Squid Game

Squid Game is a 2021 Netflix-exclusive Korean science-fiction drama, also referred to as survival drama, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk. It premiered on September 17, 2021, worldwide on the channel.

Seong Gi-hun is a loser divorcee, deadbeat father, and compulsive gambler. He also knows that he's all of these things when his debts to loan sharks and a chance encounter with a pickpocket cause him to botch a get-together for his daughter Ga-yeong's birthday. To top it all off, his ex is moving with her husband and family to the United States, ensuring he won't see Ga-yeong again. He desperately accepts an offer from a sharply dressed Salesman to go play some games and earn enough money to at least try to fight for custody of his daughter. There's just a catch: you may win a lot of won, but the games in question are deadly.

Hwang Dong-hyuk confirmed that a second season received the green light; it premiered on Netflix on December 26, 2024. Season three will premiere in June 2025.

Not to be confused with Squid Girl.

Tropes used in Squid Game include:
  • Actually Pretty Funny: In season two, despite finding Thanos's personality repulsive, Kang Mi-na smiles and laughs when he jokes during his rap about their jumpsuit and the game during his attempts to flirt with her. She softens and talks with him about Gi-hun's warnings, if he's either drunk or high. It makes what happens a few minutes later much more tragic, when that same flirting during Red Light, Green Light leads to her finding out a bee is on her neck and panicking right when the doll is watching.
  • Adult Fear:
    • Gi-hun's situation when we hear his full story. He fully admits that he's a loser, especially compared to his childhood friend Sang-woo. 10 years ago, he was a laborer in a car factory, only to be downsized just as his wife was about to give birth. He joined a strike to save his job where he saw a friend die in front of him and unable to go to a hospital. His wife went into labor and nearly died from complications, and they broke up partly because she couldn't forgive that he wasn't there for her. Gi-hun did have a point that he was trying to make sure he had enough money for her and a newborn Ga-yeong, but he doesn't have one for his descent into gambling addictions. In the present, he owns debts to loan sharks that make him sign a blood contract to take his eyes and kidneys if he doesn't produce the money for them, and they beat him up badly at the horse races just as he's about to treat Ga-yeong with the winnings. Then he finds out his mother's diabetes has become terminal, and because he gambled away her insurance money, she doesn't have the funds for the operation. Yeah, Gi-hun's life sucks.
    • Sae-byeok is revealed to be a North Korean refugee, along with her little brother. Her father and grandmother were killed, but there is a chance to somehow locate her mother either in North Korea or China. The problem is that her broker claims the smugglers ran off with the sums that she stole, and he says that if her mother got deported from China to North Korea, she's as good as dead for being marked as a "defector". Her brother also resents being in an orphanage, fearing that the kids are right and Sae-byeok has abandoned him. Their last conversation is a fight and in the season one finale, he's guilty when asking Gi-hun where she is, as Gi-hun sets him up to live with Sang-woo's mother and the prize money that would have gone to Sae-byeok and Sang-woo.
    • Detective Jun-ho Hwang's older brother In-ho has gone missing for a few days. He assumes that In-ho is just being In-ho since he makes trips like this all the time and his mother is worrying. Then he finds out that his brother hasn't paid his rent in a while and has been gone long enough for his goldfish to go belly-up and for papers to accumulate. Jun-ho also finds a business card, which looks identical to the one that a supposed drunk brought in claiming that he and 455 other people were kidnapped and forced to play games. He sincerely begs Gi-hun for help, saying that his brother may have been one of the kidnapped victims; when Gi-hun is too despondent and desperate, saying he can't help anyone, Jun-ho elects to follow him, and finds out that his story wasn't that of a bored drunk. Cue Jun-ho going undercover by posing as one of the guards, and facing the real possibility that In-ho might have already been killed and cremated, or worse dissected for his organs. The truth is worse; In-ho won his 2015 games and is now running them as the Front Man.
    • In season two, the reason why Park Gyeong-seok joins the games is because his sick toddler daughter collapsed in the theme park where he works, and the doctors say they can only save her with an expensive procedure. The scene where he helps load her on a stretcher with a stricken expression is heartbreaking. He doesn't have insurance as a portrait artist, let alone the funds needed from his wages.
  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg:
    • Most of the players after round one get on their knees after Mi-nyeo does so, begging to go home. They say they'll pay their debts and do anything, just please don't kill them. The Square Guard tells them to knock it off and stop groveling. This isn't a means to scare them into paying their debts, but to allow them a "fair chance" to change their circumstances for the better.
    • The old man panics during the riot. He stands on his bed at the top, out of the line of fire but terrified. The old man begs for the guards to stop the rioting, that everyone will kill each other. It ends up doing the trick, somehow. When you learn who Il-nam really is, the reason becomes much clearer.
    • Gi-hun tries begging the guards for help when Deok-su callously kills a man in the barracks. He says they can't stand by and let that happen, it's not fair. This comes back to an even more tragic note when Gi-hun uncovers Sae-byeok's mortal wound in "Front Man" and she starts to lose consciousness from blood loss, while deliriously asking if she can go home. Gi-hun tries to keep her awake, begging her to stay with him, but runs to the locked doors. He starts banging on the bloodied areas, shouting that Sae-byeok needs a doctor, please help so she can play in the final game. All Gi-hun knows is that the last game needs players and hopes that this necessity will save Sae-byeok.
  • An Aesop: You cannot trust fairness when privileged people set the rules of a game, or a system. The Front Man claims that the games are fair, but we see many cases where it's not true. As Gi-hun logically points out, there should be games where girls are favored more than guys, given that it's supposed to be random, but all the games chosen favor guys, meaning only one woman makes it to the final round, or would have if not for glass piercing her abdomen. None of the challenges are girls' games like jacks or jumprope. Gi-hun is right; Il-nam freely admits that the games were based on those from his childhood.
    • Season two continues to emphasize this theme. While the games themselves have changed to account for skills and strength to seem fairer, and it turns out that most of the female contestants can't play ggongi aka jacks well apart from Geum-ja, the whole operation isn't fair at all. In-ho cheats by not playing Red Light Green Light and then casts the tie-breaking vote as Player 001 to force half the people to stay. He did this knowing very well that most of them would have returned willingly even with their share of the prize, all to break Gi-hun. As Young-il, he plays the part of a desperate husband and father-to-be to gain Gi-hun's trust and sabotages all of his efforts to stop the games either with the group vote or by force. So no, the Games are definitely not fair.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • Zigzagged. Gi-hun never trash talks Sang-woo and in fact checks on his mother and Sae-byeok's brother. He still has nightmares about failing to save Sang-woo or Sae-byeok, both of him he tried to keep alive to the bitter end. Heck, he doesn't even think of Deok-su badly, treating him as a victim of the Games when emphasizing to the new players that everyone in his year died and they didn't deserve it, no matter who focused on saving themselves, helped or tried to kill him. But Il-nam, the Big Bad who died at the end of the first season in a comfortable penthouse? Gi-hun disparagingly calls him a coward who chose to die rather than see that he lost their wager, not to mention the whole "organizing the Games and exploiting poor people's financial straits" thing and "lying to Gi-hun about who he really was".
    • Played straight after Thanos dies. No one is happy, least of all his killer Myung-gi. It was in self-defense since Thanos was strangling him, but he's traumatized after emerging from the bathroom while covered in blood. Jun-hee notices, and it breaks the tension between them especially since she figures out he started the fight to protect her. Meanwhile, the body count sobers the room and even Nam-gyu, who stole Thanos's drugs while saying he hated the guy for getting his name wrong all the time, is sniffling.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: More like alcohol-induced evil and with drugs. In season two, a player named Thanos is allowed to keep his drugs and takes some after Kang Mi-na is shot in front of him during "Red Light Green Light" challenge. He does the rest of the challenge high, complete with pushing some players in front of him and saying "Bye" after they're shot. Somehow being under the influence doesn't lead to him being killed at this juncture considering how he poses every time the players are forced to freeze.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: This is how the Squid Game forces the players to complete round one. At the time, most of the players are debtors who called the number, expecting to earn some money to avoid losing a kidney or going to jail. They then have to cross the finish line in Red Light, Green Light before the timer goes out; if they keep freezing, they'll be shot anyway. The guards congratulate the winners for making it past round one, who brokenly beg to go home. When the top square guard reminds the players they signed a contract and that if they refuse to play, they will be "eliminated," Sang-woo stands up and reminds them that the third clause says players can have a group vote.
  • Anyone Can Die: One of the reasons why this series knows how to pack emotional wallops; none of the players are safe from sudden or undignified death. Gi-hun has Plot Armor owing to being the protagonist, but he is the exception that proves the rule, and season two emphasizes how this Plot Armor can suck for a person who has Survivor's Guilt. Try not to get attached to anyone, major or minor in this story.
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
    • Season one:
      • The crux of Sang-woo and Gi-hun's argument about the glass bridge comes down to this. Gi-hun thinks it was unnecessary to push the glassmaker since he had one panel left and was helping them, while Sang-woo asserts that the glassmaker let other people die in front of him before revealing his skills. Then Gi-hun asks if Sang-woo would have pushed him for hesitating so long. Sang-woo can't answer, and rants about how Gi-hun is a loser that only survived because Sang-woo made the tough decisions. Gi-hun agrees, and asks why the pride of their neighborhood is in the same "shithole" as the neighborhood loser. Once again, Sang-woo has no response.
    • Season two:
      • Jung-bae has a similar conversation with Gi-hun, asking why he chose to try and save everyone rather than take the money and run. He says if it was him, he would have taken the money to pay his debts and try to "forget". Gi-hun recounts how it was down to him and Sang-woo, and to win the money, he'd have to kill his childhood friend. Even though Gi-hun couldn't do it, he still had to watch Sang-woo die by suicide in front of him because Sang-woo didn't want to leave his mother destitute. Would Jung-bae have been able to forget if he had to either kill Gi-hun to pay his debts or choose to spare them both and return home broke? Jung-bae is so horrified by that prospect that he promises Gi-hun it won't come to that, and he will ensure that he and Gi-hun return home alive.
  • Artistic License Medicine: Given everything that happens to Jun-hee's baby after she enters the world in season 3, it's a miracle that she looks like a healthy six-month old in the Series Finale. No one holds her correctly to support her head, she's literally shaken up by Gi-hun tying her to his chest when doing the jumprope challenge (though in all fairness, Gi-hun had few options since leaving the baby in the barracks alone also wasn't safe for her and he didn't trust anyone else to help the little one make it safely), and the guards don't bother to adjust her head when feeding her formula. That's not even going into how the barracks have no temperature control which is dangerous for a newborn.
  • Awesomeness By Analysis:
    • Sang-woo survives the Squid Game by using his power of observation. He figures out the doll in Red Light, Green Light must have a motion sensor given the way that her eyes dart around, and logically hides behind bigger players to increase his chances of survival. Later, he studies the other team's footing in tug-of-war and comes up with a risky strategy to trick them. Gi-hun keeps saying this is why Sang-woo is the genius and pride of their neighborhood.
    • Player 062 is a math teacher, who comes to rapid conclusions using calculations. He alerts Gi-hun to the fact that there is an odd number of players for the fourth game, meaning one person is likely to get killed for being unable to play. What's more, when he calculates his chances for the glass bridge and realizes it's hopeless, he laughs mirthlessly and tries his luck knowing he's dead.
  • Badass Boast:
    • Mi-nyeo claims that she is good at everything, except for the things that she can't do. To her credit, she remains a strong player and takes out Deok-su when he endangers the others during the Glass Bridge.
    • The old man says that when he was a boy, he would always win at tug-of-war. He ends up putting his money where his mouth is because his strategy allows Gi-hun's team to get an early edge in their round, long enough for Sang-woo to come up with a Plan B.
  • Bait and Switch: In season two, episode six, it seems that Geum-ja is set up to die during Mingle with a long shot focusing on her after she and Yong-sik are separated. Gi-hun and Young-il save her in the nick of time, and she reassures a sobbing Yong-sik that she's okay. But the next round starts...and Young-mi dies instead due to really bad luck.
  • Bait the Dog: In season two, a rapper named Thanos is nice to the fans who want to take a group shot with him; when the Pink Guards say with irritation that it's one-person only, he offers to take selfies with everyone after the Games. Not even an hour later, while high during Red Light, Green Light, he pushes people in front of him just because. For the rest of the Games until Myung-gi kills him, he treats his fans and followers as expendable.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me:
    • Gi-hun latches onto Ali for keeping him from getting shot during the first game. He sincerely thanks him, and later says that Ali should be in the alliance when he, Sang-woo, and the old man return to participate in round two. When Gi-hun can't drink the milk they're given for breakfast because he's lactose intolerant, he selflessly donates his limited ration to Ali.
    • Likewise Ali sincerely thanks Sang-woo for letting him borrow his phone to dial his family after they are dropped off together on the mainland, as well as a bowl of hot ramyeon and a bus ticket. Sang-woo keeps saying with embarrassment he wasn't doing it to be nice; he did it because he wasn't going to let a man that saved his childhood friend's life to walk several miles to another city.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ali is a Nice Guy who makes his mark by saving Gi-hun during the first game without second thought. He's also still a strong guy, and not a pushover. Case in point, he mauls his boss by accident while fighting to get the wages that are owed to him, and later he defends Gi-hun during the nighttime riot using a metal bed beam, wielding it like a caber.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Season one:
      • Ali sees Gi-hun tripping over a dead body and about to fall right when the doll is turning around; he acts quickly, grabbing Gi-hun's shirt and helping him freeze. Them both staying upright means they're able to make a leap for the finish line and beat the timer with seconds to spare. Gi-hun later profoundly thanks Ali for saving his life and calls him "my angel" when they return to the Games.
    • In the season two Mingle game, this happens twice:
      • Two men pull Park Yong-sik from his mother to get the three needed people for the round despite him begging them to save her or leave him, and he's not strong enough to fight them off. It seems for a moment that Geum-ja, frozen in the chaos, is prepared to Face Death with Dignity and the slightest bit of fear as the timer runs down...only for Young-il to grab her to secure a room with himself and Gi-hun in the nick of time.
      • Deconstructed. Just as Hyun-ju's team during a round requiring six people realizes that Young-mi got left behind, Hyun-ju runs to rescue her but with a few seconds to go they won't make it and those left in the room will die for not having the right amount of people. Myung-gi runs in, shoves Hyun-ju inside and closes the door just as the clock runs out; Hyun-ju bangs on the locked door while a tearful, terrified Young-mi calls to her through the slot, leading to Young-mi's death but saving everyone else. When Hyun-ju attacks him for leaving Young-mi to die and the others start crying, Myung-gi points out the choice was either leaving her or everyone present would have died for having the wrong number in the room or being locked out. Even his ex Jun-hee grudgingly admits this is true.
  • Big Sister Instinct:
    • Sae-byeok's motivation to enter the games is to not just rescue her mother from North Korea but also to support her younger brother. She had to put him in an orphanage because she has no home while on the streets and paying a broker to find and smuggle out their mother, promising him they will be a family again. When she gets fatally wounded by the Glass Bridge and realizes that she won't make it to the final round, she asks Gi-hun as a Last Request that whoever wins takes care of the other's family. Gi-hun makes good on that promise, setting up her brother with Sang-woo's mother.
