#he does still care about him but he knows gi-hun has to die if he’s going to win

[always---wrong]

One of my favorite scenes from season 1

Gi-hun! Do you know why your life is so pathetic? Because you ask the dumbest questions even in this situation. Constantly minding other people's business with that pea brain of yours, not knowing your ass from your elbow.

[shezzabee]

What are your thoughts on the idea that Inho's obsession with Gihun might do with the fact that Gihun reminds him of his dead wife?

I'm biased because I absolutely eat it up. I never been the same after seeing a post here that compared Gihun's s1 smiling photo with a photo of Inho's wife smiling.

There's also the fact that in s2 ep4, Inho called his wife stubborn, and how theres no point in arguing with her once she set her mind on something (going through her pregnancy despite her being very sick).

It made me think of Gihun's dedication of finding the Recruiter/Salesman, his insistance on being put back in the game...and him not listening to Inho when being told to get on the plane.

With this in mind, Inho's "Just get on the plane. It's for your own good." can be read more that just one man telling another man with who he shares similar trauma, to get the good life he doesn't have (but it's absolutely valid!!)

It could also be Inho (without realizing it) pleading for Gihun (his wife) to listen to him (the doctors), and (this time) survive. But just like with his wife, Gihun isn't budging with his decision. He made up his mind, go argue with a wall.

(Now it doesn't mean that Inho saw his wife in Gihun in an instance. It happens slowly as Inho gets closer to him)

Hi! Thanks for the question. I think I know the post you’re referring to—my shipper brain absolutely devoured that too, not gonna lie. XD

Even beyond the shipping lens, though, everything you’ve said really resonates. It feels like the core of their dynamic, doesn’t it? In-ho is clearly drawn to something about Gi-hun’s refusal to compromise on his principles, his unshakable belief in humanity, and his conviction that things can still turn out for the better. The only other person In-ho has explicitly mentioned as being just as stubborn as Gi-hun is his late wife, which feels like a significant parallel.

Now, of course, this is all speculation, and we won’t know In-ho’s full motivations until Season 3 (hopefully) sheds some light. But I don’t think In-ho has ever truly moved on from his wife’s death. He’s still grieving, still carrying the weight of that loss. He’s angry—angry at himself for not being there when his wife and child died, angry at the world for the circumstances that led to it, and probably angry at the Games themselves for existing. (I’ll die on the hill that In-ho hates the Games, despite being their enforcer.) He’s also angry at humanity at large for failing people in need, for letting the world get to this point.

And I think there’s a part of him that’s angry at his wife, too, (don't kill me, hear me out). She was self-sacrificing to a fault, willing to risk her own life to save their unborn child. That mirrors what we see in Gi-hun, especially at the end of Season 1. In the final game, after Sang-woo is defeated, Gi-hun refuses to abandon his morals to win, even when the easier path is right in front of him. That kind of unyielding determination, that refusal to bend—even at great personal cost—has to strike a nerve with In-ho.

Since In-ho can’t confront his late wife or tell her she was wrong to risk it all, to leave him alone, he directs all that unresolved grief and anger toward Gi-hun instead. Gi-hun becomes a constant, painful reminder of everything In-ho lost—and everything he’s come to resent about the world.

So, what does In-ho do? He sets out to break Gi-hun. To tear apart everything and everyone Gi-hun cares about until all that’s left is despair. Maybe then, In-ho can finally say: “See? There’s no point. None of it means anything. You were wrong—just like she was wrong.”

It’s a cruel and calculated move, but also deeply human. If he can prove that Gi-hun’s ideals and morals are meaningless, it would, in a twisted way, justify the choices In-ho has made and the person he’s become.

In the end, it’s not just about Gi-hun or his late wife. It’s about In-ho’s own pain, his need to make sense of the senseless, and his desperate attempt to validate the path he’s taken—even if it’s at the expense of someone who still believes in the good.

[sof1eee]

A rant/defending Cho Sangwoo actions

I love him so much he's such a complex and good written character, and this is basically just me ranting about my babygirl

So the first thing that i want to clarify is the reason why he joined the squid game, many people just immediately assumed that he wanted the money all for himself which is wrong. Personally, i think he DID joined the game for the money (obviously everyone did) BUT he also wanted to win the money for his mother. He wanted to show his mom that he is actually successful and to make her proud (obviously his mom is already so proud of him, but he doesn't know that). Also he literally was being hunted down by the police because he embezzled money from his client, so he definitely needed the money to pay all of that money off and bail himself out of jail. Obviously by the end, he kind of got money hungry, I won't deny that. I also want to remind you guys that the squid game is literally a last resort for EVERYONE in the game.

I feel like this is one of the big reason why people hate him which is, he killed Sae-Byeok and Ali. Even though I'm a Sang-Woo fan, i still BAWLED my eyes out when Ali or Sae-Byeok died, but i feel like it is understandable why he killed them both. Now let's start with Ali first. He doesn't even know Ali THAT long, he had only known him for LESS THAN A WEEK. So the fact that he betrayed Ali and took all of the marbles, i wouldn't really say that it's "selfish". Let's try to put on Sang-Woo's perspective for a second, "you're in a Life or Death game in which if you LOSE, you're never gonna see the light of day ever again, and you're playing against this guy, you've known him for 5 days (?) and he is WINNING, this is NOT good, obviously. If he does win, you'll die. You start to think of your mother back at home, who would take care of her? She's old and she's can't take care of herself, you're her only family left. You can't just leave her alone right? You're in this game because you wanted to help her, make her live a comfortable life without worries about money or food on the table. You CAN'T just die right now. No. You NEED to live. You need to WIN. For her. For your mother. And lucky for you, your opponent seems to be gullible, maybe you can win this afterall. I mean yeah, you're gonna indirectly kill him but... he's just a nobody. You've known for like what.. 5 days? He's not as important as your mom, right? Sure, he probably has a family but that's his own problem. Everyone in this game have a family, everyone wanted to survive. So, you betrayed him, sure u do feel guilty, but hey, it's the battle of the strongest right?" So basically, would you choose a random stranger you just met or your family? If you really think about it, Sangwoo was being very reasonable here.

