Saw/WMG

David is Adam's twin brother, and a Jigsaw apprentice
Okay, so David, the protagonist from the short film, is played by Leigh Whannel. So is Adam. Obviously, they're twins, or else the Saw universe involves clones, which seems unlikely considering it's a realistic fiction series. Now, in a deleted scene from Saw, Adam says that he has a family, supporting the idea that he has a brother at all. Adam also says that he doesn't see his family much. Interesting... Think about it. Every other person who has been in the reverse bear trap helped Jigsaw. Why would David be an exception? In conclusion, Adam met his demise at the hands of his brother that he was so disconnected from that he didn't know the story of the man who tried to kill him. And that's why...

The next movie will have

 * Nah, the series has ended.

Dr. Gordon is still alive.
Okay, when we last saw him he was bleeding to death, and Jigsaw was sure to catch up with him anyway. But we didn't see him die -- and this series loves to show the victims' deaths, even if it's a couple of movies later. Besides, they keep making little references to him. Nah, Lawrence is still alive, and they'll bring him back for Saw VI to bring the series full circle. (His absence since the first film is easy to explain: he's been in hospital recovering from his massive injuries.) Update: Okay, I'm busted on the Saw VI part -- Lawrence wasn't back. But they did throw in yet another mention of him, and remember that package Jill dropped off at the hospital? Sure looked like his name on the door. Stay tuned.
 * Full circle? You mean he'll become the next Jigsaw?
 * No, I just mean he was in the first and he'll be in the (supposedly) last.
 * Well, the tagline for Saw VI is "The Game Comes Full Circle"...
 * This troper is afraid to say that Gordon's fate being left up in the air is probably a case of Real Life Writes the Plot. Elwes sued the producers when he felt he wasn't given his agreed-upon percentage. That whole matter was settled out of court, but he's not likely to want to return (and they're not likely to want him back).

Jill Tuck will be the final Jigsaw.
You're trying to tell me that she had NO idea that her husband was Jigsaw? '''Bull. Shit.''' She's going to be the one to end Hoffman's life and take up the Jigsaw role...if she hasn't already been acting in concert with her husband already.
 * Confirmed, to a degree:
 * Patrick Melton confirmed that she will not be the new Jigsaw. source
 * Patrick Melton confirmed that she will not be the new Jigsaw. source

Kevin McAllistor will be the Final Jigsaw
Abandonment issues and a knowledge of elaborate, deadly traps are not a good combo of a healthy psyche.

Jigsaw will be the final Jigsaw.
Because you can never say a horror franchise is 100% dead until the main villain is revived.
 * His body was cut open, though. And there was no mention in either IV, V, or VI of the body unexpectedly going missing, so either Jigsaw is now capable of incorporeally possessing people, or he had a twin brother we never heard about.

A Jigsaw puzzle will be the final Jigsaw.
Because that makes sense.
 * Made of the pieces Jigsaw was cutting out of the skin of the people he captured. Stick them to a spiky mannequin, or something, and if you get too much blood on it before revealing the message, you starve to death in some dismal underground room. Figure out how to do it without causing yourself harm (or at least without getting blood on the pieces), and you find the key (...not necessarily a literal key, though). Would be good for someone with physically self-destructive tendencies, like Amanda (I haven't seen the later films, so don't know what happens there). They would have to find the path of least self-harm, or kill him- or herself once and for all (either way, making the human race slightly more appreciative of life on average). Would be an interesting twist, considering all the previous puzzles tend to revolve around getting blood out of a person's body, one way or another, to survive.

Jigsaw was testing himself in Saw 3.
Think about it. At this point, it was already at least hinted that Jigsaw was starting to realize that the few people who did survive the tests didn't learn anything, so he was probably starting to wonder if he was actually doing any good, or if he was just a sick psycho who tortures people because he can't cope with his disease. Besides, he may also have realized that spending the short time he has left doing that isn't exactly the best way to show his respect for life either.

