The Alchemy of Squid Game
**Warning this article contains massive spoilers - if you haven’t seen Squid Game and are interested in watching it - do so before reading**
Squid Game was an amazing show and I think most people would agree. Everything from the tense drama, the characters, and the surreal nature of it all were enough to get anyone hooked.
But what was most intriguing for me was the strange symbolism I noticed throughout the show. It made me think twice about the deeper meaning behind Squid Games and why it was so universally loved across the globe.
Most of the commentary about why the show was such an international success tends to focus on the universal theme of wealth inequality and the lengths that people are willing to go to acquire fortune.
Even the writer/director of the series Hwang Dong-hyuk said,
“I wanted to create something that would resonate not just for Korean people but globally. I did try to convey a message about modern capitalism. As I said, it's not profound."
As we’ll examine in this article, Squid Game is indeed far more profound than most of us realize.
The story conceals the archetypal myth of rebirth, a monomyth found in sacred stories told in every culture, both living and extinct, around the world.
We will examine Squid Game in the context of three ancient philosophies, philosophies whose basis is the archetypal rebirth story. Gnosticism, alchemy, and shamanism. Symbolism from each of these philosophies appears abundantly throughout the show and serves to reinforce the deeper story being conveyed in Squid Game. Arguably, it’s this deeper story that is the reason why Squid Game is able to transcend cultural boundaries and resonate with so many.
By uncovering these hidden symbols, not only can we come to a greater appreciation of Squid Game, but we can also learn how to use the myths and philosophies found in ancient stories, religions, and spiritual practices to help us better tap into universal archetypes and craft stories that can resonate for a global audience.
The Old Man and the Fool
The underlying framework for Squid Game appears to borrow heavily from the cosmogny of a little-known sect of early Christians and Jews known as Gnostics who formed around the first Century AD.
The core of the cosmogny of the gnostics was that this universe is not the true universe and it is being run by a demented god, they called the Demiurge.
(The Demiurge was often visualized as a snake or dragon with a lions head)
According to Gnostics, the Demiurge was the “Lord of the World” and ruler of matter. It was responsible for crafting and running the physical world. In a balanced universe, the demiurge was subordinate to the will of the ruling Logos, or God. Its job was to craft the physical universe based on the archetypal blueprints thought up by the Logos, manifesting them in physical reality.
However, according to the Gnostics, the demiurge became corrupted, and the Logos got cut off from the demiurge. As a result, humanity was thrown into darkness and became blind to our higher nature. Thus, we existed in two worlds - one characterized by unconsciousness and ruled by the law of the jungle, and one, more subtle, characterized by a vast and deep intelligence connected to the universe.
What remained within us was a dim level of awareness, where the ruling forces of our lower nature had free reign and the influence of this higher intelligence could not be heard.
Like Christianity, the hero of the gnostics was Christ, however, they differed from Christians by their belief that Christ was not a person, but rather an intelligence sent from the Logos in order to liberate this world from the demiurge. It was a force that would help to bridge the gap between the Spiritual and the Physical - between the conscious and unconscious self. The intelligence of Christ could be embodied by anyone and the path to this state of consciousness was found through the ability to receive gnosis or knowledge.
Unlike their Christian counterparts, Gnostics did not desire salvation from sin. Rather, they desired release from unconsciousness.
The Gnostics viewed the world as a battleground between the true forces of the Divine and the false forces of material reality. The universe was corrupt, a bizarre playground, ruled by a demented god and it was the role of the gnostic to break through the veil separating their own conscious and unconscious mind. True salvation wasn’t found by looking outside but was found by looking within.
To the gnostics, it is impossible to find salvation by looking outside oneself due to the corrupt nature of the physical world. Due to our blindness, we can easily fall prey to false illusions and fail to see the Truth.
We see some of this theme of the tension between desiring truth and only finding falsity in the disillusionment that some of the characters have with religion, in particular Christianity.
For example, while in the games, Gi-hun meets a religious player, Player 244, who prays to God for protection and thanks God for keeping him alive.
“God made a decision to help our team win,” he says. “That’s why we’re here.”
Another player, Player 240, scorns Player 244 for saying these prayers.
“Our father who art in heaven, we worked as a team to (kill people) and send people to your side,” she prays mockingly. “Help us send a lot more to your side.”
We learn later that Player 240 grew up in an abusive religious home. Her father was a pastor who severely abused her and her mother.
