Slipperiest Game 2: The Failure of Narrative Design in Squid Game's Later Seasons

Transcript:

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

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If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met.

Um, welcome back to No Plot Only Lore, brought to you by some Korean [ __ ] blah blah blah blah blah. This is where we're doing the next episode. Um,

so the the murder game. The Okay. Uh, all right. The murder game. Yeah. Uh, hide-and-seek. Hide and

seek. H hide and seek. Well, it it was tag. Was it tag?

I'm pretty sure they said it was tag. I think the episode was just called Star Night. I was assuming it was hide-and-seek because you could hide in

those rooms. A lot of hiding. Yeah. But I I I think they said that it was a tag game. Sure. Um,

I'll take your word for it. I don't speak Korean. This is for me

a fundamental change to the games. Wikipedia says it's hide-and-seek. Yes,

it is. Is it? Okay. Sweet. Um, yeah. Because in every other game up to this

point, yeah, death is a consequence of losing. Correct.

It is a consequence of losing that is dispersed by the system. Right. Right.

By the people who are wearing the masks, by the people who are like faceless

automatons in this machine by by the devices that you are playing with. I mean in

tugof-war you are struggling to win and great you did your job. Now the machine

kills the other team. But there is still an illusion of fairness in that because

you are equally at risk of death. Yeah. Right. Like you have all of the same

tools. You are playing the same game. Nothing about this has made your

struggle against the other team inherently unfair. Right. Right. In hideand- seek,

you have to stab a person to death to not be killed yourself.

Yeah. Which is no longer systemic. No, that is individual action. And like the

that change is a reduction of the systems efficacy for

me. Yeah. Yeah. It's and and never mind that it

invalidates the idea of like the neutrality of the games.

It was also handled in such a hamfisted way where so many people were suddenly

just like, "Yep, I can kill a person. Don't worry about it." Yeah. Like again, if it I think that it

was meant to be the marbles episode of the season.

And that is a very very different episode

than the marbles cuz first of all, marbles is one-on-one. Like you're paired up and that's half

the tension there is you got paired with people that you like. Uh well that's one of the parallels that

I'm drawing is that like the the rules as described suggest that it is a onetoone

right? Yes. You kill one person you move on and then somebody finds a loophole that if you

kill more than that then you're able to disqualify other people who will then be

shot. Right. And that again is one of my big

frustrations with character change that happens in that episode because the you

know shitty boyfriend uh suddenly it's like well not only like I

I when he was like hey we got to stab him together so we got to kill two people cuz I'm not doing this on my own.

That made a kind of sense. Mhm. The fact that he was just like, "You're right. We should go on a murder rampage

to protect someone, I guess, was bonkers for me."

Um, well, and like again with the the lack of

morality, right, that comes with that, right? Like that there is a disconnect

in the first season between the death that happens and your action.

Right. Right. And that disconnect while

not necessarily like morally weightbearing. Yeah.

Is something that you can kind of like hang your morals on, right? It's like I didn't kill them. The system did.

I didn't kill them. The guys in the the funny masks did. Yeah. I did I didn't pull the trigger. I just aimed the gun.

Yeah. This is nothing that I did. Yeah. This is just the consequence of the thing that we were doing.

Sure. where actually [ __ ] stabbing a person Yeah. until they stop breathing

Yeah. is a whole different [ __ ] monster. Yep. And the fact that it seemed like only

one of the players was having a hard time with this. Yeah. Literally was really [ __ ] weird.

It's insane. Like, you know, I I hunt. I I regularly kill animals. Um, killing a

human being is not like a leap that I can make mentally easily. Like I I

wouldn't be like, "Oh, well, I'll just aim this in a different direction." Like, you know what? It might even be that much easier with a gun, with a

knife. Like, no way. Like, that's not making the decision to end something's

life two feet in front of you is wild. Um,

and especially when it talks back to you, feeling the heat of a person's blood

that I have spilled with intent to kill. Yeah. Is something that I can literally not

even imagine. Right. Right. Like for for context for our listeners, I don't kill things, right?

