Characters / Squid Game: Game Staff

Squid Game Main Character Index
Players (Gi-hun's Team) | Game Staff | Other Characters

---

Leadership:

The Host (MAJOR UNMARKED SPOILERS)

"Do you know what someone with no money has in common with someone with too much money? Living is no fun for them."

The mysterious head of the organization, the mastermind behind the games, and the Front Man's direct superior.

For tropes related to his identity as Oh Il-nam, see Player 001's folder.

---

• Affably Evil: He turns out to be monstrously evil, but there's no indication that his friendly nature was an act. He even tells Gi-hun that he really did grow fond of him and enjoyed playing with him.
• Affluent Ascetic: After the games, he lives in a single corner of a massive apartment with only a bed, his life support machinery, a few miscellaneous bits of furniture, and a grandfather clock. All this despite having no need to hide his wealth any further.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unknown why he uses his last moments to shake Gi-hun out of the latter's Heroic BSoD, playing one last game where Gi-hun wants to give the money back after seeing how many people died for nothing. Maybe it was a Heel Realization that Gi-hun really wasn't in it for the money itself, but to save his mother, and Gi-hun was too late by a few days, considering the man hadn't touched his winnings. Perhaps it was to encourage Gi-hun to live his life with the horrors, PTSD and all, rather than waste away as a bum. Or it was to mold Gi-hun into someone like him, like how he molded the Front Man into his successor. Maybe it was to see if Gi-hun was right, that people are worth saving.
• Animal Motifs: He wears a gold owl mask, befitting his intelligence and wisdom.
• Bait the Dog: He votes to let the players out of the game early on and genuinely grows fond of Gi-hun. But before you can think this means he actually has some compassion for poor people deep down, the show lets you know that he truly does consider poor people to be nothing but trash and believes that humanity as a whole is rotten.
• Bald of Evil: In his final scene, his head has been left almost completely bald, presumably as a result of chemotherapy he's undergone in the year since the game. For good measure, it's in this scene where he's at his most blatantly malevolent.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Il-nam has grown to genuinely like Gi-hun as Gi-hun went far to look after the frail old man whom everyone else saw as The Load, especially in the fourth game where he ultimately chooses him as his partner believing it will save him from being executed.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's an old, terminally ill man who doesn't seem to have a malicious bone in his body. That is, until it is revealed in Episode 9 that he created the games as a twisted form of amusement for himself and his rich friends.
• Beware the Honest Ones: Gi-hun asks him Was It All a Lie?, if the kindly old man 001 in the barracks was an act. The Reveal is scarier; Il-nam admits that he never technically lied. He did have a wife and son, and has a tumor in his brain slowly killing him. His friendship with Gi-hun was also real.
• Big Bad: The man directly responsible for creating and organizing the games.
• Big Bad Friend: He's the creator of the games, but nonetheless strikes up a sincere (on his side) friendship with Gi-hun.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Although he's genuinely warm and friendly, his dying moments reveal that he really does look down on poor people.
• Boomerang Bigot: He has little love for the poor, dismissing a beggar as a piece of human trash. But during the fourth game, he claims that one of the small, modest houses looks just like where he used to live with his wife and son, and later confirms that he was telling the truth about that (and may, in fact, have designed that whole arena to look like his old neighborhood). This strongly implies that he started out working class before making it big.
• Broken Pedestal: He becomes this to Gi-hun once the latter finds out about his identity as the Host, making him feel horrified and betrayed by him and no longer seeing him as a Cool Old Guy like when he first met him a year ago.
• Cool Old Guy: Played with. He is genuine with his friendly and helpful attitude — but the "cool" part to his personality takes a much more sinister turn with the reveal of his true identity.
• The Cynic: Doesn't think much of human beings in general and believes other people share his beliefs, as his "last game" with Gi-hun relied solely on his idea that no one would help a freezing poor man on the street.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Quite literally. When Gi-hun finally confronts him a year after the game, he's shown to be hooked up to a life support system and just minutes away from passing.
• Dies Wide Open: Il-nam dies with both eyes open; In-ho closes them.
• Disney Death: He seemingly dies in the fourth game, but is revealed to be alive in the final episode (where he eventually dies for real from his brain tumor).
• Dissonant Serenity: He barely reacts to Gi-hun half-throttling him, looking almost too sleepy to pay attention. In this case, it's because Il-nam is literally minutes from death and doesn't care if Gi-hun kills him or not.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Yes, it turns out the sick old man who was seemingly shot after losing in the fourth game is actually the Host of the entire competition.
• Dramatic Unmask: Subverted; during episode 7, he removes his mask, with particular emphasis on him placing it on the table... but before his identity can be revealed, the episode cuts to the next scene. The follow-up to this isn't shown until episode 9.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Regardless of his malicious intent, he genuinely seems to care about his family based on how he speaks about them.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • His goal for the games is for them to be fun and fair. When everyone starts blindly murdering each other during the nighttime riot (which is neither fun nor fair), he is horrified and begs for the fighting to stop because "everyone is going to kill each other!"
  • A more subtle moment is when Team 7 in the tug-of-war are easily defeated by Deok-su's team, Il-nam stares in horror and winces when they plummet to their deaths.
