Tear Jerker / Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Per troper policy, all spoilers are unhidden. You Have Been Warned

This being a story about an Order 66 survivor, it was bound to happen.

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• When the Inquisitors demand that the Jedi steps forward or else they'll just execute everyone, Cal and Prauf hesitantly exchange looks before the latter speaks up. Instead of claiming that he's the Jedi as you might expect, he instead calls out the Empire for ruining everyone's lives just to make them their expendable tools. Trilla/the Second Sister confirms that he's right about the last part and promptly kills him. Cal lets out a Big "NO!" and reveals himself as the Jedi as he ignites his lightsaber to attack Trilla to no avail.
• For the short time we knew him, it's quite clear that Prauf was a major influence in Cal's life. Even after his death, Cal remembers one of the last things he told him, which was to find his destiny before he gets too old. He'll do his best, Prauf.
• For fans of The Clone Wars series, the shipyard Cal worked in can be depressing, as it shows just how much the Emperor used and ultimately ruined both sides in a pointless war. From the discarded clone helmets next to a pile of scrapped B1’s to the Separatist ship being dumped next to the gutted Venator, it goes to show all the sacrifices and lives lost were all in vain. Palpatine left both the GAR and the Droid Army together in the garbage to be forgotten.
• Cal seeing Obi-Wan’s holocron message. He stops it after Obi Wan states the Jedi Order fell and has a blank look on his face. After years of waiting for the Jedi on Bracca he gets confirmation of what he likely suspected for a while. To twist the knife in further, Master Tapal died believing the Order was still alive and could help him.
• Cal's flashback to the moment when Order 66 came through and the clone troopers turned on him and his Master. It is truly gutwrenching, given that just beforehand, the game shows that Cal was clearly very friendly with the clones who almost seemed to treat him like a kid brother. To see them shooting at him with intent to kill mere moments after those friendly interactions brings tears to the eye.
  Clone trooper: You're in a rush!
  Cal: Master Tapal's called me for training.
  Clone trooper: You got this, kid! [gives Cal a high five]
  • To further hammer the tragedy down, the soundtrack that plays while Cal is fleeing the base from the clonetroopers is "Anakin's Betrayal" the same one that played in Revenge of the Sith during the Order 66 scene.
    • When Master Tapal dies they twist the musical knife one last time by playing the final build up and tragic flourish of "Anakin's Dark Deeds."
  • Even worse for the clones if the player knows the effects of order 66 on a clone's psyche: Most clones felt horrible, filled with remorse for killing those they admired and called friends with no hesitation, feeling more like machines. Then these clones not only tried to kill Tapal, but a young Cal, who they saw like some kind of little brother, if not for their deaths, the remorse and trauma they've would have suffered would've been immense. They were lucky.
  • Fans of The Clone Wars get the extra twist of the knife by knowing Cal's coldness towards the clone memorial on Zeffo is completely unwarranted given that the clones were mind-controlled by their control chips. Given how Rex reacts to merely resisting his chip, the clones attacking Cal and Jaro were most likely horrified at what their bodies were being forced to do and given how few people knew about the chips Cal will never know the clones who betrayed him never wanted to, instead viewing them as manipulated pawns who simply believed the Emperor's lies about the Jedi.
    Cal: The villagers built this memorial to the clones on the Venetor. (bitterly) If only they knew the truth.
• Tying in to Order 66, some of the Force Echoes you find on Zeffo are of a Padawan Marseph, who along with his Master, Chiata, was shipwrecked on Zeffo at the time Order 66 was issued. Chiata was fatally injured defending him from the clones, but despite ordering him to leave her, Marseph couldn't bring himself to abandon his dying master, even burying her as best he could before fleeing... only to succumb to his own injuries before he could escape.
• Upon returning to Kashyyk, Cal finds that Saw Gerrera has decided to cut and run from the guerilla campaign he helped foment, abandoning the Wookies to face the incoming Imperial crackdown on their own. Mari and a handful of other partisans called bullshit and stayed behind to help Tarrful's resistance in the Shadowlands, but that's it. He took all the air support and artillery with him. One wonders how much of the untranslated Wookie chatter is some variation of "Thanks a lot for nothing, Saw!"
