Film Theory: Squid Game, Is 001 the FATHER of 456? (오징어 게임)

so squid game was a big deal right biggest show in the world this year and season two is coming so you know they have some twist reveals in store so consider this illnob player001 is the father of guyon player four five six one is the first player one is the last so there's already a connection there but why in the world would i say they'd be family well in episode three ilnam says that his son was allergic to milk just like yon ilnam grew up in the game four neighborhood just like gion even down to a very specific alleyway on the 24th ilnam says that his son's birthday is coming up and gion when he enters his birthday in the atm in episode 1 types in 4 26. oh and if you pay enough attention you'll also see that they both share a family name yeah i was just as shocked as you are so does this mean that these gangbu are better described as father and son and now that gyan is rich he's gonna rise to take over the family business in the newly announced season two well that my friends is what we're gonna prove or disprove today somebody call maury you are the father hello internet welcome to film theory the show that looks at a popular show and thinks all joking but also not joking aside squid game took not just the internet but the whole world by storm and everyone has been milking this cow dry even mainstream news outlets have been clamoring to find more content and fast so they decided to scrape the bottom of the barrel and started to go where no mainstream news outlet has gone before they started talking about theories but not their own theories of course not they started write articles that just rehashed other people's theories and of them all there was one theorist that rose above the rest one that mainstream media could not ignore a theorist whose theories were recognized and hailed as brilliant the internet over and that theorist was on tick-tock man tick tocker ruth bellpen had a post go viral when she proposed that our hero 456 gion and the twist villain number zero zero one ilnom were actually related more specifically that illnom is guillan's father that the old man is actually his father that's right squid game just went and pulled the star wars on us and then forgot to put in the big reveal i gotta admit reading the headline i thought this one was pretty dumb sure you can claim anything you want alfred is bruce wayne's father wolverine is secretly deadpool palpatine is rey's grandfather now but actually having evidence to back it up is something else entirely trust me i've made plenty of big leaps over the last 10 years but then i started to dig a bit deeper and yeah the evidence is certainly compelling at least when you look at that evidence on the surface i've seen popular tick-tock theories before that look good on the surface but ultimately crumble under the actual research so today as the internet self-proclaimed theory expert we're putting this one to the test is it possible that illnom is guillan's secret father and that they're saving the reveal for season two ladies and gentlemen it's morty time leave your theories in the comments below i'll pick my favorites in the next episode of morty now here's the thing throughout the show we don't learn anything about guillain's father his mother is a big part of the story and her medical issues are one of the key reasons he enters the squid game in the first place but as for his father there's no pictures of him around the house there's no talk of him nothing which ultimately leaves the door open for someone to appear and fill that role as such there's definitely the possibility that illnom is the man for the job so let's start by breaking down what ruth belpin called out in her tock first we have this scene hey is there any chocolate milk i can't drink the normal kind my goodness as a kid i'm willing to bet you got spanked a lot how did you know my son did too he was just like you friend she believes that this might be hinting at a connection between the two characters one got spanked for not liking milk the other had a son that got spanked for the exact same thing maybe it's implied that that's why the spanking occurred but it's not sure regardless i gotta say ethics is spanking aside punishing a kid for being lactose intolerant are you sure about that now one comment alone does not a theory make but as ruth bell pin points out this isn't the first time that geon and ilnam's pasts overlap in episode six we have the marble game and as soon as they both enter we get this line when i was a kid i lived in a neighborhood just like this so did i okay but that's just a coincidence right i mean that's a comment about ilnom's childhood not his adult life as a parent so what's the real connection here well later in the same episode illna also says this yes this is it my wife and i have this one here i raised my son right in here he found the exact house that he and his family lived in in a neighborhood that gion seems to also recognize and not only recognize but actively call out and you know something our alleyway looked very similar okay it's one thing for both men to grow up in a lower income neighborhood it would make sense that they would recognize the general vibe but it's another thing to outright call out a specific alley way now that is suspicious in fact it was so suspicious that i dug around a bit more and noticed that the gates outside of the houses and brick walls of the marbles arena looked nearly identical to the ones around geon's home that we see in episode 1. the final piece of evidence she calls out is when the old man asks for the date hold on what's today's date my son has his birthday soon what day is it the 24th well eagle-eyed viewers will remember that in episode 1 geon punches the date of his birthday as a pin number in the atm and we learn that his birthday falls on the 26th if ilnam's son's birthday is close to the 24th i'd say the 26th is pretty darn close and lastly there's one additional piece of evidence that i've seen circling reddit not exactly sure who is the first to say it i saw it posted by bright light shonjin but they claim it was originated on a korean website so hard to say for sure anyway it's about the importance of names in the series specifically the names of ill-nom and geon's mother when gyan steals his mother's credit card at the start of episode 1 we actually see the face of it for a few seconds on the card we can see her name clearly printed oh malsun now this is hugely important because ilnam's family name also is oh oh ill nom we see it in the imdb credits for the character as well as hear it in the final episode is that even your real name huh it is yes that's real which means that there's absolutely a family connection