INTRODUCTION:
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Just like the characters I am stuck in a Squid Game. If I don’t finish this essay I will die. Because I will have to put up with seeing increasingly more and more Squid Game references everywhere on line, causing me to go from thinking this is meh, to stupid, to vehemently hating it, insanity imminent in the process. Well not anymore because I did finish it wooo! No 50 million dollars for me though… so sad…

Many of you will be well and truly over seeing Squid Game being mentioned everywhere by this point, and as such I cannot blame you if you are not interested in reading this and scrolled as soon as you saw those (possibly) dreaded words.

But unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to write this earlier or finish this faster than I did, so as to beat most of the international hype, which only seems to have increased in the three weeks it took me to write this (help), or in time to engage with it properly with Beanies, whose general consensus on this remains unknown to me.

It also wasn’t exactly necessary for me to write THIS much on it, in fact I’m not sure it’s ever necessary to write this much on anything, but I did anyway… because it’s me… and it makes me feel better. (Although I have definitely outdone myself this time… no, seriously… )

So, without farther ado,

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SQUID GAME DISSERTATION
by
Sicarius The Queen of Melonia.

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Dedication:
Multiple times a day, a little, sneering voice in my head would say “just give up. what’s the point in writing this. nobody will read it.”
I finished this to spite that voice and the devil.
All power and glory be to God, forever and ever, amen.

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(tldr and sp0iler alert: I didn’t like it)

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Disclaimer: I am not joking when I say this is a dissertation, not an essay.
If you do not want to read it all on dB, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xn_hmahLuTkfuoHm2rT72jaQcp2KWaGh4wIUz_8X_sI/edit?usp=sharing
If you don’t want to read it at all, thank the LORD for the READ MORE.
If there are typos, deal with it, if there are formatting errors or inconsistencies, man you have no idea how much I don’t care right now. I’ve been working on this for over 14 hrs today.
I would be promoting this more except that it’s now 12:30 in the morning and I need to sleep because the last 6 hrs are a blur.
Yeah.

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CONTENTS:

Introduction
1. On Violence
2. On Narrative Tension
3. On Characters and Caring
4. On Thematic Resolution
5. On Narrative Rigging
Conclusion

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PART 1: THE VIOLENCE

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The death game genre relies on often meaningless, gratuitous death to propel its narrative. The death aspect of these stories is often what is most tantalizing, in the same vein that horror capitalises on people LIKING to get scared.
But lately, what with Vincenzo, Taxi Driver, D.P., Squid Game, The Veil and now My Name, I have been thinking more about how violence is used in storytelling, and, more importantly, how NOT to use violence in storytelling.

Violence in storytelling has to be treated right or it doesn’t land. Even in something like a slasher film, this is an element that needs to be treated with respect, both in directing and writing.
More specifically, I think violence in storytelling has to be treated with narrative purpose and careful intent, even in, or perhaps especially in, a genre such as this.

The violence in Squid Game does not make sense.

And no, I don’t mean in the sense of violence existing at all, I mean, the violence in Squid Game is primarily there for shock factor alone and is not cohesive with the rest of the narrative.
Therefore, it adds nothing to the narrative nor is it effective as a narrative tool.

It’s not effective as a narrative tool because it’s
a) not actually shocking because you already know it’s going to be there and
b) it’s without purpose other than shock which leads to it being
c) too cynical- it doesn’t care- and it is neither
d) cohesive nor
e) smart enough in execution to overcome this

(resulting in f) the viewers becoming desensitised)

For example, it’s often very sudden, randomly excessive or randomly extremely gratuitous, and will have no place in a scene, which is jarring, despite the genre. (Examples include Ali’s ex-boss catching his hand in industrial machinery, and brains on the floor during the ladder game and more)

It’s like the person writing and directing it just wanted to relish in the ridiculousness of the horror of the situation, instead of treating it [the horror] with gravitas, which is actually what the narrative demands, because you can’t properly address any message without treating the wonton loss of life that the show capitalises on, as meaning something. †

This is not to say that excess meaningless death CAN’T’ be used narratively to have impact, but that the show fails at this, because it doesn’t treat the concept of these deaths, or more specifically the violence, with enough dignity and seriousness at the beginning, for it to have any weight later on. The person writing and directing this, doesn’t care.

† Meaning here being used as in consequence and effect; the deaths are done meaninglessly, the people committing them do not care, no more than the writers of the show, but death still has and must have meaning, even if it is executed meaninglessly.

Because the show fails at treating death with due respect, overall, the violence is not impactful, therefore it is ineffective.
And please don’t shock me into feeling something; it’s not going to work because it’s not authentic.

There is perhaps one true exception that I can think of to this, and that is when the detective shot the organ trafficker. Because the detective shot him for his complete and utter disregard for human life, the detective shot the guy for a REASON, and because up to this point the detective’s story was still able to be connected to, and we could feel both his urgency in finding his brother, and his disgust at this entire affair, the death was satisfying because we could more easily feel what he felt. The emotion behind it felt more organic, rather than just being the cynical nature of the game, or the forced nature of many other moments.

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PART 2: NARRATIVE TENSION (what narrative tension)

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This is not a unique issue to Squid Game, I have talked about this previously a lot actually; balancing conflict and stakes in writing to create natural tension is hard, especially with certain genres or characters.

Typically, and traditionally, a story will remain true to central main characters, providing them with plot armour and survivorship bias to reach nearer the end.

This is not to say I think that actually no, you should just kill off all your heroes, just to be subversive, all the time and that hero driven stories are lame. On the contrary; I like myself a classic hero, and even will defend against killing them or their anti-counterparts off when it does sometimes happen. (See: Kill It. Also, oh the irony of that title.)

It is a natural part of storytelling for the protagonist to win, and is not a bad thing in and of itself. But like all things story, execution of Secondary Belief, the cornerstone of Narrative Tension, matters a great deal, and you have to be careful so as not to compromise the integrity of this Belief and of your work; If the hero survives, then we must be invested in the hero’s journey, and ideally it would be internally believable that he would survive till the end, he must not win simply for the sake of winning. And if he loses it must be believable that he loses, and he must not lose simply for the sake of losing.

