Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for ‘Squid Game’ Season 3.Life and death is the core theme ofSquid Game, as the competition literally sees players fighting for their survival. With the knowledge thatSeason 3 would be the show’s final one, it was evident that most of the show’s cast likely wouldn’t make it, andshocking and heartbreaking deaths were imminent. However, there was the added facet of this cast carrying over from Season 2, meaning viewers had a pre-existing connection to them, somethingSquid Gamehadn’t done in its previous seasons.
Even knowing what was coming, Season 3 ofSquid Gamepresentedsome of themost traumatic and unexpected deathsin the show’s history,with betrayals and upsets coming from every angle. It made for a difficult watch but sums up the thematic relevance ofSquid Game. The show has always been a bleak examination of human nature,showing how power and confrontation of one’s own mortality causes people to behave irrationally.Squid Gamehas never pretended to be a light-hearted viewing experience and only amped up the stakes on its farewell lap.
Squid Game
Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children’s games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits with deadly high stakes: a survival game that has a whopping 45.6 billion-won prize at stake.
13Im Jeong-dae (Player 100)
Played by Song Yong-chang
No one deserves to die inSquid Game,but if there was an award for the most satisfying downfall, that would go to Player 100 (Song Yong-chang) easily. Throughout the competition,he is focused solely on the prize pot and sees people purely as sums of money to be gained. When people succeed in challenges, he is visibly disappointed and manages to play a hand in a number of deaths even if he wasn’t the man holding the knife.
Im Jeong-dae acts as a representation of the most villainous response to life or death…
When he is pushed to his death in Sky Squid Game,there is a sense of relief that a man with such ill-intentions will not gain any share of the prize fund. Im Jeong-dae acts as a representation of the most villainous response to life or death, placing no moral value on any of the other players.
12Park Yeong-gil
Played by Oh Dal-su
Yeong-gil (Oh Dal-su), also known as Captain Park, is a vital aspect of one ofSquid Game’s sub-plots as he helps Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) search for the island where the competition is held. However,it is revealed that he is a secret informant who has actually been ensuring the location isn’t uncovered. When his position is exposed, he goes on a massacre and harrowingly kills most of his crew.
Captain Park is stabbed in the back literally to reflect how Jun-ho feels he was stabbed in the back with the betrayal.
Any heartbreak at his death comes from Jun-ho’s realization that his plan to locate Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and the games was always destined to fail. Captain Park is stabbed in the back literally to reflect how Jun-ho feels he was stabbed in the back with the betrayal.It is not a particularly emotional death for the audiencebut offers a huge amount of explanation and narrative significance.
11Kim Gi-min (Player 203)
Played by Choi Gwi-hwa
Gi-Min (Choi Gwi-hwa) plays a much more significant role in Season 3 ofSquid Game, andhis death is also hugely significant as he isthe last player killed directly by Gi-hun. Although not much is known about him, in Sky Squid Game, he shares the aim of most of the group of simply surviving at all costs. Gi-Min’s most notable act occurs in Hide and Seek when he kills Player 172, inadvertently saving Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), who lacked the courage to kill the player himself and ended up facing death.
Gi-Min’s most notable act occurs in Hide and Seek when he kills Player 172…
The emotion in his death comes from seeing the brutality of his actions, overwhelming Gi-hun, with tears filling his eyes. There is no real connection to Gi-min, but in that moment,Gi-hun has come so far from who he was at the start of the games, and he realizes he has seen everyone he has grown close to die once again.
10Seon-nyeo (Player 044)
Played by Chae Kook-hee
Seon-nyeo (Chae Kook-hee) is a complicated character, not necessarily likable but definitely not wholly villainous.Her gray sense of morality is largely due to her desire to survive, but her ability to foresee events using unknown forces makes her incredibly complex. Her commitment to religion allows her to gather supporters during the game, creating a sense of hope despite the surrounding horrors. This is particularly prominent in Hide and Seek, when it appears Seon-nyeo is guiding these followers to salvation.
Despite her selfishness, her death is still tinged with sadness…
However, the group is ambushed andSeon-nyeo doesn’t hesitate to save herself and leaves the others to be brutally killed. Despite her selfishness, her death is still tinged with sadness, as she leads Player 100 to the exit only for him to take one of the keys and slam the door in her face. She is killed by an intoxicated Min-su (Lee David) who mistakenly hallucinates that she is Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won) following her vile insults towards him. In the end, the focus of Seon-nyeo’s death is Min-su, and any sense of melancholy centers around his character arc rather than hers.
9Lee Myung-gi (Player 333)
Played by Im Si-wan
Myung-gi (Im Si-wan) isn’t a bad person, and in a way feels like a similar character to Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) from Season 1, simply doing all he can to survive and knowing violence may be his only chance. Though, unbeknownst to most of the other players,he has a secondary motivation other than his own survival as the father of Jun-hee’s (Jo Yu-ri) baby. Throughout, he places her survival at the top of his priorities and manages to successfully keep her alive despite the odds until Jump Rope.
Myung-gi represents the ugly truth of a broken system…
The game drives him to hysteria, as he becomes willing to sacrifice his own child for his own survival. Any good he has done quickly unravels and the cruel reality of how the Squid Game’s manipulation of life and death messes with a person’s decision-making becomes clear. Myung-gi represents the ugly truth of a broken system, and his death could’ve been prevented if he had thought with more clarity.
