Was just kind of messing around with the math on the games to see, theoretically, how many winners you could realistically have in the games. Heavy spoilers below, so read at own risk if you haven't seen this.
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Some of this is based on Film Theory's analysis here (which is a GREAT video, as are a lot of his):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54avjfIu1OISo, walking through each game, working off or actual probabilities, as well as some other assumptions, I wanted to try to figure out a "maximum" number of potential winners. These are VERY optimistic assumptions, but again, I just wanted to try to figure out the maximum numbers, so that's why.
So, we go into the first game with 456 players. And the largest player % elimination games are the player vs. player games, which occur in rounds 3 (tug of war), 4 (marbles), and 6 (squid game). But round 5 (bridge) is also problematic, for reasons I will get into below. Let's also assume that the players quickly figure out MattPat's premise in the video above that cooperation maximizes everyone's survival, and so nobody sabotages/kills anyone else.
Round 1 (red light/green light): We start with 456 players. Someone is going to screw up. Let's say it initially plays out like we saw in episode 1. But as soon as the second guy dies, the other players realize what is going on and hold it together, getting through the round with only 2 eliminations. Yeah, that is WAY optimistic. But let's roll with it. So we get out of round 1 with 454 players.
Round 2 (dalgona): Let's assume everyone gets through--especially if they pick up on the clues and figure out what the game is, and all choose easy shapes, and/or they figure out the licking strategy or some other creative means of surviving the round. End of round: 454 players. Odds are, we are going to lose some players anyway, but whatever. Deal with it.
Round 3 (tug of war): Start with 454 players. This is the first player vs. player challenge. Half of the people playing this round are going to die. With 454 players, that would yield 45 teams. But you need an even number of teams, so one team could not play. That leaves 14 people that will not play in that round. As we saw in the marbles episode, players who are not chosen for a team and cannot play do not get eliminated. We CAN assume that that would apply in all such games, because that is actually a thing in Korean culture (which is exactly WHY it happened in the Marbles episode). Basically, in kids' games, where younger or weaker or less popular kids don't get picked on teams, those kids get to play and are given perks or are immune from losing so that they can get a chance to play like everyone else. Anyhow, we get 44 teams, or 440 playing. 22 teams will be eliminated. So 454 - 220 players gives us 234 players at the end of the round.
Round 4 (marbles): Another player vs. player round. Start: 234 players. Half are eliminated, leaving 117.
Round 5 (bridge): This is where I lean heavily into the Film Theory video. We start with the assumption that, statistically, the first 9 people (on average) die. Maybe the glass maker comes forward early, and we lose less than that. But let's just stick with the math. So we are down to 108, according to MattPat's formula. And let's say everyone cooperates from this point forward, and they also move quickly and don't waste time. But here's the problem we still have: Even moving quickly, but carefully, I don't think we can get that many people across the bridge before time runs out. They have to move quickly to conserve time. But they have to move carefully because one wrong move, and...well, you know. This is where it gets really hard to predict. I dunno. Is it optimistic AND realistic to assume we get 54 across the bridge in the time limit? Let's just go with that. End of round: 54 survivors.
Round 6 (squid game): The last player vs. player game. We go in with 54 survivors. How many get eliminated? Hmm...hard to say. In one sense, the defense is at a supreme disadvantage. They can succeed all the way through until the last player, and if that last player breaks through, the entire defense loses and is eliminated. On the other hand, with 54 survivors, that leaves 27 defenders to defend the court. 27! Given the size of the court, I think they can easily cover it well enough that nobody can get through. In any case, let's just assume optimum results for one team or the other, and 50% survive. That leave us 27 winners.
So, being somewhat realistic, but aggressively optimistic, I think we could maybe have as many as 27 winners in a given season.
So that was my fun math/time-wasting exercise for today.
Topic: Squid Game (Read 12671 times)
