Tear Jerker / The Ancient Magus' Bride

Main Series

• Chapter 1: The first we see of Chise is her being sold off to the highest bidder. Her thoughts show that she doesn't really care what happens to her, she is just desperate to have a place to call home.
  • As Chise's relatives were discussing what to do with her following her mother's death, it's clear they didn't really care about her, as they considered her little more than an annoyance, and only took her in to protect their reputation.
  • Chise's younger relatives (her cousins, as revealed by the OVA), making fun of her for being an unwanted child.
  • Chise was so desperate to have a place to belong, that all it took for her to develop Undying Loyalty towards Elias was to be treated like family for a day.
• Chapter 3: Chise had been seriously considering killing herself by jumping from a roof. It's even worse when you realize her mother died that way.
  • Even after Nevin's encouraging words, she was still envious of his peaceful passing.
• Chapter 4: Chise's saddened expression when Molly hypothetically asks what sort of mother wouldn't protect her child. Unknown to Molly, Chise's own mother had almost strangled her to death before killing herself.
• Chapter 5: Mina ended up becoming the core of the blight in Ulthar, preventing her soul from finding rest. Worse yet, she blames herself for what happened with Matthew and the cats, and begs Chise to end their suffering once and for all.
• Chapter 6: Upon hearing she will die young, Chise laughs. Much later, she explains that at the time she was actually glad to hear her death was near.
  • Matthew pretty much breaks down when Joseph tells him Mina will be dying soon. Then Joseph tells him there might be a way to save her, and things get worse from there.
• Chapter 7: After Joseph's experiment results in Mina's death, Matthew suffers a major Freak Out, and convinces himself he can save her by killing even more cats. Before he can do anything however, he is attacked by his and Mina's cat, Tim, who proceeds to lead the surviving cats into eating him whole and cursing his soul. Chise can not help but cry upon witnessing what happened.
• Chapter 11: Ulysse's past. Following Isebel's death, Ulysse spends the rest of his life in front of her grave, waiting for her to wake up.
  • Isabel's fate. The poor girl was hit by a carriage while running away from bullies. Centuries later, her grave is desecrated and her head used by Cartaphilus for one of his chimeras.
• Chapter 12: During its last moments, Isabel seems to take control of the chimera, and uses the opportunity to pat Ruth's head. A Single Tear is seen coming from her eye.
• Chapter 13: The chapter begins with a younger Chise kneeling in front of the balcony her mother threw herself from. There are strangulation marks around her neck. Those are the memories of Chise, who thinks to herself that a curse was placed on her that day.
  • Angelica, worrying about Chise's future, tells her that she shouldn't be so dependent on Elias, but Chise smacks a wall in response, not wanting to even consider anything that might threaten the new status quo she is now in, not when everything that came before was so horrible for her. Thankfully, Chise snaps out of it and apologizes to Angelica, but is left chastising herself for being so selfish.
• Chapter 14: Chise's Past Experience Nightmare of the time her mother tried to kill her, while telling her she never should have been born.
• Chise's past, in general. Her abilities are the cause of nearly everything, as the magical creatures that constantly harass and surround her make her too scared to do anything (even eat) which confuses and irritates anyone that tries to take her in.
  • A look into her past shows a moment where her parents and family weren't miserable. It's heavily hinted that after her father abandoned them with her little brother, her mother couldn't take the stress anymore and then decided to kill herself.
    • Chapter 42 then reveals that her mother, Chika, did her best to take care of her until something else drove her to trying to kill her. She only killed herself after she snapped out of it, realizing what she'd nearly done and begging for forgiveness.
  • Episode 22 of the Anime really hits close to home with Chise's past, as (excluding the nightmarish creatures stalking them), it is all too reminiscent of real life; the father up and leaves one night with his son, never to return, abandoning his wife and daughter. The mother then does everything she can to make ends meet by working several jobs at once, with the stress and exhaustion building, to where she even attempts to strangle Chise to death, tempted by the thought that it'd get easier without her.
• Joel fell in love with a leannán sí, who also loves him but can't bring herself to say so. And since he can't see her under normal circumstances, they can never be together.
  • Worse, by chapter 21 we learn that she's still sapping the life out of him just by being attached to him. He's only got about a week left and dies the next chapter, leaving her heartbroken to the extent that she decides never to take another lover, condemning herself to death by starvation.
• For anyone who’s a recovered addict (or know someone who is), it can be very hard to watch Alice struggle through debilitating withdrawal symptoms. The fact that she was in her early teens at the time and that her parents got her addicted makes it all the more worse.
  • Alice is a lot like Chise; abandoned by family members and being so scared and mistreated that she couldn’t even trust Renfred for ages.
• Chapter 37 is filled with them. Not only has Chise forgotten her own birthday was today, but she won't make it to next Spring as things stand.
• The note Elias receives in Chapter 38 regarding lifting the curse on Chise.
  The only thing that can take the place of a life is another life.
  • Which leads to a Wham Episode when Elias is willing to sacrifice Stella to save Chise. What the Hell, Hero? doesn't begin to describe Chise's reaction when she finds out, on top of attempting to do it with her having no consent in the matter and hiding it from her right after they tried to settle that they'd solve her problem together. It only gets worse when Elias' response amounts to stating that he never made that promise in a case of Exact Words, and that he chose Stella especially out of a case of Murder the Hypotenuse; as in, he was jealous of the friendship the two had.
• Cartaphilus' backstory reveals that he and Joseph were two different people. One was the man cursed by God to not die, while the other was a young necromancer. The latter agreed to take care of the former out of the goodness of his heart, but the man who couldn't die was suffering so much that the only thing he could do was to offer to fuse with him to become one... taking Cartaphilus's curse into himself in the process. As horrific as Joseph's actions since then have been, you can't help but feel sorry for him when you really think about what his Age Without Youth kind of immortality entails. His body is eternally degenerating and if he lets it rot completely, his consciousness will be trapped for all eternity in a motionless, decaying corpse, he knows this because he has seen it happen to Cartaphilus. Anyone in his position would be terrified of letting that happen.
• Simon's backstory in Chapter 51. He learned to make sweets with his grandmother only for it to turn out that anyone who ate them would be jinxed to die a very short time later. His grandmother was the first victim, killed by a drunk driver, and a few days later his mother fell down steps while eating his cookies in prison. His cousin was next, drowning in the ocean, and his aunt and uncle were murdered by a burglar two years later. The last was his fiancee, who convinced him it wasn't his fault, only for her to die a week later and drove him to nearly committing suicide until Alonza stopped him.
• The Golden Yarn Light Novel is just full of these:
  • The Frozen Flowers short story reveals that Hazel's aunt has been forced to live alone because being a centaur born with two legs is seen as something of a disgrace and so she feels isolated until her nephew comes to visit, even going so far as to hide her failing health so he'll stay with her.
  • The Vampire's Lover short story shows how Redcurrant began draining Joel without realizing it, as he started feeling much older when she was around him and recovered when she left for a brief time. If you've read the manga or seen the anime, this ultimately sets up the tragedy that would befall them.
  • The Defender and Ash short story follows Alex (later Ashley), a self-taught mage who was abandoned by her family for practicing magic, had her body mutilated from experimenting, and guilt-ridden by a moment of jealousy that drove her to engineer her sister's death. She fully intends to die spending the rest of her life trying to make up for it.

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