Jigsaw (character)

John Kramer
Biographical Information
Aliases	Jigsaw Killer
Relatives	Jill Tuck (ex-wife)† Gideon Kramer (unborn son)†
Gender	Male
Age	52
Status	Deceased
Appearances
Film	SAW series
Portrayed by	Tobin Bell
Images

John Kramer, better known by his alias, The Jigsaw Killer, Jigsaw in short, is a fictional character and the main villain in the SAW franchise. He is created by James Wan and Leigh Whannell and played by Tobin Bell.

History

Before Saw

John Kramer was a succesful civil enigneer, who was married to a woman named Jill Tuck. While he ventured much in property development, she helped drug addicts with her rehabilitation clinic. John wasn't in favor of the clinic, believing that the addicts used Jill to get a fix of methadon, and didn't really wanted to come clean. This feeling was strengthed by the fact that several of the addicts became regular patients... But being the devoted husband he was, he did let it slide and later, when Jill became pregnant, he start using his skills to build toys and a crib for the unborn child. He also repaired an old cuckoo clock and gave it as a gift to Jill.

One day things went wrong however. One of Jill's patients, a man named Cecil, threatened her with a knife, trying to cut in line, claiming he has been waiting three hours for help. Luckily, John was there and in a fit of rage, threw Cecil out the clinic. This in turn however was interpret by Cecil Adams and his then-girlfriend, Amanda Young, that Jill wouldn't help them anymore. So since she wasn't going to help them, get their next fix, they would have to take it. By robbing the clinic at closing time. At that moment, John was waiting in the car, for Jill, who was closing the clinic. While Amanda tried to distract John, Cecil would go to Jill. He forced her to give him the money of the clinic and became anxious when she didn't hurry. Meanwhile, Amanda's attempts at distracting John, only resukted in her annoying him, with the latter asked her to leave him alone. When Cecil had the money, he tried to get away as quickly as possible, afraid that he would be caught. In his haste, he slammed the door in Jill's belly, resulting in Jill crying in agony. Scared that he might get caught, he fled the scene, without providing any help for Jill. His get-away was however seen by John, who immediately realized what Cecil just had done. In panic, he jumped out his car and ran towards to the clinic, where he found Jill on the ground. But at that point, it was already too late. Jill had a miscarriage. Their unborn child was killed by one of the people, she so desperately had tried to help.

The tragic event made John bitter. Seeing how Cecil and Amanda didn't change, no matter how many times they got help from Jill, made John concluded that they couldn't be helped, since they didn't want to change. They had to change themselves. When he tried to explain this newfound wisdom to Jill, she denied it and instead kept helping the people that John believed were undeserving of help. This difference in philosphy caused them to become more detached from each other and John grew hateful towards the addicts, seeing them as the reason for his misfortune. In a fit of rage, he destroyed everything he had built for their son and the clock that gave her as a gift. Seeing how much he had changed over the past months, Jill decided that their life was over. He would never be able to let go of it, so she let go of him. With the help of Art Blank, she divorced him. But John's misery didn't end here. During a rountine medical check-up, his doctor Lawrence Gordon discovered that John had colon cancer and an operatable brain tumor. Realizing that he wouldn't have much more time, unless a cure was found, he went searching. Quickly he learned about a doctor in the Middle East, who was working on an experimental drug therapy that could help destroy tumors. The results that the therapy had were promising and this was his best and probably only chance to live. But the procedure was very expensive, so expensive that he couldn't afford it. Believing that this was just a temporary set-back, he went to his health insurance company, Umbrella Health Corporation. For years, he was a loyal client to the company for years, so it should be easy to get an insurance. To his horror, he got rejected however. According to the Umbrella Health Policy, his condition was too severe and the treatment was too risky to cover him. Even a conversation with William Easton, the Executive of the company didn't help. He did however learn that he wasn't alone. He learned that Easton had a group of six of his subordinates had the sole task of digging into the medical history of their clients, searching for a reason to refuse insurance when they needed. A comment of Harold Abbott, claiming that with his refusal, Easton had signed his death sentence, John realized that William Easton literally decided who lived and who died.

