Disclaimers

*Spoiler alert - If you haven’t watched this show but plan to, don’t read any further.

**Violence alert. “Squid Game” has several depictions of murder, death and human depravity. We strongly suggest discretion for sensitive audiences.

A group of 456 people who are destitute and desperate are gathered on an undisclosed island in a series of gladiatorial games to win a single, massive cash prize. The games are traditional Korean children’s games with consequences that are far from childlike. With every contestant’s death, the prize pot grows. Welcome to “Squid Game,” Netflix’s newest hit sensation.

A commentary on the pitfalls that befall many North Korean defectors, the show references many of the struggles they face in South Korea’s highly competitive economy.

After one year of working with refugees at Elim House, Crossing Borders has witnessed first-hand the many hardships that beset North Korean refugees in their new home. They enter South Korea full of hopes for wealth and prosperity. These dreams often trap many North Koreans who will go to great lengths to fulfill them. “Squid Game” highlights this struggle for all who live in South Korea.

A North Korean Defector

One of the main characters is a North Korean defector woman, Sae-byuk or ”Player 067.” Like many North Korean refugees, her story is tragic and filled with many struggles. She lands in South Korea with her sibling, a young boy. She lost her father while escaping North Korea. Her mother is trapped in North Korea and Sae-byuk desperately wants to get her out.

Episode Two details Sae-byuk’s struggles as she speaks to a broker, someone who is paid to smuggle North Koreans to freedom. Many North Koreans like Sae-byuk are swindled by brokers, who harrass defectors for money even after they have been paid. In the episode, the broker says that he will need the equivalent of $33,000 USD to get her mother out of North Korea, even though Sae-byuk had already paid him in full.

North Korean refugees that Crossing Borders has helped along the Underground Railroad have detailed their horror stories about degenerate and deceptive brokers. One woman who Crossing Borders helped in China reported that she was sexually assaulted by one of her brokers.

Korean culture and values are traditionally centered around family. Family is everything, for both North and South Koreans. Sae-byuk is strapped for cash. Her younger brother is in an orphanage and she is unable to care for him. She is wracked with guilt as she fights to get her brother out of the orphanage and her mother out of North Korea. This longing for family runs deep in North Korean culture as many refugees will hustle to make money not simply to become rich but to get their families out of dire circumstances.

Consider how difficult it might be for someone whose identity is anchored to her family and to constantly remember that a family member is trapped in North Korea. They read the same gloomy reports as the rest of the world does. The key difference is that someone they love has no way to escape. Everyday they are left to wonder what is happening to their loved ones. This feeling of hopelessness is captured candidly in “Squid Game.”

Within the carefully manicured walls of the game, most characters form alliances with others, despite the fact that, in order to “win” the game, the winner must witness the death of all the other contestants. Sae-byuk doesn’t trust anyone. Perhaps it is because of her time in North Korea. Perhaps she knows that, at the end of the day, she must fend for herself. She seems to understand this better than anybody else. As other characters form alliances and make friends, Sae-byuk avoids getting too close to the other contestants. She is reluctant to share any details about herself with others.

Capitalism or communism?

Someone in North Korea must have a Netflix account because the country’s propaganda department put out a statement on the show saying, “‘Squid Game’ gained popularity because it exposes the reality of South Korean capitalist culture,” North Korean news outlet Arirang Meari said. It is “a world where only money matters—a hell-like horror.”

But the show’s commentary on totalitarianism was apparently lost on the North Korean propagandists.

The judges of the games point to the “pure and fair” ideology of the Squid Games. But in order to make the games “pure and fair” they must keep players in paltry conditions. Like North Korea, the keepers of Squid Games resort to food deprivation as a means to control its people. Uniformity and equality are emphasized as ideals, extending to player uniforms, rations, rules of participation. This communal fairness is not unfamiliar to North Koreans, whose communist government calls for the same philosophy of impartiality. Such values are, both in communism and capitalism, ideals that are rarely achieved.

Many commentators agree with North Korea about the show’s critique of capitalism in South Korea. What awaits the players outside of the games are the consequences (personal and societal) of capitalism - a sense of immobility and powerlessness that defines life for many Koreans, but North Koreans especially. They are the byproducts of the often cruel and competitive South Korean version of capitalism where one must be fierce and relentless in order to succeed. And even when one does succeed, it doesn’t always work out.

The character Sang-woo or “Player 218” embodies this pitfall. He is a legend in his neighborhood for his academic success. Despite graduating from Seoul National University’s business school -- South Korea’s equivalent of Harvard -- he still finds himself desperate and in need due to embezzlement and overwhelming debt.

In capitalist South Korea, one can do everything right and still find oneself at the point of desperation. North Koreans enter into the South and learn the roadmap to a better life: education, material success, a comfortable life, security. But from what we have observed, these promises are just as empty as the promises of communism.

All are brought to a point where they must choose whether they want to be involved in this totalitarian game or be released back to the pitfalls of capitalism. Episode Two is an inflection point in the show. Blood-weary players ask to end the games in order to spare their lives. As they vote to decide the future of this game, one player cries out, “Have you all gone crazy? We have to leave.”

“So what if we leave? Tell me, what changes? It’s just as bad out there as it is in here,” Player 212 says.

“Where am I supposed to go? Out there I don’t stand a chance. I do in here,” another player retorts.

To stay or leave?

This debate in episode two poses a question that all North Korean refugees have faced, is it better to stay or leave?

North Korean refugees have faced many junctures in their lives where they must decide on whether to stay or whether to leave. As absurd as the premise of “Squid Game” is, is North Korea more or less absurd? Which reality is stranger, a dystopian game of red light green light or surviving in the so-called communist utopia that North Korea claims to be?

It is an essential question that Crossing Borders has counseled many refugees through. Consider the question on whether to stay enslaved in a forced marriage in China or to take a chance on the Underground Railroad for freedom in South Korea. Even before Elim House opened, we didn’t tell our refugees that all would be well in South Korea. Though they will be given a legal ID and up to $20,000 to start a new life but, as we have witnessed in the past year, this freedom and funds are far from salvation.

What Crossing Borders does when helping a refugee answer the question of whether they should stay or leave is arm each person with the information they need to make the right decision for themselves. Like in the show, there are no perfect answers.

Unhappy ending

As Sae-byuk slowly dies in episode eight, she tries to get a guarantee from one of the two remaining players to take care of her brother if he wins. In the scrum of the bloody game, he is unable to promise her before she dies. Player 456 does indeed help Sae-byuk’s brother, but she dies with the uncertainty.

This is the tragedy of the North Korean experience, that many die trying to secure a future for themselves and their families. Most die without achieving their goals or securing something better for their loved ones.

This is why Crossing Borders focuses on sharing the hope of Christ with these people. Worldly success is fleeting and deceptive, happiness is often elusive, but the love of God is unchanging. No matter what happens to these people and regardless of where they go, it is our hope that they find the one thing that will help them transcend the daily struggles of their lives and find a joy that is unbreakable.