There’s something deeply unsettling about watching ordinary people fight for their lives in twisted versions of childhood games. Both Squid Game and Alice in Borderland tap into this primal fascination, but they approach the same dark premise from fundamentally different angles. While they share the surface-level similarity of deadly competitions, the real distinction lies in what each show chooses to emphasize—the brutal simplicity of human desperation versus the intellectual complexity of survival puzzles.
What makes Squid Game so compelling isn’t the games themselves, but the raw humanity that emerges when people are stripped of everything but their will to live. The show’s genius lies in its refusal to make the games sophisticated or intellectually demanding. Instead, they’re brutally simple—tug of war, red light green light, marbles—games that anyone could understand and play. This simplicity becomes the perfect canvas for exploring how people react under extreme pressure. We’re not watching brilliant strategists outsmart complex systems; we’re watching ordinary people forced to make impossible choices about who lives and who dies.
Alice in Borderland takes the opposite approach, creating elaborate puzzles that test intelligence, physical ability, and teamwork. The games feel more like something from an escape room or video game—intricate challenges with hidden solutions and clever twists. This creates a different kind of tension, one that rewards quick thinking and problem-solving skills. While intellectually stimulating, this approach sometimes distances us from the emotional weight of the situation. When characters survive through cleverness rather than raw human connection, the stakes feel different—more cerebral than visceral.
The character development in both shows reveals their core philosophies. Squid Game takes its time building relationships between characters, making us care about them before putting them in mortal danger. We understand their motivations, their backstories, and their relationships with each other. When they’re forced to betray allies or make sacrifices, the emotional impact is devastating. Alice in Borderland moves at a faster pace, prioritizing the mystery and mechanics of the games over deep character exploration. The focus is on surviving the immediate challenge rather than building lasting emotional connections.
Ultimately, both shows succeed because they’re about more than just survival games—they’re about what happens to people when the rules of society collapse. Squid Game shows us that even in the most desperate circumstances, human connection and empathy can survive, though they often come at a terrible cost. Alice in Borderland suggests that intelligence and adaptability might be our greatest weapons when facing the unknown. Neither approach is inherently better—they simply appeal to different aspects of our fascination with survival scenarios and what they reveal about human nature.
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