The Hero We Had VS The Hero We Deserved

One character on the other hand that I find to be fitting the role of the hero in the story, is Player no. 67 Kang Sae Byeok (played by Jung Ho Yeon). Sae Byeok is a North Korean defector who is left to care for her young brother in foster care when her father dies and her mother is captured and returned to the North. When we are introduced to Sae Byeok, immediately she presents villainous characteristics through her interactions with Gi Hoon. However, the more we get to know Sae Byeok the more we are given an insight into her loving and noble heart under all the armor. 

To present my case on why, in my opinion, Sae Byeok is the true hero, I however will list both heroic and anti-heroic characteristics that I believe GI Hoon presented, and allow you to decide whether I was able to convince you to see the hero of the story through my lens. 

Gi Hoon’s Heroic Moments

1. Generosity

When he wins money after betting on a horse race, Gi Hoon ends up giving one of the workers some money in a moment of joy. Of course, after losing it moments later he returns and asks for it back.

2. Chivalrous

When he finds an elderly man (player no.1 Oh Ill Nam played by Oh Young Soo) who is also participating in the game, and while others ignore the man, Gi Hoon is the first to interact and befriend him. Later on in the game Gi Hoon continuously put Ill Nam into a team he has formed with a childhood friend (Cho Sang Woo played by Park Hae Soo).

Even in a moment where he feels he needs to team up with a strong partner, a gold-hearted Gi Hoon could not bring himself to abandon Oh Ill Nam and chooses him.

Another person that Gi Hoon seems to take under his wing is player no.67 Kang Sae Byeok (played by Jung Ho Yeon), a young North Korean woman who previously stole money from him. Gi Hoon slowly gains Sae Byeok’s trust, an amazing achievement considering that she is a guarded character with iron-clad walls.

3. Leadership

Gi Hoon is the first to come up with an idea to form a team that will look out for each other while recognizing the strength in numbers. He is also able to observe each of his team members' valuable characteristics as an advantage for his team.

When needing more members in the team to compete in a game, the newly recruited members create discord by voicing pessimistic thoughts. The team’s morale quickly deteriorates before a positive Gi Hoon breaks into a motivating speech that raises everyone’s spirits before the game begins.

4. Questionably Honorable

During the game, Gi Hoon makes a promise to Sae Byeok that whoever survives the game will care for the other’s loved ones. This is a promise he fulfills at the end, and goes even further by giving money to the mother of his childhood friend.

Gi Hoon’s Anti-Heroic Moments

1.  Selfishness

The most impactful relationship Gi Hoon has in his life is arguably not with his daughter, but with his elderly mother who acts as his benefactor and moral guide. Gi Hoon relies on his mother financially and goes as far as abusing this fact by stealing money from her bank account to gamble with his friend. He does this after she gives him money and reminds him to use it to treat his daughter for her birthday.

We later learn that Gi Hoon’s mother had been suffering from diabetes and needed her leg to be amputated. He further finds out that she has been working non-stop to support him and pay his debts to a point of failing to care for her health. I will not go into the symptoms of diabetes, however they are quite visible to the point that Gi Hoon must have paid no mind to his mother for failing to see the signs. 

Gi Hoon receives money to treat his mother’s leg from his ex-wife's new husband in a shameful and humiliating moment. However, he squanders that blessing in a moment of ego and bad judgment and is thus left with no money for his mother’s treatment.

Gi Hoon does not tell his sick mother when he leaves to join the game, nor does he first try to find someone who can keep an eye on her while he is gone. I can't even imagine the amount of concern that must have plagued the elderly woman when her only child goes missing, especially when he tends to get in trouble frequently. Ironically, Gi Hoon had some chance of atonement by taking care of his friends’ elderly mother and little brother. However, he leaves them with money and walks away from them.

2. Irresponsible

While I could go into the same level of detail about his awful qualities as a son, in this section I will roughly point to Gi Hoon's biggest moment of unwise judgment. Surviving a tortuous and traumatizing ordeal and losing many people he cared for, Gi Hoon wins the game along with the 39 million dollar prize. He then spends a year secluded from society and this is very understandable considering his experiences in the game. 

Unfortunately, this also means that his daughter left the country and moved to America without saying goodbye to her father and did not have contact with him for over a year. It also means that her last memory of her father was of him losing control of emotions and violently punching her step-father. 

When Gi Hoon finally cleans up after himself and decides to get back to reality he finally has the opportunity to visit his daughter in the States. Their phone call exchange, while he is en route to the airport, reveals her anticipation for their reunion as she tries to get him to tell her what he had bought for her as a gift. Of course, this conversation is interrupted and before hanging up he promises to call her back when he arrives. As we know by now he doesn't get on the plane, and chooses to turn back on his daughter and get back to the game in vengeance.

3. Skewed Morality

To be fair, anyone playing the squid game would eventually become morally twisted in the name of survival. Therefore while his skewed morality makes Gi Hoon a questionable hero, it also makes him human. In the first few games, Gi Hoon is morally just and takes responsibility to help those weaker and more vulnerable than he is. 

However, by game 6 (marble game), Gi Hoon moral compass goes array when he begins to take advantage of his partner Player no.1’s old age and forgetfulness to his favor. Gi Hoon does so knowing that if he won the game even though cheating, he would survive and his partner would die. There is an intersection between Gi Hoon and Sang Woon in this game where both took advantage of their partner to win the game. Ultimately however, Gi Hoon does win and survive not by taking advantage of Player no.1 but because Player no.1 sacrifices himself for his friend. 

Finally, we have the moment in which Gi Hoon plans to kill Sang Woo, his childhood friend with who he had grown disgusted for his evil and corrupt ways to win the game. Gi Hoon grew convinced he had to eliminate Sang Woo before he killed any of the remaining players. He is brought back to reason by Sae Byeok, who reminded him that he was not a killer and deterred him from going through with his plans. This moment alone is one that I believe to be the hero-defining moment.

There you have it, the hero I believe we deserved, although I can also recognize that Squid Game is not your typical Korean Drama, as the story is being built on a morally questioning foundation. The game is not one that can be won and survived by an honorable and just person, and it could be in a story such a squid game one can only be a hero if they did not survive or live to see the prize. If Ali was any example, as honorable as he was, ultimately it cost him in an unfortunate way. Even Gi Hoon himself did not fairly win the game without massive help.

What do you guys think? Do you think Squid Game had a hero? If so, who would you say it to be? Should I go into details about Kang Sae Byeok’s heroic and anti-heroic characteristics in another article, or have you already made up your mind on a hero?