Squid Game: Player 393 divides fans after playing “sympathy card” in Marbles
NetflixSquid Game: The Challenge Player 393 has left fans divided over the Marbles game, with some accusing her of playing the “sympathy card.”
Given there’s $4.96 million up for grabs, it’s no surprise Squid Game: The Challenge players will do anything it takes to try and survive the next game and make it into the final of the Netflix series.
Much like the real-life Squid Game, we’ve seen contestants playing dirty, back-stabbing friends, and forfeiting their position in order to ruin the chances of others – but there can only be one winner, and we’ll have to wait until next week to find out who.
Until then, there are nine episodes to binge-watch, with one game in particular causing quite the stir. Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Squid Game: Player 393 accused of playing “sympathy card” in Marbles
In Episode 6, the contestants got stuck into the ruthless Marbles game, which saw half the players go home. In one heated interaction, Player 393 (Jackie) explains to Player 382 (Tim) about why she wants to win Squid Game: The Challenge.
“You know I’m deaf. For me, it’s about representation,” she says. “I want to make my community proud and I’ve never seen anyone ever that represented me; someone who’s deaf, someone who uses sign language. Someone who also uses their voice.”
She then speaks about the joy of teaching other contestants sign language, but Tim tells her that he too is deaf and wears hearing aids, asking why she hasn’t taught him, to which she says: “That’s not my job.” But Tim accuses her of “playing the sympathy card” and that she “saved this for this moment.”
The interaction has left viewers divided, with one person saying on Reddit: “I’m legally deaf and wear hearing aids so I feel 100% comfortable weighing in on this and I just want to say… What a complete crock of sh*t, what a joke, and what a f*cking CLOWN…
“She said she wanted to win for ‘representation.’ Lady, none of us want YOU to be the face of the deaf community. What a ridiculous time and place to bring that up. It was so brazen and such an obvious ruse.
“She had never been signing anything up to that point and clearly, her disability wasn’t that debilitating or difficult to overcome if she was able to make it that far in Squid Game. I was so happy when #382 pointed out his own hearing aids and called her out for trying to play the sympathy card. He was 100% correct to do so.
“Her behavior thereafter was nothing short of embarrassing.” They later asked: “So, Tim was supposed to approach you and just hope you knew ASL and would be willing to teach him?”
However, not everyone agrees with this standpoint, with one Redditor responding to the post saying: “For me personally, somebody close to me has had some health issues so when Tim said ‘somebody close to me has had some health issues’ I was like ugh, Tim, playing the sympathy card. Then he went and reverse uno’d that sh*t.”
Over on X/Twitter, one wrote: “382 was right, player 393 did try the sympathy card… but they’re both deaf #SquidGame.” On the other side of the fence, another commented: “The way 382 was speaking to 393 was just icky.”
Squid Game: The Challenge Episodes 1-9 are available to stream on Netflix now. You can check out our other coverage below:
- Squid Game: The Challenge all eliminations so far
- When is the last episode of Squid Game: The Challenge out?
- Squid Game: The Challenge release schedule
- Squid Game: The Challenge filming locations
- Squid Game: The Challenge reviews
- Is Squid Game: The Challenge real?
- Squid Game: The Challenge soundtrack
- How are players eliminated?
- Why Player 299 joined the show
- Did the players actually fall in Glass Bridge?
- Squid Game fans slam “coward” Player 278
- Players allegedly asked to “pretend” to compete
- Squid Game: The Challenge player details set conditions
- Squid Game: The Challenge producers hit back
- Squid Game: The Challenge contestants threaten lawsuit
- Squid Game: The Challenge receives audience backlash