there plus their names actually mean something from what i've read ilnam means first boy or first man while malsoon means last person or last girl with something that obvious surely that's hinting at the connection between these two characters geon's father is the first man and his mother is the last girl it's like poetry overall some interesting details seem to line up and all of this is without even mentioning the fact that just the choice to include these little details feels intentional it feels like a series of easter eggs that'll pay off at some point but before we start digging into these specific points i also wanted to throw some observations into the ring all the evidence up to this point has been circumstantial if you really want to prove parentage and if you've watched any of my channels over the years you know that you gotta look at genetics looking at these two characters side by side there's a number of similarities that would point to them being related they both have brown eyes easy they both have brown black hair provided we're talking about illness hair before it turned gray and guillains before it um went the way of 2016 era markiplier even their hairline is similar something which is also passed down from parents to you you see there are two kinds of hairlines from a genetic perspective a straight hairline where the hair just goes straight across the top of your head or a widow's peak hairline where the hairline forms a kind of m shape the widow's peak is actually the dominant gene so the fact that both of these characters share a straight hairline or what's left of it anyways gives further credence to the theory that they're both related their earlobes are also both detached another genetically determined trait in fact all across their faces they share similarities similar brows similar chin similar crow's feet all indicators of a genetic family relationship all of which are shared by the two characters genetics also helps determine whether someone is right or left-handed and if we look carefully we see both characters using their right hands to sign their lives away when signing up for the games but genetics doesn't just affect physical features it can also affect a person's personality we know that gion is a neglectful father one that's now divorced and unable to fully commit to his daughter even after he just won millions of dollars and has the chance to get on a plane to spend time with her father of the year right there folks though we don't know much about illna we do know that he's alone on his deathbed in the final episode which could imply that he too was estranged from his family this would also explain why his memories of his son are all from when they were just a child because there came a point when illnom just wasn't around anymore now what i'm about to say might come as a surprise and i gotta admit i was taken aback by this too when i found it in my research but to not share it seems like it would be irresponsible you see divorce seems to at least be in part tied to genetics yeah when i found this in my research i was just as shocked as you are you see for years it was assumed that if parents were divorced then the children were also more likely to get divorced thanks to the normalization of divorce and established family environment but there was a study by vcu and lund university in sweden that actually found that genetics play a bigger part than you'd expect sure genetics don't physically give you a desire to divorce but what genetics can affect are your base emotions and your brain chemistry according to the study people can inherit high levels of negative emotions this in turn caused people to see their partners as more controlling or generally view them in a more negative light which in turn would lead to a higher chance of divorce this isn't the only psychological trait that can be passed down through genetics either there was a study carried out by the university of missouri and the queensland institute of medical research on 2889 pairs of twins to see whether genetics played a role in their gambling habits it turned out that an identical twin was more likely to have gambling habits if the other twin was also a gambler this boiled down to them estimating that if someone had three or more pathological gambling symptoms there was a 58 chance that it was inherited by their parents gion is a compulsive gambler in the show and we can reasonably conclude that illnom is as well he created the games he entertains the vips he even gambles with geon on his deathbed is this conclusive evidence no but is it evidence that we can add to the pile absolutely so that's it theory confirmed right we can all pack it up and call it a day said no one ever see all this evidence is pretty darn convincing until you do what i do and over analyze the over analysis that's when things start to fall apart let's start with the name connection which to me is one of the biggest things holding this thing together well yes it's a cool little easter egg let's stop and look at it from a cultural standpoint in the west when people get married typically the wife takes the husband's last name it's not always the case but it's very common in south korea though the family name the name that you say first is handed down to your children but not to your wife so the fact that both ilnam and malsun share a family name doesn't imply a husband and wife relationship and this also brings up another crucial point o is just an incredibly common family name in south korea according to the 2015 census there were over 700 000 people all using the family name oh so when you gather up 456 of them you're inevitably gonna have some people with the same family name it doesn't mean that they're all related in fact that's exactly what we see happen in the show not only is zero zero one an o but so is contestant 118 118 1.02 billion speaking of commonalities all those genetic clues that i pointed out earlier also super common look at any group shots from the show how many of these people all have brown eyes and brown black hair they are the dominant traits after all same thing with right-handedness of course being right-handed is the most common trait worldwide but it's even more common in south korea than it is elsewhere where only four percent of koreans use their left hand for eating and one percent for writing if you're right-handed you just make up the overwhelming majority of the country and are exactly the same as the other 95 so trying to use those genetic traits to prove a connection is ultimately fruitless as none of our characters have especially interesting features even the straight hairline which i did call out as a recessive gene is actually more common in south korea than the dominant