(Credit: Netflix)

Most people left Squid Game thinking they had watched a brutal, stylish critique of capitalism wrapped in blood-soaked drama. And they were not wrong. But a Reddit theory now suggests that the series may be darker and more psychologically twisted than anyone initially imagined. It proposes that Gi-hun did not actually win. He was broken. Quietly, systematically, and completely.

The theory compares the ending of Squid Game to George Orwell’s 1984. In Orwell’s novel, Winston Smith does not rise or overthrow the system. He learns to love Big Brother. It is not a physical defeat. It is an internal collapse. That same grim trajectory, according to Redditors, is where Gi-hun might be heading.

This theory reframes everything about the show’s final episodes. Gi-hun survives. He even wins. But what does he become after that? The Gi-hun who dyes his hair red and prepares to fly to his daughter is not the same man who started the games. He has money but refuses to spend it. He has a second chance but does not take it. Instead, he walks right back into the belly of the system. Not to destroy it, but to understand it. Or worse, to become part of it.

The Front Man, who watches over the games with unnerving calm, plays a central role in this theory. He is not just a figure of authority. He is a psychological manipulator. He does not need to hurt Gi-hun physically. He just needs to change what Gi-hun believes. He presents the same challenge that O’Brien does to Winston in 1984: not to kill the rebel but to turn the rebel into a believer.

The show, according to this theory, is not about beating the game. It is about how the game beats you. The blood, the trauma, the choices, they are all part of a long process to deconstruct the human spirit. Il-nam’s final reveal does not feel like a twist of cruelty. It feels like the last stage of conditioning. By the time Gi-hun learns the truth, he is already too damaged to walk away clean.

The Reddit post highlights the tragic symmetry of the Squid Game universe. Everyone becomes a cog. The players become soldiers. The soldiers become managers. The survivors, no matter how good their intentions, cannot stay untouched. The game does not end when the final player wins. It ends when the player starts thinking like the people who built it.

And that is the most devastating part. Gi-hun begins as the heart of the show, a man who chooses kindness, even when it costs him. But in the end, he walks back into the machinery that destroyed hundreds of lives. He does not try to escape. He wants in.

So what if Squid Game is not a story of survival but a story of slow, invisible defeat? What if the real victory never existed? This Reddit theory flips the entire narrative on its head. And the scariest part is, it makes perfect sense.

Because in the world of Squid Game, nobody ever truly leaves. They just change roles.