Squid Game creator reveals real reason why Gi-hun didn't get on the plane

14 October 2021, 15:06

Watch the trailer for Netflix's Squid Game series

By Katie Louise Smith

Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has confirmed what the ending of Squid Game was actually meant to mean.

Squid Game's twist ending has left fans with countless questions and has sparked multiple theories. Now, the creator himself, Hwang Dong-hyuk, is revealing what it actually all means.

(Spoilers ahead for the final episode of Squid Game, by the way. But seeing as you've clicked on this article, you've probably already watched it.)

Anyway, at the end of Squid Game, viewers see Seong Gi-hun (now 45.6 billion won richer after winning the games) on his way to the airport. He's set to fly to United States to reunite with his daughter but ends up bumping into the Salesman who is playing Ddakji with an unsuspecting member of the public. Gi-hun stops the game, takes the card and watches the Salesman disappears.

In the final scene, Gi-hun decides to call the number on the card in order to confront the Front Man about the games and why it is continuing to happen. Gi-hun then leaves, deciding not to get on the plane at all.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Hwang Dong-hyuk has now revealed his true intentions behind Gi-hun's big decision not to board the plane. And it's probably not what you were thinking...

Squid Game: The real reason why Gi-hun didn't get on the plane revealed. Picture: Netflix

While writing Squid Game, Hwang had no solid intentions on creating a second season (and he still isn't 100% sure if he's going to do it). He intended Gi-hun's last minute decision to be the end of his story.

While the majority of viewers believed Gi-hun's choice to mean that he had decided to seek revenge and rejoin the games (possibly as a red worker) in order to stop the whole thing from happening again, it turns out that Hwang meant something slightly different by his ambiguous ending.

Hwang revealed: "It’s true that season one ended in an open-ended way, but I actually thought that this could be good closure for the whole story too."

Squid Game ends with Gi-hun walking away from his flight to the US. Picture: Netflix

Hwang continued: "Season one ends with Gi-hun turning back and not getting on the plane to the States. And that was, in fact, my way of communicating the message that you should not be dragged along by the competitive flow of society, but that you should start thinking about who has created the whole system — and whether there is some potential for you to turn back and face it."

He then revealed: "So it’s not necessarily Gi-hun turning back to get revenge. It could actually be interpreted as him making a very on the spot eye contact with what is truly going on in the bigger picture. So I thought that might be a good simple, but ambiguous, way to end the story for Gi-hun."

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Hwang Dong-hyuk also recently set the record straight about why Gi-hun dyed his hair red in the final episode. Again, it doesn't actually have anything to do with foreshadowing what Gi-hun will do next.

In an interview with Zapzee, Hwang revealed: "I thought about this intuitively. Thinking about how Gi-hun should change his hair in a hair salon. I imagined being him and thought to myself, 'What is the colour that you would never choose to dye your hair?'"

He added: "Then I came to the conclusion that Gi-hun would never dye his hair red. It would be the craziest thing for him to do. So I chose the colour and I thought it really showed his inner anger."