Headscratchers / Squid Game

All spoilers will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!

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Taking off your shoes, but not using them?

• For the Glass Panel challenge, the only rules were that the contestants had to take off their shoes and go in the order of their numbers. There is no rule against using the shoes or clothing to your advantage. So then, why did no character ever consider carrying the shoes, then throwing them at each panel (or at least smacking the shoe down on the nearest panel, while they've knelt down)? With that consideration, why did nobody consider tying their clothes (trousers, jackets, etc.) to each other, and if the first person falls, they could use the tug-of-war mechanic and pull them back up? Why didn't they bounce the marble on the panel they're on first, then the adjacent one to see the sound change? The most confusing point of all is: Why did nobody ever try just walking or crawling along the frames of the glass panels, or crawl the middle bars to the end? This challenge seemed the most exploitable, but they made so many mistakes.
  • Look, they're all contestants in a game where the wrong answer on any step means death. They've barely been fed properly, they can't sleep because of the risk of being killed at lights out, and they've been surrounded by enough death to drive the average person insane. The contestants' minds are too stressed and frayed to think outside the box like any sheltered viewer.
  • Additionally, the one guy who can actually distinguish between tempered glass and normal glass quickly gets shut down for the entertainment of the rich spectators, so even if they tried that it likely would've only saved 1-2 people before a firing squad came down upon them.

How exactly would the honeycomb game even work?

• How exactly would the honeycomb game even work? The guards of course need to see the shape is broken to eliminate people. What if they don't see it is broken? What if the contestant hides the crack from them?
  • If they hear or suspects it cracked, they will demand the contestant let them see the honeycomb.
  • Passing the game also seems to require that you show the nearest guard your shape.
  • Plus there are guards supervising through surveillance cameras, including close-ups of contestants' candy. One of the control room guards even gave a guard in the game a signal to notify them of a candy breaking.
  • Also, there is a time limit, and normally once people exceed it they get killed immediately anyways. It’s likely that if a contestant stayed behind too long and refused to show their candy (which they would have no reason to do unless it was broken) they’d just get killed anyway.

Shouldn't the glass panels have footprints?

• During the fifth game, Gi-hun realizes that he can't remember which glass pane everyone else stepped on, and the two panes look identical. But fifteen people just walked all over one of the glass panes with their bare feet. Shouldn't it be smudged up with footprints?
  • Probably could chalk up to Gi-hun not thinking clearly at that point. The footprints are probably there but due to the lighting reflections and Gi-hun's own panic, he couldn't see them. Sae-byeok even has to snap him out of it, too.

How was Gi-hun left with a marble after Round 4?

• How was Gi-hun left with a marble after Round 4? Didn't he need to turn in all 20 marbles to win the game? It seems unlikely that one of the guards would have allowed him to take a marble as a keepsake. If he just accidentally didn't turn in the last marble and wasn't caught, you'd think that he'd be nervous of the guards finding out that he had it and killing him on a technicality.
  • I believe it's due to the guards having witnessed with their own eyes that Il-nam forfeited his last marble to Gi-hun personally, so they know that Gi-hun definitely won the game. That was the deciding moment. So after Il-nam is 'eliminated', Gi-hun is free to do what he would with the marbles he have, so he decides to keep the one Il-name gave him as a Tragic Keepsake. Moreover, we're later revealed that Il-nam is the creator of the game himself. It's possible that he - as the host - ordered the guards to let Gi-hun keep the marble as a token of friendship between them offscreen.

Did Gi-hun already lose a kidney?

• Gi-hun signed a contract with loan sharks to give up a kidney if he should fail to pay up. So after a year, having not touched any of his money, did he lose a kidney? He still seems to be drinking.
  • There was still some time left before the month-long deadline after Gi-hun comes back from the game. It's possible that he managed to accumulate enough money to pay the debt with that loan shark just in time. Also, with his mother having recently died, he could've sold all his belongings and become a drifter to paid off his debt.
  • Nothing indicates after the time-skip that he did not touch any of his money at all. He could have taken out enough to settle his debts and then not touch any of it afterwards. Although his loans were a lot considering his circumstances, all his loans constitute less than 1% of the prize. Therefore it's not unexpected for his bank manager to find it strange that he used 1% of it at he very beginning, and did nothing at all with the rest for an entire year.
  • Given that those behind the contest keep close tabs on Gi-hun after he wins, it's possible that Il-nam intervened and had the loan sharks eliminated when Gi-hun didn't withdraw enough money to pay off his loans.
    • As pointed out on the Fridge page, it is very possible that Il-nam himself created and controls the network of loan sharks in order to gather contestants for the games, since he seems to control the contestants' bodies after they sign them away to the loan sharks.
  • The organizers are likely to be in close contact with the loan sharks, this is the most practical way for them to be able to learn the debts of the players and keep track of them and their habits, and, most importantly, to have candidates to pick from in the first place. They can easily pose as other loan sharks who purchase the loans of the contestants. For a creditor whose client is completely broke and is unlikely to repay even a tiny fraction of the loan, it's worthy to sell that loan to someone else even at great discount. If the organizers have a presence in the criminal underworld (and they have to, at least to purchase all their weapons), they can easily go to loan sharks and ask them who their most hopeless clients are, and purchase their contracts in bulk.

Team sizes in the Tug-of-War game

• For Round 3, players had to get into groups of 10. What would've happened if there weren't enough people to fill those slots? Would some groups just have to participate with less people? What if there were an odd number of groups? (the game is meant to lower the number of participants by half) It just seems somewhat convoluted that they had the exact number of players needed.
  • It's possible that it could be similar to Round 4: anyone who couldn't find a team to be in would be allowed to sit out the game back at the dorm hall.
    • But the math is still incredibly particular and confusing. Say there are 79 contestants left. You could arguably divide them into ten groups of 7, but that leaves a whole 9 players left out of the match. (i.e. more than enough to make one more group) If you included 7 out of the 9 remaining players, you'd have an odd number of teams. So one group would have to go twice to pass. If you split the 9 players into two groups of 4 and let the 1 person who was left sit out, you've all but confirmed that those two groups of 4 will be going against each other when the opposing teams are supposed to be random.
    • They don't necessarily need 10 players to a team. They need an even number of teams, with the same number of players on each team. If they had 79 players left at the start of Round 4, they'd probably have six teams of 13 players, and the person who wasn't chosen for a team would get a pass to the next round. Since the matches are decided at random, maybe if they have a number that doesn't divide into an even number of teams with the same number of players on each team, but that does divide into an uneven number of teams with the same number of players (77 divided into 11 teams of 7, for example), luck of the draw would determine which team was left without an opposing team and got a pass through to the next round.
    • It could be possible there are more game options than what we're shown in the series, and that the type of game to be used in the rounds could change depending on the number of surviving contestants. In the scenario that happened, the remaining contestants happened to have an even number and could be divided into even teams of equal players, so they can play the tug-of-war game. If the number doesn’t add up, however, then the guards might change the game in the third round to something else instead. As for why this doesn’t happen in the fourth game’s marbles contest when there is one extra player who is instead sent back to the dorm, it’s possible that the fourth game is always meant to be the marbles contest, and is intended to be the time for Player 001/Oh Il-Nam to make his exit: he was supposed to be the one extra player whom nobody wanted to play with, but Gi-hun unexpectedly picks him as a partner, leaving Player 212 as the extra player, and Il-Nam felt that it wouldn’t be fair for her to be eliminated simply because she takes the spot he was supposed to have, so he left her alive for the next game.
    • The games were all painted on the walls of the dormitory chamber from the very start however. The guards would not have been able to change them, or at least the games were not meant to be changed or selected.
    • They weren't painted at the start. I, at least, had the impression that they painted each game after it had already happened. It was a major plot point that everyone was desperately looking for clues as to what the next game might be, and you'd think someone would've said "Hey, they're all painted on the walls!"
    • I guess the Front Man would most likely intervene by changing the game himself. He's not above breaking his own rules when he took his mask off in front of someone else and doesn't get killed, after all.
    • It also could be that they divide them into equal groups based on how many are left at that point. In this situation, there was a number of people that was divisible by 10 into an even number of groups. If there had been fewer people, they might have been divided into groups of 9 or 8.
  • The games were calibrated for there to be exactly 80 people by the time they were to play tug-of-war. Note that right before this game was the nighttime riot, which was explicitly instigated by giving a small amount of food to the contestants. The plan was for them to allow contestants to kill each other overnight, and then they would stop the violence at precisely 80 people. Indeed, Il-nam cries out “stop the violence” right at that moment.

