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The Vision discovers he has feelings.
A character who supposedly has no knowledge of or experience with certain human emotions, for some reason, begins to cry. This surprises them, since they have never cried before, and in some cases, have never even seen someone cry. They may panic and jump to the conclusion that something is wrong with them. This is common among characters who have only recently become human.
Alternatively, a character with the normal range of human emotions may begin to cry, which causes the Amusing Alien to freak out.
Depending on how well it's written, it may be a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming... or it may just become Narm if done badly. Hey, it may even qualify for both. Frequently overlaps with What Is This Thing You Call Love?. Compare Tears From a Stone.
Anime/Manga[]
- Mahou Sensei Negima: Chachamaru knows that her tears are in fact oil, but Negi reasons with her that is not the physical experience of the tears rolling down, but the feelings she has that makes her a living being.
Comic Books[]
- Pictured is The Vision, the android member of The Avengers. In his first appearance, he turned on his creator (the evil robot Ultron) to save the Avengers, and they welcomed him into their ranks. Thus he found out that "Even an android can cry!"
Film[]
- The Jim Carrey live-action version of The Grinch.
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The Grinch: "I'm all toasty inside... and I'm leaking!" |
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- Star Trek Generations. Earlier in the movie, Data had an emotion chip implanted. After the Enterprise saucer section crashes, Data and Counselor Troi are searching for survivors.
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Troi: Data, I found something. One life sign, very faint. |
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- In Flash Gordon, Ming's daughter see's Flash's Love Interest crying and asks why her eyes are leaking.
Literature[]
- In Clan of the Cave Bear Ayla gets upset and cries, to the bewonderment of the rest of the Clan who have no knowledge/experience with tears of sadness. They think there's something wrong with her eyes.
- Mowgli in the first Jungle Book story when he's banished Shere Khan but has to leave the jungle for the village:
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Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he had never been hurt in his life before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. |
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- Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. The Sex Bot protagonist is alarmed for a moment when her vision becomes blurred and she registers saline leakage; a surprisingly non-functional response to emotions programmed into her by her long-extinct creators.
Live Action TV[]
- Played for Laughs on Seinfeld ("The Serenity Now") after the title character gets in touch with his emotions:
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Jerry: (Crying) What--what is this salty discharge? |
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- When Sally cries for the first time on 3rd Rock from the Sun, the aliens refer to it as "leaking". They continue to refer to crying as "leaking" for the rest of the series.
Music[]
- Brass Goggles by Steam Powered Giraffe: "And what is this leaking affecting my eye? / Does the oil that is dripping mean this is a cry?"
Video Games[]
- The Disgaea series:
- Disgaea Hour of Darkness:
- Demon Etna in Etna mode; after getting back her memory she remembers the promise she made to her dead master; to protect and help his son, who she killed after losing her memory. After this she starts to cry and she thinks 'I don't get it, why am I crying?'.
- In the good end of the story, when Laharl begins to cry over Flonne's apparent death. His first response is shock that he could cry at all.
- In Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice, Princess Sapphire becomes confused when she starts crying Tears of Joy over Almaz coming back to life, especially since she has always been, as far as she knew, Unable to Cry.
- Disgaea Hour of Darkness:
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Sapphire: I'm crying? These are tears... I'm crying right now... |
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- Chrono Trigger: In one of the endings, Lucca gets upset at the possibility that their actions may have time paradox'ed Robo out of existence. In an attempt to cheer her up, he claims that his eyes are leaking oil and stumbles about (though he really may have been crying).
- Roxas in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, who as a Nobody supposedly does not feel emotions. That doesn't stop him from crying in his dreams, however, and he writes about his confusion over this in his journal:
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The dreams have gotten stranger. Now I wake up with water on my cheeks. I don't know how it got there, but I think there's something really wrong with me. |
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Western Animation[]
- One episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold has Red Tornado creating a "son" and then being forced to destroy him. He makes the "my eyes are leaking" quote afterwards.
- Stan in American Dad, more than once.
- Parodied on Clone High. When JFK (seeking guidance) cries in front of Principal Scudworth, Scudworth shrieks and exclaims "Is that water leaking out of your face!?" Could be considered an inversion as well, since Scudworth is the only (naturally born) human among the main characters.
- King of the Hill:
- In the episode "An Officer and a Gentle Boy" Cotton brings up his mean one legged drill instructor then suddenly tears start leaking down his face, he is very surprised and embarrassed and says "I guess over reminiscing has brought up my pain water".
- Also another episode has everyone worried on why Hank was crying when they watched a drama movie when he never usually cries, it turns out he was crying because his truck was breaking down and the son attempting to save his dying father from underneath a tractor reminded him of that.
- In Pinky and The Brain, Brain shows Pinky sad scenes from movies while urging him to stay stoic, but when an obvious parody of The Lion King comes in Brain gets moved and says "Pinky, my eyes are leaking" and dismisses the idea that he's crying as ridiculous. When both of them stop weeping Brain suddenly gets the idea of making the saddest movie ever created.