Squid Game: How to TRULY Win (VIDEO SCRIPT)

I wanna talk about Squid Game

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/Squid Game is a South Korean television drama exclusive to Netflix created by Hwang Dong-hyuk. It follows individuals -- all in dire straits of all walks of life within South Korea -- who partake in a series of childrens’ games, with a life-changing amount of money as the prize for the individuals who survive six games overall. The catch however, is that the childrens games in question have life-threatening consequences. And if you fail the challenges or get eliminated, you’re more than just out. You die./

Readers, I have absolutely NO shame in admitting that while this show was nowhere on my radar at first, I’m glad I chose not to sleep on it.

While I was able to kinda see where things were going, I found the narrative to be compelling from beginning to end.

The use of the children’s game angle after being somewhat familiar with the death game concept from previous works I thought was clever...

And the “elimination” process reminded me more of the video game Fall Guys rather than the movies and games people USUALLY associate with the genre.

/However, outside the initial game of Red Light Green Light that got people talking about the show, it was seeing the deeper discussion about the shows themes and meaning that made me decide to give it a look for myself./

And as you can see from the way I’m filming this and the overall length and research I have presented, not only did I want to discuss it further, but it ended up becoming a full-fledged video essay by the time I was ready to put pen to paper. Er, fingers to keyboard.

The fact of the matter is that Squid Game knows what it is and it does it extremely well.

/So well, that depending on how far you’re willing to dive into the mechanics of the narrative that’s provided, it gives you within it the necessary wherewithal to apply the real-life systems the show has proven to be an allegory for. But you have to be willing to take the dive./

Thankfully, I already did the diving for you. All you have to do is ask yourself; “Are you willing to play the game with me?”

WHAT’S THE TIME, MR. WOLF?

I’m gonna put an end to the foolishness before I truly begin this essay. Squid Game is about the dangers of capitalism, full stop.

No this isn't a case of artistic intent versus aesthetic interpretation as I’ve talked about in my first video on Disney/Pixar’s Luca. Because not only is the allegory present throughout the entire work, but it was even placed there by the author of the work -- or in this case, the creator -- with the same intention.

While it is possible for multiple interpretations regarding how its allegory for capitalism can be viewed, Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk specifically wrote the scripts with it in mind.

/Stating in an exclusive interview he had with Variety, “I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life. But I wanted to use the kind of characters we’ve all met in real life.”/

The comparison was very easy for me to notice when I watched the series, and I was even able to make some associations with how certain elements of the show reflected people affected by it.

/After the realization that the contestants are participating in a death game with a large cash prize, the higher-ups of the game love emphasizing that they're there of their own free will, as if to highlight the contestants level of desperation. They state that they wish to give everyone a fair opportunity to play and win the game, yet encourage them to literally backstab each other in order to advance and grow the pot. You go off to participate in this game because a loved one is in dire need of treatment and medicine or so that you can show the system you’re capable of being financially stable, but said treatment and proof is needed immediately and the assurance that you’ll receive the prize isn’t guaranteed to arrive in a timely fashion, if not at all./

For me, the quickest way I realized that this show was an allegory for capitalism was seeing how easy it was to look at the game and its players as a grueling multi-billion dollar business’s 9-to-5 with plenty of expendable income to spare and its employees, and the rest went from there.

Because of this, the show does a great job at showing how capitalism not only forces you to rely on it despite it being responsible for a lot of the hardships that drive us to said reliability in the first place, but it also brings home how easy the system causes us to look at each other as obstacles that need to be placed out of the way in order to thrive. And it gives us two great examples of what happens when two individuals on the opposite sides of the spectrum are affected by that concept.

On one hand you have the main protagonist Seong Gi-Hun.

/He’s participating in the game to pay off his debts, prove that he’s financially stable enough to gain custody of his daughter before she moves to America, and to pay for his mothers diabetes treatment. However, thanks to experiencing the death of a coworker in the midst of standing in solidarity with them to protest against his previous employer, he sees the game’s method of pitting them against each other as nothing but vile and is in a state of depression by the time he comes out as the victor. Because not only is he too late to fight for custody of his daughter and too late to save his mother, but he knows how many people -- regardless of morality -- had to die under the false pretenses of there possibly being more than just one winner in order for him to be in the state that he’s in by the end of the season./

Then on the other side of the spectrum you have not his childhood friend...

