Charismatic Megafauna

What this implies:

- Hoffman is grasping for control

- He wants to run the show his way, not John’s

What it doesn’t imply:

- He’s rigging traps

Why? Because both John and Amanda are fully aware that Hoffman has been messing with the Rack (John’s favourite trap, mind you), and while Amanda is very happy to point that out, neither she nor John tell him to undo any of his changes. Quite the opposite, in fact; Amanda actually selects the correct grease for him just to prove she’s the more knowledgable (and therefore more worthy) apprentice. The whole thing is nothing more than a dick-waving contest.

This scene is not about rigging traps.

I started writing out a reply to @voidfluid and it really got away from me, so I’m adding it as a reblog instead:

I think it’s a bit of both. Hoffman clearly resents being under John’s control, but I think there’s an argument to be made that he’s also found purpose in doling out what he sees as “true justice”. (His speech to the precinct in V is basically his mission statement as Jigsaw.)

Unlike John, Hoffman doesn’t care whether trap victims are ‘rehabilitated’ — He’s just there to make sure they suffer for their crimes. That’s why any time we see Hoffman make a Jigsaw trap without John’s involvement (Pendulum, Pound of Flesh, Horsepower), the victims are always very much guilty of something: murder, extortion, and neo-Naziism respectively.

With that said, there’s definitely some serious conflict there. Hoffman is all about vengeance and punishment. He can’t stand the idea that people like Seth Baxter might avoid facing the consequences of their actions. That’s what drives him, and John is very careful to exploit this in order to recruit him. However, he’s visibly disturbed by Seth’s execution, and despite his desensitisation to the extreme violence of Jigsaw work and his severe emotional repression under John’s insistent ‘guidance’, he still can’t look at a trap going off.

Given that conflict and his underlying resentment, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that Hoffman might abandon the Jigsaw mantle once John’s work is done. At first glance, the Pound of Flesh trap seems to contradict that. He’s clearly experimenting with running the operation without John at the helm — But he’s also closely examining the results. (“You didn’t cut your own arm off?” “I did… He wanted us to learn a lesson.” “And did you?”) I don’t think he’s just being creepy during this conversation with Simone. I think he’s genuinely probing the validity of John’s claims and finding them to be false.

Middle American Gopher Snake (Pituophis lineaticollis), family Colubridae, Valles centrales de Oaxaca, México