If you’re a player in Saw or Squid Game, you’d do the unthinkable.
Kill. Manipulate. Sacrifice a part of yourself – physically or morally… all in the name of survival.
These games are gruesome, no doubt. But if we look beyond the blood and brutality, we can notice that they reflect a reality we face every day.
Think about it. Ever since we learned to walk, we have been told that we are masters of our destiny. We are free to make our own choices, and if we work hard enough, we can build the life we deserve.
But is it really true? Or is it just a comforting story to keep us in line?
In this video, we will talk about the underlying themes of Saw and Squid game about freedom, power, and survival.
This can help us understand the hidden rules of the games we play every day and how to win even though the odds are stacked against us.
The Illusion of Free Will
Both John Kramer and The Front Man love propagate the idea of giving people a choice—that by playing these games, they’ll gain a life-changing perspective or a life-changing amount of money.
But do they have a choice?
Jigsaw designs every trap to exploit your fears and weaknesses.
You start confused and terrified, which is a massive disadvantage. Can you really think clearly and “choose wisely” when you’re in panic mode?
And in Squid Game, they tell you that participation is voluntary.
But they know you’re drowning in debt.
They know you have nowhere else to turn.
And they don’t reveal the stakes until it’s too late.
In other words, in both cases, you operate in an environment designed to manipulate and exploit you.
If you win, you serve the goals of those above you.
If you lose, you’re simply expendable.
Kinda like real life.
These shows reveal the illusion that we are masters of our destiny.
And there’s actual research behind this concept.
B.F. Skinner demonstrated that the environment and our past experiences play a huge role in influencing our behavior.
Our decisions are the product of a lifetime of patterns, habits, and the world around us.
In other words, what seems like a personal choice is often shaped by forces we cannot see or control.
The good news is that while we can’t control these forces, we can learn to recognize them and diminish their negative influences.
This leads to the work of two other heavy figures in psychology: Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck.
Their approach was simple. Since humans have the ability to reason, they can learn how to think clearly and make better decisions.
And again, there’s overwhelming research that supports their approach.
So here’s how I make sense of all of this:
You have no free will until you learn to use your brain to work for you and not against you.
Without free will, you’re like a ship in a storm.
You never know where you’ll end up, but surely, it will be bad. You’ll be forced to make some tough choices, which brings us to another crucial theme:
Morality is a Luxury
You’re a good person.
You don’t lie, cheat, or hurt others.
But is that because you’re guided by strong moral values… or because you’ve never been desperate enough to test them?
Look, many of us have had the fortune to have food, shelter, and access to average education that gave us the tools to keep that lifestyle.
But what happens when the morons we have elected make horrible decisions, and their consequences slowly trickle down on us?
I mean, you might lose your job, struggle to pay rent, someone you care about is sick, your car breaks down, you happen to fall for a con man…
You know, there’s this interesting tendency that when you’re down, everything starts to fall apart like dominos.
Squid Game perfectly captures how this feels in the 2nd episode, accurately titled “Hell”.
After the first game ends, the players are horrified by it and vote to leave.
For a brief moment, they think they’ve reclaimed their freedom.
But they quickly realize that their real world is still a nightmare.
Gi-Hun is still drowning in debt, unable to support his daughter, and watching his mother’s health deteriorate.
Sang-Woo is still facing arrest and financial ruin due to his bad investments.
Ali is still being exploited by a boss who sees him as disposable and unable to secure his family’s future.
So one by one, most of the players return to the game.
Here, they feel they’ve got a slight chance of winning and turning all of this around – even if it means betraying their long-held moral values.
They saw the blood-soaked chaos of the first game. It would be foolish to think the other ones are any better.
Right now, morality is another thing they can’t afford.
Look, most people aren’t actually evil. But when survival is on the line… When the rope gets tighter… the consequences of betraying those values seem small by comparison.
Another very interesting situation is when you’re an idealistic person who would love to improve the world but is powerless to do so.
And here, I think Machiavelli was right, when you have no power…
Idealism is worthless
Gi Hun is a flawed but fundamentally kind person.
He loves his daughter and mother, yet he’s reckless. By the time we meet him, he has ruined his marriage, gambled away his money, and accumulated a mountain of debt.
When the games begin, Gi-Hun does his best to help and protect others, even though they’re his competitors. He clings to his humanity as much as he can.
