Adler's Betrayal

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War; read at your own caution.

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About

Adler's Betrayal refers to a memorable scene from the 2020 video game Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War in which the character Russel Adler betrays his subordinate Bell, with both drawing guns on each other and shooting. Starting in late 2020, the scene has been used as the source material for video and GIF caption memes.

Origin

On November 13th, 2020, the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was released.^[1] In one of the possible endings of the game, the character Russel Adler, a CIA agent who operates alongside the protagonist Bell and controls him, has a talk with him on a cliffside. During the talk, Adler thanks Bell for his sacrifices but says that he must make one more sacrifice. Adler and Bell then draw guns on each other and shoot (scene shown below).

On November 18th, 2020, iFunny^[2] user Neithersmile posted the earliest discovered meme based on the scene, with the post (shown below) garnering over 30 smiles in three years.

Spread

While the format did not receive widespread usage online until mid-2023, it had been occasionally used on iFunny and X / Twitter in 2021 and 2022. For example, on October 20th, 2021, iFunny^[3] user iWanttofuckJefferyEpstein posted an Immortal Snail meme based on the format that received over 26,500 smiles in two years (shown below).

On December 20th, 2022, X^[4] user @ExtremeBlitz_ posted a meme that gained over 2,100 reposts and 18,000 likes in one year (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/9YLAiVuDbL

— duck (@ExtremeBlitz__) December 30, 2022

The format achieved virality in the second half of 2023, after on July 23rd, 2023, Instagram^[5] user memesoncreatine posted a POV meme captioned "POV: me and bro 0.3 seconds after finding out the game has friendly fire" (shown below). The upload received over 510,000 likes in five months.

Related Memes

Shepherd's Betrayal

General Shepherd's Betrayal or Ghost Death refers to a moment in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in which the player-character Roach and Ghost are shot by General Shepherd, thought to be an ally, at a critical point in the game's plot. The moment is one of the series' most memorable for Call of Duty fans, and has been parodied in various memes.

Various Examples

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7267857622328446214

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7148047159441542446

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7318388040374717738

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7321812895560486177

Search Interest

External References