This IS all to say, however, that Squid Game has absolutely zero tension and is therefore incredibly, and excruciatingly, boring.

Why? Because yes, it has blatant and obvious plot armour for the main characters, and yes it has terrible use of survivorship bias, meaning they win because they are the main characters and rarely any other reason, but more specifically, it’s because, it not only wants you to care about its MAIN characters (which is actually an issue in itself), it wants you to care about people that you have no narrative reason to care about.

There is no reason to be invested in a tug of war game between arbitrary side characters, no name and no backstory NPCs, and the show’s designated internal conflict character, Deok Su, who must survive up until the point where he is no longer needed for forced narrative conflict.

And again, there is no reason to be invested in an excruciatingly long and drawn-out tug of war game between a team full of only Main Characters, and yet more NPCs.
(NPC= Non-Player Characters, or in this case, Non-Player Players.)

And yet time and time again, the show sets up scenarios like this. There’s no narrative tension by doing this. If we know who is going to survive, and win, in games like this, which WE DO, why do we need to watch?

Even in something like the marble game, it is fairly easy to predict out of our MC’s and Supporting characters who is going to survive and therefore who is going to die, and therefore it loses its weight.

Although I recognise that everyone has different emotional responses to things, and can respect these moments still might’ve worked for some, on a technical level it’s still fake and forced; it’s not authentic tension by the logic of the narrative.

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Two of the most grievous examples for this, I think, were the Married Couple NPCs, after the Marble Game, and the entirety of the Bridge Game.

The Married Couple had had very little set up prior to this. They were not main characters, or even secondary characters. I think they’d had maybe one or two lines total, between the two of them. Their story therefore had no weight; why would you be invested in something that hasn’t been set up to have weight, and has instead been set up to, well, because of the nature of the show, “fail”- they’re doomed to die anyway.
But in spite of this, the show tries to use the Husband after the marble game, in despair over his wife’s death, to make a moral statement.

First of all, any Husband worth his salt would’ve laid down his life to save his Wife, at least for one more game, so I personally despise the fact that he survived and she didn’t, and if not *that* in the Spirit of the Duty of Marriage, then they should’ve both refused to play and died in each other’s arms.

And secondly, the moral statement he tries to claim has no weight, because of the nature of his character (an NPC), its timing in the show, and in general how the morals and the themes implied by this show were written, developed and resolved. (more on all this later.)

The Bridge Game is guilty because it had the easiest survival hack out of possibly any of the games, and was therefore, and I cannot stress this enough, INFURIATING.

It would’ve been, entirely possible, to walk down the middle two bars, without stepping on the centre of any glass, and make it to the other side. Possible variables in this include: you having terrible balance, or the show runners deciding to shoot anyone who tried this for… cheating, or something. I had to watch episode 7 at 2x speed, and with liberal ffwding.

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PART 3: CHARACTERS AND CARING

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Remember how I said for the hero’s journey to work you have to be invested in it?
And remember how I said that the show wanted you to care about NPCs as well as the designated survivors?
Well, honestly, I’m not even sure it DID want me to even care about the designated survivors.

This is one of my primary issues with the show as a whole: I did not give a rat’s toss about the majority of the characters, and I seriously questioned if the show even wanted me to at times.

I didn’t care about them for several reasons.

Number 1. The majority of them, specifically our lead, are just horrible people to start with.

Number 2. The show fails at writing them in any way for this be otherwise enjoyable, neither making them consistently sympathetic, nuanced, or relatable, and ergo failing in its narrative belief.

Number 3. Part of the reason this^ fails is because they are all required to be morally corrupt from the beginning, for the show to work, and the show fails, or rather refuses, to properly address this foundational issue.

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The show plays off Number 3, which we will explore in depth later, under the guise of desperation and attempts to give our key players motivations for coming back to the game, giving them all backstories, not just Gi Hun, and attempts to give the players believable set ups for why they might, after first voting out of the game, come back.
What if they felt they had no other choice, the show essentially establishes in episode 2. (This becomes an issue for any message it might be trying to say later.)
But this, combined with how their temperaments are written overall, is ineffective at producing investment.

Let us Meet the Cast.

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GI HUN is our Primary Main Character and Protagonist. (That is to say, he’s at the centre of all the promotional material.)
He is introduced as a gambling addict in crippling debt to an unsavoury loan shark. He gambles away his elderly mother’s money, his own allowance, and his young daughter’s birthday money. He expresses guilt over the latter, but not the former, and does nothing to change his habits, continuing to extort his mother. He is shown as greedy and shallow, and is not in any way likeable in the way he his introduced to us. You do not even pity him because his situation his self- exacerbated; he is in this position because of his own greed, desire for money, addiction to gambling, and terrible life choices.

He is not sympathetic.

He does not get any more sympathetic in episode 2, when his situation is farther worsened by the reveal that his elderly mother is sick with diabetes, needs immediate hospitalisation and treatment, and his young daughter, who lives with her step-father and re-married mother is going to be taken away from him in a month, and Gi Hun is not allowed to see her again unless he gets his sh☠️t together. He only shows remorse to his mother now that she is sick, feels that he is at rock bottom, has no other choice, and decides to re-enter Squid Game.

He does not at any point become any more sympathetic as the game goes on, and his motivation for being there feels forced, because it’s done for pity points, and Gi Hun is not pitiable.

There are moments when he steps outside of his naturally very selfish and self-centred cowardly self but his development is at best unconvincing, at worst downright non-existent and overall, in my opinion, unsuccessful.

(I am going to thoroughly break this down later, so if you have issues with these blanket statements, trust me, I’ll get there. )

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SANGWOO is established as a self-made businessman gone broke, guilty of money-laundering, fraud and a bunch of other monetary crimes I can’t remember. He is, however, still the pride of his still working elderly mother, who is unaware of his fall from grace, and brags about him to the local market patrons.