8Nam-gyu (Player 124)
Played by Roh Jae-won
Initially inseparable from Thanos (T.O.P), Nam-gyu’s death in Season 3 serves as an example of the dangers and inescapability of addiction. Following Thanos' death,Nam-gyu becomes reliant on his pills that are stored in the now iconic cross necklace. Taking these pills makes him manic and unhinged, but they allow him to transcend the danger of the games and act without fear. However, the come-down becomes a huge issue as Nam-gyu becomes anxious and unsteady.
…Nam-gyu’s death in Season 3 serves as an example of the dangers and inescapability of addiction.
After preying on Min-su’s conformity, Nam-gyu suffers the consequence as Min-su throws the cross necklace onto the jump rope platform, forcing a declining Nam-gyu to retrieve it. Despite his villainous arc,there is something heartbreaking about watching him open the empty locket and look back helplessly. He is merely a product of the system, becoming vicious as a means to survive and eventually losing control because of addiction. Whilst his death is nowhere near as sad as other characters, there is still a sense of woe in what he became.
7Park Yong-sik (Player 007)
Played by Yang Dong-geun
Yong-sik was characterized by his perceived cowardice fueled by his over-reliant personality. It is this excessive nature that caused him to rack up a huge debt from gambling, but also helped shape his intense loyalty and love for his mom, Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim). Throughout, he is shown to be good-natured but self-destructive, often doubting himself and struggling to retain any sense of agency. His fatal character flaw set up his downfall:after swapping with his mother to become a seeker in Hide and Seek and realizing he had to kill another player to survive.
…Before he can inflict the deadly strike, Yong-sik feels a knife in his own back.
Unlike other more self-assured game players, Yong-sik was visibly shaken up by the thought of stabbing another human, ruminating on the consequences as he shuffled round the maze. With the clock ticking down, he was faced with his own mortality and decided to target Jun-hee, despite his mother begging him to stab her instead. However, before he can inflict the deadly strike, Yong-sik feels a knife in his own back. Tears form as he turns to see the perpetrator is his own mother. Although it seems clear Yong-sik did not have the character to surviveSquid Game,seeing his own mother choose to save a new motherand inadvertently cause her own son’s death is harrowing to watch. He grew so much throughout the show, but ultimately his meekness cost him his life.
6Park Min-Su (Player 125)
Played by Lee David
Despite his incredibly submissive and timid persona, Min-su makes it all the way to the final of Squid Game. However, he shows a great sense of growth through his manipulation of Nam-gyu. Still, in the final game, Sky Squid Game,his inexperience and fear are hugely prominent as he begins to hallucinate dead players Thanos and Nam-gyu, who taunt him from beyond the grave. His limited screen time means his death is as hard-hitting on the whole as others, but his final moments are particularly tragic.
Even after everything he has gone through, Min-su is still defenseless in the face of danger and seen as an easy target.
Just before his death,he stood helpless at the platform edge, shaking and tripping over his words. Even after everything he has gone through, Min-su is still defenseless in the face of danger and seen as an easy target. In his final moments, he sees a vision of Se-mi (Won Ji-an), his closest ally in the games, who was killed due to Min-su’s ability to fight back. She serves as a manifestation of his guilt, and guiding Min-su to the other side and forgiving him offers a sense of peace in his death.
5Kang Dae-ho (Player 388)
Played by Kang Ha-neul
Dae-Ho’s (Kang Ha-neul) character arc is incredibly tragic, which consequently makes his death difficult to stomach. Throughout Season 2,he is portrayed as calm and disciplined as well as having a grounded moral compassthat values utilitarianism, shown by his desire to tell everyone about the second game. However, during the revolt, his childhood trauma rears its head as it is revealed he likely came from a family with an abusive father, and seeing a corpse causes him to turn defensive and hide.
Seeing the honest and loyal Dae-ho punished for perceived cowardice, which was actually deep-seated trauma, feels brutal enough.
The friendship and respect he had for Gi-hun immediately fades as the latter blames Dae-ho for Jung-bae’s (Lee Seo-hwan) death.In Hide and Seek, Dae-ho is chased by Gi-Hun and eventually strangled to death. The pair have a moment where Dae-ho attempts to convince Gi-hun that the failed revolt cannot be put down to a singular failure, but if it was, it would be Gi-hun. Seeing the honest and loyal Dae-ho punished for perceived cowardice, which was actually deep-seated trauma, feels brutal enough. However, it is seeing the shift in Gi-hun as he kills one of his closest allies that makes this death hit even harder.
4Cho Hyun-Ju (Player 120)
Played by Park Sung-hoon
Hyun-Ju (Park Sung-hoon) wasone of the most selfless and supportive players inSquid Game, keeping these traits right up until her death. Despite her clear physical skills, thanks in part to her military background, her personal experience with othering due to the discrimination she faced following her transition meant she prioritized looking out for other excluded players over her own assured safety.
Myung-gi stabs Hyun-ju, perceiving her as a potential threat and not realizing she is protecting his baby’s mother…
This mindset is clear in the way she died, as she heartbreakingly discovers the exit to Hide and Seek but turns back to save Geum-ja and Jun-hee, knowing both are too weak to look after themselves. Rushing back to help them, her survival instincts seem to dissipate due to the overwhelming feeling of finding salvation. She lets her accuracy drop, standing with her back to the doorway and exposing herself for attack. Myung-gi stabs Hyun-ju, perceiving her as a potential threat and not realizing she is protecting his baby’s mother, Jun-hee. Hyun-ju died attempting to save others, showing her altruistic nature. ThroughoutSquid Game, she was one of the most likable players due to this desire to do what is right andseeing her die in such a heroic way is a heartbreaking representation that humanitarianism was never going to prevailin the environment ofSquid Game.
