Final Thoughts

When characters go through emotional situations but don't react with appropriate emotional responses (or react with no emotional responses at all), it causes the game to have a cartoony feeling. That's okay if that's the effect you want, but most of the time I've seen cartoony reactions by NPCs in games, it's a result of poor writing or design.

Once you decide on the emotional response you want, then you've got to find an artful way to communicate it.