Like I'm I'm not a hunter. I gently brush mosquitoes off of myself and I feel kind of bad when I kill them,

right? Like I I don't kill stuff. The idea of killing a human being is completely

alien to me. Yeah. Yeah. What I loved about the first season of

Squid Game, though, is that they managed to make it similar to the fact that I

own a phone that was made by tiny hands in China. Right. There's there's a difference between you and the cruelty. Like sorry,

a distance between you and the cruelty. Yeah. Like I I understand that a lot of the daytoday

luxuries that I have, living in the West, owning computers, having a job that pays well, having access to clean

water and clean food, the fact that there's an AC unit in my house that I

can use. All of that is built upon a pyramid of suffering.

Sure. But I don't have to think about it most of the time. Well, and frankly, if you

drilled deep enough into like latestage capitalism to understand that like our entire economy is built on suffering, so

like [ __ ] it, right? Like it would drive me crazy to contemplate the the true horrors that you're, you know,

inflicting on the rest of the world. But, you know, be Tik Tok. Uh

yeah, you know, I sometimes I just want to do a silly dance and have people give me the likey subscribes. Yeah, exactly. It's that there is

that separation between the thing that I am doing and the result of that thing

for other people. Yeah. And I think that that was something that the first season of Squid Game nailed.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. There was there was like two exceptions to that distance happened in the entire

season and they didn't happen until the last two episodes. Yeah. And even then, you felt like there

was another way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like that there was always the chance that you could make a different

choice that didn't necessarily involve the death of the person that you were playing with. Right.

Right. Like the Squid Game had a method of winning. Yeah.

Didn't involve murdering another person. Did they get that opportunity? No. Right. They were both pretty sure that they

were going to kill each other. But They didn't have to. No. If you got to the end of the game, the

system would kill the other person for you. Right. And and the only exception to that rule was when the third finalist

was murdered after dinner. And that was a huge turning point in the game where

this character that was in theory his like best friend and and a stalwart ally

has flipped that switch and said, "I have to kill people now." And that's

what forced him to make that decision during the Squid Game. Um, is that now

the the true extent of the horrors of the Squid Game had been revealed. Um,

but up until then it was it was Yeah. Like you said, it was just the system doing its function.

Hide and seek. Yeah. Was taking a tour of the iPhone factory. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Like that was we're taking you here and you actually get to take the

thing that you want. Yeah. From the shaking hands of a person who made it. Yeah.

And even further like the the hideand-seek was also the first time

where they withheld information from the players about the game.

Yeah. The keys. Yes. Yeah. like having different sets of keys

for different doors meant that one team was at a specific disadvantage. Different set different keys for

different doors is fine. The fact that you need a set of three was criminal,

right? And the fact that they didn't indicate that there was going to be any kind of team building or team making. No.

And the fact that the people with the knives

didn't have that restriction. Right. Right. Right. like they they didn't have even a similar restriction. Yeah.

One thing that I do want to want to point out though is the the malicious

whimsy thing is absolutely that knife design.

Oh yeah. The like quasi master sword that they're all given

it. It looks like the sort of thing that Sailor Moon would use to transform.

Yeah. And then it's also a murder weapon. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm 90% sure I've seen

that knife on like a Commonw writer episode as he's about to like turn into the dude. Like

it's it's the kind of thing you get at like an in mall cutlery shop that also sells

like samurai swords and the batarang. Yeah. There there is some guy sitting in

the mall food court with that and a katana. Yeah. And like a trench coat who smells kind

of bad. Yeah. Not that I'm describing myself when I was a teenager or anything.

No, we're just describing a lot of people that we have known. That absolutely was me as a teenager.

No, like Okay. As much as I have concerns about the writing and the

fairness and the gameplay of the second and third seasons, Yeah. everybody on the design team [ __ ]

killed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the the graphic design people are like absolute monsters and

should work on every event. Yes, they are so so good. Um and like

the the acting really solid all around. I felt um the

the only person that I felt was kind of like meh on the acting was the older lady.

She wasn't great, the [ __ ] prophet witch priestess chick.

I I hate this. I legitimately loved her. Oh, I uh Okay, here's the thing. Was hilarious.

I liked the kind of annoying grumpy lady from the first season cuz they like Oh, yeah.

She was annoying, but then they made you like her and then she got her moment and the only thing that the prophet got

was her comeuppins, which was great. Big fan of that, but hated every second of her on screen.

