History YMMV / SawVI

** While Josh's FinalSpeech to William is definitely over-the-top, it's one of the only times in a ''Saw'' movie that a trap victim gets to have their say before they bite the bullet, making it strangely badass in a way.

* {{Narm}}:
** After the steam maze trap, where [[spoiler:William gets Debbie out of the maze but is unable to get her key in time before she is killed]], William leaves the room and retrieves his next key as if the script specifically directed him to grab the key as angrily as possible. [[https://youtu.be/pOs278oNNz4?t=285 Here's the result.]]
** Josh - the final victim of the carousel trap - starts demanding that William watch as he dies when he realizes his fate. What could be a heart-wrenching moment is made...''interesting'' by actor Shawn Mathieson's sudden Batman-esque growling and copious amount of spit being flung at the camera.

* AssPull: TheReveal that the game [[spoiler:''isn't'' William's. In all trap plots before and after this one, the people forced into the game are the ones being tested, and the set up for this one even feels similar to that, with William having to decide who lives and dies amidst his staff while maiming himself to save them, representative of how his policy hurt others. Instead, the game is apparently Tara and Brent's, despite the two doing nothing but sitting in a cage watching William. It also isn't even clear what Jigsaw is testing them for, since while the obvious idea is if they'd be willing to forgive William after he doomed their husband/father to die due to his policy, the idea falls apart when ''neither'' forgive him, but while Tara can't bring herself to kill him, Brent ''can'', killing William while the two of them face no repercussions, made especially baffling when this ''is'' a game John Kramer designed, and yet Brent isn't punished for being a "killer".]]

** The janitor is basically an innocent victim whose biggest crime is ''smoking,'' but Jigsaw flat-out says that smoking is a sign that you don't appreciate your life.

** Shelby from the carousel trap and Simone from the opening trap. Simone gets RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap in ''The Final Chapter'', but Shelby? No such luck.

* {{Narm}}: Josh - the final victim of the carousel trap - starts demanding that William watch as he dies when he realizes his fate. What could be a heart-wrenching moment is ruined by actor Shawn Mathieson's sudden Batman-esque growling and copious amount of spit being flung at the camera, putting it firmly in Narm territory.
* NarmCharm: Few would call Costas Mandylor's performance in the film worthy of Shakespeare, but he's also having a ball hamming it up as one of the most obviously evil characters in the series.

** Shelby from the Carousel trap and Simone from the opening trap. Simone gets RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap in ''The Final Chapter'', but Shelby? No such luck.
* SignatureScene: The Carousel trap. Creative, tension filled, gorey, and [[NarmCharm over the top in a way that worked]]. It's a memorable scene that combined a lot of elements from previous Saw films and [[AccidentalPun spun]] them in a way that felt original.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Unlike previous and future protagonists, William seems to have made a genuine HeelFaceTurn by the end of his test. [[spoiler:In an opportunity to give a fresh resolution where a Jigsaw game ''succeeded'' in its goal to rehabilitate the subject, William instead gets [[ShootTheShaggyDog brutally murdered anyway]] because [[DiabolusExMachina it wasn't up to him to begin with]]]].

** Being single and not having a family means you have nothing to live for, apparently.

** Brent for his horribly annoying and [[spoiler: murderous]] behavior. Not even [[spoiler: having recently lost his father]] made him in any way endearing or likable, or even understandable.
** Shelby from the Carousel trap and Simone from the opening trap. Simone gets subtly RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap in ''The Final Chapter'', but Shelby? No such luck.

* IdiotBall: John Kramer/Jigsaw, on an absurd level. In one of the many flashbacks in this installment, John Kramer is seen meeting William for the first time at a party where he chides William for his abhorrent policy on denying insurance claims. In a subsequent flashback, we find out that, at some later date, for some insane reason, proceeds to [[WhatWereYouThinking buy insurance from this guy]], despite knowing for a fact that he routinely screws people over. Worse, when William unsurprisingly denies his claim for a radical medical treatment in Europe for his cancer, Kramer just gives up on trying to get the treatment in spite of the fact that he is rolling in money. He could just cancel his policy, tell William to go to Hell, fly off to Europe, and get the treatment. It makes no sense for him to just give up on life when he has the wherewithal to be treated.

** '''''Brent''''', for his horribly annoying and [[spoiler: murderous]] behavior. Not even [[spoiler: having recently lost his father]] made him in any way endearing or likable, or even understandable.

* {{All For Nothing}}: [[spoiler:William's death]] could very much be considered this. After going through a series of demanding traps, which leads to him realizing the error of his ways and the value of the lives of the clients he had indirectly killed by denying coverage, William [[spoiler:gets killed by the son of one of said rejected clients, ultimately making his redemption completely meaningless]].

* {{All For Nothing}}: [[spoiler:William's death]] could very much be considered this. After going through a series of demanding traps, which leads to him realizing the error of his ways and the value of the lives of the clients he had indirectly killed by denying coverage [[spoiler:gets killed by the son of one of said rejected clients, ultimately making his redemption completely meaningless]].

* JerkassWoobie: William ''especially'' by the end.

** '''''Brent''''', for his horribly annoying and [[spoiler: murderous]] behavior. Not even [[spoiler: having recently lost his father]] made him in any way endearing or likeable, or even understandable.

* RetroactiveRecognition: [[Series/WynonnaEarp Wynonna Earp]] is one of the people killed on the carousel.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Unlike previous and future protagonists, William seems to have made a genuine HeelFaceTurn by the end of his test. In an opportunity to give a fresh resolution where a Jigsaw game ''succeeded'' in its goal to rehabilitate the subject, William instead gets [[ShootTheShaggyDog brutally murdered anyway]] because [[DiabolusExMachina it wasn't up to him to begin with]].

* Narm: Josh - the final victim of the carousel trap - starts demanding that William watch as he dies when he realizes his fate. What could be a heart-wrenching moment is ruined by actor Shawn Mathieson's sudden Batman-esque growling and copious amount of spit being flung at the camera, putting it firmly in Narm territory.

* SignatureScene: The Carousel trap. Creative, tension filled, gorey, and [[NarmCharm over the top in a way that worked]]. It's a memorable scene that combined a lot of elements from previous Saw films and spun them in a way that felt original.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Released right in the middle of a bad recession and a heated debate on health care, the writers give us an opening trap featuring two bankers who gave loans to people they knew couldn't pay, and the main game's victim, William, is an executive at a health insurance company who gets to make some fantastically gory life-or-death decisions for his co-workers before [[spoiler:getting killed by the widow and son of a man he denied coverage.]] One scene is an outright AuthorFilibuster in which Jigsaw, in a flashback in William's office, states that it's hypocritical to attack the government for trying to take life-and-death decisions away from doctors and their patients, when the health insurance industry does this regularly by denying coverage.

* IdiotBall: John Kramer/Jigsaw, on an absurd level. In one of the many flashbacks in this installment, John Kramer is seen meeting William for the first time at a party where he chides William for his abhorrent policy on denying insurance claims. In a subsequent flashback, we find out that, at some later date, for some insane reason, proceeds to [[WhatWereYouThinking buy insurance from this guy]], despite knowing for a fact that he routinely screws people over. Worse, when William unsurprisingly denies his claim for a radical medical treatment for his cancer, Kramer just gives up on trying to get the treatment in spite of the fact that he is rolling in money. He could just cancel his policy, tell William to go to Hell, fly off to Europe, and get the treatment. It makes no sense for him to just give up on life when he has the wherewithal to be treated.