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YMMV / Squid Game

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YMMV tropes for the Squid Game series

YMMV Items with their own pages:

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    A-D 
  • Alternate Aesop Interpretation: While the aesop of "money will not buy you happiness" rings true with how broken the winners of the games are despite being rich, the Host of the contest, revealed to be Il-nam, claims that he founded it out of boredom and a need for proof that Humans Are Bastards, and most of the contestants are in their current situation due to being poor and/or in debt in the first place. So another takeaway is that while earning money will not buy you happiness, having money is still needed to keep suffering at bay. It can be a cautionary tale for those who abuse the notion of "money will not buy you happiness" as an excuse to ignore the hardship poor people suffer precisely because of their economic situation.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: The show's creator had to spend a decade trying to get anyone to buy his scripts, which were repeatedly rejected. The resulting show became Netflix's most-watched series of all time in about a month.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Two examples from the first game which do traumatize a lot of the extras, bit characters and protagonists:
    • Il-nam saunters forward once the "rules" are established, complete with Crowd Panic. He doesn't lose his fear even as the turrets fire, and later tells Gi-hun he feels he has nothing to lose in the games since he's dying anyway, and it would be quite a way to go. The final episode provides a dark explanation for this: he's the creator of the games and has hosted 32 years of them, deadened to the waste of human life. Gi-hun can't believe it when a dying Il-nam tells him the truth.
    • Ali saves a stranger's life by grabbing Gi-hun as he's about to fall and the doll's head turns. He maintains his composure, not moving, as others are shot around them. In the second episode he remains calm and pensive, not joining the crowds of players begging to go home while voting to return to his wife and baby, telling a grateful Gi-hun he's glad the other man is alive. Heck, after the tug-of-war game, which was traumatizing for everyone in his team, he takes some time to mock Mi-nyeo when she makes a racist remark towards him, showing his only Not So Above It All moment. This makes his heartbroken face when Sang-woo leaves him to die in the next episode much, much worse, because it's one of the few times he loses his composure.
  • Anvilicious:
    • The entire show is about economic inequality, a message that, while not subtle, is highly relevant. The series was originally conceptualized in a period of economic inequality, which has arguably gotten worse over the years. The creator (who himself had to sell the laptop he used to write the original script to make ends meet) believes that these worsening conditions contributed to Squid Game finally getting greenlit.
    • Money will not buy you happiness.
    • Don't take someone or something at face value.
    • Humans don't deserve to be treated like racing horses for their mistakes.
    • Just because someone helped you today doesn't mean that same person won't stab you in the back tomorrow.
    • On a different note, Evangelical Christians are universally depicted as self-righteous, hypocritical loonies.
    • Episode 1 has a theme that your good actions can make someone a little happier, but your bad actions will snowball. A random kid helps Gi-hun win a toy for his daughter, ensuring that he at least has something to give to her as a birthday present. She also tells her dad sincerely that she likes hanging out with him and having street food because her mom thinks it's junk. Gi-hun also walks her home, complete with a piggyback ride when she falls asleep and making her happy; if he had left it at that, he probably would have ensured their last meetup would be civil. But then Gi-hun also steals his mother's savings when she only gave him enough to take out her granddaughter for a nice meal, so that he could bet at the races, something which kills her down the line.
    • The final episode has a theme that guilt over the past shouldn't stop someone from seizing a chance to make a positive change when they have one. After Gi-hun wins the games and the ₩45.6 billion prize, he's so overwhelmed by the guilt that he spends a whole year isolated from the world, without touching any of his money. When he proves Il-nam to be wrong about his Humans Are Bastards philosophy and his faith is restored, he gets cleaned up, takes Sae-byeok's brother out of the orphanage, entrusts him to Sang-woo's mother, donates her a large amount of money, and finally manages to repair his relationship with his family. Wasting a whole year as a hermit tortured by the guilt didn't bring back all the people who died in the games; the best thing Gi-hun can do in his position is using his prize money to help those in need.
  • Applicability: The series has been praised as many things, being a take on the Battle Royale genre, a critique of capitalism, a parody of reality TV and TikTok challenges, and a reflection of Korean inequality like Parasite.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Base-Breaking Character: 212/Han Mi-nyeo, who viewers deemed as either hilarious or unbearably annoying.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: Many viewers reported guessing the Front Man's identity as Jun-ho's brother simply because by the time the reveal comes, there's no other person it could possibly be that would have any meaning for either Jun-ho or the audience.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • Ali's boss refuses to pay him by claiming to not have enough money, despite openly grabbing a huge envelope of bills off his desk as he leaves. When Ali tries to get his pay and it turns into a fight, his boss gets his hand gruesomely crushed in the machine rollers. Viewers didn't have any sympathy.