Okay so now about Sae-Byeok's death, okay so let's be realistic for a second. Sae-Byeok's would've died from blood loss either way if Sang-woo didn't kill her. A glass shard literally stabbed her in the stomach and there was no way in hell the guards or the frontman were gonna treat her for it. There was only two options for her, dying slowly from blood loss or getting killed by Sang-woo, which was much more faster. Sang-Woo's reasons for killing her was that if Sae-Byeok and Gi-Hun voted to leave, they'll be the majority it need to stop the games. So I could definitely see where he's coming from, i mean imagine you literally just saw HUNDREDS of people died, you already killed 2 people, you ALMOST died and you haven't showered or eaten a proper meal for almost a week, ALL FOR THE 45.6 BILLION WON BUT THEN TURNS OUT YOU'RE PROBABLY JUST DID ALL OF THAT FOR NOTHING BECAUSE YOU'RE GONNA GET OUTVOTED BY TWO PEOPLE. So basically you just got a whole lot of trauma, YOU'RE STILL BROKE, the police are coming to get you and you can't see your mom because you're ashamed of yourself. Like damn, i would've done the same ngl....

"He didn't tell Gi-Hun what the second game was even though he knew!" Okay so yes i do agree with this, i think he should've told Gi-Hun about it! But if you hate Sang-woo for that reason then Gi-Hun deserve to be hated too, he did the exact same thing with the old man in the marble game. He lied and let the old man lose so he could have the advantage and win. THIS JUST SHOWS THAT THE GAME WAS DESIGNED TO BRING THE WORST OUT OF PEOPLE!!!! EVEN GI-HUN, OUR MAIN CHARACTER, LIED AND INDIRECTLY KILLED SOMEONE! (obviously the old guy didn't die but Gi-Hun didn't know that).

"Sang-woo didn't care about his mother." First of all, NO????? WHERE THE HELL DID U GET THAT FROM??? Like i said from the beginning, his mom was ONE OF THE REASON why he joined the games anyway! He didn't want to go back home and be a disappoinment to EVERYONE. Literally if you guys remember, his mom and Gi-Hun wasn't the only one who keeps bragging about him attending SNU, EVEYONE IN THE TOWN LITERALLY CALLED HIM "The genius of Ssamun-Dong". Further-more, his LAST WORDS were literally "Gi-Hun.... take care... of my mom.." WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE NEVER CARED FOR HER????

"He didn't feel guilty or remorseful after what he'd done." Okay so... did u watched the show with your eyes closed? Look i know he killed some people but he's still HUMAN. He FLINCHED when he heard the gunshot that shot Ali. His mental state was getting worse day by day. Right before he stab himself in the neck, he said "Hyung.... I'm sorry.." and I think he said that not only because he was apologizing for killing Sae-Byeok but also to just say sorry for every single thing he had done up until that moment. The guilt was obviously eating him alive.

The reason why he killed himself. He was already suicidal from the beginning, in episode 2, he tried to kill himself. He thinks living is just not worth it anymore, he has lost hope in humanity. Squid game was his last resort to try and fix his mistake. Maybe he can finally be the son his mother was proud of. The only reason why he killed himself at the end was because he trusted Gi-Hun. He trusted him to take care of his mom. He knew he couldn't live his life with the guilt of killing his childhood bestfriend. He knew Gi-Hun is a nice guy and would help his mother. He knew Gi-Hun would use the money to do something good. Like i said, he trusted him. At that point, Sang-woo thinks this was the best case scenario, him dying and Gi-Hun living. So in that moment, he chose to kill himself.

______________________________________________

Erm so I might've yapped a little too much but it's about Sang-woo so who cares am i right? 😂

Please actually read all of it 💔🙏🏻

TL;DR: Sang-woo is a complex and good written character that the dummies can't handle xx 💕

[aliceinborderlandsquidgame]

Sangwoo x Wife!Reader In the games HCS

Summary: How would Sangwoo be with his Wife in theg games Warnings: Death - Canon violence - Angst - Mentions of suicide -

At first Sangwoo will try his best to hide the fact that he is in debt. He feels shame over it, how he lost his composture and ended in this type of situation.

Sangwoo its someone who fakes and hides his feelings a lot. He alwyas as felt like he needed to be the best for his mother to get a better life. Later on you came into the picture and the pressure got worse.

However, you are his wife and can tell something is off about him. As soon as he admits what is happening you will be reasuring him that everything will be fine, and that both of you will find a way out.

During games we can see different routes:

He has two things in mind, win and protect you. He tried to stop from coming with him but you insisted.

"Till deat do us apart, remember?"

You are the only one who he truly cares about besides himself. He will tell you to be close to him all the time and to not trust others, not even Gi-hun. He also tells you to follow him in every game, whatever choise he makes you must follow it.

Will talk to you away from the rest and tell you to rely on him. And to not question him.

During the first night when everything went to chaos he has you at his side through all of it.

If you two go with someone else at the marbles game and end winning Sangwoo is keeping himself close to you and thanking heavens he decided not to team up with you, even if you were a bit ofended by it at the start.

It ends with both of you hugging each other after it. Sangwoo does not want to be seen as "soft" or "weak" so he will take you to the bathroom where he will let you cry in his arms and even him will cry a bit, the idea of losing you and the fact that it was a close call was too much.

If you two went together then Sangwoo will insist you are the one who must survive and get out, making you promise him to take care of his mother and telling you to live a better life. He will call you names and say things like he never loved you to make you angry at him so you will decide to let him die in there.

"Cant you see we are here because of you? Because you always wanted things that were out of our reach? I tried my best and look around now. We are surronded by bodies because of you"

"Do you know why i decided to date you? Because Gi-hun dared me and I accepted. You just were so dumb and fell right for it. I never wanted to marry you, but i could not pass the chance to get a better image for my friends and mother"

Bet you wont believe him and will pull him down for a kiss. You would bait him into thinking that he lost but at the end he sees with desesperation how the guard is going to take you instead of him.

"I love you Sangwoo, and i cant imagine a life without you, so please, please win this game and live for the both of us"

He will be heartbroken after it but wont consider suicide since he promised you to live for both and not for himself. He gets more distant and cold toward others for the rest of the games.

With the game of the glass bridge he will try his best to protect you. Does not mind a bit once he pushes down that player to save you. If he needs to calm you down after it he will do it.