I loved a bunch of the moments that she was in where like she's doing prophecies

and the prophecy ends up not being right and so she just leaves her [ __ ] followers to die. Oh yeah. Yeah. And is just like scurrying away in a

panic, right? And then turns around and is immediately like, "Yes, you have to follow me because the spirits are guiding me." And

everybody just kind of falls in line again. No. Yeah. You want to talk about preachy messages? I mean,

yeah. Because I mean I don't know if you know anything about like the religious makeup of Korea, but like there's a lot

of sketchy Christian behavior over there and yeah,

like that I feel like that was aimed basically directly at like Suny Young

Moon and the Mooneyies. Okay. Uh I'm not that familiar with it,

but I did I thought it was [ __ ] hilarious every time. Um, and then the

old salary man who made it to the last game. Yeah. Who was just kind of a [ __ ] and like

consistently voted to stay in the Okay. I really like that guy. I think he's

hilarious. Okay. Um, I don't like him as a person. Yeah. Yeah. But as a character,

[ __ ] so funny. And then there was who was his buddy who for the last couple of episodes just

suddenly got a bunch more lines because there was no one else on screen. I don't know. But there was a guy who

got a bunch more lines and he was he was fine. I he was just he was again like they just suddenly flipped the switch on him or

like by the way you're a cartoon villain. Get out there long face. There is a lot of that. Yeah. So I think

like the biggest issue that I have with the last two episodes of last two seasons of Squid Game.

Yeah. Was the consistency of the writing because the first one and I think that this is just that thing where you like

you spend 10 years making a thing and you have an opportunity to make it perfect. You're just like tooling it and

you're making it work and then you're told you have a year and a half to make the next one. Yeah.

And you do your best, but it's it's just a year and a half. Like you don't have as much time to to make it do the thing

that the first one did. Sure. Um but yeah, there was a lot of that. And then uh yeah, so like the the murder

game was annoying, right? And I think that it created a new

paradigm for the games that suggested that murder was the only

way. Right. Right. Cuz like I I think you and I discussed the the tugof-war game.

Yeah. A bit in how like that is the the direct actions of the people in that game does

cause death. Right. But the the action that you're taking is fighting for your survival.

Yes. Right. like you're not behind the other team pushing them off the balcony, you

know, which would also be a fun game because like imagine doing like a sumo match but

with lava. Yeah, that's actually I mean I would like that better than hideand-seek. Um

yes, it's because again like it it [ __ ] with the idea of fairness again, but at least it's somewhat neutral.

Well, it's one v one. Yeah. There's clear rules. Both of you have access to those rules.

Yeah. And just make it random who you're paired with.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I guess I guess I guess in that case it's like a more physical version

of marbles. Yeah. Essentially. And then like decide

through the game like which one of you is going to get thrown out. Like probably not lava, probably like a high

pillar because they like to do those. Oh, they love pillars. They love to fall to their deaths because then they can

land and then you can zoom in on the corpse and it's not completely disfigured.

And again, it's the like I think they went for the idea of

like um [ __ ] now I can't think of the word the

the types of games that asymmetrical that's like an asymmetrical game. Yeah. And they just [ __ ] it up.

Yeah. Um, and then there was a baby.

Oh god. Yeah. This goddamn baby. The goddamn baby. Yeah.

So, this baby ruined the entire premise of Squid Game and undermined everything they've been building for two seasons

and uh turned all of the commentary into just

like bloodthirsty violence porn.

So yeah. Yeah. My my problem with the baby.

Okay. The the first thing that I'm going to say is actually something that I liked about the baby. Okay. This is a weird thing, but I like that

they made the baby CGI in the first episode. Okay. And the reason that I like that they

used bad CGI, and it is admittedly bad. It is very obvious that it's CGI, but the reason that I like that

is because if they used a real baby, they couldn't kill it.

Right. Right. True. So, there was always a little bit of like a a thought of like maybe the baby

is actually in danger. Yeah. Right. Maybe somebody is going to just grab this baby and throw it off a [ __ ] pillar because that's how they

like to kill things. Yeah. Right. Uh so that is the only thing I liked about the baby.

Yep. Um time timeline on the baby made no goddamn sense. Yeah, she she just showed up and then

was like, "Oh, I'm pregnant and here's a baby." Yes. Um I am super super extra double

pregnant. Uh despite the fact that we have been here for less than a week. Yeah, I am now having a baby. Good times.