  • Gi-hun's Heroic BSoD and refusing to use the prize money may have made him realize that he went too far with the games and hurting the one person with whom he truly bonded. He arranges one last meeting between them, and doesn't want the money back when Gi-hun says that it's dirty and unclean. Instead, he offers to play for it where if Gi-hun wins, Il-nam will take back the prize money.
• Evil All Along: He turns out to have been the creator of the games since 1988, joining in because he thought it would be more fun to play than to watch.
• Evil Costume Switch: Swaps his player's tracksuit for a natty black suit and a golden mask once he returns to his full-time villainous role.
• Evil Mentor: He was this to In-ho after the latter won the games. We don't know the full story, only that Il-nam trusted In-ho to take his place when he decided to enter the games as a player.
• Evil Old Folks: He's on the brink of death, but still as involved in running the games as ever.
• Evil Wears Black: Wears a black suit along with his mask.
• Fair-Play Villain: Aside from having the guards fake his execution upon his loss in the fourth game, he does not give himself any unfair advantage over the other players while participating in them. He very easily could've died during the first three games, and it's only by luck that he didn't.
• Foreshadowing: Throughout the episodes, there are many hints to Oh Il-nam being the creator of the games.
  • His number in the game was 001; as the creator of the games, he was naturally the first to have the opportunity to enter himself.
  • From Episode 1:
    • Il-nam is an outlier among the players. He is elderly, while the others range from young adulthood to middle age. The others are there because they are in dire financial straits, and stay because of the possibility of winning a huge amount of money. Il-nam has a brain tumor, little time left, and no financial motive to compete. In the next episode, he tells Gi-hun that he's going back into the contest because he doesn't want to wait around to die, but that doesn't explain why he would have been chosen in the first place.
    • He's the first to resume playing following the massacre, which on first viewing might be interpreted as him thinking "I'm dying anyway, I might as well have some fun". In hindsight, however, it seems he wasn't shocked into paralysis like everyone else as he already knew the penalty for losing the game was death, and must have witnessed this kind of thing many times before. Furthermore, when we see everything from the doll's point of view, the camera scans him a split second later than the rest and with a lighter shade of green, implying the rules are much more lenient for him.
  • Episode 2: We see what each of the major contestants' lives were like back home... But the most we get from Il-nam is him confiding in Gi-hun that he wants to continue playing despite being the deciding vote to end the games.
  • Episode 3: Il-nam's completed honeycomb shape has a few hairline cracks at the edge. Due to contestants being shot by the trigger-happy Soldiers over the smallest mistakes, Il-nam surviving despite his shape technically being imperfect hints towards him being more important than we might assume.
  • A subtle one in Episode 4: the Front Man immediately stops the infighting within the player quarters when Il-nam starts rambling on the violence.
  • Another subtle one is in Episode 5, where you can clearly see his handcuffs aren't locked onto the rope, while everyone else's are.
  • In Episode 6:
    • During the Marbles game, when he lets Gi-hun know he was aware the whole time of him he trying to use his dementia to trick all the marbles out of him. He asks Gi-hun an Armor-Piercing Question about fair play with a partner. The Front Man always claimed the games are to be completely fair across the board, and he takes orders from Il-nam. Il-nam was subtly warning Gi-hun that he was starting to become like the selfish humans that he hates.
    • It seems a bit odd that Il-nam's death wasn't actually shown for a series that rarely shied away from the violence, and the episode had no problem showing Ji-yeong's similar Heroic Sacrifice earlier. Likewise, Ali's dead body is seen at the beginning of the following episode, but Il-nam's body is never shown.
  • There's no profile for Il-nam when Hwang Jun-ho checks the files in the Front Master's archives.
  • In addition, he's a little too carefree when playing some of the games, particularly in Marbles and Red Light, Green Light. In the former game, the guards aren't too quick to kill him once it's established he's lost, even if it's an act.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Wears a gold mask, signifying his high station; unlike the flimsy plastic masks of the VIPs, though, the Host's mask covers his entire face and looks heavy enough to actually be made of metal, reflecting his secretive nature and greater importance to the game.
• Hates Everyone Equally: A downplayed example. He can form temporary friendships with people around him and seems to genuinely love his family, but in a broad sense, he sees absolutely no worth in anyone. He thinks the impoverished are trash, but he also believes that the rich are ultimately miserable and empty people who also lack any sense of purpose.
• The Hedonist: Downplayed. The games he created that resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, were made out of a need of entertainment. Otherwise, he lives rather frugally and entered the games himself.
• Hidden Villain: His identity isn't revealed until the very end of the show. The Host was wearing a golden owl mask in episode 7, but his face isn't shown. It isn't until episode 9 that his true identity is revealed as Oh Il-nam.
• Humans Are Bastards: Has this view. Though he does seem to believe that Children Are Innocent at least.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: A variant. It's revealed he was watching a bum drink a frozen night away and succumb to the elements, calling him "human trash". Gi-hun was also drinking the night away, and didn't seem like he cared if he lived or died. Il-nam saved his life by summoning Gi-hun to his apartment.
• It Amused Me: The entire reason he set up the games was to entertain himself and his compatriots, as being ultra-rich left him viewing everything as mundane and devoid of joy.
