Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Squid GameNetflix’s Squid Game is an undeniable hit. Over 111 million viewers worldwide have watched the South Korean death game series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, making it the streaming platform’s most popular show to date and it looks very likely that we'll get a season 2 at some point. However, Squid Game Season 1 still has fans talking, especially about that big reveal in its final episode. Like Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) himself, most viewers had no reason to believe that Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), a.k.a player 001, was anything but a poor senior citizen with terminal cancer. And, therefore, just like Gi-hun, many of us gasped when Il-nam appeared in the finale, alive and not so well, revealing himself to be the real mastermind behind the game. However, looking back on the show’s previous episodes, there were a few hints to the fact that there was something more to player 001. Here are all the clues you might have missed regarding Oh Il-nam’s true role in Squid Game.
He’s player 001
Of course any kind of contest or game must have a number one player. Someone has to be the first to enroll in the competition. However, considering the nature of Squid Game, we have to wonder just how lucky or unlucky someone has to be to be the first one in the arena. After all, Il-nam wouldn’t just have be the very first player to set foot in the main room, but also the first one to be picked up by the guards and maybe even the first one to call the mysterious number on the back of that business card. Sure, if it hadn’t been him, someone else would have to wear the 001 uniform, but the fact that it is him is certainly cause for suspicion.
He’s not targeted by the killer doll in the first game
During the game of red light, green light, the giant doll that sings and shoots players has a motion detector in its eyes. Those who try to cheat the game or are just nervous to stay perfectly still are killed on sight. In a couple of scenes, viewers are able to see the playground through the doll’s eyes. The players that are about to get shot are highlighted in red, while the ones that are safe are surrounded by a green light. Some, like Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) and Gi-hun, manage to keep themselves alive by hiding behind other players, thus avoiding the doll’s watchful eyes. Il-nam doesn’t partake of the former childhood friends game strategy, but the doll still seems to pay him no mind: when the camera shows us the playground through its eyes, there is no light, red or green, surrounding Il-nam and the players closest to him. It as if the doll had been programed to overlook his presence.
He’s totally unfazed by the people dying around him
After the first shots are fired in red light, green light, the players’ reactions vary a lot from one another. Some panic and run towards the exit, getting killed on the way. Others are frozen in place or unable to understand what is going on. There are also those that are quick to figure out what’s happening, but decide to go on with the game anyway. No matter how they responded to their playmates’ deaths, however, everyone there was utterly shocked. That is, everyone except Il-nam. He is completely unfazed by the sound of gunshots and the dead bodies falling around him. Considering Il-nam’s age and current health, it’s no wonder that he still manages to have fun during the game: after all, his tumor could kill him just as fast as any bullet, and between at least one war and one military dictatorship, he has certainly seen his fair share of horrors. However, it’s strange that he doesn’t even bat an eye when people start dropping dead during a kids’ game. It’s the kind of reaction a person can only have if they already know what’s about to happen.
And, yet, he votes to leave
So Il-nam has nothing to lose and isn’t bothered by the deaths of others. Then why did he vote to leave after the game of red light, green light? It’s a strange decision that not even Gi-hun expected, considering the look in his eyes as Il-nam approaches the voting panel. Things only get weirder after Il-nam’s encounter with Gi-hun in the outside world, in which he says he’s decided to go back into the game because he doesn’t want to sit around waiting for death to come. Not only is participating in a death game an unorthodox way of spending your final moments, to say the least, but if that’s how he feels about his last days, then why did he even leave? Over the course of Squid Game’s nine episodes, we learn that the game masters have a strange understanding of concepts like justice and democracy. Therefore, it’s likely that Il-nam only voted to end the game because he felt it wouldn’t be fair to go on with so many people wanting out.
He stops the fight in the main room
In Episode 4, a fight breaks out after bedtime in the main room, resulting in the deaths of many players. We soon learn, however, that the riot was engineered by the Front Man to generate stress and animosity among participants. While everyone is fighting for their lives in the dark, Il-nam climbs to the top of a bunk bed and screams for the game masters to make it stop, saying that he’s afraid. Upon hearing this, the Front Man tells a guard to put an end to the extra-official game. Considering that the game masters have no qualms letting an old man with a terminal disease participate in death match, one has to wonder why they would be moved by the same man’s pleas for help during a riot.
