Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Squid Game season 2.Gong Yoo's enigmatic Salesman had a new game in Squid Game season 2, but what does "bread and lottery" really mean? Squid Game season 2 got off to a very quick start thanks to Seong Gi-hun's (Lee Jung-jae) hunt for the Salesman. After the ending of Squid Game season 1, Gi-hun decided to go back and hunt the people who organized the games. To do so, he first had to find them, as most of the people in the cast of Squid Game season 2, like Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), had no idea where the island was. That put Gi-hun on the Salesman's scent.
Gi-hun orchestrated a massive search party to find the Salesman by hiring his former loan shark, Mr. Kim, and his men to search every subway station in Seoul. When they finally found him, Mr. Kim and Woo-seok (Seok Ho-jeon) followed him throughout the city and watched him implement a new game, called "bread and lottery." Squid Game wasn't entirely clear about what bread and lottery is or what it really means, however, so the Salesman's cruelty was a bit confusing. Luckily, the show had a few hints about what the game was really all about.
The Salesman Offers Homeless People The Choice Between Bread Or Lottery
The Salesman's Sadistic Game Let Homeless People Choose Between Nourishment & The Chance At A Fortune
In Squid Game season 2, episode 1, the Salesman purchased 100 loaves of bread and 100 scratch-off lottery tickets and brought them to a public park. While there, he approached a large group of homeless people and offered them a choice between a loaf of bread and a single lottery ticket. The vast majority chose the lottery ticket, and none of them won any money. Afterward, the Salesman dumped the remaining bread on the ground, informed everyone that they had thrown the loaves away, not him, and proceeded to stomp on them all in a fit of blind rage.
Squid Game season 2, episode 1 ends with an intense scene featuring Gong Yoo and Lee Jung-jae as “Time to Say Goodbye” plays in the background.
Interestingly, and unlike his role in Squid Game season 1, the Salesman didn't offer any of the homeless people a chance to participate in the actual games. It seems he was still playing ddakji to recruit players, and that his bread and lottery game was purely extracurricular in nature. The Salesman tormented the homeless people in the park completely of his own volition, not because the rich people who run the games made him. It was an expression of pure hatred and sadism on the Salesman's part.
What The Bread Or Lottery Game Really Means In Squid Game Season 2
The Salesman's Game Foreshadows The Game's Voting System & Is Designed To Be Cruel
The Salesman's game is, essentially, a preview of the new twist Squid Game season 2 introduced to the games. The players are now able to vote after every round to decide if they want the games to continue and the prize money to accrue, or if they want to forfeit and split the earnings they've won already among the survivors. The bread and lottery game is essentially a smaller version of that choice: the players are able to choose between a modest sum that would help them now, or the likely disastrous chance at being financially set for life.
Like its predecessor, Squid Game season 2 features many character deaths - while some of these are predictable, others catch the viewer off-guard.
Outside of foreshadowing the rest of Squid Game season 2, the bread and lottery game serves one function: cruelty. The entire point of the game is that the Salesman tries to "prove" that poor people are too weak-willed to help themselves, and that they'd rather take the easy way out, even if it's to their own detriment. This, of course, is an inaccurate way of looking at the very complex problem of poverty, and the Salesman's game inherently dehumanizes poor people. The choice isn't between "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" and "taking the easy way out," the choice is between a single loaf of bread and a small chance to break out of the nightmare of poverty.
This, of course, is an inaccurate way of looking at the very complex problem of poverty, and the Salesman's game inherently dehumanizes poor people.
The name "bread and lottery" also seems to reference the ancient saying "bread and circuses." The Ancient Roman poet Juvenal described "bread and circuses," or, more broadly, food and entertainment, as all that was required to control the masses. Juvenal's line is usually about something that isn't actually a public good, like infrastructure or education, that is used by people in power - usually politicians - to appease the public and keep them from focusing on real issues. It seems Squid Game is commenting on how people in power will dangle personal health and a few distractions to keep people from making systematic changes.
Squid Game's Bread Or Lottery Game Perfectly Summarizes Gong Yoo's Character
Hwang Dong-hyuk Thinks The Salesman Is Filled With Self-Hatred
The bread and lottery game doesn't just have a lot to say about society and the plot of Squid Game season 2, however, it also reveals quite a bit about the Salesman. Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk explained the bread and lottery game and said that the Salesman sees himself in the homeless people he harasses.
I believe that Gong Yoo's character [the Salesman] is someone who lived a difficult, tough, rock-bottom life, just as much as those that are depicted as the homeless people in the series.
And he is someone who is so filled with self-hatred, it is expressed in the hatred he harbours for other humans. And by hating these people, he believes that he is different from them. [He is] showing and expressing his hatred for the people who choose lottery tickets instead of bread, almost as if he's trying to escape his own self-loathing nature.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's comments also fit with the Salesman's backstory in Squid Game, which he told to Seong Gi-hun later in the episode. As the Salesman explained, he rose through the ranks of the games, starting out as one of Squid Game's masked workers and eventually graduating to become a recruiter, but only after he killed his own father at the games. While he didn't explicitly say it, the Salesman almost certainly came from poverty to find himself working at the games, and he's now wealthy enough to afford both expensive suits and tens of thousands of won in bread and lottery tickets.
The smash-hit Korean series Squid Game finally returned to Netflix for its second season in late 2024, and season 3 is already confirmed too.
The Salesman was upwardly mobile, which is something most poor people in Squid Game simply cannot achieve. There are too many structures in place to keep poor people poor, like loan sharks and debt. Since he was the exception to the rule and was able to make a better life for himself, the Salesman looks down on poor people and tries to distance himself from them. Now, he takes out his rage on anyone who he thinks is unwilling to better their own lives. The Salesman's story was a great start to Squid Game season 2, and it paved the way for a very exciting show.
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In Squid Game, a mysterious invitation to join a competition is sent to people at risk who are in dire need of money. Four hundred fifty-six participants from all walks of life are locked into a secret location where they play games to win 45.6 billion won. Games are selected from traditional Korean children's games, such as Red Light and Green Light, but the consequence of losing is death. To survive, competitors must choose their alliances carefully - but the further they go in the competition, the more likely betrayal will rear its ugly head.
Release Date
September 17, 2021
Finale Year
November 30, 2024
Cast
Wi Ha-joon
, Anupam Tripathi
, Oh Yeong-su
, Heo Sung-tae
, Park Hae-soo
, Jung Ho-yeon
, Lee Jung-jae
, Kim Joo-ryoung
Custom image by Sean Morrison
English (US) ·