    • Seeing Deok-su taken down by Mi-nyeo is immensely satisfying after watching him bully and murder his way through the games.
  • Complete Monster: Jang Deok-su is the worst of the contestants in the brutal games. A former gangster out to get the money for himself, Deok-su has participated in murder, forced prostitution, and rape with his thugs. In the game, Deok-su initiates a riot to cull as many players as possible; beats a man to death for objecting to Deok-su taking his food; and betrays his ally Han Mi-nyeo while believing it will mean her death. Relishing slaughtering another team in the Tug-Of-War game, Deok-su repeatedly enjoys the deaths of other players, and upon the glass bridge, he attempts to force other players to risk almost certain death or to die when he refuses to advance himself.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Player 069 is Driven to Suicide because his wife just got killed in the previous game. Not that funny so far but then we cut to VIP 4 getting pissed off for losing money because he bet on this player winning the games. Why? Because he was Player 069.
  • Cry for the Devil:
    • The Front Man is utterly despicable, but The Reveal that he was one of the winner of the games in the past makes you realize that in the beginning, he was just another poor, desperate soul like the other victims of the rich people's cruelty before he became evil. He also advises Gi-hun to just imagine it's all a dream, which indicates that — unlike the creator and spectators who simply don't think of the poor as human beings — it takes him effort to fully turn off his empathy for the players, having experienced the trauma of being one firsthand.
    • Despite all the atrocities he had done since his Face–Heel Turn, it's not hard to pity Sang-woo in his final moments. Like everyone else, he was roped into the game due to desperation, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep himself alive no matter how cruel his actions are since that's the nature of the game he's playing, and he rightfully pointed out that quitting would be a disservice to everyone who had already lost their lives playing it since nobody would win the prize money that hundreds died for. When it was clear that he lost the final game, he decides to kill himself so that at least the prize money would go to Gi-hun, who could use it to help his struggling mother - who is the main motivation of why he joined the game in the first place.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Sang-woo. Each round sees Sang-woo resort to increasingly ruthless tactics in the name of self-preservation and the story is pretty explicit that this is not the best path to go down. Despite what sympathy could be had for him, his situation is self-inflicted. He was a stock broker who implicated his mother in his financial crimes which led to his debt. There's also a lot of fans who found his tactics to be completely justified and claimed that he should have been the victor, arguing that his approach to the games was the most "realistic" and that they would have done the same were they in the games.
    • Even after it was revealed that Il-nam is the mastermind behind the games, it didn't deter how much fans loved him, possibly due to the fact that his redeemable qualities from before weren't subverted at all. Fans have gone so far as to make theories that give him a Freudian Excuse for his hatred of mankind, and tend to ignore the fact that he's the head of an organization responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of deaths.

    E-G 
  • Ending Fatigue: Fans generally agree that the start of Episode 9 was a compelling and emotional climax to the story. However, the episode continues for another 30 minutes, where Gi-hun experiences a year-long Heroic BSoD, discovers the mastermind of the games, learns to believe in humanity again, fulfills his promises to Sae-byeok and Sang-woo, and resolves to take down the games himself. Compared to the intensity of the series beforehand, you'd be forgiven for thinking the conclusion drags a bit.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The Salesman is one of the most popular characters in the series despite only appearing in two scenes.
    • Players 324 and 250 for being portrayed as sympathetic comic relief characters during the short screentime they got.
    • Ji-yeong is incredibly popular amongst the fandom due to her chemistry with Kang Sae-byeok, especially her Heroic Sacrifice towards the latter.
    • Player 119 for being one of the most vocal participants to stop the games, but mostly for doing something no one else thought of - not going down without a fight, injuring one guard and indirectly getting another killed, thus allowing the detective to continue his investigation.
    • Player 062, the math teacher, who approaches Gi-hun and asks if he wants to team up for the marbles game. During the stepping stones game, when he calculates his odds of survival and realizes it's 32,000 to 1, he goes "Fuck it" and just decides to make a (surprisingly successful) dash for it.