Why did the van driver not notice Jun-ho?

• In episode 3 the driver of the van Gi-hun was in just checks his vehicle without realizing Jun-ho snuck in and pretended to be one of the passed out players. The driver picked up the contestants. Wouldn't he have noticed that there was suddenly an extra person in the van? Instead, the guy doesn't figure it out until he checks the registration for Jun-Ho and find that there is none.
  • The Circle workers are chosen for their ability to unquestioningly follow orders, NOT to think. So he's simply not smart enough to realize there's an extra one in the van - and he didn't remember him well enough to realize that he wasn't supposed to be there even after he scanned him the first time.
  • Interestingly enough, plenty of wide-scale operations in Real Life tend to fall for these same pitfalls. Often, when an organization has a massive number of people involved who are each given very specific instructions to follow, and the functionality of the operation hinges on total obedience, it allows for a lot of oversights to be made, because everyone is so used to the routine set for them that they simply follow instructions without accounting for mistakes. The driver probably is so used to doing this routine of picking people up, that, if he sees an extra person, he might just think, "No, that can't be right, I must have picked up more people than I thought I did," and then drive away none-the-wiser.
  • Also, in large operations, especially one as morally bankrupt as the Games, no one involved wants to take responsibility for when something goes wrong, lest they be severely punished, either by being fired or just straight up killed (An we all know which one is likelier in this case). If the driver mentioned picking up an extra person who would later turn out to be a cop trying to actively expose the Games to the public, he'd probably be liable to be shot and killed like the guards that had that secret operation. So, if he realized he'd picked up an extra person, the best option for him is to ignore him, do what he was paid to do, and let it be someone else's problem to solve when they discover it instead (which is what eventually happens) because it's above his pay grade to deal with it himself.

Why did everyone keep jumping in the middle of the glass panels?

• Game 5, why did everyone keep jumping in the middle of the glass panels? Surely the way to survive would have been to land close to the sides and catch yourself on the support if the glass broke. Or what about just tightrope walking along the support structures in the middle? Why did none of them try that?
  • Most likely, the guards would see any strategy other than 'jump on the glass and hope for the best' as cheating. If there are players who manage to grab a hold of the support beams or decide to walk on the ropes, then the guards probably would shoot them dead on the spot. Remember, the VIPs are watching this game live, too, and when they notice a glassmaker among the survivors making the game easier, they demand that the Front Man take his advantage away. It seems likely that any other similar attempt to gain advantage would be punished as well.
    • Yet still in a matter of life or death, not one person tries or even mentions the idea of walking along the beam? They don't know the VIPs are watching, and previously there was no consequence for trying to Take a Third Option by hiding behind the motion sensors or licking the back of the honeycomb.
    • The previous Take the Third Option still fit within the contexts of the rules stated in the games they played. The rule as stated in "Red Light, Green Light" game requires players 'not to get detected' moving when the doll turns its head around, and one legitimate way to avoid that is by hiding behind someone else. The honeycomb game only requires players to carve out the shapes intact and not breaking them: they didn't specify how, which is why Gi-hun and some other players get away with licking them. Similarly, the fourth game's marbles contest has a rule which states that players have to collect all 20 marbles non-violently, which is what Sang-woo used to justify his act of swindling Ali's marbles for himself while he's distracted without using violence. The fifth game is different in that it's explicitly stated out that players have to only step on the glass panels in order to progress. There is no taking a third option here because the rule simply doesn't allow it, and I doubt players would want to test out possible third options while they're multiple stories above the ground below with limited room to maneuver if things go wrong.
    • It does seem like the thing the math teacher who calculated his chance of winning "fairly" to be 1 in 32.768 might try. The chance of not being gunned down for trying to tightrope walk sounds better.
  • What I don't understand is how none of the players in Game 5 thought to carry their shoes with them (they were told to take off their shoes, not to leave them behind) and throw them at the glass in front of them. The shoes weren't heavy but, thrown with force, could break ordinary glass.
    • Chalk it up to lack of sleep, proper food, and the life-or-death anxiety making them unable to think outside of the box like that. Sure maybe Gi-hun could think of licking the candy in the honeycomb challenge, but after three more brutal death games plus the riots would do a number on the creative thinking process. The human brain can only take so much.

Can you survive the fifth game?

• As absurd as it may seem, Round 5 might be the only round where you could still plausibly survive even if you failed. Yes, it's an very long fall, but human beings were capable of surviving extremely long falls before. On the off-chance a person takes the plunge, gets the wrong glass panel, falls, but still happens to be alive (If crippled) after hitting the ground, what would happen? Would they be dismissed from the game due to being unable to compete? Would they be forced into Round 6 even though their legs would be unusable? Or would they just get executed by the guards because, surviving the fall or not, they failed at the game's objective and however loses needs to go?
  • The eliminated contestants are eliminated, period. There were players who have survived their injuries in the first (Red Light, Green Light) and the third (tug-of-war) games as well, but they're shown being put into coffins which are then shoved into furnaces no different than the dead players, because they're already eliminated from the game. Simply put, if a player loses a round, even if they survived, they'll still end up in the coffins anyway.
  • Of note is that we do actually briefly see a guy still moving after the long fall in Round 3. They just put him in the coffin regardless.

Why did Il-nam even authorize the fifth game?

• Why did Il-nam even authorize the fifth game? The others all seem to incorporate skill to a good degree, and even if you get unlucky, you'd be able to catch yourself and make a come back with wits or strength, but the fifth game isn't like that. It's dumb luck. The entire point of the game is to get lucky, and there's also other factors too. Go too slowly? Another player could force you off to your death. Feet get too sweaty from stress? You could end up slipping off. And that's not even mentioning about how the guy wearing the "#1" vest is basically guaranteed to die.
  • That's the idea. The penultimate game is intended to pare the field down from over a dozen to just a handful, while still being designed so that there should be at least a couple of people still alive to play the final round.
  • People like to gamble on games of random chance like dice or roulette. If that's what the VIPs like then the front man would arrange it.
  • All statements to the contrary, the Squid Games are NOT in fact fair for a multitude of reasons. At least one obvious reason is that the organizers intentionally control how many people get through. For games 3, and 4, there was only a 50% pass rate since they had everyone in teams. No matter what, no more than 40 people could have passed the third game and no more than 20 people could have survived the fourth game. For the fifth game, there were exactly 18 tiles. Assuming there were only 20 players left and assuming the first 18 were ALL unlucky with what tiles they picked, then exactly 2 players would have been left with a safe path for the final game.
  • Il-nam states several times that success requires both skill and luck.

How do the winners explain their sudden influx of money?

• Unless the government is in on it (which is certainly a possibility), how do the winners explain their sudden influx of money? If they kept it offshore they could find plenty of banks that could care less, but you see that the money is in a Korean bank account. The government is going to tax that income and it's going to raise organized crime alarm bells.
  • They could operate any kind of legitimate casino, lottery, or betting house as a front, and give out the winnings through that, while also paying the taxes. Operating (or being connected to) gambling establishments also makes sense for them, many of their contestants seem to be gamblers, so they can gather information about them and their habits.
  • The winner is given a card with the money on it. So they can pay for things without it ever going into their account. Alternatively, the government IS in on, since this world is a metaphor for widespread systemic corruption.

How did the staff not consider the possibility of the glass shattering after Round 5 possibly injuring players?