"It was our only option, we would have died otherwise"

For the final night pre final game he will still go and kill Sae-byeok only feeling bad about it because she was close to you in the games. If the game master insist other has to die then it will be a fight till death with Gi-hun.

If he wins and both of you have to fight against each other in the last game, Sangwoo will still sacriface himself for you, even if he is the one with better chances of winning.

If it comes down to Gi-hun and you its going to be a serious fight. Gi-hun knows you and likes you but he cant help but see Sangwoo on yourself and how he acted in the games. He also wants to see his daugther again.

[cupids-carnival]

i actually Have More thoughts i’d like to add…. if you even care…………….. random facts & info abt this au below the cut! :D i actually thought about it more this time and even if it’s not fleshed out fully i hope u like it ^_^ i might even write a fic about this……. if my motivation will let me and you guys like it…………..

(for added context, this iteration of squid games works a little differently then the og one did, and the characters aren’t really meant to replace the original ones !!!!! :D also a teeny bit ooc but they’re in A Death gameso………….tbh i’m mostly saying that to cover up my plot holes but SHH!!!!!!!!!!!)

clown snuck a dagger inside of the games !!!!!!!! like sae-byeok did!!!!!!!! constantly wishes he had his sycthe back though

there’s also some other lifestealers there …….. ash & squiddo team up in the marbles game . take that as you will……..

evbo— like gi-hun— is really stubborn about his morals, believing most of the people in the games are good people and don’t deserve to be put in the games. but unlike gi-hun, he has no problem indirectly or directly killing people, like how he is parkour civ ! it doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret it / feel guilty about it, just that he doesn’t have a problem with it in the moment if it means he gets to survive and pursue his goals (ending the games/saving his friends, and other people)

the reason evbo is in debt is Because he impulsively Bought A Whole House. a nod to pvp evbo and the whole pvp mansion thing LOLL

evbo and emf ended up pairing together for the marbles game (emf ended up losing)

seawatt ended up betraying ally (ali reference) HARD in the marble games, basically manipulating them like sang-woo did and stole all their marbles. doesn’t really regret this, even if he’s a little guilty about it. willing to do anything to survive in the games

the reason seawatt & ally ended up in the games is basically a punishment, or a repaying of debt. they, both former guards, got in BIG trouble with the front man / evil champion, so they were basically forced to play the games as a form of punishment. seawatt was pretty confident the evil champion wouldn’t kill him— as he was a pretty high ranking guard, to the point he was almost like his right hand man, like in park civ— until he got Dangerously close to dying and got saved by evbo, which pushed him to join evbo’s group since evbo was already showing that he was willing to protect seawatt in some form (and also made him realize he wasn’t as protected as he thought he was). ally ended up joining evbo & seawatt since ally vaguely knew seawatt from the time they were gaurds & thought evbo as a good person, but also really naive.

the final three are clown, seawatt, and evbo.

clown takes sang-woo’s place in this, as he ends up killing an injured seawatt while evbo isn’t looking.

seawatt, while dying, does end up saying something along the lines of “for what it's worth, I was telling the truth when I said I enjoyed working with you” to evbo. evbo, despite already knowing of seawatt’s betrayal to him (due to him working w the evil champion) is wracked with guilt because of this. he still sometimes wonders if seawatt truly meant it even after the games were over! :D

instead of clown sacrificing himself for evbo though, or both of them choosing to end the games willingly, evbo is forced to kill clown as the other man was way too angry and filled with grief from having branzy— one of the only people he was genuinely close to in the games (and also may or may not be his first and last crush)— die, so there was no point to try to end things peacefully in clowns eyes. ofc, there’s other reasons- like clowns innate desire to win, the fact he had both his life on the line and money to win for him and his sister. evbo feels super guilty about this, because even if clown was an enemy for most of the games, he still saw how human clown was in the end; and that fact still keeps him up at night. esp in the marbles game, while he was still grief-stricken about emf, he saw how sad and vunerable clown was after branzy died (even if the other man never admitted it, and aggressively pushed evbo away when evbo tried to reach out). evbo can only hope that clown is happy w branzy in the afterlife!! :D

the reason why i wanted branzy to end up sacrificing himself for clown!!! it was to have a kaboodle cameo in there!!! :D clown ends (vaguely) mentioning his little sister, kaboodle, and branzy decided to willingly die because he knew clown would have a better usage of the money then branzy would, having a family to come back to (even if it was just a sister- still, branzy could see how much she meant to clown through how he’d speak abt her, even though he’d never met her personally!) when branzy had little to none. branzy ended up joining the games to pay off his debt, as with all the other people, but as his literal creditor was also in the games with him & the fact he ended up developing a genuine connection with the guy (to the point clown even offered to let go of his debt if they both made it out of there) left him with little reason to even use the money, so he decides to sacrifice himself! besides, clown is obviously destined for more, something great, right? and this money would surely push him to that fate:O

lastly, in clown and branzy’s last talk, branzy ends up half-jokingly mentioning running a casino together & getting married for tax benefits once they’re out of the games, which is the in-universe replacement for the whole jeju island & mojitos bit in the original squid games :D

now that i’ve rewatched squid games i’ve realized how much of a squid games au can work with all my favs…………………. slight squid games spoilers ahead!!!!!!! but also you need to watch squid games to like understand half of this lmfaooooo

squid games with evbo being the winner / “champion”, the front man being the evil, ex champion / winner, seawatt, one of evbos allies, secretly working w the gaurds / the front man, emf being evbos closest ally/friend, their entire friendship being born out of circumstances but them still being best friends anyway…. ally being someone who works with seawatt & the front man but telling evbo about seawatt anyway since they think he has a good shot of winning and doesn’t want too see him get betrayed… clown being one of evbos enemies and the parkour god being like 001 (the old man version lol) in which the cookie god tells evbo like. crucial information about the games

branzy in squid games lowkey being in debt with clown and being one of the most physically weak players (especially if lifestealers are also there) but clown protecting branzy anyway because he’s cute, but also because he’s really smart and strategic about these games— and branzy ends up accidentally saving clowns life like three times because he always comes up with a plan last minute,, clown relying on his physical strength for most games, but also being logical and calculated, which pushes him to team up with branzy because he can see the potential in him,, branzy is so confused because it looks like clown is fine on his own, with sharp thinking but also the strength to keep him safe, but clown ?? teams up with him anyway?? even when he knows branzy is in debt to him (judging based off of the vague threats clown says to him occasionally) AND THEN to add to it, branzy ends up betraying subz & vitalasy in an early game ( idk what his reasoning was though lmfao ) and then people urge clown to stay away from branzy because he’s a “known betrayer” but clown teaming up with him anyway… branzy ending up being extremely loyal to the very end, because they end up forming a genuine connection, which is the marbles game where they team up but end up being opponents………… branzy willingly gives up his life for clown ( ji-yeong style ) and clown is DEVASTATED

