Saw/Characters

Warning: Much like the main page, this page contains a large number of spoilers. Many of the examples below will assume you know the spoilers revealed by the endings of Saw, Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV; as a result, those spoilers are frequently left untagged. You Have Been Warned.

John Kramer/Jigsaw (Tobin Bell)
John Kramer was an engineer who was driven to become the Messianic Jigsaw Killer after a series of tragic events and circumstances -- his unborn son was killed when his wife, Jill, had a miscarriage; this caused Jill to leave him. John was later diagnosed with an inoperable tumor, which led to cancer. When his insurance company turned down an experimental treatment that could have potentially saved his life (or at least prolonged it), John attempted suicide. When he survived, his new outlook on life became his motivation to become the Jigsaw Killer.

Jigsaw kidnaps people that he believes aren't valuing their lives, then forces them through sadistic "tests" where there are usually only two outcomes: live (and gain a new outlook on life) or die (and gain a new outlook on the afterlife). John was eventually killed by Jeff Denlon, one of the last of his direct victims. Events ensuring his legacy would live on, however, were already in motion -- Mark Hoffman, one of John's apprentices, continued Jigsaw's work after his death.

Notably, John himself admits that he never came up with the name "Jigsaw" or "Jigsaw Killer"; the press dubbed him so because of his penchant for carving a jigsaw-shaped piece of flesh from his dead victims -- a reminder of the "missing piece" of the "human puzzle" those victims lacked, which he believes could have saved their lives. --
 * Big Bad
 * The Chessmaster
 * Crazy Prepared
 * Dark Messiah
 * Even Evil Has Standards: His entire philosophy.
 * From Nobody to Nightmare
 * Handicapped Badass
 * Happily-Failed Suicide: For him, anyway. Everyone else...
 * Hypocrite: Claims to despise murderers and denies that he is one, yet many of his games either require somebody to commit murder, or will result in someone else's death if they fail. Some games feature both.
 * The Kindnapper: He claims to be kidnapping people and placing them in lethal deathtraps to help them appreciate their lives and to rehabilitate them.
 * Knight Templar
 * My Death Is Just the Beginning: The events of the last three films of the series This phrase is even invoked in the fourth film.
 * Before you point it out:
 * Exactly why it's the last three films: V, VI, and 3D.
 * Posthumous Character: After III.
 * Serial Killer: He denies it and some characters agree with him due to technicalities, but thats all they are- technicalities. At best you could call him a serial torturer, which is just as bad, and most of his victims die anyway, not to mention those games of his that require someone to die.
 * Start of Darkness: The events that led to John taking up his "work" are detailed over several films.
 * Thanatos Gambit
 * Ubermensch
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor)
Jigsaw's apprentice, and the third Jigsaw Killer (after Amanda Young). Hoffman is a cop assigned to the Jigsaw case. He uses the knowledge he has of Jigsaw by virtue of following the case to murder his sister's killer using Jigsaw's MO. The framejob catches John's attention, and Hoffman is blackmailed into helping Jigsaw. Shortly afterward, he becomes a willing accomplice. At some point, he began to fall in love with his carnage and, like Amanda, did not completely buy into Jigsaw's philosophy. --
 * Ascended Extra: He is in Saw III for all of 30 seconds. He becomes a bit more important later.
 * Ax Crazy: In 3D.
 * Bastard Understudy
 * Big Bad: After John's death, he became this though it took a couple of films to solidify him as a legit threat.
 * Chekhov's Gunman
 * Dead Little Sister: His motivation to duplicate Jigsaw's traps
 * Determinator: In Saw 3D, he really wants to get to Jill. Getting in his way? That is a very bad idea.
 * Dirty Cop: and how!!
 * Glasgow Grin:
 * Confirmed by Word of God.
 * Knight Templar Big Brother: When his sister is killed by her boyfriend and said boyfriend is let off on a technicality, he avenges his sister's death by killing the boyfriend in such a way that it would appear to be another Jigsaw killing.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Over the course of VI.
 * Wife-Basher Basher: His first murder victim was a Domestic Abuser who killed his sister.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: He plays lightning rounds of this.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: He plays lightning rounds of this.

Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith)
Jigsaw's apprentice, a junkie who had been the first to survive his tests. She, like Hoffman, perverted Jigsaw's message by creating traps that were inescapable; she believed that Jigsaw's methods were too lenient. She also had an inadvertent hand in causing the miscarriage of Jigsaw's child.