• How did the staff not consider the possibility of the glass shattering after Round 5 possibly injuring players? It doesn't seem very in keeping with the game's philosophy of equality to let Kang Sae-byeok get eliminated due to bad luck when she won the round fair and square.
  • It could be deliberate, as a way to pare down the numbers for the final game. The staff also make no effort to ensure that the finalists don't steal steak knives.
    • It could actually have been encouraged, at least from a certain point of view.
  • Additionally, the game plays it rather fast and loose with the concepts of equality. The lights were turned out during the Glass Tiles game to remove the advantage the glass maker's experience provided him, but the guards outright see Han Mi-Nyeo (212) and Jang Deok-Su (101) use the lighter during the Honeycomb game and take no action. The game's rules are enforced or ignored on a whim, which is probably why they let Kang Sae-byeok take a grievous wound.
  • The glass gets shattered once the timer runs out. If more time was left on the clock, the winners would have had time to go behind the exit curtain where they would be safe, but since they only barely made it, with Gi-hun literally getting there at the last second, they got caught in the spray of broken glass. The players getting injured by the glass shard was probably not the goal, but it was also considered a possibility and intentionally allowed to happen.
  • That's because they are obvious hypocrites. The game only pretends to be fair, when it's clearly not as it has been shown many times.
  • This entire thing is a gigantic murder machine. It's not set up with a philosophical purpose; it's set up to entertain wealthy bastards. If those guys find it funny that a winner will sometimes get gored by flying shrapnel, then they will absolutely set it up so that people get gored by flying shrapnel.
    • On that note, the idea that the games are "fair" is just another lie. And if Front Man honestly believes that the games are fair, he's just lying to himself.

Do the guards have contingency plans for players?

• Do the guards have contingency plans for players? For example, what happens if a player needs vital medication, starts their period, or otherwise can’t survive or function properly without a certain item? Do the guards just shoot them, or provide them with what they need so it doesn’t hamper their performance?
  • When Jang Deok-su sustains a wound during the night-riot, the guards don't seem to provide him with any medical attention to prevent his future performance from being hampered. He only receives medical attention through Doctor Byeong-gi (111). We can perhaps infer, then, that the game staff aren't too keen on providing medical attention, though we can question if they provided the supplies needed to stitch Deok-su's wound.
  • The only other time a player was given medical care was Gi-hun in the final episode. His hand is bandaged after Sang-woo stabbed him through it, so we can assume the island does have the means to tend to injuries.
  • It would naturally need facilities for the staff. I imagine medical care is dispensed to participants at the front man's discretion, more commonly in the early rounds (when an illusion of fairness is more important).

Why didn't Gi-hun go help the man himself?

• In the final episode when Il-nam challenges Gi-hun to bet on whether anyone will come to help the homeless man, why didn't Gi-hun go help the man himself? He had a whole half an hour, and Il-Nam did say ANYONE.
  • The "game" was about whether humanity as a whole was capable of kindness, not just Gi-hun himself.
  • Might also be Fridge Brilliance on Gi-hun's character and how he's more focused on winning the game and proving that he is right.
  • I believe Gi-Hun was moved by contrarianism to accept Il-nam's bet. Him not bothering to run down and help shows how apathetic he's become due to Survivor's Guilt. But Gi-Hun's victory moves him to later stop the Salesman from snagging another victim. However inconsequential, since the Squid Games' influence is ever-present and seeks people already in debt, it's still one life spared from that hell. Most importantly, Gi-Hun's motivated to turn his grief into rage, he's fighting for the sake of decent people whose arms were twisted into joining the Squid Game, who saved his life even during their darkest days.
  • Gi-Hun isn't a good person. He never, for example, suggests that the other players all vote to end the game until the only one left is his childhood friend. He's the protagonist because the people running the games are absolute monsters, and some of his fellow players are monsters as well, so Gi-Hun gets to be the protagonist almost by default. This is a dark grey vs pitch black story, in other words.
  • I think the subtext there is that Gi-Hun is genuinely curious as to whether anyone will help the drunk. He wants to know if there are still good people in the world, or if everyone's a selfish bastard. The games were run by selfish bastards who manipulated ordinary people into becoming selfish bastards themselves, killing their fellow contestants etc. etc.. Gi-Hun himself fell prey to that to some extent, and he feels guilty about it. He wants to know whether the games are a true reflection of society at large or if the real world is better than that. So it's important to stop and see what random strangers do unprompted, instead of intervening himself. (And besides, if he loses the bet he can still go down and help the guy at 12:10 am or whatever).

What's the exact objective of the fourth game?

• In the 4th Game, the one with the Marbles, the only rule specifically given is that you must compete with your teammate to win their marbles, not that you needed to end the game with 20. If the object of the game was merely to win their marbles why wouldn't they think of exchanging bags. Both contestants have "won" their opponents marbles, therefore they both wouldn't be eliminated.
  • You honestly think they'd take that incredibly tortured logic? The marbles aren't individually marked, they are impossible to tell apart. You play until one of you has none left.
    • But that's not what the rules state. The first troper in this folder is entirely correct, and there's nothing tortured about it. You have to acquire the 10 marbles of your opponent. Swap bags (in some way that could be called a "game") and you both win. The rules of that particular game were poorly phrased and clearly allowed for this solution (at least in the subtitles, I'll admit I don't speak Korean so it could be a case of poor translation).
  • It's possible that would have worked but nobody thought of it.

Was the math teacher wrong about the odds in the glass game?

• Not very important, but I want to know, was the math teacher wrong about the odds in the glass game? It would be 1/32768 only if he could pick wrong more than once, but he can't do that. For example, let's suppose there are only two rows, so you have three possibilities: (pick correctly->pick correctly), (pick correctly->pick wrongly and die), (pick wrongly and die); there's no picking wrong twice. So that makes 1/3, and not 1/4 for two rows.
  • That's not how progressive probability works, this is very well established math. The final probability of any specific series of outcomes in a repeating series is (Probability of desired outcome)^(number of repetitions). Him dying on a wrong choice doesn't make the probabilities beyond his choice magically disappear. The ONLY outcome that lets him live for 2 choices is Safe -> Safe. The fact that he can't actually pick Die -> Die or Die -> Safe is irrelevant to the probability of the only route that lets him live. The ONLY way for him to live is to correctly pick Safe 15 times in a row, which is a 50% chance 15 times in a row, mathematically expressed as 2^15. The math for his survival is indisputable and correct at 1/32768, and he knows that, which is why he has a breakdown and just runs for it.
    • Okay, I think I get it now.

Why didn't the Squid Game organisers have Gi-hun killed for talking too much?

• After Gi-hun ran to the police, why didn't the Squid Game organisers have him killed for talking too much?
  • Well first, because they never told them not to talk to the police, and second, because that's EXACTLY the kind of behavior that would bring extra attention to his crazy story. The police don't believe a word he says and treat him like a crazy drunk. Killing him immediately after he told the police a crazy story might actually arouse suspicion. They most likely just monitored the police and made sure there was no investigation opened as a result of Gi-Hun's report, so no need for any further action on their part, case closed.
  • The people behind the Squid Games are very rich and influential. It's not outside the realm of possibly that they would have someone high up in the police force on their payroll that would squash or hinder any serious investigations into the games. Which would make killing someone for talking too much unnecessary. Especially when they know that these same people who talked will come back to the games and likely die in them anyway.

How hasn't the police and media reacted to several hundred people mysteriously disappearing every year?

