Analysis of some characters of the Squid Game

Greetings dear friends of the CineTv community! A few days ago, I decided to watch the Netflix series that was on everyone's lips and that was positioned in Venezuela among the 10 most watched. It certainly seemed a bit bizarre from the beginning, but it kept me in expectation until the final chapter. This series reminded me of the movie Saw, for the brutality of some scenes and for the morbidity generated by each game proposed.

In this post I do not want to talk or review the series as such, but analyze a little each of the symbols and characters involved in it, it is important that, as film lovers, we can see beyond and find what the writers want to convey in each of the scenes. Let's start.

The main symbol of the series is money and what people would be willing to do to get it. It is the #1 protagonist because some characters lack it and others have plenty of it, so much so that they even "have fun" with it regardless of whether they lose it or not. In the series, this element means power and happiness, it is not so much having it, but the feeling that having it produces.

Each of the guests invited to play have the need for the money that has become elusive to them and it is interesting how each of them has a value (at the end of each game, the money was added to the pot corresponding to each of the deceased), that is why I think the series invites us to look for the value in each of us, not monetary, but a personal value.

There is a character that undoubtedly won the hearts of many who watched the series and that is Abdul Ali, played by Anupam Tripathi. He represents naivety, he is as an immigrant in a country that is alien to him, where he is exploited and now involved in games that are not part of his culture and in which he is not allowed to fully trust anyone.

For Ali, naivety led to his death, he trusted and was deceived by the one in whom he had placed his trust and the disillusionment that comes with this is as deadly as the shot the loser receives.

Actress HoYeon Jung shows us what loneliness is and what you would be willing to do to not feel lonely. She is in the series Kang Sae-byeo, a North Korean defector looking to reunite her family. But in the Squid Games, it is very well explained to us that you can't pretend to be successful in life, working alone.

This character is presented as distrustful, surly, sad and this loneliness somehow leaves her defenseless in life, she even dies alone, when she is not taken care of. In the game of marbles, we see how her relationship with another person allows her to break that barrier she has with the world and gives her to understand that it is better to walk accompanied, only that this morbid game, ends up taking away from Kang Sae-byeo the only person with whom she had made a real connection and this leads her to a great sadness. Life is the same.

One character that I particularly hated from the beginning was Jang Deok-su, played by Heo Sung-tae, who shows us what power is through brute force and intimidation, in the end none of these qualities made him win the game and much less that people liked and respected him, on the contrary, his associations with other characters were always based on fear.

Many tyrants last a long time in power, but the eviller or the stronger they are, the weaker and more susceptible they are to betrayal, as was the case with this hated character.

One character that I found extremely hateful from the beginning, not only because of her attitudes, but also because of her voice was Han Mi-nyeo, played by Kim Joo-ryoung, a mysterious and manipulative woman. She is presented as a submissive, who, in the end, ends up being very dangerous.

Her submissiveness is related to being able to survive these games, she makes associations with those she considers stronger, she associates with her aggressor and after he dismisses her, she pretends to associate with others by assaulting them. Her ending is somewhat poetic, "I told you that if you betrayed me I would kill you", it is her way of defending herself from her aggressor, she ends up committing suicide and killing him.

The lust for power is reflected both in the character of the Leader, played by Lee Byung-hun, a brother so enraptured by the power of money that he kills his own blood to avoid being discovered, this makes us reflect that the love for material things is sometimes greater than any other love.

Cho Sang-woo, played by Park Hae-soo, shows us the face of cowardice. We loved this character for a while, but after Ali's death, we began to hate him and to understand that, in this series, no one helps anyone, but everyone looks for their own survival.

A character incapable of being honest with his own mother and who stabs his adversaries in the back is always a coward. With no empathy for anyone, he turned out to be the most evil, even though he was painted as good in the series. Somehow, the series invites us to beware of cowards, because they are dangerous, they betray and are totally disloyal.

Let's get to the main characters of the series. Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae, is a character who shows us two sides. While he is playing, he is empathetic to the old man, even to the other participants, but let's not forget that he is a vicious gambler, abuser of his mother and irresponsible father who even in the final chapter lets his daughter down.

He shows us that sometimes not all that glitters is gold. There are people who live in the shadows and show us only what they want us to see. The dangerous thing about such a character is that this kind of people abounds in real life and we should be very careful about.

Finally, the old man Oh Il-nam played by Oh Yeong-su. This character filled me with unease since his appearance and I kept on my toes, I had a feeling that something else would happen with him, as indeed it did.

This man went from being shown as an old man with financial problems, to a dying billionaire eager to have fun at the expense of others. I am not surprised by this case, because as the saying goes, reality surpasses fiction, and I am sure that in real life there are many characters like him, taking advantage of those who need money.

I hope you liked my analysis of some of the symbols and characters in this series. If you saw something else, please leave it in the comments of this post.