#saw analysis

he talks about how, "Money is not an issue.", he is implied to be letting Amanda stay with him in a deleted scene (aka he has to provide for another person), he has enough money to BUILD all his traps (also shown through the fact that doesn't Hoffman literally just use the traps john already made majority of the time??), he even has enough money to cover all his tracks for months. Oh, not to mention, he can just plan to go to Mexico with a weeks notice. YES I'm aware he was desperate/dying, however a normal person who was dying of something would not have enough money to just fly to Mexico in a weeks notice. And pay the full 250k for the "surgery".

I know what you're already screaming to your screen about. "b-but miss3d-messages!!! I-I looked it up and it said civil engineers make 100k a year!!!" And well... You're completely correct. However, something that YOU fail to take into consideration, is the fact that it only shows how much it pays in 2025, friend. champ. good buddy. pal.

See, in 2004, when the first movie took place and the majority of the other films took place, civil engineers only made around 66k. Not enough to suddenly fly to Mexico, and not enough to have your own passion project of making extremely complex machinery strong enough to kill people. The math just isn't adding up, John.

Now, I know he's 52 when he dies, just enough time to move up in the ranks of being a civil engineer. However, you still gotta calculate in the fact the minimum for civil engineers was about 60k. Even if he was at the very top, the most he's getting is 100k/150k a year. A lot, but still not enough for all the machinery and the surgery in X.

So... I got to thinking. Just because he doesn't make enough money for all of that on his own, he could have help else where.

However, from here, it only got more complicated.

I thought, well, after his divorce with Jill, he could have gotten some funds from the clinic. However, he only came up with the slogan. He didn't contribute anything more and it didn't have his name on it anywhere. He still got estate, considering the barn in jigsaw, but it doesn't seem like money.

"Well, Hoffman/Lawrence/someone else could've chipped in. They both make good money." Correct! I've considered this, but theres still the complication that is they both joined later. Now, normally this wouldn't be any hiccup in this claim, but you have to understand that John kept the barn trap covered up for about 10 years before anyone other than Logan found out about it. Even Eleanor, the "Jigsaw fangirl" didn't know where one of the traps she owned was from. And she was all over the saw fan websites, so how did none of even his most dedicated fans find it out?? Sure, Jill's property could just be that hidden, but theres still a road to it. Theres also the possibility that John had enough money to detach himself completely from the incident. (theres also the chance the writers just lazily added the barn trap as one of his first ones just for jigsaw, but we're pretending like the cops simply didn't acknowledge this as the work of jigsaw at the time other than a writing mistake.) I think Hoffman/Lawrence helping with funds COULD be a possible thing later on, but John makes it clear he has enough funds on his own, so that wouldn't make sense for him to need help.

The thought that he could've stolen funds crossed my mind, but then I remembered he thought pretending to be sick to skip work was worth death so... I don't think that argument holds up too well here.

It's also possibly he could just be a REALLY good civil engineer, which could be just as likely, however I saw someone on reddit say he must be getting half a mil a year and... There's no way in hell in 2004 as a civil engineer.

I think it could be possible he just had lots of money in his emergency funds as to explain the trip to Mexico, but when you look at every single trap in every movie and every trap Eleanor had stored/traps that were lying around and never used in saw 3 in the area where Lynn/Amanda/John were at, that... All adds up in funds pretty quickly.

The most annoying thing is, the expenses for the traps could have easily been lessened by just... Making them less extreme. The most dramatic, emotionally impactful, and scary ones are easily the ones in one and two that are clearly low budget and so much more simplistic. (don't think deadly nerve gas would be very cheap, but hey! He could've been saving that one for a special occasion!!!)

Even Cecil's trap made sense for being later in the franchise.

So, I get pretty pissed at John for saying "everybody deserves a chance" straight to the man who lost everything. Like- if John had just fucked off, then Mark probably wouldn't have fallen into such a dark hole. Which could be said for all of his apprentices. I hate Hoffman, I do, but I do know that he is someone without something to live for. His sister was all he had.

go ahead and insult people’s intelligence, but I think that 90% of shitty behaviour comes down to effective propagandization rather than the individual’s faulty logic alone.

I don’t imply that accountability is unimportant, rather, I’m saying that machines at play within nationalism, capitalism, gender, etc. are large and multifaceted, older than any of us. it’s a miracle when people do manage to overcome the aforementioned propaganda. activism takes patience; winning john’s games also takes a special focus. benefit of the doubt that it’s worth it to engage rather than simply sit and die.

more often than not, assuming the world is inherently bad leads to inaction, compliance. you hear the tape and you’re too busy yelling “what the fcuk, no no no” to dismantle the machine.. but, that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction! John may be the protagonist.. but he is a villain, after all.

Thinking about the initial promise that Saw X would show us Amanda losing faith in John, and at first I thought that wasn't really focused on. But then I realized that what happened to Gabriela was the start of it. The fact that Cecilia killed Gabriela and then went on to win her game and survive probably left a real bad taste in Amanda's mouth, and even worse is the fact that Gabriela could have been saved. They could have broken out of their chains at any time and saved her but they didn't, because this was all part of John's game and nothing was going to stand in the way of its completion, including allowing a winning player to die and an innocent child to be roped in. Despite the "walking into the sunset" ending Saw X has the ending is not a triumph for Amanda. It's the beginning of her disillusionment to John's ideals and her belief that these games can't change or save anyone. And if we see Cecilia return, no doubt back to her old ways, I'm sure this will only reinforce Amanda's belief that people don't change

She was doomed by the narrative.

I definitely think she was jealous of Lynn, but she never hated her. She was constantly lashing out at her to put barriers in between them, considering 1. Literally every person Amanda has ever tried to help out in John's games ends up dead. It's no wonder she doesn't want to get attached to the woman she's planning to kill in the first place, it makes sense that the moment they actually start talking Amanda can only ever respond to her with vague answers and or basically just cussing her out.

2. Trying to seem "less emotional". As John states to Lynn, Amanda's emotional-ness make her weak. The one time she had to kill someone directly, Adam, she could only hold it over his head for 30 seconds, which, probably wouldn't have even killed him. (but enough on my "nooo haha you guys adam is so for real alive!" agenda..) She wants to show John that she's capable of being strong. Of not getting attached to, who Amanda thinks is the victim of the test.

Not to even mention Amanda seems overall harsher to Lynn when they are right in front of John... ahem.

Things changed the instant Lindsey was hurt. When she was in life-threatening danger and Jigsaw's little puppet got her hurt, everything fucking exploded. This was now a deeply personal investigation. Some could even call it vengeance, even if Lindsey states that Peter wasn't really a vengeful person. Lindsey was his whole motivation to kick shit off. It only doubled when he was almost killed himself. The root of this all was what he could've lost. He even died thinking Lindsey was dead. He went all out for her in the end. Even though it ended up being for nothing at all.