    • In season two, Hyun-ju becomes protective of Young-mi, in part because the latter is the first who partners up with her, not caring that Hyun-ju is trans and calling her beautiful. When bad luck during Mingle means that Young-mi doesn't make it to the safety room in time, Hyun-ju tries to go back for her but Myung-gi comes in and closes the door just as the timer runs out, saving the six of them since six was the number of players required but leaving Young-Mi to die. All Hyun-ju can do is bang at the door ineffectively as Young-Mi is shot in front of her, both of their faces full of tears. Later Hyun-ju berates Myung-gi for what he did, even if Myung-gi points out that Hyun-ju wouldn't have rescued Young-mi in time.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • Season one ends this way. Gi-hun wins the Squid Game by default when Sang-woo elects to kill himself rather than vote to go home alive and penniless with his childhood friend. His mother succumbed to her diabetes without the operation that she needed, meaning Gi-hun was too late by a few days. He spends the next year drinking and drifting, only using the money if anything to pay off his debts, and finds out that the old man Il-nam was the creator of the games when the latter invites him to spend Christmas Eve in a penthouse. Their conversation and final game motivates Gi-hun to clean up his act, set up Sae-byeok's brother with Sang-woo's mother as well as the portions of the winnings that would have gone to his friends. It's implied he paid overdue child support so his ex consents to let Gi-hun visit Ga-yeong for her birthday. Before he gets on the plane to California, however, he sees the Salesman bitch-slap another potential player, and goes to try and stop him. All he can do is confiscate the card, dial it, and promise that he's not forgiving them. The Front Man threatens him to get on the plane and see his daughter, making Gi-hun realize that his family is in danger unless he stops the Squid Game. So he turns around and gets off the plane, disappointing Ga-yeong again but determined to give her a better future.
    • Season three and the series as a whole borders on a Downer Ending if not for a few bright spots. All the players die, including Gi-hun who pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to keep Jun-hee's baby alive for the last game and declare her the winner by default. Just as Jun-ho arrives with The Cavalry thanks to rescuing Gyeong-seok, In-ho evacuates the VIPs and staff before blowing up the island and with it the evidence to bring their victims to justice. The only reason Jun-ho doesn't fire on his brother is the latter is holding the baby and doesn't want to shoot her. So Jun-ho is left with no answers and feels despondency that he failed to avenge the people who died needlessly. The only catharsis he gets is that he's able to prove to his superiors that the island exists and he was telling the truth. He also knows the South Korean Games are over and unlikely to start again any time soon. But...six months later In-ho deposits the baby and her 45.6 billion won prize to Jun-ho's doorstep, giving her a chance at a normal life or Jun-ho another lead to follow. In-ho also personally delivers the remainder of Gi-hun's winnings -- and his bloodied jumpsuit, the only thing he could retrieve of Gi-hun's-- to Ga-yeon in Los Angeles, not telling her the truth about why her dad abandoned her but making sure she would at least know he died trying to do the right thing. As he's leaving, he spots a white lady playing ddjaki with a homeless American, showing the American games have recruiters too. The only other bright spots: Na-yeon enters remission thanks to Gyeong-seok's coworkers raising enough funds to pay for her treatment, Kang No-eul finds out her daughter is alive and goes to reunite with her, and the Broker successfully reunites Sae-byeok's brother with her mother and Sang-woo's mother. So at least the people Gi-hun helped are still doing okay.
  • Brutal Honesty: In season two, Gi-hun resorts to this when warning everyone that if they continue the games, they will die. After the second group vote, he's utterly demoralized how few are listening and tells Jung-bae bluntly that there's no guarantee any of them will survive the next game as a team. He recounts how in the third and fourth game, teams and partners were forced to kill each other. Jung-bae is horrified and guilty since he voted to stay, and even a disguised In-ho as Young-il encourages Gi-hun and the team not to lose hope.
  • Bullying a Dragon: In season two, Se-mi joins Thanos's team during Pentathlon but doesn't trust him, for obvious reasons. They're about the same height and she's shown to be strong enough to toss the flying stone, so it's reasonable that she thinks she can take him on in a fight if necessary. But Nam-gyu? He's taller than her and visibly stronger, but she antagonizes him as much as he antagonizes her, complete with throttling him during the Pentathlon Deleted Scene. Still, Se-mi insists she can handle "idiots" like him. Though Se-mi fights back when he corners her during the riot, it's practically a Curb Stomp Battle even before Min-su accidentally gives Nam-gyu an impromptu shiv when trying to toss down a glass bottle to help her.
  • Can't Kill You - Still Need You:
    • During the Glass Bridge challenge, Deok-su outright says that he won't push anyone ahead of him because they are keeping him alive.
    • In season two, while Thanos bullies Myung-gi and stays clear of Young-il after the latter beats him and Nam-gyu up, he says that Gi-hun is too valuable to touch. Why? Because Gi-hun played the games before, and he's working to keep as many people alive as possible. So when motivating the O players to keep voting, he refuses to bully Gi-hun at all.
  • Cassandra Truth:
    • Season one:
      • Gi-hun tries filing a police report after the first group vote lets them go home. Though the police take his information and dial the number on the business card, they don't believe his story because it sounds too ridiculous. Jun-ho does believe Gi-hun because he found an identical card in his brother's apartment, with signs that In-ho has been missing for a few days.
    • Season two:
      • The Time Skip reveals that after he was rescued and revived, Jun-ho told his boss and superiors about what he found on the island. Though his boss believes him, upper management doesn't because his proof literally ended up in the ocean and tie his boss's hands, forcing Jun-ho to go to therapy. Even when Jun-ho does have proof later with his car being blown up at the Halloween party, the cops refuse to accept it as evidence because it's not in front of them. It takes the Coast Guard finding Gyeong-seok after Kang No-eul smuggles him off the island for Jun-ho to prove he was telling the truth.
      • Gi-hun warns the new batch of players that they will die in Red Light, Green Light if they move. They all immediately start laughing, with one accusing him of trying to lie and get the prize money. After Player 196 moves and gets shot, however, they all go Mass "Oh Crap" on seeing Gi-hun was right. While some panic and try to run for it, most of the players stand still and listen to Gi-hun's instructions after that.
  • Chekhov's Gun: While disguised as a guard, Jun-ho asked Gi-hun if there was a player in the barracks named Hwang In-ho. In season two, Jun-ho recounting this conversation convinces Gi-hun to trust him, though he initially tries to dissuade Jun-ho from joining him since taking down the Games is going to be dangerous. Jun-ho makes it clear he doesn't care; he agrees with Gi-hun that the Games need to stop.
  • Contrasting Sequel Character: There's quite a few of them:
    • Kang No-eul to Sae-byeok. They're both North Korean defectors and trying to rescue family members that were left behind or imprisoned. And they are willing to risk lives to achieve their goals while having limits to that pragmatism. But while Sae-byeok was recruited for the games as a drifting pickpocket, No-eul is recruited as a triangle guard sniper and defected soldier.
    • Young-mi to Ali. Both are the most innocent members of Gi-hun's teams, staying cautiously optimistic while avoiding outright evil actions; both also consistently vote to go home. The difference is that Young-mi is tiny with emotional strength while Ali is big and strong while trusting in Gi-hun and Sang-woo. While Ali died because Sang-woo betrayed him to save himself during Marbles, Hyun-ju attempted to rescue Young-mi after seeing her fall during Mingle. At the least Young-mi died knowing Hyun-ju never turned on her.
    • Myung-gi to Sang-woo. We see both men are brilliant but are accused of scamming others, leading them to go deep into debt. They also care deeply about their loved ones. The games cause Sang-woo to become a Fallen Hero, corrupted by his desperation and need for the money. In contrast, Myung-gi becomes horrified when realizing his ex Jun-hee is in the Games and more so that she voted to leave while keeping their baby. Though she's still mad at him for the crypto advice that bankrupted them, ghosting her, and voting to stay, he becomes motivated to protect her and votes to leave after Pentathlon, realizing there's no way he can guarantee her safety in the Games and they both will have enough winnings to leave. He also offers to raise their baby with her, though Jun-hee suspects he only wants her share of the winnings to earn more money.
    • Thanos to Deok-su. The two are bullies that play in the games because they need the money, toss allies when they're no longer useful, and do not trust underlings at all. Bridges were involved in their stories. But while Deok-su is a small-time gang leader who would rather not risk his life if there's another way to get money or secure a goal, Thanos is a famous rapper reckless with everyone's lives, including his own. Deok-su jumped off a bridge to escape gang members after his head, while Thanos was able to die by suicide before the Salesman approached him on a bridge. While Deok-su starts targeting Gi-hun for protecting Sae-byeok during the first riot, Thanos leaves Gi-hun alone after pragmatically reasoning that he shouldn't be trying to kill the one person trying to keep everyone alive. Ironically, Thanos doesn't make it as far as Deok-su, being the first casualty of the in-between riots thanks to attacking a cornered Myung-gi. Meanwhile, Deok-su starts the riots during his games to get a higher jackpot and makes it to the glass bridge.
    • Seon-nyeo to Mi-nyeo. They're both Chaotic Stupid characters that vote to stay in the Games and regularly do Heel Face Revolving Door, allying with enemies and Gi-hun's teams alike. But the difference is that Mi-nyeo is not all bad, saving Sae-byeok from Deok-su when it wouldn't benefit her, helping her get into the vents when Sae-byeok needs a boost and an alibi, and pulling a Heroic Sacrifice during the Glass Bridge by taking out Deok-su. She also pulls her weight consistently during the Games. Seon-nyeo is The Load, needing a Bitch Slap to do her part of Pentathlon and is useless with her shaman knowledge. Everyone finds her creepy, Gi-hun included. Not to mention she curses Hyun-ju's group for abandoning her during Mingle, promising the Games will continue and she will watch them all die staring at each other the way Young-mi did.
  • Crane Game Gag: A crane game toy fumble caps off the terrible day Gi-hun is having. When he's pickpocketed by Sae-byeok and coerced by loan sharks just as he earns enough money from betting on horse races to treat his daughter for his birthday, he's reduced to winning her a prize from a crane game. Though a child kindly helps him acquire one, the gift ends up being a gun-shaped cigarette lighter. Ga-yeong takes it well. TV Sins pointed out how dumb Gi-hun was since the next crane game had Stitch plushies in them.
  • Cruel Mercy:
    • One of the cruelest cases in season 3. Rather than execute Gi-hun for inciting the players to rebel and fight to access the control room, the Front Man knocks him out and returns him to the Games. This is despite the fact that Gi-hun managed to get that far with a rebellion, albeit with the undercover Front Man helping. Gi-hun looks like he would have preferred to be killed and tries to get the Guards to shoot him when they appear. It's later revealed that In-ho doesn't see this as cruel; he genuinely doesn't want Gi-hun to die since as a fellow winner, they're probably the two people who understand each other best in the world.
    • Even though Dae-ho and Hyun-ju joined the rebellion, they aren't killed after returning to the barracks. Dae-ho's already punishing himself for his panic attack and failing to return with ammo for the rebels, and Hyun-ju doesn't seem to care about surviving anymore after Young-mi's death. The Games are likely to kill them anyway. Sure enough, they don't survive the fourth game.
  • Cruel to Be Kind:
    • This is why in season two the Broker refuses to take more of Kang No-eul's money to find her one-year old child in North Korea after conducting an initial search. No-eul was forced to leave her daughter behind when she defected but is doing everything she can to rescue her. The Broker says he can't take her money because he found dead ends and it is highly unlikely that a one-year old could survive on her own in North Korea and finding her would be close to impossible. And smuggling a toddler past the border even if they did find her? It can be done, but would be hard on the toddler. Unfortunately, this backfires as the Masked Officer convinces No-eul to rejoin the Games as a Triangle Guard since the game makers have a lead on her daughter, and she's desperate.
    • During season 2's Mingle, Min-su hesitates to leave Gyeong-su behind after Thanos literally kicks the poor guy out of their group. Se-mi has to grab Min-su and pull him away so he reaches the safety room in time.
    • It was harsh, and everyone is saddened, but during season 2's Mingle, Myung-gi sees Hyun-ju about to run out a safety room to rescue a fallen Young-mi when they need six total, ensuring that all of them will get shot since there will only be four in the room. To save himself and the others, Myung-gi shoves Hyun-ju inside and closes the door just as time runs out and the auto-locks click. He's not happy about it, given his sober expression as Young-mi spends her last moments calling for her "Unnie" and crying while Hyun-ju futilely bangs at the locked door. While Hyun-ju blames Myung-gi for Young-mi's death, Myung-gi points out he saved everyone else's lives because Young-mi was too far away to enter the safety room, and Hyun-ju exiting the room means she would have been shot, along with the others. His ex Jun-hee grudgingly admits this is true.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion:
    • To their credit, Team 7 in the opening round of tug-of-war briefly holds their ground against Deok-su's gang. The problem is that they are simply not strong enough and Deok-su is too murderous.
    • In Season 2, despite the Front Man countering every plan that Gi-hun has for taking down the games, he does get in a victory by outgambitting the Salesman, something that neither the Salesman nor the Front Man saw coming. Even though recruitment for the Games had long ended by then since Gi-hun is the last player chosen, it means at least one less monster is in Seoul harassing the homeless.
  • A Death in the Limelight: "Bread and Lottery," the season two premiere, focuses more on the Salesman and Kim Jeong-rae as Gi-hun hires Jeong-rae and his men to track down the latter.
      • We find out that while Jeong-rae is a scary Loan Shark and lives up to his reputation as The Dreaded, he is also A Father to His Men and a Reasonable Authority Figure to his employees. We learn that he officiated his Number Two Choi Woo-seuk's wedding and brings him along to share the billion won bonus that Gi-hun promised. He chooses to sacrifice himself for Woo-seok when the Salesman forces them at gunpoint to play a Deadly Game.
      • Conversely, the Salesman is revealed to be an Ax Crazy monster whether or not he's recruiting for the Games. He toys with the homeless using bread and lottery tickets when he's not on the clock, complete with stomping on the bread to ensure that it's useless. Later, he tells Gi-hun about how he rose from the rankings as a Circle Guard to an accurate Triangle assassin and ended up killing his father. It was his lack of feeling when doing the latter that made him realize that he liked killing and was suited to the Games. Even so, he ends up shooting himself at the end of episode when losing to Gi-hun while playing Russian Roulette.
  • Death Seeker: Implied that in season 2, Gi-hun's Survivor's Guilt means he no longer cares if his crusade kills him, and any moments of self-preservation are to make sure the games end and what happened to his friends happens to no one else. To emphasize this, he unnerves the Salesman during a game of Russian Roulette when, with two bullet chambers to go, he continues playing the game when the Salesman encourages him to cheat since he has a 1/2 chance of shooting himself. The deadened expression on Gi-hun's face emphasizes that he simply doesn't regard his own life anymore; he wants to atone for the sin of surviving and winning.
  • The Ditz:
    • Season one
      • Player 324, along with Player 250. The former is impulsive and showing no apprehension at all about the strange way they were all kidnapped while the latter hides his immaturity behind an exterior of trying to appear cool. They also decide to race for the finish like and bet 1 million won on it; unfortunately, player 324 being unable to freeze in time due to running too fast leads to him becoming the first casualty. Player 250 uses the next opportunity to come and check on a fallen player 324, whispering Please Wake Up, and he becomes the second casualty when he panics after seeing Player 324 coughing up blood since the doll catches him moving.
    • Season two
      • Player 196 aka Kang Mi-na remains oblivious to the rather obvious red flags when everyone is awakened and told they'll be playing games. She complains that the green jumpsuits are tacky and asks if she can switch with the Pink Guards. What's tragic is that she's not malicious; when Thanos accidentally makes her freak out during Red Light, Green Light by pointing out a bee is on her neck, she's completely fine with having lost by moving. Her debt was also relatively small, only 45 million won; if she had survived to the first group vote, she would have been set with receiving her share of the winnings.
      • T.O.P. describes his character Thanos having "the intelligence of a goldfish." It explains one reason why Thanos is so carefree and reckless during the games, apart from him doing Jengi perfectly during the Pentathlon. While the drugs don't help, T.O.P. confirms that Thanos was like that without the drugs.
  • Do Wrong Right:
    • Sang-woo is in this mode during "Red Light, Green Light". While Gi-hun is frozen and terrified on the ground, Sang-woo encourages him to get up and hide behind bigger players and chides him for wasting time. Why? Because the timer is running down and if Gi-hun is still on the field when it hits zero, he's dead. In season two, Gi-hun remembers this advice to organize the players into lines where the bigger players hide the smaller ones, greatly reducing the casualties.
