Gi-Hun

Seong Gi-hun (성기훈 Seong Gi-hun?, October 31, 1974 - November 6, 2024), also known as Player 456, was the winner of the 33rd Squid Game in 2020, who also returned as a contestant in the 37th Squid Game in an attempt to end the Squid Games. A former gambling addict, Gi-hun faced crippling debt from loan sharks for several years before participating in and ultimately winning the Squid Game in 2020. Born in Ssangmun-dong, Gi-hun was childhood best friends with Cho Sang-woo. He worked at a car factory for several years before being laid off and operated two businesses in the following years, both of which failed, putting him in severe debt to a group of loan sharks who threatened violence against him if he didn't pay up. He had a daughter named Ga-yeong, whom he lost custody of when his wife divorced him following his financial troubles and remarried. He ended up moving in with his mother and found work as a chauffeur, which didn't provide anywhere near enough for him to pay off his debt. Gi-hun became aware of the Squid Games when a recruiter informed him about them after they played ddakji. He accepted the offer after finding out Ga-yeong would soon be moving to the United States with her family and would lose contact, and later rejoined in hopes of getting money to pay for his mother's hospital treatment. In the first game, Gi-hun was reunited with Cho Sang-woo and a girl who pickpocketed him, Kang Sae-byeok. He was saved during the game's climax by Ali Abdul. Throughout the games, Gi-hun formed an alliancewith the aforementioned players and Player 001, and frequently showed compassion towards them. As the games increased in their brutality and the competitors were becoming more demoralized, Gi-hun slowly lost his desire to win the money and instead only continued to try and survive. Alongside Sang-woo and Sae-byeok, Gi-hun became one of the finalists of the competition, and faced off against Sang-woo in the sixth and final game after Sae-byeok's death. After automatically winning the sixth and final game following Sang-woo's suicide, Gi-hun was returned to Seoul with a bank card to access the prize money, but when he returned home, he discovered that his mother had died while he was away. A year after his win, Gi-hun was still traumatized and hadn't touched any of the prize money. He received an invitation card from his gganbu, and was furious and disgusted when it was revealed that Oh Il-nam, the old man Gi-hun had befriended, had created the game to entertain bored ultra-rich people like himself. After the two made one last bet which Gi-hun won, Il-nam died shortly after. Gi-hun retrieved Sae-byeok's younger brother Kang Cheol and entrusted him to Sang-woo's mother, giving them a share of the prize money. While traveling to the airport to reconnect with his daughter in Los Angeles, Gi-hun saw his recruiter playing ddakji with another desperate man in debt. Gi-hun took the man's invitation card and called the number before boarding his plane, demanding to know who is running the games. He then went against the Front Man's suggestion of getting on the plane and walked away, intent on stopping the games. After two years of search efforts, Gi-hun was eventually intercepted by the recruiter, and they played a game of Russian roulette, in which the recruiter died. He used a card in his jacket that led him to a meeting with the Front Man in a limo, where he demanded he stop the games. Gi-hun ultimately decided to reenter the Squid Games to end them and protect the other players. Many survived Red Light, Green Light with his guidance, and he managed to pass the next two games Six-Legged Pentathlon and Mingle as well. Before a fight broke out, Gi-hun and his allies came up with a plan to end the game by starting a revolt. The plan failed and he was confronted by the Front Man, who killed his close friend Park Jung-bae in front of him, leaving Gi-hun devastated. Following the failed revolt, Gi-hun was placed back in the games. He questioned why his life was spared and demanded the guards kill him, only for them to restrain him in the dormitory. After finding out about Kang Dae-ho's failure during the revolt, Gi-hun blames him for Jung-bae's death and seeks revenge. During the hide-and-seek game, Gi-hun hunts down Dae-ho and strangles him to death, but not before Dae-ho accuses Gi-hun of being the one to blame for his failed revolt plan. This causes Gi-hun to enter a catatonic state. However, after Kim Jun-hee gives birth to So-won and Jang Geum-ja pleads for Gi-hun to save the baby, Gi-hun rises to action and protects her through the next two games, even after her mother's death. Gi-hun was shown to be a friendly, nice, caring, and talkative individual, often engaging to converse with those around him. He frequently demonstrates his caring and thoughtful nature, as he takes it upon himself to look after Oh Il-namand to protect Kang Sae-byeok from Jang Deok-su. During Red Light, Green Light, Gi-hun was frozen in shock throughout most of the game. He seems to suffer from a serious ludopathy, often gambling any money he gets on races. The seriousness of his disease often makes him not realize the consequences of his actions until it's too late, such as canceling the social security of his mother before knowing about her diabetes or owing a great amount of money to the loan sharks to the point of being forced to sign a document authorizing his creditors to sell parts of his body in order to pay off his debt. Gi-hun's darker actions are often made out of desperation rather than out of selfishness or cruelty, such as his manipulation of Il-nam during the Marbles round: Gi-hun weeps during the game and displays signs of remorse and sorrow following Il-nam's "elimination".