Squid Game’s Surprising Optimism

For Gi-hun, the setting is all too familiar.

An arena the size of a football field stretches before him, its dirt floor illuminated by sunlight pouring in through a retractable roof. As Gi-hun looks up at the blue sky, a seagull lazily floats overhead among a few wisps of cloud. At the end of the arena towers an imposing, 10-foot doll. Though her features—dress, barrette, comically large cheeks—suggest nothing more than an elementary schoolgirl, a close-up reveals the soulless stare of her motion-detector eyes.

The last time Gi-hun found himself in this arena, the sky was an angry gray, spewing rain. Water turned the arena to mud, which mixed with the blood of Gi-hun and his childhood friend as they fought to the death in the Season 1 climax of Netflix’s twisted series Squid Game.

Season 2 of Squid Game returns Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) to an improbable spot: back in the very games he fought desperately to escape. Previously pitted against fellow contestants seeking an enormous sum of prize money—where the loss of a game resulted in death—Gi-hun ultimately emerged as the victor. Now armed with knowledge of the game’s inner workings and a grim mission to dismantle the contest from the inside, Gi-hun places himself back in the deadly competition, alongside a new batch of participants.

For the creators of the game, the crux of the contest hinges on the belief in a dark principle: the only willing contestants are those who feel their situations to be so dire they would do anything to claim the prize money, including sacrificing fellow participants. As the new players step into the arena, their uncertain faces are framed one by one: a fallen rapper, a gambler deep in debt, a failed entrepreneur, a single pregnant mother. As the first game of “Red Light Green Light” begins and the mechanical doll’s eyes rove the arena to identify and swiftly punish those who are not motionless, Gi-hun runs to the front of the crowd in an attempt to help them cross the field in safety. Framed in wild slow motion, his mouth agape as he screams instructions, Gi-hun is a desperate man trying to save desperate people.

If the first season of Squid Game was about placing your hope in material wealth, the second season grapples with a different kind of hope. Utterly disillusioned with his winnings, Gi-hun now seeks only justice for those who have already perished in the games and those who will next face death. Though he is spurred by grim determination, what lies at the heart of Gi-hun’s quest to end the game once and for all is an abiding hope that within this collection of society’s outcasts—the least of these—there exists an inherent goodness worth saving.

From this hope stems the ultimate clash between Gi-hun and Front Man (Tom Choi), the reigning organizer of the games. Sitting in the back of a limo racing towards his fate of rejoining the game, Gi-hun implores Front Man through an intercom to stop the competition, accusing him of preying on the downtrodden. Remarking on those who perished, Front Man replies, “They were all just losers of the game. Trash eliminated from the competition. A ton of new trash is being poured into the world as we speak. The game will not end unless the world changes.” Front Man—and those who created the game—believe humanity is ultimately corrupted: irredeemable, broken, and deserving of their fate. According to Front Man, Gi-hun would do well to accept this truth instead of a fantasy of hope.

Indeed, Season 2 of Squid Game presents a harsh reality of the argument Front Man presents. Players scheme to eliminate each other through bloody means, betray others in order to remain in the game and claim wealth, and preserve their survival by any means necessary—even the sacrifice of their comrades. In one striking scene, players must make their way around a large circle painted on the floor, pausing every so often to complete another game. The circle itself has been painted to resemble a rainbow. As punishment for failing a game, the contestants are shot on site. Blood spatters across the lines of orange, yellow, violet, and green—a symbol of hope viciously marred.

Front Man believes Gi-hun’s faith in the goodness of people will crumble when presented with the ugly truth the game reveals: that people are ultimately driven by their own terrible selfishness. It is an echo to the question posed to Gi-hun by Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su), the inventor of the game, in the final minutes of the first season: “Do you still have faith in people? After all you’ve been through?”

It is the question all Christians must inevitably face: why do you still have faith?

The Christian may encounter this question in a variety of forms, but Squid Game invites us to wrestle alongside Gi-hun regarding an inquiry into human nature. Why do we still have faith that all people are worthy of love and redemption, even when confronted by the endless sins of humanity? When the author of Hebrews asserts that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see, it is a reminder that faith is both inspired by hope and exists beyond the boundaries of what we are able to ascertain. As Christians, we hope the transgressions we both exhibit and observe do not signal our doom. Yet, it can seem unimaginable that the sins which render us broken people—“trash,” according to Front Man—are forgiven by a good God.

As Christians, we believe people are worthy to be saved because of Christ’s exhibition of love and sacrifice. Even in his own death, confronted by the very worst of humanity, Jesus cried out to God, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Faith is the assurance about what we do not see. Christ knows us to be more than we appear; he has deemed us worthy to be saved, even in the face of so much unworthiness.

Indeed, as the new contestants shakily gather around the painted rainbow circles and prepare for another deadly game, something begins to shift. When the masked guards instruct each player to bind their ankles to three other participants, the stakes suddenly dissolve and reform. Now, instead of self-preservation, each player’s fate is literally tied to another’s. Suddenly, a unified energy permeates the atmosphere. Participants both playing and those waiting their turn now find themselves caught up in something which undermines Front Man’s grim belief in the human condition: an enthusiastic desire for one another’s good.

As self-preservation transforms to unification, something else begins to transform as well. As the players make their way around the rainbow circle, their bodies and spirits bound to save each other, the spattered blood becomes smeared and thinned, allowing the colors to shine through—hope’s symbol, shining anew.

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At Think Christian, we encourage careful cultural discernment. We recognize and respect that many Christians choose not to engage with pop culture that contains particular content, such as abuse, sex, violence, alcohol or drug use, or that employs the use of coarse language. To that end, we suggest visiting Common Sense Media for detailed information regarding the content of the particular pieces of pop culture discussed in this article.