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Tear Jerker / Squid Game

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Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned!


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This is why money doesn't get you everywhere, or even everything, in life.

For a show whose premise crosses the very real and debilitating toll that poverty can take on one's life and identity with a game containing power, greed, inhumanity, and tragedy beyond the comprehension of most anyone who plays it, Squid Game definitely has no shortage of sad moments.


Episodes with their own pages:


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General:

    General 
  • The games in question are designed to strip down humanity to their base instincts. People will fight to save themselves or to get more than enough money to pay off their debts and stave off the loan sharks. The surviving winner does get paid for his or her troubles but is left broken by the experiences and their complicity. Il-nam implies that Gi-hun and his team were the first people to break this cycle, all because Gi-hun befriended a sickly old man who had nothing to lose.
  • Sang-woo's fall from grace. Gi-hun teases that he used to drive Sang-woo to school, that he was top of his class at the top university in South Korea, and The One Who Made It Out. Even though he got a nice career, Sang-woo embezzled from the company by investing money that didn't belong to him in stocks and futures. Gi-hun is shocked that Sang-woo is as much of a gambler as he is, asking if he literally bet on his future. Sang-woo lies to his mother that he's on a business trip while watching her from a short distance because he put her shop up for collateral and is worried the banks will seize what little assets she has and throw her on the streets. And as Sang-woo becomes increasingly more ruthless as the games progress, Gi-hun remains painfully oblivious to the fact that Sang-woo isn't the childhood friend he remembered until seeing him literally push another player to his death. As he asks Sang-woo in a cold What the Hell, Hero? tone in their argument following the games, why is the "Golden Boy" of their neighborhood in the same position as the perpetually broke loser with a gambling addiction?
  • Mi-nyeo is a tragic Anti-Villain. It's hinted that she's not all bad, given one of her moments was saving Sae-byeok from Deok-su's gang, taking the opportunity to flirt with him, and she respects the old man after he saves his tug-of-war team, telling him how awesome he was to suggest the leaning back strategy. Yet, because of her Fatal Flaw of being an Opportunistic Bastard, she feels the need to hide her softer side or trust anyone that may look like a weakness. Her Heroic Sacrifice shows that she ultimately realized that thanks to her own actions, no one would love or accept her, but she gave her life for the others anyway.
  • We don't know much about the Host's backstory. He did say that everything he told Gi-hun was true, including that he once had a family: a wife and a son. Il-nam recollects fondly how his wife would prepare lunches for him and his boy. Yet, they are nowhere in the present, not even in the penthouse where you would logically expect a grown man to tend to his dying father. There are hints that Il-nam's crusade to build his wealth using loan sharks pushed them away, much like how Gi-hun's gambling addiction pushed away his wife and daughter.

Other episodes:

    "Red Light, Green Light" 
  • The whole birthday celebration with Gi-hun and Ga-yeong. She's being a good sport through the whole thing while Gi-hun simply feels bad that he couldn't give her a nice dinner and present as he'd promised.
  • Gi-hun learning from his mother that Ga-yeong is moving to America with his ex-wife and the rest of their new family within a few months, so he likely won't get to see her again since there's no way he could ever afford that trip. Gi-hun's mother's pain at the fact that her granddaughter will be off in another country and probably forget her Korean roots (as well as her father and his family) is palpable.
  • Gi-hun asks why the older man is with them, and if he has family. The old man hints that he doesn't have family, and Gi-hun has a stricken expression.
  • Player 250's reaction to 324, the new friend he just made, getting shot during the Red Light, Green Light game. He has an Oh, Crap! look and runs to him when the green light comes on, and whispers to him to stop pretending. As realization hits him that 324 was shot for real when the latter coughs up blood, all he can do is turn and run.
  • The way all the panicking players are mowed down is this and Nightmare Fuel. Most devolve into Crowd Panic, attempting to run for their lives and about a dozen spend their last moments banging at the locked doors. All the while, the doll's eyes dart around to detect signs of movement. Gi-hun is knocked down, but by sheer luck and a Deer in the Headlights reaction, he doesn't get hurt.
  • Sang-woo sincerely tells Gi-hun to get moving, or he will die. He points to the timer and advises Gi-hun to hide behind larger players.
  • One injured player begs Gi-hun for help, grabbing his leg. Gi-hun is forced to leave him behind, as the turrets get the poor guy.
  • Gi-hun and player 199 make it past the finish line, but a lot of people don't before the clock hits 0. One man locks eyes with Gi-hun and has an anguished This Is Gonna Suck look as the gunfire resumes.