/But The Front Man; aka Hwang In-Ho, the missing brother of police officer Hwang Jun-ho./

/Not only was it revealed that he won the game he participated in that resulted in Jun-ho’s infiltration of the island, but became the new overseer of the organization who runs them as a result. 455 people died -- unnecessarily according to how they initially revealed  how to play to the participants, mind you -- and he became the new overseer to make sure that the game is carried out exactly how it was when he played instead of trying to do anything to change it./

His situation reminds me a lot of the game “What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf.” Or, “Mr. Fox, Mr. Fox, What Time Is It?” if you had a similar childhood to mine.

One child is chosen to be the wolf-slash-fox, and the others ask in unison “Mr. Blank What Time Is it?”

The chosen gives them a time ending in O’clock, and the group advances toward them according to the numbers.

Then, when the chosen says either “Midnight” or “Dinner Time” when the group asks the question and they think the group is close enough, the chosen chases them until they tag someone from the group. And then THAT person becomes the new fox-slash-wolf and the game starts all over again.

/And while it's clear that In-Ho has no intention to give up his place as the fox-slash-wolf by the time the season is done, it’s clear that the game in question has no signs of stopping anytime soon./

Now ever since I watched the show, I’ve seen various takes of the many character archetypes that were present from individuals who both did and did not immediately factor in the capitalism allegory that the show presented.

Critiques about how they hid that the childhood friend of the main protagonist with the college degree is the ACTUAL villain by putting the violent and sexist mobster front and center.

People critiquing THAT critique by saying that the REAL villain of the show is capitalism and how it pits us against each other. Which -- spoiler alert -- is kinda my stand on the matter as a whole, and you’ll start to see the reason why as this video plays out.

But in order to understand why the aspect of solidarity is so important when it comes to playing into the clutches of capitalism versus how we can combat it, especially when it comes to how its presented in Squid Game...

We have to better explore not just the messages in a lot of the media people are currently comparing it to, but also how its chosen vessel which is the popular and ever-growing death game genre ended up being the perfect one to show the multi-faceted dualities it provides.

That means in order to understand why Squid Game as it currently is was the perfect way to tell this story, we have to take a step AWAY from the Korean drama, and take a closer look at a JAPANESE one.

SIMON SAYS

There is a group of individuals who believe that while the games and challenges associated with Squid Game’s death games feel more along the lines of the video game Fall Guys, that the overall association of Squid Game’s concept is heavily pulled from Japanese death game stories like Danganronpa and Battle Royale. Which, at this point in witnessing how others compare and associate certain bits of media with others, doesn’t really surprise me.

What’s annoying about this, however, is that these arguments are never made with the intention of showing that the creator was inspired by the work, but that they ripped it off. And this isn’t the first instance in which people claimed this when it comes to new additions to the death game genre.

A perfect example of this is Suzanne Collins’ the Hunger Games series.

When she wrote it, she was inspired by greek and roman myths and legends; more specifically the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and how King Minos forced the city of Athens to sacrifice seven youths and seven maidens by placing them in the Minotaur’s labyrinth, and the roman gladiator games that resulted in people watching people fight to the death as a form of entertainment.

Instead, depending on the individual you ask, they’ll say that the concept of The Hunger Games is a blatant ripoff of Battle Royale

When it comes to Squid Game however, it’s a case of “Same but Different.” And that’s mostly because Hwang Dong-hyuk is, in some instances, also being accused of blatantly taking concepts from Battle Royale and -- ironically -- Hunger Games, now that it’s available in more mediums other than just literature.

But while he’s perfectly fine with ignoring the critics who don’t know the difference between inspiration and blatant plagiarism, he’s more than happy to admit that Battle Royale was a huge inspiration in his conception for the show.

/He told Variety in that same interview, “I freely admit that I’ve had great inspiration from Japanese comics and animation over the years... When I started, I was in financial straits myself and spent much time in cafes reading comics including ‘Battle Royale’ and ‘Liar Game.’ I came to wonder how I’d feel if I took part in the games myself. But I found the games too complex, and for my own work focused instead on using kids’ games.”/

So for those of you who are unaware, Battle Royale is a novel written by Koushun Takami in 1996 but wasn’t published until 1999.

Set in an alternate universe Japan in which they won World War 2, the country is in a fascist state and is ruled by a dictator that wants to instill within the nation's people a sense of control and sow distrust in their fellow men in order to keep them from possibly resisting and rebelling.

To do both, they annually take 50 third year junior high schoolers, drop them off on an abandoned and undisclosed location, and force them to kill each other until only one remains, under the guise of researching survival skills and battle readiness.

Battle Royale soon received both a manga and a film adaptation one year later in the year 2000; the latter being the main form of media people know about the story worldwide unless you’re a weeb at heart.

