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Squid Game tantalised the world by exploring morality, class disparities, and anti-capitalist commentary through a series of deadly children’s games. Not only does it excel in this regard, but it also delivers on some of the most compelling characters ever depicted on television. And the most interesting of them all is the Recruiter.
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Portrayed masterfully by Gong-Yoo, the Recruiter is possibly the eeriest character in the show, throwing you off with his strangely off-putting smile and unhinged temperament. Despite his brief screentime, the Recruiter steals the scene when he’s on-screen. So, who is the Recruiter, and what is his story and motivations?
Who Is The Recruiter?
Duties And Responsibilities
As suggested by his alias, The Recruiter – also known as the Salesman – is responsible for rounding up prospective players for the annual Squid Game.
It is unknown how he selects the players, but it could be presumed that, considering the level of resources available to him, he can research and pinpoint the ones he’ll approach. Naturally, it can only be logical that the Recruiter chooses those with extreme amounts of debt to prey on.
It seems likely that the Recruiter is the only one responsible for drafting 456 players for the games – as seen through the montage of him slapping players during the Squid Game’s introduction – meaning that he must have started recruiting months earlier.
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The Recruiter keeps a smart, well-kept appearance while walking around with a briefcase. Inside the briefcase are piles of money, along with two ddakji tiles. When approaching his target, he offers to play ddakji game, saying that he will give them 100,000 won for each tile that was successfully flipped. But since all of his targets have no money, he slaps them each time they lose.
By the end of the game, the Recruiter hands them a business card with the Squid Game’s logo on one side, and a phone number on the other. Before he leaves, he says that there are only a few spots left, though it’s uncertain if this is true or just a scarcity tactic to get the desperate target to phone the number.
But once the target phones in, the Recruiter asks for their name and date of birth to officially enrol them as a player for the Squid Game. The player will then be drugged and whisked away to the remote island where the Squid Game is being held.
The Recruiter’s Backstory
Importantly, from Season 1 to Season 2, we never even get to learn the Recruiter’s name. However, during the first episode of the second season, we finally get a glimpse into who he was before he became the Recruiter and his demented way of thinking.
During his showdown with Gi-Hun, the Recruiter reveals that he was once a lowly worker for the Squid Game, one of the pink guards wearing circle masks whose job it was to kill players who’ve lost, dispose of their bodies and clean the game sites.
He also revealed that, during one of the rounds of the Squid Game, he encountered a familiar player, who he quickly realised was his father.
Despite the revelation, the Recruiter did not hesitate to shoot his own father dead when he lost a game, displaying his ruthless and unforgiving nature.
He climbed up the ranks and was promoted to one of the Soldiers, which explains his combat aptitude when fending off and restraining the two loan sharks who were tailing him. After some time, he was promoted to one of the Managers of the game.
Eventually, he was offered the chance to work for the games by selecting and recruiting players around the city and became known as the Recruiter, most likely answering directly to the Front Man.
A Twisted Psyche
The Recruiter holds a worldview that is eerily similar to the Front Man’s and generally aligns with the ideology that the Squid Game operates on. He believes that the poor are garbage and have a cynical view of humanity, viewing the individual as inherently selfish and will throw their own lives – and that of others – away to get ahead.
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This is proven when he conducts his own social experiment. The latter doesn’t seem to be part of his job description, since he wasn’t handing out business cards at the end, but merely a way to reaffirm his view of the world. He bought a large batch of bread as well as lottery cards, before approaching the homeless gathered in a park.
Most of them chose to play the lottery, and in the end, he destroyed the bread by stomping on them, screaming that they chose to give up a chance at real survival by tossing away food. This instance, along with his final conversation with Gi-Hun, shows the unhinged side of the Recruiter.
Although he viewed the impoverished and desperate as worthless, it was suggested that the Recruiter grew up in similar situations. Since he found his father participating in the Squid Game, the Recruiter likely had a helpless and impoverished home life. As the workers of the Squid Game are mostly teens to young adults, the Recruiter must have also been around that age when he first joined.
He was integrated into and adopted the ideology of the Squid Game, believing in it so much that he was willing to die for it to prove his point. But unlike the Front Man, who really believed in it due to the equality aspect, it seems to be more of a power trip for the Recruiter, wanting to show his superiority to the wretches of society.
Despite the twisted basis for his beliefs, the Recruiter was the only one among the Squid Game’s staff who played games fair and square. He sets the game rules and follows them when doing so for the loan sharks, and when playing Russian Roulette with Gi-Hun, chooses to follow the rules and shoot himself rather than Gi-Hun because he had lost (and again, to prove a point).