    • Player 198 has become surprisingly popular -especially on TikTok and YouTube- despite being a background character with very little screentime, in part because of her good looks and guts to (unwisely) out player 101 for butting in line for second helpings, which sadly cost her life during the blackout riot as the first person to be eliminated, sealing her fate as a tragic character.
    • Players 069 and 070, a married couple, have a number of fans due to their heartbreaking side plot. Introduced during the Tug of War game, Player 069 refuses to join Gi-hun's team unless his wife (Player 070) can join as well. Later, they partner during the marble game only to find out to their horror that they'll be competing against their partner. Player 070 ultimately loses and dies as a result, and Player 069 hangs himself out of guilt.
    • Player 017 for his knowledge from his time as a worker of a glass manufacturing company proving incredibly useful in the Glass Bridge game.
  • Epileptic Trees:
    • The fan theory that Gi-hun is actually Il-nam's son has become viral.note  There have been many articles written about it, despite evidence to the contrary also being present. Some people think it's clichéd to have the game master and Gi-hun be related, however, so they suggest that perhaps Gi-hun simply reminds him of his son.
    • A number of fans ran with the theory that the color of the ddakji chosen to play against the Salesman determines the position a person is enrolled for - Blue as a Player, Red as a Guard. However, this is disproven as early as the first episode in a compilation of the Players playing ddakji showing that some Players did choose Red. On top of that, the Guards would require mass amounts of training to be as synchronised and competent in their job; there wouldn't be enough time between the Salesman's recruitment and their first job of smuggling the Players into the island.
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • The Front Man has a badass mask and coat, a cool voice, wields a 1911, is extremely clever, and a Consummate Professional. His mask, black attire, and general attitude of no-nonsense evil evokes Evil Is Cool mascot Darth Vader.
    • Il-nam drew in lots of viewers at first because he's an endearing old man who somehow manages to survive the deadly games and even gives genuinely helpful tips like in the Tug-of-War game, which makes him look badass. But when they reached The Reveal that he's actually the founder of the games, most people stopped loving him. That said, there's definitely a contingent of fans who still liked Il-nam even after the revelation of his true nature due to how clever he is, not to mention a love of both the twist and the good reception of his actor's performance.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Forms a minor one with Alice in Borderland, another Asian Netflix series with a Deadly Game premise.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot:
    • Fanfics with Sang-woo or Sae-byeok winning the contest in place of Gi-hun are quite common.
    • There's a recurring fanfic idea of Ji-yeong being a deranged heiress of a wealthy family and the true mastermind behind the games, in place of the canon Il-nam.
  • Fanfic Fuel: With the implication that every country in the world has its own version of the games (the series focuses on South Korea's due to it being deemed as the "most entertaining"), many fans have thought to come up with ideas on what games would be used for their own countries' version.
  • Fan Nickname: Non-Korean-speaking viewers sometimes refer to the characters with descriptive terms rather than their actual names.note 
    • Seong Gi-hun is "Main Character".
    • Cho Sang-woo is "University Guy/Smart Guy/Childhood Friend".
    • Kang Sae-byeok is "Pickpocket/Thief/North Korean Girl".
    • Oh Il-nam is "Old Man".
    • Jang Deok-su is "Thug/Gangster/Snake Tattoo".
    • Han Mi-nyeo is "Annoying Girl/Crazy Lady".
    • Byeong-gi/Player 111 is "Doctor".
    • Ji-yeong is "Nose Ring Girl/Nose Piercing Girl".
    • Hwang Jun-ho is "Cop/Detective".
    • Players 069 and 070 are "Husband and Wife".
    • Player 062 is "Math Teacher".
    • Player 244 is "Preacher/Minister".
    • Player 017 is "Glass Worker".
  • Genius Bonus:
    • Those with knowledge about Korean literature could probably have foreseen Gi-hun returning home in Episode 9 with the prize money, only to find his mother had died in the meantime. The title of the episode is "One Lucky Day", the same as a famous Korean short story where a rickshaw porter, the ancient equivalent of a chauffeur, has a lucky day where he gets a lot of customers and earns lots of money, only to return home to find his sickly wife dead.
