Squid Game made $900 million for Netflix in just a month of its release. It overperformed Bridgerton to garner the largest number of viewers in the world.
With the show ending in an unexpected turn, fans are now waiting for the second season. But it seems that the first season itself had several hidden mysteries waiting to be revealed!
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So, here are some mind-boggling Squid Game theories that are hard to ignore!
1. Red card for guards and blue card for players?
At the beginning of the series, we see Gong Yoo, the salesman offering Gi-Hun a chance to join the squid game and asking him to play ddakji.
He shows two cards– one blue and one red– and invites Gi-Hun to choose one. Now, fans are saying that the card picked by Gi-Hun may decide whether he will enter the game as a player or as a guard.
Throughout the series, it becomes pretty clear that the guards are as powerless as the players and can be killed just as easily if anyone sees their faces. Moreover, the Front Man is watching all of their movements, even inside their small cabins.
At one point, a player asks one of the guards to uncover his face and what we see is clearly a young and helpless teenager behind the black mask.
There is a great possibility of this as the guards are also given red uniforms while the players don blue outfits.
2. The death of the characters reflects their actions.
As we see, when Ali comes back from the game during the first chance, he forcefully snatches the money from his boss. In the fourth game, he was eliminated when Song-woo cunningly took the marbles from him.
Moreover, in the second episode, Deok-Su jumped off the bridge, and finally, in the fifth game, Mi-nyeo took her revenge and pulled Deok-Su with her.
Sang-woo tries to kill himself in his bathtub in episode 2; in the end, we see that he eliminates himself from the game by killing himself. Sae-byeok threatened a player with a knife and Song-woo killed her with a knife.
3. The old man was not supposed to play the marbles game.
When the players reach the fourth game, they are asked to choose a player. Due to the preceding game being Tug of War, all of them go for the strongest players.
It is quite clear that the old man knew no one was going to pick him up, so he sat in a corner. However, Gi-hun asks him to join as he is afraid that the old man might be killed.
This changes their plan and that’s why the operators are unable to kill Mi-nyeo. If it were the old man, he would have made his exit and the players would be left to believe that he died.
4. Did the old man have a change of heart?
After seeing that Gi-hun picked him, the old man might have finally believed in humanity. As we see when the VIPs arrive, he refuses to meet them.
This might have been connected to this incident. This theory can also be contradicted by the fact that the old man asked Gi-hun to wait till midnight and see if someone would help the drunk man lying on the street.
So, even at that point, there was a slight chance that his belief in humanity was still shaky.
5. Are Gi-hun and Il-nam related?
Some of the fans have been guessing that Gi-hun is actually Il-nam’s son. There are several scenes where the two seem to be linked.
When Gi-hun asks for chocolate as he is lactose intolerant, the old man says that his father must have beaten Gi-hun as a child as he (the old man) used to do the same with his son.
Also, when the old man says in the marble games that his house is in that alley, Gi-hun also recalls that he spent his childhood in a similar Korean neighborhood.
On top of that, Gi-hun was the last player and Il-nam was the first. This shows that they are entirely opposite but have a connection as well.
6. Will Gi-hun follow Il-nam’s path and take over the game?
In the last episode, we see Gi-hun coloring his hair red. This may have been because he wanted to join the game as a guard.
Moreover, if Il-Nam is Gi-hun’s father (as the fans are speculating), there might be a chance that the two mirror each other’s actions as Gi-hun departed his flight to LA and went after the game.
Il-nam might have done the same, abandoning his child and going after the game. So, will Gi-hun end the game or become the head in the next season?
As we see in the final scene, when someone comes to save the drunk man on the street, Gi-hun’s belief in humanity is strong. So, he may end the game altogether.
7. All the games were already sketched on the walls.
When the fifth game ends, there are only three players left- Gi-hun, Song-woo, and Sae-byeok. On returning to their cabin, they see that only three beds are left.
The walls are now visible as all the beds have been removed. You can clearly see on the walls that the games that were a part of the Squid Game were sketched on the wall all along.
Because of their fear and confusion, the players overlooked the games. Even in the end, when the walls were visible, Song-woo and Gi-hun ignored it as they were overwhelmed with the deaths of the players.
8. Hwang Jun-ho is not dead.
Whenever a character dies in the series, the camera shows us enough to convince us that he/she is actually dead.
The cop, who later finds out that the frontman is his brother, is, according to the fans, still alive. They are guessing he will return in the next season and team up with Gi-hun to end Squid Game.
9. The VIPs are actually us, the audience.
The VIPs are shown as crazy people enjoying the game and placing their bets on different players. However, their names and faces are not revealed and only their eyes are visible.
They might have reflected the audience as we also, frankly, enjoyed watching the game just like them.
Plus, their eyes being shown may be to demonstrate the viewers, who have their eyes fixed on the screen.
10. The Front Man is not the actual villain.
In the first episode, we see The Front Man walking on the floor covered with the players’ faces and mercilessly walking on them as they continue to die.
But as the series proceeds, we see that he oversees all the operations and has no control over the games and rules. He is not the actual villain, and when he encounters his brother, we get to see that he breaks down for a while.
Fans say that the frontman may have entered the game to stop it and eventually become the supervisor.
Also Read: 8 Series To Binge Watch, If You’re Done Watching Squid Game