'Squid Game' Season 2's Bread and Lottery Scene Means More Than You Think

Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Squid Game Season 2.

In both seasons of Squid Game, the deadly children's games began before the players ever stepped into the familiar arena, facilitated by the elusive man dubbed the Salesman or Recruiter (Gong Yoo). In Season 1, this was a relatively harmless game of ddakji, which the Salesman used to lure people into the game with monetary rewards and the stinging pain of a slap that was a tiny glimpse into the pain they would later face. He returns in Season 2 in a larger role for the first two episodes, inducting Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) back into the tournament with a higher-stakes and more fatal game of Russian Roulette. Before this, the Salesman also takes us through a bizarre and seemingly purposeless scene involving bread loaves and lottery tickets, which turns out to be more revealing than we initially assumed, as it exposes parts of his psyche while symbolically tying into the Gi-hun's hunt for the true villain of Squid Game.

'Squid Game' Season 2 Reveals the Salesman's True Self

During Gi-hun's three-year search for the elusive character who initially gave him the fateful business card, he hires his old loan shark and his crew to monitor the subway system. One pair finally spots him, and they trail the Salesman out of the subway, as he ends his work day. His personal time apparently involves buying a hundred loaves of bread and lottery tickets, strolling into a park with that ever-present slick smile plastered on his face, and holding out the two items on the palms of his hands in front of people in poverty. He gives each person a choice. Many choose the lottery ticket and lose, but when they plead for the bread, the Salesman simply walks away. Once he attends to everyone, he stands in the middle of the square, loses all composure, and jumps furiously on the remaining food, shaming everyone for choosing the risky option.

This obscure scene doesn't seem to have too much rhyme or reason to it. In fact, it just seems like another example of the games' creators' twisted sense of giving people a choice to help themselves. However, it is actually less didactic and superfluous than you may think. In an interview with RadioTimes, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk explains that this enigmatic scene is an expression and projection of the Salesman's own self-hatred. The Salesman is "someone who lived a difficult, tough, rock-bottom life" and can see whispers of this life in the homeless people in the park. "He is someone who is so filled with self-hatred. It is expressed in the hatred he harbors for other humans," says Dong-hyuk. "And by hating these people, he believes that he is different from them... almost as if he's trying to escape his own self-loathing nature."

Traces of this self-loathing are found in Yoo's mercurial performance, naturally culminating in the paroxysm of emotion that leaves everyone stunned. As he walks up to each person and gives them a choice, the seemingly charitable act, shot from a low angle where his composed smile fills the frame, feels almost angelic. He doesn't only believe he is different to them, but above them. Then he deftly punishes the "wrong" choice of foregoing basic needs for the risk of wealth, a decision he would have made before he was hired by the games. So, when his pristine persona gives way to a primal explosion of jumping, smashing, and heaving, it gives us an unnerving snapshot of what his internal world is actually like. He is brimming with self-hatred from his past, and even his present self, as he actively participates in recruiting people to gamble for a truckload of money with huge risk, the very thing he condemns in this scene.

The Salesman Exposes the True Villains in 'Squid Game'

It is interesting to gain insight into this mysterious man who really introduced us to Squid Game, but this revelation about his self-hatred actually ties into the thematic concerns of the rest of the season. It somewhat bridges the gap between the players and the guards in the series. On the surface, the Masked Ones seem to have a more powerful position over the players, especially as they are responsible for enforcing the rules and they hold deadly weapons. But this isn't necessarily the case. Each person in the show, player and guard alike, completes their purpose in the closed environment of the tournament to ensure their survival and future in the real world. And if they deviate from that responsibility, profoundly negative consequences occur.

With the players, we already know it is death, but a subplot in Season 2 showcases the pressures on the guards. One of the triangle guards, No-eul (Park Gyu-young), is trying to gather the money to find her daughter, whom she lost after deserting North Korea. She tries to take an objective and cruelty-free approach to her role, which leads her to butt heads with the officers involved in the organ-harvesting operations. By not committing fully to every aspect of the role, she is threatened and harmed by two other guards under the Front Man's orders. Even the organ-harvesting guards are simply compelled to make more money, which is exactly what the players are doing. Everyone has found a role in this system -- player, guard, or Salesman — and uses their strengths to try and fulfill them in order to avoid the fate that the Salesman curses in the bread and lottery ticket scene. To a degree, they all have some level of self-loathing.

As such, the Salesman's wild and bitter scene exposes the fundamental similarity of everyone involved in the games. They are all trapped within the structures of their self-hatred due to some sort of financial pressure, encouraging them to choose to participate. The scene sows the seeds that would later urge us to broaden our perspective, recognizing that, despite the inherent divide between players and guards, neither are truly the antagonists here. Alongside Gi-hun, we eventually identify the real culprits of this game. They are the class divides that seem so insurmountable they push people to the extremes to overcome them and the elite classes that exploit this gap to ensure their own wealth while using the masses as entertainment. The Salesman may be the face Gi-hun remembers and relentlessly hunts down, but he is a victim of the same system.

Squid Game Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Netflix.

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