This ‘Squid Game’ Season 3 Theory Is So Good It Has to Be True

For those who don’t remember, Player 246 or Park Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-uk) enters the games in order to raise money to pay for his sick daughter’s medical treatment. After surviving several intense and deadly rounds, Gyeong-seok joins Player 456 or Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) in the player rebellion, attempting to seize control of the games from the guards. Things obviously don’t go as planned and he is shot (and presumably killed). But that’s where the major theory comes in.

A number of fans believe that Gyeong-seok isn’t really dead and that his survival (and eventual escape from the island) depend upon another major character. According to The Cinemaholic, “It’s unclear whether he died or not because not only did we not get to see precisely where the bullet hit him, but the guard’s gun was also pointed lower. In other words, it’s possible they missed all major organs, and Player 246 survived despite the bullet wound.”

And this is where it gets interesting. The theory continues, “It’s also likely it was No-eul (Guard 011) who pulled the trigger on him—considering the guard’s smaller stature—and deliberately missed in the hopes of giving him a chance to return to his daughter. After all, she knew his story and seemed to have a soft spot for him.”

If you remember, Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young) joins the Squid Games as a guard after quitting her job at an amusement park—the same one where she met Gyeong-seok and his sick daughter (who reminds her of her own daughter that she lost). It would make sense that No-eul was the one who shot Gyeong-seok in an effort to save his life. If she shot him in a non-life-threatening location, it would be possible for her to sneak his body out from under the ever-watchful eyes of the game masters and other guards.

Some Redditors have even more specific theories for how this will play out. One says, “Definitely that Guard 011 didn’t kill 246 and will smuggle him to the organ harvester room, where she’ll kill those two organ harvester guards (that threatened her) and then try to get him out.” And another posits, “I think she's going to have the hired doctor help fix him up, and then Dad's going to find the guys out at sea and point them directly to the island.”