"Hello Snowdrop. I want to play a game."

Trigger Warnings for discussion of gore, mutilation, self-mutilation and other similar violence to the person.

I am a big fan of the "Saw" movie franchise. I happen to like gory thrillers, and Saw I-VI and "3d"/"The Final Chapter" managed to be really gory and really thriller-y. What I liked most, though, was John Kramer/Jigsaw's ethos behind the traps.

They weren't just elaborate murders, but instead he wanted the victims to live - but by overcoming some torment or perceived flaw to do so. The idea was to make them better people through extreme aversion therapy. While the extremes are certainly not ones to which I would advocate putting anyone, much less for the sake of a simple life lesson, the idea resonates.

(I actually prefer the scene in Fight Club where the protagonist and his friend hold a man at gunpoint and force him to follow his dream - instead of removing something bad, they seek to add something good to his live.)

I think not all the traps in the seven movies actually conform to the ideological basis (even excluding the ones that are made by Jigsaw's protégés), because some of the people in them are not able by their own efforts and self-improvement to escape, but are dependent upon someone else making that step. My favourite traps were the ones where it was clear that the people could have survived if they had overcome their natural tendencies. The central trap sequence in Saw V was a particular favourite because the trait of which all five of the victims were to be cured was their selfishness and, had they worked as a team, there was no reason for any of them to have suffered too greatly.

All of which leads me to two big questions:

What would be Jigsaw's trap for me?

and

Would I be able to survive it?

I invite my readers to think about this with respect to themselves - what would the trap for you be? Could you survive it?

The Wikipedia link above says that:

Jigsaw is described as a mysterious person who kidnaps people he sees as wasting their lives and attempts to "save" them.

...

The purpose of his traps is to see if the subject has the will to survive, and thus inflict enough psychological trauma for the subjects to appreciate their life and save themselves from their own demons.

To work out what sort of trap might be devised for me, I have to look at the ways in which John Kramer might look at my life and consider it to be wasted; and how he might think of trying to "save" me from "my own demons". (I forget which philosopher it was who said philosophy or art or something like that was about "contemplating one's own death".)

The fact is, I have for most of my adult life been unemployed. This has led to issues with money and credit (hopefully, these are now resolved for good, although with inflation, government spending cuts and the like all going on, it's not certain). Might Jigsaw choose to "correct" my issues with either unemployment or money?

Alternatively, there is my (failure to) battle with obesity. Maybe Jigsaw look at the way in which I have allowed myself to become overweight and decide that this is a waste of my potential, and seek to "correct" that side of my life.

Given these possible reasons why I might end up in a Jigsaw trap, what could that trap look like?

Obviously, I want my trap to be original, and not merely a copy of one of those already used so, given that "cut enough bits off your body to escape" has been done, both by Se7en (IIRC the "Greed" murder was based around a lawyer taking his "pound of flesh", and being made to do that literally) and the Saw series, having Jigsaw force me to cut away my own blubber is ruled out (incidentally, I think I probably would manage that one, as long as blood loss didn't get me at the end anyway, and I didn't accidentally rupture any vital organs). I suppose one variation that would make the trap seem original might be that I had to cut enough off my own body to fit through a hole that, at my current bulk, would be impassable. Possibilities would be a nail bomb that I had to escape (like in Saw V) or being shackled to a chain dragging me towards the hole where, if I don't cut off the fat in time, I will become stuck and/or the chain will pull other bits off me (e.g. feet or legs) causing me to bleed to death. Again, I think that as long as i didn't accidentally puncture a lung or stomach or intestine or something, I would be able to do it (although would be traumatised afterwards - but then, that seems to be Jigsaw's intention!)

Since a big part of my weight gain has been a lack of vigourous exercise on a regular basis, another option would be the treadmill. This again feels like a cliché (to the point where a non-damaging version of it has appeared in the gameshow "Total Wipeout" as the "Dreadmill"!) Obviously, the objective is to keep up with the pace of the treadmill for long enough, or else - *splat* - I land on the deadly spikes/rotating saw/vat of acid/whatever other death mechanism might be set up for falling on. Kramer, via the "Billy" puppet, might set this up as follows:

Hello Snowdrop. I want to play a game. You have habitually spent your life doing nothing, achieving nothing and eating everything that is bad for you. This so-called lifestyle has led you to put on pound after pound of weight. Doctors recommend that a healthy adult should take at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. All you have to do to stay alive is manage 30 minutes from when the treadmill you are standing on reaches jogging speed. But hurry - it will keep getting faster. If you fail, you will find your weight reduced for you by the [saw/acid bath/spikes/whatever] behind you. Live or die. Make your choice.

Obviously, the top speed will be rather challenging!

So much for Jigsaw's war on obesity. What about my debt crisis? Such a trap might conceivably be part of a series of traps with Jigsaw pushing a "liberal" agenda (as with Saw VI, in which he clearly favours health care reform, since he punishes health insurance execs for making decisions about others' lives!) and not only punishing a person like me, who got into debt, but also punishing credit card execs who make their money by charging high interest rates and sending in the repo man.

My "money/debt" trap ideas are, I think, more original than my "obesity" trap ideas.

The first thought I had was a "money pit" that has to be escaped somehow. The basic idea would be to have a torrent of metal coins pouring into the room and failure to escape would lead to being buried by them. Survival would mean having to push through the flow of coins to reach the exit from the room. But that alone did not seem to capture what was needed, so I came up with a couple of additions to make death more certain on failure, and also make escaping more of an ordeal.

First, I imagine the edges of the coins being sharpened so that they will hurt more, and maybe cause small cuts, when they hit me. Second, the coins are stored in a vat above the "money pit" trap room. When the timer runs out, the whole ceiling opens and the full weight of the coins comes crashing down on the victim (me). The exit is then a hatch in the side of the room, at the top of a tall ladder. The ladder is placed beneath a chute out of which the coins start pouring as soon as the timer starts. In order to escape, I have to climb up the the ladder through the torrent of sharp-edged coins.

To be honest, when I thought of "lots of small cuts", I felt like this was a trap I would rather see George Osborne face! [ETA: in case it isn't obvious, I have no actual desire to put George Osborne in a deathtrap, although the fantasy is pleasing.]

So that leaves me with the other option. Another "room filling" type trap. This time, it is filling with water. No ladder, but the hatch in much the same sort of place. The trap is that while I am unconscious, Kramer (with the help of his medically-skilled accomplice/apprentice) has put bolts through my flesh in several places. Attached to these bolts are wire sacks filled with coins to weigh me down. If I do not yank the bolts from my body, then I will be unable to swim up to the hatch as the water rises and I will drown. Thus, I have to lose the hold that debt has over me, or it will drag me under. (The Billy puppet delivery would explain all this significance to me as I wake up).

I think that, as long as I could physically take the barrage, then I would survive the coin trap (the traps, of course, seem to be calibrated by Jigsaw to make the physical challenge at best a 50:50 chance, and people's failure falls short of that because of the psychological challenge). I am much more squeamish about doing injury to myself and particularly the act of having to pull the bolts through my flesh and skin to break free would be a huge challenge. Again, there is the physical challenge of swimming once that damage has been done as well. This is probably the trap that I would be most likely to fail.

"Live or die. Make your choice".

If you have any cool ideas for your own traps, and feel comfortable sharing them (and/or the reasons for them) please do so in comments or at your own blog, leaving a link to your post!