“When he hit her and did the things he did to me, he would talk to God,” Player 240 tells another player. “He’d always ask for forgiveness. He didn’t pray on the day that he killed her. That was even too much for God, I guess.”
The corruption, disillusionment, and hypocrisy of religion is a theme explored in Squid Game and this is also mirrored within gnostic philosophy. To the gnostics, anything but the Logos was corruptible and man existed in between the higher Logos and the lower Demiurge, which was chaos.
Without the aid of gnosis, or knowledge, mankind was blind and constantly in a delicate balance, easily succumbing to chaos if not careful.
Thus, in gnostic cosmogony, the inherent state of mankind is that of a fool - that is, one who treads in darkness, blind to any outcome and its gnosis which makes one able to see and hear.
Let’s examine how all of this relates to Squid Game.
While all the characters in Squid Game are fools to a degree, two of the characters Oh Il-nam or 001, and Seong Gi-hun, or 456 embody this archetype the most. Aside the obvious archetypal reference to the “beginning and end” in their assigned numbers, we need to look at the characters themselves to understand the significance of their role as “fools”.
Throughout the series, 001 is dismissed as an old, feeble man not capable of competing. However, we learn at the end that he is actually the creator of the games. Not much is known about his past, except that he had a job that dealt with money, is extremely wealthy, and is dying. He believes that people cannot escape their true nature which is to look out for themselves above all others.
Oh-ll-m and Seong become close, almost developing a father/son relationship and it is likely because Oh-ll-m saw Seong as an anomaly, someone who challenged this deeply held belief within himself. Throughout the series, Seong is constantly putting others first and doing his best to help where he can. He sticks with the old man even though everyone else dismissed him.
Even though Oh-ll-m built the game and knows the rules, he ultimately embodies the fool because he spent his whole life believing the worst in human nature. This one-sided belief has made him blind to the true potential of humanity, illustrated by one of the last scenes in the series where Seong comes to visit him on his deathbed. While watching a homeless woman laying on the street, he makes a bet with Seong that no one will come to rescue her. When he finally dies, he fails to see that he was wrong and someone does come to help
The other fool, Seong Gi-hun, begins the series as a gambling addict. Gambling can be argued to be a fool’s game and this is certainly the case for Seong. He gambles every bit of money he has and the show starts with him at his lowest point. He lives with his mother who nags him every chance she can, he is indebted to dangerous loan sharks, he is divorced and his ex-wife is planning to move to the united states with their daughter.
Gambling is a fool’s game because it is an act of pure chance. It’s placing complete faith in an outcome without knowing if one will succeed or not. Seong constantly embodies this - as soon as he gets a little bit of money, he immediately bets it, believing without question that he will win big.
We can see the fool within ourselves. None of us knows for certain how our path in life will play out. We wake up each day without knowing what will happen, essentially acting like Seong and the other contestants - placing bets on whether the outcome will turn in our favor or not.
In the show, even the VIPs make bets with each other as to who will win, showing that even the “gods” are blind as to the true outcome and anything is possible.
The fool is the default state of mankind. We are completely blind to the outcome of our choices until the result manifests. Essentially, every decision we make is made with complete faith. We are gambling with chance, every moment of our lives. There truly are no “safety nets”.
Thus, not one person alive today is not a “fool” in some capacity. Subconsciously, we all relate to Seong because of this.
Oh ll-nam, believing that human nature is unchanging, became a god of his own universe where the only rule is: to survive at all costs.
The parallels to gnostic cosmogony are obvious. Oh ll-nam represents the gnostic demiurge while Seong embodies the “liberating hero”, the fool who, through the trial by fire, achieves gnosis and is, thus reborn into someone whose eyes have been opened.
And not only does he become the hero reborn - at the end of the show, he decides to re-enter the game - a move that is a key element of both the Gnostic and Christian story of Christ sent to liberate the world.
The VIPs also represent an interesting nod to Gnostic myths.
In Gnostic myth, the corrupt demiurge, known as Ialdabaoth, gave birth out of himself to 6 sons, who together with their father became the seven planetary spirits. These were called the seven archons or governors.
Their names are:
Iao - Jupiter
Sabaoth - Mars
Adonaios - the Sun
Astaphaios - Venus
Ailoaios - Mercury
Oraios - the Moon
According to Gnostic myth, Ialdabaoth and his six sons were proud and opposing spirits who seek to establish a kingdom in the abyss which shall prevail against the kingdom of God.