Killed by Jeff Denlon at the end of III. --
 * Abusive Parents:
 * Bastard Understudy
 * Broken Bird: She's been the victim of Abusive Parents, framed for a crime she didn't commit, very nearly died in a death trap set up by a serial killer, and blackmailed by her rival apprentice... and she becomes a cynical and violent serial killer herself.
 * Being Tortured Makes You Evil:
 * Chekhov's Gunman
 * Deceptive Disciple
 * The Dragon
 * Eviler Than Thou: Creates inescapable traps, unlike Jigsaw, who intends for his victims to survive.
 * Holier Than Thou: Amanda became Jigsaw's apprentice after succesfully surviving a trap, but then perverts his philosophy by making inescapable traps designed to kill the victims as she believes they won't change if they do survive while arrogantly believing herself to be the sole exception.
 * Murder the Hypotenuse:
 * Posthumous Character: In VI.
 * Stockholm Syndrome: She comes to think of John Kramer as a father figure and is intensely loyal to him. She says that he "helped [her]"... by kidnapping her when she was asleep/unconscious, duct-taping her to a chair with a Reverse Bear Trap on her head that we later find out causes a gory death if it goes off, and basically gets her to kill a guy to enable her very narrow escape from certain Death by Disfigurement.
 * Villainous Breakdown
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell)
Jigsaw's ex-wife. Made her first appearance in Saw III, and appears throughout the rest of the series. --
 * Chained to a Railway:
 * Distressed Damsel: She turns into this in Saw 3D. Many fans were not pleased.
 * Took a Level In Badass: In VI,

Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes)
He is one of the main protagonists of the original Saw. The doctor who was treating John at the hospital, he wasn't particularly caring towards his patients, being more interested in treating the disease than the person. He was also taking his family for granted. Jigsaw thinks he has a way to teach him to appreciate them more... --
 * Large Ham: There are some moments in the first movie, but in Saw VII/3D, he seems to have taken classes about this.
 * Mistaken for Badass: In the first film.
 * Mr. Exposition: Serves this purpose in the first film.
 * What Could Have Been: He was originally supposed to appear in the first video game to act as Mr. Exposition.
 * Large Ham: There are some moments in the first movie, but in Saw VII/3D, he seems to have taken classes about this.
 * Mistaken for Badass: In the first film.
 * Mr. Exposition: Serves this purpose in the first film.
 * What Could Have Been: He was originally supposed to appear in the first video game to act as Mr. Exposition.
 * Large Ham: There are some moments in the first movie, but in Saw VII/3D, he seems to have taken classes about this.
 * Mistaken for Badass: In the first film.
 * Mr. Exposition: Serves this purpose in the first film.
 * What Could Have Been: He was originally supposed to appear in the first video game to act as Mr. Exposition.

Adam Stanheight/Faulkner (Leigh Whannell)
The other main protagonist of the original Saw, locked in the bathroom with Dr. Gordon. A photographer by trade, Adam was paid by David Tapp to take pictures of Gordon while Tapp was trying to pin the Jigsaw murders on Gordon. --
 * Bad Bad Acting: His attempt to convince Jigsaw that he's poisoned. It works as well as you would expect.
 * Deadpan Snarker: "I went to bed in my shithole apartment, and woke up in an actual shithole."

David Tapp (Danny Glover)
The detective assigned to the Jigsaw case before Eric Matthews. After finding evidence pointing to Lawrence Gordon as the Jigsaw Killer, he began to obsess over arresting him, even after Gordon's alibi proved that he couldn't be the killer. After Jigsaw wounded him and killed his partner, Steven Sing, he was discharged from the force. --
 * Ascended Extra: Is the main character of the (debatably canonical) game.
 * Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop: Despite having the best lead they've ever had to the Jigsaw Killer, Tapp, for some inexplicable reason, chooses to ignore protocol and charge in to arrest him without a warrant. As anyone with rudimentary knowledge of the law will tell you, any evidence taken without a warrant is inadmissible in a court of law. Nothing was achieved by this, except getting his partner killed and getting his own throat slashed. (Though, in this blunder, they had managed to save one person seemingly set to his die)
 * It seems like they were just following a lead and didn't necessarily expect to run into the actual killer or find his lair- either way, if they had caught him, Jigsaw would not have gotten Off on a Technicality in Real Life even if they did require a warrant, since Fruit of the Poisonous Tree does not apply in such extreme situations, especially when a life was saved. The law is not that dumb.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Really inexcusable in this case, due to Tapp being a police officer with, presumably, hours of practice on the firing range.
 * Lawful Stupid: Seems unable to wrap his head around the possibility that Dr. Gordon may not be the Jigsaw Killer.

Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer)
A side character in Saw I, II and III. The first cop assigned to the Jigsaw case, and the self proclaimed "Jigsaw Expert". She has been tracking this case from the beginning. --
 * By-The-Book Cop

Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg)
The main protagonist of Saw II, and a supporting character in Saw III and IV. A cop that is pulled into the Jigsaw case when one of his informants is killed in a Jigsaw trap. --
 * Dirty Cop: He makes a habit of planting evidence on people. However, it is shown that the people that he framed were guilty of something, just not necessarily the thing he was framing them for.
 * It Got Worse: He's in three of the movies. Every time we see him he is in worse shape than the last time we left him.
 * Your Cheating Heart: It's only mentioned in passing, but Eric and his wife separated after he had an affair with Kerry.

Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent)
A side character in Saw II and III, and the main protagonist of Saw IV. He is a cop on the local police force. --
 * Ascended Extra: He is a background character in Saw II and III, with a total of maybe 3 lines of dialog between the two movies. In IV, he is the main protagonist.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: The flaw Jigsaw was trying to get him to overcome.
 * Stop Helping Me!:
 * Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He is shot at the end of IV, but is otherwise alive. He is declared dead near the beginning of V.
 * Survivor Guilt: His problem is that everyone around him keeps dying.

Xavier Chavez (Frankie G)
A drug dealer captured by Jigsaw and forced into the "Gas House" of Saw II with a half dozen other "subjects". He is notable in the series for being the only antagonist that is, at no point, aligned with Jigsaw in any way. --
 * Ax Crazy: When he realizes how to get the combination to the safe.
 * Brooklyn Rage: May or may not be a New Yorker but fits the bill.
 * Hot-Blooded
 * Jerkass
 * The Aggressive Drug Dealer

Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen)
The main protagonist of Saw III. His son was killed by a drunk driver. He is unable to let go, to the detriment of the rest of his family, his daughter Corbett,. Jigsaw devises a series of traps in an attempt to help him let go and forgive those responsible for his son's death. --
 * Decoy Protagonist: The last minute or so of Saw III sets him up as the protagonist for the next movie as well - "In order to save your daughter, you will need to play a game." Apparently the new writers brought in for IV didn't want to follow up on that plotline, since he is
 * Jerkass
 * Jerkass

Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson)
An FBI agent assigned to work with the local police on the Jigsaw case. He has a prominent role in IV and is the main protagonist in V. --
 * Badass
 * Captain Obvious: He spends much of his screen time in Saw V telling the audience what he sees and stating things that are already quite apparent.
 * Instant Drama Just Add Tracheotomy
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job shoving Hoffman into the glass box.
 * Unwitting Pawn: While there are a bunch of these in the series, Strahm is the most blatent example.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job shoving Hoffman into the glass box.
 * Unwitting Pawn: While there are a bunch of these in the series, Strahm is the most blatent example.
 * Unwitting Pawn: While there are a bunch of these in the series, Strahm is the most blatent example.

William Easton (Peter Outerbridge)
The main protagonist of Saw VI. He is the head of a local health insurance office and is in charge of, among other things, allowing or denying claims. One of his customers was John Kramer; Easton personally denied coverage for an experimental treatment for John's brain tumor. That was probably not a good idea. --
 * Jerkass
 * Sadistic Choice: Most of his tests revolve around this.
 * Shaggy Dog Story: Despite learning his lesson and passing all his tests,
 * That depends on the lesson you think he was supposed to learn. In the eyes of these characters, he did not learn his lesson.
 * They say nothing about his choices though. The only thing they mention is that he's responsible for the death of their husband/father. It seems how he handled the traps were irrelevant.
 * If the lesson he was intended to learn was not just the value of human life, but the injustice of having your fate decided by another person, everything makes more sense.
 * Cruel? Maybe.
 * Villain Protagonist: Debatable.
 * Would Hit a Girl
 * Would Hit a Girl

Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery)
The main protagonist of Saw 3D. Dagen realized that Jigsaw victims could make a lot of money by telling their story -- if they weren't so traumatized by the experience. To this end, Dagen decides to lie about being a victim, publish a book about his "experience", and go on the talk show circuit to rake in the cash and fame. Jigsaw takes issue with this... --
 * Determinator: Dagen is an asshole for lying, but he was fully willing to do what it took to keep his friends and wife alive,
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: His final test involves recreating the trap he lied about surviving in the first place: hoisting himself up by chains hooked through his chest muscles to stop a trap from springing.