REVIEW: Squid Game

After watching season one of the Squid Game, a lot of people have a fair amount of questions about what they just saw. So I compiled some answers to the most important questions about squid games. And with that said, let's get into it. We know that these games we've been watching have been going on for decades and we all know that number one was definitely safe during the marble game and he would definitely be safe from the sugar honey corn game as well. However, there was no indication that he was safe during the red light, green light games but after the tug of war game, you can see that he has no locks on the handcuffs connecting his wrists to the rope. He disappeared for most of the brawl, but at the end, he appeared on a safe elevated bed above everyone else. In fact, his cries to make everything stop is what cue the front man to turn on the lights and send the troops in, which was a quick sign.

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My favourite detail hinting on number one being the host of the games, in episode seven VIPs you can see his white hair in this dotted pin from behind and you can also see his old man hands when he sets down the mask on the table. I also love episode eight “front men” when all the bed frames are removed from the main room you could see that every game that participants are going to play was painted on the wall. Everyone was dying to know what the next game was going to be. But the answer was literally written on the walls the entire time.

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Every time a participant dies 100 million is added to the prize money. With 456 participants, the total prize money is 45, 6000,000 Won which is equivalent to around $38 million in the US. What is squid game really about? An interview with squid game director Hwang Dong-hyuk claims,

“I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition somewhat like the extreme competition of life,”.

When player 119 grabs a gun and tells one of the guards to take off his mask. We just see a young looking man who kind of looks like a kid but then later on we see a bunch of other guards who look older and are trying to smuggle organs out of the facility. So the guards definitely vary in age but so far appear to be only male. This job would attract criminals, like the thugs who track down the main character in the first episode as these thugs were also trying to sell other people's organs. I don't think the guards go through some harsh conditioning or anything as they were pretty patient with Jin Ho when he was undercover.

There's also zero trust between the front man and the guards as there is a camera in each room belonging to a guard. The guards were also compared to soldiers in the real world at one point as one of the guards says to player 111, “It's a huge problem when a player goes missing. But when it's a soldier no one cares about that”. A player as in a civilian and a soldier as in a soldier presenting to us with some social commentary about sending troops to die in for profit wars and no one caring.

When Seong Gi-hun is playing the game with the salesman in the subway, he's given the choice between red or blue. This is a reference to the movie “The Matrix”. In the matrix Morpheus offers Neo a choice between a red pill or a blue pill. If you take the blue pill, you will remain ignorant and continue living in your prison. If you take the red pill. You learn the unpleasant truths of reality and see the world for what it really is. Seong Gi-hun who's wearing a blue hat chooses blue and when we get to the island and we see everyone else playing the same game almost everyone is using the blue square. This symbolism is further brought home as the song in the blue Danube by Johann Strauss plays as the characters walk throughout the facility. This song was famously used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that shows a bleak outlook on the future of humanity. In the 2001 case, Kubrick has the song play over the characters travelling through space as technology and automation cause the humans to become more pathetic as they let technology take control of their lives. In squid game the song is used before each game indicating that these characters are asleep and are enslaved by this capitalist system.

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Seong Gi-hun remains ignorant until a year after he completes the game. He learns the truth from number one then number one created the game out of order. Seong Gi-hun dyes his hair red as he chooses the path of enlightenment deterring anyone from entering the game and instead of going back to the US to see his daughter he chooses the path of what appears to be taking down the organisation.