[11] He also planned to kill Sang-woo when he falls asleep before the start of the sixth game until he is talked out of it by Sae-byeok, who tells him he is not a murderer. Despite his failures as a father and son, Gi-hun does demonstrate that he deeply cares for his family. He is devastated at the idea of losing his daughter and desperately tries to convince his mother to get medical treatment for her diabetes, falling into a year-long depressive state after her death. Following the games, he developed PTSD and stopped a man from entering the games to prevent the man's death and worked to stop the games for three years straight. After failing to persuade the Front Man to end the Squid Game, he decides to enter the 36th Squid Game in order to infiltrate the Game and kill its staff. He helps contestants in "Red Light, Green Light" instructing them on what to do to survive and continually encourages people to vote to leave the game, warning them of what the future holds. Showing him to be a very selfless, brave and caring individual, willing to put his life in danger to help others. Though later in the games, he is shown to be willing to sacrifice a few (some contestants) for the greater good (kill the game's staff and end the game). At the start of Season 1 he was a fun-loving, self indulgent, immature person with a gambling addiction and is in great debt. He decides to enter the Squid Game in order to pay off his debts, prevent his organs from being harvested (by his loan shark) and pay for his mother's treatment for advanced diabetes. In Season 2, he returns a more mature, serious, no-nonsense attitude, shrewd and frugal person. He sees his prize money as blood money belonging to the people who died in the game and uses its very carefully. He becomes more determined with his objectives, as well as more meticulous with his surroundings and grows more careful around others, displaying highly analytical behavior. In stark contrast to his previous behavior in season 1, Gi-hun becomes more determined to save as many of the players in the Squid Game as he can, rather than just the ones in his team. However, despite the change in his attitude, his ignorant and reckless nature remains. He failed to consider different possibilites before entering the game, which led to the failure of his initial plan. Even in the game, he often appears clumsy, such as failing to recognize the front man despite several clues. His foolish nature results in a terrible consequence in the revolt, which was incredibly unpractical considering how powerful his enemies were. He and the rebels are, as expected, quickly overpowered by the game's forces, ultimately resulting in the death of his close friend. This failure of the revolt shows that that despite his efforts, he is still too flawed a person to carry out such an ambitious plan. Following Gi-hun's failed revolt in the Season 2 finale, he shows a much darker side to his personality. Whilst acting out of grief and trauma, he blamed Kang Dae-ho for his comrade's deaths after he failed to deliver more ammunition to the rebels. His anger came to a boil when Seon-nyeo mocked Gi-hun's dead friends, causing him to strangle her. Later on, in the fourth game, he relentlessly hunted down Dae-ho with a crazed look on his face. After eventually finding him, Gi-hun ignored Dae-ho's pleas and engaged in a savage fight with him, ending with Gi-hun choking Dae-ho to death. However, before his death, Dae-ho blamed Gi-hun for the revolt since it was his idea, which caused Gi-hun to spiral and eventually blame himself entirely for getting people killed. Gi-hun's attitude then flipped entirely; instead of being rage-fuelled and erratic, he was now completely catatonic and irresponsive to others. Interestingly, despite Gi-hun's clear rage during the hide-and-seek game, he still somewhat retained his better nature. Whenever he came across a player who was not Dae-ho, he did not even attempt to kill them, even if it would've benefitted him. As Cho Sang-woo ("Because you’re a nosy-ass idiot who’s too slow to keep it shut.") and Hwang In-ho ("Did you have fun playing the hero?") described, Gi-hun is overwhelmed with the sense of justice, and sometimes for the worse. It is mainly due to his aforementioned flaws. He also becomes contradictory about his supposed 'justice', as before the special game, he stated that no one in his team should be sacrificed, whereas in the revolt, he claimed that it is inevitable to sacrifice a few for the survival of many. Gi-hun was described by Hwang Dong-hyuk as very 'human'. This means that, despite his altruistic and righteous nature, he is highly flawed and often faced with failure. Despite this, even after going through the Squid Games twice, he never lost his human nature, unlike Hwang In-ho, his arch enemy, who has succumbed to despair and hate and ended up a cold-blooded villain. Seong Gi-hun was born on October 31, 1974, in Ssangmun-dong, Seoul, where he grew up with his mother Oh Mal-soon, who raised him in a Buddhist household. He was childhood best friends with Cho Sang-woo, with whom he developed a very close and brotherly relationship. They would play multiple children's games together, including Squid Game, Red Light, Green Light and Dalgona. When playing and winning Squid Game, Gi-hun stated he felt as though he owned the entire world at that moment. During his youth, he attended Daehan Technical High School. Gi-hun worked on Assembly Team One at Dragon Motors, along with his best friend Park Jung-bae, for sixteen years. He was later laid off and went on strike with his other employees. During the strike, one of his coworkers died. This happened to be the same day his daughter, Seong Ga-yeong, was born. In the following years, Gi-hun ran a restaurant called Ga-yeong's Chicken and later a snack bar, both of which eventually failed, and he worked as a chauffeur for five years. His wife Kang Eun-ji divorced him in 2017, got custody of their daughter, and remarried. Her new husbanddisliked Gi-hun;s visits to see Ga-yeong, much to Gi-hun's anger and consternation. Seong Gi-hun is approximately 5' 11" (180 cm) tall, the same height as his actor. Gi-hun is lactose intolerant. Seong Gi-hun's hairstyle in Squid Game Season 1 is often described as a subtle mullet. While some might identify it as an edgier wolf cut in the context of Korean hairstyles, the primary classification for his Season 1 look is a subtle mullet. He is a male character with brown eyes and black hair. Gi-hun is a sociable, charismatic and talkative person. He is very protective over his family and friends, and his kindness also brings out the good in others around him. Gi-hun is also quick to recognize and praise his friends' qualities.