Jigsaw and Accomplices (John Kramer) | Other Antagonists | Law Enforcement (Metropolitan Police Department) | Other Characters (I-III, IV-VI, 3D-X)
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Federal Bureau of Investigation:
In General
- FBI Agent: A given for most members, since it's the actual agency as depicted in the films.
- Police Are Useless: Played with. Alongside the Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI isn't necessarily incompetent and is always active in the Jigsaw case (at least until the events of Saw 3D), but they never manage to capture any of the Jigsaw killers and accomplices they know about (only getting their corpses after being killed by someone else), or even discover certain Closed Circles like the Nerve Gas House (which includes the infamous Bathroom) and the barn (which somehow went unnoticed for over a decade).
Peter Strahm
Peter Strahm
"We're here to help find who your department couldn't, detective: the one helping Jigsaw and Amanda Young."
Played By: Scott Patterson
Appearances: Saw IV | Saw V
A special agent assigned to work with the local police on the Jigsaw case. He has a prominent role in Saw IV, and is the protagonist of V.
- Arch-Enemy: To Hoffman. Strahm was the first law enforcement officer to figure that Hoffman is a Jigsaw apprentice. While their fight lasts for little more than one film, with Hoffman being the winner by getting Strahm killed and framed for a while, Perez and Erickson eventually become suspicious of Hoffman too, and pursue him during the investigation of Strahm's death and the reopening of the case regarding Hoffman's first victim.
- Ascended Extra: Strahm was introduced as a supporting character in Saw IV, then became the lead protagonist of V.
- Captain Obvious: He spends much of his screen time in Saw V telling the audience what he sees and stating things that are already quite apparent.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Subjected to The Walls Are Closing In, and unlike most cases, there's not a damn thing he can do to get out of it. It results in him being slowly, agonizingly crushed, a death so horrific Hoffman has to look away.
- Deadpan Snarker: Especially in his interrogation scenes with Jill.Strahm: Okay, let's review. Girl loves boy, boy loves girl, boy gets girl pregnant, girl loses baby, boy turns into a serial killer... Jill... I'm not buying it.
- Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Hoffman attempted to use him for this in Saw VI, using one of Strahm's hands to leave fingerprints on evidence. It failed, as Erickson determines that Strahm was Dead All Along due to DNA analysis.
- Decoy Protagonist: He had a major role in IV and was upgraded to being the protagonist of V. He is built up to be the main hero of the series' arc centered on Hoffman, but he's killed at the end of the film.
- Defiant to the End: He spends his last moments fruitlessly trying to escape as the walls close in around him, while also promising to bring Hoffman to justice.
- Determinator: At the beginning of V, he escapes an "inescapable" trap with a tracheotomy.
- Good Is Not Nice: He's one of the more genuine heroic characters, but has a temper and can be a Jerkass. Given the circumstances of the Jigsaw case that he's put into, this is justified.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: A mostly posthumous example, as Hoffman attempts to frame him throughout V and VI by pointing evidence towards Strahm and using one of his detached hands to leave fingerprints behind. This doesn't work, and he's presumably cleared from having been involved with Jigsaw.
- Improvisational Ingenuity: At the beginning of Saw V, Strahm wakes up after being knocked out by Hoffman, and finds himself in one of Jigsaw's traps: his entire body is able to move except for his head, which is sealed from the neck up in a glass cube that's quickly filling with water. Since both Jigsaw and Hoffman designed the trap with the intention of executing anyone in it, there's no built-in way to survive, and Strahm is supposed to drown. But Strahm reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pen, unscrews it to take it apart (all while he's on the verge of drowning, keep in mind), and gives himself an Impromptu Tracheotomy with the pen's tubing, allowing him to finally breathe. The look on Hoffman's face when he tells the cops outside that no one but him made it out of the meatpacking plant, only to turn around and see Strahm alive and kicking, is absolutely priceless.
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: Strahm escapes from an inescapable drowning trap by performing tracheotomy with a pen.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he can be snide and a dick to other characters, he clearly cares about his partner agent Perez, especially when she is wounded by a trap, and ultimately just wants to catch the Jigsaw disciples.
- Killing in Self-Defense: In Saw IV, he shoots Jeff to death just as he's about to shoot him when he asks him about his daughter.
