In Netflix’s <em>Squid Game</em>, Debt Is a Double-Edged Sword
Beneath the hyper-violence, the hit show has surprisingly tender reflections on our obligations to other people.
For the chance to escape severe debt, the characters in Netflix’s hugely popular survival drama would risk anything, even death. Take the protagonist Seong Gi-hun. Unemployed, he spends his days in Seoul gambling on horse races and has signed away his organs as collateral to his creditors. His deficits, both financial and personal, hurt the people closest to him: He hasn’t paid child support or alimony to his ex-wife; he mooches off his elderly mother. On his daughter’s birthday, Gi-hun can afford to buy her only (spicy rice cakes) and a claw-machine toy. He has