• Judging by the files the policeman finds, the Squid Games has apparently been happening every year for over 20 years or so. Artistic License is all I can think of, or how else hasn't the police and media reacted to several hundred people mysteriously disappearing every single year??
  • Consider the contestants: a man who owes his kidney to loan sharks; a businessman who embezzled billions; a North Korean defector; an undocumented Pakistani immigrant; a mobster who the mob is after. All the characters have plausible reasons for vanishing and are the kind that the media won't care to make a fuss over. Indeed, that's partly the point.
  • People going missing and never being found is (depressingly) more common than a lot of people realize, particularly if those people are considered "undesirable" (poor, homeless, criminals, minorities, etc.). I don't know the statistics for South Korea, but this website shows that over 600,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. a year, and of those people, tens of thousands stay missing. And as the above troper pointed out, this is part of the show's point - these people's lives are undervalued by society, so no one but their families and close friends will notice or care. 455 people disappearing would be a drop in the bucket.
    • This is a good point, but in real life, both in America and Korea, all these people going missing go missing over the course of the entire year, and not all suddenly on a single day like the players did, if we divide 600,000 by 365, that's roughly 1600 people going missing per day in America, and given Korea's much smaller population, it'd be reasonable to assume that that number is a lot lower. In fact, if we adjust for population (assuming the rates of going missing are roughly equal in Korea as it is in America) that would mean about 250 people go missing every day in Korea. Wouldn't the sudden uptick of an additional 455 people going missing on top of the usual 250 every day rate at the same time every year still raise suspicion nonetheless like the original question states?
    • You're missing thinking about what TYPE of people are going missing. These aren't random mothers off the street or clean-cut workers. They were carefully chosen for Squid Game because they were in massive debt, usually to unsavory characters or because of criminal activity, and would be dismissed by police. A bunch of them like Han Mi-nyeo begged for their lives at the start of the game, thinking that this was the debt collectors that had come for them. As an example, what would happen if Gi-Hun had actually died and been reported missing? They'd go talk to his ex-wife and husband, who would tell him that he was a compulsive gambler and con artist who was in major debt and they last saw him begging them for money. At best the police would investigate the gangster who was already threatening to take his kidney (and find no proof that they killed him), or just dismiss it as Gi-Hun running to another country or city away from his debts. Ali? They'd find out that he crushed his boss' hand in a machine, stole money and run, and assume he left the country as he'd been openly planning to do. Kang Sae-Byeok? Meh, good riddance to a criminal NK defector that probably went back north. Cho Sang-woo? Probably on a Caribbean island somewhere with his embezzled millions. Deok-Su? Killed by his gangster associates. All the other players are like this - desperate people in desperate circumstances who will be dismissed by police when they unsurprisingly turn up missing.
    • To be fair, the 201 players who survived "Red Light, Green Light" returned home after the vote for at least a few days (and a few of them stayed home and didn't come back for the next round), so the maximum number of people who would have disappeared on a single day is "only" 255. (This could be another reason Il-nam cast the tie-breaking vote to end the games). Furthermore, the disappearances of so many people would not all be reported at the same time - some people could be gone for days before their friends or family notice. To the authorities, it would probably look more like 456 people disappearing over a couple weeks rather than on a single day.
  • Who's to say the games are being hosted in South Korea? For all we know, they might be hosted somewhere outside the authorities' jurisdiction in a place that nobody knows where the hell, so, other than a couple of points, the authorities prolly would just throw their hands up and go "We can't do anything" even if they did notice. Oh, and the one dude, Hwang Jun-ho, got eliminated when he did investigate, so....

Why weren't the contestants treated for injuries?

• Why weren't the contestants treated for injuries, especially considering the fair play rule of the game? I'd get why they wouldn't do it after the blackout because that was out of organizer's control, but surely they knew that the glass breaking would lead to people getting hurt, and it wouldn't make sense to let Sae-byeok continue playing with a shard of glass protruding from her stomach.
  • Because at the end of the day, the 'fairness' of the game is a load of crap. They're there for the amusement of the VIPs and The Host. They've already pulled crap like NOT telling them at the start of the first game that being 'eliminated' meant death (causing a mass panic and HUNDREDS of deaths), intentionally not giving them enough food and letting players steal from them, blatantly allowing them to cheat with outside items like lighters that should not be allowed, and outright letting them gang up and murder people in full view of the guards. They pretty conclusively demonstrated in the Glass Stepping Stones that they were willing to suddenly change the rules because the glass worker could actually tell which panels were safe, so they suddenly killed the lights. The implication that I got of the whole situation is that the dinner was designed to go on until an even number of players were left (because unbalanced teams in the Squid Game would result in basically an automatic victory for the team with an extra player), so they were going to let one of them die anyway, and may as well be the injured one. At the end of the day they don't give a rat's ass about fairness, they want entertainment.
  • They also could have simply not realized that she'd taken a serious wound until Gi-hun started yelling at them (Gi-hun and Sang-woo hadn't really noticed themselves), and before they could actually provide care, she was dead.
  • "Fair" probably means "everything affecting the game has to happen in full view of the VIPs making the bets". The doctor being clued in wasn't "fair" because because it was outside what the VIPs knew - however its quite possible the VIPs could see the girl's injury when it happened and were considering it in their bets.
  • This entire thing is a gigantic murder machine. You might as well ask why Jack the Ripper didn't provide medical attention to his victims. Killing people is pretty much the entire point; they just have a roundabout way of doing it.

Why did Gi-hun put the knife in his pocket with the blade facing upwards?

• When Gi-hun puts the steak knife in the pocket of his suit, why did he put it in with the blade facing upwards? That seems kind of inconvenient, wouldn't he just end up stabbing himself if he goes for the knife?
  • That may be the point. He is putting it in pocket like that to show to Sae-byeok that he can't make a sudden grab for it in. He needs her to trust that he isn't going to pull it suddenly on her.
  • Alternately, Gi-hun is just an ordinary guy with zero combat experience, and he doesn't know how to properly store a knife.
    • Very doubtful because all South Korean men are required to serve in the military (knife combat included). They even mention serving which was why they decided to band together.

Police regulations

• What does the Front Man mean when he's talking about police regulations about loading service weapons in Korea? Does Korean police want their people dead with this stupidity? Is it even real or made up?
  • It may be a variant, but it is true. No round in the chamber, and then a blank (or, in some cases, two.) This is due to attempting to prevent a negligent discharge if the weapon is dropped, and the blanks are meant to act as "warnings" or to be fired up in the air. The typical Korean policeman is far less likely to deal with gun-wielding criminals than an American policeman, so they aren't as heavily geared towards gunfights.
  • A follow-up question, then: Are Korean police not allowed to carry any spare ammunition to reload their guns? They really get sent into the field with just what's in the gun and nothing else?
    • Keep in mind that when he followed Gi-hun he's an off-duty detective, not a patrolman, member of the gang squad, or a member of the SWAT team. He wasn't IN the field and conducting an investigation, he was off-duty.

How much do the games cost?

• What are the founders or people who run the game getting out of all this, other than entertainment value? Surely they've gone through GREAT expense setting all this up. 45 BILLION won to the winner, constructing the games and the facility, arranging the staff, investigating each and every player, etc. has to cost ALOT of dang money. Where is the financial return on all this investment?
  • There is no financial return on the investment. That's the point. It is purely for their entertainment, and they have so much money that the cost of the games is worth paying in return for the entertainment. 45.6 billion won works out to 38.5 million USD. It's a lot of money, but pocket change to somebody in the top 100 on the Forbes Billionaire list (#100 on the list has a net worth of $19.6 billion). We see six VIPs show up to watch the fifth game. Who knows how many more there are who didn't attend in person? They probably all contribute to the running costs, while Oh Il-nam probably paid for the start-up costs, like buying the island and building the facility. To them, 10 million USD, or whatever they pay, is worth it for six days of watching the games.
  • On top of what was said above, it’s established that the VIPs also gamble on the game, with VIP #4 idly throwing a million dollars at player 69 winning based on nothing more than his number, despite any random player only having a chance of winning in the .2% range at the start of the game. The Front Man even bluntly says to Gi-hun “You bet on horses. You’re my horse.” Any money the games make from bets the VIPs lose probably go to financing the operation.

Why did Gi-hun go with bright red hair?

• Why did Gi-hun go with bright red hair? I feel like I'm missing something.
  • According to the director, it symbolizes the red light in the game "Red Light, Green Light" and Gi-hun's rage.
    • Considering that the game is not called "Red Light, Green Light" in Korean, I find that hard to believe.
    • In Korean, the name of the game is "The Hibiscus flower has bloomed". Maybe it's in reference to a red hibiscus?

Would the players have been safe if they had moved like chess knights?

• Since chess knights were used to represent the players in the glass bridge game, would they have been safe if they had moved like knights? Not that the players knew that, of course.
  • Apparently, no. I haven't checked myself, but according to quite a few people the pattern was LRRRRLRRLRRRLLLRRL, with no apparently discernable pattern.

What's the meaning of circle, triangle and square?

• What's the meaning of circle, triangle and square?
  • I think it was supposed to be a shoutout to Playstation, which has those buttons.
    • I'm pretty sure that it's referring to a real life squid game arena, which features a circle, a square and a triangle.
    • I thought the same thing, but (looking it up after finishing the series) Playstation is a Japanese product, not Korean.
    • Doesn't mean they weren't still referencing it. Playstations are popular in places that aren't Japan. The shapes are way too similar to have been a coincidence.
  • I'm assuming you mean the hierechies. Circle: grunts who do menial tasks. Triangles: Soldiers, they make sure the games run smoothly and get to carry guns. Squares: They give out orders.
  • Given that the contestants play children's games, I believe those three shapes are apart of the theme of childhood nostalgia since young children learn basic shapes around the same time they play outdoors.

Why did Oh Il-nam create such a lethal game?