/There are some elements about the original novel that are watered down for the movie, such as how heavy the facist dictatorship plays a role in the world, main protagonist Nanahara’s interest in rock music -- which is banned in the novel unless it benefits the government -- resorted to a flashback of him hanging out with his best friend Kuninobu strumming on an unplugged electric guitar, and him being orphaned being a result of his depression-stricken father committing suicide instead of both his parents dying for participating in one of the earlier rebellions against the government./

The premise of Battle Royale in this case -- both in the novel and the movie -- is a lot like the game Simon Says. It instills the concept of obedience at a pretty young age, by prompting you to follow the specific directions of the Simon the way the Simon intends it.

The Simon even has the power to cause your demise by setting you up to follow directions that the Simon never told you to explicitly undergo.

So even if you constantly do what is asked of you EXACTLY how it’s asked of you, there’s always the threat of being tricked into disobeying and suffering the consequences because of it.

“I never said Simon Says...”

I actually plan on reading both the novel and original manga adaptation for a few future videos I have planned later down the line; one involving how queer theory can possibly be applied to the work considering the fascist regime would more than likely find it as “immoral” as rock music. So look out for that one of these days.

So while he was inspired by Battle Royale -- more specifically the manga adaptation of the story released a year after the release of the novel -- Hwang Dong-hyuk did not create Squid Game to be a ripoff of Battle Royale.

/And if you either watch the film, or read the novel and manga after watching Squid Game, you can see how the story is inspired by not just the founding father of death game-related media, but how the now aptly named Battle Royale sub-genre of fiction and video games has become a decent way of critiquing and analyzing a lot of situations surrounding social justice, democracy and systemic struggles and oppression./

The difference between Battle Royale and Squid Game however, is that while the game they're playing in the Netflix show is an allegory for late-stage capitalism, the death game the junior high school students are forced to take place in -- at least as far as the film adaptation is concerned -- is an allegory for fascism disguised as national conservatism.

Because the movie decides to make the program a way to firmly handle Japanese juvenile delinquency in response to large school dropout and unemployment rates instead of the novel doing it as a way for its facsist regime to keep the nation obedient...

Making the change gives off the feeling that the reason why the Battle Royale project is happening to the junior high school students is because they’re part of a generation that wants to go against traditionalist normalities.

Members of the generations that came before them want the youth to conform to the nation's traditional yet grueling and overbearing school-to-work pipeline system, and willing to make examples of the "punk kids" that don't fall in line in upholding this aspect of Japan's national and cultural identity, by forcing a random class to give in to the stereotypical cutthroat nature older members of Japanese society always depict the younger of having in order to kill each other until only one remains.

Even though this angle of Battle Royale is specific only for the movie, this aspect of older Japanese generations mistreating its younger ones to the point where little to no trust can be formed between them isn't new and has been depicted in Japanese fiction before this iteration of Battle Royale, making it an important one in its own right.

Yoshihiro Togashi's 1990 shonen series Yu Yu Hakusho -- specifically in how it shows the pre Spirit Detective days of both it's main character Yusuke Urameshi and "might as well be his love interest" Kuwabara rebelling against adult authority due to distrust and how easily they're willing to paint the two in the light of thuggish delinquents for lack of conformity -- is a prime example.

But if you want something a bit fresher, think about the video game Persona 5 and how Joker ended up in the situation to become a Phantom Thief in the first place.

But while Battle Royale is the reason we're able to successfully look at Squid Game's Fall Guys style death game premise in such an allegorical light -- even if the two use similar concepts to address two separate yet still important issues -- there are a couple more movies that the internet is debating which holds more of a prominent comparison to it thanks to the subject matter, and I can both see and understand the suggestion of both.

However, one works as a better comparison in theme and tone overall. The other, well... the other is Rat Race.

BLIND MAN’S BLUFF

If we’re being real, the only reason there’s a group of people that are comparing Squid Game to Rat Race is because that’s how they were first introduced to the concept of billionaires betting on individuals of lesser classes than them for sport by dangling a life-changing amount of money in their faces in order to see who gets to it first.

/And when folks saw that was what the VIP members were doing once the remaining contestants were about to play the fifth game, they immediately had something to compare the show to that didn’t make them feel bad about the fact that they have “If Hillary Won We’d be Drinking Mimosas Now” signs in the storage unit of their two-car garage./

Because despite the setup, Rat Race does not do anything to make a statement about the state of capitalism. Every one of the contestants aren’t motivated to participate in the race thanks to necessity, but greed and the pure-blooded American desire for more.

/These were people who could easily afford trips to Vegas to gamble, or to see David Copperfield, or to participate in a best friend’s bachelor party and deny that they watched African American fetish porn at the front desk. They’re successful lawyers, have successful businesses that are about to go public and are infamous referees for the NFL./

They have no debts or are in dire need of immediate financial stability, because this movie was released 6 years before the great recession hit. And because that’s how the world was perceived at the time, they wanted to focus on individuals who were well off.