[downins]

hi hon! i hope you're doing well! i have a platonic one shot request: they/them yn where they're the youngest player (15-17) and is protected by most of the main characters (mostly saebyeok gi-hun and ali) the guards and front man have a soft spot for them so when yn gets sick and injured bad in the fight in ep5 they're taken to a special room by triangle guard and square guard comforts them while treating their wounds <3

"Another family?" ~platonic!oneshot~ gn!reader x all squid game characters

!warning: mentions of death, blood, violence, suicide,cursing!

Father dead, mother left the family for a better person and all of that happened when you were only eight years old. Miserable tragedies happen in your life again and again, the thought to just slit your throat never left your mind. Exhausted about everything and everyone, you're sick of the way you survive.

You steal, pickpocket and fight. It's the always the same cycle. Until one day, a gentleman offered to play a game with you and in return you're rewarded with huge amount of money.

Slap!

Slap!

When you joined the game, your main objective was to win the money and get out of there. No making friends and no falling in love. Money. Money. Money. But suddenly a man came up to you and asked your name.

"Hey kid, what's your name?"

"None of your business"

You were ice cold, it's been a while since someone wanted to make friends with you. But behind that tough mask you wear everyday, you're actually someone who is love deprived, you wanted a father figure or a mother figure. You felt quite bad for the man so you told him your name.

"Y/n"

He looked at you and stretched a smile, he seemed pretty decent and kind to you. But due to your trust issues, it was pretty hard for you to open up a little bit more to him.

"You have a nice name, I'm Gi Hun."

-After the first game-

"How did you not panic?"

A girl suddenly walked up to you and asked you sternly. The both of you were pretty common. Mean on the outside but nice on the inside. Your guard was still up.

"People die."

You replied to her question and continued walking back to the dorm with the others.

"Sae Byeok"

She wanted to know your name.

"Y/n"

You tried to smile a little bit at her and she did the same too. She looked older than you and you were curious about her age.

"How old are you?"

"21"

"Cool. I'm 16."

The way she stared at you was unforgettable. She couldn't believe it. A sixteen year old joining a game like this? When all of you arrived, she made you face her.

"Do you not love your life? The people that die just now, you could've been one of them. You can't do this to yourself."

Why does this girl care so much about you? What's the point if you died in the next game? You've always wanted to just end it all anyways.

"We'll see."

Sae Byeok promised to herself to protect you, she doesn't know the reason why but you're like her another younger sibling. Yes she's playing the game for her family but you.. you meant something to her too even though you two just met each other.

-When all of you are eating-

Because Sae Byeok wanted to make sure you're okay, she joined the team that Gi-Hun asked you to join. When you told everyone about your age, they were all so shocked. They pitied you a lot. You felt pretty safe with them so you opened up a little bit about your past and how you ended up in this hell.

"We'll make sure you get out of here safely!"

The guy who was eating his bread said to you. Player 199. You almost cried when he said that. During your entire existence, no one has ever wanted to keep you safe. And hearing that one sentence made you widened your eyes.

"I'm Ali, Ali Abdul"

He waved at you and you introduced yourself to him. You didn't want to show it but you were extremely happy inside.

-During the fight-

A buff man swinged his arm at you but fortunately you were able to block his punch. You've been getting into a lot of street fights to toughen yourself up. You kicked him in the stomach and started to look around.

The lights were flickering, you saw a man getting stabbed to death, a woman pushed off another player off the bed. Violence here and there. You were scared. You've been in all kinds of dangerous situations but not like this one. This was worst than the games.

"GOT YA!"

Another guy grabbed you and started punching your face. He wanted you dead. The punching stopped when Ali and Sang Woo attacked him together. Sae Byeok helped you up and all of you started running towards Gi Hun.

Deok Su tried to stab you but Ali managed to use a bed's metal stand to protect all of you.

"They're on our side."

Gi Hun made you stand behind him and Sae Byeok held your hand. Making sure you're okay. She checked to see if you were alright. The blood on your face made her so worried.

-After the fight-

"Fuck."

You winced at the cuts you got during the fight. Pain. You cried alone in the bathroom. And after your mental breakdowns, you washed your face and left. You walked to where your team was, they were all looking at you.

"Y/n, are you okay?"

"Y/n, we'll kill that guy."

Everyone was worried about you, they cared about you physically and mentally. Asking you questions about yourself. You've never received this type of affection before but thanks to them, they changed that for you.

Suddenly, a square guard in pink uniform walked towards all of you.

"Player 145, follow us."

Gi Hun didn't allow them to take you but he backed off when the guard pointed a gun at him. Before you left, Sae Byeok gave you a tight hug. She whispered to you before letting you go.

"I'll kill them if they hurt you. Stay safe."

You let go of her and held her hands.

"Everything is going to be fine, I'm always fine."

You rubbed her hands a few times with your thumb before leaving with the guard.

"So where are you taking me?"

No answer. So you just followed him. You walked behind him while looking around. Apparently, a deadly place like this looks pretty cool to you.

"Enter the room"

You saw two triangle guards and three square guards standing in the room. There was a table and a bed. And on the table there were a few surgery looking equipments. You were pretty scared and nervous at first.

"Sit on the bed, relax we're not going to hurt you."

One of the triangle guard tapped on the bed, signaling you to sit on it. You followed their orders because you didn't want to get hurt.

"This is going to be a little bit painful"

The other triangle guard poured some solution onto the cotton. He grabbed your face gently, making it turn to the other side and started tapping it slowly, making sure you're not in huge pain.

