sorry you've waited forever for this honestly partly bc i lost my original answer BUT ALso bc i feel like i dont rly have anything interesting to say about squid game?? i like the first season it's solid and i think the highlight of it is it's stylish-ness but i don't find it to be a poignant statement about capitalism or anything. I mean the thing it's parodying, reality shows, already exist as a statement on that themselves... they're just taking that and going OKAY BUT WHAT IF WASH OUT KILLED PEOPLE lol. Uh, I'm much more horrified watching American Ninja Warrior and noticing how different it is from its Japanese counterpart - I remember being a fan of the original Japanese series they would air on G4. The stars were a fisherman, a guy who worked as a gas station, a fireman, a girl with a snowboard design company. I still remember them all this time later! But the contestants were always just happy members of their community. Then you have American Ninja Warrior... nearly every story is like I DEALT WITH STRIFE MY WHOLE LIFE AND THEN THINGS ESPECIALLY GOT HARSH WHEN MYSELF/MY LOVED ONE/MY FAMILY MEMBER GOT SICK/IS DYING/DIED/AN ACCIDENT/BANKRUPTCY ETC. like every other story is this it's exhausting, it's nearly all inspiration porn of people short on their luck lol. It's so fucking bleak. Maybe this simply reflects what the two countries choose to highlight, I don't know, it's grim either way.

Anyways, aside from all that, Thanos! Thanos was such a cute character, the main good thing about s2/"s3" and they killed him way too soon. I'm biased because he sort of reminds me of Jen haha, I feel like it's more or less how she would act in the games. Only she wouldn't need drugs to take on the silly attitude. Jen is afraid of death on a base instinctual level like everyone, but when faced with it she's accepting/unafraid. So she would be able to let loose in the games/not be nervous like most others. Accompanied with her intellect, she would definitely be someone to bet on and would probably only get "out" by pure bad luck.

Anyways, Thanos was just amusing. It's funny that he's a little meow meow to people. I get that he had to be on drugs to murk people, but hey he still did all that shit, still kept taking drugs knowing that it made him hurt others. So I don't see him as innocent like some of his fans seem to... Do I think he wanted to kill people? No. Do I think he minded it? Maybe slightly but mostly no, not when it was obvious what the stakes were, he got over the initial shock and adapted to the game. They killed him in favor of making baby daddy dude the big bad when he just wasn't as fun... idk... It was amusing having someone really lean into the game aspect like Thanos did. He was a fun character because despite that he was playing the villain they also managed to make him not feel particularly evil, he was just someone who knew/accepted the game he was playing.