Why does Marvel keep making me cry over inanimate objects?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is no stranger to killing off its heroes, villains and everyone in between in shocking and gut-wrenching ways. But some important objects in the films get as much character development as the actual characters, so their destruction leaves audiences mourning for things we never would have thought to be sad for.

I’m not ashamed to admit I shed a few tears for more than a couple of these dearly departed Marvel icons. This list of sad inanimate object deaths is in chronological order, not ranked by number of tears.

The Bifrost in Thor

The Bifrost was a bridge located on Asgard used to travel throughout the nine realms and controlled by Heimdall’s sword. It has been destroyed or shutdown a few times, but the first time it was put out of commission was in the first Thor movie when Thor realized that, in order to stop Loki from using the power of the Bifrost to decimate the Jotunheim, he had to destroy it. He used Mjolnir to break the bridge and sacrificed the connections he made on Earth to save the nine realms.

Ten years into the MCU, we now know there are a few different ways to travel between realms, but back then, Thor thought the Bifrost was it and he would never again be able to visit Earth. This made its destruction emotional for Thor as well as audiences who had spent the last almost two hours watching him forge relationships on Earth and learn to appreciate the planet.

Iron Man’s suits in Iron Man 3

Tony Stark’s collection of suits gets a couple hits in this movie. First, when The Mandarin send helicopters to Tony’s home and blows up basically everything, including the adorable robot arm that Tony always berates. Then the suit in which Tony escapes loses power and sustains too much damage to do anything more than be lugged around in the snow. And finally during the big battle a lot of the suits are destroyed before Tony flips the final metaphorical switch and blows them all up in a gesture for Pepper.

The Iron Man suit was the first image of a superhero the MCU had with the first film in 2008, and after the Battle of New York, it was a way for Tony to know he was safe and could keep others safe. With the destruction of the suits and the removal of the Arc Reactor in Tony’s chest, we are left wondering for the future of the MCU’s first hero—even though we know Avengers: Age of Ultron is right around the corner.

JARVIS in Avengers: Age of Ultron

As an AI, JARVIS can technically be considered an object, right? Near the beginning of the film, Ultron’s AI wakes up after Tony and Bruce Banner connect it with the Mind Stone that was residing in Loki’s scepter, and he is not happy with the world he finds himself in. When JARVIS tries to stop him from doing anything crazy, Ultron overpowers JARVIS and his AI cloud seems to consume JARVIS’s. Even though we learn later that JARVIS didn’t die and was just hiding in the internet to regroup, he is still somewhat lost at the end of the film when his programming is used to create Vision.

Without question, JARVIS is one of Tony’s best friends and has been a staple in the MCU up to this point. The two have a witty, back-and-forth banter that has always kept battles a little bit lighter, and JARVIS really cares about Tony and his well being. It’s like Batman losing Alfred, if Alfred was a super computer along with being a butler.

Bucky Barnes’ bionic arm in Captain America: Civil War

The only person who might have worse luck than Tony Stark is Bucky Barnes. He gets captured during World War II and experimented on, then he gets rescued only to fall off a train on a cliff. But then we realize he didn’t actually die and just lost his arm, was captured by HYDRA again, brainwashed to be their own personal killing machine and sent after his former bestie Steve Rogers in present day. And just when we think he’s going to get a break after saving Steve and going into hiding, he’s framed for the bombing of the UN and killing of Wakanda’s King T’Chaka. Even when Tony figures out the frame job and decides to help Steve and Bucky—rendering the big team-up battle that happened basically pointless—that peace is short lived after it’s revealed that a brainwashed Bucky was the one to kill Tony’s parents a few decades earlier. So of course that sets off another big fight in which another one of Tony’s suits is pretty much destroyed and Bucky has his bionic arm ripped off his body.

It can be argued that the loss of the arm attached to Bucky by HYDRA is necessary for his recovery, and yeah, the new arm he gets from T’Challa after zenning out in Wakanda is much cooler, but there’s no way not to gasp when Bucky’s arm gets wrenched from his body.

Captain America’s shield in Captain America: Civil War

Though the shield didn’t actually get destroyed in this film, after the fight with Tony, Steve is forced to leave it behind by Tony who says that if Steve stands with the man who murdered his father, then he doesn’t deserve the shield Howard made him. We haven’t seen the shield in any MCU movies since.