The square guard sat beside you and he asked you to give him your arm.

"Y/n, I'm sorry if we're hurting you but I'll make sure you're going to heal."

The triangle guard spoke, he put down the cotton and placed a plaster on your wound. He was actually smiling under the mask but you couldn't see it.

"Everything will be fine soon Y/n, we're here for you."

You almost teared up hearing their words.

"Okay so I'm going to just wrap your arm, we also have extra food if you want to."

The square guard started wrapping your arm with a bandage. He stood up and packed the equipments up in a box.

"Here's some water to make you feel better."

Another square guard handed you a bottle of water.

"What do I call you?"

You asked them after chugging down the water.

"Just pretend like we're your elder brothers?"

You laughed at their reply. In a game like this, you never knew you would be able to find another family. A much better one. Not blood related but still thankful for them.

[incurable-cough-of-death]

Long squid game meta

can we talk about how clever it is that almost every match doesn’t REQUIRE you to directly kill another person but the more into the game the people get, the more likely they are to turn on another player?

tl;dr: the game-makers meticulously designed the games to pit people against each other in order to win, not only because that could be the only way to survive the games but also to win more money that comes from the other people’s deaths. But Gi-hun, as the main character, is given the money and his life after winning the game so the audience hold onto the hope that good people will be rewarded for not stooping to the lowest levels.

First of all, I wanted to mention that the Salesman was essentially vetting people by introducing violence into the game of ddakji he plays with them. He is testing to see if these people are willing to undergo pain and humiliation in order to get a chance at winning the money from him. This not only proves to measure how desperate the people are but also to measure how much they are willing to risk: their pride, their bodies, their lives. 

Also notice that once Gi-hun wins, he does not care about the money anymore but is so frustrated and humiliated that he wants the satisfaction of hitting the Salesman back. This will translate to later on in the games, when playing has almost nothing to do with the money itself.

In the first two games, there is less likelihood of people killing each other since it’s just Red Light Green Light and people are still shell-shocked by people being shot and want to not get shot themselves so it doesn’t occur to them to use other people’s deaths to get ahead in the game nor would the game’s mechanisms really allow for that anyways since sabotaging would take too much time and thought and they need to get to the finish line quickly. Sae-byeok teases Deok-su about making him move so he gets killed but ultimately he does survive the first game.

In the honeycomb game there isn’t really a way to sabotage another player unless you went over and took their needle or broke their cookie and the guards likely would have prevented that from occurring. 

Sang-woo does let Gi-hun take the umbrella shape knowing what the game is going to be because he figures it will eliminate more competition; he only sees Gi-hun and his other teammates as competition so he doesn’t try to help them, essentially saying “if they die, they die”. And he likely rationalizes it in his mind at this point as “well I’m not the one killing them because the game-makers are the ones who decided the stakes not me”. 

The guards are also slowly depriving the players of food which leads to people becoming more aggressive. Note in the first meal they were given a bento box but then before dalgona, they were given one pastry and after that game, they were given one hard-boiled egg leading Deok-su and his crew to go back for more making the players whose meals they stole angry enough to attack. This then leads to them realizing that they are allowed to just kill each other after Deok-su kills the player whose egg he stole and in response, the piggy bank is filled up with more money. 

Thus the attacks at night occur. Deok-su and his crew kill a bunch of people in the night to slim down the competition and get more money added to the final prize pool. At this point though, the other players are mostly killing or attacking out of self-defense. 

Then, the game of tug of war makes it so that you HAVE to kill the other team in order to progress because the game-makers rigged the game so that when you get pulled off the platform, the guillotine comes down and makes the losing team drop to the ground and to their deaths; in order to win, you have to participate in murdering the team you beat. You have to pull the other team off the platform and kill them. It almost reminded me of the particicutions in “Handmaid’s Tale” where everyone has a hand in the execution and the guillotine really drives home the idea that these people are being executed for the crime of losing. 

At this point, they could have all voted to stop the game but the stakes are still too high and I imagine at this point a lot of people were thinking “well I got this far why should I stop now? What will it have meant for all those other people to be killed if I didn’t keep going?” 

Also, the teams were divided up evenly and it is unlikely at this point that just over half of the people would have voted to stop if they thought they had a good chance of winning tug of war; not everyone on each team would have agreed either (*cough* Sang-woo *cough*). 

And then the marble game, you have to make the decision to try and either cheat to win or do your best to win whatever game you choose and you have to choose to sacrifice the person you trust the most basically in order to live even though you’re not pulling the trigger, you may as well be telling the guard “kill them” by winning the game. This game also kills any alliances people have may have made in the previous games, making it more difficult for a team of people who trust each other to win. 

Sang-woo actively cheats to win thus condemning Ali to death while Gi-hun cheats, using the old man’s brain tumor to his advantage. He is distraught the entire time and likely thinking in his head “he’s going to die anyways” to try and justify it but it still hurts him while Sang-woo just slowly dies more inside from killing Ali, a man who needed the money to save his family and had a solid chance at winning the game if he just hadn’t trusted Sang-woo who would do anything to win. 

Also something to note that my friend told me: they could have just traded marbles which is a marble game and both lived because that way you still get your teammate’s marbles but still you both win but everyone was too caught up in winning and believed that the only way to win is to sacrifice the other person, too afraid to be killed themselves. No one stops to think in a selfless way, too busy with their self-preserving thoughts which tend to take over your decision-making when you’re fighting for survival. The thought doesn’t even occur to Sae-byeok or her teammate, both too convinced that only one of them can survive and her partner very fatalist about her own life anyway. 

With the stepping stones, all of these people going before you are more likely to die than you are and you are socially pressuring them to go forward so you can see whether or not they’ll die and use their death to go forward and make it before the time runs out. 

In this game, people actively kill others, pushing people off of the platform if they’re taking too long or refusing to move. Sang-woo ultimately makes the last murder so they can finish the game alive, pushing the glass manufacturer into the un-tempered glass because he wants to win. He tries to rationalize it by saying that they all needed to survive before the time ran out but he could have chosen at that point to either vote to end the game or go forward himself. But he is too hellbent on winning to take that one little chance of dying.