So he decided to create a game in which someone would be put to the test, but so would he. His test was to convince Jeff to forget his grief and to forgive to those who he feel wronged him (note the parallel between Jeff not coping with his son's death and Jigsaw not coping with his cancer). If he managed to do so, it would mean his games do serve their purpose and make people appreciate life. If he failed, it would mean his works were meaningless and only made people who already hit rock-bottom suffer even more, making him even more disrespectful of life than the people he tested, and he knew Jeff's anger would be so great that he would kill him (that also explains why he kidnapped Jeff's daughter and put his wife into a deadly trap, to make sure he would hate Jigsaw enough to kill him).

And last but not least, Jigsaw tested both of his apprentices, so it's not a stretch to believe that he would test himself as well, and being killed by a person he tested fit his theme of Karmic Deaths perfectly.


 * Concerning your last point, Jigsaw did drive his car off of a cliff and survive; Saw IV shows him pulling a part of the car out of his abdomen. He could certainly seen that as his "test"; after all, that's when he changed from John Kramer into Jigsaw.
 * Good point, but he did put former victims into a second trap when he thought they still didn't respect life enough, so maybe he considered that him turning into Jigsaw just made him go from disrespecting his life to disrespecting other people's lives.

Jigsaw is just a crazed sadist.
Ostensibly, Jigsaw's philosophy is that those who do not appreciate life do not deserve it. Practically speaking, this becomes "If you aren't prepared to suffer to survive then you don't deserve life." However, his actions are extremely inconsistent with this.

First of all, look at his first two victims. Their "tests" were obviously not just a matter of "If you're willing to suffer then you get to live"; they both tried as hard as they could to escape and yet they died anyway. They didn't lack the will to survive; their tests were just too friggin' hard. Then we have Amanda, who has to kill an innocent in order to survive. So now suddenly it's "If you're willing to commit murder then you get to live," even though he supposedly abhors murder and only does what he does to get people to value their lives. And of course, we learn at the end that Adam basically never had a hope in hell of surviving.

Michael's test in the second movie is the only one that actually conforms to Jigsaw's "true" modus operandi; he could have survived if he'd been willing to endure the loss of his eye, but he wasn't, so he died. Fine. It's all downhill from there, however; first he uses blatant Schmuck Bait to trick a guy into shooting himself, then he sets a test for Xavier that he can easily avoid just by making someone else do it. Not to mention that razor box, which was just a flat-out trap. Nobody whose brain's been addled by a lethal airborne toxin could reasonably be expected to avoid that. Also, Jigsaw now seems to be be promoting a Power of Friendship message on top of everything else, because the victims would have fared a lot better without all the infighting. So now we have "You must kill to survive" being followed by "You must work together!"

Then of course we have Detective Matthews, who just gets screwed every which way. Not only demonstrate the will to survive by escaping almost immediately, he's smart about it; he breaks his ankle rather than sawing his foot off. And then he gets captured again and dies in the next movie through no fault of his own. Grand.

Also, Jigsaw's now trying to teach the value of mercy and forgiveness, apparently. This after forcing someone to commit murder and dragging numerous innocent bystanders into his "tests", including a little girl. Oh, and the final message of the movie is just great. "You didn't instantly forgive me for all the horrible, horrible trials I put you through, so now I'm going to make your wife's head asplode."

It's possible that this tangled mess is all justifiable somehow, but it's also possible that Jigsaw is just nuts. I know which one I'm going for.


 * The Razor Box trap had a way out: at the top of the box was a padlock with the key inside it, if the victim had spotted it, it just needed to be unlocked and then there wouldn't have been the bloody mess that ensued. (See here.)
 * And as for Matthews, he failed his actual test (to talk to Jigsaw for a couple of hours without marching off like a hero). You could see this as justification for his subsequent death (at least, justified by Jigsaw's logic). Or, there's the other view, supported by the films: it's Amanda's fault, not Jigsaw's. Amanda is skeptical of Jigsaw's methods (understandable), believing that they leave survivors worse off than dying. So she takes it upon herself to lock Matthews in the bathroom as an execution. He's too clever, escapes, and so she decides to finish him off for his own good.

