YMMV / Under The Cold Moon

• Catharsis Factor:
  • Sieglinde's death, especially her agony as it's told from her point-of-view, is cathartic given her cruel experiments.
  • Siegfried's desperation not to die when he's tossed into the flames of Borea is quite satisfying after he's spent most of his time as an infuriatingly smug beast.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Hardestadt's flashbacks with Grete, showing off his kinder father side.
  • Erin's proposal to Hardestadt at the end. Hardestadt's response? "Yes." Before this? Hardestadt unhesitatingly accepts Erin when Erin reveals she, in a failed previous relationship, had an abortion.
  • Grete and Hardestadt finally confessing their love to each other after a particularly hectic battle in Pine Creek. The love of father and daughter — "I love you so much, dad!"
  • The simple fact that even after three intense stories? Hardestadt's family just continues to grow, with no major casualties, his relationship rekindled with his own daughter, his long-lost mother back, and his love for Erin burning brighter than ever.
• Jerkass Woobie: Siegfried's "children", who, while taking orders from their "dad", are still aware that what they're doing might be terrible, and are crushed later on when Grete reveals to them that Sieg never cared for them, and end up pulling a Heel–Face Turn.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Erin comes into her own in the climax, scoring her first direct kill which she kills a lecherous werewolf, and later tricking the smug mad scientist Sieglinde into injecting herself... with silver.
  • Grete gets a few good moments as well showing that she's definitely Hardestadt's daughter, staring from tearing out Siegfried's eye when she was a child and continuing on where she shows her chops as a Jaeger by fearlessly infiltrating Pine Creek and taking down many other werewolves herself, later rallying all the others to turn against their abusive father.
  • Dani and Emma being willing to go into Pine Creek, a werewolf-infested nightmare, for the sake of saving their friends.
  • Thorunn's Dying Moment of Awesome. Thorunn throws herself at Siegfried and his forces, terrifying the smug werewolf into fleeing with his tail between his legs, and dies a warrior's death fighting his forces, ascending to Valhalla gloriously and dying standing up.
  • Siegfried's death, as well, when Grete refuses to humor his broken wish and instead tosses him to burn and freeze for all eternity in the grasp of Ithaqua's flames.
• Moral Event Horizon: Siegfried comes close to this line on multiple occasions, but it's when he's revealed to have killed hundreds of children with sadistic glee that shows there's no turning back.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Thorunn's death, of course. We see it coming miles away when it's revealed Grete isn't actually Hardestadt's lover, she's his and Thorunn's daughter — but that doesn't make it any less painful to when we finally do cut back to her and see she went out in a blaze of glory.
  • Erin's brief pain when Grete and Hardestadt firmly say they love each other is a smaller but nonetheless heart-pinching detail, especially as she tells herself to hold herself together even when she's hurt. Makes her resultant surprise at Grete following this up with "I love you, Dad!" all the more relieving.