About

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.

Origin

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the player-character Roach and Ghost are betrayed by General Shepherd towards the end of the game. After the pair successfully get the villain Marakov's operations playbook, Shepherd says, "Good, that's one less loose end," before shooting Roach and Ghost.

The scene began seeing parodies several years later, as players began joking on the emotional impact of the scene. On March 27th, 2016, DeviantArt user Phantom Evil^[1] posted a meme about the scene to the site (shown below).

Spread

Over the following years, the scene began seeing use in more parodies. On October 1st, 2016, KnowYourMeme user D!0 posted a Top 10 Anime Betrayals meme sourced from a defunct Google+ site (shown below, left). On January 1st, 2017, Imgur user acidtrip1234 posted an image about video game character betrayals (shown below, right).

More recently, the image of Shepherd's betrayal has seen use in object labeling memes. For example, On September 26th, 2019, Redditor Rasnall posted a meme about the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Survival Mode Controversy, gaining over 25,000 points (shown below, left). On October 5th, /r/dankmemes user Shiteingann posted a meme referencing Hitler's suicide, gaining over 23,000 points (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Adler's Betrayal

Adler's Betrayal refers to a memorable scene from the 2020 video game Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War in which 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 a source material for caption memes.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References