Jonathan Kramer, also known as Jigsaw, is a building engineer and toy designer at Standard Engineering Ltd. He lives a monotonous life out of laziness and contentment. Diagnosed of a fatal frontal lobe cancer, he embarks into a suicidal attempt and later, devotes himself to teaching the importance of life through acts of violence. A scientist, and not an actual serial killer, he initiates survival instincts by concealing his “subjects” into life-and-death situations.
Upset of his wife Jill’s miscarriage, his passion to help people change burns up. His main objective is to instill realizations on people regarding life’s worth, by putting them on situations that involve self-mutilation and psychological torture. He exposes his subjects on conditions that enliven the notion of survival.
Image Courtesy: Lions Gate Entertainment, Twisted Pictures
Jigsaw sets up deadly traps that figuratively mean the flaws in a person’s life. For instance, when Jigsaw seizes the person liable of Jill’s miscarriage, Jigsaw hands him a test that is to free his self from the seat equipped with blades and handcuffs. The man succeeds, but never learns. He thrusts himself towards Jigsaw, but slips into coils of barbed wires, which Jigsaw has planned earlier.
One of the traps he makes is the “Quadroon Shotgun Trap” which consists of four double-barreled shotguns suspended from a ceiling in a hallway, each connected by a tripwire strung across the hallway below. When the subject (in this case, Detective Sing) steps across the string, the wire would pull the triggers blowing the victim into pieces.
Image Courtesy: Lions Gate Entertainment, Twisted Pictures
Another trap in the series is the “Furnace” wherein the subject needs to crawl inside to retrieve two antidotes that would cure him of poison. One is placed with a chain attached to the furnace’s top that, when pulled down, would shut the door and ignite the furnace. Obi, the subjetc, burns to death due to negligence of Jigsaw's line, "Once you are in Hell, only the devil can help you out." In the scenario, a devil painting points to a knob that needs a twist in order to turn off the gas.
“Amanda’s Test” in Saw III involves Jigsaw’s selection of Amanda, a subject who succeeds in her test and becomes his apprentice, for the honor of carrying on his works. Instead of testing anyone’s will to live, Amanda takes away their only chance by making traps that have no possibility of escape. Soon, she realizes her traps would put her life to an end.
Another one is Saw IV’s “Waterbox Trap”. A clear box with tubes encases the subject’s head. The box begins to fill up with water. Strahm (subject) quickly pulls out his pen and stabs it into his throat in order to breathe. He manages to survive, until the authority arrives. The irony is that the trap has no means of escape, and yet the subject manages to survive.
Saw V’s “Hand Saws” include five saws designated for each of the five subjects, but after entering the “Guillotine Necktie”, wherein all five have to grab the keys on jars at the far end of the room to escape decapitation (from cables that pull them onto mounted razors) and survive the blast, only two subjects remain. Later, they realize that teamwork could have helped everyone survive. The remaining subjects then, have to insert their hands and lose blood to fill the ten-pint beaker, which would open the door and save them from planted nail bombs. If all five of them have worked as a team in the first test, each person would only need to lose two pints of blood, greatly increasing their chance of survival.
The most significant experiment is the trial of reconciliation in Saw IV wherein Jigsaw asks for forgiveness before he dies, but the subject slashes Jigsaw’s throat killing him, whereby Jigsaw’s life links to the fate of the subject’s wife Dr. Denlon through a devised bomb that would explode at the time Jigsaw dies. The subject fails the test.
Jigsaw creates these traps (or tests) to emphasize the consequences of making choices, and deeply stress the relevance of life. Victims either perform risky tasks, harm others to escape, or make a sacrifice. The missing puzzle piece of flesh in every victim connotes a person’s failure to value the gift of life. Video and cassette tapes serve as the media of informing the subjects of the rules of each game. Even though wrath is one of the deadly sins, here, it serves as a way for people to understand much better the essence of life and of making decisions.
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