As his condition worsened, his disease soon became terminal. Realizing how he was going to die of cancer as there were no options left anymore, he decided that he wasn't going to sit idly by as the cancer slowly killed him. If he had to die, it would be on his terms and with this idea, he drove his car from a cliff, trying to commit suicide. To his surprise, he did survive the crash and as his instinct to survive kicked in, pulled a large iron bar from his stomach. It felt ironic how his instincts and his body tried to keep alive, while his days were numemered already. It was only now that he realized that he didn't want to die, he wanted to life. And only since he was diagnosed with cancer, he had started to realize the value of life. Only in the face of death, do people realize how much they like to life, what the value of life is. The realization changed him and he found a new purpose in life. The time that remained him, he would use to teach people the value of life. Those who threw away their lifes or those who ruined the life of others, would learn this value, the way he did: through sacrifice and with facing death. Those who were succesful, would have redeemed themselves. Those who failed, lacked the necessary instinct to survive and doesn't deserve to life. From those, he would cut out a puzzle piece from the skin, symbolizing that they lacked the survival instinct. This mark would result in him being called the Jigsaw Killer. Using his skills and expertise of mechanics, he started to create death traps. He also had a first victim in mind, Cecil would be the first to be reformed. He followed Cecil to Chinatown as the civilians celebrated Chinese New Year and the start of the Year of the Pig. Seeing Cecil steal again, he got his confirmation that Cecil would be a good start and kidnapped him, wearing a plastic pig mask he took at a stand. This would the inspiration for the pig suit, he would later use. As a first trap, he chained Cecil to a chair, with razors cutting into the man's wrist. The more Cecil moved, the faster he bled. Next, he placed a strange contraption of kitchen knifes before Cecil, telling him that he has to puch his face them to push a handle before him. If he succeeded, he would be free but as ugly on the outside as he was on inside, if he failed he would bleed out. The trap, although painful to Cecil, wasn't flawless. Although Cecil couldn't push far enough into the blades, he was able to break the chair and free himself. Angry about what John had tried to do to him, Cecil threatened to kill him. John gave him his one shot, before moving out of the way as Cecil slipped over his own blood into a box with razor wire. In his anger and pain, Cecil tried to free himself, only to cut himself more and getting entangled in the wires. John watched as the man died before leaving. The trap would inspire him to create the razor wire trap later.

It is unknown how many people John would "test" but none of them survived and soon he would be dubbed by media as the Jigsaw Killer, much to his own displeasure. At some point in time, Seth Baxter, a convicted murder, was released from prison on early parole, much to the anger of the brother of his victim, Detective Mark Hoffman. Hoffman, heartbroken by the death of his sister Angela, felt like the justice system had failed him and Angela and decided to take matters into his own hands. Using the legendary legacy of the Jigsaw Killer, he kidnapped Seth and put him into a trap of his design. Subjecting Seth to the Pendelum Trap, he exacted his revenge as it not only crushed Seth's hands, it bissected him. Believing that he got away with murder, he soon was kidnapped by John, who was displeased by the fact that, not only did Mark framed John for the death of Seth (by incriminating the Jigsaw Killer), he also made an inescapable trap. When Mark woke up, they were in John's lair and Mark was strapped to chair, with a double-barreled shotgun placed between his legs, aimed at his throat. John stood up, immediately revealing that he was the Jigsaw Killer, before criticize Mark's work.  As Mark started to struggle, John revealed, using a mirror, how unwise it would be to move too much. Although he symphatised with Mark, he revealed that, unlike Mark, he never killed. He offered people a chance to redeem themselves. Slowly, he started to indoctrinate Mark, claiming that even Seth deserved a chance to survive, something that Mark refuted. John reacted by stating that killing is distasteful to him, before revealing that he believed to have found a more efficient way to chance people. When Mark bursted out, demanding to know what John wanted for him, John simply replied with asking if Mark had what it takes to survive. John continues with pulling the trigger of the gun.

