Squid Game: It Was Never About the Money

You can tell a lot about a person from their reaction to waking up in a room with 455 other people in identical tracksuits to the sound of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major.

Take, for example, the players in Season 1 of Squid Game. In less than five minutes, Deok-su (Player 101) is attacking Sae-byeok (Player 067) as though they’ve been placed in a wrestling arena (which, in all fairness, isn’t too far off the mark) and is soon followed by Gi-hun (Player 456), who wants to join the confrontation and is subsequently thrown to the ground by Deok-su for interrupting his earlier quarrel. Then the guards enter.

The players of Season 2, however, had an entirely different reaction. There was some shuffling. A few murmurs. Cue the guards.

Why were their reactions so different? The pool of players for Seasons 1 and 2 of Squid Game were largely separated by one demographic: age. While there were a few younger players in Season 1, most of them – especially those most prominently featured – appeared to be millennials, Generation X-ers, and a few baby boomers. But Season 2 was filled with a sea of young faces, with many of the principal characters representing Generation Z or the younger end of millennials.

The differences between the two age groups were underlined immediately. After the guards enter in both seasons, several players speak up and ask questions about their whereabouts, the guards, their masks, and the games. In Season 1, all the players who speak up follow a similar set of mannerisms. Their tones are suspicious, accusatory, and demanding. Their physical stances are controlled and unmoving, and they talk confidently without requesting the right to – one of the most important indicators of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s directorial intention of highlighting the issue of the age hierarchy.

Here’s the interesting part: the players who speak up in Season 2 have an entirely different set of mannerisms. The first player, Hyun-ju (Player 120), who’s older in age but culturally youthful in her empathetic values and identity as a transgender woman, raises her hand and says “excuse me” before questioning the guards’ trustworthiness. The next two, who appear young neither in age nor in mind, mimic the actions of the speakers in Season 1. They question the guards about their masks in an angry and confrontational manner without physically moving or requesting permission to speak. Then Mi-na (Player 196), a member of Generation Z, raises her jacket into the air to get everyone’s attention and asks about the unfashionable nature of the players’ tracksuits. This cycle continues, with Thanos (Player 230) waving his shoe while arguing about the importance of his “limited edition” shoes, and then Myung-gi (Player 333) physically moving to the front of the crowd to ask the guards to return his phone so he can check the cryptocurrency market.

This series of young speakers’ actions accomplishes two things: 1) it solidifies the idea that younger players tend to “ask” for permission to speak by raising their hand, an object, or literally moving themselves to the front of a crowd, and 2) it underscores the different priorities of the younger players (such as fashion, trends, phones, and cryptocurrency) and places them in contrast to the older players’ priorities (trying to find someone to blame and questioning everything authoritatively). The former point is likely a product of the age hierarchy: younger people are used to their voices being diminished by their elders, so they already know that they must do something physical to be taken seriously. While the younger players might be initially depicted as docile, it’s quickly revealed they are not. Their performance in the games is as brutal as that of their elderly counterparts, and possibly even more so, as they’re fueled by the frustration of being seen as children, as though they are deserving of less respect merely due to their age.

These differences are particularly exacerbated in Season 2, as this round of games requires that players debate leaving or staying between each game by arguing for one or the other within their pool of players. The clashes of communication across generational lines and the challenging of the age hierarchy when it comes to the question of “who’s right” and “who’s wrong” and whether age should play a factor in the discussion are exacerbated by the increasingly bloodthirsty nature of the games. For instance, after the first game in Season 2, Jung-bae (Player 390) explicitly asks another player how old they are and the two briefly enter an “I’m older” argument, which blatantly illustrates the underlying element of age that guides and intensifies many, if not all, of the players’ interpersonal conflicts.

Age continues to play a significant (albeit subtle) role as players initiate conflict. Before the second game in Season 2, In-ho (Player 001) stops an altercation between Thanos, Nam-gyu (Player 124), and Myung-gi. He says (translated), “Boys, what are you doing in the middle of mealtime? No fights during mealtime. There are elders present. Mind your manners.” This elder-to-child treatment ticks off Thanos and he gets into a physical fight with In-ho. Similar scenes follow throughout the second season, such as the moment when Yong-sik (Player 007) lets himself be separated from his elderly mother during “Mingle” to save himself, or the argument of who has more experience when Dae-ho (Player 388) tries to prove his superiority to the O’s by flashing his marines tattoo.

Hwang Dong-hyuk’s choice to focus on the underlying influence of the age hierarchy by significantly changing the players’ ages for the second season of Squid Game ultimately provides an insightful look into how people’s actions are dictated by their age in a contemporary social context. In a brilliant way, he’s left us with a season that opens up a discussion concerning the age hierarchy while we wait for the next installment.

It’s interesting to consider that this might be one of the primary messages that Dong-hyuk has been trying to convey from the very beginning of the show. After all, the premise of Squid Game is adults playing children’s games. They seem to like flaunting that they’re all grown and mature, but they’re ignoring the fact that they’re being manipulated into reverting back to the inferior status of mere children, all while being convinced that it’s just about the money.