The original post: /r/television by /u/BrotherEven8389 on 2025-06-29 23:31:09.
I don’t know if I’m the only one, but after finishing season 3 I had a bitter taste. Everyone talks about Gi-hun’s “heroic act” as if he did something great… but when you think about it coldly, what he did was an escape disguised as a sacrifice.
He had a daughter outside. I had the money. He had the experience and information to expose the organizers or even try to stop everything from another place. But no: he decides to come back, play again, and die for a baby he didn’t know. Is that altruism? Or guilt and despair dressed in nobility?
And beware, it didn’t even save as much as it seems: • The baby you “saved” could end up involved in the games in a few years, because the system continues. • Your own daughter will likely be orphaned and vulnerable to the same fate. • The baby’s father was eliminated without justice, even when he did have a concrete and real motivation: to get his daughter back.
Not to mention that the old woman killing her son so that a random baby can survive is a completely irrational act that is sold as “maternal sacrifice.” No, ma’am. You killed your son for a symbolic idea. And that is not noble: it is emotional fanaticism.
I feel like the ending was meant to be profound, but it was a cowardly move to cover up emotional holes with an innocent creature. And yes, it hurts to say it, but someone had to say it:
Gi-hun didn’t break the cycle. He restarted it.