Tear Jerker / Mafia III

As a moments page, all spoilers are unmarked.

Main game

• After successfully finishing the opening heist, The Marcanos and their men proceed to kill Sammy, Ellis, and Danny, with Lincoln having to watch after getting shot in the head (the bullet grazed his skull). The worse part is Sammy's death, which has him dragging himself on the floor mortally wounded, then shot repeatedly by Sal; to twist the knife and put salt on it, he's called a "stupid nigger" as he's killed. How heartless do you have to be to kill someone, along with their loved ones, while making sure that the last thing they hear is a racial slur?
• Father James if you stay in New Bordeaux after killing Sal Marcano. He expresses that it would have been better if Lincoln had died, implying he became worse than Sal Marcano afterwards. In one of the possible endings it's revealed he killed Lincoln Clay to stop his reign of terror. He breaks down in tears at the end of the documentary and tells the crew he's done recalling such painful memories.
  • The final confrontation at the church features Father James, furious and on the verge of crying, desperately pleading with Lincoln to leave the city forever, because he understands just what that power will do to him as a human being. No matter how you choose to end Lincoln's story — as a wandering fugitive, a criminal kingpin, or a power-hungry monster that needs to be stopped — this is always the last time they'll ever see each other, and the shockwaves of your rampage will still have left James heartbroken and shaken in his faith in God.
• During the events of the game, a tragic racially-motivated shooting happens in New Bordeaux: Lamont Harris and Trey McCall, two black veterans just back from Vietnam, get a flat tire while driving through Southdowns, and knock on the door of a white Korean War vet, Hollis Dupree, to ask him for help; Dupree, seeing them in their fatigues, is terrified and guns them both down on the lawn. The incident is sad enough, but one detail really clinches it — even though Hollis was already a racist bigot, the reason he was so scared for his life was because he'd heard there was a crazed black man in military fatigues running around the city, killing whites. Father James is clearly disgusted when he tells Lincoln, implicitly putting those young men's deaths on his conscience as well.
  • The Judge overseeing Dupree's trial is actually one of Lincoln's victims during the game. The news reports afterwards reveal that killing the judge results in a mistrial which lets Dupree walk free, a near race riot on the steps of the courthouse when the decision is reached, and a mass shooting when a white man starts gunning down the protesters.
• Frank Pagani's death is actually one of the more heartfelt in the game. He's terrified of Lincoln and runs away at first sight, only for Lincoln to chase him down and fill him with bullets. Frank then reveals he has no idea who Lincoln is or why he's trying to kill him. He was in Cuba during the Federal Reserve Heist and had nothing to do with it. He begs Lincoln to save him so he can be with his wife and children but Lincoln interrogates him until he dies. Lincoln looks genuinely disgusted with himself after, perhaps realizing Frank didn't deserve what happened to him.
• Charles Laveau AKA the Voice was a bartender for Sammy Robinson and an ally to Lincoln Clay early in his quest for revenge. While rather militant, his broadcasts throughout the game can be inspirational, highlighting the injustice and evil at play in New Bordeux and the United States as a whole. His final broadcasts comes at the end of the game, and though he denies that he truly believes things are improving, the fact that you have just ended the reign of terror of the Marcano family and their corrupt buddies will likely have you brimming with hope for the future, as things historically got better for the Civil Rights Movement after 1968. That's when the police burst into the studio to take him off the air and when the Voice protests their intrusion, one is heard saying "You went and done it now, nigger." followed by gunfire.
  • Depending on how you interpret the DLC, he may have survived and gone into hiding in the Bayou according to the Faster, Baby! DLC.
• Cassandra's ending (if she takes over after you leave) is depressing enough, but it's even worse if you've rebuilt Sammy's bar, since it likely got flooded or left to rot just like the rest of the city, making all of your hard work for nothing.
  • Even worse is the confirmation that the bar gets replaced by a car lot regardless of your actions. Father James shows the camera crew the location of the bar in the present/future making that whole aspect of the DLC a Happy Ending Override. (Though this may be a form of Gameplay and Story Segregation, given that Sign of the Times came out well after the original game)
• If Lincoln angers one of his underbosses through shitty management too much, there’s a strong chance they’ll get fed up, forcing Lincoln to hunt them down and kill them before they can retaliate. And oh boy, does the game make you regret betraying their trust:
  • Cassandra says nothing; she simply hands Lincoln a locket with a picture of her dead daughter inside before dying of her wounds. Lincoln then returns the locket before silently leaving.
  • Burke replies to Lincoln’s claim that this could’ve been avoided by admitting that he knows he’s a worthless screwup, and that he can’t change that, despite wanting to. He then asks Lincoln to look after Nicki for him, to which Lincoln gives him his word.
  • Vito spitefully calls Lincoln no better than some of the old mobsters he dealt with back in his heyday. When Lincoln tries to tell Vito that his own greed brought them here, Vito angrily retorts that he gave up everything to the mafia life, saying he deserved better. He then tries a last desperate stab at Lincoln with a switchblade, but is shot for the effort, spitting out one last "Fuck you!" before Lincoln finally shoots him dead. It’s especially hard for anyone who’s played Mafia II and gotten to know Vito as a young man and all the hardships he’s gone through.
• Even though he was a racist criminal, the final confrontation with Sal Marcano is surprisingly emotional. Marcano just wanted his son to have a peaceful life.