Interestingly, the masks the VIPs wear, correspond to the astrological symbols represented by these planets.
Jupiter - is the eagle,
Mars, is the tiger,
The Sun - is the lion,
Venus the deer-,
Mercury - the ram,
the Moon - is the panther.
Let’s now go deeper into the mythology surrounding Squid Game and explore the hidden alchemical allegory contained within the story.
Alchemy and 33.
When you think of alchemy, you probably imagine someone in the middle ages attempting to create the Philosopher's Stone - a mythical substance that was said to be able to turn lead into gold, among other things.
This, however, was not the true goal of the Alchemist. The reality is “gold-making” was the allegory used to conceal the true purpose of the Alchemist - which is a system of study designed to transform the self in order to obtain wisdom.
The Alchemist believes that Nature herself is an Alchemist forever achieving the apparently impossible. Thus the true “philosopher”, as their called, patterns their conduct according to the laws of Nature.
To represent this natural order, they use a particular set of shapes which represent the Philosopher's Stone. The shapes are a circle within a square surrounded by a triangle, which is surrounded by a larger circle.
The circle represents Spirit, while the square represents the physical universe. The triangle represents the human being, immersed in the material, ultimately becoming capable of unlocking the Spirit contained within Matter. And the larger circle represents Spirit having ultimate dominion over Matter. Like the Gnostics, the Alchemist believes the natural order is Spirit having dominion over Matter.
Masks play a large role in Squid Game. All of the guards on the island wear masks of different shapes. The “front man” has a unique mask and the VIPs wear masks that correspond to the planets according to Gnostic lore.
Let’s examine the masks the guards wear in more detail. One of the main purposes of the shapes is to differentiate between the roles each of the guards has.
Guards wearing the Square masks are the managers, just below the Front Man. They act on the direct orders of the Front Man and oversee the entire team of workers.
The triangles represent the soldiers. They are the enforcers who terminate eliminated players and prevent contestants from violating the game's rules.
The circles are the workers and are given menial tasks - body disposal, preparing games, cleaning maintenance, and food distribution.
On the surface, there is nothing unusual about this configuration. However, seen from the perspective of an alchemist, it paints a much deeper picture. What appears to be shown is that the natural order is inverted. Square is shown as higher than the circle, representing the fact in this bizarre universe, matter has dominion over Spirit.
There is another interesting clue as to the alchemical nature of the story which is found in the number 33. We learn later in the series that this is the 33rd Squid Game. 33 is a significant number for many mystical traditions and essentially represents the “magical age of perfection”.
The mystical significance of 33 is a vast topic all its own, but the significance of it for our purposes in analyzing Squid Game can be seen as the year that a hero was “birthed” from the game.
To the Pythagoreans, the triangle symbolized this birth and is the result of the merging of the Divine (1) and Nature (2) forming the (3), or the aspect of mankind capable of creation.
With this in mind, the placement of the triangle masked guard in the hierarchy is significant. In an alchemical context, we can see the triangle representing free will. Just like in Gnostic philosophy, the alchemist believes the human, trapped in the material, has two forces that must be brought into balance in order to become fully realized. The lower and the higher.
Mankind has a choice, in each moment, to choose between the higher and lower parts of the self.
If you consider the role of the triangle guards as being “soldiers” this becomes even more interesting.
In the show, the triangle guard has no free will. He merely carries out the will given to him by the Squares, who carry out the will of the Front Man, and so on. In Squid Game, everything is tightly controlled and there is limited free will, adding further insight into the twisted nature of this universe.
Since we see the square (material reality) having control over the triangle (human being), we are effectively reminded that one who is ruled over by the chaos of the material world can never be free.
This hierarchy reinforces the basic ethos of the Squid Game universe - that there is no such thing as free will because people are inherently selfish and base.
Seong, as the “rebirthed hero”, refutes this argument by winning Squid Game without sacrificing the good within himself. The fact that this is the 33rd Squid Game just reinforces the significance of this transformation as a character. His journey into the darkness of the Squid Game universe and his “rebirth” represents the very purpose of the games which is also the purpose of Alchemy: the symbolic transmutation of matter - turning “lead” into “gold”. Symbolically, one must “die” in order to be for this transformation to occur.
And in Squid Game, the games themselves provide the necessary “fire” needed to properly break down an individual and rebuild them into “something more than human”.
