Introduction
John Kramer is the primary antagonist of the Saw series of films and games. After losing his first child in a tragic miscarriage, his wife in a divorce, getting diagnosed with cancer, and nearly dying in a car accident, civil service engineer/architect John Kramer gained a new appreciation for life, one he saw far too little of in others. He devoted the rest of his life to “teaching” others to cherish their lives through various games and traps as the criminal mastermind “Jigsaw.” Though he was killed halfway through the series as part of his plan, his final plans and ideology would be carried on by apprentices Mark Hoffman, Lawrence Gordon, and Logan Nelson, as well as copycat killers inspired by his ideology
FSIQ
EI
SQ
AQ
Strategy
Planning
Misc
Deception
Manipulation
Reasoning
Psychology
Thinking
Foresight
General
John is generally able to design and build several elaborate traps. The video tapes corresponding to these traps often have subtle verbal clues and explain the victim’s reason(s) for being in the trap. Though Gordon was helping him for much of the series,it’s likely for only a few victims as Hoffman (it’s stated in the director’s commentary) didn’t recognize him as a disciple despite being extensively involved with Jigsaw. It’s also implied he could treat whatever injuries the scammers would’ve gotten in Saw X, despite Gordon’s absence - which includes a man carving out a piece of his own brain (VSI, VCI, Creativity, Crystallized Intelligence. Knowledge)
John was also able to pass down this knowledge such that even characters with no engineering or medical background could tinker with, finish, or even design traps of their own. Most impressively, the first apprentice to receive John’s guidance, Logan Nelson, was able to construct a laser collar that did not harm him and triggered fake blood upon use, as well as a voice modifier that had the mayor and police genuinely entertaining the possibility that John Kramer had resurrected. This also shows his knowledge spans not just mechanical and electrical engineering, but also audio and optical engineering (VCI, Crystalized Intelligence)
Jigsaw generally performs extensive research on his victims and people even tangentially related to them, most prominently seen in Saw III where he ties in the game from Saw I by capturing all of the people related to the death of Jeff’s son or somehow knowing the exact amount of money a thief in Jigsaw robbed a woman over. (Information Gathering)
John manipulates several people of different kinds to his cause - from the vengeful Detective Mark Hoffman to Amanda Young who desperately seeks a mentor and father, and more. What makes this impressive is that one usually needs a good, if at least neutral, rapport with someone to befriend someone, let alone gain their loyalty. John manages to do this from the position of a serial killer who horrifically mutilates and traumatizes the people he later recruits to his cause and twisted philosophy. (Emotional Engagement, Awareness, and Understanding, Social Skills and Intuition, Leadership, Influence Building, Charisma, Sophistry, Persuasion)
John dies in Saw III, but Saw IV-VII, taking place months to years afterwards, are his games, albeit with his apprentices carrying them out. Saw V is the exception with Hoffman improvising after Strahm survived a trap that was supposed to kill him. I leave out most of Hoffman’s stuff for Jigsaw since he’s sort of improvising for much of his films, but include FBI Agent Strahm’s feats since Jigsaw’s prediction involving him in Saw IV is so precise that John must’ve predicted his exact moves and thought processes and Logan Nelson’s feats since his whole motive was trying to live up to Kramer, implying Kramer could do whatever he did.
Narratively, undoubtedly being the smartest guy in the verse, John should likely scale above apprentices like Mark Hoffman (who he calls “inferior” in Saw V and is quickly caught onto in Saw VI by the police), survivors who come up with inventive ways to survive his traps, and FBI Agent Peter Srahm.
SAW
Adam and Gordon are both chained within a bathroom. A “dead” body lies in the center (John). The tapes reveal that Adam’s aim is to survive and Gordon’s aim is to kill Adam, and it also comments on the seemingly dead man in the room - “When there’s that much poison in your blood, the only thing left to do is shoot yourself.” Note that Gordon, an experienced physician, never once picks up on the dead body being alive since John has drugged himself and, towards the end of the game, played dead. He also reveals he has kidnapped Gordon’s family and is holding them hostage; if Gordon does not kill Adam, they will die. (Acting Skills, Extortion, Threats, Disguise, Knowledge)
The next victim is Mark Wilson, a health insurance company employee who fakes being sick. Unlike the previous victim, John has no relation to him (Lehy was a patient at his wife’s recovery clinic). But John knew when he was calling in sick and his work schedule and matched that to his observations to deem him worth putting in a game. At the victim’s body, John left Gordon’s penlight, misleading the police into going after Gordon. This also indirectly forced Gordon to reveal his affair in order to give himself an alibi (Information Gathering, Misdirection, Strategic Deception, Indirect Manipulation)
Jigsaw’s next victim/future apprentice Amanda Young’s trap involves her waking up with a reverse bear trap and having to kill a man paralyzed on the floor. Notably, Jigsaw again demonstrates his knowledge of poisons here and this game also sets her up to be a future apprentice as Jigsaw congratulates her when the she survives and it did ultimately help her kick her drug addiction, setting up their pseudo-paternal relationship that John uses to keep her loyal later on (Knowledge, Psychological Manipulation)