    • In season two, this is how Nam-gyu manages to convince Thanos to share his drugs. He tells Thanos that his shaking hands are a sign of withdrawal and makes his denial Blatant Lies. Nam-gyu coaches Thanos on how to appear stronger and manage his drug addiction before it gets anyone in their alliance killed.
  • Drama Queen: Mi-nyeo makes her entrance by getting on her knees and begging the guards to let her go home after the Red Light Green Light game, claiming that she has a newborn that hasn't been named yet. Then she proceeds to vote for the games to continue. The old man notes she returned for round two, and wonders dryly if she named her nonexistent kid yet. Sae-byeok even notes that Mi-nyeo has been burning bridges because she can't pick a side, or know when to be serious.
  • Dumbass Has a Point: Gi-hun is not dumb per se, but he is less analytical than say Sang-woo who graduated top of his class. The guy also has a habit of making bad decisions. He does have his moments of insight, however, that make him a more layered character.
    • While fighting with his ex, who resents him for not being there through a difficult labor that nearly killed her in the hospital. Gi-hun points out that he was attending a strike to save his job and support her as well as Ga-yeong. His friend also died in front of him and there was no time to get him to a hospital. It was not an easy situation, but he had good intentions.
    • Zigzagged, overlapping with Right for the Wrong Reasons. Gi-hun, while preparing for games two and three with Sang-woo and Ali, makes a legitimate point that if the games are supposed to be fair, a few ought to be girls' themed games like jumprope or jacks. He ends up proven wrong; much to contestants like Mi-nyeo's horror, all the games are clearly ones that boys played, some which favor strength and athleticism. Turns out the games' claim of being fair are Blatant Lies; Il-nam admits that while everyone had a chance to compete and leave of their volition after the group vote, they were based on games of his childhood.
    • Sang-woo and Gi-hun have a fight after Sang-woo pushes the glassmaker during the Stepping Stones game. Gi-hun asks if that was necessary, and if Sang-woo would have pushed Gi-hun if he had been hesitating in front. Sang-woo can't answer that, and rants about how Gi-hun is a loser and a disappointment. Gi-hun agrees. He then asks why the genius of their neighborhood is with him, the loser gambling addict, in the "shithole" of the Games.
  • Due to the Dead: Since Gi-hun's body blew up with the island and he had no idea where the man was holing up for two years, all In-ho can return to Ga-yeong along with her father's winnings is the Player 456 jumpsuit. Which is still coated in others players' blood.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In season two, the Salesman slaps Myung-gi, who later appears in the Games. He was wearing a cap and sunglasses to hide after his recommendation of a cryptocurrency went under, with him being accused of scamming thousands of people.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Season One:
      • The Front Man is definitely a hypocrite and a remorseless killer who will gun down his own men for breaking the rules. He is, however, sincere that the players need a fair chance. That's why he gets mad when he busts the guards for feeding the doctor knowledge about the games in exchange for his help with organ donations. Later, he refuses to let Gi-hun register for the games again when Gi-hun announces his intentions to take them down, telling him he won and should go fly to America and be with his daughter.
      • Il-nam, the old man, is horrified and closes his eyes when the guillotine comes down to slice the tug-of-war rope for a team with women and a middle-aged man who lost to Deok-su and his gang. This didn't seem to be an act, as he spent most of the games smiling, including when he participates in the tug-of-war.
      • The Jerkass priest has a troubled expression after they win the tug-of-war and sacrifice ten people in the process. So does Mi-nyeo, not at all looking like her flippant self until they are safe in the barracks, and she starts gushing about how amazing the old man was.
    • Season Two:
      • The loan shark Kim Jeong-rae and his employee Choi Woo-seok are horrified when they see the Salesman toying with homeless people by offering them either bread or lottery scratch tickets. Then when most choose the lottery tickets and lose, the Salesman proceeds to stomp on all the bread so the pieces are inedible. Keep in mind Jeong-rae chased down Gi-hun in season one, punched him in the face and tasted his blood before making him sign away his organs if Gi-hun failed to repay his debts.
      • Nam-gyu winces in sympathy when Geum-ja starts berating Yong-sik for choosing to "gamble" again and come here.
      • Kang No-eul is willing to shoot players when hired as a Triangle Guard, but does not approve of the involuntary organ donation scheme. She always goes for a Boom, Headshot! as a Mercy Kill rather than a nonlethal shot to leave players in the coffin awaiting involuntary vivisection. As she points out to the new Square Masked Guard, she was hired to put "losers" out of their misery, not leave them to essentially be tortured. The other guards have to beat her up stop her from shooting players after they're placed in coffins. As a result, however, No-eul defects, rescues an injured Gyeong-seok when he joins the rebellion and smuggles him off the island.
    • Season Three
      • The O voters don't take joy in Gi-hun's attempt at Suicide by Cop. Most look aghast if not pitying.
      • The reason why the Front Man suggests putting in the baby as a player, despite the fact that she's completely helpless; the VIPs were arguing if she should be "eliminated" since her mother died by throwing the fifth game. In his mind, there was no other way to rescue her from a gunshot.
      • While the Pink Guards usually look the other way when players kill each other between games, they intervene when the final group of players debate killing Jun-hee's baby, the new Player 222, before the final game to get a bigger share of the prize. The Guards say they are no longer allowed to do that, ensuring Gi-hun won't have to constantly be fighting for the baby's life. Since babies also can't have fancy steak dinners and wine, they also prepare formula for her.
  • Everyone Has Standards
    • Season one:
      • Gi-hun does not like killing. Unless a game demands death and the other choice is to get shot or dragged off a platform to await a long fall, Gi-hun would rather keep to himself and not have blood on his hands. Il-nam pinpoints that he didn't spend the money after winning because he feels guilty about the other 440 players that died for it to happen, and tries to rather bluntly point out that Gi-hun did earn it with his luck and skill.
      • Jun-ho while undercover is unable to save any of the players from the games. The most he can do is check on Gi-hun after riot to make sure that he's not hurt, and ask if a prisoner named In-ho Hwang is in the barracks. Later, however, when a guard busts him for being an imposter after the latter asks about a "zombie" that woke up on an operating table, Jun-ho angrily rants about how his brother gave a kidney to save his life, and accuses the guards of dissecting In-ho. It's clear he's mad at the senseless violence, and extracts a confession from one of the VIPs. In season two, he tells Gi-hun this is why he wants to join him in taking down the Games; he can't forget the innocent people who died on the island, and how many more are sent there for rich people's pleasure.
      • As he is slowly going down the slippery slope, Sang-woo is horrified on realizing that for game three, they have to kill ten people to progress forward. After they win their round of tug-of-war, he gives Gi-hun a worried look as Gi-hun stares at the blood on his hands with abject guilt.
    • Season Two:
      • A few players start nodding their heads when Yong-sik argues with the Guards that his mother, a "naive old lady", shouldn't be playing. He says they don't have any accommodations for if she falls or gets hurt.
      • During Mingle, two men look at Thanos and Nam-gyu dancing to the song and shake their heads.
      • Despite Myung-gi voting to continue the Games and being Never My Fault about the crypto scam that landed him, his followers, and Thanos there, he is horrified on realizing his ex is also in the Games. Then he finds out she voted to leave and kept their baby despite them agreeing an abortion was the best idea. After the second game, he votes to quit on realizing everyone would earn more than enough money to cover their debts and he doesn't want to risk Jun-hee's life. Following Mingle, he says he wants to help Jun-hee raise their child, with a fresh start. She rejects it since he wants to trust another investing scheme, but he makes it clear to Thanos that Jun-hee was not part of the scam and to leave her out of their disagreements.
    • Season Three:
      • Ultimately, the reason why Jun-ho has to let In-ho get away. Even though he's angry as hell, finally stormed the island and found his brother while demanding answers, he can hear a baby crying and a bundle in In-ho's arms. It doesn't take long for him to realize In-ho is holding a baby and refuses to fire even as In-ho gets away.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
    • Season One
      • The VIPs are astounded that right when Gi-hun is about to win the games, he refuses to kill Sang-woo or claim his victory. Despite knowing the two are close childhood friends based on their dossiers, one VIP incredulously asks why Gi-hun is trying to invoke the gorup vote.
      • This trope can also apply to Sang-woo that despite everything, Gi-hun doesn't want him dead. Both were fighting to kill and win, having sacrificed enemies. andallies alike to further his goals. But in the end? Gi-hun says to Sang-woo that the latter's life is more valuable than any prize money, and they can go home as the friends they used to be. With a Heel Realization, Sang-woo uses the knife that Gi-hun dropped and slits his throat, begging Gi-hun to take care of his mother with the prize money.
      • Il-nam is probably the best example of this. He created the Games both as a Secret Test of Character for poor "trash" over more than forty years and to entertain his rich friends. But despite seeing Gi-hun grieve for the old man he thought Il-nam was as well as all the other friends he lost in the Games, Il-nam fails to comprehend why Gi-hun opts to waste away after winning. More so that Gi-hun, a year after his mother's death, chooses to drink outside on Christmas Eve and let the elements take him. He invites Gi-hun to his heated condominium and asks Gi-hun why didn't he spend the winnings, as Gi-hun earned them with skill and luck. Gi-hun, overcome with grief and anger on realizing the old man was his tormentor, nearly strangles Il-nam.
    • Season Two:
      • This trope encapsulates Thanos in a nutshell after he establishes himself as The Bully. He thinks it's stupid that Myung-gi switched his vote after the second time, and not just because he blames Myung-gi for the loss of his fortune. He notes that the split prize money would barely cover Myung-gi's own debts. After the third time, with Nam-gyu pointing out that Myung-gi was talking to a heavily pregnant Jun-hee, it doesn't take long for Thanos to realize that Jun-hee is (actually was since they're broken up) Myun-gi's "girl". Rather than realize that Myung-gi voted to quit to keep Jun-hee safe, Thanos threatens to steal her away after cutting off Myung-gi's fingers.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Front Man is this to Gi-hun, and season two continues to emphasize it. They both entered the Games to save a sick loved one-- Gi-hun's mother and In-ho's pregnant wife-- and won. But they arrived home too late with the money needed for the healthcare bills because both women died while they were away, rendering their suffering all for nothing. Despite Jun-ho regularly checking on In-ho and tending to his sister-in-law's grave, In-ho slipped into a bad depression while Gi-hun had no one checking on him. Il-nam mentored them both after, shaping In-ho into his successor while snapping Gi-hun out of his Heroic BSOD. It explains why In-ho was so gentle with Gi-hun after the latter won, telling him to think of the horrors as a dream while escorting him home. And they both have different views as a result of their experiences: In-ho believes that people are inherently evil and selfish when staring death or great wealth in the face, while Gi-hun concludes that no one deserves the Games regardless of how selfish or greedy they are. Part of In-ho's goal is to both prove to Gi-hun that his worldview is wrong and to corrupt him into the selfish person he used to be. In the end, however, Gi-hun proved to In-ho that while people may succumb to temptation and cruelty, that is not all they are; he manages to recover from his lowest Heroic BSOD (which led to him killing Dae-ho) to protect Jun-hee's baby even while losing her mother and Geum-ja. When In-ho gives Gi-hun a knife to off the other players before the sixth game and promises he and the baby will be able to leave since the last game needs three deaths minimum to proceed, Gi-hun comes close to doing it...but remembers Sae-byeok telling him he's not that kind of person. So he puts away the knife and resumes watching the baby, much to In-ho's bewilderment. He sacrifices his life when realizing either he or the baby has to fall off the tower. In contrast, In-ho went the Combat Pragmatist route and did kill everyone to avoid the sixth game...only for it to be All for Nothing as he arrived home too late to save his wife and unborn baby. Part of the reason he's the Front Man is that the mass murder made him feel he couldn't return to a normal life.
  • Eviler Than Thou: One running subplot in season two is that some of the morally ambiguous antagonists from the first season are far outpaced by what the Front Man and the Games present as evil:
    • Gi-hun hired his former loan shark debtor Kim Jeong-rae and the latter's employee Choi Woo-seok to find the Salesman, the only concrete lead on the Games. While Jeong-rae doesn't believe Gi-hun's story is necessarily true, both because it sounds too ludicrous and horrifying and they haven't found the Salesman at all while investigating for two years, they agree the amount is too much to turn down and Gi-hun got his fortune from somewhere. The Salesman turns out to horrify them with his bread and lottery ploy he offers to the homeless, given their identical Jaw Drops as they take photos, and he proceeds to overpower and kidnap them on seeing he has a tail. When the two are forced to play Rock Paper Scissors minus one combined with Russian Roulette, Jeong-rae opts to throw the game rather than sacrifice Woo-seok on realizing one of them will get shot. The Salesman also successfully interrogates Woo-seok before approaching Gi-hun's location with a loaded pistol. After Gi-hun outgambits the Salesman and rescues Woo-seok, the latter refuses to leave with his paycheck because Kim was his friend, and the game makers just made it personal. He joins the Strike Team to get revenge.
    • Meanwhile, the Broker found out what happened to Sae-byeok after Gi-hun took over paying him to get her mother out of North Korea. He does believe that Sae-byeok is dead, which probably means that he believes the rest of the story, and feels guilty about it since she returned to the Games to get that cash. Turns out he wasn't lying to get more money out of her when he said other smugglers ran off with the necessary funds and he needed more in season one. He actually refuses the extra cash Gi-hun offers him because it's above what he needs to rescue her mother and he feels he owes it to Sae-byeok's memory to put in an honest effort. Customers thinking he is extorting them annoys him a lot, so he always turns down extra fees.
  • Evil vs. Evil: While it's revealed the Host of the games made his fortune through a network of managing loan sharks, he apparently hasn't been in the business for a while. Season two has the loan shark Kim Jeong-rae note that, despite him not believing Gi-hun, that most of his debtors have gone missing and it's a higher rate than normal. So the Games are bad for business if they are real, giving him another reason to get involved. Thanks to the Salesman killing Jeong-rae, his employee and best friend Woo-seok joins the Strike team and vows revenge on the game makers.
  • Explain, Explain, Oh Crap:
    • In season one during the glass bridge, player 062 has fifteen panels to clear before he can reach the end when everyone in front of him has fallen. He takes a few minutes to calculate his odds, as a math teacher. Given each step has 1/2 chance of being successful, and raising that to the 15th power the answer is "One in 32,768. Damn it." realizing he's dead, Player 062 runs forward and clears three panels before falling.
    • In season two, possibly Young-il comes to this realization during the last round of Mingle when Gi-hun asks him what he thinks the number will be. He says there are 50 rooms, and 126 players still alive. The game makers want an even numbers of player to survive, probably 100, so the number will be two since it allows for the wrong number of people to enter a room as opposed to one. Meaning that 26 people minimum will have to die. Gi-hun has barely any time to react when the circle stops and they hear "Two!". Granted, since Young-il is an undercover In-ho and designed the games, it's highly likely he knew the numbers ahead of time and created a plausible explanation for coming to this conclusion so that Gi-hun wouldn't get suspicious.
  • Foil: Jung-bae to Sang-woo in terms of Gi-hun's friends. All three of them are gamblers, though Sang-woo's financial investments were done with his employers' money. While Jung-bae is married with a kid and is an immature goofball, like Gi-hun was in the beginning, Sang-woo is single and his mother paints him as a catch to young ladies. Sang-woo knew Gi-hun since they were kids, while Jung-bae and Gi-hun became friends in the military. What makes the two different is that Sang-woo started falling from grace and kept sliding through the Games, while Jung-bae makes a few mistakes but retains his decent goofball nature. Note that Sang-woo never apologized for voting to continue the Games, something that Jung-bae does when he sees Gi-hun standing watch over the players. And Sang-woo was willing to kill Gi-hun to get the prize money; the possibility of such a scenario horrifies Jung-bae so much he tells Gi-hun it will never happen. He promises to Gi-hun they will end the Games and go home for drinks.
