10 Most Soul-Destroying Moments In Squid Game

As one of the few decent people in the entire series, it was fairly easy to root for North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok. It helped that she was in the game for purely altruistic reasons (reuniting her family) and had a certain appeal to her due to her (understandably) cold but ultimately compassionate demeanour.

Seeing her stand up for herself against the likes of Gi-hun and Deoksu was a delight to watch, and showed her resilience was more than enough to keep up with the stronger and/or smarter players. Therefore, it was hard to see suffer after being hit by a glass shard at the end of Episode 7's game.

As she attempted to hide/treat her injuries, her and Gi-hun had a moment where she stopped the latter from killing Sang-woo in his sleep. After a brief heart-to-heart, Gihun noticed the severity of Sae-byeok's injuries and went to get help. Unfortunately, Sang-woo saw this as an opportunity and mercilessly killed the defenceless Sae-byeok whilst Gi-hun's back was turned.

Her brutal death at the hands of Sang-Woo was truly heart-breaking as she never got a chance to reunite with her family and in addition felt tragically ironic as she convinced Gi-hun to spare his life.