Back in the bathroom, the duo discovers that there’s a two way mirror with a camera behind it. And Gordon states this: “Every possible angle has been pre-thought out… a perfect engine.” (Anticipation, Strategic Foresight)
Meanwhile, Zepp (an orderly at the hospital Gordon works at), who Jigsaw has coerced into working for him, has kidnapped Gordon’s family and holed himself in their home. Detective Tapp, who Jigsaw later notes as a very zealous cop, happened to be keeping an eye on Gordon since he still was the primary suspect despite acquittal months prior, now believes Gordon was just a red herring set up by Zepp hence the pen. Thus, this strategy relied heavily on Tapp not letting Gordon go due to his zealous nature and also relied on John predicting Tapp’s reasoning logically pointing to Zepp (Strategic Foresight, Strategic Deception, Long Term Planning Prediction, Emotional Understanding, Psychological Insight, Psychological Profiling, Misdirection, Information Control, Logical Manipulation, Indirect Manipulation, Abductive Reasoning, Scape Goating)
In a flashback, as Tapp combs through Amanda’s tape, Tapp notices a specific gang territory marker and the sound of a fire alarm going off in the background. Tapp and his partner Sing triangulate the area it was filmed and search through it without a warrant discovering a man in a trap. Despite having guns trained on him, Jigsaw remains very calm, quickly setting off the man’s trap while feigning surrender to the police. Distracted by his partner saving the man, John manages to precisely slash Tapp’s throat so as to not kill him and runs away. Sing fires several shots, hitting him once, then another time with his shotgun. Sing approaches the downed Kramer but triggers a trap that blows his head off (Emotional Management, Composure, Determination, Setting Traps, Knowledge, Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence)
In a hole on the wall, Jigsaw had left a cigarette, a phone, and another clue for Gordon. The cigarette, he promises, is harmless, but corresponding to the tape from earlier, the dead body’s blood is ostensibly poisoned, thus giving Gordon the means to kill Adam. But to get to that point required Gordon to distrust Adam. To achieve this, Jigsaw had predicted Adam would withhold information from him, a threatening photo Adam discovered when Gordon had casually tossed him his wallet to show Adam his family. He also predicted Gordon himself wouldn’t discover this photo prior. Gordon, however, attempts to fool Jigsaw by subtly telling Adam to play dead upon smoking the cigarette. Anticipating this, John built in a way to shock Adam so that Zepp wouldn’t be fooled (Anticipation, Emotional Understanding, Prediction, FRI, Strategic Shielding)
The phone rings and Gordon’s daughter begs for him to come and his wife states: “Don’t believe Adam’s lies, he knows you,” further sowing distrust between the two as Adam did, in fact, know Gordon as a PI taking photos of him, but couldn’t share that info due to mild amnesia from the drugs. (Strategic Alignment, Information Control, Indirect Manipulation, Smearing)
SAW II
The film opens with Jigsaw killing an informant of Detective Matthews and goading him into the case via a taunt written on a wall of the crime scene. Jigsaw leaves a clue in the form of a logo for “Wilson Steel” found on the trap and he is tracked down to an abandoned steel mill. There, several SWAT officers are non-lethally incapacitated with a false stair and an electrically charged wall before Jigsaw is finally confronted. By allowing them to seemingly discover his location on their own and seemingly not going down easy, he lulls them into a false sense of security (Setting Traps, Short Term Strategy, Indirect Manipulation, Info Control)
The police investigate the area and discover several monitors showing a group of people, one Matthew’s son, somewhere in a game. Matthews asks where he is, and John responds, “He’s in a safe place.” Literally, his son was in a safe in that very room, but due to Jigsaw’s taunting and the seemingly high-stakes time limit at hand. Not one officer caught on. And what they don’t know is that the game had already taken place, the monitors show a recording and are not live. He had effectively given the police the position to cleanly arrest him, but knew they wouldn’t call his bluff.
(Misdirection, Mass Manipulation, Bluffing, Strategic Deception, Planning Risk Calculation)
The test was for Detective Matthews to keep his cool and play along. as Jigsaw had profiled him as a workaholic, brutish, short-tempered man based on a police brutality incident 5 years prior. If he did, the games would’ve ended there, but knowing he wouldn’t, Jigsaw’s taunting, elaborating on his philosophy, and subtle challenging of his power broke him to the point that Matthews would do anything up to beating John to a pulp and agreeing to go with him alone to an undisclosed location to find his son. (Fear Inducement, Hot Reading, Information Gathering, Psychological Profiling, Emotional , Direct, and Verbal Manipulation, Prediction)
John reveals the moment he decided to become Jigsaw. He had driven his car off a cliff, impaling onto debris, but survived, pulling the debris out and going to the hospital. In that moment, he learned to truly cherish his life. (Perseverance, Fortitude, Metacognition)
The game itself involves several people falsely or otherwise imprisoned by Matthews alongside his son.
