Squid Game’s final episode revealed that Oh Il-nam (Oh Young-soo) is the founder and financier of the games, and there are actually several clues to this twist hidden throughout the survival drama series. As the oldest player involved in the twisted death games, the lovable Oh Il-nam is easily one of the reasons why Squid Game became the most-watched show out of Netflix’s September 2021 releases. But when Il-nam’s true identity is revealed during the final episode of Squid Game, many audience members, along with protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae), were treated to a harsh awakening.
As the brains behind the entire Squid Game operation, Il-nam represents the billionaires in a series that digs deep into the topic of wealth inequality. Out of Squid Game’s desperate and deeply indebted players, Il-nam is the only one whose choice to participate in the games isn’t burdened by nuance. While the other players had to choose between living their lives in debt or risking their lives in Squid Game for the chance to win a fortune, Il-nam was just literally there to try and have some fun.
There are many clues that point to Il-nam being much more than he appears to be. However, the old man certainly knew how to keep his secrets until the last moment – the final game between him and Seong Gi-hun. Prior to that, he was just the lovable old man whom Squid Game used to pull audiences’ heartstrings. But on the second viewing of Squid Game, the clues about Il-nam’s true identity become much more obvious.
Il-nam’s numeric designation means that he was the first player chosen for the game. While this fact is taken for granted at the start of Squid Game, it’s slowly revealed throughout the series that the other 455 players are around the ages of 20 to 40. The fact that Il-nam is the first chosen player, despite being decades older than everyone else, was the first clue regarding his true identity.
In the first game of red light, green light, the robot designed to detect flinching Squid Game players didn’t target Il-nam at all. While everyone else’s Squid Game tracksuit had a green overlay, Il-nam and the player near him didn’t have one at all. This could indicate that the robot was programmed to spare Il-nam, which also affected those near him as Squid Game’s organizers couldn’t risk harming their founder.
The star shape is one of the easiest shapes to carve out of the honeycomb treat using a needle, and Il-nam chose this shape for himself. While the triangle shape is arguably easier to carve out, the star has even shorter lines and requires even less skill. Despite being old and slow, Il-nam easily carves out the star without using any tricks or special techniques.
When fighting breaks out in the dormitory room, every player was in danger and powerless to stop the fighting. But when Il-nam asks organizers to interfere, Squid Game workers and guards are immediately sent in by the Front Man to take back control of the room. While letting the fighting continue would be good for the games, Front Man had to interfere before Il-nam was in any real danger.
This is perhaps the most glaring clue that Il-nam is not as helpless as he seems. As revealed by Il-nam’s strategy for winning against a much stronger team, he is practically a master of tug of war. While Il-nam’s excuse of having played the game frequently as a child is believable, this actually reveals the extent to which he prepared for taking part in the games.
How Il-nam described the neighborhood setting for the marble game was dismissed by many as the mere ramblings of an old man suffering from dementia. But as Squid Game’s ending reveals, the setting was an accurate recreation of Il-nam’s old home. This could have been the Front Man’s way of making the marble game even more exciting for the founder of the games. Moreover, the geometric shapes on display in the house Il-nam identified as his home are the same shapes found on the Squid Game cards. And lastly, when the camera pans out to show the dead players after the marble game, Il-nam’s corpse was nowhere to be found.
This clue rushes by so quickly that very few viewers actually caught it. During episode 5 of Squid Game, police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) infiltrates the Front Man’s inner sanctum and finds files on all the previous and current players. The massive archive of comprehensive files goes back decades, chronicling every single of one those who were unfortunate enough to be included in Squid Game’s cast of doomed characters. But when Hwang Jun-ho finds the folder for the current iteration of the games, the first page skips to Player 002. The file for Player 001 is nowhere to be found, as it is unnecessary. Apart from the fact that Il-nam was not a real player, having a file of him in the archives would be a liability – not just for the organization, but for Il-nam’s VIP clients.
Il-nam’s wide smile throughout the different death games the players are forced to play is reflective of his outlook on life, as he explained to Gi-hun. But during a second viewing of Squid Game, this smile takes on a more sinister context. Unlike every other player who is risking their life for the chance to win Squid Game’s 45.6 billion Korean won prize, he’s just there to have a bit of fun before he dies. Moreover, the fact that Il-nam used his brain tumor and impending death to justify flashing an authentic smile, as other players are eliminated around him, is quite telling of just what kind of person the Squid Game founder truly is.
The Korean character “일” or “Il” can mean day, work, or first. Meanwhile, the second character “남자” or “nam” can be translated to boy or man. This means that Il-nam’s name actually translates to “first man.” While this could refer to how Il-nam is also known as Player 001, it could also just as easily refer to the Saw-like twist in the ending, in which he is revealed to be the founder of Squid Game.
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