#lingtalks

in-ho spent the entirety of the 2024 games watching gi-hun experience turmoil at the loss of others, but he couldn't stand there and watch gi-hun mourn jung-bae. he did what he thought the only solution was, as the only other option was killing gi-hun for spearheading this revolt, and he wasn't going to do that. people are watching, just as they were at the cliff's edge with jun-ho. he took quite a risk offering for jun-ho to come with him to begin with. and he is expected to be cold, distant, and manipulative.

season 2 was such a parallel to season 1—people panicking during the first game, saving someone at the very end, the players begging and pleading for their lives, but there's diversions from the script too, because of gi-hun, but also because of in-ho.

in-ho saved myung-gi against thanos instead of allowing the players to discover deaths outside of the games count towards the pot. in-ho saved jung-bae in mingle because he knew gi-hun could handle himself. he tries to discourage the rebellion because he knows it can't succeed, but even still, fires on his own guards to protect gi-hun. he could have left and returned to his position at any time, and still, he wanted to try things gi-hun's way. he only picks up the mantle of the front man again when he's certain the rebellion is at the end of their rope.

yes—he killed jung-bae. but he told gi-hun it was a punishment only for the audience watching, and then immediately turned tail to walk away. he didn't want to see the fallout of that decision. so he didn't have to see true agony on gi-hun again.

compared to the salesman who says he's cut out for this work because it was easy to raise his gun and shoot his own father.

This is an extremely complex situation. In-ho is juggling his friendship with Gi-hun with his initial desire to turn Gi-hun to his side. He's juggling not wanting to hurt Gi-hun further with the urgency of how many eyes are on them at any given moment.

I believe this look is much more indicative of the realization that he will most likely be the one to have to kill Jung-bae directly, rather than the games themselves causing his demise.

I think In-ho intentionally waits until everyone is nearly out of bullets, and every avenue has been closed off, before making his final move. It's in line with what LBH has said before about a part of In-ho wanting Gi-hun to be right. I think there's a part of In-ho that wants the revolt to succeed; I'm not sitting here saying that I think In-ho was "all-in" on overthrowing the place, or that he wanted Jung-bae to live, or any of that, but I do think if the situation had gone differently and it looked like Gi-hun was going to win, In-ho would have stayed and helped him.

But I think the scenes of In-ho regarding Jung-bae, particularly the scene when In-ho is eavesdropping, and the scene in the hall during the revolt, are In-ho calculating—and ultimately realizing—that Jung-bae is one of the few things left keeping Gi-hun's humanity alive. He clearly didn't plan for Jung-bae and Gi-hun to be in the game together since Gi-hun entered far too late for that. But this provided an opportunity for Gi-hun to feel like there was hope again, and that is not in line with what In-ho is trying to accomplish. And I strongly believe that crossing that line by killing Jung-bae broke something in In-ho too.

Not because it was Jung-bae specifically, or he cared about him deeply or whatever, but that In-ho sees so much of himself in Gi-hun (and how could he not with all the immensely direct parallels), that getting Gi-hun to the point In-ho was attempting to get him to just feels horrible when he actually does it. And the worst part is, he didn't have a choice. In-ho didn't even have the autonomy to make the decision to shoot him and push Gi-hun over that ledge, because we see In-ho look up into the camera, we see him calculating that his officer, and all the guards, and possibly the VIPs were watching, and it was Jung-bae or Gi-hun (or all three of them if In-ho didn't make a choice). So, yeah it fucking sucks.