By: Yasser Alzahrani

The Korean series Squid Game is the most popular series shown in 2021, written and directed by Hwang Dong.

  Seong Gi-hun, the main character, is a former factory worker who faces many problems in his life, mainly caused by poverty. An unknown man comes to him and offers him to play for a few days. If he wins, he will get a huge fortune that solves all his problems and makes him rich, although he doubts the credibility of the matter, he finds no escape from his miserable life except by accepting the offer, after that, he discovers that he is in an unknown place with hundreds of people who have the same reason, competing among themselves in many games for the grand prize, but the punishment for losing is death.

Inescapable fate:

   Some people may say that  the contestants did not know in the beginning that the punishment for losing is death, but in this work the ominous fate was determined for all contestants , as they live burdened with huge debts, and some are threatened with imprisonment, so they had no other choice but to play, and we see in the series that when the voting process took place, although the majority voted not to complete the game, many returned to play again because they do not see the difference between dying or living in poverty. 

Class:

   The series shows more than one class during the episodes, as there is a class difference even among the contestants themselves! We find among them those who represent the working class, such as the contestant Ali Abdul No. 199 and there are contestants who are less than that too ,such as the main character, who was working in one of the factories, but he was forced to leave his work, as we find in the series contestants from completely different classes, such as the businessman who graduated from “Seoul University” is, at the very least, from the middle class. Despite that, all of them participate in the game for the same reason, which is to get rid of poverty, even if it is to risk their lives.

   And we finally come to the worst class in this work, the higher class, who are the founders of the game. This class was portrayed in the worst possible way, as they established this bloody game just for fun, they say that their lives have become boring despite all the wealth and luxury they live in, so they must find something that restores their passion, and the game that takes the lives of others is their amusement, and they were not satisfied at all so they bet on the contestants and earn money. We can recall a scene from the first episode where the main character appears in a betting hall betting on horses, unfortunately, this is what happened inside the game, but the difference is that humans were betting on humans’ lives.

Discrimination:

   Although all the contestants are in the same position, there was a kind of discrimination among them on the basis of gender, race and age, so that some of them believed that others did not even deserve food, and on this basis, different groups were formed between the contestants, and worse than that, each group intended to overthrow the other groups, and this resulted in a massacre that killed many of the contestants who had the chance to win if they were given the opportunity to play.

Conclusion:

   This series discussed many topics related to capitalism, and in my opinion, the writer succeeded in conveying his idea with distinction, which is power to those who have money, and that wealthy people can manipulate poor people as they wish.