  • Foreshadowing: A lot in hindsight:
    • Season one:
      • The gift that Gi-hun wins for his daughter is wrapped in a black box with a pink bow. Just like the coffins that the soldiers later use for the "eliminated players".
      • The old man Player 001 is the only one that doesn't panic at all during Red Light, Green Light, while Deok-su, Sang-woo and Sae-byeok are at the least apprehensive after learning the real stakes. In fact, he is the first one to resume moving and even poses during some moments. It's because he created the games and had become deadened to the loss of life.
    • Season two:
      • Out of the people that hear Gi-hun's warning about "Red Light, Green Light," two don't laugh at him: Myung-gi and Hyun-ju. In fact, both seem to consider the possibility and don't want to risk it. They also don't panic on realizing that the stakes are very real, complete with Hyun-ju going back to help Gi-hun rescue an injured Player 444. We find out later that the two initially vote to continue to clear their debts and start new lives, but then vote to quit on seeing their loved ones hurt or killed in the game.
      • Jung-bae gets serious when Gi-hun tells him about what happened with Sang-woo: that Gi-hun either had to kill his childhood friend, win the game and let the guards shoot Sang-woo, or invoke the group vote to go home broke so they both could live. Gi-hun said despite the fact that he couldn't kill Sang-woo, that the latter died in front of him by suicide because both of their mothers need the money, and that's why he couldn't forget. The thought of him and Gi-hun ending up in a similar situation horrifies Jung-bae so much that he promises Gi-hun it won't ever get to that point. And it doesn't, because the Front Man shoots Jung-bae after the failed rebellion as punishment for Gi-hun trying to stop the Games by force.
  • Four Is Death:
    • Season 1, Episode 4, "Stick to the Team": a riot reduce the players to 100 exactly. Then they learn teams of ten will be competing in tug-of-war, with the losing team falling to their death.
    • Season 1, Episode 6, "Gganbu": major characters like Ali and Ji-yeong die owing to the nature of the fourth game, marbles. And half the players get shot per the rules.
    • Season 2, Episode 3, "Player 01": Player 444 gets shot in the leg while protesting and begging he didn't move and is the last living person left on the field. Gi-hun tries to save him, with Hyun-ju also helping, and they make it over the finish line. Ka No-euk shoots him before he can finish thanking the other two for saving his life; later episodes reveal he would have been dissected alive for his organs, and she tells her superior the Masked Officer she most definitely didn't sign up for that.
    • Season 2, Episode 4, "Six Legs" shows two teams getting gunned down for failing to complete the Pentathlon.
    • Season 2, Episode 7, "Friend or Foe" has Gi-hun fearing this trope. He remembers from the previous games that the fourth game culled half the players, and if the riot kills too many X players, they won't have a tiebreaking vote that favors them in the morning to prevent the fourth game. So he stages a rebellion instead, to at least rescue the survivors. It horribly backfires, leaving most of the rebels dead, including Jung-bae.
  • Gambling Game: Shows an escalating series of them. First, the protagonist Seong Gi-hun is a gambling addict, who bets on horses. This makes him easy prey for the Salesman, who challenges him to a game of ddakji, where two players need to try and flip a folded paper by tossing other papers at it. Loser either has to pay up 100,000 won or receive a Bitch Slap. When Gi-hun finally wins some money, the Salesman gives him a business card for another "opportunity". This is revealed to be high-stakes versions of children's games like "Red Light, Green Light" where the losers forfeit their lives depending on if they fail to complete a round, break the rules, get caught cheating, or lose a round that involves them killing their opponent. Finally, it's revealed that masked VIPs are betting on the games, putting millions on single players.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: During the season two Pentathlon, Hyun-ju combines this with a Bitch Slap when Seon-nyeo starts panicking while failing to spin the top and saying the gods have abandoned them. Hyun-ju says she will kill Seon-nyeo before her gods can if Seon-nyeo gives up; Seon-nyeo nods with a bleeding nose and manages to spin the top perfectly.
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Ultimately, this is Gi-hun's major issue in season 2. He knows people can be selfish and greedy, having seen his childhood friend Sang-woo push one man to his death to save himself and slit a dying woman's throat to prevent a group vote, but he also believes none of the players deserve to die. This puts him in an impossible decision with players who feel they need to continue to get the money that will save their families or clear their debts. Gi-hun warns everyone during the group vote that he was the Sole Survivor of his round of games, and they will all die if they continue. Instead of taking this warning seriously as one half of the players do, the other half instead interpret it as Gi-hun will help them survive for as long as possible so they can make it to the next game. Some like Thanos and Player 100 aka Im Jeong-dae revel in the fact that more dead players means a higher jackpot. When Geum-ja and Yong-sik offer the O players that they will buy Mongolian beef and noodles for everyone if they vote to go home since they got limited rations, Jeong-dae retorts that when the other half dies, he can use his 800 million won share to buy a beef farm.
    • There is also the fact that after a rocky start with Young-il, a disguised In-ho who votes to continue the games, Gi-hun agrees to ally with him when Young-il stops Thanos from beating up Myung-gi, explains his reasons for joining, and proves to be a strong player. Even though the last Player 001 was the actual Big Bad, Gi-hun has no reason to believe that any of the game makers would pull the same trick again. Partly because it would be suicidally stupid to put your life on the line, and partly because Il-nam explained he joined because he was dying anyway and had nothing to lose. None of the other game makers have that motivation as far as Gi-hun knows. The thought that the Front Man would do such a thing just to break Gi-hun is beyond comprehension for sheer evilness. When In-ho reveals himself to Gi-hun, the latter threatens to gut the Front Man in revenge for betraying him and killing Jung-bae. It's only In-ho pointing out he's the stronger of the two and another Front Man would replace him that stays Gi-hhun's hand.
  • Good Counterpart: Season two has a few:
    • Geum-ja is this to Il-nam. Both didn't have debt because Il-nam was the founder of the Games who entered to have a bit of fun after developing terminal cancer and Geum-ja entered to help pay off her son's gambling debts. They are also elderly, which makes them an outlier compared to other players and considered The Load until they prove themselves in different rounds. The difference is that while Il-nam was the Big Bad of the Games whose friendship with Gi-hun was a happy coincidence for both of them, Geum-ja's kindness is real. She becomes the Team Mom to at least three other players, votes consistently to quit, and offers to take every player out for noodles if they leave after game three. And unlike Il-nam, who has presumably pushed away his family while building his wealth, Geum-ja's son Yong-sik is dedicated to keeping her alive.
    • Myung-gi to Sang-woo. They're both brilliant entrepreneurs who built their careers from the ground up, only to lose a lot of money due to bad investments. Said investments also have law enforcement on their tails. They also have loved ones they care about, in Sang-woo's mother and Jun-hee as Myung-gu's girlfriend. But Sang-woo kept falling during the Games due to his desperation to win the money and save his mother, while Myung-gi immediately votes to quit on realizing he endangered Jun-hee. And Myung-gi sticks to that resolution though he'd still be heavily in debt when leaving and wanted by the cops.
  • Gut Punch: Given the genre and the nature of the episode, these are bound to happen.
    • Season 1 Episode 1, "Red Light Green Light" has players 324 and 250 form a fast friendship, despite having just met in the barracks. Both are excited when they learn the title game is their first challenge, claiming it will be a cinch. They rib each other affectionately that they're going to win and bet a million won and who crosses the finish line first. Then 324 gets ahead of himself literally, and doesn't stop in time during Red Light, Green Light. Cue a gunshot, and 324 collapses. 250's first reaction, once he hears green light, is to run and check on 324. The poor guy is bleeding and coughing up blood, making the players realize this is a death game. Cue the Mass "Oh Crap" where hundreds of players panic and try to run for the locked doors, banging on them. They end up getting shot in succession, until corpses line the field. Gi-hun survives only due to sheer luck, while Sang-woo has the sense to stay still and analyze the situation.
    • Season 1 Episode 6, "Gganbu", may as well be titled this trope. Players are ordered to pair up for the challenge while each is given a bag of ten marbles. They have to play to win the other player's bag of marbles, and the loser is shot in the head. Sang-woo technically loses to Ali, who is apologetic but wants to try and find another solution. Sang-woo betrays him and leaves him with a bag of stones. Gi-hun panics and tries to scam the old man when Il-nam's dementia acts up, only for Il-nam to reveal he was faking it to test his Gganbu. As Gi-hun cries and prepares to forfeit his life as an apology for succumbing to weakness, Il-nam forces him to win, saying that he wasn't in it for the money, but to have fun, and it was nice while it lasted. Then we have Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong, who have a long conversation about their lives before they play. Ji-yeong throws their game without hesitation, telling an anguished Sae-byeok that she has nothing to live for, except for debt and pain, but her new friend has a brother, and dreams. Her sacrifices means that at least she was able to do some good, and give her life meaning. The guard allows a tearful Ji-yeong to say goodbye to a sobbing Sae-byeok before shooting her.
  • Happily Adopted:
    • At the end of season one, after regaining his will to live, Gi-hun pulls some strings so that Sang-woo's mother can adopt Sae-byeok's brother Kang Cheoul, after getting her permission to do so and giving them more than enough money to offer a comfortable life and keep the banks away from her fish shop. He doesn't explain why, but both Sae-byeok and Sang-woo asked as their Last Request for Gi-hun to take care of their families. It's shown he still checks up on them regularly, and two years later, Cheol is smiling more and calling his new guardian "Grandma". Sang-woo's mother is also more than fine with taking in Sang-byeok and Cheol's mother once she's able to cross over from a detainment camp, with Gi-hun giving the Broker the number to the fish shop in case anything happens to Gi-hun while he goes to stop the Games.
    • Season two reveals that Jun-ho's family adopted In-ho, meaning that they are stepbrothers and not genetically related. He was part of the family, complete with giving Jun-ho a kidney to save his life. Jun-ho's arc in season one involved tracking down and infiltrating the games to either find In-ho alive or avenge him, leaving him completely blindsided on learning that his beloved brother was the Front Man. Their mother mourns her lost son, blaming herself for In-ho losing his wife and unborn child to liver disease. And despite himself and his dedication to take down In-ho along with the Games, Jun-ho can't reveal the Front Man's real identity to Gi-hun while still leaving flowers by his sister-in-law's grave.
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?: Subverted in the season 3 finale. Though the South Korean Games are over, with the scandal presumably hitting the Korean news, In-ho doesn't tell Ga-yeong about them. He just reports that her father died, and she's inherited some of his things. Ga-yeong is bewildered by the bloodied 456 jumpsuit and the debit card containing whatever remained of Gi-hun's winnings in his bank account. The ending remains ambiguous if she'll ever find out the truth or try to investigate it as an adult.
  • Heel Face Door Slam: In season two, it first seems that Myung-gi is going the opposite path of Sang-woo, atoning for his past actions to keep his ex and unborn child safe during the Games. He even promises to her before Knives and Keys that if it came down to it, he'd kill everyone in the room to keep her and the baby safe so the three of them can leave with the prize money. But then when Nam-gyu goads him and they've already met the basic requirement of killing a person each, Myung-gi ambushes Hyun-ju as she's trying to get Geum-ja, an exhausted postpartum Jun-hee and the latter's baby to the exit. Jun-hee gives Myung-gi a What the Hell, Hero? speech and breaks up with him, refusing to accept his help during the next game even if it could have saved her life and saying he won't ever be a parent to their child. Though Myung-gi offers, when Jun-hee points out he can't get himself and Jun-hee across the jumprope at the same time with his non-athletic strength and her sprained ankle, he concedes. Gi-hun is in better shape to help her. Just as Gi-hun prepares to go back for Jun-hee, she shakes her head at him and prepares to jump into the pit rather than even try to cross. Despite Gi-hun shouting at her not to do it, everyone can only watch because she falls in seconds. Myung-gi breaks down, sobbing Tears of Remorse. Afterward, he gives up on atoning, complete with threatening the baby during the final round.
  • Hero Antagonist: While some players like Deok-su are definitely villainous, others like the tug-of-war team going against Gi-hun's group doesn't seem to have bad people. Sure they're a little smug when they're chosen, because they're all strong men and Gi-hun's team has the old man and three women, but they're not evil. During the tug-of-war, they're pulling for their lives and didn't cheat the way that the doctor and Deok-su did. Indeed, Gi-hun feels no joy while sending them to their deaths
  • Heroic Bystander: In season two, despite making it over the finish line and to safety, Hyun-ju back goes to help Gi-hun rescue an injured Player 444 during "Red Light, Green Light". Gi-hun went to save as many people because he doesn't want more people to die; Hyun-ju had no intrinsic motivation to help them.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Ji-yeong throws the marbles game and forces Sae-byeok to win. In an OOC Is Serious Business moment, Sae-byeok slams her into the wall, shouting at her to play again and take a real shot because she doesn't want her new friend to just give up her life like that. Turns out there's nothing to be done; Ji-yeong remains firm in her decision, and the guards force Sae-byeok to leave her at gunpoint, though the one that executes Ji-yeong allows her to say farewell.
  • Heroic Suicide:
    • In season 3, even though Gi-hun prepares to go back across the jumprope bridge to help an injured Jun-hee cross, she prepares to not even try and jump directly into the pit. Gi-hun shouts at her not to, that he promised Geum-ja to keep her alive; Jun-hee responds if they both die, there won't be anyone to take care of her baby. She says knowing her daughter is safe in Gi-huns hands literally, is enough for her. All Gi-hun can do is watch helplessly as she falls.
    • Later, Gi-hun himself opts to do this when bad luck means that he either has to sacrifice the baby or himself during the climactic tower game. He makes sure the baby is nestled a part of the tower where there's no chance in hell of her falling even by accident, starts the timer, gives one final short The Reason You Suck Speechto the VIPs and the Front Man, and lets himself fall.
  • Hidden Depths: Plenty in season one and two:
    • Season one:
      • The old man reveals that he always won tug-of-war, because he developed strategies while playing as a child. And yes, his strategies help Gi-hun's team gain an initial advantage before Sang-woo desperately suggests a plan B.
      • Ali reveals that he's a fan of action movies, as he identifies the movie Mi-nyeo references after tug-of-war as The Matrix. And he has a snarky side, as he mocks Mi-nyeo after she tries to be racist towards him.
      • The Front Man keeps an animatronic set that plays a jazz arrangement of "Fly Me to the Moon". It's implied to be a comfort when watching "Red Light, Green Light" since he was a former player, as well as after shooting Jun-ho, his brother.
    • Season two:
      • Kim Jeong-rae is a ruthless loan shark, but he is A Father to His Men. It's revealed that he officiated his employee and best friend Choi Woo-seok's wedding, and brought him along on Gi-hun's task to share the money with him for two years, ensuring that Woo-seok had a steady gig. And when forced to either sacrifice Woo-seok or himself in a Deadly Game, he chooses to save his friend.
      • Dae-ho reveals that thanks to having four older sisters, he is a master at ggongi, a form of Korean jacks. In fact, he's the only player in the Pentathlon that we see passing the ggongi minigame on the first try.
      • Geum-ja the sweet elderly mother used to play ggongi during the Korean war, using rifle bullets for jacks. She passes her second attempt after being reminded of this, and of her husband's mistress. "Rotten bitch!" indeed.
      • Gyeong-seok is the one who does ggongi for his team.
      • Thanos, for all his bravado and braggadacio, avoids being The Load during the Pentathlon. He does his Jengi perfectly, while Gi-hun needed help from Young-il. Also, he speaks English fluently and breaks out into Gratuitous English when high.
  • Hope Spot: All of season two is basically a long Hope Spot for Gi-hun and his strike team.
    • The first voting round in Season Two, Episode 3. Having done this before, Gi-hun warns everyone that he was the Sole Survivor of the Games before, and they have no chance of winning and surviving. He recounts how he saw everyone die in front of him, friends and enemies alike, and voting to leave would be the smart decision right now. It seems to work...but then some people call him a liar because no one would be dumb enough to return if they won 45.6 billion won, and Thanos accurately pinpoints that since Gi-hun saved most of them during the first game with no benefit for himself, he would do the same for anyone that continues to play. Gi-hun has no response to this and is forced at gunpoint to stop warning everyone because it's "affecting the voting process". The vote ends up split down the middle, allowing an undercover In-ho as Player 001 to cast the tiebreaker and force everyone to stay.