• Why did Oh Il-nam create such a lethal game? If he just wanted to play, he could have offered the prize, and made the penalties painful and humiliating, but not lethal. People would have volunteered for such a game with a 38 million dollar prize.
  • Almost certainly to make the games as entertaining as possible to its viewers. The stakes for the players quite literally could not be higher— they either die or are granted freedom from the oppression of Capitalism for probably the rest of their life. Imagine the power high of knowing you, personally, helped bring these people to the most crucial point in their lives.
  • Letting players live also raises complicated consequences. 500 people go missing every year? Sure, happens. 500 people spread around the story of the games every year? For 20 years or more? Rumors spread, and after hearing the same story enough, eventually there would be some kind of investigation. Even a nonlethal game like that would definitely not be legal.
    • This point is somewhat made moot given the fact that Clause 3 DOES potentially allow hundreds of players to go home free, at which point they could also start spreading rumors and the exact same sequence you just mentioned goes down all the same.
    • It's a clause that they're not worried about in the slightest however. If you're desperate enough to take part in the Games, you're desperate enough to come back even if you vote to leave them on top of the fact that the contestants are the dregs of society so they would have zero people believe them anyway as we saw in Episode 2. The fact is that very few would snitch, no one would believe them, and very few notice or care that upwards of 500 of the lowest of the low in Korea go missing every year because it happens often enough as it is.
    • In that case making the games non-lethal wouldn't be a rumor-spreading risk either.
  • Because he's a horrible person with zero respect for human life. It's easy to forget that when we've spent so much time with him and he seems like such a sweet guy, but maybe that's the point. Maybe the writers are trying to underline the fact that a seemingly-sweet guy can actually be an insanely horrible person who kills hundreds of people every year because he's BORED.
• He's terminally ill, and doesn't want to just sit around waiting to die. That's why he joined in the first place, because he'll die soon anyway.

Was it ever stated that there can only be a single winner?

• All the players seem to assume that There Can Be Only One, even though the price is big enough to fix the money problems of multiple players when split. Was it ever stated that there can only be a single winner? The intro narration points out that the regular Squid Game is played in teams, so there could conceivably have been more than 1 winner if there were more than 2 players left for the final game.
  • On the brief instance in episode 5 where we (the viewer) got to see the archives of past Squid Games, the list had only shown one winner each year. It is most likely the design of the whole competition, as the later games are designed in a way that eventually guarantees losers. Players are not really given any ins to the whole mechanics of the game before they are already inside, so even if the prospect comes up the fact that all Squid Games have concluded with only one winner reveals the general inability of the players to cooperate until the end.
    • It's a fair assumption that the organizers could manipulate events to get the field down to one winner every time, given how they turned the lights off when just because the VIPs found it boring when the glassmaker could win safely. I'm just curious if this was ever stated as an official rule.
  • What happens if more than two players makes it through to the final game (or a single player) is an exercise best left to theorists. I can think of a few options if more players make it through (16 players with 18 panels should lead to an average of about 8 survivors according to my simulations). If the number of surviving players is even, we could end up with a squid game tournament. It could also be that they expect the players to kill each other before the final game, with the guards stepping in at an "appropriate" time. Gi-Hun and Sae-Byeok aren't keen on killing each other before the final game, while Sang-Woo kills Sae-Byeok as soon as he gets the chance. Edit (same person): Someone did the math, and worked out the expected number of survivors to being slightly above 7.
  • It's also possible that if there are two or more winners of the final game, they get to divide the winnings between them. It's difficult to tell simply because the game is ruled by the whims of the creators, rather than logic. On a given day, the VIPs could shrug and decide they liked the last team for being good entertainment and good sports, and let them split the money. On another given day, the VIPs could be feeling especially cruel and make them play extra games until only one was left.
  • Actually, I was surprised by how oblivious the players were. I rarely saw anyone in the show pointing out the possibility that the games could end up in one where only one person could win. People would team up, but no one was saying or thinking "if this game ends up us being against each other, what do you want to do?"
    • People were thinking that, they just weren't saying it out loud. The savvy people realize that saying "Hey, this might be a situation where only one person can live!" is a great way to encourage your naive teammates to murder you, and why would you want to do that? Meanwhile, the naive people are hoping that there actually can be multiple winners, so members of a team don't need to betray each other. The savvy people pretend to be naive in order to secure the cooperation of naive people. Sang-woo is one clear example of this; he teams up with Gi-Hun and others but then immediately betrays them in the honeycomb game, because he figures it'll be down to one person in the end and he might as well engineer as many deaths as possible in each round. He does it again in the marble game, pretending to have a "we can both win" strategy while actually pursuing a "I'll win and you'll die" strategy.
  • It's all a matter of the organizers being willfully nebulous in how they spoke about the winners. Explicitly mentioning those who survive all the games receive the winnings, never outright stating there can only be one winner. The players didn't ask because with everything else they likely didn't think to, and even if they did I highly doubt they would've been told that only one winner can come out alive since it exponentially increases the chances of the group opting into Clause 3 for good. Lastly, one can argue that the very nature of the games played and their order plays a part. The first two are based on individual success and, for the most part, lack any incentive or reason to screw anyone else over (or even interact for that matter). Then with the riot and the Tug-of-War they foster camaraderie among the players, and incentivizing teamwork. By the time the bombshell of the Marble game happens to ruin all of that the players are too far in to back out even if they realize the truth.
  • There are at least two games designed to cut the field down by half (tug of war and marbles), and there's no indication that the actual games are determined ahead of time. It's possible that the Front Man had other game options that could drastically cut down the field to ensure that an appropriate amount of people got eliminated. Also I don't think it was ever said in advance in-universe that the final game was definitely Squid Game. There may have been a different final game suited to multiple players, but with only one able to win, in case more than two made it through the glass panels and/or they couldn't get the players to murder a sufficient number of other players before the final game to cut the field down to two. If Sang-woo hadn't killed Sae-byeok (and she didn't die of her injuries overnight), they may have had a three-player final game that wasn't squid game.

About In-ho's public disappearance

• The Front Man is revealed to be In-ho, the winner from years ago, and his comments to the VIPs suggest this isn't his first year organizing. His brother comes to look for him this year because he suddenly went missing. Why was this never an issue the previous years, especially the year he was a contestant? It's possible this is the first time his family bothered to check in on him during the timeframe the Squid Game takes place, but that doesn't fit with how strongly driven his brother is to find him.
  • They explained this in the 2nd episode. In-ho has been missing for years, and Jun-ho HAS been trying to find him, but he had no leads and no information - until he saw Gi-hun with the exact unidentified card that was in his brother's house when he disappeared. He's incredibly driven because his brother is gone and he's been able to do NOTHING for years, now he suddenly has a new lead with real information and he's determined to not let it go.
    • His brother was not missing for years, when Jun-ho talked to Gi-hun at the end of the episode he said that his brother "went missing a few days ago".
    • Additionally, they mentioned that this was a habit of his. My interpretation was that his family HAS noticed and worried each time; this is just the first time they had any leads.
    • Though it makes one wonder why the hell has he never bothered to create a serviceable alibi. Even considering organization and setup the Games probably only take up a month max. You'd think he would just tell the people around him some carefully crafted excuse at this point since no one had been chasing leads on the Games.
    • What alibi could he give that his police officer brother couldn't have scrutinized? It's not like he could say he went to a different country or worked a new job, Jun-ho could easily have checked up on any of those things. It's safer for all concerned if he just says nothing and gives Jun-ho no leads at all. As far as his family's concerned, In-ho's broke, disgraced, and maybe suffering from extreme mental trauma. From that perspective, it's really not all that odd if he falls out of society now and then without explanation. Jun-ho only starts getting suspicious when he notices the cards, after all.

Why did Gi-hun go along with Il-nam's bet?

