Diksha Sundriyal
In the third season of Netflix’s ‘Squid Game,’ the bloodshed continues as new games are introduced, which the players have to survive by hook or by crook. While most players are focused on having others killed so that their chances of survival increase, there are a select few who are actually good people and want nothing more than to survive the game if they cannot leave it altogether. Jang Geum-ja (Player 149) is one of them. She enters the game with the hope of winning the money so that she can pay off her son’s debts and save him out there. But things take a tragic turn for both of them. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Player 149 Loses Her Will to Play the Game
Geum-ja had a very hard life, but the only thing that kept her going was her love for her son. She raised him by herself, and despite all his follies, she is ready to do everything to keep him safe. However, the events of the Keys and Knives game lead her to kill him with her own hands, and this isn’t something that she can easily reconcile with. She tells herself that killing her son was the right thing to do because if she didn’t do it, he would have killed Jun-hee, who had just given birth to her child. She couldn’t let an innocent die, especially when she had come to know that person over the course of the past few days.
She also blames herself for switching sides with him and giving him the knife when she knew that he had never harmed a soul in his life and didn’t have it in him to kill anyone. Because he couldn’t muster the courage to kill anyone when he still had time, he became desperate when the clock was about to run out. With Jun-hee in front of him, he sees her as the only possible target that he can easily kill to ensure that he can survive the game. However, his mother doesn’t approve of this.
To stop him, she stabbed him in the back, which didn’t kill him but distracted him enough for the time to run out and the game to be over. What she didn’t realise at the time was that because he didn’t kill anyone, he was not cleared out of the game. So, when the guards march in, they find him and shoot him. Seeing her son die in front of her eyes, and because of her own actions, takes a toll on Geum-ja. So far, things had already been tense, but at least, she had her son. With him gone, there seems to be no point in continuing with the games.
Geum-ja Decides to Quit the Game on Her Own Terms
That night, when the voting happens, she pleads with the other players to vote against continuing the games. She had already been voting to leave since the first vote, but the crowd of people willing to leave thinned with each game. By the time the voting after Knives and Keys happens, it is clear to everyone that even if they want to leave, they cannot because the majority will vote in favour of continuing the game. Geum-ja’s pleas were for Jun-hee, who not only had a child now but also a fractured leg, which meant that her chances of survival had fallen significantly.
What’s worse was that Hyun-ju was also gone, which meant that there was no one to protect Jun-hee and her child. The old woman thought that if the games ended here, the young mother would have a chance to survive even when her son couldn’t, but no one listens, and this breaks her even more. Eventually, Seong Gi-hun is the only one still alive to look out for Jun-hee. She gives him a heartfelt speech where she also talks about her son, how much she loved him, and how she was forced to kill him. She asks Gi-hun to pick up the slack and look out for Jun-hee, as he is the only one who can do that now.
It is on the next morning that we discover why she pleaded with Gi-hun to come out of his depressive state and do something about keeping Jun-hee safe. By this time, she had already made up her mind to kill herself. With her son gone, there was nothing left for her in the world anymore. Even if the games ended that night and she was allowed to go back into the world with a bag full of money, there would be no point in continuing because her son was gone. It is fair to assume that she would have still killed herself out there because the next morning, when everyone wakes up and the guards walk in with a coffin, they find her dead, hanging by the side of a bunk bed through a makeshift rope.
Read More: Is the Baby Real or CGI in Squid Game?
