Tear Jerker / Imperio de cristal

• Sofia's recurrent nightmares.
• Claudio Lombardo's life is a mixture of this and Nightmare Fuel. Due to a traumatic accident in his childhood, he suffers a mental regression, behaving like a scared kid. And his family aren't the most tolerant people, treating him like a lost cause.
  • All about the accident. When they were children, Claudio broke one of Augusto's toys. His reaction? Beat the crap out of him and smash him into a glass table. Not only Claudio got so traumatized he was sent to a mental institution for 10 years, but Augusto got away with it. Even worse, some of Augusto's dialogue implies that abuse has been a regular occurrence!
  • Also, it's revealed he was sedated all day during his time at the institution. Poor guy never really matured, or had a chance to.
• Epidose 18 is almost half an hour of utter heart-wrenching.
  • In order to silence him about the truth of the accident at the factory, Augusto feeds Octavio poisoned figs. Which he gleefully describes as "it burns through his system" and "slowly dying from the inside out". Octavio drops and cries out in pain as Augusto taunts him about how he'll become the head of the family instead of him.
  • What makes things worse is that Cesar had come home early to visit his ailing son, only for Livia to insist that Octavio is sleeping and shouldn't be bothered. Cesar falls for it, cementing Octavio's fate.
  • Augusto forces Claudio out of the room, locks the door, and reveals the truth of the figs to Octavio while Claudio is crying outside.
  • Claudio saying that he should be the one to die instead because Octavio is beloved and has a wife and children while he's a crazy freak nobody loves. Octavio reassures him that it's not the case.
  Claudio: No, I should be the one to die! Me! I'm not wanted, I'm a crazy freak!
  Octavio: ...You're not crazy, Claudio....but pretend that you are....so that you won't be hurt....That way....you'll protect yourself....
  • Octavio's last words. He looks down sadly, saying that he can't go in peace because he's afraid Augusto will hurt Claudio and Marco Aurelio.
  • Augusto tries to force Claudio to give up whatever Octavio told him in his last moments. When it doesn't work, he picks a glass shard from Octavio's broken intravenous drip and threatens to cut him if he doesn't talk. Given Claudio's childhood trauma, this makes it all the more horrifying.
  • Esther and Marco Aurelio's devastated reaction to finding out about Octavio's death.
  • Cesar's tearful recollection of his son's death and the deep guilt he feels at having lost him.
  • Augusto convincing everyone that Claudio shouldn't be allowed to attend the funeral because he was so distraught....all so he could torture him with no one around. He threatens him with broken glass and sets his Angry Guard Dog on him in order to scare the poor boy into submission. The sheer cruelty and pointlessness of it make it this as much as it is Nightmare Fuel.
• The aftermath of Octavio's funeral and his family mourning him.
  • Esther consoling Marco Aurelio. The boy notices she's been exhausted for crying all day and vows to protect her in his dad's stead.
  • Cesar and Andrea blame themselves for allowing him to work at the family industries, the former admitting that he was too harsh on him for the accident at the factory.
  • Narda admitting that she never was too close to him due to the large age gap, but is sad because she'll never get to know him better.
  • Poor Julio doesn't have time to mourn, trying to be a support to Narda and Claudio and having been blackmailed to marry Elisa, whom he doesn't love anymore.
  • Claudio was horribly mauled after his encounter with Marte. Not only he's traumatized and Augusto got away with it again, now he developed psychotic episodes in which he believes he's made of glass.
    • Don’t touch me or I’ll break! I’ll break...I’ll break...I’ll break...like a crystal!
• While Uriel's death is well deserved, it happens during Katia's birthday. The poor girl was unaware of his true colors and loved him very much.
  • Marco Aurelio consoling Katia. It's clear that he knows what she is going through all too well.
• The fate of Cesar in Episode 56, poisoned by Augusto and thrown from the yatch.
  • Becomes Harsher in Hindsight due to the death of Ignacio Lopez Tarso, Cesar's actor.
• Bernal giving Elisa and German his blessing before dying of a stroke.
• Narda getting disowned by her parents for getting pregnant. While she does end up reconciling with her father much later, that doesn't make it less sadder.
• Claudio breaks down in Julio's arms and confesses tearfully the truth about Octavio's death. When Esther calls him out for keeping quiet for so long, he says that he did it because Octavio wanted to protect Marco Aurelio in his last moments.
• Livia comes to force Narda to abort her baby, despite Narda's pleas that she wants to keep it. In a moment of weakness she asks her mother why she didn't abort her and Claudio when she had the chance, only for Livia to callously admit that Cesar didn't let her and the twins' birth ruined her acting career. Claudio runs away in tears, while Narda's rage and heartbreak in her voice and expression are all too palpable even as her emotions are only barely contained.
  Narda: ....So you finally admit it. But unlike you, I do really love my child. I'm not a murderer like you.
  • Claudio consoling Narda afterwards. They affirm their love for each other, in stark contrast to the bitterness and anger that existed in earlier episodes.
  • However, given that Livia had given birth to Augusto and Julio before and the implications that she only kept the twins to keep Cesar (who was cheating her with Elena) at her side. it's not clear if she told Narda the truth, or merely sought to twist the knife in.