Although I don't usually like violent weird fictional series I would like to comment on this one, which I found to be quite good if you watch it as a metaphor of the financial game, the squid game is in my view the financial game and I would like to give some hints of why I think this. There may be some spoilers ahead, so don't read further if you don't want to know them.
In the series we are introduced to some characters that have already played the game, or similar games like gambling (most of the new players are highly indebted) or are just very poor people that will be invited to play the big game, which comes with the much needed reward, the big money.
The game
The game is the financial game and we see the players being part of it trying to get the big price but dying in the way because of that. Nobody has been forced to play the game but nobody knows what the game is about, and as soon as they are in the game they can't leave it if is not by a majority deciding so. And this is the big question asked for the game designers when participants are showed that the game will play with their jobs, their families subsistence and, in sum, with their lives.
"Knowing this, do you accept the game or do you refuse it? "
Nicely, after the first deadly round the vote is tied, and the last voter, the player number one, which later on we will know is a game designer playing for fun, the only one on the game from the elite, the only one that deeply knows about the game and may by himself stop it, votes to stop the game giving to the poor folks the chance to live a decent live far from the deadly game. But the game never stops, so most of the players return to it when given a new chance to win or die.
The island, the leader and the policeman
The game is corrupted, so it has to be played in an island, a tax haven, outside the law. This is a parallel plot ran by two brothers, one of them running the game, the leader, that would be the corrupt lawyer or the broker that we learn that already got his money share when he won a previous edition of the games, and a policeman, the law, that manages to get there looking for him as the leader is his brother, and that sadly is being killed by the corrupted brother being unable to expose the plot to the justice.
The secondary players
Between the players we find some of the social archetypes. There is the gangster, used to play by his own wild rules but without the skills and the knowledge to win in the big game, the immigrants, political and non political, playing with their disadvantages and being cheated and murdered, people with family traumas for whom the game means nothing now, the broker who already played the game in the real life before and failed, and who knows that the game has to been played dirty if you want to win, but even like this, you may always loose, ...
The old man and the main character
Finally, between the players, there are two of them especially interesting, the first one and the last one. The first one is, as we find out at the end, a game designer that is so implied in it that cannot be like the other VIPs, gambling and watching from the outside, but has to play. His reward is not the money but the act of playing itself. The last one is all of us, is the TV watcher watching all of them, watching the game and being fascinated for it but at the same time refusing it, not willing to fall in its trap, not wanting to be mean, trying not to play dirty but at the same time doing nothing in front of the horror. This is why the old man takes an interest on him and there is a wonderful scene in the game of marbles where he sets up a situation inviting to the honest player to cheat, and he, the honest hero, cheats to save his life knowing that the old man will be unfairly killed for this. And then is when the old man gives him his last marble as reward, because the old man has now win his own game, he has finally won his own reward that isn't the money but knowing that everybody has a price and that everybody would have done what he possibly has done to become who he is. He can get rid of his guilt and he can leave the game as the real winner. However, when the hero wins the final game and may be proclaimed as winner, he refuses to win, he tries unsuccessfully to leave the game giving up the reward, and goes like this after that, being impossible for him to do anything with a money that becomes dirty as it has been earned cheating a poor old man who was killed because of it. He and the old man are on a similar situation now, both are rich thanks to the misery of others, and both feel guilty about it. So, in a desperately bid to get rid of his own culpability, of his own failure, the old man reveals him who he is, which is for some time effective, because our hero learns that nobody died because of him cheating and that he was the one cheated by the old man, so he may feel innocent again and enjoy the reward, until this falls again in front of the truth, revealed now by the recruiting scene of new potential gamers in the metro. Nobody who knows and has played the game may be innocent anymore.
In the series we are introduced to some characters that have already played the game, or similar games like gambling (most of the new players are highly indebted) or are just very poor people that will be invited to play the big game, which comes with the much needed reward, the big money.
The game
The game is the financial game and we see the players being part of it trying to get the big price but dying in the way because of that. Nobody has been forced to play the game but nobody knows what the game is about, and as soon as they are in the game they can't leave it if is not by a majority deciding so. And this is the big question asked for the game designers when participants are showed that the game will play with their jobs, their families subsistence and, in sum, with their lives.
"Knowing this, do you accept the game or do you refuse it? "
Nicely, after the first deadly round the vote is tied, and the last voter, the player number one, which later on we will know is a game designer playing for fun, the only one on the game from the elite, the only one that deeply knows about the game and may by himself stop it, votes to stop the game giving to the poor folks the chance to live a decent live far from the deadly game. But the game never stops, so most of the players return to it when given a new chance to win or die.
The island, the leader and the policeman
The game is corrupted, so it has to be played in an island, a tax haven, outside the law. This is a parallel plot ran by two brothers, one of them running the game, the leader, that would be the corrupt lawyer or the broker that we learn that already got his money share when he won a previous edition of the games, and a policeman, the law, that manages to get there looking for him as the leader is his brother, and that sadly is being killed by the corrupted brother being unable to expose the plot to the justice.
The secondary players
Between the players we find some of the social archetypes. There is the gangster, used to play by his own wild rules but without the skills and the knowledge to win in the big game, the immigrants, political and non political, playing with their disadvantages and being cheated and murdered, people with family traumas for whom the game means nothing now, the broker who already played the game in the real life before and failed, and who knows that the game has to been played dirty if you want to win, but even like this, you may always loose, ...
The old man and the main character
Finally, between the players, there are two of them especially interesting, the first one and the last one. The first one is, as we find out at the end, a game designer that is so implied in it that cannot be like the other VIPs, gambling and watching from the outside, but has to play. His reward is not the money but the act of playing itself. The last one is all of us, is the TV watcher watching all of them, watching the game and being fascinated for it but at the same time refusing it, not willing to fall in its trap, not wanting to be mean, trying not to play dirty but at the same time doing nothing in front of the horror. This is why the old man takes an interest on him and there is a wonderful scene in the game of marbles where he sets up a situation inviting to the honest player to cheat, and he, the honest hero, cheats to save his life knowing that the old man will be unfairly killed for this. And then is when the old man gives him his last marble as reward, because the old man has now win his own game, he has finally won his own reward that isn't the money but knowing that everybody has a price and that everybody would have done what he possibly has done to become who he is. He can get rid of his guilt and he can leave the game as the real winner. However, when the hero wins the final game and may be proclaimed as winner, he refuses to win, he tries unsuccessfully to leave the game giving up the reward, and goes like this after that, being impossible for him to do anything with a money that becomes dirty as it has been earned cheating a poor old man who was killed because of it. He and the old man are on a similar situation now, both are rich thanks to the misery of others, and both feel guilty about it. So, in a desperately bid to get rid of his own culpability, of his own failure, the old man reveals him who he is, which is for some time effective, because our hero learns that nobody died because of him cheating and that he was the one cheated by the old man, so he may feel innocent again and enjoy the reward, until this falls again in front of the truth, revealed now by the recruiting scene of new potential gamers in the metro. Nobody who knows and has played the game may be innocent anymore.