The original post: /r/television by /u/Tall_Eye4062 on 2025-11-25 08:35:39+00:00.
Everyone treats Squid Game like it invented the concept of “compete in a deadly survival game for a large sum of money, and there can only be one winner.” But Stephen King wrote The Long Walk back in 1979, and it’s literally the same core premise:
A group of contestants enter a brutal survival game.
No one is forced to play. They volunteer, and get a huge prize if they win.
The last one alive wins.
Game is broadcast to people who treat it like sick entertainment.
Sound familiar? The whole “human nature under pressure,” alliances, mental breakdowns, and the horror of watching people collapse one by one…The Long Walk did it 40 years earlier. Not saying Squid Game is bad (I loved it), but let’s not pretend it invented this idea. Stephen King had already written possibly the bleakest “death game” story of all time, and there were no marble games or dalgona cookies. Just blistered feet, sleep deprivation, hallucinations, and kids walking to their death on a road while people cheer.