    "Hell" 
  • The beginning of the episode, when the staff reveals just how many people were eliminated in the first game: 255. This drives many of the survivors to brokenly beg the guards to just let them go home, believing this is some twisted way to scaring them into paying their debts or just a way of killing them off so they won’t burden the rest of society anymore. These are all people who chose to play the game out of a desperate need to stay afloat and pay their debts or support their families, and they were never told of just how big the risk was.
  • Gi-hun discovers his mother has diabetes and her barely being able to walk as she leaves the hospital, unable to pay for insurance thanks to her son emptying her bank account. Near to tears, she says that she doesn't want to discuss it anymore, even though Gi-hun is desperately wanting to help her and atone for his heinous action. This is part of why he returns to the game.
  • Still in huge debt, Sang-woo attempts to commit suicide by poisoning himself in a bathtub as pictured above until he hears a knock on his door and receives an invite to re-enter the games.
  • Gi-hun desperately tries to ask his ex-wife for help, but she refuses. Her husband offers to give Gi-hun the money on the condition that he never contacts Ga-yeong again. Enraged, Gi-hun refuses the money and lashes out at the step-father, once again disappointing his daughter when she walks in on her both of her fathers fighting.
  • Ali is not being paid the salary that he deserved from his boss, so much that a fight breaks out that resulted in his boss getting his fingers crushed in a machine and Ali having to steal the money during the fumble. He returns to his wife with the money, in which she notices the blood on the envelope and fearfully asks him where he got it. He doesn't answer and tells her to board the earliest flight to Pakistan while he has to stay behind to wrap up some unfinished business. He hugs his family goodbye before re-entering the games.
  • Sae-byeok and Cheol at the children's home. Cheol gets mad at Sae-byeok for not bringing their mother to the South as she promised and how the other kids picked on him for being North Korean and that he'll never leave the place. Sae-byeok can only hug her little brother tightly and promise him again that she'll get their mother within the next year. Because of this, she re-enters the game, since it was the only way to get the money she needs to get her family back together.

    "The Man With the Umbrella" 
  • The end of the episode when one of the square supervisors is being held at gunpoint by a desperate player 119, who makes the supervisor remove his mask and face him. The supervisor is a handsome young man with a forlorn look on his face, not a twisted evil smile or cold expression. Player 119 is broken at this sight exclaiming "You're so young! How did you come to be involved in something like this?" and then blows his own brains out. The 'square' is then executed by the Front Man who reminds the other staff members that if the players see their faces, they are dead. What makes it so sad is that the supervisor knows he is dead but does not hate the man who has basically sentenced him to deathand even looks ashamed, whereas Player 119 realizes to his horror he was about to kill someone young enough to be his son. The broken tone of his voice makes it also sound as though Player 119 holds himself responsible in that moment for having created a Crapsack World where young men like this get involved in something sick and wrong like the squid games.

    "Stick to the Team" 
  • Il-nam pleading to the Front Man to stop the "bonus game" is sad enough, but on a rewatch, it's even sadder given that Il-nam's the one who helped start the games in the first place, with the Front Man being his protege, both knowing how important these games are to the participants. It becomes less of a desperate plea and more akin to "this isn't what these games are about!", with the Front Man deciding to send the guards in right then and there to stop the fighting.
  • Mi-nyeo's previous dramatics were implied to be done for show, and her Large Ham attitude is an act. When Sang-woo suggests his desperate plan, to move three steps forward, she splutters out in genuine fear, "I can't do it!" She doesn't sound like an Opportunistic Bastard, but like a scared woman staring death in the face. Which makes it all the more awesome when Gi-hun shouts at her that they have to try or they'll die together, she steps forward anyway.