- Leeroy Jenkins: His Hot-Blooded nature and impulsiveness have him often charge into danger without fully assessing the situation. This gets him killed.
- The Men in Black: Played with in Saw IV. Strahm's uniform consists of a black suit and white shirt with a black tie, and while he never acts particularly sinister, is impatient with the Metropolitan Police Department over their failures in catching Jigsaw, and isn't pleased to see that Kerry, who served as an informant to him and Perez, was killed.
- Motifs: He seems to be heavily associated with imagery related to glass or glass shards. Brenda getting shoved into a mirror, causing it to shatter into pieces, serves as a Seamless Scenery transition into Strahm's Establishing Character Moment scene in Saw IV, Perez nearly winds up killed by a glass shrapnel-spraying pipe bomb under Strahm's watch in the same film, and the two traps he winds up involved with in V (the Water Cube and the Glass Coffin) are both constructed almost entirely out of glass.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: In Saw IV, as soon as Jeff points Amanda's pistol at him, Strahm repeatedly shoots Jeff in quick succession until he falls to the ground.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job shoving Hoffman into the glass box, Strahm!
- Properly Paranoid: Even before really investigating Hoffman, he's already incredibly wary of him and his department being corrupt bastards. As later flashbacks prove, he is completely right to be paranoid.
- Sanity Slippage: He undergoes a brief one after Perez is critically injured, where he goes from simply being smug as he's interrogating Jill to becoming a Rabid Cop as he desperately demands where the games are being held. At one point he either pulls a gun on her, or at least imagines himself doing so.
- The Smart Guy: Strahm is set up as being smarter and more competent in the investigations than all the law enforcement officers prior. Unfortunately for him, things with the other cops (including fellow agent Perez) and later his psyche get out of hand so thoroughly that even with his intelligence, the situation overwhelms him a good deal between the events of Saw IV and V. His accomplishments include the following:
- As the first who rules out that Amanda wasn't solely responsible for putting Kerry in the Angel Trap and that John couldn't have assisted her due to his condition at the time, he makes it clear within the first moments of his introduction that he deduces Jigsaw must have a second apprentice beyond Amanda.
- He figures out that the Urban Renewal Group's motto "four walls build a home" could reference the Gideon Meatpacking Plant, and proceeds to go there.
- Initially, he shows some disdain for Hoffman due to his manners and conduct. While said disdain could be out of instinct, he quickly figures out after the events at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant that Hoffman is the second Jigsaw apprentice he's looking for, as he finds the reasons Hoffman gives for his "survival" rather bland.
- He's able to put together the traps and crime scenes that Hoffman was involved in by just looking closely at details that wouldn't be suspicious in general.
- Squashed Flat: His fate in the Glass Coffin's room, shown in excruciating and painful detail.
- Taken Off the Case: After getting out of the meatpacking plant alive and arguing with Hoffman over Perez's supposed last words (which led Strahm to become suspicious of Hoffman), Strahm is taken off the case on the order of Erickson, after which he goes to investigate about and pursue Hoffman on his own.Strahm: Jigsaw's dead! How many lives did I inevitably save?
Erickson: By endangering yourself and others? You're off the case.
Strahm: On whose orders?
Erickson: Mine. I'm sorry, Peter. It's over. - Too Dumb to Live: Strahm should have listened to Jigsaw's recorded warning of continuing on. He winds up put in the Water Cube by Hoffman, but miraculously manages to survive. He doesn't learn his lesson in the end, however, because he doesn't bother listening to Hoffman's own recording, and ends up crushed to death for it.
- Unwitting Pawn: While there are a bunch of these in the series, Strahm is the most blatant example.
- White Shirt of Death: Subverted and inverted in Saw V.
- The subversion happens at the beginning of the film when Strahm gets abducted by Hoffman and is put in a trap meant to be inescapable. His white shirt at the time gets stained in blood, but he survives the trap long enough to be rescued afterwards.
- The inversion happens at the end of the film, where Strahm, with the black T-shirt that he wore for most of the movie, suffers one of the series' most gruesome deaths in the Glass Coffin's room.
Lindsey Perez
Lindsey Perez
"He was my partner for five years. I mean, we all knew he was a bit of a hothead, but I never saw any indication of psychotic behavior."
Played By: Athena Karkanis
Appearances: Saw IV | Saw VI
Strahm's partner and a supporting protagonist in Saw IV. She's seemingly killed or left permanently incapacitated during the events of the film, but makes a sudden return in Saw VI as one of the main protagonists.