He is shown to be shrewd, calculating and smart, but ultimately also very selfish, even throwing his naïve childhood friend under the bus early on. As the show progresses, this side of him is shown more and more, and he acts maliciously and manipulatively in order to survive. (His play style is not entirely consistent, but nevertheless, he’d probably be great at Survivor)

I believe the original intent here was to juxtapose him against Gi Hun- as Gi Hun gradually becomes less selfish, Sangwoo becomes more so, or rather more openly so, providing antithesis. I don’t think this idea was successful, however, if it were planned at all.

By the last few episodes of the show Sangwoo is thoroughly detestable, sociopathic, even to the point of you wishing for his death. (*Irony Points: DING*)

His motivations are believable however, because this is someone who would do anything to survive, and escape imprisonment, and win. This makes him imo, one of the fewer more interesting and complex characters in the show, and he is a better villain/ “conflict character”, than Deok Su.

You do not feel sympathy for him, and you do not care about him still, but the conflict he creates feels more organic at least. A character that you don’t care about but at least is useful for and believable in the story outside of just being an MC.

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DEOK SU is your Typical Korean Drama Gangster Character. There is absolutely nothing original or interesting about his character whatsoever. I have seen his archetype a million and one times, dramaland, and I do not care. On top of that he is played by Heo Sung Tae, who is not a bad actor I suppose, except that he has essentially played the exact same character THREE times this year, in three different dramas, coincidentally three dramas I happen to all have seen, increasing my inability to care about him exponentially.

He’s a greedy goon, who is not above killing to get what he wants, and what he wants is money to survive. He’s not sympathetic and not the least because he only joined to avoid being killed by some other gang members for talking sh☠️t about his boss. He exists in the show to create internal physical conflict, and apparently, to be as annoying as possible, and that’s about it, so whether or not his motivation is believable no longer matters at this point. You don’t care about him at the beginning, you certainly don’t care about him during the marble game, and you sure as sh☠️t don’t care about him when he dies. A+ character writing, fam…

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MI NYEO is a secondary character who is introduced a bit later than the rest of our MCs/2MCs, and I honestly can’t remember if her backstory or why she’s there and decided to come back is ever mentioned. But it doesn’t really matter because she’s only there to like… talk sh☠️t with Deok Su, sleep with him, and then play the woman scorned so she can take him out later in the most boring frakking double death of the whole show. (maybe, it’s hard to pick actually when all of them suck).

She is loud, brash, crude, annoying and not at all likable. I don’t care one iota about her. And I don’t care if the show was trying to do anything else with her either. The only interesting thing she did do, was help Sae Byeok get into the vents, (but this went nowhere and meant nothing so it doesn’t matter.)

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The Majority of the rest of the supporting NPCs were as equally morally reprehensible or detestable in their history and writing as the last three I mentioned or our VIP/VIMC (Vewwy Impawtant Pwotagonist/ Main Chawacter).

I think at about episode 5 or 6 I said I only cared about 2.5 characters in this show, which only slowly diminished as the show went on…

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THE 0.5:

ALI was actually likable. His motivation, his family, was somewhat understandable† at least and you’re drawn to him automatically because he goes out of his way to HELP in the first round; that is, he’s not selfish and he is more relatable than Gi Hun because he’s not an ass.
Wow, what a breather. So refreshing. Too bad I still didn’t care about his character enough…

This is a bit harder to explain why. I sometimes cared about Ali. But when it came time for him to die, I did not.

I suppose there was an element of inevitability to this; he was only ever a supporting MC and not one of the truly central MC, his survivorship bias ranking was lower than the others, ergo he was more likely to die, ergo there was not as much weight when he did. (The disadvantages to being a Death Game and following classic survivor rules…)
I think also overall I just found his existence somewhat superfluous. In the end he’s just there for pity points, for Sangwoo to manipulate and die for your tears. Id Est, he’s there to manipulate YOU into feeling something, and therefore a caricature not a character. Yay. Not.

†To further this point, Ali’s motivation might be Understandable but is it Believable? Would someone like Ali really truly be ok with joining a Death Game that would kill hundreds of people, just for some money? Why didn’t he take the money he took from his boss and run? But the show NEEDS him to come back. It needs his caricature to come back too, so it can manipulate you…

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IL NAM, was also one of the other characters I cared about… SOMETIMES. He was also there unfortunately for pity points. His existence howsomever did have more of a point, in order for Gi Hun to… undergo a moral crisis (or not actually, but more on that), and it did offer a truly different perspective and motivation in the game: He’s playing because he’s dying soon. He has nothing to lose. I suppose though, that actually contributes to me not caring about him very much, or not consistently. This game already treats the value of human life with disregard, a terminally ill older man dying in a death game, is just him coming to the end of the game of life. It sounds callous, and it is, but that’s what the show goes for. “Hey don’t care about this man’s death because he’s going to die anyway, but do actually because he’s a sad old man”.

Again, this feels emotionally manipulative, especially given the fact that the game itself doesn’t *actually* give a sh☠️t about value of human life, and doesn’t care enough to properly address it.

The show’s character writing works against itself, these people are merely archetypes, literally and meta-textually players in a game, not real fleshed out characters.

(Yeah yeah, don’t worry I’ll come back to Gi Hun and Il Nam’s game of marbles and obviously there’s also the fact that Il Nam is also the Game’s Instigator, or rather the Korean Squid Game’s Division Gamemaster, which for the record, I called in about episode 5, we’ll GET THERE, hauld yer wheesht.)

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THE 2:

1- THE DETECTIVE. Although really by the end he should’ve been his own 0.5 …

I found the detective’s arc initially an interesting and much needed alternative addition to the Game. Although I think it was rushed in set up, it provided more opportunity for exploring the behind the scenes of the game, it grounded the setting, and added more perspective. Much needed because indeed, if every year an International Death Game Organisation/ Cult runs a game that kills hundreds if not more people for blood money and spectator sport, eventually some loved one is going to start having questions. Unfortunately for all involved, the show consistently did nothing with it; it remained undeveloped for its entire run, and it went absolutely frakking nowhere.