    "A Fair World" 
  • The Tug-of-War game: even though the successful side wins, they still lose (if they have a conscience, that is). Gi-hun feels this hard after his team wins and he looks at the blood on his hands. It's his own from the scratches he got from grasping the rope, but it's very symbolic, as how he and his team are now directly responsible for killing ten other people.
    • And there's also the look on his face when they're pulling on the rope in slow-motion as if he recognizes that he's going to send ten other men who were in just as dire financial straits as himself to their deaths.
  • Jun-ho's fear when, while undercover during the illicit organ extraction operation, he finds out a "zombie" from the Red Light Green Light game had a kidney and lost their eyes. When the other guard suspects he's not the real 29 and forces him to unmask, Jun-ho complies while in the caverns near the ocean but reveals he's armed with a gun, forcing the other man to drop his knife. He starts a speech about how his big brother had one kidney, because he donated it to save Jun-ho's life, and the guard helped the doctor fricassee him for some extra cash. Fortunately or unfortunately, the guard reveals that the victim was a woman, not a man, because they raped her and wouldn't do that to a guy.
  • While hiding in the Front Man's office, Jun-ho finds his way to the records room. He checks this year's games for a sign of In-ho. He's not playing in the 2020 games. Jun-ho looks in despair at the records from 22 years' worth of players, knowing that he doesn't have time to go through them all. Then a binder designed like the ribboned coffins catches his eye; he opens it...and finds his brother listed as a winner of the 2015 games. He rummages through the 2015 records and finds a page with his brother's photo and info, confirming he played five years ago. The episode ends with him whispering, "In-ho" (in the English dub) or "Brother" (in the original Korean audio).

    "VIPs" 
  • Mi-nyeo, despite finding out that she was spared and allowed to sleep off the day in the barracks, is hurt that Deok-su rejected her again and that it was her own fault that her former team members refused to play with her for the round. As they're eating dinner rations, she gives Deok-su a Death Glare and flips the bird at him.
  • What pushes Player 069 to commit suicide above when he attempted to convince the remaining contestants to quit but failed, followed by Sang-woo showing No Sympathy for him by going on a rant at him for foolishly choosing to go back to the games with his wife, knowing that there could be only one winner and is now paying the price for it.
    • As the guards take the corpse of Player 069, Sang-woo has a clear look of guilt after he knowingly pushed him to the edge.
  • "I told you I'd kill you if you betrayed me." How Mi-nyeo goes out during the Stepping Stones bridge; she pulls Deok-su down with her by using her own weight to break a panel of tempered glass when he refuses to move forward unless someone goes ahead of him. For the whole game, she was out to protect herself by allying with the strongest side and earn some money in the end. This was her last (of few) selfless gestures, to ensure the other players would not be held up by a Dirty Coward. It was her way of paying homage to the old man as well, whom she thanked for his leaning backward strategy that saved the team during tug-of-war.

    "Front Man" 
  • Sae-byeok's death between the fifth and sixth games. She is impaled by a shard of glass at the end of the fifth game, and hides the fact that she is bleeding out throughout the dinner and the following night. When Gi-hun realizes that she's dying, it's clearly too late to do anything, but he nevertheless runs to the doors and tries to beg to the guards for help. And then, the moment that Gi-hun has left her side, Sang-woo kills her with a steak knife. This is the moment that causes Gi-hun to finally break and try to kill Sang-woo.
    • The moment where he thinks the guards are coming to help her, only to see them bringing in a coffin, is especially heart-wrenching.
    • Sae-byeok's last words to Gi-hun:
      "I wanna go home now."
    • Making it worse was that Sae-byeok never got to make it out of the game alive despite Ji-yeong giving her life to save her.
    • Moreover, Sae-byeok dies without knowing if her little brother would be looked after by Gi-hun, and her little brother will live on not knowing that his sister died for his sake, especially after he got into trouble with other kids earlier because they kept claiming she abandoned him.
  • Even though he still goes through with it, seeing how painful it was for In-ho/the Front Man to shoot his little brother Jun-ho, being conflicted to the point of shaking as he was lifting his gun to shoot him, is heartbreaking. Also sad is the fact that he ended up going through with it, shooting Jun-ho in the shoulder and making him topple off the edge of a cliff into the waters below.
    • This is also heartbreaking from Jun-ho's point of view. After going through so much effort and putting himself in so much danger for the sake of finding his brother, said brother reveals that he was one of the main villains all along and then shoots him as Jun-ho is still processing the shock of this truth. That's right, the very person who he went through all that trouble and danger for in the first place is the one who ended up ruining everything for him. One can only imagine what was going through Jun-ho's head as he was being shot.
    • In-ho, shown to be cold and cruel for most of the show, is so shaken over having had to shoot his brother that he sees a vision of him in the mirror, asking him "Why?" in the same way he did on the cliff. Afterwards, In-ho is clearly struggling to hold back his emotions.
    • What makes this even sadder is the fact that, while a million things could've been going through Jun-ho's head as he was being shot, one of them was probably something along the lines of "Why would the brother that was so selfless and loving that he willingly gave one of his kidneys to me now involved in something so unspeakably evil, and even willing to shoot me for it?" It also makes a viewer wonder what caused In-ho to become actively complicit in something so horrific.

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