Is John Kramer, AKA Saw's Jigsaw, insane?

[YUPPIE]

I'm trying to rationalize what insanity actually is using the famous Jigsaw from the Saw series as an example.

See, while it's easy to write him off as insane/crazy because of his philosophy and antics, it's the fact he is so smart and determined with conviction that calls it into question if he's really unaware of what (the suffering) is going on around him. He's completely convinced himself he's not evil or killed anyone, which does give credibility he is pretty out there in the head. However, the level of rationality and planning he displays means he could just be believably sane and therefore completely evil.

I think whether this man qualifies as anti-villain (note: not anti-hero; a full-fledged villain with pitiable or sympathetic motives) hinges on his debatable sanity.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

None of the saw movies ever frame him as going back on saying he doesn’t kill people so there’s no reason to think he was lying. He’s a crazy guy with a warped view of reality murdering people based on said warped view.

[Kumorii]

Severe case of god complex. Not sure if that is enough to be called insane though.

[StillMcfuu]

Snip.

What do you mean by Insane? The legal defense definition or a more dictionary definition?

Clearly he is the dictionary definition of insane which pretty much just requires a person to not act relatively normally. Kramer easily falls under that definition.
As it would go for a legal definition of insanity, I'd say no, definitely not. Kramer doesn't really fit that definition either, he knows what he is doing is wrong as he goes great lengths to not get caught.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If you go out of your way to secretly build a torture facility, spend hundreds to thousands of hours building and testing elaborate torture devices, and then identifying and kidnapping victims, just to run them through your heinous murder gauntlet, then yes you are batshit insane and evil.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

He's very clearly a Batman villain.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Insane covers a lot of territory. It's not a particularly precise descriptor. Yes, a guy who makes torture/murder traps is insane. A guy who thinks the world is made out of glazed donuts is also insane. They're radically different but both are covered by the word insane fairly well.

[Bodakane]

Yes. Full stop. No question. Its a dumb question to ask. Murder is crazy.

[YUPPIE]

Murder is crazy.

he vehemently denies he's a murderer though, claiming that everything is up to the person he puts in his technically survivable death traps.

i mean how much he believes in this idea is actually to a point he snatches up mark hoffman, a man that mimicked his motif to get murder revenge on someone, and go on a tirade of how wrong that and "murder" is

yes he's a weird cinema villain but he is pretty interesting

[Bodakane]

he vehemently denies he's a murderer though, claiming that everything is up to the person he puts in his technically survivable death traps.

i mean how much he believes in this idea is actually to a point he snatches up mark hoffman, a man that mimicked his motif to get murder revenge on someone, and go on a tirade of how wrong that and "murder" is

yes he's a weird cinema villain but he is pretty interesting

That's stupid. Sorry but it is. Putting people in the position to choose between being tortured and murdered or just tortured is batshit crazy. If anyone doesn't understand that, they need real help.

[delus]

He's a hypocrite. He tries to measure the worth of one life according to his own moral standards and even makes some kill as a test of their worth with little regard.for those who are being used to prove the worth of others. He has little logic to his methodology and as his disease progresses, it all falls apart with traps becoming increasingly difficult to survive.

[Kyphael]

Even if he isn't insane, he's still a criminal. While he technically doesn't kill anyone, he commits bodily harm on others by trapping them in life-threatening situations where if they don't in most cases, literally harm and mutilate their own bodies, they die, trapped in his contraptions. Last I checked, torture of any form was illegal.

As for insane? Well it's most simply defined as doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. While his methods have yielded what he'd consider a success, his track record is much less stellar, and even among survivors, 9 out of 10 hate what he did to them and don't find his method justifiable. He never killed anyone, but he might as well have pulled the trigger when he put the gun up to their head because most people would have preferred a quick death rather than being tortured to death.

[delus]

To be blunt, he's a psychopath with failing mental faculties.

[Sorshen]

Do you even need to ask?
Oh wait, it's a Tsugunai thread.

[kasuke06]

If you go out of your way to secretly build a torture facility, spend hundreds to thousands of hours building and testing elaborate torture devices, and then identifying and kidnapping victims, just to run them through your heinous murder gauntlet, then yes you are batshit insane and evil.

It was done with the intent of them surviving and bettering themselves for the trauma. Now the "disciples"... those people are fucked up.

[Kumorii]

Yes. Full stop. No question. Its a dumb question to ask. Murder is crazy.

Eh, I wouldn't say that murder is "crazy" except from a society point of view, and even then there are cases where it's accepted, death sentence for example.
Murder, or just killing someone of their own kind, is part of nature. Then we have the fact that we don't put murderers into a mental health hospital either because we clearly know it's not a sign of insanity, the rationality behind it is what makes a person insane or not.

[Fixxit the Gnome]

He convinces himself that he doesn't kill anybody, so I would argue he's not quite aligned with reality.

While technically true, he still is responsible for the people's death, since.. you know they wouldn't die if it weren't for him.


Though, Jigsaw is a good case study of the rationalization a villain goes through for their actions and their consequences.

[sam86]

I'm not sure why u even asking, are u relating to what he does in any form or something?
He isn't crazy, he is arkham asylum typical visitor, he makes half of batman villains look cute

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It was done with the intent of them surviving and bettering themselves for the trauma. Now the "disciples"... those people are fucked up.

It’s not even about bettering people every saw movie has people who get no choice in there survival and are just used as props for others.

[Bodakane]

Eh, I wouldn't say that murder is "crazy" except from a society point of view, and even then there are cases where it's accepted, death sentence for example.
Murder, or just killing someone of their own kind, is part of nature. Then we have the fact that we don't put murderers into a mental health hospital either because we clearly know it's not a sign of insanity, the rationality behind it is what makes a person insane or not.

You just told me murder isn't crazy, by pointing out its a mental disorder.