Matthews viciously beats John and breaks a finger, but John doesn’t stop taunting him, only feigning surrender to lure Matthews to the warehouse where Amanda is. Eric by that point had become so mindbroken he agreed to John’s demand that they go alone and snuck John past his fellow officers. Anticipating this freak out, John had positioned himself in the same room as an elevator so that they could bypass the police. And the police were able to only track down the house’s signal when he allowed them to, implying extensive knowledge in computer science, thus he gave Eric directions to where Amanda would ambush him rather than where the games were held, the latter which the police were actually sent to. Ultimately, this was one huge strategy to kidnap Eric, which itself is just another part of a bigger plan to make Hoffman look good, as revealed in the sequel (Emotional Management, Mental Fortitude, Prediction, Misdirection, Information Control, Short Term Planning, Knowledge, Planning Coverage, Strategy, Strategy Aim, Strategy Resilience, Strategic Foresight and Success Rate, Linear Thinking, Crystallized Intelligence)
SAW III
Months later, Jigsaw captures Dr. Lynn, a colleague of Gordon, and easily sees through her attempts at verbally running him over with “graduate school” jargon; this might also imply he has some knowledge in the field, which isn’t a surprise as he does show some skills in anatomy and physiology in poisoning and operating on his victims. The main game of this film involves grieving father Jeff, who must go through several tests designed to help him move on from the death of his son. (Emotional Perception, likely Knowledge)
On his deathbed, Kramer reveals that he knew Amanda had been rigging her traps. Now, John since Saw II has been bedridden, and this film takes place 6 months later. Thus, his only way to deduce this was knowledge of his intended subjects' deaths, his interactions with Amanda, and his analysis of her. It is possible that the police released details regarding the traps suddenly being unbeatable, but it’s unlikely they would do so lest they give the killers a clue as to their investigation. Amanda’s test was to keep Lynn alive and John tested her by showing affection for Lynn, challenging Amanda’s paternal feelings for him and, what he saw as her weakness: her emotions. (Emotional Manipulation, Indirect Manipulation, Emotional Perception, Abductive Reasoning)
In a flashback, John personally approached Amanda in her apartment after she survived her trap, identifying her as someone willing to join his cause. In his words, he convinced her to give everything to him, “every cell” in her body, leaving her old addict self as a different person entirely (Emotional Perception, Brainwashing)
John proceeds to undergo brain surgery without anesthetics, never once showing any signs of pain even as Lynn carves a large hole into his scalp and pokes around his brain (Emotional Management, Composure, Impulse Control)
Over the course of the film, Jigsaw also manages to engage with Lynn, getting her to vent about her husband. Jigsaw implies he knows about her affair, enraging her. Just as Amanda enters the room to investigate the commotion, Jigsaw holds hands with her to make Amanda jealous. Later, when Amanda breaks down; he warns her to keep her cool as this is all part of her game. She does not and he sheds a tear since he knows his pseudo-daughter/protege is about to die, but proceeds with the game anyways. Amanda shoots Lynn, Jeff’s wife, failing her test. (Indirect Manipulation, Emotional Engagement, Emotional Understanding, Emotional Management, Love Bombing)
In his last moments, Jeff enters the room. John could easily pacify Jeff by telling him that should his heart stop Jeff’s wife will die, but he does not. John stays committed to his games to the very end, giving Jeff one final test by pointing out various weapons in the room and telling Jeff not to use them but instead to forgive. Jeff does not , killing Jigsaw. While bleeding out to death, John pulls out one last tape: the doors lock and it reveals John had prepared for this exact outcome and with another game to rescue Jeff’s daughter, who he had kidnapped prior (Divergent Thinking, Planning Coverage, Determination, Mental Fortitude, Planning Contingency, Strategy Foresight)
SAW IV
John had written a book on civil engineering prior to becoming Jigsaw (VCI)
Detective Mark Hoffman gets “kidnapped” and awakes in a contraption that will kill Eric, ostensibly both, should the door to their room open before a timer runs out. A shadowy figure, actually fellow victim Art, acts as gamemaster.
Officer Riggs gets kidnapped and is tested to act against his heroic instincts. A woman is trapped in a chair that will rip her scalp off. Jigsaw instructs her that the officer coming to save her (Riggs) will use incriminating photos to sentence her and the only way to prevent that is a knife under her chair. Riggs subdues her and moves onto the next test.(Blackmail, Manipulation)
A man and a woman are positioned and impaled by the same precisely such that the woman will survive if she pulls it out but the man will die due to the rods piercing his major arteries. Riggs sets the fire alarm where the trap was held for the police to find it and goes on to his next trials. (Knowledge, Crystallized Intelligence)
FBI agents Strahm and Perez investigate the classroom where the couple’s trap was held. A Billy puppet welcomes Agent Perez and warns that Strahm would soon “take the life of an innocent man.” Remember this later. The puppet warns that her next move is critical, she moves closer to investigate, and the face of the puppet explodes, putting her in the hospital. Here, Jigsaw had predicted accurately that Strahm and Perez would be first on the scene and that she would be the one to fall for it and not Strahm. Making this more impressive, for many previous subjects, John had access to police records and info from Gordon and Hoffman. Here, his information on the FBI agents would be extremely limited. (Prediction, Emotional Understanding, Cold Reading)
Strahm figures out with a glance at a victim that there’s another apprentice based off a victim suspended in the air weighing more than Amanda. Amanda wouldn’t be strong enough to put the victim up there, neither would John, who was last seen in a wheelchair. Despite Hoffman’s attempts at obfuscation suggesting the use of tools, Strahm correctly concludes there’s another apprentice (Observation, FRI, Deductive and Abductive Reasoning)
In a flashback, Jigsaw traps Cecil in a chair that forces him to push his face through blades to escape. Unlike many of Jigsaw’s other victims, Cecil was a man of low inhibition and intelligence. Knowing he’d be pissed, John positions himself in front of a bed of razor wires so that when Cecil charges at him, all he has to do is casually step out of the way and let Cecil kill himself. (Psychological Insight)
Art Blank, an ex friend of Jigsaw’s, was tested at the film’s start and forced into being an accomplice. Jigsaw frames him by having his name registered at a hotel where another man is tested and leaving photos of the two together at a crime scene. The police track his properties, leading them away from the trail of Riggs and onto the events of Saw III. This also takes into account the police’s reasoning. It’s more likely they’d zone in on the people closest to John if he gives them sufficient reason, that being a former friend of his, rather than strangers relative to Kramer such as Hoffman. (Misdirection, Fabrication, Mass Deception, Emotional Understanding, Abductive Reasoning)
The finale reveals that Saw IV takes place during Saw III. Riggs enters the room where Eric and Hoffmark are too soon, killing Eric indirectly and shooting Art, and fatally injuring himself. Hoffman stands up triumphant. Seconds after the finale of Saw III where Jeff’s wife dies, Agent Strahm arrives and shoots the panicked Jeff, who pointed a gun at him, dead, as predicted by Jigsaw, and Jigsaw has another tape (revealed in Saw V) greeting Agent Strahm for just that outcome and warning him not to proceed further. Strahm does and gets trapped. Hoffman “escapes” with Jeff’s daughter as the sole survivor.
