SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for the final episode of Squid Game Season 3.

A Final Twist with a Heavy Price

It’s game over for Squid Game, with an ending that refuses to pull any punches on the way out. The series finale of Netflix’s global sensation ends not with triumph, but with sacrifice.

Seong Gi-hun, the show’s central figure, doesn’t survive.

After winning the original games in Season 1, Gi-hun returned in Season 2 with a mission: to dismantle the system from the inside. But by the time Season 3 picks up, continuing directly from the previous season’s cliffhanger, that mission is in tatters. The attempted uprising has failed. The machine grinds on.

Defeated and broken, Gi-hun finds himself surrounded by more death, cruelty, and heartbreak as the numbers dwindle. And in the final episode, he makes one last stand—not to win, not to expose, but to protect.

The winner of Squid Game isn’t Gi-hun. It’s a baby. Jun-hee’s newborn daughter, now officially Player 222, is drafted into the contest by the Front Man following her mother’s tragic death. The number isn’t random; it was Jun-hee’s. In a game that’s crushed so many, this infant becomes the last remaining player… and the show’s final hope.

The Final Game: Life, Death, and a Button

Season 3’s last challenge, Sky Squid Game, is needlessly cruel and every bit as elaborate as you’d expect. Contestants must push others from towering platforms, but deaths only count if someone presses a button to “activate” the round.

Gi-hun throws himself into the role of guardian, determined to protect the baby at all costs. That means standing up to Myung-gi, the child’s own father, who’s more interested in a payday than paternity.

“If I were to characterize Myung-gi’s ultimate goal, it would be ‘take as much money as he can,’” actor Yim Si-wan tells Netflix site Tudum. “He’s asking for too much, and that is because of his greed.”

Only Gi-hun, Myung-gi, and the baby remain by the end. A vicious knife fight breaks out between the two men, ending with both dangling off the third tower. Gi-hun grips the ledge with one hand and Myung-gi’s jacket with the other. The jacket tears. Myung-gi falls.

But no one had hit the button. His death doesn’t count. That leaves Gi-hun with three options: kill the baby and take the win; do nothing and let them both die; or press the button and sacrifice himself, giving the prize to her.

Final Words: “Humans are…”

Gi-hun chooses the final option, and in doing so, brings his journey full circle. As he prepares to end his own life, he turns to the onlooking VIPs and the Front Man and says:

“We are not horses. We are humans. Humans are…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he leans back and falls to his death.

It’s a loaded moment. Gi-hun’s unfinished sentence echoes loudly, especially when placed against a line from Season 1—a moment burned into fans’ memories. After winning the original games, Gi-hun was told by the Front Man:

“You like horseracing, right? You people are horses. Horses at a racetrack. It was unexpected. I didn’t think you’d run this far.”

Back then, Gi-hun gambled away his life, just as the VIPs gamble on their players. His arc isn’t just about surviving; it’s about breaking that cycle.

And in the end, he delivers the only message that matters.

Why Did Gi-hun Have to Die?

Lee Jung-jae, who plays Gi-hun, said the choice made emotional sense: “It is almost like Gi-hun’s looking at his own daughter.” A once-estranged father, Gi-hun sees the child as more than just a contestant—she’s a chance to make good on all he failed to protect the first time around.

Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk didn’t always plan for this ending. But as he shaped the later seasons, Gi-hun’s death became essential to what the show was trying to say.

“The message I wanted to communicate was that if we solely pursue our immediate self-interest, and refuse to self-restrain, sacrifice, or bear any costs—and if we don’t put our heads together—we have no future,” Hwang told Tudum. “Gi-hun’s self-sacrifice to save the baby is the message we need to hear today. This character, who is thrust into the game, endures everything, and then jumps back in to end it, is the one who should deliver this message.”

The Baby as a Symbol of What’s Next

Player 222 might not have made a single move, but her survival means everything.

“Ultimately, the baby represents the future generation,” Hwang explained. “I believe we also have the responsibility and duty to try everything that we can in our power to leave a better world for the future generation… The baby coming out as the winner was in line with the meaning of Squid Game.”

During production, Hwang found himself reflecting on what the show—and its ending—truly meant.

“I eventually came to believe that, no matter how hopeless and dark the world may seem, perhaps we still have a chance if we can find even a glimpse of hope within ourselves,” he said. “Rather than seeking something from or in others, I hope we can reflect on our own values and whether we have faith in ourselves, so we can build on the good within us.”

A Tragic End, and a Lingering Threat

Gi-hun’s death is devastating, but it’s not the end of Squid Game as we know it. While he may have shut the door on the Korean arena and handed victory to an innocent, the finale makes one thing chillingly clear: the games continue elsewhere.

In the final moments, a reveal teases the existence of a sprawling global network—and what is likely an active arena located in the United States. It’s a gut punch that recontextualises Gi-hun’s sacrifice. His death meant something in the moment. It saved one life. But the system? It’s still intact.

That tension, between individual morality and systemic cruelty, is what’s lingered at the heart of Squid Game since the beginning. Gi-hun entered as a desperate man in debt, lured by the promise of a second chance. He leaves as a martyr who chose compassion over survival.

There may be more towers to climb, more lives to gamble, and more buttons to push, but in the middle of it all, one player chose not to treat others like pieces on a board—and that, in the bleak world of Squid Game, still feels like a kind of victory.

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