He’s not actually shackled to the rope in tug of war
This elusive clue was pointed out by a TikTok user. In the game of tug of war, all players are shackled to the rope. This is what guarantees that they will fall to their deaths if the opposing team wins. Throughout the game, the camera repeatedly shows us that Il-nam has shackles around his wrists just like his teammates. Upon closer examination, however, we can see his shackles aren’t bolted shut like the others with his hand covering the part of the rope where his shackles should be tied.
He doesn’t have a file
Like the unbolted shackles, this clue is incredibly easy to miss. When Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) enters the archive in the Front Man’s room, he finds files pertaining to each and every person that has ever participated in the game. But when he opens the 2020 binder, the first file he sees is not player 001’s, but 002’s. This either means that player 001’s file is missing for some reason or, and probably more likely to be the case, that he never had a file in the first place because he isn’t a real player.
He doesn’t bother finding a marbles partner
Episode 6, “Gganbu”, contains many clues to Il-nam’s real identity. The first one is the fact that, unlike other players, 001 doesn’t make much of an effort to find a partner for the upcoming game. It’s possible to read this as him not wanting to slow down his allies or as a mere sign of exhaustion after running a fever and wetting himself the night before. However, it can also mean that Il-nam already knew that any player without a partner would be taken safely back to the main room, and, thus, simply chose to wait out his sickness instead of overexerting himself.
The village from the marbles game is a replica of his childhood home
This one isn’t exactly a clue, but something that is re-contextualized by the final episode. When the players enter the playground built for the marbles game, Il-nam repeatedly states that the fake village is identical to the one where he grew up and insists on looking for his house. Gi-hun is annoyed by what he sees as the ramblings of a sickly old man, and so were many viewers. However, after finding out that player 001 wasn’t a player at all, we realize that the similarities were neither coincidental nor made up by an unwell mind: The marbles game took place in a direct replica of Il-nam’s hometown.
He "dies" off-screen
Squid Game isn’t a show that shies away from gory scenes. Every named character that is killed in the game dies a bloody and painful death in front of the cameras. The sole exception is Il-nam. After losing on purpose to Gi-hun in the marbles game, he’s shot by one of the guards behind the wall of a house that he claims to be uncannily similar to his childhood home. The camera focuses on Gi-hun walking away, going past the opening on the wall through which we can see Il-nam. The only element hinting to his death is the sound of a gunshot. However, in television, only things we actually see are written in stone, and sometimes not even that. Therefore, viewers that had already picked up on the inconsistencies of Il-nam’s story were probably unsure whether or not that gunshot had actually killed Il-nam.
The hand we see taking off the golden animal mask belongs to an elderly man
When the VIPs arrive to watch the games live, the Front Man calls his boss, the host, to welcome their guests. Shook by the suicide of a player in the main room, however, the boss tells the Front Man to greet the VIPs himself, claiming to have more important things to deal with. He then takes off the golden animal mask that identifies him as one of the VIPs. Though we do not see his face, it’s the hand of an elderly person that puts the mask down, and the voice seems to belong to a man. But of course Il-nam isn’t the only old man in South Korea, so this clue is another one that only raised red flags among those that were already suspicious of him.
He has no backstory
Very few of Squid Game’s most relevant characters have no well-defined backstories. Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryoung) is one of them, as is the doctor (Yoo Sung-joo), who we at least know killed a patient in surgery. In Gi-hun’s team, though, everyone that has a name also has a very clear reason to be in the game: Gi-hun needs money to pay for both his mother’s surgery and his gambling debts. Sang-woo has used his mother’s own home and shop as collateral for a series of bad investments. Ali (Anupam Tripathi) wants to go back to Pakistan with his family, and Sae-byeok’s (Jung Ho-yeon) mother got arrested in China trying to flee from North Korea. Il-nam, on the other hand, never gives us any good reason to risk his life apart from not wanting to die alone at home or in a hospital bed. He doesn’t plan on using the money to pay for an experimental treatment or even to cover his medical bills. To each their own, of course, but getting a last shot of adrenaline is far from being a satisfactory explanation for participating in a death game. Sure, not everyone can afford paragliding lessons, but, hey, parkour exists for a reason.