Editor’s notice: The under incorporates spoilers for Squid Sport Season 2.

In each seasons of Squid Sport, the lethal kids’s video games started earlier than the gamers ever stepped into the acquainted area, facilitated by the elusive man dubbed the Salesman or Recruiter (Gong Yoo). In Season 1, this was a comparatively innocent recreation of ddakji, which the Salesman used to lure folks into the sport with financial rewards and the stinging ache of a slap that was a tiny glimpse into the ache they’d later face. He returns in Season 2 in a bigger function for the primary two episodes, inducting Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) again into the match with a higher-stakes and extra deadly recreation of Russian Roulette. Earlier than this, the Salesman additionally takes us by way of a weird and seemingly purposeless scene involving bread loaves and lottery tickets, which seems to be extra revealing than we initially assumed, because it exposes components of his psyche whereas symbolically tying into the Gi-hun’s hunt for the true villain of Squid Sport.

‘Squid Sport’ Season 2 Reveals the Salesman’s True Self

Throughout Gi-hun’s three-year seek for the elusive character who initially gave him the fateful enterprise card, he hires his previous mortgage shark and his crew to watch the subway system. One pair lastly spots him, they usually path the Salesman out of the subway, as he ends his work day. His private time apparently includes shopping for 100 loaves of bread and lottery tickets, strolling right into a park with that ever-present slick smile plastered on his face, and holding out the 2 objects on the palms of his fingers in entrance of individuals in poverty. He offers every particular person a alternative. Many select the lottery ticket and lose, however after they plead for the bread, the Salesman merely walks away. As soon as he attends to everybody, he stands in the midst of the sq., loses all composure, and jumps furiously on the remaining meals, shaming everybody for selecting the dangerous choice.

This obscure scene would not appear to have an excessive amount of rhyme or motive to it. In truth, it simply looks as if one other instance of the video games’ creators’ twisted sense of giving folks a alternative to assist themselves. Nevertheless, it’s truly much less didactic and superfluous than it’s possible you’ll suppose. In an interview with RadioTimes, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk explains that this enigmatic scene is an expression and projection of the Salesman’s personal self-hatred. The Salesman is “somebody who lived a troublesome, powerful, rock-bottom life” and may see whispers of this life within the homeless folks within the park. “He’s somebody who’s so crammed with self-hatred. It’s expressed within the hatred he harbors for different people,” says Dong-hyuk. “And by hating these folks, he believes that he’s totally different from them… virtually as if he is attempting to flee his personal self-loathing nature.”

Traces of this self-loathing are present in Yoo’s mercurial efficiency, naturally culminating within the paroxysm of emotion that leaves everybody shocked. As he walks as much as every particular person and offers them a alternative, the seemingly charitable act, shot from a low angle the place his composed smile fills the body, feels virtually angelic. He would not solely consider he’s totally different to them, however above them. Then he deftly punishes the “flawed” alternative of foregoing primary wants for the danger of wealth, a choice he would have made earlier than he was employed by the video games. So, when his pristine persona offers solution to a primal explosion of leaping, smashing, and heaving, it offers us an unnerving snapshot of what his inside world is definitely like. He’s brimming with self-hatred from his previous, and even his current self, as he actively participates in recruiting folks to gamble for a truckload of cash with enormous danger, the very factor he condemns on this scene.

The Salesman Exposes the True Villains in ‘Squid Sport’

It’s fascinating to realize perception into this mysterious man who actually launched us to Squid Sport, however this revelation about his self-hatred truly ties into the thematic considerations of the remainder of the season. It considerably bridges the hole between the gamers and the guards within the collection. On the floor, the Masked Ones appear to have a extra highly effective place over the gamers, particularly as they’re liable for implementing the principles they usually maintain lethal weapons. However this is not essentially the case. Every particular person within the present, participant and guard alike, completes their function within the closed surroundings of the match to make sure their survival and future in the true world. And in the event that they deviate from that duty, profoundly adverse penalties happen.

With the gamers, we already know it’s demise, however a subplot in Season 2 showcases the pressures on the guards. One of many triangle guards, No-eul (Park Gyu-young), is attempting to collect the cash to seek out her daughter, whom she misplaced after deserting North Korea. She tries to take an goal and cruelty-free method to her function, which leads her to butt heads with the officers concerned within the organ-harvesting operations. By not committing absolutely to each facet of the function, she is threatened and harmed by two different guards underneath the Entrance Man’s orders. Even the organ-harvesting guards are merely compelled to make more cash, which is strictly what the gamers are doing. Everybody has discovered a task on this system — participant, guard, or Salesman — and makes use of their strengths to attempt to fulfill them with a purpose to keep away from the destiny that the Salesman curses within the bread and lottery ticket scene. To a level, all of them have some stage of self-loathing.

As such, the Salesman’s wild and bitter scene exposes the basic similarity of everybody concerned within the video games. They’re all trapped throughout the constructions of their self-hatred because of some type of monetary stress, encouraging them to select to take part. The scene sows the seeds that will later urge us to broaden our perspective, recognizing that, regardless of the inherent divide between gamers and guards, neither are actually the antagonists right here. Alongside Gi-hun, we finally establish the true culprits of this recreation. They’re the category divides that appear so insurmountable they push folks to the extremes to beat them and the elite lessons that exploit this hole to make sure their very own wealth whereas utilizing the lots as leisure. The Salesman often is the face Gi-hun remembers and relentlessly hunts down, however he’s a sufferer of the identical system.

Squid Sport Seasons 1 and a pair of can be found to stream on Netflix.

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