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This article contains massive spoilers for the second season of “The Squid Game.”
The concept behind “Squid Game” is simple: 456 players currently struggling to survive financial ruin are brought together in a competition where they play popular school games from childhood to death, with the last person standing taking 45 .6 billion won, or approximately $32 million depending on the current exchange rate. Once players have agreed to play, they will emerge winners or leave in a body bag. Morbid and dystopian, sure, but it’s certainly not difficult to understand. While many aspects of “Squid Game” Season 1 have been carried over to the second season, show creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has added some new wrinkles to the games, not unlike the malevolent President Snow in “The Squid Game.” hunger: on fire.” “
After Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) won the games last season, the overwhelming guilt he felt for having survived while 455 others perished radicalized him and ended the games for good, inspiring him to re-enter and take things from within. However, you quickly realize that this year’s games work a little differently: after each game, players can now vote to split the money and run or continue playing in the hope that the bodies pile up and the golden piggy bank fills up a little more. .
It was one thing when everyone was on their own side, and another thing is when half the room has the option to leave and votes publicly to put their lives at risk. This seemingly democratic addition to the game helps deepen the social commentary of the original series; the elite constantly pit the poor against each other, but now that players are voting on whether to continue playing or not, factions will form and focus their anger on each other directly instead of remembering who the real enemy is.
Vote like your life depends on it because it does.
“Squid Game” isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) story to focus on players volunteering or being forced to play horrible games, but the expansion of a voting element brings the story even closer. home than Season 1, especially for Americans who will be tuning in after the most recent presidential election. The contestants of these titular games literally vote as if their lives depend on it, but everyone who votes has been pushed to their limits. This is a group of horrified, traumatized, exhausted people, on the verge of hunger and with debts over their heads. Those who want to leave recognize that no amount of money is worth their life, but that can’t be said for everyone.
Some are driven by greed, others by the feeling that they’ve already come this far and shouldn’t leave with a bigger payday, many have been corrupted by the evil of the games, but some are simply scared. As easy as it is to demonize players who vote against your best interests, acting as if they are all nothing more than greedy, bloodthirsty monsters is wildly inaccurate. The real villains here are the people who put them in these positions in the first place. Watching the voting take place after every game is heartbreaking, not only because we witness the communal nature of a microcosm of humanity disintegrating before our very eyes, but because we can even empathize with those who are willing to vote in one way. a way that puts them on the direct path of material damage, still clinging to the hope that perhaps this vote will be the one that brings them closer to a successful life. If only it were that easy.
Season 2 of “The Squid Game” is now streaming on Netflix.
