[Editorial] “I’ve never killed anyone”: The Hypocrisy of Jigsaw

What it costs to stand by your man, when that man is Jigsaw.

(This piece contains spoilers for the Saw franchise movies, the original (Saw, 2004) through the seventh installment, Saw 3D, 2010.)

Amanda Young and Jill Tuck are the stand-out women of the Saw franchise. They seem like complete opposites: Jill is pulled-together, self-assured, and wants to move on from the tragedies in her life. Amanda is a loose cannon, the only thing we can count on is her service to Jigsaw, and otherwise she is meant to seem like a disorganized, disoriented addict. They value different things about John - Amanda needs a leader and a teacher, and Jill wants a partner. But truly, Amanda and Jill have a lot in common. Because of their strong links to John, their paths cross frequently. They are both more loyal to Jigsaw/John Kramer than any of his other lackeys, and they both die because of it. They are Jigsaw’s go-tos, and he effectively sacrifices them. 

We don’t know much about Jill outside of her relationship to her husband. We do know she runs a health clinic, committed to treating drug addiction in particular. John seems to waver in his support of her efforts at the clinic - sometimes he is encouraging, sometimes he is trying to persuade her to give it up. John points out that the clinic is unsafe, and later, he claims it’s the wrong way to help people, that his way is better. However, this is all on top of a relationship history that we have not seen. As far as we can tell, Jill was happy to be married to John, until he started his criminal side-hustle. They were wedged apart, but clearly still love each other. 

 Amanda and Jill first meet when Amanda uses the clinic’s services. If Amanda had never gone to that clinic, her path would have never crossed with John’s. Amanda’s spiral began when she was set up by Detective Matthews. Her life before that time is a mystery to us. She says, “I was guilty of a lot of things,” but not the drug charge she was framed for. She begins using in jail, and her eventual drug addiction leads her to Jill’s health clinic, which subsequently lands her in Jigsaw’s trap. She wakes up in the reverse bear trap in the original Saw (2004), and we hear her say that she is grateful to John, that he helped her. From that point on, she is devoted to him.

Amanda is always searching for something - meaning, purpose, happiness - and both Jill and John try to offer her some help and guidance. Amanda receives practical, perhaps life-saving treatment from Jill at the health clinic, and spiritual, existential guidance (however twisted it may be) from John. 

But Amanda has a secret: she was involved in the loss of Jill and John’s unborn son Gideon. Amanda and fellow-clinic-user Cecil were trying to break into the clinic, and they caused the accident that led to Jill’s miscarriage. Neither Jill nor John know of Amanda’s involvement, and Amanda carries that secret shame. Some of her ride-or-die loyalty to John is out of guilt, and a desire to atone for her mistakes. 

After Jill lost her baby, a rift grew between her and John. They were processing their grief very differently, which led to a divorce. As Jill is fading from John’s life, Amanda is emerging as his trusted assistant. Amanda and Jill react to their own traumatic situations in different ways: Amanda wants to hurt, and becomes a murderer; Jill wants to heal, and continues the work of her clinic, trying to distance herself from her ex-husband’s actions as much as she can. What becomes clear is that John cannot function on his own - in fact, he has many followers - but more than that, he needs a woman at his side to be his partner and confidant. He does not make any of his male followers his right-hand man.  Jill is the love of his life, but she is quickly replaced with the sycophantic daughter figure of Amanda. 

When called upon, both Amanda and Jill are willing to be there for John. Jill is the definition of loyal when, after John’s death, she follows his instructions to set a series of traps, even though she has never been supportive of his killing games. She falls back on the love she has for her ex-husband, and that becomes her compass. Jill gains nothing by carrying out John’s plan, and she just as easily could have walked away or handed that box of instructions to the police. But because she supports John, she is murdered by the man he sent her to test. She dies as a direct result of her loyalty to John. (And because their fates can’t help but overlap, she dies in the reverse bear trap, originally meant for Amanda.)

Amanda is clearly dedicated to John, and very supportive of what he calls “his work.” She tries her best to keep him physically alive, reading medical textbooks and searching for cures. She is willing to commit murder not only to stay by his side, but also to preserve his opinion of her. Because of her devotion to John, she dies during one of his tests. He was testing her without her knowledge, and she was shot by another test subject. Even as Amanda was trying to save John’s life, he played with hers, and she didn’t even know it. 

Perhaps the most tragic detail is that John anticipated both their deaths, and had made contingency plans for each, seemingly with the same amount of emotional effort you would put into having a rain-delay plan for a picnic. 

 At the end of their lives, these two women, though different in values and personalities, became mirrors of one another. Amanda and Jill are different people, and have different reasons for their loyalty to particular versions of the same man. Jigsaw/John is the kind of personality that draws people in and demands sacrifice, and no one sacrificed as much as these two women. But they sacrificed themselves. Their tragic stories are some of the most emotional chapters of the whole franchise. 

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---