• Karma Houdini: Played with. He dies at the end, but of natural causes and after getting all the fun he wanted as a player. At the same time, he loses his final "game" with Gi-hun, and gets to see his philosophy proven wrong when someone helps the drunk that he believed would be left to die.
• Kill the Poor: Not only did he have recruiters running around rounding up hundreds of destitute people for the deadly games, in episode 9 he also looks down on the poor, calling one homeless man "worthless trash" and trying to make a game out of his fate.
• Lean and Mean: Seen to be quite skinny, especially compared to the bloated VIPs.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Despite orchestrating the games together with his elite clients, his quiet and philosophical attitude makes him come across as significantly less venal than the VIPs, who are wallowing in their own hedonism and cruelty.
• Like a Son to Me: He seems to regard Gi-hun as such, even taking a liking to him despite his deep disdain for the poor.
• Loan Shark: He tells Gi-hun that he made his money by loaning out money and collecting on it. At the scale of wealth that he's at, those loan would have to be at exorbitant rates and he made a ton of loans.
• Lonely at the Top: He explains that this was the reason he created the games - because when you're as rich as he is, there's nothing that gives you joy anymore.
• The Man Behind the Curtain: Running everything from behind the scenes, but it's clear that he's no physical threat in person, especially compared to the more imposing Front Man. Quite apart from being a non-combatant, he's old and dying of cancer. Gi-hun very nearly throttles him to death when they finally meet, only being stopped by the threat of the Host dying without sharing his secrets.
• Misanthrope Supreme: He generally believes humans are self-serving regardless of their station in life.
• Mysterious Past: He reveals hints about his past and why he started the games, but leaves many questions unanswered. Notably, he talks about living with his wife and son in a working-class neighborhood like the fourth game arena, and later confirms that he was telling the truth. But when he's on his deathbed, he's entirely alone other than Gi-hun, and he never mentions what became of his family.
• Non-Action Big Bad: The Host never raises a hand to harm anyone directly, instead relying on the Front Man and his guards to do the dirty work.
• No One Sees the Boss: The only member of the organization that has any contact with him is the Front Man, to the point that even the VIPs don't meet with him; on the one occasion when he's seen in person, he's masked and has his back to the camera. Ultimately subverted, once it's revealed that he was Player 001 all along.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He remarks that the absurdly rich such as himself are ultimately no different than the impoverished and debt-ridden people they despise. In the end, he believes that both live their lives devoid of purpose and joy.
• Numerological Motif: Number 001 is the founder of the game.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Casting the deciding vote to let the contestants go if they want to.
  • When he learns that Gi-hun has barely touched his prize money after nearly a year and continues to live the same way he always did, he summons him to talk him out of his Survivor's Guilt. He also summons him via a lady claiming she needs to sell her flowers, showing he knows Gi-Hun is kind-hearted enough to accept it.
• Post-Final Boss: While he does provide one final challenge to Gi-hun via bet on a homeless person (as a means to test his own outlook of the world vs. Gi-hun's), the stakes are far from intense compared to Gi-hun's face-off against Sang-woo in the final game.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Downplayed. Although he's undoubtedly more intelligent and mature than the VIPs, he still takes an inordinate amount of joy in playing children's games, and admits that his biggest motivation for making himself a contestant was to recapture the happiness he felt playing those games as a child.
• Rich Boredom: His main motive for creating the Squid Games. He complains he can't enjoy his life because his vast wealth makes him able to afford anything without risk or consequences and feels just as miserable as someone without any money. He seems even more bored than the VIPs, as he isn't entertained enough just by watching the Squid Games; he also participates in them.
• Secretly Wealthy: Wealthy enough to be the instigator of the games to begin with.
• Seen It All: It's implied this is why he took the initial massacre with ease, because he's seen at least twenty variants of them.
• Sleek High Rise Apartment: A variant — he lives in a massive apartment that's almost completely empty except for the corner with his sickbed, demonstrating how empty his life is despite his vast wealth.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal: He's dying of a brain tumor, although he began hosting the contest well before it was diagnosed.
• Two-Faced Aside: After admitting to Gi-hun that he lied, he follows it up with the fact that his brain tumor is real, which explains why he's bedridden and hooked up to life support machines a year after the games.
• Villain Has a Point: While it doesn’t excuse the massacre during the first game, he does point out that the players made the choice to come back to the games even when they knew they would die if they lost.
• Villainous Cheekbones: Has a pair of them. Maybe justified due to his old age (and disease) giving him a slightly skeletal look.
• Villain's Dying Grace: He uses his last moments to snap Gi-hun out of his Heroic BSoD, by revealing he's alive and playing one last game with him.
• Villainous Valor: He created the games, and then enters them personally when his cancer becomes terminal and he doesn't have anything to lose. While it's implied the Front Man was more lenient and arranged things so that Il-Nam could fake his death instead rather than die for real, Il-Nam acts like he has a fair chance. The only game where it seems he could lose his life is the tug of war, and that's when he gets serious and gives advice on how to win.
• Walking Spoiler: While anything else about him can be talked normally, the fact that he faked his death in the marble game, is actually the Host of the Deadly Games and only participated in them for the thrill of it makes it difficult to talk about his backstory and the history of the games. Is there any wonder why this character folder has unmarked spoilers?