The gun didn't fire however and John offered Mark the option to redeem himself. He openly admitted to Mark that he was really Jigsaw and that Mark could bring him in. But seeing how much John knew, it would ruin his carreer if he did. At first Mark sees it as blackmail but something that John at first denied but when Mark threatened to kill him, as his captor freed him, he revealed that it was in fact blackmail. Mark could become his apprentice or end his carreer, to serve a corrupt legal system that places killers back on the street. After asking him how his sister would feel, he restated the choice before Mark. Mark eventually accepted the offer to become his apprentice...

A few months before the events of Saw, John tested Mark Rodriguez Wilson, for lying about being ill, using it as an excuse. Mark failed his test however and burned himself alive, while John observed the progress. Mark helped John kidnapping Paul Leahy, who tried to get attention by attempting suicide. The abduction of Paul Leahy was Mark's first task and was ordered to observe how Paul did it. It was then that Mark warned John that the Detective Tapp was placed on the case and would not stop until he has found him. John, unimpressed by this development, told Mark to incriminate Dr. Lawrence Gordon. Later, John would kidnap Amanda Young and her dealer, forcing her to cut a key from his liver. If she would fail, the reverse bear trap, placed on her head would rip open her mouth completely.

Saw

The Jigsaw Killer character was introduced in the 2004 film Saw through the character Dr. Gordon's recounting of his first killings. Jigsaw is described as a mysterious person who kidnaps people he sees as wasting their lives and attempts to "save" them by administering various inhumane tests. As opposed to other killers, Jigsaw does not actually intend to kill his subjects. The purpose of his traps is to see if the subject has the will to survive, and thus inflict enough psychological trauma for the subject to appreciate their life and save themselves from their own demons. As his victims increase, the media dubs him The Jigsaw Killer, or simply, Jigsaw; because of the jigsaw puzzle shaped piece of flesh that he cuts from an unsuccessful subject, a practice explained in Saw II as reflecting the subject "was missing a vital piece of the human puzzle; the survival instinct". Throughout the first film, his identity remains mostly unknown; the unstable ex-cop David Tapp suspects that he may be Dr. Gordon, one of the film's two protagonists, and near the end of the film Gordon and fellow protagonist Adam Faulkner are led to believe it is the hospital orderly Zep Hindle. Only at the end of the film is it revealed that the Jigsaw Killer was in fact a terminal cancer patient of Gordon's, John Kramer, who spent the entire movie posing as a corpse to watch the test he created for Adam and Dr. Gordon.

Saw II

Jigsaw is found in his lair when the police arrive led by Sergeant Rigg. Computer monitors show in Jigsaw's lair that eight people are trapped in an abandoned house (Nerve Gas House). The victims in the house have been given two hours to live and have been tasked with getting various antidotes located around the house. Among the survivors were Daniel Matthews; son of corrupt police officer Eric Matthews. John told Eric that if simply talked to him for enough time then could have his son back. After Eric sees a violent survivor chase after Daniel, Eric loses control and assaults John, forcing him to take him to the house at gunpoint. Eric gets there and enters it, where he is attacked by a pig masked figure. Meanwhile, a SWAT Team go to another house where they discover Daniel Matthews held in a safe and breathing through an oxygen mask. Upon awakening, Eric finds himself chained to his ankle to the pipes of a room; an audiotape laying beside him, recorded by Jigsaw's apprentice Amanda Young. She then appears in the doorway and seals the door, leaving him to die for failing his test.

Saw III

Jigsaw then went to kidnap Jeff Denlon (a man who refuses to continue his life since he wants revenge on his son's killer) and those involved in the incident including Danica Scott the only witness present who didn't help, Judge Halden who sentenced his son's murderer lightly and Timothy Young who killed Jeff's son. Meanwhile Jigsaw had planned to test Amanda Young as he discovered her direct murders and inescapable traps, having her keep another victim alive Lynn Denlon (Jeff's wife) and have her keep John alive long enough to see Jeff's game end as he is nearly sucumbing to his cancer. Jeff completed his tests but Amanda (blackmailed by Hoffman) shot Lynn in the back as Jeff came through. In anger, Jeff shot Amanda in the neck and left her to die. John then went to explain that he was indeed testing her but wanted her to succeed, as he was deeply saddened over her death. John then gave Jeff the choice to kill John with the tools over on a tray or forgive and spare his life. Jeff proceeded to kill him with a saw by slashing his throat, but activated a tape recorder which revealed that Jeff has lost his chance to rescue his daughter as John had locked her away with limited air supply and his the only person who knows where she is. Lynn also died from her trap as it would be triggered if John died or she went out of range from John. The doors of the game location then seeled as the timer expired, leaving Jeff to die with the corpses of Jigsaw, Amanda Young and Lynn Denlon.