Hoffman wins...everything
As far as I can tell, his "test" was just supposed to be him dying (I don't think Jigsaw meant for him to have an out, since there was no way to get a key). That would make him the only person in the entire franchise John actually UNDERESTIMATED. If this is the case, then his sheer will to live means he deserves to live more than anyone else.
 * I'd guess that his test wasn't supposed to have a key because that would be too easy. Think of all of the experience Hoffman has with Jigsaw's traps; he knows the way they work, and a key would be too simple for a man like him. With all of his experience, a proper test would need to force him to get creative to escape, and he certainly passed in that regard.
 * Look closer: Hoffman's Reverse Beartrap is NOT a replica of Amanda's. Specifically, the mouthpiece he used to break his hand is reinforced and STUDDED. This troper's impression was that Hoffman OVERTHOUGHT the trap, once his hand was shattered (and, ostensibly literally and metaphorically, his ability to hurt others), all he had to do was flip the switch on the side to turn it off. He let himself panic, missed the obvious out, and ended up with an unforeseen out and a particularly gruesome Glasgow Grin.
 * An interview with Patrick Melton confirmed that there was supposed to be a key for the back of Hoffman's RBT2, but Jill took it with her, meaning she left him for dead. Whether this is what John wanted or not is unknown, but we do know that she wanted him dead, so he didn't over think the trap.

Jigsaw is really Kevin McCallister from Home Alone

 * Kevin was quite adept at dishing out vigilante justice with a variety of gruesome traps, particularly for an 8-year-old. It takes a twisted mind to permanently brand someone with a doorknob. His neglectful parents apparently never bothered getting Kevin therapy after two felons threatened to torture and murder him, since he deliberately runs away from a second family vacation, and his traps are noticeably more brutal in New York. Imagine what a kid like that would grow up to be.
 * This has been taken to it's logical conclusion

William didn't have to kill a single person in his game in Saw VI
This is a theory that has been floating around in my head for a while, and it has been in there long enough that I think I may have sufficient proof for it. Basically, I don't think William had to choose between killing anyone during his game in Saw VI; I think there was a way for everyone involved in the traps to live.

First of all, look at Saw V: the people in the sewer trap thought they had to fight each other and that the trap was Survival of the Fittest, but it turned out in the end that they were supposed to work together. I don't think it's inconceivable for that kind of aesop change to happen in Saw VI, as well; William thinks he is being taught a lesson about the flaws in his perception about the relative worth of people's lives (for example, a healthy loner is not worth more than a sick grandmother), but it turns out he's really being encouraged to just drop those perceptions completely (rather than just correct them), and to give everyone a chance at life; in other words, to not try to assign life a value. After all, Jigsaw basically told William that his formula for deciding whether someone got coverage was BS because it didn't take into account the human will to live. If William was just being encouraged to rethink his perceptions on the relative worth of human life, then that would just mean modifying his formula, but I think Jigsaw would want him to just forget about his formula.

Now, I think there was a way for William to go about each each trap without killing anyone. I suspect that the Breathing Mask Trap was designed so that it wouldn't actually kill William. After all, without him, none of the other traps can go as planned, and thus Hoffman wouldn't have been able to carry Jigsaw's final will, and why make an innocent janitor go through everything that William had to go through? Thus, perhaps the trap would release them both if William were to simply breath enough to supposedly kill himself. This would have taught him that, though Hank was less healthy than him, that didn't mean Hank deserved to die.

With the Barbed-Wire Nooses, I think the responsibility was more on Allen's shoulder, but he could have survived. Watch the scene: his hands are released well before the noose tightened, meaning he could have grabbed the noose so that it wouldn't cut his neck when he fell. It certainly would have been painful, but considering the alternative (death), it's preferable. And why else would the director have included a scene of his hands have been released? He could have very well said, "Fuck you!" without his hands being released, so it couldn't have just been for storytelling purposes

The Steam Room is simpler to explain. Debbie could have just used to band-saw to cut the device off of herself. The x-rays were probably placed there to make her think she had to maim William to get the key (like the faux Survival of the Fittest theme in Saw V), even though she didn't.