John planned not just for but accurately predicted Amanda’s breakdown and shooting Lynn, Jeff shooting Amanda and failing his test by killing John, Strahm’s reasoning and investigation, Strahm being the first on the scene, among others. I can’t quite stress how precise this has to be - if Perez hadn’t gotten caught by the Billy puppet, she might have been the one to kill Jeff. If she hadn’t gotten caught, Strahm wouldn’t furiously have gone to interrogate Jill where he would’ve learned about Jigsaw’s backstory to find the site of Jeff’s game precisely after the games had finished and Jeff was delirious enough to take his shot. If Jill hadn’t withheld information as long as she did, Strahm might’ve cracked the case sooner and stumbled onto the events of Saw III in time to save Jeff, Lynn, and arrest John. If Strahm was a bit slower and less bright, he might’ve come across Jeff when he had calmed down.If Riggs hadn’t failed his test, he might’ve been able to save Eric and Jeff. And likely way more considering he’d also have to account for the background characters and nameless cops not messing anything up.. Needless to say, it’s a ridiculous feat of simply knowing how nearly every party involved in the case would act almost down to the minute. And while the tape itself was discovered the same day, Jigsaw planned these events likely weeks if not months in advance prior to his surgery. (Emotional Understanding and Perception, Cold Reading, Cause and Effect Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Abductive Reasoning, Psychological Profiling, Psychological Insight, Prediction, Anticipation, All Planning categories, Interpersonal Intelligence, Strategy Alignment, FRI, Holistic Thinking, Critical Thinking, Linear Thinking, Associative Thinking, Abstract Thinking)
Bear in mind, the events of Saw II-IV was all planned out to make Hoffman look like a hero, providing him with the perfect alibi, while also testing Amanda, and possibly buying himself some more time via Lynn - with sub strategies including the kidnapping of Eric, Jeff’s test, Rigg’s test, kidnapping dozens of people, and misleading the police and FBI throughout. Given that this is the culmination of his plans before his death, and the rest of his dealings post mortem effectively tied up loose ends, this could be considered his master plan(s).
(Misdirection, Information Control, Prediction, Convergent Thinking, Analytical Thinking, Lateral Thinking, Causal Thinking, Non Linear Thinking, Associative Thinking, Abstract Thinking, Holistic Thinking All Planning categories, Strategy, Strategy Complexity, Strategy Success Rate, Long Term Strategy, Strategy Logistics, Strategy Alignment, Strategy Aim, Strategy Length, Abstract Reasoning, Cause and Effect Reasoning, Probabilistic Reasoning, Multitasking)
(Speculation) As Saw: The Game shows, Jigsaw, while he is able to “leave nothing to chance” due to his insane insight into the human psyche, still prepares extensive contingencies. It’s likely Kramer had an alternate plan prepared in the case that Jeff spared him. This plan likely would still have involved Strahm shooting Jeff for whatever reason but culminated in him catching John since a tape earlier in the film warns forebodes if Strahm enters through the door, he will find him (Divergent Thinking, Planning Contingency)
SAW V
Saw V opens with Strahm trapped in a room right after the events of Saw III/Saw IV. A tape greets Agent Strahm and warns him not to proceed after discovering a secret room, meaning Jigsaw had predicted and plotted the events of Saw III and Saw IV
Agent Strahm survives what should be an unsurvivable trap, his head is trapped in a box that quickly fills with water. He improvises and gives himself a tracheotomy with his pen (FRI, Knowledge)
John’s wife meets John’s lawyer, who reveals a tape John had made in the event of his death
“Jigsaw doesn’t make mistakes” - Strahm glazing John as #1. This isn’t true, John did make a mistake that led to him getting tracked down in Saw by Tapp and Sing, but it does show that John had improved insanely since since he’d become much more prolific as a killer that the FBI were after him, but his methods had been perfected so much so that Strahm describes him as a flawless killer. (Adaptability, Learning Ability, Metacognition)
Strahm quickly grows suspicious of Hoffman after he ostensibly survives a game with only a broken arm and some bruises. After learning about this, Strahm investigates his background and discovers his sister was killed by a man named Seth Baxtor who was later killed by Jigsaw. Investigating at the site of the alleged Jigsaw victim, Seth Baxtor. Noticing a hole in the wall, he deduces that Hoffman killed Seth and framed Jigsaw. Thus with this information:
Amanda likely wasn’t strong enough to lift Kerry into her trap
Hoffman survived a game with minor injuries
Hoffman’s sister’s killer was killed, allegedly by Jigsaw
Strahm deduces that Hoffman is the new apprentice.