    • Meanwhile, the strike team seem to have a lead on Gi-hun's tracker...only to find it in a random fisherman bait box. Their plan B with the drone seems to uncover a hidden door on a random island, only for that door to be boobytrapped. Jun-ho gets frustrated because the more time they lose, the more likely that Gi-hun and the latest batch of players will die before they can rescue him.
    • Gi-hun starts panicking after the round of Mingle in Season Two, Episode Five, "O X". He knows from experience that the game after will be emotionally excruciating, whatever it is, and everyone will be screwed if enough vote to stay. Young-il and Jung-bae convince him to trust that enough people were scared by Mingle to vote X, and they can go home. The vote ends up tied, and Gi-hun takes a deep breath for the first time in hours since the guards promise they'll vote again in the morning. He hopes that a good night's sleep, everyone getting more than 300 million won, and the power of persuasion will convince enough people to change their minds. Then he opens his rations... and finds a metal fork. Cue a riot breaking out in the bathroom with people using the forks as weapons.
    • Realizing that the bathroom riot was provoked and it means the players wanting to go home are greatly diminished before the morning vote, Gi-hun concludes he has to act now or dozens of people will die in the next game. He convinces his army teammates to let the other X members die after lights out, play dead after the riot, overpower the guards coming to collect the bodies and steal guns plus ammo to stage a rebellion. If they make it to the control room, they can send a Distress Call to his team and buy enough time for a rescue. And they do put up a good effort, to be fair; then Young-il shoots two of the rebels, fakes his death, and resumes his position as the Front Man. Even if Dae-ho hadn't had a panic attack and failed to bring extra ammo back from the dead guards in the barracks, Young-il had all the cards in the situation. He easily quells the rebellion and forces Gi-hun, Jung-bae and Hyun-ju to surrender, before shooting Jung-bae as a warning to Gi-hun about what happens when you "play the hero".
  • Horrifying the Horror: The season two opener establishes the Salesman as a petty monster when off-the-clock. He toys with homeless people by either offering them bread or lottery tickets, and stomps on all the bread so it's inedible. Not to mention the way he forces a captive Choi Woo-seuk and Kim Jeong-Rae to play Rock-Paper-Scissors is horrifying. But then he plays some Russian Roulette with Gi-hun, spinning the chamber only once. When the odds go from one in six to one in two, he expects Gi-hun to cheat and just shoot him. And he gives a Hannibal Lecture saying as much. But then Gi-hun picks up the gun and shoots at his head anyway, with a deadened expression. Cue the Oh Crap from the Salesman on realizing his manipulations backfired. Gi-hun also gives a The Reason You Suck Speech to the Salesman, who now knows he will die if he plays the game to the end, saying if he cheats then he will have to admit he's just a dog for his masters. Without another word, the Salesman presses the gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
  • Human Shield: The reason why in the season 3 finale, Jun-ho doesn't shoot In-ho even to incapacitate him. He can hear a baby's cries and realizes that his brother is holding a child. Jun-ho will not endanger a baby no matter the circumstances.
  • Hypocrite: For all the Front Man's insistence that the games are fair and no player should get any inside information about the rounds, he has a few moments. When Il-nam forfeited the marbles game after Gi-hun was prepared to forfeit out of remorse for trying to trick an old man suffering from cancer, the Front Man faked Il-nam's death instead. Tellingly, in season two when he enters the game as Player 001 to infiltrate Gi-hun's group and thwart his plans, unlike Il-nam he didn't play Red Light, Green Light, and was instead watching the chaos from the safety of his viewing room. He takes advantage of the post-game chaos to slip in and affect the group vote, but makes everyone stay rather than allow them to go home the way Il-nam did.
  • I Don't Want to Die: In season two, Young-mi consistently votes to go home because she is scared to be killed. At one point she sobs and begs the people voting to stay that she doesn't want to die. Which makes it tragic that due to bad luck during Mingle, she gets separated from her group and locked out of the safety room just as Hyun-ju tries to rescue her. She spends her last moments calling for Hyun-ju as her "Unnie" while crying, as Hyun-ju futilely tries banging the locked door before they hear the telltale gunshots and she slides to the floor, tearstained eyes still open.
  • If We Get Through This: In season two, Geum-ja tells her small team that if they survive the games, she wants to cook a huge feast for them. And yes, Hyun-ju is invited when Young-mi asks.
  • Ignored Epiphany: In season two, it's implied that Thanos being high during Mingle leads to him kicking out Gyeong-su when their five-player team needs to get into a saferoom with four people. He then realizes Gyeong-su isn't with them once in the safe room and is horrified on seeing him gunned down through the window slit. You would think after this that Thanos would either realize that his addiction is getting worse, or that they need to quit the Games. During the next round, he convinces Min-su to abandon Se-mi during a round when the number is three, only to abandon Min-su later when the final round's number is two. He still votes O and rallies the other voters accordingly, complete with attempting to bully Min-su in the bathroom for switching to X.
  • Inelegant Blubbering:
    • During the last game in "One Lucky Day," Gi-hun starts sobbing when Sang-woo slits his throat in front of him, despite Gi-hun wanting to invoke the group vote so they could go home together. All Gi-hun can do is hold Sang-woo in his lap in his last moments.
    • In season two after a strenuous round of Mingle where Yong-sik and his mother Geum-ja get separated, they reunite and he starts hugging her while crying despite her reassurances that she's fine and not hurt. He apologizes repeatedly for voting to stay in the games while endangering her life, as well as for getting separated.
  • Infant Immortality: In real life? Jun-hee's baby likely would have died on the second day given that no one supports her head properly, she doesn't get any diaper or clothing changes, Gi-hun is forced to take her with him during the jumprope challenge since he doesn't trust the other players to make it, and she's fed formula lying down. Somehow, six months later, she's in perfect health when In-ho drops her off at Jun-ho's place.
  • I Owe You My Life:
    • Season one
      • While Gi-hun latches onto Sang-woo because they were childhood friends, he thanks Sang-woo for his advice in Red Light, Green Light, as well as Ali for taking a great risk to save him. Ali says Think Nothing of It because he's just happy that "sir" is alive. When they're all forced to return to the Games due to real-life problems despite the group vote letting them go home, Gi-hun suggests they should team up and split the money when they win; while he says it's because Ali is super strong, it's also clear he's thinking of how selfless Ali was during the first game. He also leans on Sang-woo's advice, praising him for being the genius of their neighborhood. It's why he's absolutely shocked on seeing Sang-woo push the glassmaker, and turns on him after the very tense steak dinner where it's clear Sang-woo has slid too far down.
    • Season two
      • Geum-ja, while at first skeptical about Gi-hun warning them that they will be killed during Red Light, Green Light, immediately grasps the danger of the situation when the panic and gunfire start. During the first group vote, when another player accuses Gi-hun of being a plant, she gets between them and calls the other guy an idiot, saying that Gi-hun saved their lives and they shouldn't literally be gambling them on games with a death sentence! While Gi-hun is kind to her because she's a genuinely Nice Girl if a stern parent who reminds him of his deceased mother, she's kind to him because he took a great risk to make sure she and her son didn't get shot. She also sincerely thanks him and Young-il for rescuing her during Mingle.
  • It's All My Fault:
    • Gi-hun finds out that he condemned his mother by stealing her money and cancelling her health insurance. She needs surgery for her diabetes but can't afford it thanks to her son's gambling addiction. Despite winning the Games by default, he arrives home only to find out she died alone while he was playing. His guilt haunts him so much that he doesn't spend any of the winnings nearly allows the elements to take him next Christmas while drinking.
    • Season two
      • Jung-bae says this when he sees Gi-hun completely lose hope that he can rescue anyone from the games after the second group vote, because Jung-bae voted to stay. Gi-hun can't sleep while watching over the X players to make sure none of them are killed after lights out, and Jung-bae joins him, apologizing. Gi-hun forgives him, saying that he completely understands Jung-bae's decision as someone who returned to the games the first time in 2020. They were both gambling addicts, and that much money was once alluring to him. Jung-bae cheers him up with an embarrassing story from the time they joined the fateful strike that changed Gi-hun's life for the work, and asks that after they go home, they go out for drinks like old times.
      • Hyun-ju feels guilty when Young-mi begs the other players to vote to go home because she doesn't want to die, as well as hearing Jun-hee break down in the privacy of the ladies' bathroom. Despite Young-mi forgiving Hyun-ju and bravely saying they'll survive the next game and vote to go home, Hyun-ju apologizes to her. She promises to protect Young-mi and get them both out alive. But Young-mi dies due to other players accidentally knocking her down before she can reach a safety room or Hyun-ju can rescue her. Hyun-ju shuts down after an initial outburst at Myung-gi for keeping her from saving Young-mi after Myung-gi accurately points out that it would have led to everyone being shot; when Hyun-ju votes to leave, she has a haunted expression knowing the reason why Young-mi isn't there to vote with her.
  • Karma Houdini: In the end, In-ho and the VIPs get away before the South Korean Coast Guard can arrest them and Jun-ho won't fire on his brother when the latter is holding a baby, blowing up the island to boot and with it the evidence of the Games. The only consolation Jun-ho gets out of this is that he proves to his superiors that he was telling the truth about the Games with Kang No-eul and Gyeong-seok as witnesses. It also turns In-ho into a fugitive, meaning he can never return to his Front Man position, let alone a normal life.
  • Karmic Jackpot: Kang No-eul smuggles an injured Gyeong-seok off the island, before preparing to return and perform a Heroic Suicide. Turns out doing so allowed the Coast Guard and Jun-ho to find the island, allotting No-eul a pardon for her position as a Triangle sniper. Though Gyeong-seok doesn't want or win the prize, his daughter does recover and enters remission. No-eul also finds out from the broker that he found her daughter in China, so she boards a plane to reunite with her family.
  • Know When to Fold'Em: Happens a few times in season two:
    • While Dae-ho initially votes to continue the Games to pay off his debts, he immediately believes Gi-hun on seeing firsthand that this is a no-win situation and decides to switch after the Pentathlon.
    • On learning that Jun-hee is in the game and chose to keep their baby, Myung-gi immediately votes to leave after the Pentathlon to save her. He stands by that decision when Thanos tries to bully him about it.
    • After the third game, where only 100 players maximum were guaranteed to survive the round, Jung-bae, Hyun-ju and Yong-sik vote to quit. Each player would win 300 million won each at this point, so they wouldn't be going home empty-handed and with more than enough money to cover their debts. Jung-bae also admits he's too scared to continue, Hyun-ju is mourning Young-mi who died during Mingle, and Yong-sik is terrified of risking his mom's life again after he nearly lost her once.
    • While Hyun-ju wants to make a last stand against the guards when the rebellion fails, Geum-ja stops her. She tells her that it's not worth throwing away her life and convinces her to put the gun down.
  • The Leader:
    • Gi-hun is seen by this as default after the tug-of-war, where he encourages his alliance to not attack anyone in the barracks and instead form a barricade, with shifts to watch over the sleeping members. Even Sang-woo defers to this strategy, agreeing it makes more sense to ensure everyone gets some rest. Other players took notice of the fact that he dangled off the edge of the platform but kept his footing and his nerve; Player 062 tells Gi-hun that he was awesome, and turned down a few other offers to team up with him for the fourth game. This no longer applies after the fifth game, given the dwindling numbers.
    • In season two, the X faction turns to Gi-hun for guidance, both out of gratitude that he kept them alive during "Red Light, Green Light" and out of pragmatism that they need his experience.
  • Let's Get Dangerous:
    • The old man has been a formidable player by staying calm during each death game, and oddly cheerful. Then tug-of-war happens, revealing that the players are chained to the rope and have to pull their opponents off an elevated platform, where a guillotine will slice the rope and make the losers fall. His team is full of underdogs, with himself, three women, and not-very athletic men excluding Ali. As they prepare to face their deaths, he stops smiling tells them it's not over yet. Il-nam explains that in tug-of-war, there are strategies you can use to ensure that you have the best team, even if it's not the strongest: have a strong leader in front, a dependable player in the back, alternate everyone else, put the rope under your armpits and lean back for the first ten seconds. It actually works until the opposing team gets a second wind and pulls back with sheer desperation and brute strength. Mi-nyeo later tells the old man that he was amazing and made her feel powerful with the leaning back strategy.
    • Credit to Mi-nyeo, she is a Drama Queen and a compulsive liar, but she knows how to pull her own weight, literally. She figured out how to discreetly use her cigarette lighter during the dalgona challenge and cut out the star easily. During the tug-of-war she follows Il-Nam's instructions without hesitation, and later listens to Sang-woo despite screaming that his advice sounds like suicide. Her final moment is taking out Deok-su on the glass bridge, as well as herself, when he's about to doom everyone by refusing to move forward, and he spends his last moments begging for his life.
  • Like a Son to Me:
    • The old man mentions often that Gi-hun reminds him of his son, that they'd be around the same age. It's implied to be one reason why he throws the Marbles game after Gi-hun starts cheating to win, only to start forfeiting out of guilt when Il-nam reveals he was faking his dementia episode. And it may be the reason Il-nam invited him to the penthouse to rescue him from spending Christmas Eve in the cold alone while drinking, considering it was a freezing night.
    • In season two, Geum-ja bonds with Young-mi, Hyun-ju and Jun-hee, looking out for the three of them along with her son Yong-sik. Despite her initial bias against Hyun-ju being trans, she gets over it after the second game. And when Young-mi dies, Geum-ja wails her name as if she lost her daughter.
  • The Load:
    • While the old man initially appears to be this, he subverts the trope. During "Red Light, Green Light," he is the first to move after the real stakes are revealed, which saves a good number of the surviving players as they move forward cautiously. He also gives the strategy during tug-of-war that gives his team the initial lead, and pulls as much as the others do. We find out there's a dark reason for this; Il-nam was the creator of the Games, and thus was using them to reenact his childhood.
    • Played straight with Seon-nyeo in season two. As a shaman that believes in predestiny, she constantly votes to continue the games, something that annoys Gi-hun to no end. She panics during her part of the Pentathlon, causing Hyun-ju to Bitch Slap her. Her team finds her so useless that they abandon her during Mingle when the designated number is 4.
    • Sometimes In-ho as Young-il plays this part to mess with Gi-hun. During the Pentathlon, he runs down the clock on purpose during his part just to be a dick.
  • Mama Bear: Geum-ja in season two fills this role not just for her son Yong-sik but also for other players like Young-mi and Jun-hee. During the "Red Light, Green Light" when Jun-hee suffers stomach pain while hiding in a line formation, Geum-ja realizes what's happening and orders her to stay close and behind her. Later, she shares her limited rations with Jun-hee, saying she used to be a midwife. During Mingle, she defends Yong-sik to Young-il when the latter insinuates that her son abandoned her.
