John Kramer

Teach his victims a lesson to appreciate, treasure and value their lives and those of others (should they survive their given tests).

### Type of Villain

Delusional Mastermind

Jhon Kramer also known as **The Jigsaw Killer** or simply **Jigsaw**, is the titular main antagonist of the SAW Franchise.

He is a former civil engineer who after helplessly watching his wife be assaulted by a drug addict, which resulted in the death of his unborn son, decided to become a serial killer who targeted those who harmed others. John's philosophy is that those who damage and harm others do not deserve to live a fruitful life themselves, and must be stopped at any cost. He thus makes murder machines and traps, in which his victims must either mutilate themselves or die.

He is aided on his schemes by his many apprentices, including Amanda Young, Mark Hoffman, Lawrence Gordon and Logan Nelson (but few of his apprentices betrayed and deceived him like Amanda Young, who shot Dr. Lynn Denlon by letting her mental health issues take control of her after she helped to keep Jigsaw alive by removing the tumor from his brain and have a brain surgery and not listening to Jigsaw's orders, thus failing her second and last test after her first test, The Reverse Beartrap). John is ultimately killed by his final personal victim, Jeff Denlon, who slashes his jugular open with a saw.

He is portrayed by Template:W, who also played Peter Kingsley in *24* and Savitar in *The Flash*.

## Personality

> Yes, I'm sick, officer. Sick from the disease eating away at me inside. Sick of people who don't appreciate their blessings. Sick of those who scoff at the suffering of others. I'm sick of it all!
>
> John Kramer expressing his distaste for all.

John Kramer believes that human beings have an instinctual will to live in the face of death and that years of evolution have caused their survival instinct to dull and now, people are unable to appreciate their lives. After losing his unborn child and getting diagnosed with cancer, he unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide, which, as he claimed, opened his eyes about the human race. Now a changed man, he vowed to test everyone's will to live for the greater good. As Jigsaw, Kramer targets those he considers to be ungrateful to live, including criminals and people with extreme personal issues.

Though the nature of his tests are incredibly brutal, Kramer shows no enjoyment in the suffering of his victims. Instead, he believes that it will help them re-evaluate themselves, as most of his victims have already hit the rock-bottom in their lives. He is deeply sympathetic to surviving test subjects such as Lawrence Gordon after he amputated his leg to escape and roots that they live. This sympathy was also shown when he was saddened by Cecilia killing Gabriella, despite Gabriella having passed her test and his wish for her to be taken to the hospital.

However, Kramer takes a small amount of enjoyment in his tests as he smiled when hearing the screams of the imprisoned detective Matthews (who previously beat Kramer to near-death, so maybe he was happy to hear him screaming for assaulting him) and targeting the corrupt William Easton for his apprentice Mark Hoffman to test after his death when he refused to treat his cancer despite just claims his mission could never be personal (though it might not have been and he simply wanted to break Easton's biased philosophy, as John wasn't the only victim of William's policy). John also targeted the Pederson Group after they had scammed him, to prevent them from targeting anyone else, though the consequences of this game did seem to reinforce his views on the Games never being personal.

Kramer is also deeply distasteful for killing as he does not consider himself a murderer due to always giving his victims a chance to escape their fate. On a technicality, Kramer became too weak to even put test subjects in their tests and relied on his apprentices to do most manual labor for him such as abducting and implicating victims, so he rarely participated in even second-degree murder.

Though John saw his games as his life work and wished for them to continue after his death, his main reason for recruiting his apprentices, he also showed that he was ready to abandon his new work if he believed he could survive. When he was tricked into believing his cancer had been cured, he disposed of one of his sketches of traps that he was planning for future games and showed that he truly did value the new lease on life that he thought he had been handed. The discovery that he had been scammed, and other innocent people had died because of the con that they had fallen for, reinforced his desire to continue his work and reverted him to his previous mindset.

## Jigsaw's Victims

Jigsaw had many victims, a number being patients at the clinic. Some of the most notable are:Template:Scroll box

## Rise of Jigsaw

Kramer was a successful civil engineer who got into property development, in particular, a building called Gideon, the name he would choose for his beloved, *future* son.

### Cherish your life

> Cherish your life, **your** life.
>
> Jigsaw

"Cherish your life" was the motto of John's rehab clinic (being the concept of all his traps), which his wife ran. His rehab clinic was the place where his pregnant wife was attacked by Cecil, who attempted to rob it for drugs on Amanda's request. From his car John saw Cecil running away, discovering his wife injured after going inside to see what had happened. John rushed her to a hospital, but while his wife survived his child did not. As a result, John became enraged and detached. As if things weren't bad enough, he was soon diagnosed with colon cancer by his doctor, Lawrence Gordon. He attempted suicide by driving off a cliff. Surviving, but with severe injuries, he then decided to dedicate the rest of his life to teaching people to appreciate their own lives and those of others through physical and psychological torture, starting with Cecil.

### Traps

Jigsaw usually builds deadly traps for his subjects, which are often a symbolic representation of what Jigsaw perceives as a flaw in the person's life. Jigsaw calls these tests "games", and tells the person the "rules" of the game usually by audio or video tape. The rules are tasks that the person must perform in order to pass the test and survive; however, the tasks often involve extreme self-mutilation (although there have been occasions where it is possible for the subject not to harm themselves if they are clever enough, such as the Hand Trap). On occasion, Jigsaw has used psychological torture for the subject's test.

The subject of one of Jigsaw's games is therefore always presented with an opportunity, the aim of which is to reinvigorate the potential of the subject, jump-start the survival instinct and instill a celebration or "savoring" of life. Jigsaw intends through these traps to force his victims to prove to him that they are "worthy" and "deserving" to continue living, and also for them to learn to abandon what he perceives to be their vices: he even viewed survival from his tests to be 'immediate rehabilitation'. Jigsaw often expressed a desire for his victims to succeed, but stressed that their fate was always in their own hands. The video and audio tape instructions for his games often echo this idea: "Live or die. Make your choice."

These traps come in 6 forms:

* **Standard Traps** — Devices or scenarios to a victim or victims, usually with the effect with causing serious bodily harm or death if not removed by completing a given task in a specific time period. Examples are the Reverse Beartrap and Death Mask.
* **Competition Traps** — Traps involving two or more victims who can survive these traps but only at the expense of the other victim's failure. Examples are the Bathroom and Pound of Flesh.
* **Tests** — A test that involves a victim being given "rules". The outcome of the test is affected by whether or not the victim follows the rules and wins, or breaks the rules and loses. Losing often results in some sort of loss such as suffering serious injuries or the death of loved ones and/or friends. Examples are Zep's Test and Eric's Test.
* **Trials** — A series of tests and traps that the victim(s) must face involving psychological torture from the beginning of the trials up until the Final Test. Examples are Rigg's Tests, William's Tests and Bobby's Tests.
* **Final Tests** — The last test in the Trials. Culminates in a final decision that is designed to directly relate to and put to use what the victim has learned from their Trials. Examples are Jeff's Final Test and Ice Block.
* **Security Traps** — Traps designed for security reasons. They can be used to halt the progress of the victims and prevent them from proceeding, or to protect Jigsaw and his apprentices from the police or other attackers. Examples are the Quadruple Shotgun Hallway and Magnum Eyehole.