There's no way. There's no godamn way a

nine months pregnant She would be a ninemon pregnant woman. There's no way she's being like, I'm gonna I'm gonna go

to this island and try to win some money. No, she's got [ __ ] to do. Yeah.

And and like maybe maybe it's trying to push like the desperation angle, but if you're going to do that, you have to do

it like upfront from the beginning, right? Like if there's going to be a pregnant person in these games, she has

to show up waddling, right? Yeah. Yeah. She's got to be like 4t wide and everyone has to immediately

be like, "Oh my god, that's a pregnant woman." Yeah. Like, what the [ __ ] are you doing here? Yeah.

Nothing about this makes any sense. You're a terrible person. You're going to be a bad mom. You're not allowed to

have Everybody immediately votes to stop the game. So, they're like, "We we are not letting this woman continue."

Yeah. [ __ ] [ __ ] that noise. Okay. And that can happen in the first episode because we haven't let them become [ __ ]

heels yet. Well, and we've already seen in the first season that even if you do vote to

leave, there's the option to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Which was so [ __ ] powerful.

Yeah. Right. Like that there's an entire episode in the first season where you're just wondering, right? Like you're

following these people through their actual lives back on the mainland thinking like, are these people going to go back to these [ __ ] games?

Y. And they all do. And it is brilliant

watching that happen because like some of them didn't. Yeah. There are fewer of them.

Yeah. Well, and and Okay. So, on top of that, uh correct me if I'm wrong, the

first season, they were not like, "Ah, you can take the money that you've earned and go home." It was just like, "You can leave. You can stop this, you

won't get anything, but you can go home." Yeah. And they got nothing. They survived the experience. And eventually, they were

all like, "I want back in." This season, they're like, "Yep, you can have the money. You can leave." And they just

didn't like at all. There's so many times through that show

where I was like, the fact that there are people who want this to keep going, the fact that there are enough people who want this to keep going,

Yeah. that they're able to outvote the people who want to go home Yeah. has now gone past my suspension of

disbelief. Oh yeah. so far. I mean, after like two maybe three games, every person in that

building, every time they see the number of competitors drop by like a third, it's like, "Oh, I have rolled the dice

too many times. I need to leave." And maybe this is just like you and me being people who play a lot of games

where it's just like, "Yes, I know how many times I can roll dice before they [ __ ] me."

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I am very aware of my limitations on

luck because luck is an [ __ ] and I am not one of the people who is going to

survive Squid Game. Yeah, I I could see like three to five people being either like psychotic

[ __ ] like Thanos or just so unbelievably desperate that they vote to

stay. Like maybe the old business guy who's just like I owe 10 billion Juan. I can't leave with a penny less. Um, but

and I would love to see they're there five people out of 400.

I would love to see them all vote to leave. Yeah. And then have a bunch of them come back and have the pregnant lady be [ __ ]

one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because then it's a choice. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Like it isn't just like I didn't know what I was getting into and now I'm stuck here and people are out voting me. No, you made a [ __ ] choice.

Yeah. And it is a big one and it sucks. Yeah. Um, but that's not even the worst

problem with The Baby. No, it's not. The worst problem with The Baby is that they make it a [ __ ] player.

Yeah. Yeah. And And that right there, that decision undermines the entire

premise of the games in Squid Game. Everyone on that island is there because they want to be initially.

Um, they need the money. they blah blah blah. But they made the choice to play

the baby. The nod. They even make kind of a shitty head nod

to it when they're doing the voting. Yeah. Because they're like, given the fact that the baby isn't capable of making

choices, they're abstaining. Right. Right. They flat out know this baby can't choose for itself, but you're

going to make it a player. Like, and like I kind of get where they're coming from.

Like I I I think I get what they're trying to push at. Right. Like because because Squid Game

is just a elaborate metaphor for late stage capitalism, right? Right. Right. And they're trying to highlight the

generational nature of the problem, right, of lateage capitalism,

right? You you inherit your parents debts like Yeah. You didn't ask for the position

that you're in, but you're in it. And now you have to make the best of it that you can, right?

But it's a [ __ ] baby. It can't make the best of anything. Right. Right. It is It is a newborn and incapable of

taking care of itself. Making it a player is just a sadistic mind [ __ ]

Yeah. For the sake of being a sadistic mind [ __ ] And like part of that too. Okay. So like again I kind of understand the

symbolism that they were going for where like none of this has ever actually been fair.