    • The red and blue ddakji is, according to Hwang Dong-hyuk and HoYeon Jung, is a reference to the Japanese ghost folklore Red Mantle. It involves a ghost who will approach you in the bathroom and make an offer of red or blue toilet paper, either choice will result in death. In order to survive the encounter, the person must either refuse or ignore the ghost. With this in mind, it is saying that the only way to win the Squid Game is not to play.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • This show is incredibly popular in the US, and is the first Korean drama to reach number one status in the US TV showchart.
    • Also, in the Philippines, to the point where the "Red Light, Green Light" doll is used. It's also because of Christian Lagahit being casted in the show.
    • For a country that lacks a strong K-drama culture, the show is immensely popular in Romania, reaching No.1 on Netflix Romania. Romanian users on TikTok like to create countless memes about the show, under the form of "What Romanians would do, if they were part of the game". It helps that due to corruption in their country, many Romanians easily identify with the characters and their dispirited situation while being at the mercy of mysterious villainous VIPs.
    • This show is also popular among the North Korea elite, mostly as excuse to say capitalism does not work. In spite of this, the show criticizes North Korea as well through Sae-byeok's storyline.
    • This show was everywhere in the Netherlands.

    H-P 
  • He's Just Hiding:
    • Due to the lack of a satisfying conclusion to his storyline, the fact that he was shot in the shoulder, a notoriously non-lethal wound in fiction, no clear confirmation of his death, and the fact that the previous and only other off-screen death turned out to be faked, many fans have committed to the theory that Jun-ho survived his fall and will return in the second season.
    • It's nice to hope that 062 and some of the other victims of the glass stepping stones might have survived the fall and weren't burned or dissected alive.
    • No announcement is heard when Sae-Byeok dies, making some fans hope that she survives being stabbed and cut out her black box implant earlier to fake her death.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The First-Episode Twist is pure Nightmare Fuel as players are gunned down for the crime of not staying still or panicking. Later parodies of the show might make a viewer laugh and cry on watching. Case in point:
      • YouTuber Mr. Beast later recreated the games, starting with "Red Light Green Light," and the volunteers are laughing even if they get "eliminated". Mr. Beast even messes with them by adding a random "yellow light" which some eliminated players admit was a brilliant Troll move. One of the players who did survive admitted she actually had never seen Squid Game so was just playing for fun.
      • One of the saddest moments in the show is Sang-woo betraying Ali to save his own ass, rather than either playing fairly and gracefully losing, as Ji-yeong did, or asking the patient guards about a viable third option like switching the players' bags of marbles and thus "winning" all without getting twenty. Saturday Night Live would recreate a similar moment between guest host Rami Malek and Pete Davidson... and it is a really one of many Funny Moments when Davidson casually pushes Malek off the Stepping Stones Bridge just because, and Malek sings, "Why'd the hell I play the Squid Game?".
    • In Episode 8, Jun-ho is stopped from showing the footage of the games he made to the police by the Front Man (played by Lee Byung-hun) shooting him off a cliff. This is very similar to how Storm Shadow (one of Lee's previous roles) is defeated by Snake Eyes at the end of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
    • May double as Harsher in Hindsight depending on how cynical you are, but at the same time Season 2 was announced, Netflix also announced a reality TV show meant to recreate the games in the series with real contestants competing for a cash prize (though thankfully no killing involved if the players lose). Whether Netflix is aware of the irony of this situation remains to be seen.
    • Upon the first season's release, many viewers found the uniforms of the guards to be quite similar to the outfits worn by the robbers and hostages in fellow Netflix series Money Heist. The next year, Netflix released a Korean remake of Money Heist, which also features Park Hae-soo (Sang-woo's actor) as Berlin.
    • The Fandom-Specific Plot of a Mastermind!AU depicting Ji-yeong as Ax-Crazy and Secretly Wealthy became oddly prophetic after her actress Lee Yoo-mi was cast in All of Us Are Dead as Lee Na-yeon — a Rich Bitch who mostly cares about nobody except herself.