(Inductive Reasoning, Emotional Understanding)
In a flashback, Hoffman steps into the same elevator as Jigsaw. Just off his demeanor and him wearing gloves, Hoffman immediately suspects John is a threat and reaches for his gun, though Jigsaw subdues him quickly. He also somehow managed to sneak Hoffman’s body out of a police station somehow. (Short Term Planning, Observation, Emotional Perception)
Hoffman awakes in John’s lair strapped to a chair with a shotgun pointed to his chin. Jigsaw chides him for his amateur work and reveals he knows that Hoffman killed Seth. Jigsaw threatens him, slowly pulling the trigger to demonstrate Hoffman’s flawed Punisher-style justice and then offers his own because “everybody deserves a chance.” Jigsaw gives him the choice between turning him in and risking Jigsaw spilling the beans on Seth, and the police possibly believing him, or trying out Jigsaw’s justice. Hoffman calls out his blackmail and points out that he could just kill John right there and then, but John quickly points out that Hoffman’s not a true killer, and that he’s also got a deadman’s switch that will release what he has on Hoffman should John die. Appealing to his dissatisfaction with the “corrupt legal system,” John convinces Hoffman to join him. (Emotional Engagement, Perception, and Understanding. Strategic Shielding and Risk Calculation. Direct Manipulation, Blackmail, Psychological Profiling)
In a flashback, after witnessing Lehy’s death, John lectures Hoffman on not feeling regret: “The heart can not be involved. Emotionally, there must be nothing there. It can never be personal.” (Emotional Management)
John on his ability to predict people: “I assume nothing. I anticipate the possibilities and let the game play out… If you’re good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance.” (Emotional Understanding, Anticipation, Convergent Thinking)
Re-examing John’s deathbed, Strahm discovers the latter half of John’s plan - killing Jeff, Strahm, Matthews, Lynn, with Hoffman walking out a hero for rescuing Jeff’s daughter. This also confirms Jigsaw understood Strahm would ignore his warning despite minimal info on him (Intuition for Strahm, Emotional Understanding, Cold Reading)
SAW VI
William Easton is a health insurance company CEO. The film’s game is one long application of the immoral and impersonal equation he uses to determine who is covered or not. These games put people’s lives directly in William’s hands. Jigsaw does this to show the flaws of the equation that he uses to determine who is insured and who is not, and ultimately put him in the same position as his insurers - having someone else hold their lives in the balance. This method works, William undergoes character development and genuinely sees the error of his ways, though is killed before being able to repent for it. (Emotional Understanding, Methods)
In a flashback around Saw III, Mark tinkers with a trap. John schools him on an error he made, again implying superiority, with even Amanda apparently knowing what to correctly do. Based off Hoffman’s callous treatment of sedated subjects and his boasting of valuing his own life. John recognized that he would not just be an unworthy successor but a dangerous one Later, he is vindicated when it’s revealed Hoffman blackmailed Amanda into killing Lynn. He thus adapts his plan to have his wife Jill kill him after Strahm is killed. Despite Hoffman forcing Amanda to kill Lynn causing John to die, he was ultimately playing into John’s hand (Emotional Understanding, Emotional Perception, Strategic Adaptability, Long Term Planning, Planning Invincibility)
“The type of cancer that you have is malignant and inoperable.”
“That rolled off your tongue real smooth.”
Even if the treatment works, the cancer will return eventually. It’s an unwinnable battle.”
“That was even smoother.”
What prompted John to test William. He instantly identifies and sees through William’s experienced disregard for human lives. (Emotional Perception, Emotional Understanding)
SAW VII
This film has Jigsaw posthumously targeting a grifter who claimed to have survived a Jigsaw trap - Bobby Dagen.
Some people agree with Jigsaw’s ideology free of personal contact. A woman is shown being “grateful” for him freeing her from an abusive husband. (Mass Manipulation, Insanity Inducement)
John explains to Bobby that history is a passion to him and he gives a little spiel about Egyptian justice (Knowledge)
JIGSAW
This film’s game takes place within a Barn. We first see five survivors but it quickly whittles down to four in the first game. Three in the next game when Ryan, out of desperation to find right syringe before being hanged kills Carly by injecting her with all three syringes.
