years old at the time.
Iza's death. As she lays dying from illness, tells a distraught Ayla that she must leave the Clan and find her own people, because Iza now realizes that Ayla will never truly be one of them and she fears what Broud will do to her once he becomes leader. Despite this, Iza assures Ayla that she has always loved her as her true daughter and she's proud of her healing skills. Ayla cries that she can't leave the Clan as her entire life is with them and she doesn't know where to look for the Others. She begs Iza - the only mother she's ever known - not to leave her but inevitably Iza passes away. During her funeral, Ayla finds it so unbearable she runs away sobbing. Then her breast milk dries up and she feels like a failure for being unable to feed her baby.
The Downer Ending of The Clan of the Cave Bear, especially the part that has Creb walking back into the cave because he can't bear to watch Ayla being cursed with death and Ayla finding him dead beside his sister's grave after the earthquake. The final paragraph details Ayla leaving the clan in tears, knowing she will probably never see any of her loved ones again and the novel itself ends with Durc desperately crying for his mother to come back.
The Valley of Horses
The part where Ayla creates a snow sculpture of Brun and pretends to talk to him; thinking that it would be disrespectful of her to address the clan leader in such an informal way, she then sits cross-legged and waits for him to tap her on the shoulder to give her permission to speak. He doesn't of course, because it's a sculpture, and after several minutes of waiting, Ayla finally breaks down, smashing the sculpture and raging against the heavens before collapsing in tears because she's completely alone.
Thonolan and Jetamio's tragic love story, which ends with both them dying very young (late teens at most) and in pretty horrible circumstances. Jetamio was orphaned at a young age and although she was Happily Adopted, she still wanted a family of her own and went through pregnancy after pregnancy in an attempt to have a child with her mate, despite the physical and emotional toll all the miscarriages had on her. Thonolan himself was frustrated and upset to see Jetamio putting herself through so much and wondered why the Mother would keep giving her babies only to take them away. Jetamio finally carries a pregnancy to term but both she and the baby die during a harrowing labor. Everyone is devastated but none more so than Thonolan, who is utterly destroyed with grief. It's terrible seeing a character who was once so optimistic and passionate about life become consumed with bitterness and despair over a tragedy; it's especially awful for his brother Jondalar, as Thonolan was always the one who tried to support him and he doesn't know how to help him. Thonolan even hints at having suicidal thoughts, takes stupid risks and expresses that nothing matters anymore. Evidently, he does realize in the end there is something that still matters to him, as he dies trying to fight off a cave lion to protect his older brother.
Serenio and Jondalar's break-up. They're both still shaken and grieving from the death of Jetamio and her baby. Jondalar tells Serenio he wants to marry her and maybe move back to the Zelandonii with her and her son...and she bluntly refuses him. When Jondalar asks why, thinking he's misread her feelings for him, Serenio explains that she didn't turn him down because she doesn't love him, but because shedoeslove him. While she knows Jondalar cares about her, she also knows he doesn't love her the same way and would only be settling for her, that she would eventually resent him for this, it would make them both miserable and she refuses to subject both of them to that fate. Serenio also knows Jondalar is still a Zelandonii in his heart, while she cannot bring herself to move so far away from the Sharamudoi. They both handle the break-up with great respect and empathy for each other, and in some ways this makes it even sadder than if it had been an acrimonious parting. Neither of them did anything wrong or mistreated the other; they just don't want the same things and staying together would be worse in the long-run.
Jondalar realizing Thonolan is dead. He wakes up in Ayla's cave, realises his little brother isn't there and begins desperately asking for him, growing more distressed and angry by the minute. Even though he and Ayla can't understand each other's language, she immediately figures out what he is asking, while after a few moments, Jondalar instinctively realises that Thonolan is gone. He promptly breaks down into tears, asking why Thonolan went into the lion's den and why the Mother took his brother instead of him, while Ayla tries to comfort him, holding him like a child. Even though she's only just met him, Ayla strongly empathizes with his grief as she herself has lost loved ones (either by death or by being separated from them) and regrets she couldn't save Thonolan.