The Front Man

"Everyone is equal while they play this game. Here, the players get to play a fair game under the same conditions. Those who suffered from inequality and discrimination out in the world, and we're giving them the last chance to fight fair and win."

^{Click here to see him unmasked} 

Played by: Lee Byung-hun ^{Other Languages} Tom Choi (English dub), Carlo Vázquez (Latin American Spanish dub), Hiroshi Tsuchida (Japanese dub)

The black-masked overseer of the games.

---

• Badass Longcoat: Wears a long black coat with a hood as part of his ensemble, and is a very smart and effective operator.
• Bad Boss: Shoots one of his underlings for allowing his mask to be removed. It turns out he was a Squid Game contestant and winner before, so he might hold some resentment towards the Pink Guards himself.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Jun-ho's Abel.
• Celebrity Paradox: Ji-yeong references Lee Byung-hun by name when talking about his role from the movie Inside Men. Byung-hun plays the Front Man in the series.
• Cool Mask: Wears a black mask with a more sculpted face than the ones worn by the guards.
• Counting Bullets: He deduces that Jun-ho has One Bullet Left based upon several factors: The particular model of revolver having a capacity of five shots, police regulations requiring one chamber to be empty and another to be loaded with a blank round, and the fact that Jun-ho has already fired twice; once to kill a Mook and once to Shoot Out the Lock.
• Decoy Leader: Downplayed. Given he's the one commanding the Guards on-screen, you'd be forgiven for thinking he's the main antagonist of the series... up until it's explicitly shown in Episode 7 that he's only The Dragon to the Host of the games.
• Dirty Cop: According to his file, he used to be a corrupt police officer. Jun-ho reads that In-ho accepted bribes, for which he was busted and eventually fired. Due to his change in financial circumstances, the games were easily able to recruit him.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: In the final episode, he threatens Gi-hun to "just board the plane" when the former calls them via the same card they give towards unknowing players.
• The Dragon: He oversees the operation of the games on behalf of the VIPs and the Host.
• Dragon Ascendant: Following the death of the Host, the true mastermind and creator of the games, the Front Man seems to have taken over the game completely and is still operating it.
• Dragon-in-Chief: The Host's identity isn't revealed until the very final episode, which leaves the Front Man (alongside Deok-su) as the primary antagonist for most of the series.
• Dramatic Unmask: In his titular episode, he finally removes his mask before Jun-ho, revealing himself as his missing brother In-ho.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Confronting his younger brother Jun-ho is the only time the audience ever gets to see him behave like a human being instead of some faceless force of evil. Although he usually aims straight and clean for the head, with Jun-ho, we see In-ho's hand shaking; he even shoots Jun-ho's shoulder rather than his head. This is further enhanced by the fact that it's the first time we see his face, so he literally can't hide his emotions behind a mask, even though he tries. In-ho also had a flashback to his brother's face when he looked at the mirror while patching his gunshot wound.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • By his own admission, he doesn't care if his workers engage in organ theft or even post-mortem cannibalism, but draws the line at helping the contestants cheat, as it removes the element of equality he wishes to give to a bunch of people normally stuck in a cruel world who now have a chance to win big.
  • Given the long look he has when studying the undercover organ trafficking room, it's implied that he felt sorry for Byeong-gi with having to do this much surgery before lights out and with the stress of the game. He still has him executed for cheating and not following the rules.
  • It's implied that he couldn't understand why Il-nam personally entered the games to play in his creation, given that there are several opportunities where the old man is spared that are noticeable on a rewatch. Granted, Il-nam did mentor him, so there was some bias as well.
• Evil Counterpart: From what the final episode shows, he can be seen as this to Gi-hun. Both were winners in the games and had haunting experiences in them; Il-nam subsequently mentored both of them. The main difference was that Il-nam molded In-ho to be the next Host once he dies, while he tried to push Gi-hun down a better path, both in and outside the games. As a result, In-ho ended up barely having a life outside the games, while Gi-hun turned around his life with that push.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Has a deep, menacing voice that's further amplified by his mask's modulator.
• Evil Wears Black: Carries out his duties in a black coat and a black mask.
• The Faceless: It's not up until the climax of "Front Man", when his identity is revealed, that his face is actually shown. Pretty ironic in regards to the reveal, since no showing of his face is made beforehand (even the photo on his player file features a different face than his actual one).
• Fair-Play Villain: Insists on following the rules of the game to the letter. When a guard is caught giving a player an advantage, he executes the guard and the player for cheating.
