John Kramer

The Jigsaw Killer, commonly referred to as simply "Jigsaw", is a fictional character in the Saw franchise. Jigsaw made his debut as the primary antagonist in the first film of the series, Saw, and later Saw II, III, IV,V and VI. He is portrayed by American actor Tobin Bell.

Jigsaw, introduced in the series as John Kramer, was a civil engineer dying from an inoperable frontal lobe tumor that had developed from colon cancer. After a failed suicide attempt, Kramer experienced a new respect for his own life and set out to put others through similarly deadly tests, often a symbolic representation of what could be seen as a flaw in the person's life, to help them appreciate their own lives by testing their will to live through self-sacrifice. The Jigsaw name was given by the media for his practice of cutting puzzle pieces out of the flesh of those who failed his tests, symbolic of their missing survival instincts.

Saw
The Jigsaw Killer character was introduced in the 2004 film Saw through the character Dr. Lawrence 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 unsuccessful subjects, a practice explained in Saw II as reflecting each subject "was missing a vital piece of the human puzzle; the survival instinct". Throughout the first film, his identity remains uncertain; 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 Dr. 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 Dr. Gordon's, clownter sasquatch lines 1999 sasquatch lines 2020 sasquatch lines tergeist to traps a John Kramer, who spent the entire movie posing as a corpse to watch the test he created for Faulkner and Dr. Gordon.

Saw: The Videogame
Jigsaw is shown in television screens dressed in his signature robes setting up traps for people and preaching his lesson of life appreciation to them. He frequently advises and taunts Detective Tapp as he traverses through an abandoned insane asylum, usually through Billy the Puppet.

Saw II
Much of the character's backstory was revealed in Saw II, revealing that he had become sick and had gone in for a medical examination, where he learned from Dr. Lawrence Gordon that he was dying of colon cancer, with an inoperable brain tumor. At this point, he stated that he began to see how many people took their lives for granted. He drove himself off of a cliff but survived the suicide attempt, and subsequently began his "work" to save people from themselves. Though he never claimed nor encouraged the name, Kramer's work eventually earned him the nickname The Jigsaw Killer, in spite of the circumstances and intentions he had while conducting his work; he did not consider himself to be a "killer" or "murderer". This is because rather than killing his victims outright, he trapped them in situations which he called "tests" or "games", in order to test their instinctual will to live versus physical or psychological torture.

In Saw II, Jigsaw leaves a hint in one of his traps that leads police to apprehend him. There, he puts police Detective Eric Matthews through a test by showing him Matthews' son Daniel trapped in a house filled with nerve gas, along with people whom, though far from innocent, Matthews had framed for crimes they did not commit. Jigsaw offers to let the younger Matthews survive if the Detective sits and talks to him, which ends with Eric brutally beating Jigsaw and forcing him to lead him to the house. Upon their arrival, Jigsaw is rescued by Amanda Young, one of his victims (introduced previously in Saw) who, having survived her trap and seeing her captor as a savior, has become his apprentice.

Saw III
By Saw III, a dying Jigsaw is bedridden and extremely concerned over Amanda Young's failure to allow her subjects a fair chance to survive her tests. In his desperation, Jigsaw administers a final test to Young, in order to see if she was truly capable of successfully carrying on his work. Being kept alive by Dr. Lynn Denlon, a test subject who is forced to perform brain surgery on Jigsaw at the risk of dying by her own trap, Jigsaw attempts to keep Young from failing her test. However, after she breaks down, Young shoots Dr. Denlon. Witnessing this, Jeff Reinhart, Dr. Denlon's vengeful husband who is also being tested, kills Young with a gunshot to her neck. After explaining the rules of a final game to Reinhart, Jigsaw is mortally wounded when Reinhart slices his throat with a power saw. As he dies, Jigsaw pulls out a tape player and plays a recording explaining that he is responsible for the abduction of Corbett, Reinhart's daughter, and that if he wants her back he'll have to participate in another game.

Saw IV
While Jigsaw appears as a corpse in the present at the beginning and end of Saw IV, a tape found in his stomach during his autopsy assures Lieutenant Mark Hoffman that his games have just begun. During the autopsy, it was revealed that Kramer was 52 at the time of his death.

Saw IV also explored Jigsaw's history, more so than previously done in Saw II, rendering some of the content in Saw: Rebirth (a one-shot comic published in 2005) non-canon, instead showing a new back story. From the story given in Saw IV, Kramer was a successful civil engineer who got into property development, and was a devoted husband to his wife Jill; she ran a recovery clinic for drug users, to which he gave his belief, "Cherish Your Life". However, after a robbery and the reckless actions of a clinic patient named Cecil Adams resulted in the loss of the Kramers' unborn child, John became detached and angry, which eventually caused their divorce. After being diagnosed with cancer as first seen in Saw II, and trying to kill himself, Kramer began his work as Jigsaw, hunting down Adams as his first test subject.

Saw V
Jigsaw reappears in Saw V, in flashbacks meeting with Hoffman, attacking and kidnapping Paul Leahy, then setting up and later watching his razor wire trap from Saw, as well as setting up the house of Saw II. He is shown on his deathbed talking to Hoffman about setting up a test, which leads Hoffman to exit the room as Young enters with Dr. Denlon, which occurs near the beginning of Saw III. Jigsaw also appears in a video will to his ex-wife Jill Tuck-Kramer, leaving her a mysterious box. His deceased body is shown several times during the start of the movie, which was also the end of Saw IV, an opening scene in which Peter Strahm receives his first cassette tape, and a flashback which occurs to Strahm later in the film.

Saw VI
Jigsaw appears in flashbacks in the film. One flashback set prior to the events of the first film showed that it was Amanda Young who sent Adams to Jill Kramer's clinic to steal drugs for her. This resulted in Jill's miscarriage, and thus Young was revealed to be an indirect cause of John Kramer's transformation into Jigsaw. Further flashbacks set prior to the events of the first film reveal that Jigsaw targeted William Easton for one of his games because William, without any sensitivity, had denied him health coverage after he developed cancer. In the present time of Saw VI, Kramer shows himself on video twice to Easton instead of the Billy Puppet (the method Kramer usually used to speak to his subjects), so Easton could look in the eyes of someone he let die. In another flashback, this time set between the events of the first and second film, Jigsaw explains to his ex-wife that his "rehabilitation" works, showing Amanda Young as supposed evidence of this. A flashback set just before the events of the third and fourth films explores the group dynamic between Jigsaw, Amanda Young and Hoffman. Jigsaw criticises Hoffman for not seeing the test subjects as human beings and also critiques his approach to setting up Timothy Young's trap. It was also shown that Jigsaw seemed to have had a closer emotional attachment to Amanda Young than Hoffman. Shortly afterward, Jigsaw gave his ex-wife the key which she later used to open the box he gave her in his will in Saw V). In the present time of Saw VI, it is revealed that the box contained six envelopes (marked 1 through 6), a thicker envelope, and an updated version of the "Reverse Bear Trap". She gave Hoffman envelopes 1 through 5, but hid everything else from him and later delivered the thick envelope to an unknown person. Envelope 6 was meant only for Tuck-Kramer, instructing her to trap Hoffman and put the "Reverse Bear Trap" on him so he could be "tested". This fulfilled the promise made, via the audio tape discovered in the stomach of Jigsaw's corpse, that Hoffman would not go untested.