The third set piece is a door marked “No exit.” Being a brutish guy, Ryan takes a shovel to it and immediately falls through the false floor into a trap that’s only way out will take his leg. A silo door opens, and Mitch and Anna grab the tape, locking themselves in. Still trapped, the tape reveals Ryan must pull the lever and lose his leg to free them before they are buried alive within the silo. This required extreme foresight on John’s predicting that Ryan would’ve impulsively gone for the false door, and stood in the exact spot needed for the trap, and that every other remaining survivor would make way into the silo. (Planning Accuracy, Foresight, Emotional Perception, Understanding)
A tractor’s lights come on and Mitch makes way to it, grabbing the tape (marked “Mitch”) from its interior. He takes a few steps away, presses play, and he’s ensnared in a trap exactly where he’s standing. (Foresight)
In high school, Ryan was involved in a car accident. He was standing in the backseat while his friends were driving, distracting them. He jumped off, but his friends crashed. Ryan lied to the authorities multiple times and only got worse from there, living a scummy life and cheating. Unlike many previous victims, John does not have access to official records in this case through Hoffman. Most likely, he picked Ryan for his history of cheating and deduced the car incident on his own. And with that, he was able to accurately gauge him as someone who doesn’t “like playing by the rules” and precisely plan around his movements. Note this isn’t so simple as it might seem on the surface. One might just as easily conclude his life of debauchery began because of survivor’s guilt, not because his recklessness caused their deaths. (Psychological Profiling, Reasoning, Emotional Understanding)
Anna is revealed to be a former neighbor of John. He witnessed some of their marital troubles through the window
Logan’s plan: Knowing Halloran, he forces a drug dealer into a situation that incites the police into shooting. Logan is there to shoot the dealer dead with the same bullet type. He digs up bodies related to Halloran’s past cases for the police to find. While visiting a friend’s Jigsaw fan collection, he lets himself get tailed and made suspicious of. Knowing the police would return to that collection, he dumps a body there. When he’s questioned by one of the detectives, a friend, he talks him into suspecting Halloran of framing Logan based off:
Halloran finding the body
Halloran calling the shots on the drug dealer, and no one paying attention to where he was aiming
The bodies having a connection to Halloran
IA having a previous suspicion on Halloran
The two match the round found in the dealer’s body to Halloran’s gun, making him suspect #1. Logan goes home and his assistant reveals she’s located the game (from this point on, he’s sort of improvising). Halloran tails them there while Logan’s buddies search Halloran’s place and discover jigsaw pieces he’d planted there. Logan pretends to be suspicious of Eleanor. Halloran confronts Logan, they scuffle and both wake up in the laser trap. Jigsaw tells them they must confess to be spared though there’s buttons in the middle should one want to volunteer.. Halloran tries to cheat by forcing Logan to confess by pressing his button. Logan “dies.” Halloran then is forced to confess. Logan stands up to reveal himself as the apprentice and now has a recording of Halloran confessing to his crimes, securing his plan to frame Halloran. His assistant, who ran away during the scuffle, provides an alibi. (Planning, Strategy, Adaptability, Emotional Perception, Manipulation)
SAW X
After spotting an orderly stealing an unconscious patient’s watch, John quickly imagines a trap complete with its own monologue incorporating elements of the patient’s apparatus. (VSI, VCI, PSI, Creativity, Crystalized Intelligence)
John was able to track down a taxi driver. This same taxi driver disguised as a doctor “operated” on Kramer while he was under heavy anesthesia slipping in and out of consciousness, but Kramer was still able to remember and identify him based just off his eyes as he was wearing a mask and scrub cap. (Observation, WMI, Information Gathering)
John knows a little Spanish at least (VCI)
Jigsaw captures scammers Valentina, Mateo, Cecilia, and Gabriela, but Parker, a patient who was supposedly operated on, is still missing. Hoffman informs him that he was the one scammer he could not track down. His plan in this film secretly involves capturing the last one. To do this, Cecilia had to call Parker. Jigsaw left a phone in his coat in the middle of the room. But it’s out of reach. Jigsaw also left a glass shard with which Cecilia carves into Valentina’s body and fashions a rope out of to pull in the cart with the phone. Cecilia calls him and gets out a few words before Jigsaw electrocutes her. Parker arrives, is promptly knocked out after shooting at a decoy, and is interrogated. He claims to have discovered the scam and wants his money back. Kramer empathizes, assuring him that they have the money and offers Parker the chance to watch the game while chained up. John places Parker’s gun in the locker behind him and has Amanda free Parker after Mateo’s game. After Gabriela’s game, Parker takes the gun, holds the duo hostage, and frees Cecilia. John is forced into the Bloodboarding trap and Amanda is chained. Cecilia wonders how she stopped John, the great Jigsaw killer, and John calls it a lapse in judgement. A boy John befriended (the one factor John hadn’t planned out) happens to be playing near the warehouse the game is taking place in and gets captured, placed opposite John on the Bloodboarding trap. John endures being waterboarded with pigs blood, coming out of the ordeal without too much trouble later, while Cecilia and Parker go for the money. Cecilia grabs the money, triggering a lockdown on the room she and Parker are in. John frees himself from the trap, having built in a way to escape. Cecilia tries to shoot her way out with the gun, but it doesn’t fire. It’s not empty, as any experienced gunman might notice the weight difference; John had left the bullets in but removed the gunpowder. Poison gas fills the room as the game begins - only one can survive, and Cecilia kills Parker to live. Thus, John’s plan predicted:
(FRI, Emotional Understanding, Psychological Profiling, Planning, Planning Risk Calculation Short Term Strategy, Strategy Control, Foresight, Manipulation, Deception, Lateral Thinking, Non Linear Thinking)
John has trained his apprentices to control their emotions very well. As said in Saw V “The heart can not be involved. Emotionally, there must be nothing there. It can never be personal.” This is shown as Amanda remains mostly detached from the sufferings of their subjects, even fellow drug user Gabriela, and only freaks out after Cecilia finishes off Gabriela. John and his disciples aren’t devoid of empathy, but, in fact, have a great deal of it, but reserving it only to those, in their eyes, who have the “will to live.” (Emotional Management)
Despite having known her for far less time and Cecilia being a convincing liar herself, Amanda and John both point out Cecilia’s traitorous nature to her boyfriend Parker. Parker tells her to fuck off, and, as it turns out, she does betray him without hesitation later. (Emotional Perception)
Saw: Rebirth
This comic included in certain Saw II DVDs details Jigsaw’s origin story. Elements of it were retconned by later films, though other elements were incorporated such as John’s suicide attempt and his wife’s name. Take it as canon at your discretion.
After gaining his “will to live” in his attempted suicide, John dedicated himself wholly to the mission, neglecting sleep and discarding meals.
