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

[Kumorii]

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

hmmm? Are you sure?

Because I'm sure my post is pointing out that we do indeed not count murder as a mental disorder in of itself.

[Triceron]

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

Regardless of murder, would you consider this a normal course of action of a sane individual? Setting up elaborate 'survival traps' for the purpose of redeeming or killing individuals? There shouldn't be any question here. These are not considered rational actions, even if you personally want to rationalize it as common sense.

[YUPPIE]

Regardless of murder, would you consider this a normal course of action of a sane individual? Setting up elaborate 'survival traps' for the purpose of redeeming or killing individuals? There shouldn't be any question here. These are not considered rational actions, even if you personally want to rationalize it as common sense.

by your logic of common sense, anton chigurh to name another example, is also insane despite psychologists concluding he is completely lucid and aware. Just for the fact that the very fact someone that can murder so casually, despite having reasons, cannot be normal.

Or to name the ultimate example, ever: Palpatine, despite his logical pursuit of power, is absolutely batshit insane for having murdered trillions of people to achieve political influence

[TheFirstOnes]

Insane? Inherently, no. Does he have a god complex and is a bit hypocritical? Yes.

[Florena]

He's certainly delusional if he thinks what he's doing isn't murder or is actually helping anyone. But insane more in a comic book villain way than a realistic depiction.

[Bodakane]

hmmm? Are you sure?

Because I'm sure my post is pointing out that we do indeed not count murder as a mental disorder in of itself.

We consider the type of murder in question.....torturing people to death......a mental disorder.

I didn't realize I had to constantly qualify every statement I make to be specifically about the topic of thread, as that should be implied.

[Triceron]

by your logic of common sense, anton chigurh to name another example, is also insane despite psychologists concluding he is completely lucid and aware. Just for the fact that the very fact someone that can murder so casually, despite having reasons, cannot be normal.

John Kramer is not Anton Chigurh though.

What you're describing is psychopathy, and yes, there is a difference between psychopathy and insanity. I am not making a case where John Kramer is insane simply because he exhibits psychopathic behaviour, it is his methods that I call into question.

The difference is Anton Chigurh does not plan elaborate traps for his victims to allow them to live or die on their own hands. That type of methodology is what I'm considering irrational behaviour. Not that I condone murder itself as being rational, but there's a clear difference between how Anton goes about killing anyone who gets in his way, and how Jigsaw abducts and kidnaps people in order to 'play a game'.

[Kumorii]

We consider the type of murder in question.....torturing people to death......a mental disorder.

I didn't realize I had to constantly qualify every statement I make to be specifically about the topic of thread, as that should be implied.

Your statement was "murder is crazy", not "murder by torturing is crazy"... but thank you for clarifying, this changes things absolutely.
To me that's a general statement, not a specific one, hence the confusion.
I don't find anything about this thread or context that would imply when someone say "murder is crazy" they mean a particular type of murder though, but hey, now it's clarified.

[jackofwind]

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

I disagree pretty heavily - he's a tropey evil Batman. Not interesting at all.

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by your logic of common sense, anton chigurh to name another example, is also insane despite psychologists concluding he is completely lucid and aware. Just for the fact that the very fact someone that can murder so casually, despite having reasons, cannot be normal.

Or to name the ultimate example, ever: Palpatine, despite his logical pursuit of power, is absolutely batshit insane for having murdered trillions of people to achieve political influence

Go read an article on the definitions of psychotic vs psychopathic, there's your answer. People use the colloquial term "insane" for any number of mental issues so it's kind of a stupid question to pose, it's not binary.

[Queen of Hamsters]

He's deluded and I'd say a tad narcissistic to consider himself have the right to put people through that shit, but legally insane? No. In fact, so SO much of what mankind's done historically has come down to warped views and delusions, not ASPDs or legal insanity.

Same with Ted Kaczynski. He had warped ideals, believed himself to be correct and hurt people as a result. He was vehemently against being branded as legally insane and he didn't fit the definition.

I hate Jigsaw as a villain though, ngl. Them warping it further with "apprentices" creating traps that couldn't be escaped just further cemented it as gore porn.

[Coolthulhu]

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

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.

Pretty much this. Also, when in Saw he's told that he's "sick", he replies with "yes, I'm very sick, I'm sick of it all" or something like that. Could have been in reference to his physical sickness, to his sickness towards society, or most likely a combination thereof - the point being, there's rationality behind such an admission, and there's further acknowledgement on his part that he became obsessed, "changed" and so on (e.g. during the flashback interactions with his wife).
TL;DR "insanity" is not a clinical diagnosis, but I wouldn't call a self-aware and rational person "insane" - twisted, warped, sure, but not insane.