/Slightly trash individuals who were well off with the hopes of becoming better later on down the line, but well off nonetheless./

In a way, the movie -- both in general and the comparison to Squid Game -- kinda reminds me of Blind Man’s Bluff.

It’s like the game “Tag,” but the person who’s “it” is blindfolded and the participants are out in the open and egging the one who’s “it” on in order to sway the game in their favor.

/The game can be easily compared to how the high-rollers in Rat Race or the VIP members in Squid Game are having a say in the lives of the ones participating in the game -- even moreso the VIP members when they decide to actually interfere in how one of the games are being played. But because of the disadvantage that is the racers wearing a blindfold and never learning that they were being egged on versus Seong Gi-Hun finding out he and the other participants WERE being egged on when they had theirs on by the end of the season, any worthwhile comparison Rat Race can make to how Squid Game comments on the state of capitalism is pretty much eliminated./

Now one could argue that John Cleese’s character Donald Sinclair actually DOES add that commentary simply because he’s initiating the whole thing, and that’s true to a certain extent.

/Because he’s treating the individuals as horses in a race, taking bets from the high rollers staying in his casino, and being fine putting up 2 million of his own money as the initial bait, the payoff from his cut of the betting money from everyone would be more than enough to make up for his investment./

But then the movie makes a twist in having the contestants realize that money isn’t everything and they donate it all to charity...during a Smash Mouth performance of Hey Now, because 2001.

/There’s no official winner, and therefore Donald gets no house cut and is out of 2 million dollars. So because no one from the official betting list won, that means Donald Sinclair -- the living embodiment of capitalism in this regard -- loses./

And as we all know, ESPECIALLY thanks to the second and third episodes of Squid Game, just because you refuse to participate in capitalism does not mean you have DEFEATED capitalism.

/Sure, there will be some that are able to avoid its grasp. But, depending on the society you live in and what resources you have access to, it will always force you to participate in its actions because you have no options left/

So because of what I previously mentioned and the fact that it’s a comedy inspired by the 1963 film “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” any potential Rat Race had to critique the state of capitalism successfully was washed away to give off the safe, non-threatening idea that there’s nothing initially wrong with the system; we just need to address, weed out and reprimand the individuals taking advantage of it.

/But as Squid Game, and the film Parasite have proven, that is not the case./

DODGEBALL

People weren’t lying when they said Squid Game can be compared to Parasite, but I think you really have to narrow in on the dilemma of morality the movie forces you to encounter in order to see it.

To me, what makes the narrative of Parasite highlight the point Squid Game is trying to make with its narrative is one specific point.

While most upper class and the one percent -- and those who covet the upper class and one percent to the point of defending their very existence -- love to picture the one-dimensional allegory of the Kim family as the actual parasites that latch on to the wealthy Park family...

The REAL moral conflict is actually in how the Kims acquire the positions to work for the Parks and what they do in order to keep them.

/Despite Ki-woo being given the means to become employed by the Parks and offered a way for Ki-jung to be as well without having to step on any toes in order to do so, they all participated in the downfall of the individuals who were previously employed by the family in order for the mother and father to replace them. The chauffeur driver in order for their father to be hired, who Ki-woo begins to feel guilty about during their dinner at the coffee table in the living room, as well as the original housekeeper, who relied on her job, her room and board, and knowledge of the house in order have a place to live while her husband lived in the bunker basement of their home due to his cake shop going under and having to run from loan sharks./

Now given her situation, I would understand why she would be quick to hate the Kim family once she found out that they were responsible for why she was out on the streets.

But you can’t help but see there could’ve been a sense of solidarity regarding the situation the Kims were in, Ki-woo’s concern that they condemned the original chauffeur to a life similar to their own until his dad tried to convince him otherwise, and realizing the situation of the original housekeeper./

The two families could’ve come to an agreement upon realizing their situations were similar. Hell, they initially realized that on the day of the impromptu birthday party.

/But so many words in favor of displaying their newly acquired position in capitalistic hierarchy were exchanged and so much physical damage had been done by the Kims trying to keep their new status quo in tact, that by the time the mother truly thought about how alike they were and wanted to act on said solidarity, it was too late./

Watching that entire scenario for the first time was, for me, like watching a game of dodgeball. Specifically gym class dodgeball. Nobody WANTS to play dodgeball. They HAVE to.

And its because they have to, it becomes a fruitless battle of two teams against each other, participating in something they never even wanted to do in the first place.

