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I'm sorry Ariel...your mother is going to have to break her promise..
- The attack on Iorph village. And this is right after Maquia realized she had no true relatives, friends nor lovers to cling to. Poor girl looked as if she's about to jump off a cliff to her death hadn't she hear Ariel crying first. Then she takes Ariel into her care on emotional whim without even knowing what it truly entails...
- On that note, the circumstances she first found Ariel in: in the protective grasp of his dead mother. A lot of people were murdered without us viewers getting any explanation and judging by Barlow's antic, it seems to be commonplace.
- The fact that the world has lost so much magic and wonder as time marches on. At the start of the film, the Elder sadly reminisces on how the other magical races are gone leaving only the Iorph. And then the Iorph get all but wiped out by Mezzarte leaving only a handful of survivors.
- The Renatos are another dwindling race. They once carried Mezzarte to the height of its power, but they're confined and slowly dying off from a Mystical Plague. By the film's end only one is left, meaning the species is doomed to fade away for good.
- The death of Mido's family dog, with young Ariel innocently asking if he'll come back out of the grave. It is only a glimpse of things to come.
- Ariel asks if even mothers die and Mido has to answer yes.
- Leilia is captured to bear children for the Mezarte royal lineage in hopes of getting Iorph's immortality and prolong the empire's power, for years. Not only that, she is not allowed to even see her daughter. It become the reason she stays in Mezarte despite the appalling amount of human abuse.
- The scene where she breaks down in front of Izol begging to hold her daughter again. Apparently she's been confined to her room since giving birth, unable to see her daughter or the renatos.
- Dita bringing a gift to Ariel as an apology for her bullying, only to find out that Maquia's family is no longer there.
- Maquia exploding at young Ariel when she couldn't find work while Ariel continues to fool around. It turns straight into horror when Ariel runs away from home into the city they hardly just settled in as a result.
- With Maquia moving around, Ariel never got to have a proper childhood life, nor any control over it. This continues to build up until one late drinking party causes him to nearly assault Maquia and get his own Hibiol fabric they made together when he was still a kid burnt in the drunken stupor. It's at this point that he decides he has to leave and starts working for himself. While Maquia is still reluctant about him leaving, like a parent worrying about her child.
- The look on Lang's face when Maquia rejects his offer to live together. Young lad must have had nerves of titanium to not break down on the spot.
- Krim's quest to free Leillia become that of obsession and possession. After two failed rescue attempts (the latter of which get some of his male Iorph friends killed in the process), the matter drives Krim to abduct Maquia in hopes to reclaim what was lost to him and finally breaks when Leillia declares that she will not leave without her daughter. In the end, he doesn't even get his "love" back, dying cold and forgotten in some Renato stable with Maquia who once has a crush on him leaving with no longing or love but disappointment.
- Krim convincing enemies of Mezarte to rally against the empire is a noble act, if violent. Which is tragic because he never learned to draw a line between holding on to a principle (punishing Mezarte and restoring Iorph) and other's people personal feelings. And it indirectly cost him his life when he could've walked away.
- Ariel finally accepting that Maquia is the best mother he could ever have... just as Maquia realizes it's time for the parent to walk out of her son's life.Ariel: Don't go, Mom!
- Maquia just turns and smiles sadly before leaving.
- Medmel get to see her mother Leillia for what could be no more than an hour, before the latter leave Mezarte on a Renato's back, possibly never to return for the rest of Medmel's life. Even the maid next to her finds this too damned cruel for a child to be experiencing.
- Medmel is branded a "black sheep" for being a failure for not inheriting the Iorph's immortality with Mezarte's family wanting nothing to do with her, all since her childhood which she doesn't have any choice in.
- Leillia shouted at Medmel as she leave to "Forget everything about her", but later ended up tearfully admitting to Maquia that she couldn't forget her own daughter and the emotional scar she received from her time in Mezarte.
- The ending. When Maquia says that she is visiting a woman's "grandfather" at a familiar farmhouse, you know what is coming: Ariel, now old, utterly frail and crippled on his deathbed. No matter how damned hard Maquia tries, she knows that she can no longer keep the promise to "never cry" with the dearest person she raised from birth by her own hands.Ariel: Mom... Welcome...home...Maguia: I'm home..
- The return to the farmhouse is just a painful reminder that Mido's family is no longer there anymore. Time gets the best of everyone and everything.
- Maquia places the same cloth that Ariel accidentally burned over his body.
- The flashback sequence of Maquia and Ariel's time together hits you as as hard as Maquia. After everything that's passed between them, it's time to say goodbye to Ariel for good. It's no wonder Maquia collapses in grief.
- Maquia leaving her son for good as she quietly reaffirms that she's happy for meeting Ariel, for being his mother, and for loving him.