The detective (seemingly) dies without relaying any information abroad, without any consequences in the wider world of his disappearance, without trying to communicate farther with players, or minions, without trying to turn the tables of the game, and without trying to do anything actively useful within the game itself. The reveal that the Head Man is his brother is trite and predictable, the Head Man’s motivations for being there are neither explored not explained, and then on top of everything, the show decides to give the Head Man a couple of random PTSD flashbacks to shooting his own brother, out of context and without any resolution.

By the time this arc came to its supposed conclusion, (its non-Resolution as it were), I can’t say I was really that invested anymore. It was more of a “that’s it?” response.

You had to wonder, why this arc was added in the first place. What a Waste of Time, Opportunity and Potential.

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2- And finally leaving, after all this, the only Consistent character, and player, I cared about to be, I’m sure it is obvious at this point, KANG SAE BYEOK.

Although not even she could escape a somewhat stereotypical and clichéd set up, I found Sae Byeok to be the most sympathetic character out of everyone, and the show’s only successful case of this not being extinguished through gross misuse of moral misalignment.

See, the problem here, is that you can have morally corrupt characters who do detestable things, or who are in stupid positions of their own making, and still make them likable or at least likable to watch. You can have characters do wrong and still make them sympathetic.
Actually being a likable person is weirdly enough not a necessary part of being a likable character. And yet this show fails at even that, with everyone except for Sae Byeok. Why.

Sae Byeok was believable AND understandable; being a North Korean Defector naturally makes her distrusting and a survivor. She has an endemic reason for being indifferent to all around her and her “self-serving” nature is logical. It might not be “nice” and she still has a wobbly moral compass, but it doesn’t need to be, and she doesn’t have to have one, for her to be a compelling character.

At least Sae Byeok’s disregard for any life that isn’t her own or her family’s makes sense. At least her Lone Wolf act has a reason to exist. At least Sae Byeok is actually believably the kind of desperate fighter who would join something like this if she truly thought it was her last hope, and the kind of character to whom an arc of growth would come naturally. At least Sae Byeok is savvy enough to try (although inconsistently) to beat the game outside its own rules, and smart enough to win most of the rounds on her own two feet, outside of Survivor Bias.

Making it only Sae Byeok, (and in part Sangwoo), that has the only convincing writing when it comes to narrative tension, and also everything else.

How did you botch that badly such a central part of your storytelling? How.

(SIDE NOTE: Jiyong was fine, but she existed only for the sake of Sae Byeok’s arc. This isn’t actually a criticism, I just don’t have much to say about her because she was only in two episodes, and she was designated to die by dint of being not a main enough character anyway. She was however the most compelling and best written tertiary character, for basically all the same reasons as Sae Byeok. Hence their pair up in E6, which coincidentally was the only part of E6 that I found actually worked the way it was trying to.)</blockquote)

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The majority of the characters were painted as morally corrupt people with little to no authentic opportunity within the show to redeem themselves to the audience, and little to no qualities that would’ve made them interesting otherwise, and written in uncompelling ways.

So, my question for the show after all this was, did it even WANT me to care about the characters?
I think I *have* to conclude that it did, but simply failed miserably.

And if it didn’t, somehow, then I reject that approach to storytelling. If I want to masochistically indulge in hating people for their own reprehensibleness with no respite, rest assured I do not need help in doing so from a sub-par Korean drama; I need only turn on the news, or better yet, indulge in my cynicism and look out the window. I do not need help in hating people, show, in fact wouldn’t you be better to encourage me NOT to?

If you want me to emotionally connect with your horrible characters, you need to actually try, and have some nuance in your thematic storytelling to elicit pity or compassion from me, instead of trying to emotionally manipulate me into feeling things, and putting your characters in a death show that makes them all morally culpable by blanket definition of premise.

Character and Theme are one of the most important parts of storytelling, and certainly the most obvious surface level ones.

And since character DRIVES theme, if I don’t care about your characters, then I don’t care about what happens to them, therefore I don’t care about your plot, your story, or anything you are trying to say or do. I am not connected to or invested in your show, Secondary Belief has been broken, congratulations, your art is failing.
This is not a great place to be in, as a story or storyteller.

And now let us come back to reason number 3…

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PART 4: MIXED MESSAGES AND THEMATIC RESOLUTION (what thematic resolution)

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Squid Game attempts to say a various number of things throughout its run.
It attempts some of this deliberately, and says some of it I think, unconsciously through various implications in premise and execution.

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First it claims that the Squid Game is about equality: providing an equal opportunity for people who elsewise have not had one.

Obviously, however, the games are not equal in execution or outcome; the weak, be they weaker physically, or emotionally, by age, or gender, are at a disadvantage.

This seems to be on purpose. A commentary if you will in that we live in an unequal world, despite any claims of equality. By individual state, or system.

That many variables contribute to this inequality despite a system’s allegations of equality, and that perhaps the system itself exacerbates this, resulting in those that are preyed upon by the system itself, unable to escape its clutches and the consequences thereof…

(This would seem to be backed up by a few of the character’s arcs, noticeably Sae Byeok’s; she came to South Korea, hoping that it would be kinder to her and offer her a fresh start, but it too screwed her over of course. Both this idealised SK and the narrative actually … which fridged her. Preyed upon by the system of the narrative much… *Irony Points: DING*)

That’s all very well and good I suppose, if you’re into that kind of thing, as a central theme for the show. Except I don’t care† and it’s shackled heavily and undermined by its own logic, but also by the conscious and unconscious thematic designs of the rest of the show.
(†both because, personally I find this kind of take to be boring, and also technically speaking it needs to be backed up by the rest of the story to achieve anything.)