Following the events of not only this film but also Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve has realized that following orders and doing what many people think is right isn’t always the right move. Through the dismantling of SHIELD/HYDRA, the defense and protection of Bucky, and the protest of the Sokovia Accords, Captain America is no longer the type of hero that can be the patriotic, blindly following face of the nation—if he ever was. So leaving behind the iconic red, white (silver) and blue shield that has been his image and protection since World War II is partially Steve honoring Tony’s wishes and partially him leaving behind the part of him that was a soldier.

Peter Quill’s walkman in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

There isn’t much Quill loved more in the universe than the Sony Walkman and two personalized mixes given to him by his mom

before she died. When he was arrested in the first Guardians of the Galaxy, he even started a fight with a prison guard who was messing around with it and ended up getting tased a few times for his trouble. In Vol. 2, Peter finds out that Ego was the one who killed his mother and attacks him, but he is easily overpowered and Ego takes the Walkman from Peter and crushes it while Peter is helpless.

All Peter ever had from his life on Earth was the Walkman, the mixes and a few other small trinkets he picked up along the way, and more than that, it was all he had left of his mom. The mixes were songs she loved, ones she picked specifically for Peter, and reminded Peter of her every time he listened to them over the twenty years he was in space. The second mixtape was literally given to Peter with his mom’s dying breath, so losing the Walkman was like losing her all over again.

Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok

Thor’s hammer played such an important role in the first Thor film in 2011 that its destruction within the first 25 minutes of Thor: Ragnarok was shocking—or it would have been if the scene wasn’t already shown in the trailer. According to Thor, only one who is worthy of the power of Thor can wield Mjolnir—proven by the competition in Age of Ultron in which the other Avengers attempt to lift it without success, barring Vision. But somehow, Thor’s secret sister Hela is able to not only catch Mjolnir, but also crush it into a bunch of pieces. The only real explanation we get for this is a ceiling mural uncovered by Hela showing her holding the hammer and helping Odin conquer the nine realms, but that was long before Odin put the Thor-strength spell on Mjolnir.

But anyway, Thor losing his hammer not five minutes after seeing his father die and blow away in the wind is just the first of many hits he takes in this film. Much like Captain America’s shield, Mjolnir has been a symbol of Thor and his power since we met the God. And though losing it is important in Thor’s journey to realize that he doesn’t need a hammer or any other weapon to utilize his great power and be a hero—at least until he decides he needs a big axe to face Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War—it is still the destruction of an iconic part of Thor’s character and storyline.

Heart-Shaped Herb garden in Black Panther

The strength and power of the Black Panther is bestowed upon those worthy of it by ingesting the juice created by the Heart-Shaped Herb that is only grown in Wakanda due to mutation of vegetation by the meteorite that carried the vibranium there. After Erik Killmonger defeats T’Challa and usurps the throne, he gives himself the Black Panther power before ordering the rest of the plants to be burned. Luckily, Nakia steals one of the fruits of the plant and uses it to give T’Challa his powers back.

After generations of kings of Wakanda protecting the nation with the Black Panther powers, the end of the tradition has come. With no more Heart-Shaped Herbs, T’Challa will be the last Black Panther with the power bestowed upon him by the plant and the Wakandan ancestors. A rash and emotional move by Killmonger leaves the future rule and protection of Wakanda in question, especially following the end of Infinity War with much of Wakanda, including the king, being turned to dust.

Tesseract in Avengers: Infinity War

In the first scene of Infinity War, Thanos forces Loki to give him the Tesseract, which contains the Space Stone, in exchange for sparing Thor’s life. Thanos crushes the cube in his hand fairly easily and adds the stone to his gauntlet, becoming the first being to ever wield two stones at once. And he subsequently uses it to travel across the galaxy to gather the remaining stones and kill a bunch of people.

The tesseract has been an important weapon in two MCU movies, starting with Captain America: The First Avenger and then wreaking more havoc in The Avengers, with a few cameos in others. It was our first introduction to the infinity stones, even before anyone knew that’s what it was, and its use by Loki in The Avengers was one of the main reasons the team got together in the first place. It’s destruction isn’t necessarily sad, but it is a step further in Thanos’s plan to kill half the universe, so that should cause a little emotion and unease.