• Fallen Hero: It's implied that he used to be in the Korean Police Force, same as his younger brother, since he was able to recognize Jun-ho's standard-issued gun before revealing himself. He was also once a contestant who won the 2015 Contest, but had since joined the organization and rise up its ranks to become the overseer of the Korea Branch, sending numerous people to their deaths in the process.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: His luxurious quarters are gold-tinted.
• The Heavy: Front Man is the one administering each of the games and giving orders to the pink guards.
• Hero of Another Story: He was the winner of the 2015 Squid Game contest.
• Hyper-Awareness: The Front Man himself is this, with some notable examples.
  • When one tug-of-war team picks out the strongest players, he immediately figures out that some of the guards are keeping one of the players informed on the games ahead, and counters by refusing to share information with the guards until the last moment.
  • He discovers Jun-ho is hiding in his room when he notices the telephone receiver is set down differently than before.
• Hypocrite:
  • He claims to highly value the fairness of the games towards the players, executing anyone who ruins that fairness by giving players an unfair advantage, though it didn't stop him from allowing players to directly kill each other, especially during the "bonus game", until Il-nam tells him to stop. Additionally, when the VIPs see that one of the last players is a glassmaker who can tell which glass plate is safe to jump on and are complaining that it ruins the excitement, the Front Man has the lights of the room dimmed to make the game harder for the players and more exciting for the VIPs.
  • The Front Man says that the rules are applied equally to everyone. He fakes Il-nam's death rather than allow the guards to shoot the Host in the head after he forfeits the marbles game.
• I Gave My Word: When Gi-hun wins by default, thanks to Sang-woo's Heroic Sacrifice, the Front Man personally drives him back to his home and delivers the money as promised.
• Join or Die: As the guards and Front Man corner Jun-ho at a cliff where he'd be plunged into a sea to die from freezing temperatures and other dangers, Front Man reveals himself as In-ho and reaches his hand out to Jun-ho to join him in overseeing the Squid Games similar to what Darth Vader does to Luke in the climax of Empire Strikes Back. Jun-ho refuses to tolerate the monstrosity that is the games, so In-ho reluctantly shoots him down.
• Karma Houdini: Having been meticulously astute in planning out the game's secrecy i.e. enforcing weak phone and WiFi connections on the island, he prevented Jun-ho from exposing evidence of the game's existence and location to the Korean police and shoots him down.
• Long-Lost Relative: It turns out that he's Jun-ho's long-lost brother.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Jun-ho went to the island to see what happened to his brother. And it turns out his brother is the Front Man who is preparing to take over the island when the Host passes of old age.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Wears a black mask shaped like a polygonal face.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Besides being smartly dressed in a fine black jacket, the Front Man likes to sit back and watch the games by fixing a glass of scotch while listening to some jazz played on an animatronic music set.
• More than Mind Control: How he hooks the potential customers after they met the Salesman. His invitation message is that they have a "choice" in where they could gamble for a way out or continue living as they are now for certain death. Not surprisingly, most choose to enter the games, not knowing of the Deadly Game aspect.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Front Man deeply regrets having to kill Jun-ho, and spends the episode's finale mourning for him.
• Pet the Dog:
  • The Front Man couldn't care less about individual Players, but he allows Mi-nyeo to sit out the Marbles Game when no one is willing to team up with her.
  • It's implied he manipulated game events to ensure that Il-Nam would have an opportunity to fake his death when the time was right, and he defers to his mentor's authority whenever Il-Nam drops the act of being a senile old man.
  • When Gi-hun wins, the Front Man attempts to comfort him while escorting him back to his hometown in a limo, rather than dumping him out from a truck while knocked out. The Front Man tells him to view the Games as a bad dream, enjoy the money because he very much earned it well.
  • While the revelation that Gi-hun is still being watched more than a year after his victory is unnerving, the advice the Front Man gives seems sincere. Gi-hun's determination to destroy the games is undeniably just, but it is nigh-certain to end with his death and complete disappearance from his daughter's life.
• The Reveal: He is Hwang In-ho, Jun-ho's brother, and the winner of his own round of games back in 2015, given he's still alive.
• Secretly Wealthy: In-ho is an extremely wealthy man, but his mother and brother have no idea that he's alive let alone having the net worth of the equivalent of over $38 million dollars US in addition to whatever salary he makes as the Front Man.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Subtly indicates that he was traumatized by his experiences as a player, and encourages Gi-hun to think of it as a dream - commenting on how it wasn't a bad one for him, at least.
• A Sinister Clue: He holds his gun with his left hand when shooting down other people.
• The Unfettered: Nothing gets in the way of him hosting a good game, even if it means watching some creepy pervert sleazing away at Jun-ho. And this relentless drive to get what he wants was apparent even before becoming the Front Man, as Jun-ho finds his old apartment and there were many self-help books on achieving one's desires.