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The people here suffering from non-equal equity are not actually there because of any system that *actually* failed them, despite the narrative’s attempts to convince us so; They are there out of choice.

Specifically, out of choice for money, that is greed. Greed does not stop being greed simply because you are poor. And underlying almost all the characters here, is this motivation, despite the show adding other ones on top of it. You can’t get rid of it. The show needs that to be the main driver for itself to even exist. It’s hard baked into the premise:

To reiterate: The characters are all introduced as morally liable from the beginning, and they are required to be so for the show to work.

That is, the show asks the characters to come back, and needs the majority of the characters TO come back, in order for there to be a show, therefore the majority of the characters come back. This puts our main players in even more of a morally corrupt position than before, because now, (on top of their actual written temperaments), they all decide that actually they don’t mind joining a death game and being culpable in the deaths of hundreds of people. Half of them did last week, but now they don’t. (And as previously established, this is only truly believable for 2 of our main cast.)

By making everyone CHOOSE to come back at the end of episode 2, they, the characters, are actively choosing to be partially responsible for the deaths of all who die in game, in the name of money. The degree to which the players are responsible is complex, and at surface level related to what specific game is being played, but the moral implication is there. They chose to join a game they know kills people, just for the chance that they might win, and gain billions of dollars of blood money.

That is a very severe moral foundation to start your show off from, and because it is built into the premise itself, it therefore becomes necessary for the show to address this issue throughout the rest of the story, if it doesn’t want to betray itself and everything it might be trying to say…

Because there are some things that when done narratively must have meaning, and consequence, by default.
Death itself is one of them. Placing your characters in a Death Game by choice is another one.

…or so one would think. Right?

~

A specific example of this comes to light in EP7, wherein the show reveals that this death game functions at the repulsive delights of the upper class. Rich people watch The Squid Game as a spectator sport; they invest in it, and bet on it, in order to make more money, and laugh at the deaths of the players.

There is an eerie similarity here, between the VIPs and the Players of the game, that the show does not address (and perhaps, never meant to make):

The destitute and broke will forgo the value of human life for money and survival.

The rich will do it for money and entertainment.

The rich are not reprehensible just because they are rich: they are reprehensible because they have a wonton disregard for the value of human life.

Similarly, the players, as characters, are unlikable and reprehensible because they all, by choosing to participate in the game, give up any regard they have for the value of human life.

In order for these ideas to be explored by the show, one would expect first for the characters to have sound reasons for being there, and second for a character or characters to actively go through the moral dilemmas they are presented with by the story, actively wrestle with all the questions demanded by their situation, hopefully, learn from it and grow, or at very least for there to be some kind of statement or resolution made and reached. (Rejection of growth here can also be a conclusion, if done well, such as being juxtaposed against its alternative.)

But the problem here, the one of many, is that the show does not actually address these severe moral foundations, nor does it provide proper consequences or ramifications for them, nor does it successfully put even a single character through its paces regarding this as required for a satisfactory ending.

~

And now we come back to Gi Hun, our Vewy Impowtant Pewson, and his unsuccessful development.

As the main character, Gi Hun’s arc is arguably the most important. Therefore, it should be the most convincing and engaging.
But it is none of these things.

Gi Hun’s relationships within the show, and any interactions therein, feel forced and overly manufactured, including those with his family.
The moral lessons the characters are put through, specifically Gi Hun, are cheap imitations of their true selves, more there to manipulate the audience emotionally rather than being true explorations of a moral question or dilemma.
These cheap moral lessons therefore have no lasting consequences on the narrative more than a few minutes, and Gi Hun’s actions constantly undermine any moral lesson he might have learnt along the way.

As previously established, Gi Hun is introduced as unlikable and stays so upon re-joining the game.

The show tries to redeem Gi Hun first by having him choose Il Nam during the Marble Game in Episode 6.
But does Gi Hun choose Il Nam in the Marble Game because he’s truly a decent person underneath everything, or because the narrative requires him to choose Il Nam to farther manipulate our emotions? Il Nam is established as a pitiable character, that is what you are supposed to view him as and therefore what Gi Hun views him as. It was inevitable and predictable that he be chosen for the Marble Game, because how else is the show supposed to elicit an emotional response from us?

But any true righteous decision making on Gi Hun’s end is undermined immediately by him trying to lie, cheat, and manipulate Il Nam so he can win over the Old Man (With Fake? Dementia for extra pity points). Gi Hun never actively wishes to sacrifice himself for Il Nam, or make the choice to be the better person, nor does he exhibit any greater remorse for the final result of the Marble Game than a few minutes of gratuitous sadness: the grace offered him does not prompt him to act any differently actually at all, it’s Sangwoo’s actions and Sae Byeok’s death that arguably do more, making this whole sequence basically nothing more than an emotional puff piece.

He’s not really likable or supportable before this, and this scenario has an almost reverse effect, as it doesn’t make him any MORE likable or supportable either, just possibly even less so.

The show then again tries to redeem Gi Hun by having him finally show righteous anger when Sangwoo pushes the 3rd runner up to the Squid Game into the glass pane on the Bridge, so that the last three can safely (not) get across. Except why THIS action specifically would make Gi Hun turn to righteous anger and not any of the other countless deaths he himself has been morally liable in, or even Il Nam’s “death”, is in my opinion, weak.

And finally the show tries to claim Gi Hun’s redemption by having Sae Byeok stop him from killing Sangwoo on the last night, by calling him “🌸~a good person~🌸.” But this interaction feels cheap, and ineffectual. This line at this point does not feel truly earned. What reason does Sae Byeok of all people have for saying this? Him looking out for her a couple of times 4 episodes ago and then not speaking to her till now? Their relationship hasn’t been properly explored up until this very moment, it hasn’t been organically developed over time and this line and the conversation that follows it is actually only there to make Sae Byeok’s death have more emotional impact. Not because it makes sense for it to be there.

