The pseudo-thriller Netflix show, Squid Game, has captured the eyes of many in just a mere few weeks after its release. Its complexity from the element of transforming innocent children’s games into detrimental challenges on the matter of life or death is what separates the Korean drama from other popular Netflix shows like Bridgerton. Fans have flocked to TikTok to not only try out the show’s featured games like Ppogi (the Dalgona cookie cutting challenge) and Red Light, Green Light, but to theorize reasonings to the inner workings of the whole competition in general. Some even go as far to examine the players themselves since the show leaves a lot to the imagination with its vagueness on certain aspects such as the familial ties of specific players.
Let’s check out what some of the major theories going around the web are. Fair warning, spoilers lie ahead, but they may blow your mind just as the show did for many watchers!
1. Red vs. Blue: The Gameʻs Supposed Selection Process
Prior to getting into the competition, the protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, is shown desperately playing Ddakji with a random salesman at a subway station, where he must turn one card over on the floor just by throwing another at it. The difference between those cards are their colors – one was red and the other was blue. Gi-hun had to choose one of the colors, as offered by the random salesman, to designate how their bet would proceed.
As TikToker, Lucky.What1, stated, “He chooses blue, And wakes up as a player” but then goes on to ask “What if he chooses red” while depicting a shot of the showʻs masked workers. So, Gi-hunʻs choice to pick blue may have been the process to how he was designated to become a player rather than worker later on. The show doesnʻt exactly show the ongoings for the formulation of the workers when the workersʻ perspective is mostly in the lens of undercover detective, Hwang Jun-ho. However, this simple choice acts as a randomizer for filtering out its members, which does fulfill the premise of the competitionʻs premise to ensure equality for all those implicated and establish fairness in the games. Everyone despite their position, would be someone who was experiencing the massive troubles of debt – leveling out the playing field equally. Yet, the incentives for workers would perhaps not be receiving the piles of money located in the giant gold piggy bank hovering over the playersʻ sleeping quarter. They could simply be given their own sum of money for their participation in a simpler and less-riskier way than playing till death.
2. The paternity of gi-hunʻs father
Like with many other aspects, the show doesnʻt show or even name who Gi-hunʻs father is. Fans have been led to believe that Gi-hunʻs father is actually Player 001, who is the only elderly man in the competition. Tiktoker, ruthbellpan, explained this conception by mentioning the scene of Gi-hun asking the worker handing out meals that for chocolate milk as a result of being offered regular white milk. Ruthbellpan noted that the old manʻs response that Gi-hun mustʻve been spanked as a kid and relating it to how his own son acted that way too, as well as the two agreeing that the fourth gameʻs setting looked similar to where they both grew up implies some relational connections between them. Most importantly, when the old man shows signs of amnesia in the fourth game, he tells Gi-hun his sonʻs birthday is 8/26, which happens to be the same numbers that Gi-hun entered at the bank in the very beginning of the series.
The unconscious input of that date on the first few tries would have to be an important or constant set of numbers for Gi-hun to remember for a long time. If it was his birthday, and it matches that of the old manʻs sonʻs, then Gi-hun may actually be that son. Even the conclusion of the first season doesnʻt show the son coming to the old manʻs body after his death, but the enlisted front man of the competition. The front manʻs identity isnʻt revealed to be a relative of the old man, but the Hwang Jun-hoʻs supposed missing older brother which leaves the identity of the son as a total mystery.
3. Player 067’s current status
This theory is mostly based on viewersʻ hopes to have Player 67 be part of the second season, which hasn’t been confirmed to be happening as of now. Fans are convinced that Player 67 may have carved her way out of her coffin and using the incineratorʻs feature to drop down before flames start to escape death. She may have carved using a pocketknife she smuggled while pretending to be unconscious as she is being changed from her regular clothes into the competitionʻs numbered green jumpsuit attire. But, realistically, the prospects of this being true is low, as there is no way she would know about the dropping feature without having been far across the competitionʻs building. We did see her crawl over the kitchen area where many circle masked workers were stirring pots of melted sugar, but that was only done in a short amount of time because she was faking using the restroom. She also wouldn’t have the knife because it was sneaked onto Player 101 while he was being searched after participating in the deathly overnight riot in the sleeping quarter.
These theories cover a lot of material in the show, and may connect missing plot holes to what we’ve already seen for the first season. However, the theories are quite plausible in their own ways and bring much call for the show to conduct a second season. We can only hope that we have cracked the ominous codes and put all the shapes in the right places if or when anything is confirmed by the show’s writer, Hwang Dong-hyuk.
Until then, what do you think of the show’s theories?