  • I Am Not Shazam: The central games are never called the "Squid Game" in-universenote ; the squid game is instead a popular Korean children's game as well as the final round of the game.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Squid Game's surprise popularity had created a lot of buzz from critics and fans alike, as well as several recreations, both in Real Life and in video game platforms such as Roblox. The massive publicity has repulsed some people from the series, who are sick of seeing it everywhere. Expect anyone who recreates the games to receive tons of comments accusing them of being a sell-out who's trying to cash in on a trend.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Mi-nyeo is an Opportunistic Bastard who uses dramatic antics to get what she wants and votes to return to the games, despite claiming to have a newborn at home she hasn't named. She's even racist towards Ali when he identifies a movie she was referencing, and he proceeds to mock her for her panicking during tug-of-war. There are hints, however, that her Large Ham and allying with the strongest side is a coping mechanism for how she's survived in life, and she does help Sae-byeok. From a physical standpoint, she's not as strong as the other players, and admits she hates being seen as a weak link. She becomes pathetic when no one will partner up with her for game four, begging for her life as the guards drag her away. While she finds out that she was allowed to go to the barracks and sleep the day off, she was hurt on principle that Deok-su rejected her again and realized no one trusted her. The next day, she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice by taking out Deok-su before he could waste time for everyone on the Stepping Stones bridge, her last of few selfless gestures.
    • Byeong-gi, who engages in ethically dodgy organ extraction in exchange for corrupt guards giving him a heads up about the games and pre-planned riots. He teams up with Deok-su to protect himself, knowing Deok-su is a killer. Yes, it is really messed up, as Jun-ho notes when holding one of the guards at gunpoint. There are hints that Byeong-gi actually doesn't like doing this, especially after a woman whose body was raped repeatedly awoke on the surgeon's table as he was removing her eyes, and he remarks offhandedly that the incident that caused him to lose his license has caused him no end of guilt, of accidentally killing a patient. His breakdown is quite sad, when he snaps from the sleep deprivation and limited food rations, holding one of the guard hostages and actually killing one. It's implied that even the Front Man felt sorry for Byeong-gi when he found out about the scheme, though it doesn't stop him from executing him for cheating.
    • Sang-woo brought his legal and financial troubles on himself through his embezzlement and bad investments, and becomes more ruthless over the course of the game, from betraying Ali to murdering Sae-byeok. However, he suffers from guilt over his more morally questionable decisions, and is playing so that his mother's shop will not be seized as collateral. In the end, after losing to Gi-hun, he sees no other choice but to kill himself so that Gi-hun can win the money and help both of their mothers.
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
    • Many people started watching the series for Gong Yoo as the Salesman, though he only appears in the first and final episodes.
    • And to a lesser extent, Jun'ichi Suwabe voicing the Salesman in the Japanese dub.
  • Les Yay: Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong grow close incredibly quickly, and they share several intense stares and physically involved conversations (notably the scene where Sae-byeok pushes Ji-yeong against a wall and questions her about her Heroic Sacrifice, and breaks down in tears when she is shot).
  • Love to Hate: Jang Deok-su may be monstrously evil and a sadistic piece of trash, but his actor's amazing performance makes him easy to hate and, in addition to the character being rebellious and over-the-top, very memorable and much appreciated as a villain by fans.
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • There are several North Korean apologists who cite the show to demonize South Korea and promote North Korea, particularly a scene where Sae-byeok is silent when asked if her situation is better from when she was up North. While the show does show how South Korea's capitalism exploits the poor for the rich's benefit, Sae-byeok has little love for her home country, adding how her grandmother and older brother died in a plague and her mother is suffering in a work campnote . Doubly ironic since the show itself was produced in South Korea and definitely wouldn't have been greenlit in the North.
    • On the flip-side, some viewers have over-focused on the negative references to North Korea to the point of arguing the show is an allegory for that country's authoritarianism, despite being very clearly about economic conditions in South Korea, as mentioned by the creator of the show himself. Likewise, it didn't take long before people suddenly started interpreting Squid Game as being an allegory for socialism - whereas the show itself was criticizing capitalism specifically.
    • Some viewers seem to focus solely on the anti-capitalist themes while ignoring its more generalized message about lives of individuals in modern South Korean society and societies overall. The show also goes out of its way to display that, as sympathetic as Gi-hun and Sang-woo are, the crises in their respective lives are at least partially due to their own bad decisions. This point is spelled out when Sang-woo gives Gi-hun a "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Episode 8 about his bad decisions, and Gi-hun agrees with Sang-woo, but points out that Sang-woo also ruined his own life.
    • Multiple people, such as Mr. Beast, were actually inspired to run their own versions of the games. They're not deadly at all and are mostly done for the actual entertainment of participants, but the show itself criticizes the premise of people competing for money. In fairness, Hwang Dong-hyuk himself stated that he approves of recreations of the show.
