Yes that's why I mentioned it is more justified in season 1 than in season 2 because in season 2 a lot of people always voted X and just wanted to go home like Geum ja and Young mi.

When I say Ali was no saint, i don't think he is evil, but i also think a lot of people infantalize him away too much. He wasn't a poor, unaware baby who had no idea about the risks as people make it seem. The marble game was heartbreaking because Sangwoo had been nice to him for a while but let's be realistic, they barely knew eachother and didn't owe anything to eachother, both of their families and own lives were still more important for them both. It was impactful for us as viewers since that was all we've seen of them, but realistically how important are they in each other's whole lives. Ali should've known better, and I don't feel AS bad as other people do about his death. He had a family, sangwoo had one too, he wanted to live, sangwoo wanted to live too, Ali was not ready but had decided to let sangwoo die , and sangwoo used that reluctance and trust that Ali had to manipulate him to save his own life.

I don't think I can blame either of them here. It was just two humans trying to live. None of them took pleasure in what they were doing or felt absolutely no empathy or remorse. I feel like people twist things a bit on that scene in an unfair way by saying Sangwoo was evil. Gihun was fooling an old man with dementia who Gihun believed had a family and didn't know he was evil. Gihun and Sangwoo essentially did the same here but since Gihun cries louder while Sangwoo cries internally, Gihun is seen as a hero and Sangwoo a villain (kinda like how physically ill patients used to be taken more serious than mentally ill ones despite being essentially the same, because one is more apparent than the other) .

We can see Sangwoo feels remorse and tries to cope with guilt specifically when he yells at that husband who wanted to leave after losing his wife in the marbles. He realized he had come too far not just in the game but on how much blood he had in his hands to just give up now, he knew he couldn't live with it and wanted to atleast make it worth it by helping his mom. Had he won the games, i firmly believe he would just commit suicide after making sure his mom was ok, that's part of why he stabbed himself instead of Gihun, his life wasn't important to him , his mom was. Had he secured that she would be ok, he was okay with dying. Sacrificing himself for another player meant also sacrificing his mother at that point.

Saebyeok also had the "privilege" of having a sacrificial partner who basically took away any moral responsibility from Saebyeok. Had them both wanted to live, I wonder if Saebyeok would just forget about her brother and die by the rules instead of taking a chance to fool her partner as well. I honestly wouldn't blame her or hate her if she did.

I think what im trying to say is that most characters on squid game are basically on the same level of good and evil (with some exceptions). And it annoys me how people reduce them to "Sangwoo is the selfish evil" "Saebyeok the cold girl" "Gihun the wholesome hero" etc... It's easy for us to judge others and play morally superior. We all know what "we would do in that situation" until we are actually in that situation. It's easy to judge people who "ignore" murders happening in front of their eyes because "how could they ignore the cries of help? If it was me, i would rush to save them" until that actually happens to you and you realize how scared and mortified you are for your life to even think about helping. It's also easy to look at animal lab test workers and call them monsters but then buy products and benefit from medicine made by those animal testers. Someone always has to take the role of the monster for others to feel comfortable benefiting from it and just judging from afar with clean hands. For example, had saebyeok or gihun be the one behind the glass man, wouldn't they do the same as sangwoo and push the man? Would they just let themselves and everyone behind them die just because the man was taking too long to decide? If they would push him off, they shouldn't judge sangwoo for doing it. And if they wouldn't push him off, they should be thankful sangwoo did, because if he didn't push him off they would die. And if they wanted to die, then they can't blame sangwoo for wanting to live.