Right. Right. Right. like the the people who are involved in this were economically disadvantaged to begin with.

They were desperate. They're making these choices for reasons. Those reasons are pushing them to make choices that

other people probably wouldn't, right? Like there's a whole lot of stuff going on in that choice system. And so having

a baby be a player is just another step in the lack of fairness. But nobody

who's playing that game has any [ __ ] reason to trust these shits anymore. Well, okay. I I want to push back on

that a little bit because the games were predatory, but they were fair, right?

Like, right, they they targeted the vulnerable. They targeted the needy. They targeted the people who had a history of bad

decisions, but at the end of the day, it was fair.

And there was no chance for that baby to be fair. And and the fact that they even

went so far as to have none of the VIPs like protest

like even a little bit was insane. Yeah. Like there was a bit of a

discussion about how one guy's bet was going to go because he had bet on the baby's mother, right?

Which like, okay, but also you didn't bet on the baby so your like bet doesn't

count anymore, [ __ ] Yeah. Like are is this some sort of like weird like the baby is just like a part

of the mother biological fruiness where it's like they don't they're not an

independent thing. Yeah. I don't know. Like I I don't understand

where that decision came from, but I hate it. Yeah.

And like mostly because now you can't go into any other Squid Game thing,

whatever that happens to be. There was a a hint at like Squid Game America, which it's going to be hilarious to see how

they make capitalism the good guy. Um, yep. The any other Squid Game thing, you go

into it with this understanding that it is inherently and purposefully unfair.

Yeah. Not everybody is there by choice. Yeah. And that's the biggest that's the

biggest weakness of that decision is that it dispelled the the illusion of

choice because in reality like the people that the games are targeting don't really have a choice

like not really. No, they they need this in a way that is

primal. Um and most people don't ordinarily get that shot. So to choose

not to go there would be insane. And it sort of highlights the few people that did early on where it was like, wow,

that like I guess they're just that, you know, afraid or whatever, but every so many people coming back knowing that

hundreds died the last time is like, yeah, they don't have a choice. They need to be there except for this [ __ ]

baby except for the [ __ ] baby. And like the fact that the baby won, I mean,

whatever. [ __ ] god, whatever. That was the only tie in the [ __ ] cop baby line.

That was them coping out of their poor decision with the baby. That was them

pulling a punch. They're like, "Aha, all right, we won't actually kill the baby. Haha, what are we doing? Wouldn't that be crazy? Just

do it. We're going to do suicide instead." If you're forcing the baby into the games and you're and the cost of that baby is

the hero of the games who's who's like we've been following for three seasons. Like that's some BS.

Well, and like there were allowances for more than one winner,

right? Right. At no point did they say it has to be one person because again in

that final game it was like, well, as long as three people die, everyone else wins. Yeah.

Yeah, like the the Squid Game as well, right? Like there were three participants at the beginning, right? There was every possibility that two

people were splitting that money. Yeah. Right. So like the fact that it was so

contrived to have the baby be the only [ __ ] survivor because Guun is too good a person to

chuck a baby off a thing after he's already killed a bunch of people. He's killed thousands of people in his

lifetime. He can't throw this [ __ ] baby off a cliff and keep the money. Right. At this point, he should just be

able to [ __ ] like football kick it and just [ __ ] call it a day. But no, he he's

too too good-hearted, I guess. I guess. Yeah. Um

Yeah. What a what a [ __ ] show. What a ruination of an absolutely

god tier season of television. Yeah. I'm I'm furious that season two

and three make me think more like retroactively make me think poorly of

season one because now I'm like well was this did they just accidentally strike

gold or was this the plan the whole time? Um again I think I think it just comes back to the fact that the person who wrote it

got a chance to spend like 10 years putting it together. Yeah. It was so tight and so perfectly

put together because that time had been taken and then they just they didn't have as much time and it was written by

committee. Yeah. And this is the unfortunate result and now we get Kate Blanchett.

Yeah. Slapping some people in an alley. No, it's it's just such a clear like

demarcation between Passion Project and Cash Grab. Yeah. Yeah. which is really too bad

because it was so [ __ ] good. So,

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