This article contains spoilers for the first five episodes of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge, as well as George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.

We’re halfway through Squid Game: The Challenge with the final five episodes poised to release by early December. And if you’re like me, you would’ve noticed a sort of Game of Thrones-esque theme to Netflix’s newest reality competition show.

What do I mean by that?

A major element of George R.R. Martin’s heralded book series — and HBO’s eight-season rendition — is the killing off of beloved characters. For example, Eddard Stark, the stoic and honorable main protagonist, was offed during the first book and season. His wife, Catelyn Stark, and their son, Robb Stark, were brutally slain later in the series during the famous “Red Wedding.” These are just a few examples of deaths that left readers and viewers blindsided and shocked — which may be an understatement.

The heart-wrenching tendency to build a character into a fan-favorite hero only to send them to an early grave is Game of Thrones’ biggest anti-trope.

We’ve seen this same sort of tactic in other series, like Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan. Killing off characters far too soon isn’t exclusive to George R.R. Martin’s work, but it’s absolutely influenced other writers. And that includes those attached to Squid Game: The Challenge.

By episode five, nearly every contestant we became invested in had been eliminated from the battle for $4.56 million. Whether it was the dynamic duo of No. 232 Rick and No. 243 Stephen or Survivor alum Jessica “Figgy” Figueroa, mostly all of the characters we’ve gotten to know on a deeper level are out of the running.

Heck, the first two players that we spent time with during a “test of character,” No. 134 Dani and No. 101 Kyle (the mullet bro), were both out by “Dalgona,” the cookie-cutting challenge and second game of the series.

And that was on purpose.

Squid Game: The Challenge executive producers Toni Ireland, John Hay, and Stephen Yemoh spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the first five episodes and how they chose to edit the series. And in the interview, Hay gave a nod to Game of Thrones for setting the precedent of untimely departures.

“One of the biggest challenges was just to cover 456 players and, of course, we had no idea who our eventual heroes and prominent characters are going to be. So there was this continual process of putting the focus on people and then reassessing as you lose your heroes. The number of times we would walk back in and be like, “I can’t believe they’ve gone, they were such a great player.” But we decided to lean into that. There’s a whole precedent in dramas like Game of Thrones where you become very attached to people and they’ll go suddenly, and it felt like we should run with that. Some of the people that you most thought were going to win would suddenly make an exit.”

Yemoh said that they focused on building contestants enough that when they were on the show, viewers cared about them. But, once they were gone for good, their exit wasn’t dwelled on. “And even as producers, you have no control,” Ireland chimed in. “It all comes down to how good someone is in a game, who’s going to volunteer for a test. We sat there and watched it all happen live.”

And this isn’t to say that there aren’t any rootable contestants remaining. The mother-son squad — LeAnn and Trey, No. 302 and 301 — are still vying for the life-changing sum of money. But, even so, we were left on a cliffhanger knowing one of the two was about to be served their walking papers.

We also have the remnants of Rick and Stephen’s “Gganbu Gang,” and former professional basketball player T.J. Stukes, for example.

Regardless, Squid Game: The Challenge has delivered in a big way from my estimation, and whoever outlasts 455 others will be worthy of the grand prize. When you take a look back at Game of Thrones, a lot of the heroes standing at the end were side characters at the start of the series. We’ve likely already seen snippets of the eventual winner, and with five full episodes remaining, there is still a lot of time to build more unknowns into full-fledged reality stars.

The next four episodes of Netflix’s work will drop on November 29, while the finale will become available on December 6. Less than 100 contestants are remaining, and one will exit the experience with the largest check in reality competition history.

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