“The poor wage war on each other while the rich toast from the balcony.”
— Eduardo Galeano
“What is a game that no longer entertains? A liturgy. What is a liturgy that repeats endlessly, emptied of all faith? Power.
Power is strong when it succeeds in making us forget that it exists.”
— Pier Paolo Pasolini
The game of excess triumphs over any reflection on humanity’s descent.
Season three of Squid Game is not a television series in the traditional sense, but rather a visual and narrative compendium on the eclipse of the human under the cruel light of spectacle. A terminal, dark, and disturbing document on what remains of humanity when it is stripped of the ability to choose its own end.
“The suffering of the poor is the pornography of the elite.”
— Chris Hedges
Gi-hun—or rather, 456—returns to the Game after having failed every attempt to sabotage it. We find him in the box, but he’s not dead. He’s there to observe what he has created.
"Now watch the consequences of your little rebellion," he is told.
His attempt to overturn the system has already been absorbed by it. The system has digested even disobedience. The experiment continues: 35 bodies hang from ropes while the VIPs applaud to the rhythm of Strauss’s waltz.
The games are no longer mere survival trials but ruthless allegories: rules, sadism, and democratic metaphors.
“Democracy is the system that lets us choose who will slit our throat.”
— George Bernard Shaw
Hide-and-seek becomes a symbolic maze, where the keys (circle, triangle, square) represent tools of escape and power, while knives serve as instruments of social selection. Not killing means being eliminated: solidarity is forbidden, and Divide et Impera is not destiny—it’s strategy.
The second episode introduces a fragile coalition: a pregnant woman, an elderly lady, and a trans warrior. The union of keys creates a way out—but only at the price of an unspeakable sacrifice. A child is born, designated as “222,” just like the mother, who is forced to choose who will live.
In the third episode, democracy returns in the form of parody: a vote to decide whether to continue playing or stop. But the vote is a logical trap: the stakes are life, death, or misery. The famed democratic choice is merely a simulation of freedom, where the only real option is to preserve the status quo.
"To decide democratically: it’s pure sarcasm! The demos no longer exists; only the god of money presides over the rituals."
“The powerful don’t ask for your consent. They make you believe you’ve given it.”
— Noam Chomsky
The fifth game, a variation on jump rope, turns bodies into kinetic objects. Two giant dolls spin the rope; those who fall, die. Everything is rhythm, repetition, a euphemism for cruelty. The VIPs, masked as golden animals, are aroused by the war among the poor—that's the real fuel of entertainment. Horror as spectacle, cowardice that self-eliminates. The human experiment becomes a planetary snuff film.
In the fourth episode, the paradox becomes both lyrical and obscene. The mother of 222, with a broken ankle, throws herself down. The child takes her place. The VIPs, fascinated, comment that "this is more interesting than the resurrection of Jesus." But the Game enforces rules: the child cannot be killed, the rules forbid it. Power legitimizes itself by imposing its false neutrality disguised as norm.
The surviving players are invited to a tuxedoed banquet. While gourmet dishes are served, two will be eliminated. The prize pool has reached astronomical figures, but the truth is that the prize is fictional: what is at stake is the very identity of the subject, the illusion of being free.
“The most oppressed are those who don’t realize they are.”
— Antonio Gramsci
456, the only one to perceive the structure of the mechanism, could destroy the others. The Front Man gives him the opportunity, but his conscience stops him. It’s the last remnant of a tired compassion—more tragic and disillusioned than moral. Humanity twists in the grip of capitalist captivity and the blindness to its own chains.
The Final Game: Towers, Symbols, Abyss
Circle, triangle, square: the last game—Squid in the Air. Three towers. One push. They could choose to stay together, but individualism prevails once again. It’s not just behavior—it’s habitat. The prevailing misery is not economic but ontological. Ignorance isn’t a flaw—it’s an imposed condition.
In the final episode, Humans, 456 tries to explain the trick. But the wretched do not understand. They cannot understand. The Game is over, maybe. The Korean series ends. Other franchises may arise, but the spirit has dissolved. What remains is a definitive metaphor for a world where servitude is voluntary, horror is systemic, and the war among the poor is the purest form of governance.
In the theatre of capitalist absurdity, Squid Game 3 no longer tells of injustice: it assumes it. It doesn’t build tension: it depletes it. It doesn’t seek redemption: it bears witness. It is a reversed time machine that takes us back to our own contemporary barbarity.
The poor slaughter each other in tuxedos, the masters applaud with crystal glasses.
Democracy is a rigged game, and free will is a special effect.
The revolution has failed. Horror always wins.
“Capitalism is extraordinary: it convinces slaves that their chains are freedom.”
— Frédéric Lordon