Finally, in the Carousel Trap, what if there was no limit on the number of times William could have pushed the buttons to raise the shotgun? I can't think of any evidence to support this, but if it were the case, it would have sent the message that the limits on how many people should be allowed to live (a parallel to the idea that some people shouldn't be given insurance coverage) are all an illusion created by the higher-ups (in the case of the trap, the higher-up is Jigsaw; in the case of health insurance, it's William). I know it's a Converse Error to assume that since this moral makes sense, then the possibility that lead to it must be true, but I thought I'd bring it up anyways.

Most importantly, though, remember that Jigsaw said to William, "You think it is the living who will have ultimate judgment over you because the dead will have no claim to your soul, but you may be mistaken." However, at the end of the movie, it is the living (Brent and Tara) who have ultimate judgment over him. Thus, the only way this quote can be relevant is if it is the people who died in the traps (i.e. whom William killed) that are the dead that have a claim to his soul. In other words, had he not killed anyone, there would be no dead to claim his soul, and thus perhaps he would have been saved.

On a side note, since Jigsaw could predict human behavior, perhaps he designed the tape that played at the end of the film specifically to encourage Tara or Brent to kill William. If that's the case, he could have had two tapes ready to play when William made it to the end: one which he knew would cause Brent or Tara to pull the level, and one which would have encouraged them to spare him, or perhaps told William to not stand on the platform that activated the switch, and that one would have played if he had pressed the button in the Carousel trap more than twice, and/or Hank had survived, etc. In other words, maybe William's real test was to find a way to let everyone live, to give up his insurance-based view that some people must die for others to keep living, and he failed that test miserably, and thus his punishment was to die by Brent's hand.

If there is a Saw VIII, then Gordon, Hoffman, and Dagen will square off.
First off, I don't buy that. The reason I pick these three character is because each of them represents Jigsaw's failure. In the case of Hoffman and Gordon, both of them were underestimated. They found the will to live, even after a "Game Over!" Now, both of them want to be the new Jigsaw, and they will fight for that right. Bobby, however, is their opposite. Rather than pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, he lost the game because the trap failed. John was wrong, his pecks ripped, and his wife died even though he had, by any reasonable standard, won. So, where the games represent a way of rewarding strength to Hoffman and Gordon, to Dagen they are nothing but sadistic mind-fucks. For that reason, he will be determined to stop both of them at all costs, and become a counter jigsaw-killer, finding ways to fuck with the games from outside (one possibility is he finds a way to communicate the nature of a trap to a victim, so that they don't have to listen to the tape recorder, and thus can work without a timer), helping the victims, and eventually killing both Gordon and Hoffman. - Jigsaw is very petty. Many of his victims were people he felt had wronged him, not people who needed to appreciate their lives more. By Saw VI, he was reminding me of the guy in Hell Girl who damns someone for spilling coffee on him. And the ultimate proof is Dagen himself. He's out there on TV spreading Jigsaw's message, giving him exactly the PR he wants -- but Jigsaw destroys that asset because he can't abide a fake victim. That's petty. - Never dishonest? Maybe not in person, but in his traps, he lies all the time. Usually it's just deception, leading the victim to think of the wrong solution (like Rigg's quest in IV or the group in V), but he's perfectly willing to flat-out lie too (Amanda's trap -- "dead cellmate" my ass). - And as for Jigsaw not being able to know for sure when Dagen would fall... well, one option is that the pecs really were a possible victory condition, but only if he dug the hooks deep enough that they would actually hold out. Maybe that would be enough pain to earn a pass, and Dagen fell just short. But I can also get behind the idea that Jigsaw did know exactly when Dagen would fall, because that's the particular category where Saw asks us to suspend our disbelief (no pun intended). We don't have to accept aliens or time travel; what we have to accept is that Jigsaw is that damn good at predicting everything that can happen in his traps. He doesn't always know if his victims will pass -- but if they do, it'll be on his terms.
 * Ah, but you missed the cruel point of Dagen's final test. Jigsaw knew damn well that the pectorals weren't strong enough to support a grown man's weight for that long. He was punishing Dagen not just for lying about being in a trap, but for making him look sloppy by screwing up the details. So did his wife have a chance? I think so -- but Dagen had to think for himself and not just trust the tape (see IV and V, as well as the VI theory above). There are places he could've put the hooks that might have worked. By trusting in his lie, he doomed Joyce.
 * I didn't miss it, I considered and rejected it. First off, it makes John petty and dishonest, traits he's never shown before. Secondly, the fact that Dagen got so close to winning proves that it WASN'T impossible. There's no way John could have known for certain the exact instant at which his pectorals would rip, and had they done it a second later he would have won. So, either John screwed up on his trap intending it to work, or he ALMOST screwed up on a trap he intended NOT to work. I think the former works far better.
 * Well, you've made yourself clearer now... but I've gotta say I disagree with you on every point.

