That core message? That basically we're all selfish shits down to our core, almost willing to do anything in order to 'win' - or just survive.
Many folk have written about this show, there are millions of new memes feeding off the back of some of the more notable moments, so I'll warn you now that there are spoilers ahead so if you've yet to watch it, come back after you have and have a natter about it.
SPOILER WARNING ENDS
The show sets up a main character who, at first, you feel very little empathy towards. Seong Gi-hun (456) is a loser. Divorced from his wife, seeing his daughter once a year on her birthday, he's a chauffer and gambling addict, mooching off his mum and in serious debt to a bunch of violent loan sharks. As his life spirals downwards, he meets a stranger on the subway platform one evening who makes him a tempting offer to take part in a "game" where he could effectively wipe out his debts and set himself up for life.
Others are also drafted in similar ways, including his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (218) - an investment banker who is up to his eyes in criminal embezzlement, and an old man Oh Il-nam (001) who suffers from dementia, and a crippling brain tumour, who enters the game to go out on one last high adventure before he succumbs to his disease.
As the story unfolds, Seong Gi-Hun is picked up by the organisers of the game, gassed (to hide the location of the games themselves) and wakes up inside a huge dormitory with over 400 other participants.
Before long, the first game begins and it's a simple childhood game called "Red Light, Green Light" (brit folk might also recognise the basic gameplay in "What's the time, Mr Wolf?"
A giant robotic figure of a little girl stands at one side of the gameplay arena. Participants have a time limit to reach the other side of the playing field to stay in the game. When the giant figure shouts "Red Light" all participants must freeze where they are, and any movement detected will eliminate that player from the game. When the figure shouts "Green Light" everyone can run as fast as they can to reach the other side.
Most of the participants smile at the simplicity of the game until the first player is eliminated - by being shot by snipers. The terror of their predicament hits home, and players desperately struggle to reach the other side in time with Seong-Gi Hun narrowly avoiding death by being saved by another player Abdul Ali (199), forging an alliance that will end tragically later in the game.
After the first game, the participants stage a protest - and the organisers dutifully put it to a vote. Players who want to continue playing for a huge plastic pig full of prize money, suspended temptingly from their dorm ceiling, can vote to stay. Those who want to leave can vote to do so and narrowly, the 'leave' party scrape it and win (sounds familiar).
But that's not where the show ends. It soon becomes apparent to everyone that their lives outside are actually far worse than taking part in the game itself, and soon they're drawn back in...
I'll leave the detailed description there for a moment, just to highlight that most people have been raving about the show's set designs, the production design in general, and the 'cleverness' of the plot when really the most impressive thing about "Squid Game" is the way each character's backstory is written, and emerges as the show progresses until you realise that sometimes it feels like we're all partaking in some ridiculous fight for survival, with each new day, and each new crap decision from our inept government very much making us all feel like we're the 'entertainment' for an elite bunch of rich people who delight at each death they're directly or indirectly responsible for. Dark, I know, it's pre-coffee, humour me.
I felt a lot of empathy for 001 in the show, less for 456 but the character who really delivered the gut punch, emotionally was Kang Sae-byeok (067, pictured above with her all too brief ally Ji-yeong (240)).
Kang Sae-Byeok's story of defecting from North Korea, and trying to take care of her little brother while her mother remains 'captive' in the North, just trying to survive on her wits just reminded me of what it was like as a kid, making promises to a younger sibling of a better life but deep down feeling nothing but despar at the way the world is. Her story arc comes to an abrupt end in such a shitty way that it was one of the few times where I felt the show dropped the ball - though I wonder if this was done on purpose, to once again underline the way women are treated in patriarchal societies.
As the show came to an end and initial news began to break about a second season (which really, really isn't needed at all) I read so many think pieces on it, and have seen the massively positive reaction to it on Twitter, with scant mention of the violence (it is extremely violent but definitely no worse than The Witcher or Game of Thrones for sure, just a little more 'in your face' because it takes place in a contemporary and wholly identifiable world) and not much in the way of what the show actually means.
Selfishness is a human trait. We always want more of what we have, or we want things that we do not have. We want to be the best, the most idolised, our fragile egos demand it, and that feels like what the show is trying to show us - that there may be another way to live our lives. Watching the news, the COVID crisis, panic buying of loo roll and petrol, the ridiculous pomposity of anti vax / anti maskers, the absolutely shit-awful government we have so detached from their voters, and the pigshit-thick neonationalism our country is becoming infected with, the show just made me feel that out there, right now in the very world we live in, someone would actually do this if they thought they could get away with it and even if you look at the most distilled and diluted versions of "Squid Game" that play out on our real actual TV screens every night in the form of 'reality' entertainment, you have to wonder just how sickeningly popular this whole thing would be if someone set it all up for real.
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