Hands up if you've finished watching squid game! Wooh - me too! I've been gathering some of my favourite fan theories to share will y’all, so that you don't have to spend hours digging like me… Be warned, spoilers ahead!
Some of the Squid Game deaths are foreshadowed
If you look closely at how the main players of the game behave in the outside world, you will be able to see how their actions poetically suggest how they all die in the end.
Let’s look at Sang-woo: number 218, he kills himself at the end of the games and was planning on doing so before being pulled back into the competition in episode two.
Jang Deok-su, number 10, died after falling in the Glass Bridge game, which is how he fled from those chasing him.
Sae-byeok, 067, has her throat slit in the final game, which was how she threatened her scammer on the outside world.
And Ali’s death, number 199, (probably one of the most heart-wrenching in the series) comes about because Sang-woo steals his marbles – much like Ali stole his boss’s money in desperation before the tournament.
Oh Il-nam is Seong Gi-hun’s father - Are the tournaments all a ruse for a father and son to have the childhood fun they never could?
456 and 001 seem to have an instant bond with each other, and some have pointed towards clues that the pair’s friendship stems from familial ties. After all, we see Seong Gi-hun at home with his mother, but there’s no mention or discussion of his father at all.
There are clues woven throughout the narrative that the pair are related – a scene which saw 456 ask the guards for chocolate milk saw 001 chuckle that his son was “similar”.
Another scene sees the pair discuss the similarities between the set design of one of the games to their neighbourhoods growing up, again leading many to suggest that the old man fathered 456 + lived in the same neighbourhood.
The show’s twist, which reveals that Oh Il-nam101 was a game VIP who helped create the challenges, has led many to claim that the whole tournament was devised by him to find his lost son, especially when he gives Seong Gi-hun his jacket ‘to protect him’ in the games and adds it was “fun to play with him”.
Squid Game is a working model of Game Theory
For those unaware, Game Theory is the study of interactive decision-making, where the outcome for each player depends on the actions of all. When deciding a strategy, you must consider the actions and choices of others but, in thinking about their decisions, you must realise they are thinking about your decisions, and so on.
Squid Game is an example of ‘zero sum’: In this game, one man’s death is another man’s chance at life with prize money.
Let’s look at it in action: These players are desperate, at the end of their tether, and simply have little choice but to join the game, even if the cost of losing is death. The host of this game invited only those who are in large amounts of debt and have no way to come back from it unless they play the game and win the prize money.
Without joining the game, the participants have no way to pay off their debt, and life would just be hell on earth, which isn’t any better than death. Therefore, the players have no choice but to choose playing the game as their ‘dominant strategy’.
This makes Squid Game all the more poignant, as it emphasises the yawning chasm between the choices of the super rich and the lack of choices of the very poor.
Comments