Aahana Swrup
In season 2 of ‘Squid Game,’ Seong Gi-hun attempts to take down the Front Man with a group of players who are sick of participating in the hellish games. Nonetheless, most of these insurgents meet a harrowing end after getting gunned down by their enemies’ superior numbers and firepower. As a result, the night carries a heavy death toll, with many players dying in the facility’s stairwell area. Yet, Park Gyeong-seok, Player 246, remains a unique exception. Even though his fate should’ve been sealed along with his co-conspirators, Guard 011, Kang No-Eul, decides to spare his life. Furthermore, she goes through dangerous lengths to try to keep him alive and return him to his old life. Consequently, the duo’s puzzling bond and their escape attempt remain a riveting subplot in season 3. SPOILERS AHEAD!
No-eul Saves Gyeong-seok by Disguising Him as a Guard
It’s only a matter of time before Gi-hun’s insurrection collapses under the weight of the Front Man’s sheer power. As it happens, all the players discovered to be a part of the fight are executed and eliminated from the games. However, Gyeong-seok manages to get incredibly lucky. Although he doesn’t know it, the masked guard who comes to execute him is someone who holds a soft spot for the man. Guard 011 knows Player 246 outside of the premises of the harrowing Island. As fate would have it, both individuals work in the same amusement park and have crossed paths a number of times. Consequently, No-eul has first-hand knowledge of the sorrows that have financially crippled the man enough to bring him to this Game.
As a result, No-eul can’t help but remain troubled by his presence in the facility from day one. Thus, when she’s presented with the idea of killing Gyeong-seok, she inevitably decides to take a different, infinitely riskier path. In the facility, a group of guards runs an underground organ harvesting operation using the bodies of the “eliminated” players. However, in order to maximize the extraction process, the guards require “fresher” bodies. For the same reason, they tend to leave some players half-alive when executing them. While their bodies are wrapped up in caskets, these players’ boxes are distinctly marked to be delivered to the operating room instead of the incinerator.
In the past, No-eul has antagonized this group, finishing the kills of their “targets” to ensure that they can’t brutalize the players even in their death. As expected, this has landed her in a significant amount of trouble. Therefore, she now decides to use this faction to her advantage. When executing Gyeong-seok, she only fires a non-fatal shot, instructing him to play along with her ruse if he wants to live. From there, she pretends to play nice with the organ-harvesting guards in order to gain access to their lair. Once she’s in the same room as Gyeong-seok, she turns on the other guards and delivers them to their deaths and compels the operating doc to save Player 246’s life. In the aftermath, she instructs Gyeong-seok to put on the doctor’s jumpsuit and mask to get through security without detection.
No-eul Helps Gyeong-seok Reunite With His Daughter
No-eul has patently shown more empathy toward the down-on-their-luck players than the other guards. Even though she’s ruthless in doing her job and executing the players, she draws a hard line in exploiting their dead and dying corpses for financial gain. For the same reason, she rebels against the underground operation, even if it is by completing their half-finished kills. Still, her favor toward Gyeong-seok remains distinct from her mercy killings, which tends to be the breadth of her compassion toward the players. That is, until one takes her backstory into account. Similar to the players, the guards in the Game have also been brought in due to some complications in their lives.
For No-eul, this complication stems from her history as a North Korean defector. Years ago, she used to be a soldier in the North Korean army. However, a violent dispute with her commanding officer, wherein she killed the latter, forced her to flee from the country. In doing so, she had to leave her one-year-old daughter, Han Song-i, behind. For the same reason, she works as a guard to earn enough money to keep looking for her kid and find her way back to her. In this regard, her story becomes an almost perfect parallel to Gyeong-seok, who is a single father. The only reason he participated in the Game is to gather enough money to save his daughter, who has a blood cancer diagnosis that requires expensive treatment. As such, since No-eul sees her reflection in Gyeong-seok’s situation. Perhaps, more importantly than that, she doesn’t want his young daughter to become an orphan.
For the same reason, she takes every risk and burns every bridge to get the player to safety. In fact, once she puts him on a boat out of the Island, she returns to face her Boss and erase the father’s files from the organization’s entire database. Eventually, Hwang Jun-ho comes across Gyeong-seok’s boat and helps him return to the mainland. Ultimately, the father escapes from the dreadful Island and returns home to his daughter. Six months down the line, he has put the entire experience behind him. Better yet, his daughter’s cancer has been treated thanks to the generosity of the people around him. In the end, when he crosses paths with No-eul again at the park, he doesn’t recognize the woman who saved his life from behind a mask. Still, she’s happy to see her efforts have successfully reunited the father with his daughter.
Read More: Squid Game Season 3 Ending Explained: Is Seong Gi-hun Dead?
