MovieChat Forums > Ojing-eo geim (2021) Discussion > PLOTHOLES

PLOTHOLES

posted 3 years ago by FreeTThinker (14)
8 replies | jump to latest

I love the show a lot. When I love a show, I do this thing where I nitpick it and identify all plot-holes. To others, it seems like I’m insulting the show. To me, it’s just a fun way to examine and process what I watched. It also gives me the opportunity to imagine alternative endings. It’s all in good fun! Of course, on Reddit, any opinion outside of the status quo is downvoted and the poster is berated as stupid for daring to have an original thought. And also, mob mentality kicks in when everyone else sees the poster getting chewed out for daring to think differently, and that’s all a very toxic dynamic, so I stay away from Reddit. But here at MovieChat, I can tell all different opinions are welcome, which is great. So without further TO DO, here are the biggest issues I saw with ‘SQUID GAME’ . . .
1. The protagonist.

At the very beginning of the show, the protagonist, Gi Hun, is a gambling addict who cares about only himself. Throughout the show, it seems that his character development is very inconsistent. Throughout the first five games, he witnesses 452 people being slaughtered, 11 of which he was directly responsible. After the fourth game, player 69 votes to put an end to the games. This was a perfect opportunity for Gi Hun to say:

“Yeah, I agree with you there. 439 people just died, many of which I felt close to, and this is too much. The chances of many of us continuing to die is very big, and I want to quit. I’m on your side, player 69! Let’s end the games”
But Gi Hun said nothing of the sort. In fact, judging by his facial expressions, it seemed like he was not even remotely considering it. At this point, he witnessed HUNDREDS perish—Yet he wanted to keep playing. Just 17 players remained, and he wanted to continue. But afterwards, towards the end of the glass tiles game, only 4 people remained out of the original bunch. His childhood friend, Sang Woo, pushed a player to his death, which allowed the remaining players to cross the bridge at THE LAST SECOND. This supports the argument that if Sang Woo did not push the player, everyone would have died. He did what was necessary to survive.

And for SOME REASON, after witnessing the deaths of HUNDREDS, this one death seemed to push him over the edge. And it didn’t only push him over to edge in the sense that it made him mad. It pushed him over the edge to the point where he was inclined to KILL HIS CHILDHOOD FRIEND. This is inconsistent with his character arch.

Throughout the first four games, him and Sang Woo were friends. We, the audience, began to learn of Sang Woo’s ruthlessness. But from Gi Hun’s perspective, he did not witness any. Gi Hun went from 0 to 100. It really makes no sense. Throughout the games, he valued human life and did whatever he could to preserve it. It makes no sense that an empathetic character would suddenly want to kill his childhood friend for such a small infraction, considering the circumstances. To me, this is a plot-hole, and it is indicative of bad writing. They could have made it so that Gi Hun witnessed some of Sang Woo’s ruthlessness. At least at that point, wanting to murder him would have made sense. But in this case, it did not.

I also find it a little odd how Gi Hun seemed to suddenly develop a bond with Sae Byok. At the beginning, she steals a large sum of money from him, which almost gets him killed. And he is still mad about it for a while. And then, as time goes by, he forgives her misdeed. This, I understand. But what I don’t understand is his closeness to her after game five. Throughout the show, they had no bonding moments at all. They merely co-existed with each other. In fact, after she “joins the team”, the only exclusive interaction between them is when she loaned him her water bottle. There were also smaller moments like helping him with the first tile and acknowledging that he didn’t want a female partner. I didn’t see a reason for him to be as close with her as he was. It didn’t make much sense. It would have made more sense if they had one or two scenes where they bonded somehow, but they did not.

2. THE THIRD CLAUSE

Another big plot-hole was that the Third Clause was only invoked at the very beginning and the very end of the games. To me, this makes no sense at all. Some people on Reddit made the dumbest excuses for the players not attempting to end the game at certain points. One excuse I heard a lot was “sunk cost fallacy” but that makes no sense.