But then we reach the marble game in episode 6. He’s paired with Il-Nam, the frail old man he’s been protecting since the start.
At first, he tries to play fairly.
But as the clock ticks down, the stakes become unavoidable: Win or Die—your choice.
So he manipulates Il-Nam, exploiting his apparent confusion and memory loss to survive.
It’s one of the most devastating moments of the show, not just for Gi-Hun but also for us as viewers. Deep down, we know that we would’ve done the same.
However, his feelings of betrayal and guilt do not destroy him. They force him to confront the darkness we all have within ourselves.
So, it doesn’t strip away his humanity; we can see it in the final game, where he refuses to kill Sang-Woo.
The real turning point comes later when he discovers that Il-Nam is alive and the mastermind behind all of this chicanery.
It still doesn’t erase the actions during the marble game, but that revelation shifts the blame from himself to the system. It shifts to this monstrous game that forces people like him to betray their ideals just to survive.
Gi-Hun takes the prize money and heads to the airport to reunite with his daughter in the U.S. It seems his story might end there.
As he’s about to enter the terminal, he sees the salesman recruiting another victim, and something snaps.
Some fans argue that he should’ve ignored it and started a new life in the US. But I believe he made the right choice.
Because he would never been able to enjoy his life after that experience.
The things he witnessed and had to do during the games will forever stay with him.
Understandably, he was feeling empty and depressed. You know, that kind of dread is why people drink or snort themselves to oblivion.
You cannot escape it unless you face it head-on.
So that moment is the best thing that could’ve happened to him.
Up until now, he has been a pawn… a pawn of his addiction and then of people who organized this game.
He was never in control.
But now he has a strong purpose and the necessary means to achieve it.
The odds are still stacked against him, but he’s no longer a pawn. He’s a force.
His journey shows us something profound:
Idealism is easy when you’re safe. It’s worthless when you’re powerless.
But when you’ve seen the depths of human suffering and confronted the darkest parts of yourself — that’s when idealism comes alive, and you’re ready to face thos who…
Play God Without Permission
What I get from the Saw franchise is that John Kramer is the perfect illustration of every prophet-like figure in history, whether in religion, politics, or science.
Is it a bold statement? Maybe. But hear me out and decide for yourself.
John has this picture-perfect life. He has a great wife who expects his son and a great career as a civil engineer.
Then, his wife is attacked at the rehab center where she works and loses their son.
If that weren’t enough, shortly thereafter, John is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
He’s overwhelmed by grief and drives his car off a cliff.
But he survives and has a powerful revelation:
People don’t appreciate life.
They waste it and take it for granted. And he decides to teach them a lesson.
Now, throughout the entire series, John frames his actions as being tough but fair.
Your bad choices have led to this moment, but you have the chance to survive and emerge as a different person—IF you’re willing to sacrifice something from yourself—in this case, something literal—and endure unimaginable pain.
But as we said earlier. This is bullshit. He has crafted the traps to exploit your deepest fears, add the element of surprise and urgency, and the odds are extremely high that you’ll fail.
Whether he knows it or not, he’s not actually teaching people. He’s punishing them.
After John inevitably dies, he leaves step-by-step manuals on carrying out his ideology.
It doesn’t take long for his companions to use his teachings as an excuse to indulge their own lust for power and cruelty.
So if you think that John is one twisted fuck, wait to see his most loyal followers.
That’s the problem with these prophet-like figures.
No matter how destructive or wrong their mindset is, as long as the narrative that sells it is compelling, it will spread like a virus… and soon, it will mutate into forms that can be worse than the original.
My point is this:
Every period in history has a group of highly influential people who create or spread a certain ideology – You know, a certain way of living or looking at the world.
Sometimes, it will largely benefit people; sometimes, it will largely destroy them and pave the way for something new.
Either way, these ideologies outlast their creators. They’re embedded in institutions, woven into cultures, and passed down from generation to generation…
until they arrive at YOU.
So whether you realize it or not, the big decisions you make today—the rules you follow, the assumptions you hold about yourself and others, the values you learned as a child—are echoes of history’s most influential voices.
They’re always there, whispering in your ear.
Sometimes, it’s the twisted ones. Sometimes, it’s the brilliant ones.
That’s why educating yourself matters. It’s the only way to recognize which voices you’re listening to.
When you understand those voices—when you truly understand yourself—that’s when you finally gain free will.