  • Misaimed Merchandising: Ever since Squid Game first aired, there has been a bunch of unofficial merchandise products dedicated to it, even though the show's whole message is a criticism on capitalism.
  • Moe: Ali is the most innocent and pure-of-heart contestant in the whole game, even complete with Puppy-Dog Eyes. Fan videos tend to prove how much of the audience saw him as this, which tragically makes it easy for Sang-woo to betray him and get him killed, as Ali's innocence made him put too much blind trust in his ally.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Sang-woo relying on Ali's trust of him in order to trick him out of his marbles in the fourth game and pushing the glassmaker to his death to reveal the last fake glass panel in the fifth game are appalling, especially his betrayal of Ali, but could arguably be justified from the perspective of a Cold Equation, since the latter also allowed Gi-hun and Sae-byeok to reach the other side (although Sae-byeok was mortally wounded by a flying shard of glass). This cannot be said about his murder of Sae-byeok, who was bleeding out anyway, which puts him far beyond the point of any possible redemption.
    • In the final episode, it's revealed that Oh Il-nam and the VIPs crossed it by creating the deadly games in the first place for personal amusement.
    • Deok-su crosses it by starting a riot to cull the weaker players, causing 27 people to lose their lives in the process. If that's not enough, there's him refusing to go forward on the glass bridge unless someone goes ahead of him, being willing to let everyone die just to save himself.
  • Narm:
    • The performances of the actors playing the VIPs are quite wooden, and their lines and delivery sound quite silly and forced, so it can be hard to take them seriously. Some viewers have noted that the laboured, campy delivery is reminiscent of how Westerners sometimes performed dialogue (when not dubbed) in old-school martial arts movies — often for clarity. A Korean audience probably doesn't notice, but for English-speaking foreigners watching the series, the drop in quality compared to the Korean actors is really noticeable. It's not entirely their fault, however, considering their English-language dialogue was written by people not fluent in English and had to be translated, and it was almost inevitably going to sound at least somewhat unnatural and robotic. See here for more information.
    • The ending of Episode 7 has the glass panels getting shot up, sending shards flying everywhere in Slow Motion. Between how dramatically slowed-down and long the scene is (a stylistic far cry from the show's other uses of slow motion), the score being a mix of a frantic drum solo and "Psycho" Strings, and the characters making hilariously exaggerated facial expressions, it can become unintentionally funny.
    • It's a bit hard to take Gi-hun seriously after he dyes his hair bright red in the last episode. On one hand, it represents his mental recovery. On the other hand, it looks rather ridiculous on a 47-year-old man who otherwise dresses in a very straight-laced fashion, especially when he is involved in more dramatic scenes before the end of the episode.
  • Narm Charm: The poor performances of the VIPs are silly, but they've widely been interpreted as a reflection of how all of them are Psychopathic Manchildren, with silly performances to fit their cruel personalities, as well as an inverse of the one-dimensional, stereotypical portrayals Asians have received in American media.
  • Nausea Fuel:
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • A non-character example is the animatronic doll from the first game. Despite having a major role in only that one game, it is arguably the first thing that comes to mind with regards to the entire series.
    • Player 306, who provides one of the series' most iconic shots during the "Red Light, Green Light" game. Already one of its Signature Scenes (see below), her reaction helps reveal the true stakes of the games (even providing the image for the show's Nightmare Fuel page) while also being subject to memes.
    • Player 066, who not only speaks up about how no one signed up to be killed, but also refuses to return. He's memorable in that he stuck to his guns and didn't want to participate in this, while bravely telling a bunch of guards armed with machine guns that the police will surely notice 456 people that have gone missing over the same day.
    • Player 119, who after failing the honeycomb round, manages to subdue a staff member and force him to remove his mask.
    • Player 062 (the Math Teacher) from the Glass Bridge game, who decides to let the laws of probability determine his fate. In the process, he single-handedly clears three sets of panels before falling to his death and helps create a partial path.
  • Padding: While Episode 2 of the show is mostly well-received thanks to a good subversion of expectation by having the contestants go home briefly and devote the majority of its time illustrating the show's Central Theme and story, which drives home just how miserable, empty and hopeless most players' lives are outside of the Games, and helps the viewer understand why so many felt desperate enough to return, there are some fans who believe that the episode also took away the time that could've been used to flesh out the Games themselves instead.