Sure, sunk cost fallacy would qualify in many situations. But when you’re about to die because of a cookie, that all goes out the window. At the end of the day, human beings are hardwired to survive. The will to live on trumps EVERYTHING. You don’t just die because you’re thinking of how much you invested in a situation. If you’re literally about to die because you’ll lose a game of marbles, your natural instincts will be to evaluate HOW you can possibly survive. You are NOT just going to say to yourself:

“Okay, well I lost the marble

[–] FreeTThinker (14) 3 years ago

POST CONTINUED HERE (did not know the posts had a character limit)

game. I guess I’m just going to die. This is the end.”

And then just allow it to happen. No way. Would you just accept death? If you were in Squid Game and lost the marble game? Or would you do ANYTHING to survive? Of course, you’d do anything to survive.

The way I see it, the fact that no one tried to invoke Clause Three to save their own lives can only be explained away by acknowledging that it’s a flaw in the writing.

I swear to God, the 20-year-old Millennials on Reddit who apparently don’t have common sense about life, keep hanging onto “sunk cost fallacy” and they think they’re so smart when they explain it away like this, but they come across as very naïve.

Not to mention the glass bridge. . . Imagine you were in this game and you were at Game 5, the GLASS BRIDGE. Imagine how much some people freak out over heights. Now imagine you’re player 1 on the glass bridge. . . And it’s not a normal bridge with railings. No railings. Just plates that you must JUMP ONTO. The ones that hold people are not even that strong, and half of them won’t hold anyone. You have a 1 in 34,000 chance of making it. At that point, would ‘sunk cost fallacy’ apply to you? Would you say to yourself “Oh well, I already put so much into this that I’ll just take the 1 in 34,000 chances.” Or would you end the game to survive? I think the answer is clear here and I think it’s very unrealistic that in the show, NO PLAYER EVEN TRIED TO END THE GAME. This just goes against human nature. When characters are written to do things against human nature, it’s bad writing.

Here’s what I would do. As soon as I realized how the game worked, I would realize that the first 12 players are essentially sacrificial lambs of the game. I would then tell all the first people to wait, explain to them quickly what this meant for us and that our chances of survival were non-existent, and that we need the game to end NOW. HOPEFULLY, my fellow

[–] FreeTThinker (14) 3 years ago

continued AGAIN (Goodness, they don't give you enough room to write anything!!!!)

teammates would be of sound and rational mind and would invoke clause 3. I would also be ANGRY BEYOND BELIEF at the people who make the game. Because with every other game, all the players had a decent shot at winning. Game 5 seemed like a middle finger to the players. And I’d be pissed off. I’d feel like I just went through ALL OF THAT just to be told that at game 5, my chances are 1 in 34,000. I’d be angry at the ones who make the game, I’d end it, and I’d never come back.

So that’s it. Those are the major plot-holes I saw in ‘SQUID GAME’ . . . All in all, it’s a great show. But it’s far from perfect.

[–] MrEdofCourse (33) 2 years ago

These aren't plot holes.

You may say that you'd do something different from the characters, or even that you don't believe the characters would've committed the actions as portrayed in the show, but that's not a plot hole.

Additionally, I think one key point you're missing is that almost all of them are semi-suicidal. Their lives have been financially ruined. They had the opportunity to no longer play the games and they returned. Sang Woo is even given the choice at the very end. He can say he votes to end the games, but instead he kills himself.

Looking at the bridge game...

So put yourself in the mind of the players. You're experiencing financial ruin, to the degree that you might not survive anyway (loan sharks). You went and experienced game 1 where half the people died. You were given a chance to leave, and you returned knowing that in all likelihood of the people who returned, 1 at most, might survive.

You're taking a 1/250 chance of surviving to begin with, most likely aren't math savvy to think how hard the bridge is to cross. Even if you do get the math, even if you don't want to commit suicide, you're still looking at telling the players behind you to vote to quit or push you to your death. I'm not sure you'd necessarily get the answer you're looking for.

[–] asom (6511) 2 years ago

No plot holes here.

Just that you would do things differently, while you're not even in their situation ...

[–] donotwantto (17) 2 years ago

I agree that it's not really plot holes, a character behaving in a way that might not be reasonable is another matter than a plot hole, but whatever...

I kind of took for granted that voting on wether or not to end it all was only an option between games, never during a game. But then again there was that moment in the final game when he wanted to put it to a vote again and they allowed it, but at that moment they were already about to kill the loser of the game so it's arguable if that should really count as being during the game.