Saw IV

In this movie, John is now dead alongside his apprentice Amanda Young but his games will continue as another apprentice of his, Mark Hoffman, is still alive and becomes Jigsaw's successor and is to continue the games. In the movie's beginning, it shows John's autopsy with a wax-coated microcassette found in his stomach which is given to Mark Hoffman, informing him that the games will continue and he too will be tested. A flashback is then shown with John being a civil engineer before he took the mantle of the Jigsaw Killer and John had a wife named Jill Tuck but divorced here after a thief and drug addict, Cecil Adams, robbed her clinic and killed their unborn son. After he learned of his cancer and a failed suicide attempt, John worked to test people who didn't appreciate their lives. His first target was Cecil Adams for being a drug addict and thief who is responsible for his son's death. John restrained to him a chair where blades restrained him and gave him a tool with kitchen knives where he had two choices: push his face hard enough in the knives for the chair to break or sit there to be bleed to death from the blades. Cecil escaped the trap but then lunged at John in an attempt to attack him, John moved and allowed him to die from blood loss when he accidentally jumped into a box of razor wire.

Saw V

John left his ex-wife, Jill Tuck, a videotape and box. The tape informs her that the items in the box are important, she opens the box to discover a key around her neck and looks inside, then leaves without disclosing its contents. It is revealed that before the movies events, Hoffman rigged a Jigsaw trap to kill Seth Baxter for murdering his sister and pinned the murder on the Jigsaw Killer. Though John used this information to blackmail Hoffman into working with him and becoming his first apprentice. The two worked together to set up most of Jigsaw's tests and traps including the Razor Wire Maze and the Nerve Gas House. Also Hoffman planted the penlight that led people to believe Dr. Lawrence Gordon is Jigsaw and provided John with the files of the victims planned to be used in the Nerve Gas House.

Saw VI

John appears on the television screens for some of William Easton's tests including the Oxygen Crusher Room and Tara's Test but sometimes used Billy the Puppet or even microcassettes. After John's death, Mark Hoffman carried this out for him eventually but John planned on testing his insurer, William Easton, along with his associates. 

Saw VII

Lawrence Gordon is shown crawling out of the bathroom and looking for help. Later on, Mark Hoffman and Jill Tuck start to fight over John's legacy but eventually both lose in the end. 

Traps/Tests

Jigsaw usually builds various eloborate death traps which often hold a symbolic representation of what Jigsaw believes as a flaw in the person's life. Jigsaw believes each of his victim deserves a chance of survival, so he calls these "games" and tells the victim the "rules" usually by microcassette or videotape. These games often involved quick thinking, ethically difficult decisions, self mutilation or in some cases putting the victim through psychological trauma that Jigsaw would be present to view. Jigsaw intends through these traps to force his victims to prove to him that they are "worthy" and "deserving" to continue with their lives, and also for them to learn to abandon what he believes to be their vices. Jigsaw himself often expressed a desire for his victims to pass, but stressed that their fate was always in their own hands. 

Standard traps are devices or scenarios to a victim or victims, usually with the effect with causing serious physical harm or death if not removed by completing a given task before the time limit expires. Competition traps involves two or more victims who can survive these traps but only at the expense of their opponent's failure. Tests is where the victim are given rules, the outcome depends if the victim follows the rules and wins, or break the rules and loses. Losing often results in some sort of loss such as the death of a loved one. Trials are a series of tests that the victim must face while suffering psychological torture from the beginning up to the final test. The final test culminates in a final decision which will prove what the victim has learned from their trials. Security devices are designed to halt the progress of the victims and prevent them from proceeding, or to be used to protect Jigsaw and his apprentices from the police or other attackers.