  • Paranoia Fuel:
    • Happens when the Front Man promotes infighting after the second game. Gi-hun evens exploits this towards Deok-su in that his teammates would be smart to take him out since he's the strongest player.
    • The Front Man can keep track of each player even after they've either left the game or won. He even specifically says to keep track of the players that chose not to return after the majority ruling to end the game the first go-round, and knows that Gi-hun is about to board a plane to visit his daughter at the end.
    • How the players are approached and invited to join the game in the first place. Somebody out there knows everything about you - your financial status, your habits, your whereabouts, what you have done at any given time (such as Gi-hun having signed a blood contract) - without you having ever met or encountered them.
  • Periphery Demographic: The show is disturbingly popular among children, who most likely have only heard of it through Pop-Cultural Osmosis since they're too young to watch the show itself. Children's games being part of the premise may also be part of the appeal to them especially in its native South Korea where Squid Game originated from. This went to the point schools have been sending warnings to parents after witnessing kids reportedly hurt losers in their own renditions of the game.

    R-W 
  • Signature Scene:
    • The "Red Light, Green Light" game, due to it being an Establishing Series Moment, up to the point where people are using the game's mascot as some sort of a warning sign.
    • The ending of the "Gganbu" episode, where Ali, Ji-yeong, and Il-nam (apparently) — all some of the most fan-favored characters in the series — are killed in quick succession, gained mass infamy as the biggest Tear Jerker moment on the show. A mere mention of "Episode 6" is enough to act as a Trauma Button among fans, and among YouTube channels' reactions to the entire series, videos on that episode always get substantially more views than the rest.
  • Slow-Paced Beginning: As mentioned in Padding above, much of the first two episodes, except for the "Red Light Green Light" game, is devoted to relatively slow-paced scenes establishing character backstories and motivations. The plot doesn't really pick up until Episode 3, when the games resume and Jun-ho begins his infiltration of the contest.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
    • This may be the closest we get to a Darker and Edgier Korean Live-Action adaptation of Total Drama in that like the latter, has competitors compete in life-threatening challenges to obtain an absurdly large cash prize.
    • This could also be considered to a Korean adaptation of The Hunger Games, in that contestants are most likely to get killed during the competition for the amusement of the upper-class.
    • Given that it's a story in which a group of unsuspecting people from a diverse array of backgrounds are knocked out and locked in a large building where they're manipulated into killing one another by a mysterious malefactor, Squid Game can also be considered a live-action Danganronpa.
  • Squick:
    • Byeong-gi stitching up a deep wound in Deok-su's leg after the latter gets stabbed during the lights-out fight. The squelching sounds of the needle travelling through his flesh, Deok-su grunting in pain and clutching a pillow, and the implication that this is being done without anesthetic, can induce second-hand pain in the audience.
    • The sight of VIP No. 4 removing his robe to show his nude body from behind is not a pleasant one, to say the least.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
    • Many viewers spoke against the series due to how apparently similar the premise is to As the Gods Will, particularly having characters play children's games with extreme stakes and starting off with "Red Light, Green Light". However, the similarities end there. Word of God also spoke out to say that the similarities were a coincidence, as the concept for this series was already penned years before As the Gods Will came out as a manga. Plus, that series focuses more on the supernatural aspect of unwilling participants while Squid Game is more down to Earth, all the games are man-made, and most of the survivors of the first round willingly re-enter it out of desperation because their money woes are too critical to ignore.
    • The "Glass Bridge" of the 5th round was criticized as being to similar in concept of the "Steel Frame Crossing" competition in Kaiji, with this being the round that also introduces the idea that the game is being put on for the enjoyment of socialites. With most of the other rounds are more directly linked to children's games, this sudden change made it come off as rather out of place.
    • While less relevant than the previous two examples, some viewers have also pointed out that Oh Il-nam is rather similar to John Kramer from the Saw movies, what with both being old men who created Deadly Games for the purpose of helping society in their respective views, have brain tumors, appear under a disguise in the games at first before their identities as the Big Bad are revealed, die on hospital beds, and are succeeded by Dirty Cop disciples.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While it's generally agreed that making players 324 and 250 the first two casualties of the game was a good example of Shoo Out the Clowns in order to set a darker tone of the series, a lot of fans agree that killing them off before the Marbles game was a waste, considering their dynamic together.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Villainous as he is, Deok-su actually came up with a good plan to leverage the game's Schmuck Bait to lure back players into round two of the game. If you gather enough men and track the trucks after they pick up a player, you can find out the location of the rendezvous points for transport, overpower a guard driver, find the island, and either storm it with enough weaponry to take the piggy bank by force or at least gather enough intel for a heist. He had to abandon this plan after finding out his lackey sold him out to a Filipino mob, forcing him to return to the island solo and play the game by the rules, while Detective Jun-ho came to the same conclusion and found out how to infiltrate the island. One can hope that in season 2, a player returning to round two would use this strategy to see if the guards and Front Man have a counterattack for hijacking.