Jigsaw is trying to create an elaborate form of Purgatory
Note: This theory does not necessarily imply the existence of God and an afterlife, but rather Jigsaw's games of life or death look too suspiciously similar to the doctrine of "suffer and have eternal life or give up and have eternal death".

Throughout the series, the philosophy of Jigsaw is that those who do not appreciate life do not deserve it. Endure some pain and survive or suffer eternal death. Remember that John tried to commit suicide, yet failed and thus became enlightened? Because of that incident he realized that the human race have grown sinful, living just because life contains pleasure, and because of that realization, he decided to "purge" humanity of their sin. After that, he created contraptions which purpose is to rehabilitate people by imposing Ironic Hell upon them, let them choose on their own free will to either endure and lose the things that made them sin, or to give up and choose death, and if they do survive, make them appreciate life as something in itself. Taken from a more biblical perspective, Jigsaw want them to purge them of sin and rehabilitate them in a way that they can see life as something to be glorified and appreciated in itself, not just because life contains sins and vices and pleasures and obsessions. He was imposing judgement on those who deserve eternal life in Jigsaw and those who deserve eternal death. He was trying to create a Purgatory, one person at a time. After all, Jesus did say "If your right eye causes you to sin (which the wage for is death), gouge it and throw it away" (which reminds this troper of the game in Saw IV where the guy was forced to either blind himself for being a rapist or be ripped apart).

Saw VIII will mark the return of Amanda.
If Hoffman can survive  and   then there's no reason to believe the writers (who actually really like Amanda) can't bring her back. After Saw 3D all logic can pretty much be thrown out the window anyway.

The end of Saw 3D is the end of the beginning for the Jigsaw movement, not the beginning of the end.
Afterwards, the Jigsaw philosophy slowly gains recruits, eventually being a considerable cult and even taking over small villages. After a century, it's one of the most powerful forces in America and has outlets in other countries. A little while later, and soon there are Jigsaws EVERYWHERE (deverywhere, deverywhere). Every household in America gets tested (gets tested, gets tested). It becomes bigger than hula hoops (hula hoops, hula hoops). Eventually it is the leading cause of death in the world and not a single person goes through their life without undergoing a Jigsaw trap. Of course some would prefer being Driven to Suicide than to endure the traps. Quality of life declines and people forget what they knew, as slowly the Jigsaw become a seperate, more powerful class than the Non-Jigsaw. They're worshipped as gods, and scientific knowledge shifts to being exclusively the domain of the Jigsaw, as the Jigsaw do research into new traps and execute the Non-Jigsaw scientists for stupid reasons. Eventually the Jigsaw create AM from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, who kills the Jigsaw and most of the Non-Jigsaw, but still tries to perform his function...
 * Alternatively, The Jigsaw and their ideology of rehabilitation ends up in the hands of The Party from Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Party successfully uses the Jigsaw rehabilitation methods and John Kramer's spying / surveillance abilities (well, after all, how can you have an Ironic Hell without a knowledge of people's personalities)? to design the Ministry of Love, and the purpose is twisted so that the purpose of the traps are not to make people appreciate life, but to make people appreciate Big Brother.