I suppose the intent of the show was to have the events culminate, starting with his relationship with Il Nam, and then from the Marble Game onwards to Gi Hun’s breaking point. But I felt this was not successfully shown or explored, most significantly because Gi Hun only showed emotion at very specific character deaths the show required him to react to, and he was not challenged morally by the entire nature of the show until the very end, and only at the expense of more characters, and more emotional manipulation; it’s only conveniently *after* Sae Byeok’s death at Sangwoo’s hands, that the weight of this ~entire~ game FINALLY begins to rest on Gi Hun.

Finally, you know, after 463 people have died, right in front of him, and after the show fridged it’s only investable character… (exploration of fundamental moral implications WHERE)

In the last episode Gi Hun furiously fights Sangwoo, until he finally realises that despite everything, he cannot kill his childhood friend. (You know, because killing hundreds of random strangers is fine, including old men who will die anyway, but childhood best friends you haven’t seen in years? Not doable, sorry.)

He refuses to kill Sangwoo and throws the game…

…

Oh no, can it be? The show actually making a moral statement about everything after all this time? Addressing it’s foundational set up, its complex moral dilemmas, and holding its characters accountable?

Could it be an actual worthwhile resolution involving a kind of true sacrifice wherein the main character fully accepts the weight of his actions and then the grace offered to him to keep living?

Honestly, that would’ve been ok if they’d just left it at that. Not convincing, and badly written sure, but it’s basically the only time a main character made a good moral choice in the show, that wasn’t pointless in some way…

… No just kidding it’s not doing that…

No, wait they make this one pointless too…

…
(from here on out, the author becomes increasingly more deranged and less coherent in her anger towards this Godforsaken stupidity fest)

…

Only FOR THE SHOW TO THROW THIS ALL BACK IN OUR FACES IN ITS LAST, FINAL HOORAH, which is actually, multiple, smaller hoorahs… drawn out over half an episode, at the expense of what at this point is the scraps of my insanity.

Sangwoo stabs himself in the neck, dooming Gi Hun to win this condemnable game, making Gi Hun’s actions mean nothing, either in the moment or in the greater narrative.

Gi Hun returns home to find his mother dead: one of his primary motivations other than personal greed for joining the game in the first place now null and void, making his win that much more bitter.

However, instead of this being yet again a ~possible learning point~, Gi Hun decides to REGRESS in character development at this point: He does not stay true to his actions in the final fight, and, instead of keeping his promise to Sae Byeok, to his daughter, or to the memory of his childhood friend, to the memory of anyone who died, was killed, or sacrificed in the game, instead of learning from any of this, decides actually no thank you, he’d much rather be homeless for a year and abandon everything.

Until the show requires him to act again, of course, and he meets Il Nam on his death bed.
Where, as if we weren’t already in dire storytelling straights (so dire, please save me), probably the most confusing thematic exchange goes down in this entire show.

Gi Hun, first and foremost BLAMES Il Nam (and by extension anyone involved in implementing the game), for all the events that have expired.

Il Nam, before answering any of Gi Hun’s demands, asks Gi Hun to play one more game. Or rather, makes one more bet. Gi Hun accepts. He doesn’t ring the police himself, doesn’t defy Il Nam and never hear his reasoning by taking matters into his own hands and going down there and helping the homeless guy himself, no, he just stands there and waits, because apparently, he still can’t resist a good gamble on someone’s life. As if he hadn’t had enough of that already.

Il Nam then asks Gi Hun if he still believes there is good in the world, and if he can still trust anybody to be good even after everything he’s been through.
This supposed thematic message infuriates me personally because the closest any other point in the show came to exploring this idea, of all ideas, was 1, the Husband crying OH THE HUMANITY after the Marble Game, which as we know, had no frakking narrative weight, and 2. Gi Hun’s anger at Sangwoo over Sae Byeok’s death. But neither of these moments actually explored this specific, direct, question.
And the show at no other point had any character actually properly struggle with this question, this idea, or this message, and at no other point was this AN ACTUAL POINT OF THE SHOW. (You could argue that this is an implied moral, by the premise again, maybe, except that nobody was “good” like this in the first place, and like all the other morals, for *proper* resolution, that requires proper development, and not just the show bringing it up in the very last episode.)

Il nam then goes on to ask Gi Hun if the reason he didn’t use the money, is because he feels guilty. Gi Hun proceeds to continue to blame Il Nam for everything, in a splendid display of the pot calling the kettle black.

Il Nam continues himself by throwing out yet another line, saying that living is no fun; as for the poor as for the rich (yeah, in their complete disregard for other people…?), and that he and some friends started the game because they were bored and had no joy to their lives anymore. (Yes, I too start Death Game Cults because I am bored and have low dopamine… )

And then, at Gi Hun’s sustained indignation, Il Nam points out that Gi Hun CHOSE to enter the game… the only other time since episode 1, that the show has addressed this foundational element of its premise.
The conversation dies out, someone helps the homeless man but Il Nam dies before seeing himself lose the game. Gi Hun NOW decides to enact upon his promises.

…

This is all, supposedly, some statement, some actual resolution of everything, and presumably it thinks it’s a good one at that.
It’s neither. This ending, from Sangwoo’s suicide onwards, is wholly unsatisfying.

~
☠️ Gi Hun refuses, in this finale, to acknowledge that joining the game was his choice, meaning that Gi Hun never actually takes responsibility for his own actions, ever, not once in the show. Not for failing his duty as a father to his daughter, not for being willing to lead Il Nam to his death through lying, not for gambling his mother’s life away, not for entering the game, nothing.

Look. Fine. You joined a death game, to make up for your years and years of mistakes and neglect of your family. Your family died anyway and you regress into depression. But at no point does Gi Hun actively show remorse or repentance for this outcome- his mother’s death, the loss of his daughter, and the emptiness he gained from winning the game- being HIS OWN FAULT.