John Kramer is not Anton Chigurh though.

What you're describing is psychopathy, and yes, there is a difference between psychopathy and insanity. I am not making a case where John Kramer is insane simply because he exhibits psychopathic behaviour, it is his methods that I call into question.

The difference is Anton Chigurh does not plan elaborate traps for his victims to allow them to live or die on their own hands. That type of methodology is what I'm considering irrational behaviour. Not that I condone murder itself as being rational, but there's a clear difference between how Anton goes about killing anyone who gets in his way, and how Jigsaw abducts and kidnaps people in order to 'play a game'.

If memory doesn't fail me, Chigurh did the coin flip. Not very different from playing a game, and with no chance for "rehabilitation" - if I remember correctly, most if not all of the victims designated by Kramer were guilty of something, with some even realizing that, albeit too late (Saw V is perhaps the best example, all games being based on cooperation between the victims).

[Triceron]

If memory doesn't fail me, Chigurh did the coin flip. Not very different from playing a game, and with no chance for "rehabilitation"

Yes, he did do that once. I'm not going to defend this too much since I merely wanted to illustrate a difference in methodology. I'm not knowledgeable enough in psychology to properly associate such a nuance with insanity. What I see in Saw movies are clear to me that this is not rational behaviour, that's all I'm saying.

- if I remember correctly, most if not all of the victims designated by Kramer were guilty of something

Whether it's justified or not is not the point. It is still 'Cruel and unusual punishment' at a very extreme level. Beyond anything I would personally consider rational.

[Coolthulhu]

Yes, he did do that once. I'm not going to defend this too much since I merely wanted to illustrate a difference in methodology. I'm not knowledgeable enough in psychology to properly associate such a nuance with insanity. What I see in Saw movies are clear to me that this is not rational behaviour, that's all I'm saying.



Whether it's justified or not is not the point. It is still 'Cruel and unusual punishment' at a very extreme level. Beyond anything I would personally consider rational.

The Holocaust was perpetrated in a very rational and methodical way, though the motives behind it were not rational. Evil can be very rational, but being evil doesn't automatically translate to being insane as far as my acceptations of the term are concerned. Kramer believed, or told himself, that he was helping people, and admitted more than once that he "his world was shattered", warned his wife "never to come back because he was no longer the same man" - that's not the thought process of someone who, say, kills people "because the devil told him to do it" - now that's insanity. Even when nobody other than the insane person itself is hurt, that's insanity - the tragically real case of a guy who gouged his eyes out "because the devil (or god, I don't remember) told him to do it", now that's what I'd call insane, even if he didn't hurt anyone but himself. It's heavily implied that Kramer suffered from PTSD among the other things, but are PTSD sufferers insane? No, or rather, not automatically - most of them are simply ill.

[Triceron]

It's heavily implied that Kramer suffered from PTSD among the other things, but are PTSD sufferers insane? No, or rather, not automatically - most of them are simply ill.

Dressing up in a comic-book villain way and setting up elaborate 'traps' to show people how to appreciate life and redeem their qualities is absolutely not typical PTSD behaviour.

We're talking about two different things. Considering John Kramer is a fictional character who can be equated as an archetypical 'Batman Villain', I see this topic being addressed in a similar way. And there's a reason Arkham Asylum is a thing in the fictional DC universe.


Also, Holocaust is debateable as a 'rational' means of anything. I want to be clear that I don't view the holocaust as a good example of rationality. There is a difference in context of the word that I'm using, since I am not simply referring to John Kramer as being irrational, but that he is doing something well beyond rationality which borders on (if not clearly defined as) insanity.


I think that when regarding Jigsaw in particular, the best way to describe him is 'super sane', along the lines of the Joker. It's not quite insanity, yet too unstable to consider sane too.

[Florena]

Suffering from PTSD is not insanity, but dressing up in a comic-book villain way and setting up elaborate 'traps' to show people how to appreciate life and redeem their qualities is absolutely not typical of PTSD behaviour.

Again, we're talking about two different things. Considering John Kramer is a fictional character who can be equated as an archetypical 'Batman Villain', I see this topic being addressed in a similar way. And there's a reason Arkham Asylum is a thing in the fictional DC universe.


Also, Holocaust is debateable as a 'rational' means of anything. Although Hitler was never clinically considered insane, it's still absolutely debateable. Some say he's clinically sound of mind and that he was just evil, others say he was a paranoid schizophrenic. It's something that's still being argued today. But I want to be clear that I don't view the holocaust as a good example of rationality.

