The Emotional Toll of Survival
Alice in Borderland is not just a survival drama—it’s a journey through a warped wonderland that relentlessly tests its characters’ wits, will, and morality. Haro Aso’s captivating manga series-turned-Netflix hit plunges viewers into a world where life-and-death games serve as brutal Rorschach tests. No game illustrates this better than the Seven of Hearts in season 1, episode 3, which digs deep into the core of protagonist Arisu and his friendships.
“The game ultimately ends brutally where both of his best friends, Karube and Chouta, sacrifice their lives to ensure Arisu survival,” captures the intensity of the game. With lives on the line and friendships at stake, it’s worth pondering: was there an alternate, no-death method for Arisu to win and survive the game?
High-Stakes Gameplay
The Seven of Hearts unfolds in an indoor botanical garden and dictates its own set of labyrinthine rules. Players must don eyepieces and microphones connected to explosive neck collars. The game assigns one player as the wolf, whose task is to avoid eye contact with the sheep players. Only the player remaining as the wolf at the end of a 10-minute timer survives.
“For a group of four strangers, the game is a simple race for survival where the fittest and sneakiest players would win.”
But for Arisu, Karube, and Chouta, it becomes something more—a literal life-or-death challenge of morals and friendship.
Fans’ Theories and Loopholes
The Seven of Hearts may be deviously designed, but it hasn’t stopped fans from dissecting possible ways to beat it without casualties. From using reflections to cutting wires, viewers have racked their brains to come up with potential workarounds.
Mirrors and Illusions
One of the most popular theories involves the use of a giant mirror Arisu spots within the botanical garden. The idea is to manipulate the game by making all players look in the mirror and become wolves.
“However, since humans have binocular vision, allowing them to use two eyes to create a single three-dimensional image, this trick probably would not have worked.”
High-Risk Maneuvers
Another theory proposes that the players use hedge-cutting clippers presented at the game’s onset to cut off their collars.
“However, this approach would be risky, given how tampering with the collar could trigger its explosives and kill the sheep anyway.”
Predestined Tragedy?
Mira, the Queen of Hearts, designed the game specifically to torment Arisu and his close-knit group of friends. Even mangaka Haro Aso has never confirmed a no-death solution for the game, making it hard to shake off the notion that Arisu had no other choice but to survive alone.
“Considering how all the theorized methods had a fair share of flaws, it seems likely that there were no other ways to beat the Seven of Hearts game.”
It’s a heartbreaking but possibly inevitable outcome, one that transforms Arisu from a passive observer to a survivor with a purpose. With season 2 revealing that the characters’ real-world fates were perhaps pre-determined, the Seven of Hearts game might have always been a lost cause—a gut-wrenching but necessary trial for Arisu to find his raison d’être.
The realm of Alice in Borderland is as intricate as it is cruel, but that’s precisely what keeps us coming back for more. Whether Arisu could have saved his friends or not, the Seven of Hearts will forever remain one of the most riveting and heartbreaking episodes in the series.