This resolution is unsatisfying because our main character, the person we’re supposed to have followed throughout this whole story, and preferably be most invested in, remains unlikable and unrelatable to the very end.
It’s unsatisfying because the show never made us truly care about Gi Hun or his arc; He remains until the end a truly detestable main character, his redemption and character arc ultimately failing.

~

☠️ But as a result of this, it’s also unsatisfying because it was Gi Hun specifically who survived.
Sae Byeok’s death was in some ways inevitable. She was, unfortunately, never the truest main character. But her death suffers the same fate as almost every death before hers; it is inauthentic, ineffective and meaningless.
Killing her was meant to elicit one last visceral emotional shock reaction from the audience. It was done to make you sad. As a result, it too, has little lasting, meaningful narrative effect.
But it’s not just ineffective, it actually has a negative effect on story. Because Sae Byeok is consistently the only character I wholeheartedly cared about, (and the most popular character from the show overall), killing her gives your audience negative investment in anything you do or say next.
You’ve just killed off the arguably one single part of your show that doesn’t suck, that actually worked, that did the job it’s supposed to do, for *emotional shock value*, to keep alive a protagonist *nobody likes*; why should your audience care about anything you have to say after this?

(Side rant: her death is also stupid because a) the Bridge game is stupid and b) it involves probably my most hated film inaccuracy – which is also its own trope – of all frakking time.
The Bridge of Glass explodes at the end of Episode 7, showering the entire amphitheatre in bullets of deadly razor-sharp shards. For some reason Sae Byeok is the only one hit fatally by this (in reality they should all be sliced to pieces) but the very fact that it exists is doubly absurd.
Oh, congratulations you just survived a death game, with the easiest survival hack in existence, that you didn’t use, HERE’S SOME EXPLODING GLASS, and a mortal injury.
Oh, you just got hit with exploding glass as collateral damage from the stupidest game in existence? Too bad. HERE’S A SUIT and a steak knife.
*Irony Points: DING DING DING*
And then, even if Sangwoo hadn’t killed her, she would’ve bled out and died anyway. Why? BECAUSE SHE PULLED OUT THE DAMN GLASS SHARD. I mean. At least her bleeding out from that is accurate. *But that’s why you don’t frakking pull it out.* I hate this trope so much you have no idea. Actually, you should all by now, have an idea, because I NEVER shut up about it.
Moving on.)

Caring about your characters, as I have already mentioned because I’m starting to lose my mind and repeat myself, is directly tied to caring about what you have to say through them.
As I have also previously mentioned, you do not actually have to “like” a character to find them “likable”, or to care about them. Extracurricular is the perfect example of this.
But it is imperative you have the investment of your audience, which it is easiest and most compelling to do through character, if you wish to say anything at all, and be successful at it.
One can find a sort of investment, or perhaps merely a kind of enjoyment, in a story through base entertainment or shock value alone, but from a critical point of view this doesn’t make a story good.

And so I would argue, that Sae Byeok, should not have died.
And not just because I am biased because she’s my favourite character, but because I think the narrative would’ve had more impact had she been the survivor. I don’t have the perfect answer for how I would’ve solved all my other issues, in letting her live; but it would’ve at least made the final fight more satisfying for me. If instead you forgo the glass shard drama, and brought Gi Hun’s arc to a culmination of righteous anger, in which he and Sangwoo fought to the death and then they BOTH died, by in that final moment giving Gi Hun a reason to die, id est that someone else might live, it would both work as a final selfless act, where him attempting to throw the game in the original does not, and as the tragedy that the situation verily is. You would then leave Sae Byeok, who was more convincing in her reaction to Jiyong’s death than Gi Hun has been at anything in his arc ever, a character that can now clearly feel the weight of this game, to live for everyone else.
It wouldn’t be perfect, as I said, and Sae Byeok’s arc here would need some stronger support in previous episodes to be truly effective, but I think this would be a good place to start fixing this show, and turning Gi Hun’s unlikableness into something productive, if one wanted to do that.

~

All of this results in this show being ineffective and failing, for the fourth time, in thematic resolution.

In failing Gi Hun’s development alone, the show fails its narrative task of character. In failing its narrative task of character, it fails to address the severe moral implications demanded by its set up. And in failing the moral implications demanded by its set up, the show fails any attempted thematic message it might make, social commentary or otherwise.

The show, however, does not recognise that in failing in character and implication it fails in theme. Instead, it tries to make a point based on social commentary alone. It, like Gi Hun, blames Il Nam, representative of an oppressive system, for the events for the events that transpired, wholly and totally, or so one can interpret from the ending.

But the show cannot support itself in this, having multiple points that actively go against this throughout its run.

The characters can choose to stop playing the game, at the loss of the reward money, and do so. They then choose to come back to the game. The Husband tries to make a moral statement about what they’re all doing. Gi Hun gets mad at Sangwoo for making choices that only benefit him. Gi Hun makes the choice to throw the game, unable to kill his childhood friend. Il Nam calls Gihun out on his choice to join the game himself.

But then…

Sae Byeok explores through the vents once, and then never again, though it would be to her constant advantage. Minyeo and Sae Byeok smuggle items into the game to give them an edge, but these are only used once or twice and to no lasting effect. Similarly, characters actively think of ways to beat the sugar and tug o war games, but not the bridge game in any way that makes sense.

The detective’s arc goes nowhere. His plea for an explanation of why his brother would join this Thing, (not Il Nam, not a VIP, but his brother), falls on deaf ears and is never answered. Nobody actively tries to fight against either their own moral corruption or the game itself. Nobody tries to vote out of the game again after episode 1. The Husband’s cry for humanity fails. Gi Hun never stops to question what drives his OWN choices and how THEY might affect others. There is sacrifice but nobody else dies in defiance against the principle of the game itself, least of all Sangwoo. Individual survival constantly takes the moral high ground. Gi Hun only blames Il Nam at the end.
The premise by default implies that individual choice is important and therefore must be addressed, but the ending of the show claims otherwise, instead choosing to accuse a system.

