Jun-hee’s baby wins Squid Game because Myung-gi’s death does not count as the elimination required in the final round. He falls from the circle tower before that round is officially started. Gi-hun then has to activate the game with only himself and Player 222 left — and chooses to make his own death the one that counts.
Spoiler warning: This article explains the series finale of Squid Game, including Episodes 5 and 6 of Season 3.
Myung-gi dies at the wrong moment for the game to end
Episode 5 spells out the rule of Sky Squid Game. The players move through square, triangle and circle towers. On each tower, at least one player has to be pushed off during an active round. The button on the floor starts that round.
By the circle tower, Gi-hun, Myung-gi and the baby are the only players left. Myung-gi wants the child gone so he can take the prize. Their fight ends with both men hanging over the edge, Gi-hun holding on while Myung-gi is attached through a jacket. The connection gives way and Myung-gi falls.
The apparent solution is actually a problem: the final round had not started yet. Myung-gi is eliminated, but his death cannot satisfy the circle tower’s requirement. Gi-hun climbs back up with the baby and still has to make one more decision.
Gi-hun has to start the final round before he can save the baby
Once the button is activated, the remaining players are Gi-hun and the infant carrying Player 222’s number. Gi-hun could kill the baby and leave as a two-time winner. He could refuse to complete the round and leave both of them trapped by the rules. Instead, he turns the required elimination onto himself.
His last words answer the VIPs and the Front Man at the same time: “We are not horses. We are humans.” Then Player 456 is eliminated. With Gi-hun gone, Player 222 is the surviving winner.
That makes the ending different from a simple heroic rescue. Gi-hun cannot protect the baby by standing outside the game. He uses its rules one last time to deny the VIPs the outcome they expect from him: self-preservation at somebody else’s expense.
The Front Man saves the winner, but he does not end the system
As the coast guard approaches, the Front Man orders the island evacuated and takes the baby with him. Six months later, Jun-ho finds the child and the 4.56 billion won prize waiting for him. The Front Man also goes to Los Angeles and gives Gi-hun’s belongings to Ga-yeong, finally telling her that her father has died.
Those choices show that In-ho is still capable of recognizing the people the game destroys. They do not amount to redemption. The final Los Angeles scene undercuts any idea that Gi-hun’s sacrifice dismantled the operation: another recruiter is already playing ddakji with a stranger.
The baby wins one game and one future. The machinery that made that victory necessary survives her.
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