Humans Are… Unpredictable: How Gi-hun Ultimately Defeated the Game *Heavy Spoilers*
A quiet rebellion, unfinished words, and the only true victory the Games ever allowed him.
The final episode of Squid Game holds one of its most quietly radical moments — a single line that flips the ideology of the Games and transforms Gi-hun from prey back into a human with full agency. In this last battle, Gi-hun — bloodied but resolute — turns to face the audience (literal and metaphorical). He stares at the system that shaped him and refuses to let it reshape him again. This makes Gi-hun the true winner of the standoff of philosophies between him and the Frontman.
Nothing stopped him from walking away — a prized horse once again put out to stud instead of slaughter. Nothing except his own ideology. He leaves his final words to the Frontman, to the system, to the other players, unfinished:
“Humans are…”
These words would usually resolve the tension into something neat, an easily digestible statement about human nature. Humans are… greedy, cruel, selfish. Anything that might make the illusions of the Games feel true. But we are not given that easy resolution. Instead, these two words hang in the air while Gi-hun rebels quietly — choosing faith in people (in the Frontman) over cynicism, answering the Frontman’s final question — “Do you still have faith in people?” — not with words, but with an act.
That’s what makes these words so unsettling — for us, as viewers, and as humans. The truth is that humans are… unpredictable. And that is something the Frontman cannot control.
The Recruiter would only shrug at this rebellion. He knows chaos is always there — impossible to contain, it can only ever be invited. In contrast, the Frontman still clings to the illusion: that the odds are fair, that players choose their fates, that the brutality is justified — and, most importantly, that his own actions in the same game were justified. Gi-hun’s final stand not only breaks the logic of the Games but shames a system that demands justification.
This unfinished sentence is the only true victory the Games ever allowed.
After Gi-hun’s first rebellion against the system fails — costing the lives of those he was trying to save — he is thrown into nihilistic existentialism, wishing he too had of been killed. He cannot break the system as he hoped. He cannot even win over a majority to fight the same regime. But when he is given something to attach meaning to, he steps into something new: a humanist absurdist. He is given the task of protecting a newborn child, born into the Games. This gives him meaning again — something to live for.
The Games — and those who run them — believe the system can control human behaviour through rules, illusions of fairness, and odds. Most of the time, this works. But chaos is never far away when you insist on knocking on its door.
The night before the final game, the Frontman creates a hostile environment for Gi-hun and the child — but also offers him an option: an easy out. Take a knife, kill the other participants, void the final game, and ensure that the baby and Gi-hun survive. In that moment, the Frontman reveals himself to be In-ho — Gi-hun’s former ally, who once played alongside him and the baby’s mother while disguised in the Games. Someone Gi-hun trusted. In-ho tells him he’s sorry for the baby’s mother’s death. Are those words sincere? We will never know — but they matter.
To the Frontman, this is an easy prediction: Gi-hun will kill the others, walk away, and make the “morally correct” decision. The baby is obviously more worthy of life than the men who wish to kill it in order to share the prize pool.
For a short time, the Frontman believes he has won — Gi-hun approaches Player 100, dagger in hand, ready for an easy kill. But Gi-hun hesitates. His own personal code stops him. He is confronted by an image of Sae-byeok from season one, reminding him, “You’re not that kind of person.”
We learn this is how In-ho won his Games: by taking the same advantage offered by Il-nam, the Games’ creator. A flashback shows In-ho ensuring his win by slaughtering his competitors in their sleep — not emotionless, like the Recruiter might be, but done nonetheless.
Gi-hun’s refusal is a profound deviation from the Frontman’s expectations. He confronts the Frontman’s own actions, unknowingly, by creating a definitive moral code: I am responsible for this child, but I will not kill needlessly. If I and this innocent child die, it will be because of others. I will not have further blood on my hands.
He is not playing the game as intended. He is not behaving as expected. The impact on the Frontman likely runs deeper than shown. Can he trust his choices? Was he truly justified? Are these illusions still real?
When the final game begins, Gi-hun stays true to his word and defends the baby at all costs. The final round must be played out between him and the child he swore to protect. He must choose: the baby lives, or he lives. It is an easy choice for Gi-hun. He was never going to sacrifice the only meaning left in his life — this innocent baby — for his own survival. Gi-hun is already dead — not physically, not yet, but in every other sense. He cannot go on a second time. But a dead man can still make a stand in the face of the void.
By choosing to fall to his death, he puts faith in the Frontman — faith that he will follow the rules of the game, that he cared for the mother in some capacity, that some humanity remains. He holds him to his word, even when he knows that word is meaningless. As he echoes to Sae-byeok in season one:
“You don’t trust people because they’re trustworthy. You trust them because there’s nothing else to lean on.”
He has to trust the person he has the least reason in the world to trust. An unpredictable outcome.
This is why those tiny words loom so large.
Humans are… unpredictable.
A truth the Recruiter always knew.
A truth the Frontman could never tame.