WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Squid Game, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix's breakout hit K-drama Squid Game, hundreds of people struggling with debt compete in a series of six playground games with deadly twists in the hope of winning immense wealth should they survive. From the initial "Red Light, Green Light" massacre to the final "Squid Game" showdown, all six of these violent competitions are memorable and horrifying. However, it's the fourth game, shown in the sixth episode, "Gganbu," that's the absolute cruelest of the bunch, turning marbles into a form of psychological torture.
What Is Squid Game's Marble Competition?
The cruelty of the marble game begins before the contestants even know what they're playing. The first two games, "Red Light, Green Light" and carving shapes out of honeycomb candy, were individual pass-fail competitions, while the third, tug of war, made teams of players responsible for other teams' deaths. When the contestants are asked to pair up for the fourth competition, it seems like it is another team game. Naturally, most people choose to pair up with friends, and there's even a case of a married couple sticking together for the game.
The cruel twist is that the fourth competition isn't a team game at all but a bunch of one-on-one marble competitions. Each pair can choose their own game, but whoever loses the game will be shot and killed in all cases. Witnessing or even being responsible for the deaths of strangers is traumatizing enough, but being responsible for the deaths of friends who you were trying to protect is a new level of horror. The complete lack of rules other than the fact that one or both members of each pair must die makes the burden on the players all the heavier.
Why Squid Game's Marble Competition Is Scariest
"Gganbu" is the Squid Game episode with the highest body count, but the specifics of who dies and how makes it the most emotionally affecting. Ali, one of the most likable contestants, genuinely believes there's a chance for him and Sang-woo to make it out together, but Sang-woo tricks him and leaves him for dead. Sae-byeok and Player 240 decide on a simple all-or-nothing game and put off playing until the end of the allotted time, spending the half-hour talking about their lives before 240 bites the dust. Most affecting of all is the game between Gi-hun and the old man Player 001. 001, who reveals his name is Oh Il-nam, almost wins at first but intentionally blows the game so Gi-hun can live.
This horrifying experience only gets more twisted in retrospect after Gi-hun and the audience discover the truth about Il-nam in the season finale. He didn't really die and was actually the original founder of the competition, playing the game himself this time around just so he could feel something again before his actual death from brain cancer. Knowing everything Gi-hun went through in the fourth game was a complete manipulation is, in its own way, even more disturbing than it would be if Il-nam actually sacrificed himself. No other game in Squid Game can match this degree of sheer sadism.
Squid Game is now streaming on Netflix.