As we will explore next, the games represent a type of shamanic initiation designed to create the “perfect human”.
Shamanic initiation
There is a universal myth told across cultures that describes a time when mankind had direct access to the spiritual realms and somehow that connection was lost over time.
In the West, we know of this myth as the “Fall” told in the Adam and Eve story.
Somehow, mankind lost its direct link to the Spiritual and thus ambassadors were needed in order to communicate with the gods. These ambassadors were known as Shamans. Shamanism is practiced in every culture across the world, and even the major religions of the world today such as Christianity can trace their roots to prehistoric shamanic practices. The priest in catholicism for example is the natural evolution of the shaman, a person with the ability to commune with God.
The shaman was traditionally an individual either born or called to the position. However, before they were able to become a shaman, they had to pass through a series of tests in an initiation ritual. Universally, these initiation rituals were set up in order to “purify” the shaman so that they could be strengthened.
The author Aaron Leitch describes the rituals as a “death-rebirth” process.
“The tribal shaman escorted souls to the afterlife and such a feat demanded that he be familiar with the roads taken by the dead. This was most often a major focus on the initiation of a new shaman, which included the experience of death and rebirth. More often than not, the shaman-to-be would be dragged forcibly and unwillingly to the underworld by demonic entities, who would then proceed to dismember and assemble the human’s body. During this process, each organ or body member would be purified, tempered, and strengthened. When the body was reassembled, it had become more than it was before.”
In Squid Game, the contestants, or initiates, are put through a type of shamanic initiation ritual where they are essentially taken to hell, tortured, and ultimately through this process, given the chance to be reborn into someone “more than human”.
We see the initiation ritual begin with the initiates drugged, shipped off to an undisclosed location, stripped of identity, and given a number. The island itself is disorienting, confusing, and downright surreal.
They are also put through extreme fear each day as they attempt to survive not only the games but also attacks from the other players.
Additionally, the constant exposure to death numbs the initiates of the very idea of living.
All of this is designed to encourage the initiates to become the basest version of themselves. It is the ultimate “survival of the fittest” competition - the kind only the demented god of a false universe would create.
Those that do survive and win the competition surely become forever changed.
One of the last games involves the initiates having to cross a glass bridge where each plate of glass is either very thin or strong enough to hold a person. Bridges are a significant metaphor in shamanic rituals.
Mircea Eliade in his book Shamanism discusses this significance.
“We here have a mythological complex whose principal constituents would appear to be the following: in the paradisal time of humanity, a bridge connected earth with heaven, and people passed from one to the other without encountering any obstacles, because there was not yet death; once the easy communications between earth and heaven were broken off, people could not cross the bridge except in spirit that is, either as dead or in ecstasy; this crossing is difficult; in other words, it is sown with obstacles and not all souls succeed in traversing it: demons and monsters seeking to devour the soul must be faced, or the bridge becomes as narrow as a razor-edge when the wicked try to cross it, and so on; only the ‘good’ and especially the initiates, cross the bridge easily.”
Interestingly, we see rainbow-colored lights strewn around the bridge, a reference to the concept of the “rainbow bridge”, a term used to describe someone who has died - i.e. “crossing the rainbow bridge”.
(Crossing the rainbow bridge - nice “as above so below” imagery happening here too)
Another note of significance for the games being shamanic initiation rituals is the VIPs which are first introduced shortly before this game. It is this game and the final game that the VIPs watch in person.
We examined briefly the masks that the VIPs wear and how they relate to the 6 sons of the demiurge in Gnosticism. In shamanism, masks are a significant part of rituals. The one wearing a mask signifies their role as the “specialist of the sacred”. Someone who has learned to move between the worlds of nature and spirit.
Micea Eliades writes that the purpose of wearing a mask in shamanic rituals is to, “manifestly announce the incarnation of a mythical personage”. In other words, you wear the mask to become someone else, to symbolically represent a deity, idea, god, etc.
The VIPs wear a mask to embody a mythical persona, signifying their status as “superhuman beings” or gods.
Of significance is the mask of the Front Man, which is not an animal, but instead is a strange geometric pattern in the shape of a human face.
The shape of his mask appears to take the shape of the tetrad, an important symbol to the Pythagoreans, who believed the tetrad represented the Cosmos.
In many traditions, the tetrad or the number 4 was considered a representation of the physical universe, of the 4 elements, and of matter. A dragon is often used to represent this concept and in many myths, a hero drives a sword into the “body” of a dragon.