  • Master Actor: In season two, In-ho easily poses as Young-il aka Player 001 who says he's playing the games to save his ill wife and unborn child. While Gi-hun has never seen the Front Man's face and Jun-ho didn't tell him his brother was the Front Man, he blends in with the other players and plausibly switches sides. It's hard to tell which of his behaviors are and aren't genuine, such as when he cheers on the Pentathlon teams that make it to the finish line, makes a scared Jun-hee laugh after two stressful rounds of Mingle by joking about her baby counting as an extra person, and apologizes to Geum-ja for insinuating her son abandoned her. In the end, however, In-ho shows no grief or remorse for the other players he befriended dying, including Jun-hee opting to throw the fifth game knowing her sprained ankle and postpartum body won't let her reach the other side to safety. The only decent things that he does after going on the run is depositing Jun-hee's baby and her winnings at Jun-ho's place and giving the remains of Gi-hun's winnings to Ga-yeong along with his tracksuit, the only item of Gi-hun's that survived the Games.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Seon-nyeo in season two is a shaman, making many cryptic sayings about her gods abandoning her and who will die when they are in the games and who was mysteriously spared. While most of the players dismiss her, some start following her as a cult. Gi-hun looks concerned when she manages to pinpoint that he has "souls" lingering above him which is an accurate description of his PTSD and that he survived far long than he should have. After she curses Geum-ja, Jun-hee, Hyun-ju, and Yong-sik for abandoning her in Mingle, promising she will see them die in the Games, Geum-ja is unnerved. Though she says to her son the woman is a lunatic, she does a ritual to ward off bad luck just in case. Unfortunately, in season three Seon-nyeo's curse comes true: Geum-ja and Jun-hee are Forced to Watch Myung-gi ambush Hyun-ju and stab her fatally just as Hyun-ju is trying to get them to the exit, while Geum-ja is forced to attack Yong-sik to keep him from killing Jun-hee to save his own life before the timer runs out, leading to the Guards shooting him. Geum-ja loses the will to live, making Gi-hun promise to protect Jun-hee and her baby before hanging herself that night. And even then, Jun-hee opts to throw the fifth game realizing that she won't make it safely through jumprope with her sprained ankle. This video outlines that all of her predictions came true, including her foretelling her own death.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Inverted in season two; when Gi-hun tries reasoning with everyone during the group vote, he reveals he's a previous winner, and previous players died. And he emphasizes that none of the other 442 people who died in round one or returned to the games deserved it. They were people. And he tries minimizing the casualties this time around, a nigh-impossible task; by the time of the cliffhanger finale, less than one hundred people remain. Ultimately, Gi-hun only saves one person: Jun-hee's unnamed baby.
  • Moment of Weakness: Gi-hun in season one is all about these moments, but he's forced to shape up during the Games because he ended up cancelling his mother's health insurance and draining the savings she needed for a life-saving surgery. In season two, he is trying so hard to save the 2024 contestants even though half won't listen to him that they will die and no one really wins. After the third game and the bathroom brawl, Gi-hun gives up; he decides to not defend the X players before the riot that he knows will occur after "lights out" so that when playing dead, his small team can overpower the Guards, reach the control rooms, and send out a Distress Call to his team. When it's pointed out that he would be getting the innocents killed who want to go home, Gi-hun rationalizes that there's no guarantee they can protect everyone before the group vote in the morning because he saw firsthand how chaotic the riots can get. He also knows that the fourth game will be the most devastating one and absolutely refuses to risk doing a repeat of Marbles or Tug-of-war. But if they get that Distress Call to his strike team? That evens the odds rather than waiting on the mercy of the Game Makers and their rival players. In-ho's Psychotic Smirk while undercover as Young-il highlights how this was the wrong decision to make.
  • Momma's Boy:
    • The ultimate reason why Sang-woo reenters the games; as he says, he doesn't care about being arrested for his own crimes if he were ultimately caught. The risk of his mother being tossed on the streets if creditors take her restaurant is what motivates him to return. His last words to Gi-hun before slitting his throat are begging him to take care of his mother, a promise that Gi-hun fulfills a year later by giving her half of the prize money he won.
    • Park Yong-sik in season two is this, and horrified that his mother Jang Geum-ja also entered the games without knowing the stakes so as to take on his debts. When they realize Gi-hun is telling the truth about Red Light, Green Light and he yells at them to get into lines to minimize the chance of being shot, Yong-sik's first instinct is to push Geum-ja behind her to keep her safe. When it seems they get separated during the third game, he sobs while fearing that she got killed.
    • Dae-ho in season two is also implied to be this. He tells his teammates that he's a ggongi expert because he was the first boy born in two generations to his family, and his mom would make him stay at home to play with his sisters because she was overprotective. Playing ggongi for that long made him a pro. Jung-bae jokingly asks how she let him go to be a Marine, causing Dae-ho to be uncomfortable.
  • More Expendable Than You: In season two, Geum-ja isn't disappointed that her son is risking her life but rather his own when he votes to continue the games after the Pentathlon. She tells him that it doesn't matter if she dies in the Games, but she can't go on living if she loses her only son. Yong-sik doesn't believe this, breaking down when they get separated and reunited during Mingle because he thought she got killed.
  • Morton's Fork:
    • The inversion is pointed out by Kim Jeong-rae to his Number Two Choi Woo-seok in season two; when Woo-seok complains that they've been searching for two years to find a man that probably doesn't exist, Jeong-rae remains pragmatic. He mentions that more of his debtors have disappeared than usual, and that affects his bottom line as he can't even extract their eyes and kidneys to sell. Gi-hun has consistently paid them to find the Salesman, which allows him to stay in the loan shark business. If they find the Salesman, they not only get the bonus but also a lead on who is stealing Jeong-rae's "clients"; if they don't, it's easy cash for years on end. Either way, he wins.
    • Kang No-eul's situation as a sniper guard plays it straight, as she sees it and implied to be the reason why she quit in the past. In fact, the Masked Guard couldn't convince her to join for money and had to say he had a lead on her daughter, who she had to abandon in North Korea while defecting. She was hired with a contract to "put losers out of their misery" in her words, but the Masked Guard wants to vivisect eliminated players to sell their organs. Even if this time they aren't using a player who's a doctor, it technically isn't sanctioned by the Front Man. Either Kang No-eul looks the other way or joins the scheme, risking the Front Man's trigger-happy tendencies once he fakes his death and gets wind of it, or she follows her contract and gets threatened by the other guards into not executing selected players or they'll maim her. It's a no-win situation, highlighted by the fact that No-eul bluntly pointed this out to the Masked Guard during their conversation that she signed a contract. Small wonder that in Season 3 she plots to turn on the Masked Guard, since he put her in the middle of this mess.
  • Needle in a Stack of Needles: This problem comes up twofold in season two:
    • How hard is it to find a man in a business suit with a briefcase of money and ddakji papers wandering the subways? Very, especially since Gi-hun doesn't have a photo and lots of men go around with briefcases. Loan shark Kim Jeong-rae and his employee Choi Woo-seok spend two years scouring the Seoul subways with no results. Woo-seok mentions they haven't seen any hint of the Salesman and is dubious if Gi-hun's story is even true. Jeong-rae is more pragmatic, pointing out they've been paid steadily and it's an easier gig than tracking down debtors. Plus, Gi-hun's story would explain why more of his debtors have gone missing compared to the norm. Ironically, during this conversation, they hear the smack of a ddakji hitting the subway floor and see the Salesman slapping a player. Immediately, Woo-seok and Jeong-rae take photos before calling Gi-hun and confirming they found the guy. We find out later that the player was Myung-gi, trying to travel incognito.
    • Meanwhile, Jun-ho scours the various islands that match what he remembers to find the Games. South Korea has more than three thousand islands surrounding it, and Jun-ho's only lead is the captain who rescued him knows the area. And to make matters worse, the audience finds out that Captain Park is The Mole, hired by In-ho to keep Jun-ho alive during his investigation but away from the Games period.
  • Never Recycle Your Schemes: Zigzagged in season two to play up the suspense. The fact that some season one schemes are recycled mean the games are less predictable. Gi-hun is able to help more people survive during Red Light Green Light by warning and guiding them, but as he points out, they were still very lucky and should quit now with the group vote rather than keep playing. He has no guarantee the games will be the same though he freely shares the next challenge for him was dalgona and triangle is the easiest shape. While the other games are different, the special round plays out similarly, causing Gi-hun to go Oh Crap when he sees the fork included with his rations and the aftermath of the bathroom brawl.
  • No One Gets Left Behind: In season two, Gi-hun zigzags this during "Red Light, Green Light" round. He pragmatically knows he can't save anyone who panics when they understand the real stakes of the game, but does what he can to warn everyone. When one man who swears he didn't move gets shot, Gi-hun goes back for him on seeing he's the last person alive on the field. Hyun-ju goes to help him carry the injured man across the finish line; just as they catch their breath, the snipers shoot the injured man since he was technically eliminated. And for the rest of the season, he keeps encouraging this attitude to minimize the casualties this time around. The Front Man lampshades in the finale how Gi-hun is trying to be the hero.
  • Oh Crap: This reaction happens a lot in a series of deadly games with increasingly high stakes.
    • Season one:
      • Gi-hun has this when the loan sharks after him for his debts spot him at the horse races and talking with his daughter on the phone about his winnings. He promptly turns tail and runs.
      • Gi-hun says "I'm fucked" when the second game is dalgona and he picked the umbrella, the hardest shape to cleanly cut out using a needle.
    • Season two:
      • As a Call Back to the season one moment of Gi-hun doing this, he has the same reaction on learning that the game makers found the tracker in his false tooth and removed it.
      • Downplayed but when Kang No-eul sees that her former coworker, theme park artist Gyeong-seok is in the Games, her expression softens while also looking horrified. Earlier, she had been entertaining his sick daughter as the pink bunny mascot and had overheard the doctors at the hospital saying the procedure to save Na-yeon would be expensive. Which means the Games knew exactly how tempting the offer to play would be for a desperate father, and she can attest that Gyeong-seok is a Nice Guy, not a "loser".
      • Myung-gi has this reaction when he sees Jun-hee in the barracks, and that she kept their baby. Though he ghosted her and she considers them broken up, he still has feelings for her. He immediately votes to quit after the second time because he can't guarantee her safety and she wanted to go home after the first game.
  • Only Sane Man: In season two, despite his hangups, Gi-hun comes off as this once he reenters the Games. He warns everyone during the first group vote that this is a no-win situation, and they need to quit now. And he keeps pointing out the money won't matter if the players die. When the O players try to blame him for the second game being different since Gi-hun thought it would be dalgona again and it's a Pentathlon instead, Gi-hun can barely hide his frustration.
  • Only Sane Woman: Geum-ja is this during season two. Might be justified due to her surviving the Korean war, with her son implying she's a veteran. When she realizes Gi-hun is telling the truth about the stakes of the Games, she immediately grasps the danger of the situation and does all she can to protect Yong-sik and later Jun-hee after realizing the latter is pregnant. She always votes to go home and reminds Yong-sik not to be stupid when it's his turn to vote.
  • Papa Wolf:
    • The reason why Gi-hun turned his back on reuniting with Ga-yeong in Los Angeles is the Front Man reveals they're tracking him, realizing he'll endanger her. Later, the only reason he doesn't let himself be shot or die by suicide after murdering Dae-ho during hide and seek is that Geum-ja makes him promise to take care of Jun-hee and her baby. Since Gi-hun knows Jun-hee is injured and weak from giving birth, he volunteers to take her baby when it's his turn at jump rope. Even villainous characters like Jeong-dae are impressed that he keeps his footing and nerves while making it across. He refuses to trust Myung-gi with the baby in the final game. And in the end, Gi-hun opts sacrifice himself rather than the baby.
    • Sadly subverted with Myung-gi. Though he does try to keep Jun-hee and their unborn baby alive through the fourth game, he goes off the deep end when Jun-hee throws the fifth game by falling into the pit. At one point in the final game, he threatens Gi-hun that he will drop his child if it means keeping himself alive.
    • Zigzagged with In-ho. He allows the VIPS to put Jun-hee's baby in the game despite the fact that a newborn has no chance at all of winning because they want to shoot her after her mother dies. But then Gi-hun jumps off the last tower to make her the winner, and In-ho evacuates her with the VIPs rather than either leave her to die in the explosion or for Jun-ho to find. He takes care of her for six months before making sure she's in Jun-ho's custody with her winnings.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Season one:
      • When Sang-woo reveals the third clause, that the players can vote to end the games, the Square Guards acknowledge they have to honor the contract and set up an appropriate station. They also say that if the players vote to end the games, 100 million won each will be sent to the families of the dead, ensuring that their deaths at least won't be a waste. Given the old man votes to end the games, the guards honored that agreement and say the surviving players can still compete in round two later, if they wish.
      • It's revealed that Il-nam was the creator of the games, and he entered to have one last bit of fun rather than wait for his tumor to kill him. He voted to end the games when the group vote came up in "Hell", because he felt that the players need a fair chance to enter, or leave if they wish. Sure, he thinks that the poor are "trash" but it wouldn't be right to make 100 scared people stay since it would go against his philosophy of fairness. Anyone who returns would lack the excuse that they didn't know they would be forfeiting their lives. Much later, when he learns that Gi-hun hasn't spent the prize money in a year and is prepared to spend Christmas Eve alone drinking in the cold, Il-nam invites him via a flower-lady to his heated penthouse, to encourage him to not feel guilty or waste away. Rather than leave Gi-hun with the memory of a friendly old man, Il-nam revealed his true self to save his gganbu's life, pointing out another man who was drinking on Christmas Eve that had succumbed to the elements.
      • Deok-su is a murderous gangster with no regard for human life and will throw away anyone that he deems useless to his goals. He also returns Mi-nyeo's cigarette lighter after the dalgona game when she lends it to him discreetly, thanking her for saving his life. It's his only decent moment.
      • The Front Man is a monster. There is no doubt about that with how he runs the games, and especially when he engineers a riot to cull the "weak players", something that even alarms Il-nam who shouts for it to stop. Jun-ho is naturally wary of him and is prepared to fire on him if necessary while undercover. He also doesn't kill Mi-nyeo when she doesn't have a partner for the fourth game, allowing her to rest in the barracks and sit out the death match. The players are shocked, even if she's hurt on principle that no one wanted her. In the season one finale, when Gi-hun is declared the winner by default, he gets medical treatment for Gi-hun's impaled hand and escorts him back to his hometown in a limo. While gruff, he advises Gi-hun to think of the experience as a dream. Later, when Gi-hun dials the number on the business card, the Front Man refuses to accept him for the 2021 games, ordering him to get on the plane and go see his daughter. That makes more sense with the revelation that the Front Man was also once a winner.
      • One nameless guard respects Ji-yeong's Heroic Sacrifice when she throws the marbles game and forces Sae-byeok to win, saying that her death will mean more than her life knowing she's helping Sae-byeok reunite with her little brother. They give Ji-yeong a moment to thank Sae-byeok for playing with her and say goodbye, before executing her.
    • Season two:
      • Before she returns to the Games as a Triangle Guard sniper, Kang No-eul takes the time to return Na-yeon's hat while the little girl is recuperating in the hospital. It fell off when Na-yeon collapsed in the park and her dad had to call an ambulance.
      • Seon-nyeo is a creepy shaman that keeps voting to stay in the games. She offers to Gi-hun before the Games start that if they make it through the rounds, she can conduct a ritual to handle his "ghosts".
      • Thanos is a bully who deliberately gets people killed during the Games while high. During the Pentathlon, he genuinely cheers on Hyun-ju's team when they're the first group to make it to the end.
      • In-ho has a few moments despite boobytrapping Jun-ho's car when he and mercenaries try to follow the Front Man's pink limo with Gi-hun inside, and posing as Player 001 aka Young-il to manipulate Gi-hun from within the Games and break his belief in people. He warns Gi-hun that taking down the Games is a futile effort and he should have just left South Korea to be with his daughter. Later, despite the Pentathlon giving him a perfect opportunity to fake his death and either kill or incapacitate Gi-hun as Young-il, he helps Gi-hun complete the Jengi mini-game so their team makes it. When Gi-hun seems utterly demoralized after the second group vote and tells his team that they may be forced to kill each other in the next round, Young-il encourages him not to give up since there's no guarantee of a Marbles or Tug-of-war repeat. (He has set up the next game as Mingle, where teams are more likely to survive working together, so he should know.) And after two stressful rounds of Mingle, he jokes with a scared Jun-hee that if the next number is six, they won't need more people with her baby.
  • Pragmatic Villainy:
    • Deok-su votes to end the games when given the chance. His reasoning makes sense when he talks with a lackey about the piggy bank; it's really stupid to stay on the island with a lot of money just out of reach and a high chance of getting killed. Deok-su says that their gang should follow the convoy of trucks that will inevitably return, overpower a driver, and stage a heist to steal the piggy bank. While he has to abandoned that plan after said lackey betrays him to a Filipino mob that are mad at Deok-su for his debts, Jun-ho comes to the same conclusion and follows the trucks solo.