  Marcano: You know, a month or so after my brother Lucio died I started having nightmares. I had this one where I was on a boat and this giant wave would come knock my ass overboard. I hit that water and sink like a goddamn rock. And there was another one with cottonmouths biting me all to hell. But the one that really got to me? It was Giorgi's funeral. He's laid out in that shitty little casket, neck cut same as Lucio's. Yeah, that one really got to me. it'll come around again every three or four days. And this was all to try and keep mine from coming true. And look how that turned out.

  • This can be added to depending on which Capo you leave for last. If it's Tommy, Sal gives the speech he gives to Giorgi at the end of the game on the verge of tears.
• Father James giving this incredibly brutal but sadly realistic view of human nature

  Father James: Lincoln once told me that he couldn't turn the other cheek, that "the world doesn't work that way." I spent the better part of 40 years trying to prove him wrong. But I was just lying to myself. Look at how we treat each other. Compassion is a sign of weakness, but greed is a virtue. The poor is considered morally corrupt, while every excess of the powerful is celebrated. We sent kids off to die, for what? So someone can make a few bucks? Lincoln was right. He was always right. There ain't never gonna be another Dr. King or Bobby Kennedy. But there's always gonna be another Sal Marcano. Another Sammy Robinson. Another Lincoln Clay. (After a noticeable length of silence with a look of absolute sadness) We are a cruel and wicked people.

  • It is also a tearjerker for the fact these men at some point tried to in some way break out of their vicious cycle of crime and corruption only to either die from it or succumb to it in the process. Sal died trying to go legit and his whole family line was wiped out, Sammy was back-stabbed because he didn't had it in him to be as ruthless as he needed to be and Lincoln either tries to go legit and fails, takes up the mantle and causing Father James to write him off as a lost cause or be killed to spare himself of another Sal Marcano.
• The fact that Vito never finds out that Joe's still alive. On the other hand, it's likely that Joe knows that Vito's still alive but he likely can never talk to him again.
• For the mission "I Need A Favor", Lincoln walks in on Vito trying his hand at his mother's bucatini recipe. Lincoln asks him if she's still in Empire Bay, only for him to answer that she passed long ago. Lincoln then asks if he has any folks left back in Empire Bay. Vito doesn't mention his sister Francesca, but pauses for a significant moment before turning Lincoln's attention to the newspaper he has lying on the counter. He's likely remembering how she cut him out of her life after he beat up her cheating Jerkass abusive husband.

Stones Unturned

• In the final mission There are no Dominos, Connor gets One Last Smoke from Donovan before he is executed by him. Before his death, he throws a Motive Rant about how the US draftees are sent to fight a hopeless conflict in Vietnam and how if Vietnam falls to the communists, no one will care while the soldiers return home only to suffer from PTSD or watch their life change for the worse and the people they are fighting are impoverished farmers and most don't even have shoes. Given the actions of the US during the Cold War and his participation in multiple operations against democratic governments that were overthrown because of their ideology, Connor's death can be seen as tragic.

Sign of the Times

• Lincoln and Father James are trying to work out their differences at the start of the game. The game actually adjusts depending on whether you took Marcano out of not, so this is possibly the last time the two of them are ever on friendly terms if Lincoln decided to stay in New Bordeaux as a crime boss. Sadly, it gets them into a bloody war.
• Anna McGee's entire life is one of these. She's a poor nineteen year old girl who is working as a waitress and getting sexually harassed, only to make a new friend in Bonnie. Except, Bonnie is the leader of a Religion of Evil Cult that promptly brainwashes her, impregnates her with her brother's help, and then tries to make her engage in Human Sacrifice. It culminates in her regaining her memories and committing suicide.
• Father James is an Actual Pacifist and a Good Shepherd. So it's shocking when his grief over Anna's death due to what the Ensanglante did to her results in him giving Lincoln permission to kill them all.
  "The Lord will keep his own but all the Wicked he will destroy."
• Bonnie actually gets one of those when she hears Lincoln tell her Anna committed suicide. She attempts to justify what she did with a Never My Fault series of rationalizations but Lincoln gives her a Shut Up, Hannibal! speech that it was her actions that made her choose death. Bonnie furiously tries to attack Lincoln with a knife, only to be shoved away and accidentally impale herself in the gut, spouting her insane beliefs with her dying breath.
• Lincoln is horribly affected by Anna's suicide and ends up burying Anna in his family plot with Sammy, Ellis, and Perla. This actually means that Lincoln is not going to have his own body interred in the family mausoleum.
• Father James has a terrible summation of how traumatizing Lincoln's encounter with the cult was.
  "Lincoln knew that sometimes living is harder than dying."

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