“I educated myself in diverse fields, absorbed fast amounts of esoteric knowledge.”
We see him reading several books: Mathematics, Visual Effects, Engineering, Psychology(?), Maps, Pirates, and more unnamed books in a single night. Since he’s reading up on multiple fields on individual nights with one book per field rather than cramming multiple books for one subject in one night he probably gains a suffice understanding on a given subject in one book without needing to read multiple books. And based off how proficient it’s implied he is in treating wounds, we know his knowledge isn’t just surface level stuff.
This would imply extensive learning ability, meaning he’d become knowledgeable in likely dozens of
subjects in the weeks until his first kill in Cecil Adams. This makes sense since despite only having a formal background in architecture and engineering, he shows proficiency throughout the lore in psychology, philosophy, chemical engineering, anatomy and medicine, foreign cultures, police procedure, computer science, and toxicology.
The exact time frame is uncertain, but we know it wasn’t long between his son’s death and him going after Cecil per the game, with how recently Cecil describes the event in the game. I’ll assume 2 weeks he spent in preparation before going full Jigsaw. We also see John with 8 books next to him in a single night.
14 x 8 = 112 fields
336 hours in 2 weeks.
If the average person takes 10,000 hours to master a field, it would take 1,120,000 hours or 127.85 years to master as many subjects John did in 2 weeks. John wasn’t kidding when he called Lynn out for her graduate school level jargon.
But wait, there’s more. John states he spent “hours” puking his guts out, and he is also shown extensively building and testing traps and stalking future victims so not all his time was spent reading. If we assume only a quarter of his time was spent studying, that cuts it down to 84 hours. In which case, John learns approximately 13,333.33 times faster than the average person. Supporting this is that we see John sitting alone in a room with monitoring equipment surrounded by bookshelves/ Approximately 40 books can be seen on the first shelf. It should have 80 counting the backside. There are 6 shelves total making for 480 books total. Sure, not all of them might’ve been sciences, he could’ve thrown in some fiction books, but based on the ones we do see, his interests were entirely non fiction. If we assume this stockpile of books was read post-Jigsaw revelation, which is plausible given that he wasn’t driven at all prior, then that makes it 4,800,000 or 547.94 years what Kramer does in 84 hours - 57,142 times faster than ordinary people.
Worth noting he was heavily nerfed by his cancer, sleep deprivation, and malnutrition while doing this.
(Impulse Control, Cognitive Discipline, FRI, WMI, VCI, Knowledge, Crystalized Intelligence, Learning Ability, Concrete Thinking, Focused Thinking)
But how fast is his reading?
I’ll assume he was reading a lot of textbooks. It’s difficult to get a figure for the average word count of a college textbook, figures range from 30K to 200K. I’ll go with 100K.
Low End
112 x 100,000 = 11,200,000 words / 84 hours = 11,200,000 words / 302,400 sec = 37.03 words per second. For reference, the King James Version of the Bible has around 500 words per page. He could read a page from it in 13 seconds. He could read entire pages from larger print novels in a few seconds
High End
480 x 100,000 = 48,000,000 words / 302,400 sec = 159 words per second. At this speed, he could finish the KJV Bible in a little over an hour and read entire pages from larger books with a glance.
(PSI, VCI, VSI, CPI, WMI)
Saw: The Game
The whole game takes place inside an abandoned asylum set up by Jigsaw. Dozens of people are captured and forced to hunt down Tapp as enemies for a key that only he has. Certain areas are only accessible by finding objects for valves and fuses or solving logic puzzles, and sometimes under a time limit before a trapped NPC will die. These logic puzzles involve electrical circuits, lock picking, gears, and more. Booby traps such as tripwires and shotguns attached to doors litter the faculty. But Tapp’s path through the asylum is ultimately guided, with tapes accordingly placed, from one trapped NPC to another and with puzzles opening up new pathways. The planning involved is not just arranging the asylum and planning out Tapp’s path with all the objects he must find, the puzzles he must solve, and the NPCs he must save, but also managing to kidnap dozens of people, and having most of them wake up around the same time as Tapp (with all their different heights and weights) since we don’t see any of them team up on him. This would require precise poisoning, accounting for their many different builds, and positioning (Planning, VSI, Knowledge, Holistic Thinking, Setting Traps)
The opening trap has the subject awake in a bathroom with three stalls. Close the stall doors to see fragments of numbers. If you stand in a certain spot in the room with the doors close and look in the opposite mirror, you’ll see the fragments align with smudge marks on the mirror to give you the code for the room’s lock (FRI, PRI)
Health hypos concocted by Jigsaw are left scattered around the asylum and, just as the name suggests, restore health. They are a mixture of painkillers and vitamins (Crystallized Intelligence)
A patient file of John Kramer credits him as “very observant,” “very high IQ,” a “high degree of verbal acuity,” and an “extraordinary ability to recall facts” (VCI, WMI, CPI, Perception)
A forensic scientist Tapp worked with hit a homeless man and covered up the crime perfectly with his forensic knowledge. With a lack of cameras when the game takes place, homeless people generally having few if any connections and generally being uncared for, and the scientist framing another man, Jigsaw was still able to find out his crime (Abductive Reasoning)
Jigsaw at one point predicts Tapp would look through a peephole in a dark corner and leaves a message on the other side telling him to go to room 204 (Foresight)