Then after that match, the three players are given knives before going to bed. They don’t NEED to take these knives, they could give these knives to the guards or all agree to not take the knives but they don’t trust each other at this point and each take the knife. 

Sang-woo chooses to kill off Sae-byeok because she was weak from blood loss and he has one less person to deal with in the final match. He probably didn’t kill Gi-hun in the night because he would have had to actively fight another grown man and wanted to save his energy because he would probably have a better chance of killing Gi-hun in the next game and he knew that Gi-hun wouldn’t kill him in his sleep. It is also likely that once the third wheel was killed off, the guards would keep Gi-hun and Sang-woo from killing each other in the night, especially given that they did so when Gi-hun initially lunged for Sang-woo.

In the last game, Gi-hun and Sang-woo are tired and Gi-hun is filled with enough hatred for Sang-woo that murdering him in order to win is something he is prepared to do; it is not about the money at this point, just like the game of ddakji. It is about making Sang-woo pay. 

And notice that they’re told they can just win the game and don’t have to go until the other person is dead but still resort to trying to kill each other because of all the tension that’s grown between them? And they don’t discard their knives at this point either, choosing to take them into the game.

But when a guard comes up to execute Sang-woo after Gi-hun refuses to murder Sang-woo, it brings Gi-hun back to reality and he asks to vote to be out of the game even though he’s about to win. He doesn’t want to win because Sang-woo dies. But Sang-woo, who has already thrown so many people to the wolves to get this far, and has no life to return to and was likely going to kill himself if he didn’t return to the game, refuses to vote and instead kills himself with the knife he was given.

 He could have just chosen to say “no” and let the guard kill him but instead chooses to end his own life, taking what little agency he could into his own hands, asking Gi-hun to look after his mother. Sang-woo saw the money as the only reason he killed those people and if he couldn’t have the money, it would have all been for nothing so there would be no point in living with no money and all of that guilt. 

It’s the manufacturing of the stressful circumstances that makes people turn against each other and make them feel like they have no choice but to do so. Since the stakes are “win or die”, people are less likely to try and help each other especially since teamwork is required less in the last three games pretty much. 

They give you the illusion that victory can be achieved via teamwork during the tug of war game but the tug of war game also establishes the need to choose the most skilled or strong so that for the next game, you feel like you need to choose someone who was likely on your previous tug of war team in order to win only to find out that you have to kill that person to proceed basically not realizing that you don’t have to kill them at all. The tug of war game also establishes that you are now culpable in the killing so you need to be willing to kill to win.

And the stepping stones game requires you to basically sacrifice the other players to proceed, literally walking over all of their dead bodies to go forward. And the people going first are less likely to do so out of the goodness of their hearts, fearing their death too much, hence the delays. 

And the last game, is basically a brawl between two men trying to win who could have voted to stop the game but at this point, there is no “we can share the money” because the game has only two people against each other. I think though at this point, Gi-hun was less motivated to win the money so much as he was to just WIN and specifically win against Sang-woo because his morals couldn’t allow a man who committed such evil deeds to walk away with the prize money. 

 if there had been more people who made it to the final round, Sang-woo could have teamed up with Gi-hun and Sae-byeok and Ali against another team to win the squid game and share the prize money between them. So ironically, Sang-woo ensured his own death by killing Ali and Sae-byeok and losing Gi-hun’s love and trust instead of keeping around people who trusted him and who he could trust as well. 

But this would have been impossible given the nature of the games: the timed rounds, the limited information, the “choices” they have to make before each round. The games were designed to breed mistrust and competition. 

Additionally, in order to win MORE money, basically tons of other players have to die in order for your last cash prize to be bigger. Everyone knew this in the back of their minds; this is why Deok-su killed a bunch of people outside of the games; not just to eliminate the competition but to increase the amount of prize money. 

In all likelihood, Sang-woo thought about this too and decided he’d rather win the maximum amount of money than share a lesser amount with anyone else since his debt was so huge and his problems were life-threatening (he had a warrant out for his arrest and his mother’s house and shop were going to get taken away).

IN FACT, in order to win big, all of those people in the Red Light Green Light game needed to die which is why the game-makers neglected to tell them that they would be killed upon losing. I calculated the amount and the beginning amount of prize money was only 100 million won to get the final prize money of 45.6 million won for Gi-hun. 

So, they said they would not announce the prize money until after the first game, in which a bunch of people’s deaths would add to the prize money, making the players very tempted to continue playing despite the stakes. If they had announced that the prize money was only 100 million won and that other player’s deaths would add 100 million won to that prize pool, no one would take that chance. They would have all quit immediately. 

And of course, the game-makers stalked and found financially crippled, desperate people. They targeted a North Korea defector desperate to get her mother out and buy a house for her brother; a divorced gambler who took too many loans with an elderly mother; an immigrant with a wife and infant son who “assaulted” his boss and ran with money that he was owed that was not enough to cover plane costs for himself and his family; a once rich and successful businessman who bet other people’s money in stocks (INCLUDING FUTURES JESUS) and now faces several charges and has made his own mother homeless and jobless; a small mob boss who pissed off the larger mob boss and would kill to get the money he needs. 

In a way, the game-makers function as cult recruiters; they purposefully target vulnerable people who will be unable to resist the promise of money and they cultivate circumstances in which the players are unable to take a moment to rest and experience joy or peace which is a form of cult brainwashing; continuously bombarding the individual with stressful and disturbing stimuli to keep them in a state of fight-or-flight so they cannot think rationally. 

The nights are the most stressful time during the games when they should be the most peaceful. Every game is increasingly physically and mentally challenging due to the game’s natures and due to the stress brought on by having your life on the line. Paired with such minimal food and sleep and you have people who are slowly going mad with all the extreme stresses put on them.

To add salt to the wound, the game-makers rationalize that these people should be willing to risk their lives because many are either dying of terminal diseases or have been coerced by loan sharks to sign their bodies away. 

This is likely also their rationale for burning the bodies; “you were going to give them away anyway!” ignoring the fact that their families will never have a body to bury nor closure to go on with their own lives and this is just a way for the game-makers to cover up their crimes; dressing it up with a pretty pink bow does not take away the taint of murder. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if they also thought “no one will miss you anyway” because the players are all poor and down on their last leg of luck; surely no one would care that these low lives are gone and the world would be better off without them! Right...

