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What Netflix’s SQUID GAME Teaches Us About Our Need for Christ

Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash

What Netflix’s SQUID GAME Teaches Us About Our Need for Christ

By Movieguide® Contributor

Season 2 of the extremely violent South Korean show SQUID GAME just released on Netflix, and it’s a good reminder that we need Jesus to transform our lives.

“In Season 2 of the award-winning drama, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), the series’ main character, remains determined to find the people behind Squid Game and put an end to their bloodthirsty sport. So, Gi-hun — also known as Player 456 — taps into the fortune he won in Season 1 for justice. He leads a citywide search for the Recruiter (Gong Yoo), the man in a sharp suit playing ddakji in the subway. But when Gi-hun’s efforts finally yield results, the path towards dismantling the organization proves to be even deadlier than he imagined. To end the game, he needs to re-enter it,” a synopsis of the season reads.

Besides its intense violence, the show raises several moral dilemmas, as Mark Tavers, a psychologist writing for Forbes, explained, leading viewers to wonder what they would do in the same situation.

His first insight? “Morality doesn’t always trump survival.”

This means when a person is faced with a life-or-death situation, they are likely to do whatever they can to stay alive, whether or not it is morally right or wrong.

A study from Psychoneuroendocrinology explained that “stress per se does not cause more egoistic decision-making in the current setting but suggest an association between the individual’s cortisol stress response and egoistic decision-making in high-emotional situations.”

Thus, when humans are faced with a high-stress situation, the ability to think straight is extremely altered. Though the hero manages to keep his cool, Travers says, it’s nearly impossible to do in real life.

Travers also says the show highlights the dangerous power of mob mentality.

In his book “The Crowd & The Psychology of Revolution,” GustaveLe Bon explained that when a person is part of a crowd, they are less likely to act on personal choice but rather on what the crowd as a whole wants.

After each round of the game, participants have the option to leave. One would think after watching gruesome and brutal deaths, a contestant would choose to leave. However, in SQUID GAME, it is apparent that the influence of the majority takes over.

Finally, Travers argues that SQUID GAME shows that “human motivation is complex.”

Money brings the contestants to the game in the first place, but over time, the show reveals how the contestants’ motivations changed toward “redemption, pride, and personal relationships.”

“This is an important part of the show, because most people are willing to do many things for money, but without the drivers of internal motivation, no amount of money would be worth such a risk to ourselves and to others,” Travers writes.

While Movieguide® advises extreme caution for SQUID GAME, the show does reveal some interesting insights into human behavior, further confirming that people need something bigger than themselves or worldly goods to put their hope in.

At its best, SQUID GAME shows the depravity of sinful humans motivated by greed, power, money and other vices. While a select few of the characters exemplify moral attributes such as bravery, honesty, and the pursuit of justice, SQUID GAME has failed to flesh out a convincing, overall worldview that would make MOVIEGUIDE® recommend the series. At its worst, SQUID GAME seems to glorify the violence it wants its characters to condemn.

READ MORE: SQUID GAME 2.1 REVIEW

Jesus is the answer, and Travers’ three insights reveal that only Christ can transform us and that we cannot do the right thing without the Holy Spirit guiding us.


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