Warning: SPOILERS for Squid Game.
Episode 2 of Squid Game allowed the players to vote on continuing the game, with the Old Man Il-nam surprisingly voting no - but why did he do this? Squid Game is Netflix’s enthralling South Korean series that follows Seong Gi-hun, a man in a heap of debt who lives with his mother and can barely provide for his daughter, when he is propositioned to join a game in which he can win billions of Won. The highly secretive Squid Game event turns out to have far higher stakes than the 456 contestants imagined, where breaking rules or losing means death.
After the Squid Game players are brought to the remote island where the games are played by the mysterious red-suited staff members, the contestants realize their tasks come from popular South Korean children’s games. The first game Gi-hun and the Squid Game characters must complete is Red Light, Green Light, but they soon find out that being caught moving means they’re shot to death by snipers. Squid Game came with a clause in the players’ contract that says if the majority votes to stop the game, the entire event ends. After seeing over 200 men and women lose their lives in a game of Red Light, Green Light, the players quickly put it to a vote.
With each player being recruited because of how desperate for money they were due to staggering debts, half of Squid Game’s remaining contestants chose to stay and play for the 45.6 billion Won in prize money. Unsurprisingly after seeing the destruction of the doll in Squid Game’s Red Light, Green Light, Gi-hun choses against continuing the game, wanting to instead go home. With Sang-woo and Sae-byeok being left with no other choice than to fight for the money, they both predictably pressed the green button and chose to stay. The final vote was left to the Old Man, who surprisingly voted no, even though he easily won the first game and seemingly joined the game because he had a life-threatening brain tumor. Until Squid Game episode 9, the Old Man’s choice in ending the game seemed odd because he never had any reservations beforehand. Once Squid Game reveals the twist that the Old Man was in charge of the games the entire time, it was clear that the reason he pressed no was that he wanted each player to return on their own accord, knowing it could mean death.
The Old Man quickly became a fan favorite because of how innocent he seemed and how poorly he was treated by everyone besides Gi-hun and a few of his teammates. This quickly changed in Squid Game’s ending, when he told Gi-hun he survived the episode 6 marbles game and was the one who led the entire event. The reasoning for Oh Il-nam choosing the red button in episode 2 first appeared to be due to him not liking the cruelty of the game, but it also seemed at the time like he would have chosen green because he had nothing left to lose. It then becomes even more confusing once it’s revealed that Oh Il-nam was Squid Game's deciding vote to end the game, yet was the man behind the brutal premise. As it is, it seems he voted no because he knew so many of them wanted to leave at the moment, and because he gave the option for the game to resume in the future if desired. Il-nam wanted the players to return with all the information on its life-or-death premise, and allow them to make their own choice.
Aside from Gi-hun, the Old Man revealed he had no faith in humanity and decided to join the Squid Game as a player because he already had a terminal illness and would “have more fun playing” than watching. Il-nam wasn’t fighting for his life so that he could live on the outside like all the other Squid Game players, he was playing because he thought it would be fun to play the games he played as a child again. Nearly all of the players came back after the Old Man voted to end the games, securing his exploitative wish for a final high-stakes round - and showing his decision to allow the players to leave ultimately still payed off for him.
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