No, Seong and Cho are not brothers in Squid Games
As a passionate gamer and content creator myself, I‘ve been asked countless times about the relationship between these two iconic characters at the heart of Netflix‘s Squid Game – so let‘s settle it once and for all. Despite their close boyhood friendship, Seong Gi-Hun and Cho Sang-Woo are definitely not brothers.
Seong and Sang-Woo: Bonded by Neighborhood and Memory
Having grown up together in the same poverty-stricken neighborhood, Gi-Hun and Sang-Woo attended the same elementary school and remained close into adulthood. In flashbacks, we see them sneaking onto rooftops to point out constellations and dream together of better lives.
As kids, their mothers even knew each other – but the families were not related. This lifelong, brotherly bond despite lack of blood relation sets up the show‘s central moral tension. And with over 1.65 billion viewing hours globally, it clearly resonated!
The One True Brotherhood… Destroyed
Unlike Gi-Hun‘s tie to Sang-Woo, we do follow one genuine brotherhood in Squid Game: between Jun-Ho and In-Ho. After Jun-Ho‘s cop character infiltrates the game seeking his long lost elder brother In-Ho, he discovers that very same brother is in fact the cold-blooded Front Man overseeing the massacre.
In a climatic confrontation, the Front Man shoots a pleading Jun-Ho point blank rather than abandon his Squid Game post – utterly severing their fraternal bond in service of greed and death. This provides quite the contrast to Gi-Hun‘s repeated attempts to save Sang-Woo!
Squid Game Viewership Stats
| Metric | # Viewers | % Increase |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Month Hours | Over 1.65B | – |
| 1st 28 Days Hours | 871M | 100% |
What Drives This Triumphant Trio?
Stepping back as a gaming commentator, I think it‘s interesting to analyze the motivations of our three key players in Squid Game‘s deadly chessboard:
- Gi-Hun: Joining for money to regain child custody, he struggles to retain humanity.
- Sang-Woo: Pride drives this fallen elite to do anything to escape debts.
- Old Man: Seeks entertainment from his fortune by manipulating lives.
While Gi-Hun and Sang-Woo share a history, their reasons for sacrificing morals clearly diverge – strengthening the show‘s emotional punch as Sang-Woo betrays our hopeful hero again and again.
And the nihilistic bored wealth of the old man behind it all provides quite the contrast! His unfathomable privilege makes the games possible.
Final Verdict: Boyhood Bonds Can Break
So in summary, I can definitively say Sang-Woo and Gi-Hun are very close. But only in the brotherly sense – not biological brothers. Unlike the policeman Jun-Ho‘s doomed search for his Front Man sibling, the show instead explores whether Gi-Hun can redeem his neighborhood friend Sang-Woo.
And I have to say, Squid Game absolutely delivered on portraying this tension. As a gamer I was hooked! No wonder it became Netflix‘s #1 show – the character motivations paired with deadly stakes were incredibly compelling even though the childhood "brothers" weren‘t.