Underlings:

The Guards

The masked guards who enforce the rules of the games. They are classified, in ascending order of rank and mask type, as workers (circles), soldiers (triangles) and supervisors (squares).

---

• Animal Motifs: According to Word of Saint Paul, they are meant to resemble an ant hive. Their masks are designed after ant faces, with the lower part forming a pair of mandibles.
• Cool Mask: Their black masks with shape symbols on them are a fairly simple, but nonetheless intimidating design that helps signify from the get-go that they mean danger for the players.
• Deathly Unmasking: They're explicitly informed that their lives are forfeit as soon as the players learn their true identities. As such, when Player 119 forces one guard to unmask, he's shot dead by the Front Man almost immediately afterwards.
• Doom Troops: They're creepy Malevolent Masked Men with Psycho Pink suits, and are greatly feared by the players. Most of them do not speak to the players and coldly execute losers, never speaking or showing emotion, and only a few characters are shown barely able to fight back against them, making them a major source of fear both in and out of universe.
• Evil Minions: The Workers (circle mask), who are responsible for handling the technical and laborious aspects of the games, such as working the machinery and cleaning up dead bodies. Supervisors are all higher-ranked Evil Minions who act as managers, though they also carry guns and can wield them if need be.
• Faceless Goons: They are required to conceal their faces behind black masks and carry out the orders of the Front Man without question. It's strongly implied that this trope is invoked for several of its aspects, most importantly dehumanizing them to the contestants and each other, and ensuring that even if someone were to defect or be captured, they have no faces to identify.
• Fantastic Rank System: Despite being in the same boat and basically wearing the same outfits, the guards are organized into three different ranks according to the shape on their mask.
  • Workers (identified by their circle mask) carry out menial and odd jobs and are the lowest in the pecking order. Their main tasks are to collect and prepare players for the games and dispose of the eliminated ones to incinerate.
  • Soldiers (triangle mask) are armed with an MP5A3 and a S&W Model 19, and are permitted to execute players on the spot should they fail one of the games or disobey any rules such as attempted mutiny. They can boss around Workers, but look up to Supervisors as their superiors.
  • Supervisors (square mask) ensure the Workers and Soldiers follow the rules and overlook the games firsthand as the spokesperson. There's only a handful of these guards who take no orders from anyone but the Front Man.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Those who pick up the players have to wear these in order to remain conscious from the Knockout Gas system installed inside the van.
• I Love the Dead: Just in case you needed any extra proof that these guys are bad to the bone, one of the guards involved in the organ-stealing racket confesses that he and his fellow guards enjoyed raping a female player who they thought was dead.
• Lack of Empathy: Seems to be a required quality.
  • Eliminated contestants are eliminated, period. It doesn't matter if some of them are still alive. The guards will put the failed contestants into coffins before cremating them in furnaces anyway. No exceptions.
  • When Player 119 gets a gun on one of them and makes him take off his mask, he is shocked to see how someone so young could become a guard.
  • In Episode 4, when Gi-hun loudly demands that the guards take action after Deok-su beats Player 271 to death for breaking a bottle of soda he was after, the guards just stand there as stoic as ever.
  • We see the above again in Episode 8, when Gi-hun asks the guards to provide medical assistance for Sae-byeok, who is slowly bleeding to death, only for them to return with a coffin because Sang-Woo finished her off.
• Leitmotif: Pink Soldiers
• Malevolent Masked Men: They wear black masks with shapes on them indicating their rank. Circles are workers, triangles are soldiers and squares are supervisors. If they ever show their faces to each other or to the players, they are swiftly executed.
• Mook Lieutenant: The square-masked Supervisors, who oversee the Workers and Soldiers' work. Unfortunately, they can be just as replaceable when the Front Man demands it.
• Mysterious Past: After a guard unmasks himself in front of player 119, he asks him how a young man like him could land in a position like this. The man never answers, leaving many questions on how many of the guards are around the same age and how they even got their jobs in the first place.
• No OSHA Compliance: They have rats running around in the air ducts right above their kitchen where they prepare food for the players. The Pink Guards aren't even allowed to investigate what goes on inside the air ducts, as demonstrated when a Circle-mask guard cooking dalgona was ordered by his Square-mask supervisor to keep stirring and not wander off at the air ducts even if it raises alarms that something is making noise in there.
• Not So Stoic: There are a few moments that are just so strange that even the contractually emotionless guards are caught off-guard.
  • When Mi-nyeo is in the bathroom intentionally making as much loud and obnoxious noise as possible, the guard standing watch at the door gets increasingly annoyed until he shouts at her that if she doesn't hurry up he'll barge in and drag her out.
  • When he tries to make good on that threat, he marches in to see Mi-nyeo with her pants down and Sae-byeok stoically holding a roll of toilet paper. He awkwardly closes the door in a hurry and stands outside. When Mi-nyeo chews him out, all he does is lower his head like a public service worker after dealing with a horrible customer.
  • During the honeycomb game, when Gi-hun and several other players realize they can melt the honeycomb by licking it, the guard monitoring the cameras is taken aback and looks closer at the screen as if not quite believing what he's seeing.
• Organ Theft: A small group of them make some extra cash by selling the organs of the dead players.
• Pet the Dog: It's relatively minor, but the guard who executes Ji-yeong lets her say goodbye to Sae-byeok before offing her.
• Psycho Pink: The hot pink hazmat suits which they all wear don't make them any less intimidating when they heartlessly gun down eliminated players and dispose them into coffins, alive or not, for incineration. Also, the coffins they used are wrapped with a pink ribbon as if it was some sick joke.
• Symbol Face: The games are enforced by guards who preserve their anonymity by wearing pink tracksuits and masks with a circle, square, or triangle on the face. These shapes are used to tell the rank of the guard.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: They are no more than regular everyday people, just like the contestants. When Player 119 learns about this by forcing one of the guards to unmask, he is so horrified at the implications that he immediately shoots himself.

The Salesman

"Sir. Would you like to play a game with me?"

Played by: Gong Yoo ^{Other Languages} Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin American Spanish dub), Jun'ichi Suwabe (Japanese dub)

A recruiter for the games.

