Item from Squid Game by Hwang Dong-hyuk
The titular final game — a schoolyard game played on a squid-shaped dirt court, where the last two survivors fight for everything.
The Squid Game is a real Korean children's game, and it's the most physical of all six. One player is offense, one is defense. The offensive player must hop on one foot through the court and reach the squid's head. The defensive player can move freely on two feet and tries to push the offense out of bounds. Physical violence is permitted. As the final game, it strips away everything the show has built — the elaborate arenas, the technology, the pastel aesthetics — and returns to dirt and bodies. Two people who grew up together in Ssangmun-dong, playing this exact game as children, now playing it to determine who walks away with 45.6 billion won and who dies. Gi-hun nearly wins, then tries to invoke the voting mechanism to end the game and save Sang-woo's life. Sang-woo responds by stabbing himself in the neck. The Squid Game doesn't end with a winner defeating a loser — it ends with a man choosing death over the mercy of his childhood friend. The game that gives the show its name is the game that proves the show's thesis: some people would rather die than be saved.
A squid-shaped court drawn in dirt or sand. The shape has a circular head at the top, a triangular body, and a rectangular tail at the bottom. Crude, simple, drawn with sticks the way children draw in schoolyards. Under stadium lights, it looks like a ritual circle.
Also known as: Ojingeo Game, The Final Game