Here’s the real reason Thanos speaks English in Squid Game season two

Whether you love him or hate him, Thanos is certainly one of the most memorable characters in season two of Squid Game, but unlike any of the other contestants, he also speaks English from time to time.

Considering none of the others speaks English in Squid Game season two, it does seem strange Thanos flips between the two languages, but as it turns out there’s a fairly simple explanation.

Whilst Thanos mainly speaks Korean in season two of Squid Game he uses English intermittently such as when he meets Player 125 for the first time and says: “What’s up, nice to meet you my brother, welcome to the Thanos world.”

Via Netflix

As for why he speaks English, it’s a deliberate characterisation of Thanos to emulate “wannabe South Korean rappers” who will often include snippets of English verses or words in their rap songs.

One Redditor explained: “Unlike in other K-dramas, the writers here intentionally wrote a character that closely resembles a lot of wannabe SK rappers who love spitting out some of the stupidest sh*t in English.

“If you listened to K-hip-hop, you’d know what I’m talking about. I found it cool that he portrayed the character exactly how the writers wanted him to.”

They also added: “Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this but the actor is fluent in English. They probably wanted to humour a Western audience since Bigbang already has a pretty big international fan base.”

Via Netflix

The actor, Seung-hyun, has come under fire for both his performance and previous controversies after he was arrested for nine years for possession of marijuana.

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However, the creator of Squid Game has defended his choice in casting the actor, explaining: “As you may know, the actor Seung-hyun, about nine years ago got involved in a marijuana scandal in Korea and wasn’t able to do any projects for the past nine years in Korea.

“And so this is a comeback after quite a long hiatus, and particularly because he portrays a character that’s a rapper and also someone who is on drugs.”

He added: “I feel that it took him a lot of guts, in a way, to portray a character, especially someone who shares a lot of similarities that are quite negative to him as a person too. So I think it took him a lot of courage to take on that role.”

Squid Game 2 is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.