  • Title Confusion: Many viewers erroneously refer to the show as Squid Games, with an S at the end. A side-effect of that confusion is that it can lead one to assume that the Squid Games are the Deadly Game the whole show is about, rather than one specific playground game. This is despite the fact that the prologue of the first episode outright explains what the title is referring to.
  • Tough Act to Follow: The marbles game in "Gganbu" is cited as one of the more emotional and memorable parts of the show, particularly after the players pair up with the expectation that they'll be working as a team, only to have to play a game with their partner in which the loser dies. Unsurprisingly, some find that the fifth and final games don't measure up well in comparison.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The art direction for the games make it look like a cross between Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Hunger Games, while doing its own spin with Korean cultural motifs, as shown in this video.
    • The doll was real. In the behind-the-scenes, you can see her moving in accordance with the cues from the script. There's no CGI involved with her, just some good acting, camera angles, and blood spatter. With the brightly colored set later revealed to be a facsimile of an outdoor playground, this scene draws you in and sets the stage for what's to come.
    • An actual candymaker was brought on-set to make the candy for each take of the honeycomb challenge. They were on call until filming wrapped up.
    • Set designers actually built the tug-of-war platforms to scale, minus the deadly heights actually featured. The only greenscreen and bluescreen props involved were the crash pad for where the losing party would fall.
    • While obviously the crew made sure that none of the actors would get deadly glass injuries, the Stepping Stone game did have real tempered glass that could crack with a 1.5-meter drop for the "false" steps, and the actors who fell attached to harnesses before they were lowered to a crash pad.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Squid Game has become popular amongst kids, especially in its native South Korea, due to its premise of playing children's games for money; many YouTube Kids' Channels and kid-friendly game websites such as Roblox have Squid Game-themed videos and games. However, the show is in no way appropriate for a young audience — not only will its explorations of the harm capitalist society can bring fly right over the heads of children, but it also features gruesome (yet realistic) violence, frequent strong language, nudity and one sex scene.
  • The Woobie: Most of the players count, due to them being so deep in debt that they're willing to play a game of life and death to win money. Some standout examples include:
    • Sae-byeok is a North Korean defector who is a common target for the sadistic Deok-su. Her brother is stuck in an orphanage while her mother was deported back to North Korea. She is only in the game to get her brother back. She ends up getting tragically murdered by Sang-woo in-between the fifth and final game, no thanks to the Game-Breaking Injury she suffered in the aftermath of the fifth game, meaning that her brother is now an orphan.
    • Ali Abdul joined the game so that he could support his wife and child. Not only does he die after being betrayed by the man he trusted, but his family will never get closure on his fate.
    • Ji-yeong witnessed her father who sexually abused her, murder her mother, at which point she killed him. This gets her arrested and saddled with his debts, and by the time she joins the game, she doesn't even care if she lives or dies.
    • Player 069 (who remains unnamed) becomes this when his wife is killed during the marbles game. After desperately trying to get the remaining players to vote to end the game and getting yelled at by Sang-woo, who is unsympathetic towards him, he kills himself out of grief.
  • Woolseyism:
    • In the original Korean version, the robot in the "Red Light, Green Light" game sings "The mugunghwa flower is blooming" before turning it around, as this is how the game is played in Korea. In the English dub, she says "Green light!", followed by a pause, after which she abruptly shouts "Red light!" and turns. Even those who dislike the English dub admit that this change made the game feel scarier, since she could force the players to stop running at any time instead of giving them an audio cue to coordinate themselves to stop with, making sense that some would panic.
    • When Player 324, who is the first to die, is eliminated in the German dub, the announcer says that he has been "disqualified" instead of "eliminated". In German, the literal translation of "eliminated" is "umbringen" ("to kill"), and is therefore more directly associated with death than other languages, so keeping it would spoil the element of surprise.

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