• After you defeat the Ninth Sister, she rants about the mutilation, isolation, and torture that she and the other Inquisitors had to endure before Cal knocks her off of the tree, presumably to her death. Alas, Poor Villain.
  • They use the achievement title "Her name was Masana Tide" to compound this.
• When Cal holds Trilla's lightsaber, he has a Force echo of her memories of Order 66 and the aftermath.
  • While holding a youngling, Cere tells her to keep the others safe while she goes off to lead away the clone troopers from their hideout and promises her that she'll come back. As Cere leaves, Trilla cries out for her master to not leave... and she doesn't come back. Not because she was killed, but because she was caught, where she would then be tortured for information on the whereabouts of other Jedi survivors. Sadly, Cere broke and gave up the hiding place of her padawan and the younglings, to which we cut to Trilla strapped to a table, whimpering and crying as she's subjected to Electric Torture.
  • Then, after some time, we see her in her Inquisitor uniform as she's about to torture Cere, who lets out a Little "No" as she awakens to see her fallen padawan putting on the helmet. The sight of this drives Cere to use the Dark Side, knocking out her captors including the Second Sister and destroying her restraints while she escapes, running past the unconscious form of the new Inquisitor...
  • We never do find out what happened to the younglings with her, meaning they were likely killed or indoctrinated.
• It's a minor moment that crosses with awesome, but when Cere and Cal use the Mantis' escape pods to infiltrate the Fortress Inquisitorius, Cal starts audibly and visibly hyperventilating, only able to keep his composure due to his Character Development and Heroic Willpower. It's clear from his reaction that he's experiencing the effects of PTSD as a result of being in an escape pod for the first time since Jaro Tapal died. The awesome comes from the fact that he's determined enough to see his mission through that he powers through it.
• The moment when Cere has seemingly convinced Trilla to let go of her hatred and rejoin the Jedi...and then Trilla's face twists into an expression of utter terror at the sound of guttural, rasping breathing coming from behind her and it becomes clear she will never have the chance to redeem herself.
  Darth Vader: You have failed me, Inquisitor. (Ignites his lightsaber)
  Trilla: Avenge us.
  • Just Trilla’s reaction alone is upsetting. The moment she hears Vader in the distance, she stiffens in fear, and is visibly trembling the entire time he approaches. It’s such a sharp contrast to how she’s acted for most of the game, managing to keep some semblance of dignity even when her emotions get the better of her. She tries here, but it’s obvious she’s just barely keeping it together.
• In its own way, Anakin's Dark Deeds playing over Vader's entrance into the finale is this. It's not bombastic, or overly sinister, it's a quiet, subtle piece - at least at first - and it serves to highlight that beneath the intimidating armor, the title of Sith Lord and the reputation as the Emperor's dreaded enforcer, Vader is just like the Second Sister - indeed, all of the Inquisitors - nothing more than a hollow shell, a broken, twisted remnant of a once-noble, heroic member of the Jedi Order, now doomed to serve the Emperor as a slave to his machinations.
• Cal's breakdown on Ilum, the end result of a lengthy Trauma Conga Line. After having a vision of Order 66 and Master Tapal blaming him for his death while on Dathomir, Cal accidentally breaks his lightsaber and goes to get a new kyber crystal to fix it. In the process, he gets separated from BD, swims through a cave full of water so cold he almost dies, and practically has to drag himself to the crystal formation. But he gets his crystal... only to have it spontaneously break in two in his hands. He barely even says anything, just staring aghast at the fragments while repeating, "No." When he slouches to the ground and mutters, "It's over", it looks like he's ready to just curl up and die.
• Given that it's now canon that Ilum was turned into Starkiller Base and subsequently destroyed, it's very likely that Cal was the last Jedi to ever collect his lightsaber crystal from the world. Although there are other sources of Kyber crystals in the galaxy, none of them hold the same spiritual significance for the Jedi as Ilum.
  • Just the fact that Ilum was strip-mined to that degree. To the Jedi, there's no place more sacred than the crystal caverns of that planet. Seeing that massive trench gored into the planet's crust felt like the Empire only did so to spite the Jedi.