widow's peak gene so across the board the one genetic trait that made the connection special isn't all that special when you take it from a cultural standpoint of south korea as for those gambling and divorce genes pretty hard to argue that the science exists over there but there are plenty of other studies that prove other factors play a part in whether people get divorced or start gambling obviously in fact a big reason both of those things can start to happen is one of the central themes of the show poverty everyone in the squid game is down on their luck they're in huge debt they're unable to provide for themselves or their family and so it makes them all desperate enough to partake but it's those same reasons that would make geon susceptible to a gambling addiction and make him far more likely to get a divorce we know that gion was laid off after 10 years of work now he works as a chauffeur but clearly doesn't earn much the gambling research exchange ontario states that there is a connection between gambling problems and significant job loss with gambling essentially becoming a coping strategy the dopamine hit they get from winning is a massive boost for those who are struggling to get by see also geon's reaction at the claw game if you're living below the poverty line it's also more likely to cause tensions between parents the census bureau has stated that quote poor two-parent families were about twice as likely to break up as we're two parent families not in poverty so the fact that gion lost his job and was struggling to find a new one that paid enough would most likely lead to him having more fights with his wife and last but certainly not least the birthday thing this is just a case of everyone not doing their research sure illnom says that the 24th is close to his son's birthday and guillain's birthday is on the 26th but look at the month we learned via the pin code that gion's birthday is 0-4-2-6 the 26th of april but the series is taking place in june we know this because of a few seconds later when he types in this what was it a birthday my kids is today 0608 his daughter's birthday june 8th today the timeline just doesn't work out june 24th is nowhere near geon's birthday of april 26th period and to make matters worse the show isn't even consistent with gion's birthday in the final episode of the show guyon says that his birthday is actually october 31st if you wish to play please state your name and date of birth sanki you october 31 1974 what now something is just completely wrong not only is that just a huge mistake for continuity but if this was meant to be some sort of clue alluding to a connection between a father and a son yeah you'd think they would have taken the time to ensure that they had gotten it right but all of this hard counter evidence aside the fact of the matter is that a twist like this just doesn't make sense we hear illness talk about his wife and kids on a few occasions how he'd come downstairs and watch his wife make breakfast or how he'd watch his son playing outside with his friends children start to form long-term memories from the age of 1. if his son was old enough to play outside unsupervised he's clearly older and the older he gets the more memories that his brain is going to remember so if ilnam was the father how does gyan not remember his father's face he also doesn't respond when the old man says this is the one and walks into what was supposedly a model of his old house if gian was indeed his son and was old enough to play outside in the courtyard then surely he too would remember that childhood home and it would be a moment that the show would call out to me this theory is a cool idea and i like the evidence a lot but i think we can safely say that it's just not true it is debunked i think squid game is incredibly clever and has found a really interesting way to cover a sociological issue but i don't think it's setting up a darth vader-esque moment at least not in this way by giving ill-nom lines about his wife his kids he becomes relatable to us it humanizes him it throws us off the scent that he was actually the big bad the entire time the fact it's normally in relation to gyan is also a way of strengthening their bond as characters making gian's betrayal of this forgetful old man and his eventual fake out death even more heartbreaking it forces us to subconsciously compare the two of them creating this natural way to make us realize how similar they are but ultimately how they became different people illna used his fortune to create the squid games but once gyan won he used it to help people showing us the one trait that separates him a trust and care for humanity this line of thinking is what i believe we're gonna see in season two seeing whether gion is able to hold on to his morals throughout season one he was shown to be very similar to ill-nom and now he's even more so thanks to the money that he's won so gion in season two is gonna face a choice he's gonna be like luke skywalker and have to decide whether he keeps his morals and trust for humanity or do like the front man did and join the dark side and host the squid games and i'm not even guessing about this the creator of the show has literally come out and said that this is likely what's gonna happen which doesn't hit nearly as hard if we haven't seen a connection and similarity between these two characters especially that moment when illnom gives gion his zero zero one jacket showing a symbolic passing of the torch to the next generation question is will gion accept that offer and the other question is can season two possibly rise to the heights of season one i guess we'll just have to wait and see in the meantime remember it's all just a theory a film theory and cuts hey do you know where in the world you could possibly get away with a legal version of the squid game we found it and it might actually have lore implications that video is on screen right now so if you're interested click it and if you're interested in debunking the bad tick tock theories that have been circulating around these days make sure you subscribe to the channel welcome to the loyal theorists

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 2,412,286

Keywords: squid game father theory, squid game father and son, squid game 001 and 456, squid game, 오징어 게임, squid game theory, squid game ending, squid game explained, how to survive squid game, red light green light squid game, squid game song, green light red light, roblox squid game, squid game trailer, squid game scene, squid game reaction, squid game gatcha, squid game tiktok, film theory, film theorists, matpat, film theory squid game, squid game theory old man

Id: CZ-TaCDD-oA

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021