At the end of the day, we’re all guided by incentives. Whether it’s money, freedom, or safety, everybody aims to maximize these either directly or indirectly.
After flying through this series, I began thinking about concepts like morality and motivation in more depth, and I’ve been focused on what exactly drives our behavior.
Squid Game is notorious for exposing deep-rooted issues about humanity, and through further analysis, I’ve been able to learn more about the fundamentals of human nature.
The first takeaway I got was that money makes the world go round, as the saying goes. The simple fact that all of the candidates were willing to risk their lives to get out of debt really speaks volumes to how much of a burden debt is in the first place.
The thing to consider is that debt is not an uncommon experience for the majority of people. In this era, many families and individuals are still paying back their mortgages and student loans, and this series showed the extent that people are willing to go to release these burdens.
This realization proved to me how important it is to be financially free when it comes to one’s happiness: there are just too many problems associated with money.
The notion that money doesn’t equal happiness is now up for debate. On one hand, we notice how miserable the candidates’ lives are outside of the games, and on the other hand, we’re told that the wealthiest individuals are still bored with their lives and need new sources of entertainment.
When expanding outward and looking at the classism that’s going on as well, one can notice how money can really change people.
The fact that an individual can be fascinated by watching others fall to their deaths, as if there’s no value placed on their lives at all, is very disturbing. The candidates aren’t even viewed as human, but instead, they’re simply viewed as pawns to move around: as more organs to sell and profit off of.
Not only are we taught about the utter importance of money and how it changes people, but we’re also shown how things like loyalty and honesty don’t exist when everybody’s lives are on the line.
The amount of deception and betrayal amongst the candidates was, quite frankly, disgusting to watch. Throughout the series, we’re shown how competitive people are, how two-faced people can be, and how far people are willing to go to get what they want.
The fact of the matter is that people can be cutthroat. Maybe our true feelings are overshadowed by the mask that we’re wearing for the audience, but once you dive deeper into the layers, you’ll find the dark motivations hidden underneath.
Even if we’re childhood friends, I still shouldn’t fully trust you until I know your true intentions.
Although I’m coming off as a cynic, it’s important to note that with bad comes good. If it weren’t for bad people, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish good from bad and classify what a good person is.
With that being said, despite the systematic hell the candidates were thrown into, people still were able to make acts of kindness. The most important takeaway is that empathy always wins in the end.
In scenes like when that one girl sacrificed her life during the marbles game, and in moments like when the main character refused to kill his best friend, this series portrayed the good in humanity despite all of the bad.
When the old man lost the bet he made stating that nobody was going to help that guy freezing to death, the irony couldn’t have been better at that point.
From the girl who sacrificed her life to the individuals that helped the man to the main character, there will always be heroes. Some will get all the recognition and others will remain unnoticed, but that’s not why they do the things they do: what drives them are their big hearts.
After witnessing how nothing could stop those heroes from being heroes, my faith in humanity has never been stronger.
Squid Game is more than just a lesson on the vices of humans: it’s a signal of hope for those, like myself, who were previously on the fence about the future of humankind…There will always be hints of light within pits of darkness.
Let us all be heroes in our own lives.
JL