---

• Bitch Slap: When the people he plays against don't pay him up after the first game they lose, he offers to slap them in exchange for the money they couldn't pay him. He ends up delivering a lot of these to the players, who continue to play against him in order to win.
• Briefcase Full of Money: He approaches potential players with a suitcase with at least a few million won in cash, offering to pay them all of the money in the briefcase if they play a game with him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He continuously beats Seong Gi-hun in ddakji, flipping his card every time without fail. It's clear he's a very skilled player, as he even beats all of the other contestants he recruits.
• Foreshadowing: When he recruits players for the games, he forewarns that they are similar games with greater earnings, but with greater stakes. Given his base stake for them was already physical injury in the form of bitch slaps, a sharp person would realise what he actually meant was that the physical (and mental) harm will be much worse, rather than the risks of losing.
• Graceful Loser: When he ends up losing all of his cash in the briefcase that amounts to millions of won, his only reaction is to smile and happily clap for the players when they win. Justified because it's likely his tactic to keep them interested in playing and lure them to the games.
• Hidden Depths: It's easy to forget given his brief appearance in the series, but the Salesman seems to be a very skilled ddakji player and manages to flip the paper in a single attempt when it's his turn to play.
• Loan Shark: Subverted. He behaves like one, walking right up to visibly destitute people offering to play games with them with his Briefcase Full of Money. However, he never forces them to pay up with money and lets them win and keep it because his true intention is to round up unsuspecting victims for the Squid Game.
• Manipulative Bastard: As the recruiter of the game, the Salesman specific seeks out victims at their lowest points to trick them into taking part in the game. The fact that he does so by repeatedly humiliating them while dangling the possibility of financial stability makes it all the more insidious.
• No Name Given: His name remains a mystery, as he doesn't even give his name to potential players when he introduces himself, leading to him to just being referred to as the "Salesman". Although given the situation of the other workers in the Squid Games, he likely was told to never reveal his name and only focus on recruiting players.
• Not So Above It All: When playing ddakji with Gi-hun, he actually messes with him by pretending he's winding up to slap Gi-hun a few times. It's obvious he's having fun messing with the man.
• Not So Stoic: A creepy, smiling salesman he may be, but even he shows he can be surprised, such as when he approaches Gi-hun about the games: he instantly drops his smile and puts his hands up when he thinks Gi-hun is pointing a gun at him.
• The Omniscient: When he approaches potential players, he lets them know after they win his game the amount of debt they still owe to others and every other little detail about their lives that lead them to rock bottom. He then adds they have a chance to pay it all off if they join the Squid Games.
• Perpetual Smiler: Almost always sports a cheerful smile. Even after Seong Gi-hun sees him after he wins the games, as he boards a train, he smiles serenely as he waves goodbye to the man as the train departs. The only time he loses it is when Gi-hun points a gun-shaped cigarette lighter at him, believing it to be real.
• Secret Test of Character: The specific method he uses to recruit people gauges how much a potential contestant is willing to degrade themselves for money.
• Shout-Out: Gi-hun encountering him at a train station is clearly a reference to Gong Yoo's famous role in Train to Busan.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only really appears in two scenes throughout the series, but his appearance sparks the catalyst for players to enter the Squid Games. Especially in the final episode where Gi-hun sees him attempting to recruit another man into the games, and smiles at Gi-hun after he boards the train and leaves the station. This tells Gi-hun that despite Il-Nam's death, the games are still alive and going.
• Traveling Salesman: His entire outfit and demeanor make him come off as this. When Seong Gi-hun is approached by him initially, he immediately mutters that he's not interested in the teachings of Jesus.
• Troll: Part of his "sales pitch" to his prey is intentionally winding them up by slapping them whenever they lose a round of the game, all with a smug grin on his face. This keeps them hooked in wanting to continue to play the game for the chance to get back at him.
• Warm-Up Boss: His recruitment game is technically the preliminary round of the games, where the only penalty the player gets for losing is a slap to the face. The fact that they get as many retries as they want means the only disadvantage they have to overcome is the blow to their dignity from repeatedly losing. Naturally, the consequences of the actual game get worse from there.

Other:

The VIPs

Played by: John D. Michaels (VIP No. 1), Daniel C. Kennedy (VIP No. 2), David Lee (VIP No. 3), Geoffrey Giuliano (VIP No. 4), Stephane Mot (VIP No. 5), Michael Davis (VIP No. 6)

VIP No. 2: "The games of this edition have been amazing."
VIP No. 3: "Good rain knows the best time to fall."
VIP No. 4: "If you can satisfy me in five minutes...I'll change your life."

A collection of wealthy English-speaking men mostly from Western countries, brought to the island to bet on the games.

