Diksha Sundriyal
Hundreds of people are given the chance to walk away with a fortune in Netflix’s ‘Squid Game.’ To win, they have to survive six games over the course of six days, but at the same time, they also have to survive each other. While each player needs that money, not everyone is cut out for it. Some players immediately take to the violence and backstabbing, and they go pretty far. But there are others, too innocent to adapt, and hence, they lose. Still, there are several other factors that play a major role in someone’s survival. A lot of times, it depends on nothing but luck, and Kim Young-mi turns out to be very, very unlucky. SPOILERS AHEAD
Hyun-ju’s Friendship Helps Young-mi Survive
Young-mi comes into the picture during the second game when everyone is looking to team up. She hesitantly approaches Hyun-ju, considering that the latter, too, fails to find a team for herself. At first, Hyun-ju is unsure of pairing up with Young-mi, who doesn’t seem like a very strong player. But as the team forms itself, the duo are attached to one another for the rest of the journey. Befriending Hyun-ju becomes Young-mi’s lifeline as the girl is constantly encouraged and fed with confidence by the woman who treats her like a younger sister.
Discord appears between the two during the voting. After the second game, Young-mi becomes desperate to leave the game because she is already scared of all the bloodbath she has witnessed so far. Her team barely made it out of the second game, and she feels that she won’t be able to survive the next. She votes to leave, but when her turn comes, Hyun-ju chooses to stay. This causes a fracture in their team as the mother and son also vote opposite of each other. In any case, the vote ends in the favour of Os, and it doesn’t matter what anyone voted for. They all have to play the game.
Being a part of the team helps Young-mi in the third game, Mingle. While most other people struggle to team up, she has no such problem. Hyun-ju makes sure that Young-mi always stays with her so that both of them can survive the thing. However, with each turn, the other players get more and more desperate to save themselves. Each turn brings out either the worst or the best in them, and with a new number dictated every time, each team is broken up differently. In this situation, those without friends struggle the most, and Myung-gi is one of them. Because he has no team of his own, he has to force his way into a group every single time, and he does so with Hyun-ju’s group as well.
Young-mi is Killed by Bad Timing and Bad Luck
During one of the rounds, Hyun-ju and Young-mi run with their group towards a door but in all the chaos around them, they are separated. While the rest of the team makes it through the door, Young-mi is still on the way when barely ten seconds are left before the doors close. Before she can reach them, Myung-gi seizes the opportunity. He gets in the door and shuts it behind him, leaving Young-mi stranded outside. Everyone inside the cell is horrified to see this, particularly Hyun-ju, who tries to open the door and get Young-mi. However, Myung-gi tries to stop her, but he doesn’t have to try for long as time runs out and the doors are locked automatically.
Young-mi is left outside alone, and the moment the doors are locked up, the guards show up and gun down everyone. Hyun-ju helplessly watches Young-mi die right in front of her eyes. She blames Myung-gi for taking Young-mi’s place, but he claims that even if he hadn’t taken her place, she still wouldn’t have been able to make it to the door in time. With that, all the people inside the room would have been killed because they would be short one person. With that in mind, he claims he has actually saved their lives. When the other players agree with his logic, Hyun-ju is forced to back down, but she is traumatised by Young-mi’s death that when the next voting happens, she votes to leave the game.
Read More: Gong-gi in Squid Game, Explained: Rules and How is it Played?