    • In season two, while the loan shark Kim Jeong-rae doesn't quite believe Gi-hun's story about the Salesman and the games, he agrees to try and find the Salesman in the various Seoul subways. For one, Gi-hun has offered him and his friend Choi Woo-seok one billion won, which isn't chump change. If they don't find the Salesman, it's easy cash for stalking the subways for a few years. And for another, Jeong-rae has noted that a larger amount of his debtors have gone missing than usual over the past few years, and Gi-hun's story would explain it. It's bad for business if a strange organization is killing people that owe him money so he has no reason to avoid finding the answers.
  • Race Against the Clock: In season two, Jun-ho spells out to the strike team that they have five days at most to save Gi-hun and the other players. Each game takes a day, and he witnessed four of them plus a special round at night; Gi-hun told them there were six total. They can't count on Gi-hun invoking a group vote to end the games and find the island that way. While Jun-ho reluctantly agrees to return to the mainland on day one after Gi-hun's tracker plan fails, he goes to his boss to plea for more men, has Woo-seok hire even more, makes every strike team stock up on provisions for a month and heads back to the water on day three, with two boats instead of one. He visibly agonizes the more time passes since it increases the chances of Gi-hun getting killed and decreases the chances of saving anyone else. In season 3, despite a great effort and managing to rescue Gyeong-seok thanks to Kang No-eul evacuating the latter from the island, Jun-ho arrives just as Gi-hun has sacrificed himself to save Jun-hee's baby. He's furious, hurt and grieving that he arrived too late and In-ho escapes with the VIPS and the baby as the "winner". All Jun-ho can do is gather the proof that he finds, with two eyewitnesses that give full testimony, so that at least the deaths and Gi-hun's sacrifice weren't for nothing.
  • Reality Ensues:
    • Gi-hun tries doing a sensible thing after the group vote allows everyone to go home. He goes to the police while still traumatized and tells them about the horrific events that he and Sang-woo suffered. The cops do take a report and his information down which they later relate to Jun-ho, while dialing the number on the business card, but they don't believe him. As one puts it, 456 people were knocked out, transported to a strange place, ordered to play a lethal version of Red Light Green Light, and then released after voting to go home? Gi-hun himself admits that the story is hard to believe.
    • Something that the Front Man mentions when he and the Square Guards corner Jun-ho on the deserted island. Jun-ho shouts that he is police and they're under arrest, saying he already called for backup, which he did. The Front Man acknowledges the call might have gone through, but emergency services in real life don't come the minute you call them. Police have little incentive to be efficient. And indeed, even with an actual cop helping Gi-hun in season two, the Strike Team has a really hard time providing the necessary backup because the Front Man knew about Gi-hun coming to declare war on them.
    • A sobering one; while the Front Man arranged for Jun-ho to be rescued and returned to the mainland, and his boss was a Reasonable Authority Figure, Jun-ho was reassigned to traffic duty as soon as he recovered from his coma. Because even if his boss believes him about the evidence that went missing thanks to his phone ending up in the ocean, Jun-ho did miss work for at least a week and conducted an investigation on his own. The latter by itself would be fireable offense, and it's revealed Jun-ho is still investigating when he's off the clock, also a fireable offense. As his boss puts it, Jun-ho "went rogue with a gun" and nearly died for what seems to be a Wild Goose Chase and no evidence to show for it. He believes Jun-ho, but the higher-ups don't. In addition, it's implied Jun-ho's boss realizes that Jun-ho is a walking target of these mysterious criminals that officials can't find, so traffic duty is a way to keep him in a low-profile position.
  • Rebellious Prisoner: The games in general scare the players who decide to return after the group vote to end the games. When they come back for round two, they face the constant threat of death from the guards or their competitors, and gradually break. Player 66, however, is one of 14 that doesn't return. When the Guards clarify after round one that everyone has to compete for the great prize, he outright says he doesn't care about the money and wants to see his family. Player 66 insists the Guards can't keep them prisoner because the law will track them down via their cellphones. During the group vote, he calls out those that are voting to continue the games, asking how they can live with themselves; only the Guards separating him and an obnoxious fellow player 322 at gunpoint can shut this guy up.
  • Recruiting the Criminal: A sign that Gi-hun has become smarter in season two is that he hires his former loan shark Kim Jeong-rae to track down the Salesman. It makes sense because loan sharks can find debtors that try not to be found, and he knows personally that Jeong-rae is ruthless. Jeong-rae's mistake was trying to tackle the Salesman with his employee Choi Woo-seok's help despite Gi-hun warning them that the Salesman is dangerous, because he believes if they lose the guy, they won't get paid. They get beaten up, kidnapped, and tortured for their trouble. Then Jeong-rae gets shot in a Heroic Sacrifice when forced to play Rock, Paper Scissors Minus One combined with Russian Roulette and he refuses to let Woo-seok get killed.
  • Replacement Goldfish:
    • In season two, Geum-ja as an elderly mother who entered the games to assist her son with his debts reminds Gi-hun a lot of his mother, who died in season one. It's part of the reason that she and Yong-sik join his team. In the scene where Yong-sik reunites with her after they get separated in Mingle and Yong-sik is Inelegant Blubbering while apologizing to her, Gi-hun looks saddened, thinking of his own mom.
    • Ultimately subverted in the season three finale. Though In-ho takes Jun-hee's baby with him when evacuating the VIPs, and it's why Jun-ho won't fire on him since he doesn't want to hit the child with a stray bullet, he gives her and the prize money to Jun-ho six months later by dropping both off at Jun-ho's house. In-ho lost his wife and unborn baby during the 2015 Games but realized at some point that raising a child on the lam, even with his prize winnings and whatever remained of his Front Man salary, wouldn't be healthy for either of them.
  • Retired Badass: Season two has Yong-sik imply that his mother Geum-ja didn't just survive the Korean war but also fought in it. He reminds her how she played ggongi using rifle bullets, something that helps her with initial nerves during the Pentathlon and completing the game on the second try. She also still wears a pin in her hair that doubles as a knife, something she's prepared to use to defend herself during the night riot.
  • Rock-Paper-Scissors: This game recurs in season two and is Played for Horror. The Salesman realizes that he has two loan sharks on his tail. They try to accost him with a knife and take him down for Gi-hun...and he kicks their asses, kidnaps and ties them up. While they're Bound and Gagged to chairs and facing each other, he makes them play Rock-Paper Scissors Minus One, which means playing with both hands and removing one. He also has a six-bullet gun with one loaded chamber which he spins during each turn. Losing or refusing to withdraw a hand means losing and being shot at; understandably, the two are terrified. After they miraculously go through multiple turns without dying, the Salesman adds four more bullets to his gun, ensuring that at least one of them will get shot soon. When it seems Woo-seok will lose, Jeong-rae chooses to disqualify himself to save his best friend. When Jun-ho rescues Woo-seok afterwards, he sobs to Gi-hun about it, asking why Jeong-rae chose not to play and save himself.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules:
    • 14 players in season one refuse to return to the Games after the group vote despite being in dire financial straits. They include Player 66, who bravely told the Guards that he didn't sign up to get shot in "Red Light, Green Light" and that they can't make four hundred and fifty-six bodies disappear overnight.
    • Season two has two examples:
      • The Broker refuses to take money if a smuggling operation is nigh-impossible or the extra funds aren't necessary. He tells Kang No-eul bluntly that her funding the rescue of her daughter is useless after he conducted an initial search because it's unlikely a one-year old survived on her own after No-eul was forced to abandon her during her defection. Meanwhile he updates Gi-hun and refuses the extra funds to get out Sae-byeok's mother saying that she has tuberculosis, meaning he's waiting for her to be healthy enough to make the trip.
      • Meanwhile, Kang No-eul, despite being good at executing players with brutal efficiency and marksmanship, shows distaste about doing it and prefers her regular job as a mascot at an amusement park. It doesn't pay much and she's homeless, but it's honest work that brings joy to children. Compared to the Salesman who shows a sadistic side off the clock, she's fine with living out of her car and has enough money to pay the Broker if there's even half a chance of rescuing her toddler daughter from North Korea. No-eul only returns to the Games when the Masked Guard says he has a lead on her daughter, which is a different matter from being paid for killing people. Even though the Masked Guard tells her to stop mercy-killing players that were eliminated and she could earn more money by joining the organ donation operation, No-eul refuses and cites per the terms of her contract, she was brought to shoot "losers" who would die more slowly on the streets. The other guards have to ambush her, beat her up and threaten to do worse to get her to stop constantly making sure the players in coffins are dead.
  • Security Cling: Played for Drama in season two during Mingle; Yong-sik and his mother hold onto each other so they don't get separated in the chaos of finding a group and a room. When it doesn't work during one round, Yong-sik is apologetic and sobbing after seeing his mother survived. He's got an even tighter grip on her when the circle starts spinning again, determined not to risk losing her again.
  • Sequel Hook:
    • With season two having received the greenlight, no pun intended, there are a lot of options, both in early episodes as well as the season one finale:
      • Gi-hun walks off the plane that would take him to see Ga-yeong and maybe a new life. He promises the Front Man over the phone that he will not forgive them for the people they killed, or the pain he suffered. The season two premiere confirms that he's spending his winnings either on helping find Sae-byeok's mother or tracking down the Salesman. Then he willingly reenters the Games in the hopes of giving his Strike Team a chance to find the island and stop them once and for all. When that plan fails, he focuses on keeping as many people alive as possible and staging a rebellion against the guards.
    • With the Host officially dead and gone, the Front Man has free reign to design the 2021 games as he sees fit, with no interference. He will likely have more safety measures against intruders this time. In an interesting twist, he decides to emulate his predecessor and enter the games as Player 001 so as to trip up Gi-hun and betray him when he decides to return to the Games.
      • The Salesman is still on the street, recruiting players with rounds of ddakji for the 2021 rounds of the game. Gi-hun runs to confront him but is too late, as the man smiles and waves to him from a departing train. The season two premiere shows how he's eluded Gi-hun's men, and does one last game with Gi-hun but its not ddakji; it's Russian Roulette!
      • We never actually saw Jun-ho's dead body when he fell into the water from the deserted island. The Front Man also aimed for the shoulder when he had a clear shot to the head, and asked his brother to surrender. Not to mention he sent the images and videos that he took to his boss, and even if they didn't send, smartphones save images up to remote clouds and servers. Someone could still find that data and use it to further their investigation, and the chief was trying to locate his distress signal. Season two confirms that he survived the shot and fall and made a full recovery. Currently he and Gi-hun have teamed up to take down the Games, with him serving as Gi-hun's backup on the mainland.
      • Heck, the Front Man's backstory. Somehow he went from being a winner of the game to the person running it five years later. His family also didn't notice that he went missing back in 2015, meaning that he was covering his tracks well. Sure enough, while season two hasn't fully explained how he went from winner to gamemaker, they do explain the reasons why he entered the Game and how it shaped his worldview. Season three goes further, explaining that the Host giving a Secret Test of Character was involved.
      • The VIPs mention offhand that countries have their own version of the games, but South Korea has the "best" one. Horror of the implications aside, that is a potential storyline that could be explored. David Fincher is working on a spinoff based on this idea, and the series ends with an American recruiter played by Cate Blanchett "playing" with a homeless dude.
    • Season three's Series Finale ends with a few though the show itself is over:
      • Currently the Front Man is a fugitive, as are the masked VIPs. Though he has enough money to travel incognito, there is always the slight chance that someone will recognize him and turn him in regardless of the country. At the least, the American recruiter locks eyes with him and smirks, showing she knows who he is.
      • Jun-ho receives Jun-hee's baby and a debit card with her winnings, courtesy of In-ho breaking into his apartment and leaving her on the dining room table. The ending is ambiguous if Jun-ho will adopt the child while using the funds to give her the best life possible, get her to a foster family that will take care of her, or use the account as a lead to find In-ho.
      • Meanwhile, Ga-yeong receives her father's bloodied jumpsuit and the debit card with his remaining "winnings." (How much is ambiguous since Gi-hun claims he withdrew it all so he could use it to destroy the Games.) She knows he's died thanks to In-ho but not how or why Gi-hun ghosted her. The box also has the Game logo on it, making her even more confused and concerned. And given she is a teen in 2020s Los Angeles with the American Recruiter a few blocks away...
  • Shadow Archetype: Yong-sik in season two to Gi-hun pre-Character Development in season one. Both were gamblers, deeply in debt to loan sharks, and indirectly endangering their mothers as a result. The difference is that Gi-hun initially voted to leave the games and only returned on finding out his mother didn't have enough money to pay for a life-saving operation thanks to him; Yong-sik votes to leave after the first game, but does so for the second because he lied to his mother about the number of debts he had. Geum-ja bluntly points out that the next game could kill one or both of them, and she says she would lose the will to live if anything happened to Yong-sik. Gi-hun even seems to note their similarities, which is why he and Young-il save Geum-ja during a round of Mingle where she and Yong-sik are separated. And when Yong-sik is sobbing and apologizing to Geum-ja, Gi-hun has a saddened look, thinking of his own mother dying alone in her apartment. Season 3 has this reach the ultimately tragic conclusion: while Gi-hun couldn't go through deceiving Il-nam after the latter talked sense into him during Marbles, leading to Il-nam having to give Gi-hun a Cooldown Hug to make him accept the win, Yong-sik becomes desperate enough to try to kill Jun-hee or her baby as time runs down during hide and seek. He has to kill one person or he dies. Though Geum-ja offers herself to her son instead, Yong-sik says he can't lose her again and advances on Jun-hee. Geum-ja is forced to stab Yong-sik with her hairpin knife, and futilely begs the Guards to not shoot him. She later hangs herself that night due to losing the will to live, though she makes Gi-hun promise to protect Jun-hee and her baby.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns:
    • Zigzagged in season one. Everyone assumes the guards executed Mi-nyeo for not having a partner, so she's not present at all during the fourth game. "Gganbu" also features the game where players have to defeat their partners in marbles and leave them to be shot. Turns out the Front Man spared Mi-nyeo since it wasn't her fault that the player who should have been her partner was executed for cheating. But Mi-nyeo is more somber the next episode after the guards called her "the weakest link" after escorting her to the barracks, and she's glaring at Deok-su for the rest of the evening. Mi-nyeo becomes serious, and ends up taking out Deok-su during the fifth game.
    • Played straight in season two. While Thanos has a body count and is a bully, he is Laughably Evil owing to being a Large Ham while high. The sign that the season finale will really get dark is when Myung-gi instigates a riot and fistfight against Thanos, and succeeds in stabbing him in the throat with a fork at the end of the sixth episode.
  • Sole Survivor: Even though the Games technically could have more than one winner, the records that Jun-ho finds show that the Game Makers manipulate circumstances for this trope.
    • In the Series Finale, only Gyeong-seok and Jun-hee's baby survive the Games. Gi-hun sacrifices his life so the baby wins, and In-ho kidnaps her for six months before giving her to Jun-ho. Gyeong-seok got lucky that his coworker at the amusement park was hired as a Triangle Guard, and she makes sure to shoot him nonlethally to "eliminate" him before rescuing him from being vivisected, treating his wound, and smuggling him off the island.
  • So Long, Suckers!: Gi-hun sees the Salesman playing ddakji again with another unlucky player. The Salesman sees him and quickly makes his exit after giving the business card. G-hun runs like hell, but he doesn't reach a departing train in time; the Salesman smiles and waves to him from the window.
  • Spotting the Thread: In season two, even though at first Jung-bae bonds with Young-il, he starts realizing the man isn't what he seems when they team up for the last round of Mingle. Namely that Young-il snapped a man's neck to ensure they had the right amount of people in their room. Most cops, even corruptible ones, aren't trained to do that. But Jung-bae comes to the other conclusion while Jung-bae stumbles over his words trying to explain to Gi-hun and Dae-ho; if Young-il is a threat, he'll go after Jung-bae if he says too much. So he hides his suspicions while everyone is getting food after Young-il votes to leave and smirks at him.
