If you watch Squid Game very carefully, you’ll notice that a few characters die. That’s
me trying to be funny. A lot of characters died. And the show did a great job at connecting
us to some of these characters before ripping them away. Another thing that the show did
great was that it foreshadowed a number of the deaths. After a fourth re-watch, here
are the 7 best that I found plus some bonus symbolism for two of the characters.
#1 Abdul Ali Before the game, Abdul Ali’s boss was not
paying him, so Abdul grabbed the money and ran. And in the game, Cho Sang-woo grabbed
Abdul’s marbles and ran. And it’s also worth noting, that during the marbles game,
Oh Il-nam had pretended to have lost his marbles. #2 Ji-yeong
Ji-yeong told Kang Sae-byeok that she would do whatever it took to make sure that Sae-byeok
won. And in the end, she held true to her word by sacrificing herself so that Sae-byeok
could live on. That one was rough to watch. #3 Jang Deok-su
Before the game, Deok-su cut into the middle of the line both the first time he signed
up for Game 1 as well as to steal a second round of food. And ahead of the bridge game,
Deok-su once again chose a middle position in line. This type of ending was foreshadowed
all the way back in game #1 – Red Light Greenlight – when Sae-byeok had threatened
to push him from behind. And it may have also been foreshadowed during marbles, when the
guy who went behind him knocked his marble into the hole. Maybe not, but here is the
icing on the cake: before the game began, Deok-su had jumped off of a bridge to escape
danger, and then in the game, Deok-su fell off of a bridge to his demise thanks to Han
Mi-nyeo. #4 Han Mi-nyeo
During their bathroom scene, Mi-nyeo made Deok-su promise to stick with her until the
end and also warned that if he betrayed her, she would kill him. And in the end, it all
came to fruition. Deok-su had betrayed her by not allowing her to compete on his tug-of-war
team. So she killed him just as she said she’d do, and in effect, they had stuck together
until the end. The icing on the cake for this one, is that
Mi-nyeo grabbed him and leaned back, just as she was taught to do for tug-of-war, which
is the event in which he had betrayed her by ditching her. Pretty cool.
#5 Jun-ho Jun-ho killed a red shirt and threw him into
the ocean. He then ran around like James Bond, but eventually, Jun-ho was caught. He shot
his brother in the shoulder, his brother returned the favor, and Jun-ho then fell into the ocean.
Of course, he may not be dead, but either way, falling into the ocean was a nice callback
to the worker whom he had thrown off of the boat.
#6 Kang Sae-byeok Before the game, Sae-byeok had paid this guy
to get her parents out of North Korea. For whatever reason, the first plan did not work,
so he asked her for more money, and she threatened to rip his throat wide upon if he pulled anything
on her. She snuck a knife into the game, but lost it during the riot. And in the end, Sang-woo
killed Sae-byeok with a different knife by slitting her throat just as she had threatened
to do to this guy before the game. #7 Cho Sang-woo
Sang-woo used the elements, namely rocks, to trick his friend Abdul Ali. And Gi-hun
used the elements as well, by throwing dirt into Sang-woo’s eyes. After throwing the
dirt, Gi-hun crossed over, earning what they referred to as kids as an “Inspector Royale.”
And check this out. In the very first scene of the show, this little boy pointed and tricked
the other by saying: “It’s your mom!” And in the present timeline, the reason that
Sang-woo had been playing the game so hard was so that he could redeem himself to his
mother. Last but not least, Sang-woo had stabbed Sae-byeok
in the neck with a knife so that Sae-byeok and Gi-hun would not be able to vote to stop
the game. And ultimately, Sang-woo ended up stabbing himself in the neck as well. And
this type of death was foreshadowed. Before the game, Sang-woo had been about to kill
himself when he got the invite. Pretty sad. And now, the ending. Let’s look at Gi-hun’s
parents. In the last video, we broke down the theory that Oh Il-nam is Seong Gi-hun’s
father. If that is true, then there were interesting parallels and contrasts between Gi-hun’s
mother and his father. Gi-hun’s mother had to leave the hospital
since she did not have money for care. In contrast, Il-nam had more money than he knew
what do with. So their deaths differed in that Gi-hun’s mother died on the ground
whereas Gi-hun’s father died on a medical bed 7 floors up. Lucky. Number. Seven.
But ultimately, money can’t buy everything. So literally in terms of Gi-hun’s mother,
and figuratively in terms of Gi-hun’s father, they both died alone.