WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 8 of Darwin’s Game, "Fragile."

While everyone in Darwin’s Game has been mostly concerned with staying alive, there’s been a mystery running in the background: who runs the game? Shuka has a personal investment in this, wanting revenge for her parents’ death, and Kaname has an implied interest in it: he just wants to get out, both for himself and everyone else playing the game. What better way to do this than by finding the source of the game?

In this episode, Kaname does just this when he gets the chance to talk to the Game Master. While the creator doesn’t reveal very much about what’s going on with the game, it’s enough to be tantalizing for what’s coming in the future. This meeting introduces a lot of fresh mysteries but it does make one thing pretty clear: there is a way to end the game, and it involves the Game Master.

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Kaname’s bluff from the end of the last episode worked on Wang from the Eighth Clan -- just barely well enough for everyone to survive by being teleported away. As his prize for clearing the treasure hunt, Kaname finds a cell phone. Someone in the gambling den for the game bet on Kaname to win, but before that has a chance to sink in with the audience, he gets a call that's much more immediately relevant: it’s the Game Master.

Kaname accuses him of being the one who created the game, but that’s not entirely true. He claims to have only created the interface to it but admits that it doesn’t make that much of a difference. He makes Kaname an offer that seems too good to be true: granting a wish within the game, anything that he can reasonably do. Kaname asks to quit the game, but the Game Master refuses to grant it as that would work against his goals.

After some back and forth, Kaname finally comes up with something to ask for, which would help him end the game and keep people from joining... but the anime then cuts to black. When we return to the scene, the Game Master enthusiastically says he’ll grant the privilege, but the audience is kept in the dark as to what it is.

Shuka in Darwin's Game

While that mystery is a little frustrating, something else in their conversation was much more intriguing. While he refused to let Kaname quit the game, the Game Master drops a big piece of information: there is a way to end the game completely, freeing everyone from having to play. Obviously, Kaname really wants to know more. And, surprisingly, the Game Master is more than willing to give up information on this.

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There are actually two ways that the game can end. The first is that someone completes the game, though there’s no information on what that actually means. This not only would end the game for everyone involved, but is the outcome that the Game Master himself actively wants to happen.

The other way it can end is to kill the Game Master and shut down the whole game. For obvious reasons, he wouldn’t want this outcome, but it has the advantage of being a much more obvious objective. Given that at least one character wants him dead, this seems like the obvious way to go next in the story.

Regardless of which way Kaname and his new clan decide to go, Darwin’s Game has a new clarity to its storyline that wasn’t there before. While there may not be much time left for this story (only 11 episodes were originally announced and there’s been no announcement of more), the direction is clear: they can end the game by killing its creator, if they have to.

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