• In the final episode, Oh Il-nam offers a bet to tell Gi-hun everything if someone helps a drunken man, who is freezing to death on the street, before midnight. Given how disgusted Gi-hun was with Oh Il-nam at this point, specifically for playing games with other people's lives, why did Gi-hun go along with this bet? It was very surprising he just sat there waiting to see if the man would die instead of going outside and saving the man himself. Which would arguably still win him the bet, since someone helped the man.
  • I had the feeling Gi-hun wanted to witness himself that somebody helped the man and humanity isn't what Oh Il-nam says it is.
  • I was wondering why Gi-Hun didn't just go down and help the man himself. He would have won and shown his compassion.
    • The issue is that Gi-Hun's compassion wasn't really in question at this point, after all Il-Nam allowed him to move on in the Games because he liked Gi-Hun so much. Gi-Hun going down to help the man doesn't prove anything the two don't already know (plus it wouldn't be completely altruistic if he did help for the very reason you stated, a bet was on the line). On top of that Gi-Hun was likely disillusioned after the Games and, despite betting that someone would help, needed to see it for himself. Gi-Hun got to see that humanity is still worth believing in and fighting for, and Il-Nam passes seeing that his worldview is nowhere near as absolute as he'd like to believe.
  • The terms of the bet were actually slightly different. Oh Il-nam offers the bet, and Gi-hun initially refuses. Oh Il-nam then offers to tell Gi-hun everything if Gi-hun accepts the bet. Once Gi-hun accepts, Oh Il-nam immediately starts telling him everything, before the drunken man's fate is revealed. The actual terms of the bet were irrelevant to the plot - if Gi-hun won, he could kill Oh Il-nam with his bare hands, and if Oh Il-nam won, Gi-hun offered to give up the money.
  • Probably to figure out what Il-nam's problem is since the latter said "I'll tell you everything if you play my game".

What happened when Deok-su met the Salesman?

• Is Jang Deok-su really the type to let himself be slapped around by the Salesman for a certain amount of time? He's been shown outright murdering people even outside the context of the games (his old mob mate, random guy in the break room) so why wouldn't being slapped enrage him into something similar?
  • A few possibilies I can think of: Maybe he won on his first try and didn't need to get slapped, or maybe he had the money on him to play for cash. Maybe he was desperate enough to allow himself to be slapped just like everyone else, or maybe he was recruited in a different way.
    • The first option seems the most likely as Deok-su is a really big dude and probably has the strength to flip a ddakji on his first throw.

Jun-ho's phone battery

• How did Jun-ho manage to go five days without charging his phone (at least, on-screen)?
  • Perhaps he smuggled in a powerbank or found a charger somewhere on premises.
  • Because he would have turned the phone OFF when he wasn't safely under a blanket to use it. He's not going to just leave it on all day and risk it going off and giving him away. Presumably he turned it on only when recording his end-of-day observations, until he actually needed to try and contact his fellow police at the end.
    • Even when the phone is turned off the battery is still discharging albeit at a slower rate. And Jun-Ho's phone was only at 50% when the game started. So it's still pretty amazing it held for so long.

How are the players still alive after all that gas?

• Every time the workers pick up the players, they knock them out with gas, and there are several players in one car, so they're all being gassed repeatedly. How are they still alive after all that gas?
  • The anesthetic may just be that safe.
  • There probably ARE some deaths, and when that happens the guards just shrug, burn the bodies, and move on. Just because the game starts with 456 does not mean that only 456 got recruited. In fact, that number sounds suspicious. 500 sounds like the sort of number that an organization would actually pick. Quite possibly 44 died off-screen to gas overdose.
  • Capitalist super-science.
  • Hollywood knockout gas.

Voting to end the games

• Why didn't Gi-hun and Kang Sae-byeok immediately vote to end the games when it was down to just those three? Gi-hun clearly had no taste for the games anymore. Kang Sae-byeok couldn't win and needed immediate medical attention if she was to survive. Yet no one even suggests it. Kind of hard to hate on Sang-woo when they both tacitly committed to continuing to play.
  • Even if they'd thought of that, in the time between convincing a dying Sae-byeok to vote, and getting the guards' attention, Sang-Woo would most likely have killed her anyway (he was pretty quick about it once Gi-hun turned his back, after all), and I doubt they'd take Gi-hun's word for it that she voted to stop the games.
• Gi-hun asked for voting to end the game right in the middle of it, so why none considered doing it once more before? Only after the fourth game the husband asked to do it, but not during the game. Also none did that when they were sure they were gonna die in the tug-of-war game either.
  • Good point on tug-of-war — after all half were certain to die.
  • These are all the people who willingly returned to participate in the game even after they were shown the stakes and were let go with no strings attached. I doubt many of then were willing to quit at a later point despite all the hardship they endured. It would mean all for nothing to them and return to their previous lives. The lives that drove them to participate in the first place. And even if some of them wanted to quit, they might not think that they find enough support, for all the same reasons, so they they assume bringing it up is useless. Also it's possible they didn't think you can vote in the middle of the game. Gi-hun did it as a last resort and it was probably an "Eureka!" Moment for him, just like licking the honeycomb in the Game 2. What seems to be an obvious solution in hindsight, might not be so obvious before someone finally thinks of it.
  • How exactly would you vote during a game of tug-of-war? Even if the entire team that's about to lose votes to end the games, they're evenly matched by the team that's about to win. You need more than half to make a majority. The player-spectators would get to vote too, but there's probably enough people who think "I can win this if I really try, and anyway I've got nothing to lose since I was already doomed in real life" that the vote would fail. Hypothetically, yes, someone ought to call for a vote every five minutes or so even if the vote always fails, but I suppose that would be annoying and repetitive from a narrative standpoint, so the writers skipped that.

Why did Oh Il-nam make himself immune from death while participating in the games?

• Why did Oh Il-nam make himself immune from death while participating in the games? He's going to die soon anyway, and I thought the threat of death was what made the games "exciting" to him in the first place. It seems weird that he chose to put himself in the game for fun, but wasn't really "in" the games.
  • Because he's not that dedicated? He wants entertainment and is willing to risk his life for that, but he's not suicidal. I don't think the idea of a bored rich sociopath, who bets on people in a deadly game, being hypocritical and considering himself above the rules is that surprising.
  • Unless he somehow rigged the rope, he was at least in some danger during the tug of war. Good advice wouldn't guarantee his team would follow it. He may have also been at risk in the first game. It gives him a slight chance of death while still hedging the odds in his favor as much as possible when at risk.
  • Some people say Il-nam wasn't locked into his manacles like everyone else (I couldn't tell) which would allow him to slip out if needed. I honestly hope this is the case, since the actors really were put through a lot of physical stress in that scene as they were tugging against a tugging machine. They can't put the actual elderly actor in harm's way.

Why did Sae-byeok leave her little brother in an orphanage rather than let him live with her?

• Why did Sae-byeok leave her little brother in an orphanage rather than let him live with her?
  • Seeing as how one of her main goals was to buy a house for the both of them, she was probably living as a drifter on the streets while obviously making scant amounts of money using less-than-ideal means. Even though leaving him in an orphanage sucks, at least he has food to eat and a roof over his head every night there. Living off the streets is dangerous and no place for a kid.

How did Deok-su and Mi-nyeo have sex in the bathroom?

• How did Deok-su and Mi-nyeo have sex in the bathroom? Maybe not a big deal but, am I the only one who finds the scene strange? I mean, just one episode before, it was shown that the guards even control the time they take in the bathroom. Isn't it strange that two players took so long in there?
  • Quickie, and the bathroom guard doesn't wanna deal with Mi-nyeo again.
  • The first time it was an issue, it was because it was "curfew". I assume that on regular hours, people are free to use the bathrooms whenever they want and for whatever they want.

How did Gi-hun know which orphanage Sae-byeok's brother was in?

• How did Gi-hun know which orphanage Sae-byeok's brother was in? She only told him that she left her brother in an orphanage, but she never told him which one exactly. I suppose there is more than one orphanage in all of South Korea, right?
  • Since Sae-byeok pickpocketed from Gi-hun, it's safe to assume she normally operates in his neighborhood and that she'd naturally want to stay near her brother. Supporting this notion is that they were dumped in the same place after the first game. All he'd have to do was start looking at the orphanages closest to his old home and work from there. He could have also paid to have someone help him search.
    • The last part is likely it. Gi-hun had started to take advantage of his winnings, and thus had more than enough cash to just simply hire a PI if he needed to in order to hunt down her brother.

Guard #29 not making any noise when Jun-ho attacked him

• When Jun-ho opened his eyes in the van and revealed to the real guard #29 that he was an intruder, why in the ensuing struggle did the guard not cry or yell something out to make some noise to alert the other guards to Jun-Ho's presence before Jun-Ho started choking him out? Jun-ho didn't start choking him out until the latter half of their struggle, which gave him plenty of time to yell something out to alert the other guards and get them to come to his aid, yet he decided not to yell or cry anything that might bring him some help and instead decided to quietly engage Jun-ho one-on-one in the struggle, which ultimately caused him to lose the struggle, why?
  • He probably thought this was just someone waking up early from the gas, so he didn't expect it to lead anywhere other than the guy running out of the van and into the other guards even if he did lose the struggle. Plus, there is the rule about not speaking without permission, which he may have worried calling for help would count as.

