John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, is a unique horror movie villain, but the Saw franchise includes one flaw in the entire logic of his motivations. It wasn’t until the iconic ending of Saw that Tobin Bell’s John Kramer revealed himself as Jigsaw, the puppet master behind all of the twisted games.

From there, the Saw franchise continued to explore his sadistic philosophy of making people appreciate the life they were squandering by putting them through horrific tests. While many other horror movie villains are sadistic and cruel in killing their victims, Jigsaw insists that he is trying to help people.

There is even a suggestion in the first movie that he is not a serial killer because he always gives his victims a chance to survive. While there are some problems with that logic as well, there is an even more glaring issue with some of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅly Saw traps that contradicts the supposed mission of Jigsaw.

Jigsaw Wants People To Choose Live Or Die But Doesn’t Give Everyone That Chance

Some Of Jigsaw’s Victims Had Their Fates Decided For Them

John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, sees himself as a benevolent figure who gives people the opportunity to correct their lives and prove that they want to live. Of course, he does this by putting them through tests that will force them to endure considerable pain in order to survive.

One of the earliest and best examples of this is Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) choosing to saw off his own foot to escape the chains in the first Saw movie. However, several examples suggest Jigsaw didn’t always give his victims the chance to escape death.

The famous reverse bear trap in Saw shows Amanda (Shawnee Smith) able to escape the grisly trap by finding a key inside the stomach of a body in the room with her. However, the man is shown to still be alive, meaning that he was not given the option to save himself and was simply used as an expendable tool in Amanda’s game.

Similarly, Saw III finds Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), given the option of saving the people responsible for his son’s death or saving them from the traps. Several of them end up dying with their fate in Jeff’s hands rather than their own. It is a noticeable flaw that suggests, despite Jigsaw’s intricate traps, he didn’t put much consideration into how they reflect his mission.

The Franchise Even Points Out When Jigsaw’s Apprentices Do This

Jigsaw Is Shown To Be Against Senseless Killing

It might be easy to explain away Jigsaw’s lapse in logic by suggesting that he doesn’t actually care about saving these people and simply uses it as an excuse to conduct these gruesome games. However, the Saw franchise repeatedly proves this to be untrue as Jigsaw’s apprentices, introduced in later movies, are chastised and punished by Jigsaw himself for making traps that they know the victims will be unable to escape.

Amanda and Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) each take the tenets of Jigsaw’s mission and use them to be cruel and murderous to people as they wish. In both cases, Jigsaw is shown to be disgusted by their actions. Saw X shows John Kramer in the most sympathetic light, including a moment in which he, being held at gunpoint, insists they need to get medical attention for a victim who managed to survive his test.

These moments show that Jigsaw is completely devoted to his mission to help people “save themselves” and that he truly cares about whether they live or die. That makes it all the more evident that these previous victims, who were not given a choice in the matter, were errors in the logic of the storytelling.

While every movie can make mistakes, looking back on the Saw movies, this feels like a big one that puts Jigsaw’s entire mission into question while making the character less of a brilliant mastermind.