Jigsaw (Saw character)

Tobin Bell holds a Jigsaw action figure at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, July 2010

John Kramer—known as The Jigsaw Killer or simply Jigsaw—is a fictional character who appears in the Saw franchise as the main antagonist.

Jigsaw made his appearance in the first movie of the series, Saw, and he later appeared in Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D and, eventually, Jigsaw. He is played by American actor Tobin Bell.

Jigsaw ranks No. 30 in Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters" list.

Background

In the series' narrative, Kramer is a former civil engineer dying from an inoperable frontal lobe tumor that had developed from colon cancer. After a failed suicide attempt, Kramer found a new appreciation for his life, and went to dedicate the rest of his life to inspiring the same appreciation in others by testing their will to live.

Tests

His methods include forcing his subjects through deadly scenarios, which he referred to as "games" or "tests", in which they were forced to inflict pain upon themselves or others in order to escape. These tests were typically symbolic of what Jigsaw perceived as a flaw in each person's moral character or life. The Jigsaw name was given to him by the media for his practice of cutting a puzzle piece shape of flesh from those who fail.

His videos are recorded with a cheap homemade camera with Billy the Puppet instructing the subjects what to do to live.

Other websites

• Jigsaw character description in the Saw video game Archived 2009-07-09 at the Wayback Machine