~

But you cannot set up your show with a moral implication and then never properly address it.
And you cannot just blame the system for this, as constantly blaming a systemic issue robs your characters of moral agency and responsibility; if they’re actually just “players in a game”, with no choice, nothing they do or say or claim matters.
And if nothing they do or say or claim matters, and has no individual consequence (narratively or otherwise), then there would be no point in needing your audience to emotionally connect or react, and there would be no need to manipulate us in any way, (since you couldn’t do connect to us organically.)
But if what your characters do DOES matter, as other parts of the show support, (as do the conventions of Storytelling in general, and also Lyfe) then what they choose to do, be it to join a death game or fail at the duties of fatherhood, do matter, no matter what external forces are exerted upon them, and no matter how you attempt to convince us otherwise.
~
So, what’s going on here?
Is or is not the show trying to say that everyone has a choice and their choices are important or is the show trying to blame a corrupt and manipulative system for the sins of man? Because it does neither of these successfully and it can’t say yes to both or no to both because that would be contradictory. And yet it tries to say yes AND no to both resulting in mixed messages, and those mixed messages being ultimately self-defeating.
(1)+(1)+ (-1) + (-1) = 0

This is not, and cannot be, satisfying thematic resolution.

.
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PART 5: NARRATIVE RIGGING

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And so in failing its narrative task of theme thus, the show proves itself to be guilty of narrative rigging.

Sangwoo’s suicide is representative of him accepting that the system is rigged and that someone, in this case Gi Hun, is “doomed to win.”

This is implicative of the narrative itself (and its creators) thinking that this is the only possible outcome: the system is cursed, the outcome doomed; someone must always win, and at great cost.

Which in turn, makes the narrative rigged, and guilty of forcing outcomes and choices to push a certain ideology, narrative and message, contrary to any internal or external logic.

~

But this is, of course, false storytelling.

At the very end Gi Hun is given the CHOICE to enter one last game. He accepts.
Other than this choice, there are, at any given point in time throughout this entire exchange, always two other extant choices.
One, is that Gi Hun can, by dint of accepting the game, also not accept the game. This does not go away, just because he first chose to accept it.
The other is that Gi Hun, by being a spectator in this game, can choose, like Il Nam before him, to also be a player in this game, and go help the homeless man *HIMSELF*. But the show refuses to acknowledge that these are extant options, although they are, and must be, by the systems own logic; ergo the system cannot be cursed.

Likewise, the show refuses to acknowledge any other extant options within its own narrative, despite the fact that both narrative logic, and the actual narrative itself, time and time again, work against the message that the show seems to be trying to push in its conclusion.
These options exist, whether the show wants them to or not, even more so because of the show’s own plot holes.

For another example:
You are damned if you play (morally) and damned if you don’t (physically), but you are slightly less damned if you just refuse to play the game at all, which nobody ever does and the show never addresses properly as an option. Why not? Why does nobody try and beat the game or fight against its intentions!
That’s not NOT an option! The story itself supports this!
Nobody dies in anyone’s arms, refusing to play. Nobody martyrs themselves, refusing to play. Nobody tries to “break” the game so that they don’t have to “play”. Nobody tries to defeat the whole game from the inside out, and yet I cannae think of a single good reason as to why.

~

A death game is a genric narrative tool, designed to increase stakes and push moral boundaries to their extreme limits. But it is still just that; a genre and a narrative tool.
And as with any narrative device, the foundation behind the idea and the execution of the idea is paramount to whether or not your work’s Secondary Belief, and therefore your art itself, succeeds.

You cannot have humans act in extreme (and unbelievable) ways, whilst ignoring your own internal statements at the expense of your logic, just to drive home some “deep” symbolic metaphor about a system.

(And even if you could, the metaphor itself doesn’t support this.

If the System that Gi Hun blames in this show is merely a metaphor for the Game and Systems of Real Life, then boy buddy do I have news for you.

Constantly shifting the blame elsewhere achieves nothing. The system is not to blame for you being a terrible person. If you must participate in Lyfe, in any respect, then you can choose not to be an asshole. You can choose to value human life. You don’t get a free pass just because everything else is broken. You’re not actually in a death game; it only works so far, as a metaphor for any real-life situation, because you are not actually in your everyday life at every given moment and choice and decision, held at literal gun point.
Real life is not about winning, and if you have to sell your soul to Win at Lyfe, why you are not living at all.
As such you cannot apply this metaphor past a certain point.)

But it’s not that you CAN’T write a narrative in a certain way to produce a sole outcome; if you’re smart you can even do this so it’s organic and not rigged.

It’s that this show is so self-contradictory and stupid in its execution, of EVERYTHING, that it fails, at Everything. It lacks the self-awareness and finesse, the complexity for what it is (assumedly) trying to do, to work at all.

In saying that
A. There are no other choices (when there are) and
B. Humans DO act like this (when they do not, and without backing this up in execution)
The show denies its own reality, and actual reality, and is therefore, Not True.
The show denies Truth. Secondary Belief is completely shattered.

The Art has Failed, at almost everything it is designed as Art to achieve:

The premise fails.
The violence fails.
The character writing fails.
The thematic writing fails.

The production design is left as a painted, hollow shell, it too failing because everything else needed to support it has failed.

The art has nothing more to offer itself to anyone but a couple of acting accolades, and they really all only belong to Jung Ho Yeon.

.
.
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CONCLUSION

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I watch Squid Game and I see nothing but empty half messages, no commitment to any, halfhearted, underwritten, underdeveloped, self-defeatist and contradictory, wallowing in a mire of pretentiousness and grandiose self-importance, shallow dramatic façade and egotistical ignorance and violence- all in all resulting in no message at all.

Squid Game says Nothing.

And I reject that as good storytelling.

.
.
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And now, finally if you made it this far, I present to you a discussion question:
Do death games fridge everyone by default lmao
…

Total Body Word Count: I Don’t Know. And I don’t really want to know either.

☠️