  • Standard Female Grab Area:
    • Justified in Season 2 when during the first round of Mingle, Hyun-ju grabs Seon-nyeo to hide with her team in a room since they need ten people. She's frozen from panic, Hyun-ju is former military, and soon she's running with Hyun-ju to save her own life.
    • Ironically, the final round has this for a Heroic BSOD Hyun-ju. She's not even trying to find a partner or room because she is overwhelmed with guilt and grief about Young-mi dying just minutes before, and knowing it's partly her fault for voting to stay. Gyeong-seok, who partnered with her and Young-mi when the number was three, grabs Hyun-ju's hand, yells at her to run with him, and drags her to a safety room before the timer runs out. Also justified because once he gets Hyun-ju moving, she's able to muster the will to save herself.
  • Stepford Smiler:
    • In season two, Young-mi is very open about being scared of dying in the Games when begging everyone to vote for X. But during Mingle, she puts on a chipper face while reassuring everyone in her team that they will all make it through alive by trusting each other. That chipper face doesn't last when, due to bad luck, she gets knocked down and can't make it to a safety room in time. Hyun-ju tries to rescue her, but Myung-gi shoves Hyun-ju and himself into the safety room just as the doors lock. All Young-mi can do is look through the window slot for comfort in her last moments while Hyun-ju futilely bangs at the door, crying Tears of Fear.
  • Suicide by Cop: Attempted by Gi-hun in season 3. When the Guards appear after returning his unconscious body to the barracks, Gi-hun confronts them demanding to know why he was allowed to live while every other rebel died (excluding Hyun-ju and Dae-ho). He even grabs one of their machine guns, points the muzzle at his head, and tries firing it. The Guards respond by pinning him to the floor and later handcuffing him to his bed.
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy:
    • This is one interpretation of In-ho's Face Heel Turn when he goes from a loving husband, honest policeman, and Cool Big Bro to the Front Man. He won his Games to save his sick wife and unborn child, only to arrive too late with the necessary funds. Given In-ho can kill a man in seconds, it's implied (and later confirmed) he was ruthless to win, justifying it that his wife is dying and needs him. So in-between grieving his wife and baby, isolating himself from his mom and brother despite them providing consistent emotional support, he allowed Il-nam to turn him into a Game Maker, the Front Man. In the present he insists that the Games are fair and no helping the players is allowed, that they are an opportunity for a desperate person to change their lives. Gi-hun calls bullshit on this when he remembers players like Ali and Sae-byeok, who died senselessly. (Never mind that Il-nam while playing the part of a sick elderly player with no family let Gi-hun move forward after Marbles, meaning Gi-hun won mostly due to luck.) Because his life ended up better with wealth and power, more than enough to both get his injured brother to the mainland discreetly while thwarting his investigation about the Games. If he admits his Games were All for Nothing, the way Gi-hun did about his, then it would mean taking responsibility for the sheer number of people he's killed both as a player and as the Front Man. And In-ho can't do that, advising Gi-hun to think of the Games as a dream. Season 3 has Gi-hun directly call out In-ho for this when he reveals he was Young-il, saying he wanted to corrupt Gi-hun to justify his actions.
    • Thanos is pretty much in this mindset for season two. He has a 1.19 billion won debt, meaning that the players would have to be greatly depleted before his winnings would clear that. But there's also an emotional aspect considering he does believe Gi-hun that everyone died during his games...and decides that since Gi-hun tried saving people during Red Light Green Light, he'll be obligated to continue keeping people alive. After Mingle, in an attempt to bully Min-su to change his vote, Thanos talks about how after he lost his fortune, he was about to jump off a bridge when the Salesman approached him. He said it felt like a sign, that if he plays in all the Games that he'll win back his fortune and make his mother proud. Never mind that Gi-hun knows that the later Games severely cut down numbers with at least one having no means of using brains or brawn to win. And never mind that Thanos could rebuild his career and finances better than everyone else, considering how many of the initial players are big fans. He chooses to stay because he thinks the Games are giving him a reason to live, and ironically he's the first casualty during the between-game riots.
  • Sympathy for the Devil: In season two, Gi-hun has this retroactively for Deok-su, Sang-woo, and everyone else who tried to kill him in the 2020 Games. Deok-su was a monster and a killer, but Gi-hun emphasizes that he didn't deserve to be treated like a horse for gambling when talking about the people that died playing for money. And Sang-woo, his childhood friend who became a killer in the last three games? Gi-hun still has nightmares about failing to save him and Sae-byeok.
  • Taught By Experience:
    • Part of the reason why Gi-hun struggles against the Game Makers in season two is because they've learned from the mistakes that allowed Jun-ho to infiltrate their ranks. They make sure to have snipers guarding the limo that Gi-hun enters with the Front Man, and wires Jun-ho's car with a bomb when he attempts to follow. None of Gi-hun's strike team even makes it close to any docks, so they can't get a lead on where the boats containing the players go. All of the guards have security cameras installed in their rooms so that those on surveillance duty would notice suspicious behavior. And the icing on the cake? In-ho himself infiltrates the games to befriend Gi-hun, so as to know exactly what he's planning.
    • Combined with This Is Gonna Suck, Season 2 Episode 3 has Gi-hun take charge when the players are forced to play "Red Light, Green Light" like they did in the season 1 premiere. He shouts at everyone the stakes, and emphasizes they must not move at all. He makes sure not to face the doll while first talking to them, so she can't see his lips and thus trigger her sensors. When he finally does face forward, he uses his arm to cover his mouth, so he can keep warning the others. While people are skeptical and asking if he's drunk or high since in their experience no one has died playing "Red Light, Green Light," they listen to him when he shouts at them to freeze every time the music stops. Jung-bae briefly wonders why Gi-hun is not moving with them, but Gi-hun snaps at him to not move, only going forward when everyone has gone past him. And the ones that don't panic on seeing the murder definitely listen when seeing Player 196 as a casualty due to the bad luck of a bee landing on her neck, causing her to briefly panic and get shot. As a result, while 255 people died in the first game, 91 people die this time. Which is still bad, but a vast improvement, and Gi-hun makes sure no one alive is left behind on the field.
  • This Is Gonna Suck:
    • One unlucky player has this reaction during the "Red Light, Green Light" Game after the timer runs out and he's forced to freeze a few feet from the finish line. He looks at the doll with a resigned expression before turrets mow down those left on the field.
    • Several players have disappointed reactions when learning they chose difficult shapes for the dalgona challenge. When Gi-hun realizes he has to cut out an umbrella intact, he stares into the camera with the Vertigo Effect and says, "I'm fucked."
    • Sang-woo suspects that the third game will require strength; he's not impressed when realizing their team has three women and an old man. Gi-hun points out that girls may be useful if they're doing jacks or jumprope, games that strong men may not necessarily know. Then the teams are led to a large room with two platforms high in the air, and the head Pink Guard reveals that the challenge will be tug-of-war. Sang-woo's face falls as he hates to admit he was right. Cue the rest of his team having this expression as they look back at each other, including the normally-stoic Ali. Mi-nyeo gives an uncharacteristic, "Damn it. All men" when she sees their opponents in the second round.
    • Team 7 in tug-of-war all share this expression when they have to go up against Deok-su's team. They know they are dead, especially their leader.
  • This Is No Time to Panic:
    • The old man says this to Gi-hun's team during Tug-of-War when they have to face a team made of able-bodied men. He says that he always won in tug-of-war, and you can use your brains and strategy to combat brawn. While one grumpy teammate tells him to save his strength, Gi-hun asserts they have nothing to lose by listening to the old man.
    • In season two, Young-il says this to Gi-hun and Jung-bae when everyone learns the next game is Mingle. Since it will be chaos to form the right number of people within a time limit and their lives on the line, they must absolutely keep a clear head. After a few stressful rounds where the players learn you get shot if you're locked out or have the wrong number of people in a room, he even cracks a few jokes about Jun-hee's baby being a sixth member to ease everyone's nerves and prepare for the next round.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Ultimately, Seon-nyeo in season 3. When Jeong-dae leaves her to die, she encounters a drugged Sanity Slippage Min-su who asks with a Thousand-Yard Stare where Se-mi is. Rather than either say nothing or try to talk down Min-su since he doesn't seem to want to attack her and the time limit is almost over, Seon-nyeo starts a The Reason You Suck Speech about how he leeches off other people. Min-su hallucinates her turning into Nam-gyu, who taunts Min-su for letting him kill Se-mi, and slashes. Then he sees Seon-nyeo as Se-mi, asking why he did it before the light leaves her eyes.
  • Troll: In season two, the Front Man as Young-il does this to mess with Gi-hun. He set up the games but plays the part of a player that asks Gi-hun about his experience. Young-il aka In-ho knows very well that the next game won't be dalgona but he asks about which shape is the best one to choose. Then during the Pentathlon, he deliberately messes up his part with the top to run down the clock, only to save Gi-hun with Jengi so that the five of them won't get shot.
  • Villain's Dying Grace: At the end of season one, Il-nam stops Gi-hun from drinking alone in the cold on Christmas Eve, using a flower lady to invite him to a well-heated penthouse. He points out someone else who was also drinking and has succumbed to the elements. Note that Il-nam had already "died" once in the Games, leaving Gi-hun with the memories (and guilt) of a dying but otherwise sweet and brave old man. Revealing the truth-- that he was the creator of the Games and lied to Gi-hun about everything-- destroyed those memories but saved Gi-hun's life. Their conversation before Il-nam dies for real also snaps Gi-hun out of their Heroic BSOD.
  • Villainous Valor:
    • Season one:
      • It's implied that while the Front Man planned to spare Il-nam from being killed, it's not what Il-nam wanted. He tells Gi-hun on his deathbed that the first four challenges could have killed him. It says something that Il-nam was the one who rallied everyone during tug-of-war and gave them the strategy that provided an initial lead.
    • Season Two:
      • When Gi-hun hires Jeong-rae to find the Salesman, Jeong-rae insists on bringing Woo-seok with him on their rounds. Why? Because he wants to split the bonus money with his best friend, who recently got married. That is quite honorable considering Jeong-rae says more of his creditors have been disappearing which has hurt his bottom line. And when forced to choose between sacrificing Woo-seok or himself during a Deadly Game of Rock, Paper Scissors minus one, Jeong-rae chooses to save Woo-seok.
      • Woo-seok is given the billion won bonus promised for finding the Front Man... and he says that's not enough because he wants revenge on the game makers for indirectly killing his best friend Kim Jeong-rae. Though he dislikes cops, he agrees to work with Jun-ho to find the island, stop the games once and for all to avenge his friend. He also helps hire the mercenaries and strike teams since he's got Jeong-rae's contacts and resources.
    • Credit to Jeong-dae in season two that whenever he has to complete a physical challenge, he consistently avoids being The Load and pulls his own weight while serving as one faction leader for the O side. He also never gets people killed by accident. Thanos also avoids this, but he does get people killed during Red Light, Green Light and Mingle.
  • We Are Not Going Through That Again: Part of Gi-hun's season one trauma was finding out his childhood friend had become a ruthless killer, and the choice in the final Game was either kill Sang-woo or invoke the group vote so they could go home. Despite Gi-hun's attempts to stop the Game and go home with Sang-woo, Sang-woo opted to slit his throat so Gi-hun would win by default. When Gi-hun learns in season two that his other friend Jung-bae was recruited, he orders Jung-bae to stay close to him and allies with him at every turn to not lose another loved one. Unfortunately, all his efforts come for naught as the Front Man shoots Jung-bae as punishment for Gi-hun staging a rebellion.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Season two has Jun-ho acknowledge that he and In-ho are now enemies by default, after he spent season one trying to either rescue or avenge his brother while investigating his disappearance. It comes out that In-ho entered the games to save his wife from dying of liver disease after he lost his police cop job accepting bribes to pay for her healthcare, only to arrive home too late. Jun-ho takes time to leave flowers by his sister-in-law's grave while being resigned that to stop the Games, he has to help Gi-hun take his brother down.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
    • Given that Gi-hun as a winner of the games still has a tracking chip behind his ear and his movements tracked up until Gi-hun removed the chip at the airport, it's not explained why the Front Man didn't just have him killed during the two-year Time Skip, or if he did try and Gi-hun due to taking a level in badass has been thwarting the attempts. But then during the games, with the Front Man posing as Player 001, he actually saves Gi-hun's life at several points while pretending to be his ally and when having him at his mercy, refuses to kill him in the season two finale.
    • Also happens with the Salesman. He manages to find Gi-hun's motel hideout after interrogating a captive Woo-seok. And he's prepared to fire at Gi-hun, revealing he used to be a guard in the game who shot his own father. But then Gi-hun leans into the muzzle of the gun, daring him to do it with a deadened look in his eye. So... the Salesman suggests they play a game of Russian Roulette instead. Gi-hun wins without even trying.
    • Gi-hun tries defying this in season two. He arms himself with a gun while tracking down the Salesman and tries shooting the Front Man after securing an audience with him in a pink limo. The Front Man talks from the front passenger seat through a dividing screen, so Gi-hun attempts to shoot that area. Turns out the dividing screen is bulletproof, causing his shots to ricochet. Gi-hun doesn't dare risk this again since there's a high chance the bullet could hit him and render his efforts All for Nothing. So he asks to be put in the Games again, to prove the Front Man wrong that people deserve them.
    • Later on in Season 3, when In-ho reveals his identity and a Secret Test of Character to Gi-hun to either kill the other players with a knife or play the final Games with them to save himself and Jun-hee's baby, Gi-hun threatens to gut In-ho instead in revenge for Jung-bae and the others he betrayed. In-ho points out that even if Gi-hun succeeded in overpowering him, a big if since they both know In-ho is a skilled fighter, the VIPs would just choose another Front Man and Gi-hun would be back at square one.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Season one has loan shark Kim Jeong-rae chasing down Gi-hun and beating him to a pulp, not even needing his extra men to pose as a threat. It's implied that Woo-seok, his Number Two and best friend, is just as dangerous. In season two, Gi-hun pays them and Jeong-rae's men to find the Salesman with a promised bonus. Gi-hun does warn them do not engage because he can personally say the Salesman is dangerous. When they finally do find and corner him, Jeong-rae reasons that it's a two-on-one fight, they have knives, and the guy doesn't seem to have weapons. Good thinking... except the Salesman has his briefcase. He curbstomps them with little effort, kidnaps and ties them up for a Deadly Game. Shows the guy is a bigger threat than he seemed in season one.
    • Similarly, Thanos and Nam-gyu are beating up Myung-gi for the crime of recommending the Dalmatian coin and being unwilling to apologize or offer to pay them back. In-ho as Young-il gets tired of seeing this during mealtime and asks the "kids" to cool it. Then Thanos tells Young-il to save the lecture for his own kids...not knowing that In-ho lost his wife and unborn baby eight years ago. Cue a Curb-Stomp Battle where Young-il wins against the two without even trying, earning a round of applause in the barracks.
  • You Bastard: Season 1 Episode 7 reveals that VIPs have been watching the games remotely from a screen. They've been placing bets on who's going to win and who will die, much as television viewers might when watching survival horror. Hey, wait a minute...
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: For all the efforts in Season 2 Episode 3 for Gi-hun to warn everyone that they need to vote to go home, that their lives aren't worth this because there will only be one winner and most of them will die, the vote is split and In-ho as Player One breaks the tie, forcing them to stay.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Let's just say in season 2 that allying with Thanos is a bad idea for this reason. He promises to protect you but ditches you the minute that you're no longer useful. Especially shown during Mingle when he literally kicks Gyeong-su out of their group and later encourages Min-su to abandon Se-mi, only to ditch Min-su later. Note that Gyeong-su and Se-mi in the Deleted Scenes were actually the most competent members of his team during the Pentathlon.
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