Yeah I find the batman villain comparison pretty apt. In fact I wouldn't have been shocked to have seen a character like jigsaw in an actual batman cartoon/comic. His gimmick would fit in very well with other comic book villains.

He's 'insane' in the same way that batman villains are insane. In a cartoonish way, not a realistic depiction.

[Bodakane]

Your statement was "murder is crazy", not "murder by torturing is crazy"... but thank you for clarifying, this changes things absolutely.
To me that's a general statement, not a specific one, hence the confusion.
I don't find anything about this thread or context that would imply when someone say "murder is crazy" they mean a particular type of murder though, but hey, now it's clarified.

My statement was in a fucking a thread about a specific topic and not on murder in general. You are playing lawyer ball and it is not my fault you fail at simple contextual concepts.

I mean my god, look at the fucking title and first post.

[Ivanstone]

Yes, he did do that once. I'm not going to defend this too much since I merely wanted to illustrate a difference in methodology. I'm not knowledgeable enough in psychology to properly associate such a nuance with insanity. What I see in Saw movies are clear to me that this is not rational behaviour, that's all I'm saying.
.

He did it twice. One for the shopkeeper, once for Carla Jean. The latter refused to make the call because it was insane.

[Coolthulhu]

Suffering from PTSD is not insanity, but dressing up in a comic-book villain way and setting up elaborate 'traps' to show people how to appreciate life and redeem their qualities is absolutely not typical of PTSD behaviour.

Again, we're talking about two different things. Considering John Kramer is a fictional character who can be equated as an archetypical 'Batman Villain', I see this topic being addressed in a similar way. And there's a reason Arkham Asylum is a thing in the fictional DC universe.


Also, Holocaust is debateable as a 'rational' means of anything. I want to be clear that I don't view the holocaust as a good example of rationality.

I'm not familiar with the DC universe at all so I can't really answer that. The way Kramer goes out of his way is clearly symptom of something other than just PTSD (god complex, anankastia), but PTSD is there too. It adds to the mix.

I picked the Holocaust as a prime example of rational evil by stealing the works of Primo Levi. I highly recommend reading his works if you're interested in the matter, especially this one which apparently has two different English titles so I'll just drop the wiki link.

[Triceron]

I'm not familiar with the DC universe at all so I can't really answer that. The way Kramer goes out of his way is clearly symptom of something other than just PTSD (god complex, anankastia), but PTSD is there too. It adds to the mix.

PTSD has no relevance to whether he is considered sane or insane. There exists both Sane and Insane people with PTSD. I mean you can link a potential psychosis or disorder to PTSD, but that's not what we're talking about. It's whether the character can be considered insane.

I picked the Holocaust as a prime example of rational evil by stealing the works of Primo Levi. I highly recommend reading his works if you're interested in the matter, especially this one which apparently has two different English titles so I'll just drop the wiki link.

I don't particularly find it relevant to the topic since what Jigsaw does in the films can not be definitively equated as being rational evil.

The holocaust was not exactly carried out by people dressing up in pig masks, using puppets and setting up elaborate 'escape room' style torture devices that allow the victim a chance to survive. Very different scenarios we're talking about here.

John Kramer pretended he was a bloodied suicide victim just to fool his other victims. This isn't rational or methodical behaviour, it's comicbook-level drama that can be considered to be highly irrational. I don't think there's a proper definition for this, and the closest is the 'super sane' explanation which fans have come up with to describe characters like the Joker.

He did it twice. One for the shopkeeper, once for Carla Jean. The latter refused to make the call because it was insane.

Still not sure that is a legitimate way to define whether he is actually insane or not.

[Kumorii]

My statement was in a fucking a thread about a specific topic and not on murder in general. You are playing lawyer ball and it is not my fault you fail at simple contextual concepts.

I mean my god, look at the fucking title and first post.

yikes, you sure do get worked up over nothing. And no, i'm not playing "lawyer ball" I gave you my point of view on murder in general based on what you said, then you clarified it and that's that.

Considering your emotional responses though I start to suspect you know it was poorly phrased and then tried to backpedal and somehow put the blame on someone else. Being overdefensive and aggressive like you are now over abso-fucking-lutely nothing is somewhat...crazy.
I mean, all you could've done is just "no, you missunderstood me, I meant this" and it would be all good...yet you gave an response which made no sense to my reply and I pointed that out, then you got mad for some reason. *shrug*

you do you though. Weird choice to be angry rather than just clarify something tbh.