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After the rebellion of the"outcasts," the curtain has risen on season three of Squid Game − released on Friday, June 27, on Netflix − revealing utter desolation. The rebellious players have been mercilessly crushed, and their leader, Seong Gi-hun – also known as Player 456 (played by Lee Jung-jae) – a determined survivor who intends to reenter the deadly contest to destroy its system, is now a mere shadow of himself. The deadly competition that began in season two, unsurprisingly, has offered the participants no respite and has immediately thrown them into the arena for another particularly cruel round, forcing players to hunt and kill one another in order to qualify.

This round foreshadows a relentless escalation of cleverly designed sequences, pushing the characters' psyches to the limit while also extinguishing any lingering spark of optimism from season two. Back then, viewers might still have believed that the organization running this game – created for the amusement of a handful of amoral, grotesque plutocrats – could be destroyed.

But what is left for individuals when hope is gone? When every vital impulse has been trampled under the weight of capitalism and dysfunctional democracies − themes explored at the heart of this neon-lit, vividly colored blood-soaked fiction? According to director Hwang Dong-hyuk, it is still possible to choose how and why one is eliminated from the game (and thus dies); the players are not obliged to provide the show that the wealthy spectators − watching from behind a giant one-way mirror − came to see as they kill each other.

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