I also think he had some suspicions regarding the shapes in the sugar game, that his friend might have known what the game was and that the umbrella was a bad choice. I don't recall exactly but I think there was a moment when it was implied he knew or at least suspected. So in that case he isn't really going from 0 to 100.

Also, you're forgetting that 14 contestants (I think 14) decided not to come back so your numbers of people killed aren't quite right.

[–] Ace_Spade (9361) 2 years ago

Plot Hole 1:

I think your interpretation of Gi-Hun's character arc is very different from mine.

I agree with the start: he's selfish, a compulsive gambler, and so forth. I differ a tad: he does care about other people, he's just stuck in this depression/poverty spiral. He does care about his daughter, his mother, his cousin's mom, etc. - he just hasn't the means to help.

But, okay, so he goes to the games, votes out, and goes back because he gets his separation from his daughter and his mother's health underlined.

While at the games, I see him becoming more altruistic. He's less concerned about himself only or winning money and more concerned with Player 1, his cousin, Ali, North Korean Girl, and so forth. He tries to get people to compete nicely and play together, he wants little conflict. He's still too timid and too selfish, but he's learning. We see him warm to the North Korean girl throughout, for instance.

There are two big turning points. The first is the marble game. After that game, his sadness is much greater, but I think he's more resigned than ever to make these efforts mean something. He wants to be part of a group that wins the cash and does something good with it.

The second point is after the glass bridge. That's when he realises his cousin's betrayal. He unleashes the pent-up anger and sorrow as his cousin demonstrates the same barbaric thinking patterns Gi-Hun has been moving away from the whole games.

He is about to kill the cousin to prevent the cousin from killing somebody else. After that, he isn't intending to kill him. He stops and wants to pull the plug.

This arc seems reasonable to me. We see him move away from selfishness and towards being a team-player, even as everyone else crumbles those very concepts.

[–] Ace_Spade (9361) 2 years ago

Plot Hole 2:

That brings us to "The Third Clause".

Up until the marble game, I think people weren't as upset about the deaths. Illusion of invulnerability, sunk costs - lots of mental gymnastics, but I think the players were all hung up by various mental processes that made them want to keep going. Some are more understandable than others. The thug and the crazy lady, for instance, are clearly selfish and think of themselves as "winners", so they aren't as worried about dying. They think they'll just out guile and out fight everybody.

After the marble game, it's clear that they are all much more depressed, but it still would take effort to stand up and call for a vote. The husband does, because his sorrow is so brutally high, so why does nobody else join in?

I think they all have their reasons.

Gi-Hun is too upset to really act. The cousin, the thug, the crazy lady - all too greedy.

I think a big reason why the show didn't have multiple votes is because each would turn into a debate about quitting or continuing. The show must go on, as it were, so the vote would have to fail, but do we really want to see that at the end of every episode? It would become tedium. We'd get a scene where several people want to vote, and the thug would bully them out of it, or the cousin would reason them out of it, or whatever. It'd just be the same thing again and again. I'd rather the plot move forward without that.

[–] Ace_Spade (9361) 2 years ago

So, I do disagree with you on the plot holes. I perceive Gi-Hun's character development differently, and while I understand that the third clause lack of invocation is a bit of a hiccough, it's just more practical to not pump it every episode only to come up with new reasons why they're staying. I, as an audience member, don't want the thing to just abruptly end, after all.

The one thing that did occur to me, though, is why more people didn't try to attack the guards.

We see it once, after the sugar cookie game. But nobody tries it again. And, okay, it doesn't end well for that guy, but literal gun to their heads, nobody tries to wrestle it away?

Particularly in the marble game, I thought it was just odd. They're in a situation where they're asked to murder their closest in-games companion. Why not rush them? Or you're in this zone with narrow streets and lots of corners and alleys and cover. Why not take the chance? This was especially weird with the other mob goon guy who lost out to the head thug. The split second that marble goes in the hole, why not tackle the gun guy hovering over them and try to grab the pistol? If you get it, you blow the guard's head off and start working your way through the maze, capping as many as you can, grabbing more pistols and sub-machine guns.

When it's a bunch of barrels sticking out of the wall (Red Light, Green Light) there's nothing to be done. When it's a guy two feet away with a pistol, take him out.