the recruiter

Killing killers-- get them to kill themselves, or die from time, or kill them.

The recruiter gets Gi-hun's mindset wrong. In his final speech, he says: "Let me guess what you're thinking right now. 'The gun is in my hand. Screw the rules. Pull the trigger once or twice, and I can blow this guy's face off.' Isn't that right?" but he isn't right at all. We can see that and we know that from watching Gi-hun's life that the recruiter is SO wrong.

Squid Game Season 2 Episode 1

​The recruiter believes that human beings are trash, but following the rules of the game makes him moral. In a sense he has integrity because he kills himself, rather than shooting Gi-hun like Gi-hun suggests. His psychology is so interesting and I'm glad Gong Yoo resonates with his character so much, because there's a sincerity behind his psychotic eyes that makes the drama of the show so real. I believe the recruiter and I believe there's others like him: people who would love to kill their dad looking him in the eyes behind a mask, pulling the trigger of a gun and feeling that primal jerk of taking a life, yet not wanting to admit their lifelong devotion to a senseless ideology. Violence is easy, but honesty is hard. And confronting yourself is harder than lashing out at others. To me, that signals that the truth is what will kill enemies in real life that are like him... the ICE & IOF and cop soldiers. Not necessarily out of shame, but because that mentality is self-destructive.

The recruiter believes that he, just like the rest of humanity, is a piece of trash. He kinda made it out of the dirt, but he knows he's not a good person and he's cool with killing others because they're not good people either. He is self-hating which makes him hate others... but he was already there. It's implied he was born into a fucked up system; I think his dad sold him for money and then he was probably in prison or scamming when the game runners recruited him. I also think his gender is significant, because we see the square mask managers of season 1 and 2 are young attractive men. My guess is that they came into the game as guards as pre-teens from troubled backgrounds and were being taught how to act when their brains are still forming. The recruiter’s prejudice of humanity developed early but was reinforced by the gamemakers; we are malleable from the day we are born and we can be made rigid enough to snap. His fate is the natural conclusion of a victim of this system.