VIP 4, Jun-ho and "that" scene

• This idea is pretty disgusting and horrible, but assuming that a rape situation like the one between VIP 4 and Jun-ho already happened before with the VIPs, what would have happened to a servant if they complied in "satisfying" a VIP in less than 5 minutes? Would they be executed by the guards immediately after that? Would said VIP find a way to bail them out of death for more "services"? Could the guards even know if the servant actually took his mask off (as in Jun-ho's case) in that private area?
  • As much as they talk about rules and fairness, it's clear that everything is run according to the whims of the VIPs. So most likely it would have boiled down to some random whim. If the second-level management saw that the VIP liked the guy, they'd probably "overlook" this breaking of the rules, so as not to displease the VIP by breaking his favorite toy. If the VIP looked disappointed, then suddenly rules are rules and must be strictly enforced.
  • I don't think "being raped" is considered a "game", so no, the servant wouldn't be killed if they didn't "satisfy" under a time limit, though the VIP might beat or kill them. Though they're already working in an illegal as hell operation, I think the boss, a pretty nice person for a psychopathic mass murderer, would provide them with some money as compensation.

Keeping Squid Games secret

• In the show we see that the Squid Games remain hidden even after releasing people through Refuge in Audacity. And it's true that a single poor lower class person telling the police that hundreds were killed in a secret place, then the others were all released, is pretty unbelievable. But there were more than two hundred released people in this year alone. Even though not all would go to the police, it's likely going to be a few dozen every release. It seems pretty risky to bet that no police officers would write anything down, or hear about more than one person making such a report. Jun-ho demonstrates how ill equipped the organizers are to deal with just one policeman who happens upon more than one piece of evidence. Had Jun-ho not been working alone and fixated on finding his brother, a police force could've raided the ferry. And since one of the guards there was the organ-harvesting #29, he probably would've talked if arrested.
  • Majority of the players targeted are people who would most definitely not go to the police, as they'd just as likely be arrested for whatever crimes or owing money. Gi-hun just kinda lucked out that it just so happened that a police officer there had a personal interest in going. And with such flimsy evidence, Jun-ho was forced to go alone and pretty much bumbled and lucked his way up to the point he got caught.

Guard loyalty

• How do the organizers keep their guards loyal? The unmasked guard patiently waited to be shot by the Front Man, but the organ-harvesting guards prove that the guards aren't all brainwashed pawns with no selfish motivations. IIRC there were 5 guards in that conspiracy, including a square leader, and they were only found out when they were rigging the games AND the doctor ran through the facility. Had the conspiracy grown larger and not exposed themselves fixing the games, they could've done a real-life game of Among Us where everyone is the same color, seized the island, and grabbed much bigger prizes like ransom for the VIPs or just the cash and everything of value on the island.
  • My interpretation is that the guards are in the same financial and social boat as the contestants (insane debt, criminal records, flimsy immigration statuses) but are also being paid a great deal of money for their obedience and labor. I also think that, just like the contestants, they came in aware of the threat of death, except they’ve dealt with it for far longer and have now become Conditioned to Accept Horror. This could be why the guy who was unmasked was so dead-eyed; he knew that he was done for and had nothing to say. He was also a commander, and quite young at that, which means he’s probably had his fair share of trauma and might have been an unhappy person in general.
  • Also, an island takeover wouldn’t really be an efficient way to get money. If there are thousands of workers than splitting all of that fairly would be next to impossible, and dealing with contestants who are also trying to get that money would make things very complicated, and the entire plan could fall apart due to infighting. It’s likely that surviving guards get paid a handsome salary at the end of the game, enough to dissuade them from rioting and encouraging their obedience.

Sang-woo in the second game

• It gets established that Sang-woo is able to figure out what the second game is ahead of time, giving him an advantage in knowing what shape to pick, but he chooses to not inform anyone else on his 'team'. This is to show that Sang-woo is out for himself and more ruthless than he lets on, even allowing his childhood friend to pick the shape that will almost certainly guarantee his death. But...this doesn't make any sense or match his previous behavior. At this point there are nearly two hundred people left in the game, and obviously at least some will make it to the next round, shouldn't Sang-woo want to keep people who he knows and might have his back for the rest of the games? Whatever Sang-woo gains from 3 fewer people going onto the next round is very obviously lost many times over by him now being surrounded completely by strangers. And yes, this was before the riot or the team games...but Sang-woo had already helped Gi-hun in the first game by telling him about hiding behind another person so the motion sensors couldn't pick you up. Why help Gi-hun win the first game but then basically let him walk to his death in the second one?
  • Perhaps because he realized that was a way to get rid of someone he was supposed to be friends with while having a lot of plausible deniability. And also perhaps he realizes that revealing he knows what the game is after Gi-Hun has picked the umbrella would make him seem untrustworthy — after all, if he knew what the game was, why didn't he tell everyone to pick the triangle from the start? — so he has to go along with it.
  • Presumably, he still thought there could be multiple winners during the first game, but by the time they played the second game he had become more cynical and concluded that only one player would be allowed to live in the end. The fact that the available prize money is directly proportional to the number of dead players is a hint (which wasn't revealed until after the first game).
  • Related to the above, Sang-woo wasn't completely sure, and the uncertainty played in with his Fatal Flaw of self-preservation. The playground was a Bait-and-Switch, with Gi-hun guessing that maybe they have to run an obstacle course. As he and Gi-hun discussed, there are dozens of games that Korean children play. Logically speaking, dividing the shapes among their team of four made sense assuming you know nothing about the game and what the goalposts are.

Jun-ho's disguise

• Jun-ho switches his circle mask for a higher level one... but then goes back to the circle. Why didn't he stay higher level so at the very least he wouldn't be questioned about suspicious behavior? Especially since going back to the circle meant he now had to come up with an excuse for why "29" suddenly disappeared for a night.
  • He stole the square from a guard who had been killed by the Front Man, a simple scan would've revealed that it was stolen and would've blown his cover right there and then, he probably reasoned that exactly that would happen at some point if he stuck with the square and subsequently decided to limit the time he disguised himself as a square.

Gi-hun's debts

• It's mentioned that Gi-hun hasn't spent any of his prize money in the year-long Time Skip between the end of the game and when the guy from the bank called him. How did he deal with the Loan Shark that wanted to harvest his kidney to pay back his debt, since he obviously couldn't pay off his debt normally?
  • This was already answered in a question above. See the "Did Gi-hun already lose a kidney?" folder.

Gi-hun's use of the prize money

• In the last episode, when Gi-hun finally overcomes his depression and PTSD, shaves his Beard of Sorrow, and starts putting the money to good use, why doesn't he at least try to get Sae-Byeok's mother out of a labor camp in Best Korea so the little brother can have his real mom back? Of the remaining members of Sae-Byeok's family, she's in a much worse position than the boy. (Yes, I get that he wanted to give Sang-woo's poor mother a replacement son that she can raise properly this time, but one of the child's parents is still alive.) I was also disappointed that he didn't give part of the prize money to the bereaved relatives of any other eliminated player or all of them like what would have happened if they had voted to end the game permanently (though he might have done it offscreen or will next season.) But why didn't he give anything to the would-be player whose situation he was once in who he took the card from at the end? It's probable that guy was going to lose a kidney the next day.
  • She's stuck in a prison camp in a different country, a country that also happens to be a heavily militarized authoritarian police state, now money can certainly do a lot of things, but how in the hell is simply having a lot of money going to get someone out of that tight/precarious situation?
    • I have no idea beyond that Sae-Byeok seemed convinced she could get her mother smuggled out with much less money and was working to that end. Was she simply being naive? I just wish there was some implication that he looked into it and found out it was actually impossible or the mother was already dead as I don't imagine people in that position have a long life expectancy.
    • I always interpreted Sae-Byeok's promise to her brother that she would get their mother freed and back to them as her trying to give him a sense or feeling of hope so he wouldn't lose heart in his already miserable situation even though she herself already knew full well that they probably weren't ever going to see their mother again.
    • I think the idea was to use the money to pay smugglers to rescue her. The smugglers would spend a large chunk of that money bribing various guards and officials to look the other way. Even authoritarian police states have their weak points.

