We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The Video Game: 2014’s, ‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’

The Scene: The Collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge (Vulgar language warning)

Why It’s Great:

We’ve all seen it before in countless disaster movies: Something terrible happens: the building starts collapsing, the ship starts sinking, the ground opens up as a 15.0 earthquake rages, and nameless background characters start dropping by the dozens, their lives sacrificed to show the audience just how dangerous things are and the stakes that the main character/s are facing. These scenes almost always end with just the main character and his or her companions left standing.

But not always.

At 1:05 in the video, a helpless police officer slides down the collapsing Golden Gate Bridge. As expected, Mitchell – the player character – manages to grab hold of the poor man, who will struggle for his life and beg Mitchell not to let him go, only to tragically fall to his death, leaving Mitchell to raise his arms to the sky and an uncaring God, yelling that the cop will be avenged, just like Luthor and…

Wait. What’s this? The officer… survives? He gets pulled to safety? A random, nameless background character actually survives a catastrophic event?!

When the fate of a city or the world – or even existence itself – is on the line, a protagonist would be forgiven for letting someone die to save the many. But when they take the time to save one person, it shows us that they aren’t willing to let innocents die if they can avoid it. That makes the rare occasions when a nameless, background character who normally exists just to die is saved all the more heartwarming.