John manipulates Sing’s wife against Tapp. He had previously killed her husband via a booby trap. His wife is justifiably furious at Kramer, but, as Kramer points out, those traps would easily have been disabled with proper procedure. And who ignored them in his zealous effort to catch Jigsaw? Tapp. The wife quickly focuses her anger on Tapp. (Manipulation)
Towards the end, Jigsaw reveals via audio tape that the Pighead within the game seeks to surpass him by trying to sabotage Tapp’s test. To get around this, Kramer reveals that the only key for this gauntlet is on the Pighead, forcing a confrontation between Tapp and the Pighead. (Strategic Adaptability)
The game culminates in two doors: “Freedom” and “Truth.” Though the Truth ending is non canon, it’s still a possible choice presented to Tapp where Jigsaw gives him the choice of not giving up his obsession, and thus, as is his character, he would have planned around it and what we see should the player choose Truth is usable. Tapp chases a hooded figure who he believes is Jigsaw, but when he catches up and beats on the figure, it’s revealed that it’s actually Melissa (Sing’s wife from earlier), who Jigsaw has coerced into working for him by threatening her son. Her game was to keep track of Tapp and make sure things went as planned, and he sewed her mouth shut to prevent her from calling for help. Note he also predicted that Tapp would successfully rescue Melissa (Planning Contingency, Coverage, and Intricacies, Foresight)
Saw II: Flesh and Blood
The first part of the game revolves around Campbell Iman, a drug addict and terminal cancer patient abducted by John Kramer. Shortly afterward, Campbell wakes up in an abandoned railway building with a death mask locked onto his body. He has to cut beneath his right eye to retrieve a key to stop the deadly mechanism. After his escape, Campbell has to go through numerous deadly traps to discover the truth about his estranged son. However, before Campbell finds him, he has to face another test. Upon finding himself in a giant hall, he must either fight for his life or sacrifice himself for a stranger's life.
Similar to the first game, the structure is again essentially one long chain of logic puzzles, clues, objects scattered around that unlock new areas or aid the protagonist, traps to solve, and enemies manipulated into fighting son of Detective Tapp, reporter Michael Tapp. (Mass Manipulation, VSI, Linear Thinking, Setting Traps)
It’s mentioned in a case file that while stalking Cecil, John wore a pig mask. This gave him camouflage since celebrations for the Year of the Pig were ongoing in the nearby International District (Disguise)
In the past, John had been voted Man of the Year due to his philanthropic work (Empathy, Influence Building)
Jigsaw scattered various ingredients for a bomb, and made a machine for correctly mixing them, showing expertise over chemistry (Knowledge)
Jigsaw attaches to Michael a harness that’ll explode should he anywhere not allowed within the game. This allows John to closely monitor and speak with Michael. (Planning Coverage, Strategy Shielding)
In his backstory, Michael had stolen evidence from his father to make it big as a reporter. John correctly identifies that he told himself this was for his career but he in fact did it for revenge since his father had become so obsessed with catching Jigsaw that he abandoned his family. (Emotional Perception, Emotional Understanding, Cold Reading)
Michael makes way through a contrived maze of traps, tests, criminals, and corrupt cops. Michael chases the last cop Joseph Poltzer through the building and eventually tackles him through a wall onto the street below. The two struggle and Michael manages to wrestle the gun and shoot him. Jigsaw, who’d been standing in the alleyway, promptly runs into another building, seemingly in fear. However, Michael reaches a seemingly dead end where the walls on either side of him are spiked. Jigsaw had actually foreseen the entire confrontation with Joseph and lured Michael to another trap. The reveal is that Michael is the stranger Iman could’ve saved in the beginning of the story, which coincides with the end. The canon ending is uncertain, but if the player saved Iman in the beginning, Michael dies in the trap. John tells Iman he’s free to go find his son. Enraged, Iman lunges at him. Jigsaw casually sidesteps and a scythe arcs downward from the doorway he was standing at to impale Iman. If the player sacrifices Iman, Michael is given the choice between revealing to the world what he learned there about the corrupt cops and drug rings or the chance to join Jigsaw.
Similar to the Saw III/IV feat, this requires some insane foresight on John’s part, predicting Michael would’ve ended up in the alleyway despite no clear path leading there. Not only that, he must’ve known WHEN this would’ve occurred, taking into account all the puzzles Michael had to solve and enemies he had to defeat such that he arrived at the trap just as Iman did, whose set of tests he also had to account for, and he also must’ve known Iman would’ve passed his test, possessing the will to live, otherwise the trap wouldn’t work at all.
(Emotional Perception, Emotional Understanding, Cold Reading, Strategy Alignment, Orchestration, Execution, Success Rate, and Shielding. Short Term Planning, Planning Accuracy, Risk Calculation, Crystallized Intelligence. Associative Thinking, Convergent Thinking, Holistic Thinking, Abstract Thinking, Prediction.)
Mark Hoffman
I do believe it’s reasonable with the evidence provided to upscale John off Mark. He’s generally implied to be an amateur relative to Jigsaw in the flashbacks. The narrative supports this as Saw V through VII can essentially be described as him executing Kramer’s last few targets and bumbling his way into slaughtering the police since since he messed up while framing Strahm using his severed arm, or made an imperfect voice modulator and got cornered by the chief, a situation he only escaped due to his physical ability. Regardless, he still has some amazing feats that John may upscale, credit to MatthewClark148
Mark Hoffman Feats Doc - Google Docs
John’s Big Plan(s) (simplified)
Jigsaw
Saw
Saw the Video Game
Saw 2: Flesh and Blood
Saw II-VII