The Mammoth Hunters
Crozie and Fralie's backstory, especially the part where they returned home to find their lodge had caught fire and everyone inside had been trapped and died. This includes Crozie's three younger children, who wouldn't have been very old (Fralie says she was the oldest and she was only about thirteen herself). The thought of finding out you'd suddenly lost almost everything because of a freak accident is horribly tragic. What's worse is that Fralie – little more than a child still - was all but forced to marry a man she didn't love in the midst of her grief because she and her mother had nowhere else to go, and their new camp made it pretty clear they were only taking them in out of duty rather than compassion.
There's something deeply sad about Ayla's realization that while most of the Others are good and well-intentioned people, others are not so compassionate and open-minded, especially when it comes to the Clan. Having lived with the Lion Camp for around a year, Ayla had started to believe everyone was as warm and welcoming. However, at the Summer Gathering she is shocked and even a bit afraid by how quickly other people turn on her when she stands up for Rydag and reveals she has a mixed child herself. She truly realizes for the first time what Jondalar had tried to explain to her: that some people have such deeply ingrained prejudice against the Clan, they refuse to reconsider their position and are hostile towards anyone associated with them regardless of their previous relationship, including children. This incident also causes Ayla to realize that her dream of her and Durc living together with the Mamutoi was naive. None of the scenarios Ayla ponders will work out for various reasons. She begins to realize that as much as she wishes to be with her son again, it simply cannot be for reasons outside their control.
Ayla: I am nothing to [Durc] but a memory of a mother who died, and maybe it's better that way. The Clan is his world, and like it or not, this is my world. I cannot go back to the Clan; Durc cannot come here. There is no place in this world where my son and I can live together, and be happy.
Rydag's death near the end of the book. Although his camp were quick to come to his defense when other people at the Summer Gathering publicly scorn him as a half-animal abomination, Rydag feels utterly despondent about the whole situation, sinking into depression until his weakened heart finally gives out. He dies of a broken heart, literally and figuratively. It's made worse by the fact that the mamuts won't even let him have a proper funeral simply because he was of mixed spirits, even though this was Rydag's final request. His last words are heartbreaking, too; he signs that he is not an animal, really highlighting the fact that Rydag was just a little boy who wanted to be loved and accepted.
The Plains of Passage
As they are leaving the Sharamudoi and beginning the long journey up the Great Mother (Danube) River, Ayla faces east, in the general direction of the Clan's cave, and says a final goodbye to Durc. Though she came to the decision not to seek out Durc during The Mammoth Hunters due to the huge difficulty he would have had in acclimating to life among the Others and the fact that he probably wouldn't recognize her now, this moment establishes the finality of Ayla's separation from her son: She accepts that she can never see Durc again and lets his memory go.
Madenia breaking down as she describes what happened to her when she was sexually assaulted; she was just picking herbs out in the woods and minding her own business when Charoli and his gang came upon her. Madenia sobs that when she pleaded with them to stop, they ignored her or even laughed at her. Her coming to terms with the assault and realizing that sex should be about consent, trust and mutual enjoyment, leading her to decide to give such relationships a chance after all, can cause happy tears.
The Land of Painted Caves
The part towards the end of The Land of Painted Caves, where Ayla learns she had a miscarriage and that Jondalar has cheated on her, and then wishes the Mother would take away her psychic abilities and return her baby to her, is pretty gut-wrenching.
In the climax of the novel, Ayla has hit rock bottom emotionally and, unbeknownst to everyone around her, has starting having suicidal thoughts. Despite being well aware of the dangers of using the mog-urs' psychotropic roots, she agrees to use them in a ritual anyway, believing it doesn't matter if she dies (or even if her spirit is lost). She thinks she has lost Jondalar's love forever and blames herself for him getting into a fight with Laramar for having sex with her (which she did in a fit of drunken jealousy after Jondalar cheated on her; it's debatable as to how coherent she even was); she is deeply ashamed for 'perverting' the sacred Mother Festival and feels that she just makes things worse for everyone. She does briefly think about how it will affect her daughter if she were to die, but then decides that she's an awful mother who doesn't deserve her child (made worse by her having recently miscarried a pregnancy too) and that Jonayla will be better off without her.