Seen through the lens of Pythagorean and alchemical philosophy, the sword represents the monad, or wisdom, and the body of the dragon the physical universe. The 1, or monad + the 4, or tetrad, represents the 5, or the pentad, commonly called the pentagram, a symbol representing the victory of the spiritual nature over the material. In essence, the perfected man. Perhaps a variation on this myth will be explored in Season 2.
Further examination of the Front Man reveals some key insights into the purpose of the games. We initially don't know much about the Front Man except that he is the host of the games and leader of the guards. It isn’t until later that we learn that he is actually the winner of the 28th game.
His role as the Front Man is significant, considering that before the games he was mostly average - not wealthy by any means and certainly not someone you would consider “VIP” material. In other words, he was not a “god”.
However, now he is held in such high esteem that he runs the 33rd game. This is significant and indicates that he has become transformed by his experience in the games into someone worthy to be among the “gods”.
The games themselves are gradually transformative, we can see this in how the survivors of the games become more and more vicious toward each other. However, the transformation process isn’t completed until after the final game - a version of the actual game of Squid Game where the last two contestants must fight to the death.
If the initiate has not lost themselves by now, this last game is designed to ensure that the winner will have literal blood on their hands and can no longer go back to the life they once knew. By killing the other player, they will complete the transformation of the human being into the “dragon”.
Winning the 28th game means the Front Man had to perform this last act, thus he wears a black tetrad-shaped mask, indicating he is the “dragon” incarnate - a representation of the transformed man existing as the darkest version of himself.
For Seong, though, this last game does not end the same way it did for the Front Man. After battling his friend in a wholly Jungian metaphor where he metaphorically defeats his shadow, Seong does something never before seen in the Squid Game universe. He chooses not to kill. Ultimately, Cho San Woo kills himself, and Seong is declared the winner.
The winners of previous games, like the Front Man, did not make this same choice and ultimately succumbed to their own darkness. Seong, however, being the reborn hero, makes a different choice, much to the surprise of the demented gods of the Squid Game universe.
Sometime later, Seong gets an invitation to visit Oh-ll-m who is on his deathbed. It’s here that he learns that Oh-ll-m created the game to entertain the super-wealthy like him.
However, as we examined, the evidence suggests that this is only the surface-level reason for the games.
Perhaps the games are designed not only to entertain but also function as a type of initiation ritual for the “common man” where the “contestants” become part of an initiation designed to make one dark enough to stand with the demented overlords of the dragon’s universe.
The games were designed to maximize our selfish drives above all else - something Oh-ll-m and the VIPs have instilled in themselves as a driving ethos. To them, free will is an illusion. People are driven by their base desires, which makes them easily controllable. Dangle some money in front of people, throw them in an intense life-or-death battle, and no one will ever make a selfless choice.
So far, they have been proven correct, until the 33rd game when Seong wins without compromising his humanity. In fact, not only does he not succumb to darkness, he uses this experience in hell to find himself while the other contestants gradually lose themselves.
His initiation experience allowed him to become phoenix-like, rising from the ashes of his personal darkness to become something greater. This transformation is perfectly encapsulated in the following Alchemical saying,
“I am neither tree nor animal, nor stone nor vegetable, but the Philosopher’s Stone, trampled on by men, cast into the fire by my father, and in fire, I rejoice.”
The very end of the series shows Seong deciding to enter the fire once again, presumably in order to help destroy it once and for all.
With this act, he has shown us that “It is the end in which the beginning rests.”
(The phoenix rising from the prison of the Demiurge)
It’s clear that Squid Game has strong elements of the monomyth of death and rebirth and contains various symbols throughout the show that hint at this deeper story being told. The creative retelling of this archetypal story is what ultimately makes the show so popular with a global audience. While it certainly has themes that strongly criticize the dark side of capitalism, this isn’t what makes it resonate with so many in my opinion.
In 1000 years, the theme of capitalist greed may not resonate with people. But the archetypal rebirth story will be because this is an innate human experience. This is a story of the struggles we all go through, the darkness and trials we find ourselves in, and the transformation that awaits us on the other side of darkness. It’s about the choices we all are faced with every day - the choice to listen to the lower or listen to the higher.
This kind of story goes beyond politics and pop culture. It crosses cultural barriers and resonates across time. And it’s why it’s found in our ancient myths and continues to show up in the modern stories that resonate deeply with audiences.