"Useless Dora the Explorer" ā about Hwang Jun-ho
I'm not writing all this just because he's a really beautiful and awesome specimen of the human race, but the fandom is actually doing my man wrong!!!! "He didn't do anything after season 1," "take him out of the plot, and it wouldn't change anything." SHHHHHHHHH. Hear me out.
First of all, if it wasn't for him, the island wouldn't have exploded, but more on that later. Second of all, people are misunderstanding how realistic and *sad* this show is supposed to be. I interpreted Jun-ho not being able to do much to help as a representation of US (as in 'WE', not USA) being unable to do much to help with fighting against a cruel and unfair system that makes us victim. This show is filled to the brim with imperfection, which is LITERALLY THE POINT WAKE UP??? Some characters go mad, some get addicted to drugs, others are corrupted by greed, some get violent throughout the game, and some have to make really unfair, morally-conflicting decisions.
When you're using art to criticize society and its flaws, you don't make the final piece perfect.
Squid Game is about the spiritual and moral corrosive tendencies of capitalism and individualism. Jun-ho being """useless""" represents (at least to my perspective) that feeling of helplessness that almost all of us feel because WE feel useless. And Jun-Ho obviously wanted to find the island and save the players and help put an end to the games. But he also just wanted his big brother back. "Bro did two seasons of nothing just to scream 'why?!' at his brother again". YES. He did. Because when someone you love wholeheartedly does something unimaginably evil or wrong, logic is out the window. If I was in Jun-Ho's place, I wouldn't even be able to say a word from how much I'd be crying. It doesn't even make sense that he hasn't gone completely insane with all the information he knows about his missing brother.
Jun-Ho is not a useless character who did nothing, but rather THE character that represents how humans are NOT supposed to be logical and professional, no matter how hard we try to make that true.
Going back to him exploding the island, I think there's so much meaning behind all this. The Coast Guard getting to the island too late, and then Jun-Ho saying he'd never work with the police again "after what happened", I personally understood it as a way for the show to demonstrate how, in a societal and governmental system with an elite person/group ruling over everyone else, asking for revolutionary help from WITHIN the system (aka the police) won't get you anywhere because that help is either stopped before it becomes useful, or it doesn't actually want to be helpful. But that's all he had and was able of doing. And I'm sure he knows that.
So on top of losing his big brother, Jun-Ho has the weight of the world on his shoulders because he wasn't able to save the 455 players that died, even though he possibly saved the players that would have been chosen the year after if the island hadn't exploded (if we assume it's gonna take a while to get the games running again). And at the end of it all, he became a fucking single dad.
Squid. Game. Is. NOT. Perfect.
No character in this show deserves to be hated, because they're all showing what WE would do if we were in their place. They're all showing what greed and individualism and lack of understanding of the system we live in are capable of doing to a seemingly good person.
The Dora the Explorer memes are funny, but he's not useless. He wholly represents the pure feeling of, "I did all I could, and yet it wasn't enough for me or for anyone."
So my point is: overbullied character for such an emotionally deep plot. Which is basically every character in this show.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk :)
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