- Defiant to the End: Hoffman demands she tells him more about what the police know of him, but she simply mocks him before dying.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: In Saw VI, she gets a subtle one as her last words. Once Hoffman is outed as being the wanted second Jigsaw apprentice and the one who tried to frame Strahm as being said apprentice before he died, he goes on an absolute rampage and kills the people with him in the FBI's technical lab, ending it with Perez. He stabs her constantly while asking her who else knows that it's been him all along, to which Perez simply replies, "Everyone." Hoffman tried to frame her partner of five years for heinous crimes, even using his severed hand to try and pull it off, and Perez's last act, now content in the knowledge that Strahm was innocent, is letting Hoffman know that every law enforcement agency in the city will be out for his head.
- Faking the Dead: Perez was alive and well during the events of V but ordered to stay low to avoid Jigsaw's attention. To be specific, she and Erickson were already on to Hoffman through Jeff's daughter, Corbett, informing the police of his untrustworthiness.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Hoffman does her in.
- Mistaken for Related: A single-receptor variant involving multiple relatives in Saw IV. In his last meeting at the police station with Strahm and Perez before the film's main game begins, Hoffman shows up carrying a teddy bear (which actually belongs to Corbett Denlon). Looking at the teddy bear, Perez assumes that Hoffman has a wife and a child, which he denies as being a "short story".Perez: I didn't know you were married.
Hoffman: I'm not. It's a short story, believe me. - Too Dumb to Live: Despite knowing they're dealing with a Serial Killer specializing in homemade traps, she leans her face toward a suspicious-looking Billy and gets a face full of shrapnel for it.
Dan Erickson
Dan Erickson
"We got it. This is our smoking gun."
Played By: Mark Rolston
Appearances: Saw V | Saw VI
A special agent and the superior of Perez and Strahm. He is a supporting character in Saw V, and one of the main protagonists of Saw VI.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In a non-trap example in Saw VI, he has his jugular vein cut out by Hoffman and is left writhing on the floor. After killing Perez and Sachi, Hoffman then douses him with gasoline and burns him and the whole room down.
- Police Are Useless: Averted. He buys into the deception Strahm is the new Jigsaw killer for about five minutes before plotting against the real mastermind.
- Properly Paranoid: Having known Strahm for years and the suspicious circumstances surrounding the cases that Strahm was re-investigating, he was wary of Hoffman before the latter began framing Strahm.
- Slashed Throat: Courtesy of Hoffman.
- Taken Off the Case: He takes Strahm off the Jigsaw case when he visits him at the beginning of Saw V.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite being fully aware that he's in the presence of a very dangerous and intelligent Serial Killer, he isn't prepared at all for how Hoffman might react to being uncovered on the spot, unlike Perez. As a result, Hoffman easily gets the drop on Erickson before he can join the ensuing fight with Perez.
Cowan
Cowan
"There you are, Strahm."
Played By: Sheila Shah
Appearances: Saw V
A special agent seen in Saw V who serves as a switchboard operator and technical analyst in Erickson's unit. When he becomes suspicious of Strahm, Erickson orders Cowan to track him down.
- No Full Name Given: Only her surname is known.
Sachi
Sachi
Played By: Ginger Busch
Appearances: Saw VI
"Whoever made this tape had access to some very impressive audio filtration equipment. Fortunately, we have some tricks of our own here."
A tech lab technician who works at the FBI's local lab in the city where the series takes place. She only appears in a single scene in Saw VI.
- Human Shield: Hoffman was quick to use Sachi as one the moment his identity as a Jigsaw apprentice was revealed, specifically as a barrier between himself and Perez as the latter instinctively fires her pistol while blinded by the lab's lack of lightning after Hoffman cut the power, inadverently killing Sachi. It doesn't take long before Hoffman throws Sachi's corpse away and immediately stabs Perez several times.
- No Full Name Given: Only her first name is known.
- One-Shot Character: She only appears in one scene in Saw VI before being swiftly killed off.
- White Shirt of Death: Inverted. She wears a black shirt in the only scene where she appears, and dies when she's gunned to death by Perez while Hoffman uses her as a meat shield towards the latter, leaving a visible trail of blood when Hoffman drops her into a wall.
