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| “ | When we were young we used to play like this and our moms would invite us to dinner. That won't happen again. | „ |
| ~ Cho Sang-woo to Seong Gi-hun. |
Cho Sang-woo (In Korean: 조상우) is the deuteragonist and final antagonist of the Netflix Korean drama Squid Game. He is Seong Gi-hun's childhood friend-turned-greatest adversary in the brutal competition for the ₩45.6 billion prize.
He was portrayed by Hae-soo Park. In the English dub, he was voiced by Stephen Fu.
Personality
Although Sang-woo is strong-willed, his willingness usually causes him to exploit certain situations in his own favor. He is also very manipulative and intelligent, not falling for tricks easily. Sang-woo acts as a good teammate up until the final few games, where he realizes he has to go rogue in order to win.
Despite his cruel and self-centered nature towards other players, even those he once considered to be his friends such as Gi-Hun and Ali, Sang-woo truly cared for his mother as she was his entire reason for joining the Squid Game in the first place. He also acknowledged Gi-hun's kind-hearted nature. This is evident when Gi-Hun tried to end the game so they both could go home, but Sang-woo chose to commit suicide so that Gi-hun could be the one to win all the prize money, trusting that Gi-hun's naturally kind heart would make him support his mother after his death.
Biography
Background
Sang-woo is a childhood friend of Seong Gi-hun. In their younger days, they would both play children's games such as the Squid Game and Red Light, Green Light.
Sang-woo enrolled at Seoul National University, where he studied Business Administration. After his graduation as the top of his class, he started to work as an investment banker, where he somehow stole money from some of his clients and lost it all in the stock market. Hunted by the law, Sang-woo accepts the invitation for the Squid Game, a mysterious competition with a large sum of money as the prize to pay back his clients to avoid jail time.
Squid Game
He was initially a sceptic of the Squid Game, specifically the staff, because of the small doses of information he and the other 455 players had received. When he realized his friend Gi-hun also was a participant, he became wary, understanding that they'd eventually have to compete against each other. After the first game of Red Light, Green Light concluded he longed to get out of the compound but after seeing the money accumulated during the game he flipped his opinion, voting no to stop the game. The game was still stopped, however, and he was dropped off in the middle of Seoul with Ali Abdul.
Seeing Ali's money problems, Sang-woo decided to pitch in and pay for his bus home. He later called his mother and lied to her about being abroad. Just as he was about to kill himself in his apartment, the game staff dropped off another invitation at his door, and he decided to rejoin the game.
Sae-byeok, another participant in the game, had earlier gone off to find out what the second game would be about. She disclosed with Sang-woo that the staff were melting something and that she could smell sugar while they were doing so. Sang-woo quickly figured out the game after seeing the shapes on the doors, but decided to keep it to himself, sending his "team" (now consisting of him, Gi-hun, Ali and Il-nam) to almost certain death as he picked the simplest shape to cut out of the toffee.
During the night, Sang-woo actively strove to fight off the attackers, specifically Deok-su and his crew. In the Tug of War game, Sang-woo saved the team by coming up with a last-second tactic. He later betrayed Ali, lying to him about how they could both make it out of the Marble game.
In the Stepping Stones game, Sang-woo callously kills Player 017 for wasting too much time. For being one of the three finalists (alongside Gi-hun and Sae-byeok), he was given a knife after a fancy dinner. Wary of Sang-woo's disregard for human life, Gi-hun and Sae-byeok kept themselves away from him during Lights Out; Gi-hun attempts to kill Sang-woo while he is asleep, but is stopped by Sae-byeok. However, due to the wounds Sae-byeok had attained from the previous game, Sang-woo rose to cut her throat while Gi-hun had his back turned calling for help. Sang-woo rationalized the murder as an act of merciful euthanasia, which almost made Gi-hun want to kill him.
Sang-woo and Gi-hun would face each other in the sixth and final game, Squid Game. Initially gaining the upper hand with his aggressive attacks on Gi-hun's life, Sang-woo would eventually be overpowered and defeated. However, Gi-hun refused to kill him, instead attempting to invoke the third clause of the agreement to end the game and forfeit the prize money in order to spare his life. But Sang-woo commits suicide by stabbing himself in the neck to allow Gi-hun to win the money. In his final moments, Sang-woo also tells him to look after his mother, which Gi-hun eventually does by giving her a share of the prize money and placing Sae-byeok's brother in her custody one year after his death.
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