But because they ARE, and they see the other team, their initial first thought is survival over elimination, because that is the mentality the game forces you to immediately take up the moment the whistle is blown.

And no matter how easy it is for you to avoid or catch the ball tosses in retaliation to the ones you’ve sent your fellow schoolmate, eventually one is going to hit you. Possibly just as hard as the one you hit your opposing schoolmate with.

So when you take that angle the movie Parasite focuses on when it comes to how capitalism truly affects and infects those of us who have no choice but to rely on it in order to survive...

And apply it to the “contestants” of the battle royale in Squid Game and how they see both themselves and each other...

It allows the picture the show is trying to paint to be made with the most vibrant colors imaginable in order to see the fine details.

Because after watching the tragedy of Parasite and seeing where Squid Game takes that point in the mentality of the main character Seong Gi-Hun, we can see exactly how the show uses the point of solidarity and how capitalism attempts to rob us of it in order to subliminally tell us all that only the strong survive.

When in actuality, if it weren’t for the current state of capitalism, everyone can.

SMAUG’S JEWELS

Seong Gi-Hun had it right; we shouldn’t be killing each other. But thanks to how the system is structured, we think that we have no other choice BUT to.

/We hold back information that could help the WHOLE succeed because we think it’ll give us an advantage. We look down on those who we think will hold us back from getting the job done. We give immigrants a hard time because we believe they’re taking opportunities away from us. We even go out of our way to ruin those in our situation or worse off because we see them as nothing more than competition./

Capitalism has plagued our way of thinking by making us believe that not everyone can thrive, despite the equality in its rhetoric; that the game must be played a certain way in order to assure a small handful of individuals deserve to make it due to perseverance and determination that separates them from their fellow man.

When in actuality there IS a way everyone can thrive without us having to resort to being wild animals fighting over a fresh carcass just to make sure we have enough to fill us up for dinner that night.

Meanwhile, those who CAN help us thrive -- the Musks, the Bezos’s, the Koch’s, the Zuckerbergs, the Gates’s -- would rather see us all at our throats by dangling in front of us what can immediately make our lives better as motivation and turn it to sport.

They’d rather watch the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the street from the safety of their balconies while drinking champagne to display their 1% elitism and superiority.

You’d think that what we witnessed in Squid Game and even Rat Race is just an exaggeration of how the elite are with the 99%, but you’d be surprised how close to the truth these scenarios actually are.

/And then there are some like Oh Il-nam, who, despite willingly exposing himself to the perils of both the game and the violence the system caused its players to participate in -- both instigated and as a result -- would rather play a sociopathic version of Undercover Boss in order to experience what it’s like to be among them and changing nothing about it, instead of looking at how the system he helped keep in place truly affects them.

/Thus giving even MORE meaning to the phrase that’s been spreading in the American lexicon lately, but now on a more global scale because it is being represented in a Kdrama; there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire./

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, Hwang Dong-hyuk has succeeded in showing how dangerous a vice grip late-stage Capitalism has on the countries affected by it in Squid Game, ESPECIALLY our own.

It takes away the fluff of Rat Race in order for the message to be immediately acquired in watching it as opposed to purposely hiding it behind comedy...

Enhances a very important commentary point Parasite made in its narrative regarding the state of solidarity and how capitalism causes fissures within it...

And shows that the last man standing narrative started by Battle Royale can not only be extremely versatile in the delivery of many modern-day criticisms, but also be a great vehicle to transport the dangers of late-stage capitalism in its own right.

The reality Squid Game presents in its narrative is that despite how the rules and regulations make it otherwise seem, the game that is modern-day capitalism cannot be won by everyone.

And in order for us to realize this, we have to unlearn a lot of what it has established in our minds regarding hierarchy, privilege, prejudice and survivability and instead unify outside of its parameters.

/Because as we’ve seen through the various games and challenges everyone had to face, it does us nothing to unify and work together while pinned under its thumb; we’ll just end up either eliminating another team going through the same struggle or be forced to be the cause of someone else's downfall./

And those of us who DO win the game by the standards it sets have to not only live with the guilt of having to bypass said opponents and teammates...

/But also have to deal with the double-edged sword of possibly being too late to handle the immediate needs and necessities that caused us to sign up for the game in the first place./

Seong Gi-Hun realized this after he won, and even moreso after he realized history would repeat itself. And that’s why he did what he did during the season finale. Because he finally realized what was necessary for everyone to TRULY win the game, and it's the same as it is in real life.

/The only way we can all truly win this game isn’t by following its rules or unifying within its rules and regulations. The only way we can TRULY win this game is to destroy it and build something better./