And this is why the director of Squid Game decided to have Gi-hun win. Because if Sang-woo had won after all of the atrocities he had committed against the other players, we wouldn’t have been able to accept it and it would have felt so dismal an ending. THE POINT of Squid Game is that the good can and must prevail in order for us to keep on living. Gi-hun despite being a failure to his family and resorting to cheating in the game, still kept his humanity and his compassion even when faced with a chance to rid the world of Sang-woo. He offers his hand and asks for Sang-woo to be spared.

[gamedebt]

@0000218​  ,   she’s dying, and sang-woo can smell it. it comes off of her like fruit rotting off of a branch. long before gi-hun notices, sang-woo has picked up on her body language, the pain on her face that she’s trying to swallow down. picking her off should be easy - but the challenge is gi-hun. she’s just another player, another obstacle, but gi-hun treats her as if she’s a child that needs nurturing. her blood soaks the cot, and sang-woo takes pride in being right. his features harden, and as soon as gi-hun turns his back - walking with silent feet, he approaches with premeditation. she’s almost finished, so wouldn’t this be a mercy? sang-woo looks down at her with wide, curious eyes. “does it hurt?” a quiet whisper, barely audible. her time is up.

                    some say death is just like falling asleep. you grow tired, exhausted in the moment before, but as you finally fade away, you’re at peace. an eternal slumber, with the knowledge that you’ll never wake up again. sae-byeok has thought about death for awhile, long before she entered herself into these games. the subject often entered her mind while she ran from those who tried to hurt her ; when she was trying to sleep against hard concrete, using her jacket as pillow. seeing death when she was only a child — watching her grandparents lit on fire and burned — she supposed the idea of it was more of a constant that she first realized. and it’s clear she’s thinking of it now, knowing she doesn’t have much longer to live.

god is cruel if he exists. allowing her to survive this long, through crushing heights and gunshots, only to kill her with a sharp piece glass. sae-byeok never found herself to be unlucky — she wasn’t sure if she believed in luck at all. the hand she was dealt seemed unfair, but she managed, and she fought as hard as she possibly could to take sure she stayed alive, so she could take care of her brother. and though cheol believes she’s done a terrible job of it so far, she never stopped trying. which is why she was fighting so hard to survive now, lying on her back, the mattress beneath her growing ever damper with the blood ( her blood ) that pooled there. she could still live, she could, she could... eyes flutter closed and she’s gone for a moment, only coming to when he speaks.

it’s not gi-hun. sae-byeok knows his voice by now, his inflections and how soft he speaks. the does it hurt is cold and emotionless. she hears the quiet exclamation through a tunnel, ears ringing with pain, but she knows sang-woo is standing over her. blurry vision catches his outline, eyes halflidded, lashes fluttering with the effort of looking up. in spite of herself, in spite of where she is and what’s been done, a weak smirk presents itself at one corner of her mouth, the girl blinking slowly to focus. pain is put aside for just a moment, and she thinks about the last time she saw her brother, her parents. one dead, the other trapped, and cheol... well, gi-hun promised to take care of him. she made sure their oath would be kept as soon as the dizziness began to blacken her gaze. he was a good man, she wanted him to know that. she hopes he does. that’s all she could ask for now.

sae-byeok doesn’t look away, not even when she sees sang-woo’s knife glint in the dim light to her right. though she’d rather die on her own terms, sae-byeok knows how cruel fate can be. and so with both hands red and pressed to her side, she uses the last of her strength to lift her head, raven hair drenched in sweat, and with the movement she whispers her last words toward sang-woo: ‘ you are going to die alone and unloved... nothing can hurt worse than that... can it? ’

she barely feels the knife go through her neck. eyes close, her head lulls back to the pillow. if the bed beneath her was not drenched in red, kang sae-byeok would almost look like she was asleep.

[madegeeky]

So, I've been thinking a lot about Squid Game and whether or not I'd recommend it to people. And the answer I've come to is: no, I would not recommend it because of the ending.

Mr. Geeky says that I put a lot of emphasis on the ending and that I sometimes put it on a pedestal. And I did think about it and whether that was true or not. But I have other things I still love that have really dumb endings like The Autopsy of Jane Doe, which has an aboslutely brilliant and subtle horror for the first 3/4 and then just fails completely at the end. What I realized thinking about this though, is that whether or not an ending ruins a piece of media for me is entirely contigent on if the ending undermines everything that came before it.

And, for me, the ending of Squid Games absolutey undermines what I see as a main thesis for the entire show. And it's fucking frustrating because everything before that is legimately so good.

SO MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END BELOW THE CUT READ MORE AND JUST A WALL OF TEXT YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

This entire show, the entire premise of it, is about the connections that human make with one another. About reaching out to other people had having them reach back. Connecting with people you know will know will die later. Connecting with people who you know are going to die soon. Connecting with people who don't want a connection. Connecting with people who desperately do.

Gi-hun, our main character, spends the first episode of the show abusing his connections. He steals his mother's money. He uses the fact that he wants to buy a gift for his daughter as an excuse to go and bet on horse racing with that money. Later his uses his connection with his daughter's mother to try to get money (granted, it's to pay for his mother's medical bills but still). The connections are there and they do mean something to him but largely in the way that they affect him.

And then he goes to the Game to try to win some money and everything changes. He finds an old friend and reconnects with him. He connects with an old man who has a brain tumor. He almost dies in the first game except another contestant saves him, creating a connection that they will have until the other's death. Later on he attempts to connect with a young female contestant, is rebuffed, but doesn't stop reaching out until she lets a tenuous connection form, and he keeps that connection until she dies. Gi-hun makes those connections despite everyone dying around him, despite the fact that these connections are only going to bring him pain in the end, because he is a human being and it is literally in our genes to want to be with each other. It's just that, for the first time, he's not being selfish.

He has two foils throughout the game, his friend and a gangster. Both the friend and the gangster make connections but they're only for show. The gangster is honest in the fact that the connections are only surface level, that as soon as someone is no longer useful he will cut them out. But the friend is more insidious. He closes himself off emotionally but doesn't really let people know. Then, when push comes to shove, he's more than willing to backstab them. He is cold and thoughtful in destroying the people around him and I have very rarely hated people as much as I hated him. (Especially the marble episode, fuck him so hard.)