Sang-woo bringing up the voting rule

• In Episode 2, Sang-woo was the one who mentioned the rule to end the games if the majority of players vote no, but he ends up voting yes. Why would he even bring up the rule if he didn't actually want to quit?
  • He was probably one of the many voters that would've otherwise voted to quit but got persuaded to vote to continue by the huge piggy bank full of cash that was shown to everyone right before the vote. This is probably also why Min-yeo was the first to get on her knees and beg to be released but later voted to continue.
  • Sang-woo wanted to keep playing. He didn't want to see a bunch of people get "eliminated" for refusing to play, as the guards were pointing machine guns at them and they invoked the first two clauses. There's a difference between wanting to keep doing the dangerous game and forcing others to do it. The scene with him letting Ali use his phone and buying him food as well as a bus ticket showed that he wasn't completely gone yet.

Hypothetical chain of people for crossing the bridge?

• The way the Stepping Stones Bridge is structured, two people can stand on the tempered glass panels while the regular glass won't hold a person's weight. They can reach to touch hands, though, as we saw with Gi-hun passing the marble forward. In addition, the gap is too far for a person to tentatively place a foot on the step in front of them to test the glass, though the rules didn't say anything about balancing on the railing if possible. Yet the body weights are different, as seem between the women and the older glassmaker, and Deok-su believes his gang members can't move him. Ergo, in theory a stronger person could keep a weaker person and themselves from falling. It would be a long shot and would require everyone to work together rather than expect the person in front of the line to serve as the guinea pig — and of course the VIPs not asking the Front Man to move the goalposts— but suppose the players formed a Chain of People. In theory, could they stop some of the smaller people from falling by pulling them back from a broken glass panel, with 17 people's combined strength? (Could still be dangerous if the glass shards cut them though.)
  • Maybe. On one end, everyone has been put through the mental and physical wringer and is in no shape for critical thinking, so even if it would work it's understandable they didn't think of it. On the other, it's obvious the Luck-Based Mission aspect is part of the thrill for the VIPs, hence why they shut down the glassmaker's exploits. It's possible that if the group attempted this a couple of them would have been shot to convince the others to play it the "right" way.
  • You're ignoring the obvious - that such an act would require them to TRUST each other. The person in front would definitely do it - but the people behind holding them will be putting themselves at quite a lot of risk. At this point in the game, NOBODY is putting themselves at risk to help somebody else - even if, from a logical perspective, they would be better off by helping them.

Impossible bridge?

• So the announcer states that the regular glass can't hold even a single person's weight, while the tempered glass can hold the weight of 2 people. It's already been established several people are hysterical/crazy, and none of them are thinking straight. In the event of 2 people already on a tempered glass tile and someone else foolishly jumps onto it too and breaks it, that presumably then means there is no way to cross, as the other tile is regular glass and the jump looks to be about 2-4 meters, likely more than any of them could have jumped, and assuming that next tile is also tempered. In the event of something like that happening, what exactly would the game master have done?
  • Yes, and no. On one end, the regular glass was made in a way that was especially weak (ya'll remember when they had to take off their shoes?), while on the other, it was a numbers game to see if you could jump on the correct glass, so this situation doesn't factor in it too much.
  • If players truly screw up the game so that nobody can win, maybe nobody wins this year. Or maybe they take the remaining players to a different game. Or maybe they pause the bridge game for a bit while some Circles fix the bridge. They're not above altering the rules on the fly, as Front Man did when he lowered the lights.

No Tag? Or Hide-and-Seek?

• How did they miss two of the most well-known and universally loved children's games? They've got some weird glass-jumping game, but not real classics? Did the game makers even have a childhood?
  • Maybe they're being saved for season 2. Also, are they popular in South Korea?
  • The "weird glass-jumping game" is based on a children's game in Korea (Jing-geomdali), like all of the other games. Try to be less provincial.
    • Every culture/country has their own version of "childhood classics" and the games we see are more commonly played in Korea. Also, for the sake of the plotline, those games are fairly easy to play and so the gamemakers wouldn't likely wouldn't base any trials off of those.
  • The show creators might have thought that a death variant of either of those games would have been too similar to typical horror ideas (killer chasing someone + killer searching for victims to kill)
  • In-universe, they've been holding these games for 20 years. Maybe the VIPs just got tired of tag.
    • ^Another explanation is that the games we see weren't the same ones they hosted in the previous year, so they might always change it up.

What happens if everyone dies?

• Would the Front Man have just ended it early, apologised to the VIPs, refunded them, and sent them home? Seems weird to not get all of the "anyone can die or live" games out of the way quickly. There's a good chance everyone could have died in Glass Stepping Stones, so why is that the semi-final game?
  • It's all about what the VIPs want. It they think that Glass Stepping Stones is a fun game to watch, so fun that it's worth the risk of an "everybody loses" scenario, then that's the game they'll use. Also, Glass Stepping Stones is pretty boring with 456 players, because there's a good chance that the first 200ish players will collectively reveal the correct path, and then the remaining players just have to follow that path without much risk. To be properly suspenseful, the game needs to start with a smaller number of players, so naturally it has to come pretty late in the program.

Organ black market

• So it seems that the organ trafficking was done by rogue elements doing it behind Front Man's back. How do they do this without getting caught? They altered the crematorium so they could steal coffins, have a whole room to themselves to do operations in secret and they wait for a ship that someone on the staff might notice. Not to mention the blood they get on themselves can serve as evidence. Unless I'm mistaken and this was Front Man's idea and he's actually pissed that they got a contestant involved.
  • Front Man actually says "I don't care if you harvest organs", so it's quite possible that he suspected what they were up to but chose not to investigate until they started giving hints to a contestant.

What happens to injured guards?

• In Episode 3, one of the players manages to attack and injure a guard (specifically stabs the pin through his mask, presumably into his eye) leaving him writhing in pain on the ground. During the next shots of the playground, this guard disappears. Are we to assume he was removed to be executed or would they actually treat a "minor" injury like that? There's also the fact the guards are not allowed to remove their masks in front of each other, so you'd wonder if a wound requiring them to remove the mask to heal would automatically mean they'd just be executed instead. The fact the injured guard just disappears from the ensuing shots made me wonder what exactly happened to him (or what the implication is, anyhow).
  • Knowin' what we already see, I think they get offed. The guards themselves are in a no-win situation, regardless. Another explanation is that his injuries were worse than they looked and he just died offscreen.

A math question in game 5

• There are 18 pair of glass tiles to overcome and 16 participants. Given that the participants guess randomly, what is the expected number of survivors? I ask this because in the YouTube video with Mr. Beast, a lot of people won this game no problems, and now that I stopped to think about this, surviving only three people (excluding the dude who was able to tell the difference between the two types of glass, which is -3(?) steps guessed randomly, so 15 steps in total) requires many more people to guess wrong than to guess correctly.
  • About one or two.

The Salesman managing to retain his identity

• Why didn't Gi-hun (or anyone for that matter) tell the police about the Salesman's face? The police didn't believe him because he didn't know the identities of the people running the games since they were wearing masks, yet the salesman was the only member of the games whose face was not covered by a mask, so why didn't Gi-hun tell them about that guy, y'know, the one who gave him that card?
  • The Salesman is a very normal-looking businessman who would be impossible to find with just a description of his face. Even if he WAS perfectly identifiable, it's highly unlikely a police investigation would turn anything up, anyways. The game is absurdly connected.
• I'm pretty sure the local police would have the resources to be able to find people with a face. The whole point of wearing a mask is to conceal your identity so that the authorities wouldn't be able to trace any biometric information like fingerprints. Finding someone like the salesman would be certainly much easier considering he seems to be using the same train station where Gi-hun uses. Also, what do you mean an investigation wouldn't turn up anything? There are lots of factors to consider: The amount of cards he's giving out to people with phone numbers, witnesses who have been given these cards, the large sums of money he has in his suitcase (where or whose giving it to him), personal contacts to superiors, a list of people he's been recruiting and the places he does it. Remember, Jun-ho managed to discover the games by tracking down a worker's vehicle via Gi-hun's assistance so I'm sure a group of police officers would find anything else.

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