---

• Animal Motifs: The VIPs wear golden masks of various animals, all of them predatory or imposing somehow, reflective of how their attitude towards the poor; among them are a lion, a tiger, a bull, an eagle, a bear, and a stag.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: These are wealthy bidders who take joy in watching people die and make bets on who wins or loses. They treat the games like betting on horses!
• Atomic F-Bomb: VIP No. 4 makes his displeasure known when Player 096 chooses the first vest in the Glass Stepping Stones, which is guaranteed to get him doomed.
  VIP No. 4: YOU... FUCKWAD! PIECE OF SHIT!
• Depraved Bisexual: VIP No. 4, the man with the tiger mask. He comfortably rests his head against a woman's breasts while observing the fifth game. He also hits on a male waiter and threatens to kill him if he doesn't have sex with him, but is not aware that the waiter is actually a cop in disguise.
• Dirty Old Man: VIP No. 4 has no problem taking pleasure in LOL, 69 jokes and extorting sexual favors from someone visibly younger than him.
• Dominance Through Furniture: As a sign of how obscenely rich and powerful they are, they use live human beings as footrests and pillows, most of them naked except for a coating of body paint. Most notably, VIP 4 is seen resting his head on a woman's enormous breasts.
• Eccentric Millionaire: A more sinister example of this, the VIPs are a wealthy group of patrons who, in search of entertainment, bet their money on the players and watch their attempts at completing the games.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: They are shocked and confused when Gi-hun, having just beaten Sang-woo, pleads with the guard to invoke clause 3 and let them both go without any of the prize money.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: They seem to get a bit too many laughs out of a simple LOL, 69 joke.
• Evil States of America: Most of them are Americans, and get their kicks watching poverty-ridden Asians compete to the death.
• Fan Disservice: We get a good look at the back of VIP No. 4's obese, naked body when he attempts to have his way with a waiter.
• Fat Bastard: VIP No. 4 is much more corpulent than the others, especially noticeable once he takes off his robe to extort sex from a waiter.
• Fiction 500: They are the world's most ludicrously wealthy individuals; ironically, this makes them all extremely miserable, since nothing is fun anymore because they have the ability to buy everything they could possibly want on a whim with no financial risk.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: They all wear gold masks, reflecting their superiority to everyone else in the organization.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The reason the game exists is to provide entertainment for them and give them something to bet on.
• Groin Attack: When VIP No. 4 attempts to extort sex from Jun-ho, Jun-ho grabs one of his testicles, which causes the old bastard to scream out in pain.
• Hate Sink: Unlike the Front Man, Il-nam and Sang-woo, there’s nothing complex, likeable or redeemable about these guys. They're a bunch of Psychopathic Manchildren and Upper Class Twits who bet on the lives of people with less money because of Rich Boredom. VIP 4 is particularly detestable, attempting to rape a waiter (actually Jun-ho in disguise) after he gets bored because the player's he's betting on died.
• Jerkass: Even towards each other. Especially VIP No. 4, who describes himself as "a difficult man to please." The other VIPs also taunt VIP No. 4 for losing his bet on two players in the same 5 minutes.
• Karma Houdini: Apart from 4 getting assaulted by Jun-ho, all of them leave the island without suffering any repercussions for their crimes; the biggest loss they suffer is the money they blew on losing players.
• Lack of Empathy: They have no sympathy for any of the players, even the ones they bet on. When Player 017 (a glassmaker) finds a guaranteed way of beating the fifth game, the deer-masked VIP only grumbles, "that's no fun."
• Laser-Guided Karma: Attempting to molest one of the waiters only ends badly for VIP No. 4, and he’s left unconscious on the floor with his genitals crushed.
• Laughably Evil: In their more light-hearted moments, they can come across as this.
• Lonely at the Top: The Host remarks at the end that both the poor and rich suffer from a lack of joy in their lives. This encouraged him and the other VIPs to create the games.
• LOL, 69: VIP No. 4 bets on Player 069. Considering his perverse actions described in Depraved Bisexual above, it's not hard to imagine why he had chosen 069 in particular. He later bets on Player 096 for much the same reason.
• Malevolent Masked Men: A bunch of sadistic hedonists who always keep their faces hidden behind gold masks, even during attempted rape.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: They wear expensive suits when they arrive on the island and dress in lavish robes when relaxing in the lounge; they drink wine, scotch, and other pricey liquors; they smoke cigars; they even watch the games through opera glasses.
• Meta Guy: As In-Universe spectators of the games, they provide commentary on it much like a real-life viewer would, questioning the players' actions and even having their own bets on who would win.
• More Hateable Minor Villain: The VIPs are wealthy elites and friends of the Host who help fund the games. Though only appearing in two episodes, they show themselves to be worse as they lack the Host's sympathetic qualities. They view the death games as entertainment and show a disregard for the lives of the contestants, are Psychopathic Manchildren with a juvenile sense of humor, and one of them outright tries to force a waiter to sexually service him under threat of death.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The secret circle backing the game... and a bunch of people prone to making immature jokes and laughing at each other's expense. Plus, the Host is the one making the real decisions.
• Oh, Crap!: VIP 4 is caught completely off-guard when Jun-ho turns the tables on him, and spends the remainder of his scene wide-eyed and mute with terror.
• Pet the Dog: A small one, but they do all agree to let the Front Man give contestants a hint for the 5th game.
• Psychopathic Manchildren: Despite being grown men of great wealth and power, they act like entitled teenagers; one of them petulantly snaps at another after being corrected over a supposed Shakespeare quote, and the other VIPs cheer VIP 4 like fratboys as he takes a waiter away to be raped. VIP 4 himself bets on Player 069 because he finds the number amusing, and throws a temper tantrum when the odds go against both 069 and 096. One would have to feel bad for the Front Man as he has to deal with their antics.
• Rule of Symbolism: Their roster is made up of several Americans and a Chinese man, which is likely based on the two countries' big roles in South Korea's history. The only possible exception is VIP No. 5, who's implied to be French.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The VIPs are meant to be impartial observers, with their only roles in the game involving their personal bets over who the victors will be. While they are unpleasant jackasses, this mostly remains true until the final leg of the 5th game when they get sour over the fact that one of the participants is actually able to tell the difference between the regular and tempered glass plates thanks to a combination of light refraction and his experience as a glassmaker. Claiming that this is "no fun," they sulk until the Front Man adjusts the light settings so the glassmaker can't tell the difference between regular and tempered.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After losing about $2 million on betting and losing on both 069 and 096, VIP 4 Rage Quits watching the 2020 game's fifth round altogether just to enjoy molesting one of the waiters.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: VIP No. 4 is easily the most foul-mouthed of the group, especially when he's in a bad mood.
• Smug Snake: They clearly think their wealth gives them the power to do anything without repercussions, especially the gloating VIP No. 4. 4 is thoroughly disabused of this notion when the waiter he was trying to rape holds him at gunpoint.
• Token Minority:
  • The stag-masked VIP No. 6, a Chinese man, is the only non-white VIP.
  • To a lesser extent, the eagle-masked VIP No. 5 is implied to be French.
• Trumplica: According to his actor Geoffrey Giuliano, VIP No. 4 was modeled after Donald Trump.
• Upper-Class Twit: On top of repeatedly failing to act their age, they frequently misquote famous people and some of their commentaries are simply them being Captain Obvious.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: VIP No. 4 isn't seen again with the other VIPs after a guard goes to check his unconscious body from Jun-ho knocking him out.
• Wicked Cultured:
  • The eagle-masked VIP No. 5 points out that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is not a Shakespeare quote but from William Congreve after they observe Mi-nyeo dragging Deok-su down with her during the glass bridge game.
  • The stag-masked VIP No. 6 quotes 5th-century poet Du Fu in the original Chinese at the start of the final game.
• Wicked Pretentious: Apart from the eagle and the stag, most of the VIPs give only the shallowest pretense of culture; in particular, the lion-masked VIP mistakes "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" for a Shakespeare quote and gets very petulant when corrected, while the bull-masked VIP thinks that the aforementioned Du Fu quote sounds "romantic."

---