But probably the most important connection that Gi-hun makes is the one with an old man he first meets, a man who is dying from a brain tumor. The man is old and sick and Gi-hun will not leave him behind. He consitently puts himself in danger, at risk of dying, because he refuses to let the man die. His does this over and over again. Until the marble episode. Where either he dies or the old man does. This is only after they have affirmed that they will look out for each other, that they will be gganbu, friends who are close enough to lend marbles when needed; before they are old that only people who have all the marbles in the pair will live. It is viscerally horribly painful for him, to be up against this man that he has worked so hard to keep alive and who he cares for so deeply. (Huge, huge props to the actor, he does an amazing job.) And, in the end, he does end up lying to the old man to win but it is only after the old man starts to lose himself, after the brain tumor shows that it is beginning to very much destroy him, that he finally gives in. It is selfish, yes, but it's hard to blame him when he has a mother and a daughter to go back and take care of him and the old man is moving quickly toward death. It's hard to do anything but have your heart break for him as you watch him slowly die a bit as he makes choice after choice that will end this old man's life. It is an amazing, affecting episode.

He makes and reaffirms the connections he makes until the very end of the game. And when I say end, I mean end. It's down to him and his old friend and he ends up incapaciting his friend in a way that means he will win. All he has to do is go and touch a circle and then his friend will be shot and he will get oodles of money. However, there are very few rules to the Game in total but one of those rules is that, at any point, a contestent may call for an end to the games and if the majority agree, then everyone left can walk away but no one gets the money. Gi-hun stops, right at the finish line, and calls for an end to the game, tells his friend to agree and then they can both walk out. His friend refuses to, begs Gi-hun to look after his mother, and then shoots himself.

Gi-hun makes it out. He wins. But when he gets back he finds his mother dead and his daughter in America. He has no connections, he is broken, and the tenuous connections he does have left he ignores. He refuses to even touch the money and instead lets himself drift through life. Until he gets a note asking "my gganbu" to come to an empty floor on a tall building where he finds the old man, lying in a hospital bed, dying, but at the moment very much alive.

It turns out that the old man is one of the ones who actually started the Game. That he started it because he had so much money that there was nothing that made him happy or entertained him anymore. And he'd even gotten bored with watching the Game which is why he decided to join it. But the fascinating thing, the meaningful thing, is that at the end of his life, when he could be doing anything his last moments alive, what he does is reach for the connection he made with Gi-hun. He finds nothing meaningful in life, so he claims, but here he is, talking with Gi-hun, spending his last moments with him.

But one connection does not make a kind or caring person. He points out that humans are selfish and horrible and points to a person passed out on the sidewalk as it starts to snow, getting colder and colder, and makes a bet with Gi-hun that no one will help them. They will all just walk past. And here is where it utterfly fails at this huge important theme, here is where the series become unsalvageable for me.

Because Gi-hun just sits there. He just sits there, also betting on this person's life, hoping that a connection between a stranger and this person passed out on the sidewalk will happen and the person will be saved. He just accepts the bet. But the thing is, there's nothing stopping him from being the one to save this person. There's nothing stopping him from running out there or calling an ambulance or the police. There's nothing stopping him and yet he doesn't go.

Gi-hun, the man who made connection after connection with strangers despite the fact that all he was doing was hurting himself, the man who learned that connections are so important, the man who broke himself inside when he thought he killed the old man. This man, the man who chose at the very end his connection with others over a huge cash prize, this man just sits there and hopes that someone will come along and save this person in the cold so that he can win a bet.

And the rest of the last episode continues in this vein of him not making any connections at all. He keeps his promise to the young woman and goes and gets her brother out of the orphanage. He takes the kid to his old friends' mom and gives her cash so she can take care of herself and the boy. We see him getting ready to board a plane to go see his daughter but then choosing not to go because his need to stop the Game is more important than his connection with his daughter. The connections he has don't matter in the end, only stopping the Game.

Everything that this show has done with connections, every beautiful moment in all the meaningful connections that were made throughout this series, turn out to be ultimately pointless. And I don't think that this has reached the point of me being actually angry at the show for this ending, as I have at a couple other things, but it's close. It's very close. Because despite the blood and the horror and pain and the cruelty that is in the series, it's a beautiful series until the end. It's meaningful and poetic. But the ending kills that. The ending says that connections aren't actually important and it's not about learning how important it is to connect to other human beings, how we are all connected in some way or another. The ending says that all that matters is harnessing your anger to destroy the people who are doing horrible things. And at its core that's not a bad idea. But it ignores everying that comes before hand. Having angery being the inciting feeling for change feels antithetical to everything that the series did beforehand and it makes it feel all meaningless.

So, yeah, I can't recommend Squid Game. And it makes me legimately sad that I can't.

[1smolbean]

@gayarsonist's tags are ON POINT

[Image Description: A series of tags on a Tumblr post that read "#people are shit about gi hun in general tbh#everything he does is either not enough or stupid to some people and its really telling#like hes definitely not perfect and he has to learn to regain his faith in and value for other human beings#but his flaws in the early episodes are very clearly a result of being beaten down by the system#and even when hes acting like a bit of a jerkass he clearly cares about his daughter (who he enters the games for in#the first place) and his mom (who he goes back even though he knows its a death trap to pay for her medical bills)#hes a good person brought to his lowest by a system that encourages you to be selfish and humiliate yourself#just to survive and despite that chooses to help people time and again because he has a good heart#ALSO he was literally traumatized by watching his coworker die in front of him and#developed a gambling addiction as a result of lack of support. he is NOT a bad person for being preyed on#by money lenders and gambling ads#and honestly wouldnt you become cynical and depressed and want to escape in any way possible#if you watched someone die and nobody tried to help or understand what you were going through#the fact that gi hun still had faith in and compassion for other people despite that is admirable#squid game. End ID]

squid game's protagonist: is a former striking worker who spiralled into financial ruin after being unjustly laid off for the benefit of capitalists in a way that clearly parallels real events and serves to critique the unfairness and cruelty of capitalist society

youtube geniuses: HE'S POOR BECAUSE HE'S LAZY LOL