Squid Game: What Do The Circle, Square And Triangle Explained Those Figures Mean?

In a matter of days Squid Game reached a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, became one of the most viewed on Netflix, and left us all hooked on its story of violence, sadism, and deadly childhood games.

It all started with Gi-hun, a Korean chauffeur who was having a bad time in his work, his relationship and his personal life, which led him to sign a contract where he promised to give a kidney to debt collectors if he could not collect the amount he owed. Just when he thought all was lost, Gi-hun is “invited” to play a children’s game in exchange for money and, after taking a few hits and losing several rounds, he ends up winning and receiving a card with a mysterious number.

The card, according to the man who gave it to him, belonged to an organization that wanted to give him the opportunity to earn a lot of money playing more children’s games, and on the other side it had the shape of a triangle, a circle and a square, which They could see everywhere where Squid Game takes place, from the uniforms of the guards to clues about the games they would play.

Squid Game: But What Did Those Figures Mean?

In Squid Game everything has a meaning (we could even see that the games were always there, right behind the participants’ beds, and they only had to pay attention to discover them) and the circle, triangle and square are not just simple chosen geometric figures random. The guards wear these geometric figures as part of their uniforms, each representing something different.

The circle, for example, is for the workers of the lowest rank, who are in charge of taking the participants to the area where the games take place, killing the losers and collecting the bodies after each event. The triangle is for the soldiers, who were in charge of maintaining order, and the square is for the supervisors, who were the direct bosses, below the mysterious leader who controlled everything.

These symbols help establish the hierarchy of the game’s team members, as well as allowing guards to remain anonymous, but without creating confusion about who is in charge or what task each character should perform. This is inspired, according to the director, by the ants, who have a work hierarchy where each one knows what to do and performs it as part of a whole, to serve the queen (which in this case is the leader and the creators of the game).

In addition, these figures also represent childhood, which is when children learn to draw them, and are reflected in games. The last one, which is located at the tip of a triangle, which is the Squid Game, is formed by a square that is the center of the squid’s body, while the circles are located at strategic points that the competitors must touch to win. In his youth, Gi-hun called the first circle the “secret inspector”, which was the key point from which they had to start to win. This is a real game from the 70s, albeit without the violence.

The figures partly represent the rules to be followed. In the sadistic game, for example, it means that the workers must perform certain tasks, while in the real children’s game they imply that the offensive player has to jump on one foot to get to each point, while the defender has to do everything possible to prevent someone from passing to the other side.

The figures and all the elements of the series seek to recreate the environment of children’s games and their basic and simple rules, but they also give an air of mystery to everything and show that there are hidden meanings everywhere. In addition to that, on the wall of the dinner, where we see the three surviving players, the triangle represents the connection between them, since one cannot win without the others (who must agree to continue until the end so that the game do not stop, and they must die so that only one reaches the top of the pyramid).

The circle is also the central element in the Korean flag and it bears the name of Taegeuk (which translates as supreme ultimate, where you can see the red and blue colors, which are the same as the uniform of the players and the workers ( and those that appear in the envelopes of the first game where Gi-hun wins a lot of money). On the flag, these elements represent the land, the people and the government, and carried into the series it translates into the field of play, the players and who are behind all that, and it also represents the duality of the world, light and dark, good and bad, which is reflected in the players and the decisions they make to survive.