Saw: 5 Jigsaw Victims Who Should’ve Lived (& 5 Who Deserved Their Fate)

Under the belief that some people don’t appreciate their lives until they’re put into life-or-death situations, John Kramer aka the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) sticks them in deadly traps where they have to fight to stay alive. This is the basic premise of the Saw movies, which will continue after a long hiatus in Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

Over the course of eight horror movies, Jigsaw put countless people to his brutal tests, but not all of them should’ve been there. Sure, some were horribly irredeemable monsters from the get go, but others just did something questionable at the wrong place and time. With that being said, here are five Jigsaw victims who didn’t deserve their fate and five more who did.

10 DESERVED THEIR FATE: Almost Everyone In Saw IV

Part of the reason why the Saw sequels declined in critical reception was because it was getting difficult to care for those in the traps. In fact, Saw 3D had Neo-Nazis whose gruesome deaths inspired more cheers than tears. This turning point was made clearest in Saw IV, where almost every victim Rigg encountered was an outright terrible person.

These victims include: a remorseless pimp, a serial rapist, and an abusive husband. Jigsaw’s previous victims may have been shady but they’d be on the grayer center of a morality alignment chart. These guys were clearly in the darker side of things.

9 DIDN’T DESERVE IT: Timothy Young & Ryan (Saw III & Jigsaw)

Not all of Jigsaw’s victims regret their transgressions, but Timothy and Ryan are exceptions by coincidentally similar circumstances. Both caused fatal car accidents and got away blameless, but their guilty consciences haunted them relentlessly. Some fans interpret Timothy’s being a medical student as his attempt to redeem himself, while Ryan is the only one to express genuine remorse in Jigsaw’s line-up of unlikable victims.

For their accidental sins, Timothy dies on The Rack (one of Saw’s most brutal traps) while Ryan bleeds to death in a sealed room, which is one of the series’ slowest deaths. Whatever lessons Jigsaw taught them, they already learned through their guilt.

8 DESERVED THEIR FATE: William Easton (Saw VI)

Many of Jigsaw’s victims are despicable, but none are as heartless as William Easton, an uncaring healthcare representative who Jigsaw concluded was as cold and cruel as he was. If there’s anyone who really needed a Saw-styled learning, it was this man.

But surprisingly, William is actually the rare main victim who learned their lesson. By Saw VI’s end, the once amoral executive is reduced to a begging wreck who understands the gravity of determining a life’s worth through policies and algorithms. He just needed to see some brutal deaths first. Too bad that didn’t save him from death by hydrofluoric acid.

7 DIDN’T DESERVE IT: Daniel Rigg

A common joke among Saw fans is that the cops really suck. In fact, the few competent ones (ex. Det. Eric Matthews, Det. Allison Kerry, and Agent Peter Strahm) all suffer horrible fates because they were doing their jobs too well. But the one cop who deserved it the least was SWAT officer Daniel Rigg.

What was Rigg’s crime? Why, he’s too much of a hero, of course. At least Matthews was a dirty if sympathetic cop, while Kerry and Strahm were killed for getting too close. Rigg was a short-tempered officer who just wanted to save as many people as he could – something apparently worth chastising through a multi-leveled game.

6 DESERVED THEIR FATE: Bobby Dagen (Saw 3D)

In the Saw series, Jigsaw’s massacre is the most infamous crime spree ever seen. Instead of feeling fear of legitimate pity for the victims, Bobby Dagen uses the crisis as a meal ticket by pretending to be a Jigsaw survivor.

After raking in fame and fortune for his Saw fanfiction, Bobby is thrown into an actual Jigsaw game where he can basically LARP it. To his credit, he exerts all effort in trying to save his friends and wife, but that doesn’t justify him being a sleazy crisis opportunist.

5 DIDN’T DESERVE IT: Lynn Denlon & Joyce Dagen (Saw III & Saw 3D)

Talk about being dragged down by your husband’s failure as a person. This is the grim fate of both Lynn Denlon and Joyce Dagen, wives who were subjected to grim ends because of their respective problematic partners. Lynn is forced to operate on a terminally ill Jigsaw due to her connection with his latest subject, Jeff. Meanwhile, Joyce is taken hostage because she’s married to a conman.

For their troubles, they suffer some of the grisliest fates in the franchise. Lynn’s head gets blown off by the shotgun collar thanks to Jeff’s stupidity. Joyce is burned alive in the Brazen Bull, one of the most needlessly brutal traps in Saw history, when Bobby fails to recreate the final trap he made up.

4 DESERVED THEIR FATE: Jeff Denlon (Saw III)

Jeff Denlon is probably the franchise’s least liked protagonist. To be fair, his mean-spirited demeanor has a logical origin, that being the tragic death of his son and the ensuing miscarriage of justice. However, Jeff’s refusal to find a way forward leads to self-destruction and turns him into a black hole of endless hatred.

When presented with the chance to forgive those in Jigsaw’s traps, he gloats before even thinking about helping them. It’s difficult for even the most hardcore Saw fans to feel bad for Jeff when he fails the final test and finds himself in another game… only to get unceremoniously shot by Agent Strahm in Saw IV.

3 DIDN’T DESERVE IT: Amanda (Saw, Saw II, Saw III)

Hear us out: Amanda was as much a victim as she was a ruthless killer. As a recovering drug addict who was framed for a crime, Amanda had the cards stacked against her before waking up in the reverse bear trap. Her surviving worked a bit too well, and she saw Jigsaw as the father figure she never had. Desperate for affirmation and meaning, she did everything to gain the demented serial killer’s approval but failed at every turn.

This led to her downward spiral in Saw III, where she dies after failing another game and realizing how empty Jigsaw’s philosophy is. Whereas the other apprentices got some satisfaction from their work, Amanda was a tragic villain who never found what she wanted or needed. That, and she didn’t deserve to get thrown into the needle pit in Saw II.

2 DESERVED THEIR FATE: Marc Hoffman (Saw VI & Saw 3D)

If Amanda’s apprenticeship under Jigsaw turned into a curse, Marc Hoffman saw things differently. Hoffman enjoyed the power that being the new Jigsaw gave him, and it could be said that he orchestrated his games for his own enjoyment.

Hoffman also became (in)famous for evading justice at every turn, to the point where he began to resemble a cartoon villain instead of a serial killer. At least that was until Saw VI and Saw 3D, where he finally got his just desserts twice.

First, Jill Tuck sticks him in a reverse bear trap that he only narrowly escapes. Then, Dr. Gordon inherits Jigsaw’s real legacy by trapping Hoffman in the same bathroom where he sawed his foot off. With Hoffman’s massive bodycount and boundless sadism, dying slowly and helplessly in the long cold dark is a fitting end.

1 DIDN’T DESERVE IT: Adam Stanheight (Saw)

It’s been argued that many of Jigsaw’s victims deserved their fates, but that can’t be said for those in the first movie. Adam, the second main victim, may have been a shady photographer but he was just a regular guy who didn’t deserve a fate worse than death.

Not only does he forge a real bond with Dr. Gordon, but he survives and passes Jigsaw’s test. By Jigsaw’s own rules, Adam shouldn’t have been left to die in the bathroom but this is his fate nonetheless. Knowing this only makes Adam’s panicked screaming over Saw’s ending credits more harrowing and chilling than they already are. Amanda performing a mercy kill on him (as revealed in Saw III) is the only bright spot in his fate.

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