Trapped by Choice: The Psychological Prison of a Squid Game Winner

The game is never truly over. For those who walk away with the prize money, and for those who are left behind, the psychological arena remains. The story’s central question evolves from a simple game of survival to a profound exploration of whether a system built on desperation and violence can ever be broken from within, or if it is destined to merely corrupt those who try.

A Hero's Dark Destiny

There is a compelling, and unsettling, theory about the ultimate fate of Seong Gi-hun. Having won the games and witnessed their horrors, his refusal to board a plane to see his daughter wasn't just an act of defiance; it was the start of a new, more personal game. The parallel between Gi-hun and the current Front Man, Hwang In-ho, is impossible to ignore. Both were previous winners, and both found themselves drawn back into the world they fought so hard to escape. In-ho’s story feels like a grim foreshadowing, a path that Gi-hun now seems destined to walk.

The symbolism is potent. Gi-hun’s shocking red hair at the end of the first season mirrors the pink jumpsuits of the guards, a visual cue that he may be shifting his allegiance, or at least his role. He is no longer a player in green, but a figure surrounded by the color of the game's enforcers. It suggests a man who never truly returned to his life, who remains trapped in the game’s logic. The theory that he might become the Front Man for a new set of games, perhaps even in the United States where his daughter resides, presents a logical, if tragic, endpoint for his character. He might finally get on the plane, not as a father, but as a warden. The creator of the series, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has noted that an earlier, happier ending was filmed but discarded because it didn't convey the intended message. This suggests that a simple resolution is unlikely; the story demands a more complex and morally ambiguous conclusion.

Echoes of the Past

A chilling realization is that all players, past and present, may be permanently tethered to the game. When Gi-hun surgically removes a tracking chip from his own body, it confirms the organization's reach extends far beyond the island. This gave rise to another thought-provoking theory concerning the character Choe. His casual remarks about his father, who spoke of having a "bug" implanted in his temple, are too specific to be a coincidence.

Could Choe's father have been a past participant? The list of winners that police officer Hwang Jun-ho discovered even contains two individuals with the surname Choe. It's plausible that he either won in a previous year and squandered the fortune—explaining his son's current predicament—or was one of the players who voted to leave the game and was tracked thereafter. This would add another layer of tragedy: another winner who found no peace or prosperity from money earned through death, ensuring the cycle of debt and desperation continued for his own son.

Illusions of Family

Fandoms often seek connections, and many viewers have speculated about a familial link between the game's creator, Oh Il-nam, and either Gi-hun or the Front Man, In-ho. Il-nam's musings about his own son, whom he compares to Gi-hun, fuel these theories. Later, details emerge that seem to point toward In-ho being the lost son: his mother reveals he is not her biological child, and he shares his lactose intolerance with Il-nam's son.

However, these threads quickly unravel. Birthdays don't align, and lactose intolerance is extremely common among Koreans. The details seem to be intentional misdirection or, more likely, parallels designed to reinforce the story's themes. Il-nam, facing his own mortality, likely projects his paternal feelings onto both Gi-hun and In-ho, the two pivotal figures who represent the game's opposing outcomes: rebellion and assimilation. His stories are most likely just that—memories of a son who is long gone, adding another layer to the old man's lonely and twisted legacy.

The Unseen Struggle

While some character fates were sealed with brutal finality, the destiny of others, like Player 246, Park Gyeong-sok, remains ambiguous. We learned his backstory: a cartoonist desperate to pay for his daughter’s cancer treatment. A character with such a detailed and sympathetic narrative is unlikely to perish off-screen without emphasis. During the climactic confrontation, a guard shoots in his direction, but we never see a body or his number appear on the board of the eliminated.

This ambiguity is likely deliberate. The series has shown that guards sometimes wound players non-lethally to harvest their organs for a black-market side operation. This establishes a possibility for survival, however slim. Furthermore, photos shared and then quickly deleted by an actress from the set seemed to show the actor who plays Gyeong-sok in a guard's pink jumpsuit, leading to speculation that he was saved by a sympathetic guard and may have infiltrated the organization.

Meanwhile, the dogged pursuit of police officer Hwang Jun-ho continues. Having survived his fall into the sea after being shot by his own brother, the Front Man, he is now aided by a mysterious Captain Park. But the captain’s motives are suspect. Is he truly helping Jun-ho, or is he working for the Front Man? The latter seems more logical. In-ho’s decision to reveal his face to his brother and fire a non-lethal shot suggests a lingering connection. He may not want to kill his brother, but to control him. Captain Park is likely an agent of the Front Man, tasked with saving Jun-ho and keeping him on a leash. This sets the stage for a dramatic reckoning, where Jun-ho must confront the reality that his brother may have been protecting, not trying to kill, him.

A Mirror to a Painful Reality

Perhaps the most haunting theory is that the games are not pure fiction but an allegory for real historical events. In the 1960s, South Korea began a campaign to "purify" its cities ahead of major international events like the 1988 Summer Olympics. The government established facilities to detain so-called "vagrants"—a term loosely applied to anyone from the homeless to dissidents and even children left unattended for a moment.

The largest of these was the "Brotherhood Home," a facility in the city of Busan. Under the guise of social welfare, it was a labor camp where thousands were subjected to forced labor, torture, and abuse. In 1987, an investigation exposed the horrors within its walls, yet the director received only a minimal sentence for corruption, not for the profound human rights violations. The facility was closed, and just a year later, in the fictional timeline of the show, the first Squid Game was held.

This historical context lends a terrifying credibility to the series. It suggests that the games are a privatized, gamified continuation of a brutal system of social cleansing. As the Front Man tells Gi-hun, the games won't end until the world itself changes. If the show continues to mirror this dark chapter of history, then even if the island is found and the organizers are exposed, a truly happy ending is unlikely. Justice may prove as elusive in this fictional world as it was in reality.

References

• Kim, T.-H., & Klug, F. (2016, April 19). AP: S. Korea covered up mass abuse, killings of vagrants. Associated Press. This foundational investigative report by the Associated Press details the harrowing reality of the "Brotherhood Home." It draws on official documents and dozens of interviews with survivors and officials to expose the scale of the enslavement, abuse, and killings that occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s. The article corroborates the historical context presented in the analysis, particularly the government's "purification" drive before the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the subsequent failure to hold those responsible accountable for the atrocities.
• Kim, T.-H. (2022, August 24). Past S. Korean gov'ts blamed for abuses, deaths at facility. Associated Press. This follow-up report discusses the findings of South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which officially held past military governments responsible for the atrocities at the Brotherhood Home. It confirms that the commission found evidence of at least 657 deaths (higher than previously recorded), the random kidnapping of citizens by police to fill the facility, and a systematic cover-up of the crimes. This source validates the claim that the real-world event ended without significant justice, lending weight to the theory of a bleak, realistic ending for the series.
• Song, J. J. (2005). The Korean language: Structure, use and context. Routledge. This book provides insight into the sociolinguistics of Korean culture. Specifically, pages 81-82 discuss the complex system of honorifics and speech levels that are determined by the relative age and social status of the speakers. This confirms the cultural detail mentioned in the analysis, explaining why characters are so quick to establish their age. It clarifies that in Korean social structure, age is not just a number but a critical component of identity that dictates the rules of interaction, including whether two people can be considered "chingu" (friends of the same age).