#sgtwt

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SANG-WOO

going back for a moment.

sang-woo was very visibly LOSING HIS MIND in general past episode 7. everything that happened fucked him up BAD, especially after ali’s death. we see him snap at player 069, (which i still believe was a subconscious manifestation of his inside feelings toward himself at the time fighting with the mindset of "i need to win the games" but that’s not on-topic rn) and later we do see the first time genuinely he kills a man.

(i find the lighting choice here, where he’s backlit by darkness, very fitting. he’s pretty much lost his mind atp)

but without him pushing the glassmaker, EVERYBODY would have died. gi-hun especially; he was at the very back of the line!

not to mention, sang-woo constantly repeats the “it was necessary” or, to gi-hun, “he was just somebody you knew for a few days” mantra, almost like he’s trying to justify his actions. (that’s called rationalization. a defense mechanism.)

i hope this is enough proof that, while yes, sang-woo had completely lost himself, he wasn’t just some heartless monster who felt no remorse.

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GI-HUN

gi-hun, on the other hand, just VISIBLY witnessed his childhood best friend kill somebody. OF COURSE he’s going to be shocked and upset. we forget he’d never actually witnessed sang-woo kill ali, nor was he aware of sang-woo manipulating him — he likely just assumed ali lost the game in a fair fashion.

no wonder he questioned sang-woo; he wasn't expecting him to do that. he didn't find it necessary either, and from his perspective it looked like sang-woo had just killed him to get rid of him.

not to mention, that's still his childhood best friend! somebody he cares about a lot. it's very... off-putting to see people you love do bad things.

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(one question i also see people contemplating on sgtwt is this: if the roles were somehow reversed, and gi-hun had pushed the glassmaker, how would sang-woo have responded? would he have been shocked, or would have have not cared? and would have have confronted him?

my simple answer to that is: i don’t think sang-woo would have confronted gi-hun at all, but i do think he would have definitely been shocked because of how gi-hun is as a person. it probably wouldn’t have affected him as much, but it would have likely shaken him up.)

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now, about the actual confrontation.

(although translation is a large factor here, the words said pretty much boil down/summarize to this.)

gi-hun: “why did you kill him??”

sang-woo: "you got lucky at the back of the line, he was wasting our time, he would have killed us all"

gi-hun: "but he would have moved eventually, there was no need to push him"

sang-woo: "he watched ALL those people die and yet didnt do anything about it"

gi-hun: "he's the only reason we made it out"

sang-woo: "no. i made it out because i worked hard to make sure i stayed alive"

gi-hun: "stop making excuses. you killed him, his blood's on your hands."

sang-woo: "well it's almost like that's how this works"

gi-hun: “and if it were me on that tile, would you have pushed me?”

sang-woo completely ignores the question.

and then the boys started fightingggg 💔

sang-woo: “your life is so pathetic because you’re a nosy dim-witted moron, that’s how you got into this mess” (pretty much just throwing words around)

gi-hun: “well you’re in here with me, aren’t you? why is the pride and joy of ssangmun-dong who went to SNU in a shithole like this? hm?”

i find it interesting how gi-hun uses the very things he praised him for against him.

some people think sang-woo was mad because he shattered his ego. however, i think he was more affected by it because he knew gi-hun was right.

see, contrary to popular belief, sang-woo doesn’t think highly of himself. he gets visibly uncomfortable when people address him higher. [examples: his constant distaste of gi-hun ogling him , him constantly requesting ali to not refer to him as sir , telling mi-nyeo that he’s not the leader of their group and that they’re all equal.]

he’s not some egotistical bastard that thinks super highly of himself — he visibly LOATHES himself. it's implied in canon he’s had to put so much effort into (he’s an only child, and an INTELLIGENT CHILD in a poor household, so a lot of the responsibility surely fell on him growing up to make sure he could help their family get out of poverty) and now he’s fucked that up (i have another psychological theory on this but it’s off-topic and for another day)

so, do i think gi-hun's response was too harsh? no. i do, however, think he gave sang-woo a harsh reality check that likely fucked him up even more.

BUT. i do also want to just. bring up one thing; a major factor in the argument that people seem to be forgetting.

uh. it was an ARGUMENT.

some people don't always mean 100% of what they say when they fight; mainly because of the heat of the moment. (this is targeted more at sang-woo, considering he was literally just. throwing down insults like it was a playground schoolfight.) not to mention they were very obviously trying to strike a nerve to prove their points.

and im not saying this was some kind of freudian slip where they're revealing their unconscious beliefs on each other. i dont think they hate each other or some bs like the tweeters are saying, i just do think that tensions were heightened overall because they were trying so hard to prove their point that they started tearing the other down. etc. (however i do think gi-hun's rhetorical question was likely genuine: what is sang-woo the genius doing with him)

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FINAL VERDICT

now to the final question. who was in the right?

..sorry for the anti-climacticness of this but uh. neither of them were in the right nor wrong. that's something a lot of people fail to understand. this was a fair argument. they both had fair points.

at this point sang-woo had lost his mind in the games, yet he still wasn't wrong: if he hadn't pushed the glassmaker, they likely all would have died, and killing is how the games work. morals are twisted in death games.

and gi-hun wasn't wrong either. obviously sang-woo shouldn't have killed the glassmaker, and he wasn't wrong about the fact that sang-woo fucked up bad to be in a place like this.