Lawrence was always a Jigsaw Apprentice
was a follower of John's from the very beginning. Before Amanda converted, before Hoffman was blackmailed, he was there. His Test was intended to accomplish two main goals. His final Apprentice Exam, just like Amanda and Hoffman were intended to be given; and to cast him from the list of suspects. He'd been suspected already, and as things continued there was no guarantee they'd take a second look at him later. So he was put into a Test. If he died, Game Over. If he survived, he could either be a publicly traumatized survivor, or, he could disappear as Missing Presumed Dead.

John was fully aware of Amanda's role in his son's death.
In Saw V, we learn that Hoffman threatened Amanda with the knowledge that she was there when John's son died, one of the events that led him to become Jigsaw in the first place. Because of this, Amanda was forced to blow her last test and kill Lynn Denlon instead of following Jigsaw's direction to release her. The tragic irony of this all is that John was already perfectly aware of this fact, but had never brought it up because Amanda had rehabilitated herself in his tests. In fact, this was the irony of Amanda's reverse bear trap test, though she did not recognize it as such. She had previously killed by proxy and now, to survive, she had to kill willfully. That's the reason her "cellmate" was still alive.

Bobby Dagen's traps were not devised by either John or Hoffman
I haven't gotten up to Saw The Final Chapter yet, so I acknowledge that there may be something within the movie itself that contradicts this. However, I think that Bobby's traps were not created by John (who was implied to have finished his last traps in Saw VI), nor by Hoffman (who was otherwise preoccupied with a Roaring Rampage of Revenge). They are, in fact, the creation of. The logic behind this surrounds the lesson he himself learned: Empathy. Bobby was a charismatic self-help guru, but he was only using Jigsaw survivors to make himself some cash. He wasn't tested just because he was posing as a fake victim, he was tested because he was posing as a fake healer on top of it. By running Bobby through his tests, he experienced exactly what any Jigsaw victim would, leaving him to better empathize with the people he was claiming to want to help. To take this even further, the ultimate goal of making Bobby a true victim is to make him better able to stabilize other survivors, help them realize Jigsaw's message, and become more appreciative of their life after the trauma of a trap. This could also improve the recruiting potential for bringing survivors in the Jigsaw world, as they're less likely to have been pushed as far as Amanda or Hoffman were with proper counseling.

When he first created the franchise, Leigh Whannell was inspired by the first 7 volumes of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga.
Think about it. Both Jisaw and Atem like to play games with their victims in order to show them the error of their ways. If the victim loses, they get a Karmic Death (or karmic punishment in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s case). The only real difference is that Atem is an Anti-Hero while Jisaw is an actual villain...well that and Atem has supernatural powers.

Jigsaw's psychosis had a valid medical cause.
As the series unfolds, we discover that John Kramer had cancer in his brain, specifically in the frontal lobes. It is widely believed that the frontal lobes are responsible for one's moral compass, and damage to that area can cause drastic changes in personality, turning a perfectly decent man into a complete Jerkass (look up Phineas Gage for an example). So, while his master plan for reforming humanity one ungrateful bastard at a time did have noble roots (albeit those triggered by anger), as the cancer progressed it started affecting his personality and morality, turning a Well-Intentioned Extremist into a Knight Templar.

Jigsaw is an Alternate Universe version of Dr. Steel.
Both started out as toymakers, but then a tragedy occurred, turning them away from their child-friendly origins into more nefarious avenues via morally-ambiguous engineering projects. However, while Dr. Steel may have started off a bit further off-kilter, Jigsaw had the brain tumor (see above) that wrecked his moral compass, turning him evil. Meaning Jigsaw is the evil version of Dr. Steel, who was a Mad Scientist. Jigsaw turned to deathtraps, Dr. Steel turned to music and world conquest.