Jigsaw VS The Origami Killer: Battle of the Killer Serial Killers

Share on Facebook posted 04-12-10 by 30 Ninjas Staff

To decide once and for all who is heir to the 30 Ninjas throne of destruction and mayhem, Angelo and Max are picking two comparable items each week (within the realms of video-games and movies) and duking it out for bragging rights. Got something you’d like to see on Versus? Let us know in the comment section.

Week 10: Heavy Rain‘s Origami Killer VS Saw‘s Jigaw

The Origami Killer by Angelo

Who He Is

Scott Shelby … DAMMIT!!! I just can’t stop saying that spoiler over and over again. Anyway, the origami killer is the main antagonist AND protagonist of Heavy Rain. His MO is simple. He kidnaps young boys during particularly rainy fall seasons. He then stuffs them in a place that is inescapable without outside help. Generally, this place is container-shaped so that it will slowly fill up with rain water and drown the young boy, should their fathers not overcome the trials that Shelby set out for them. This is all in an attempt to recreate his tragic past, where his brother died in a storm pipe that slowly filled with water, while his drunken father sat by and did nothing.

What He Does

Aside from kill people for his own amusement? Well Scott Shelby is quite the criminal mastermind. After he commits each crime, he adopts the persona of a private investigator to allow him to revisit each crime scene. In doing so, he is able to obtain evidence left behind that may end up pointing back to him as the killer. He gets away with this, all on top of being fat, old, and riddled with asthma. Remember kids, even the disabled can be ruthless killers.

Why He Wins

Well, it’s the origami killer versus jigsaw, and they both basically have the same MO. Shelby’s plots are a bit less complicated than jigsaw’s, but at least that means that he is a little more realistic. He doesn’t need infinite money to set up funhouses of doom in order to torture his victims. Instead, he simply finds a pipe, a kid, a poor father, and goes at it. While Jigsaw had a bunch of accomplices to help him hide is work, Shelby does everything himself. If he needs to hide some evidence, he finds the goddamn evidence himself, and beats up all sorts of thugs along the way. Of course there is the fact that Shelby is just a far more interesting character. While he is an evil serial killer to the core, he is actually a nice person at heart, and has the capacity to help those in need, which he does several times over the course of his evidence-hiding travels. Plainly put, Shelby is the more crafty serial killer.

Jigsaw by Max

Who He Is

Jigsaw, whose civilian name was John Kramer, was a mild-mannered civil engineer living an unsuspecting, mundane existence. When he was diagnosed with colon cancer that had already spread to his brain, Kramer attempted suicide and failed. It was from this failure that Kramer’s alter ego Jigsaw was born. Jigsaw emerged from the failed suicide attempt with a new respect for the value of life, namely that it should never be wasted. Jigsaw becomes a serial killer that specializes in showing his victims the value of life. They either emerge from their harrowing and twisted experience completely invigorated, or fall prey to “self-inflicted” torture.

What He Does

The terror inspired by Jigsaw is derived from his seemingly altruistic motives: He wants others to value their lives. He wants people to get their priorities straight! It is his methods, however, that combine this altruistic message with a level of torture that is rarely seen in film. Jigsaw knocks out his victims and and kidnaps them. When the subjects wake up they find themselves in a situation where they must inflict an obscene amount of pain upon themselves in order to survive, thus proving that they value their lives and will endure pain to the insaneth power to live. What’s that? You have a metal venus flytrap attached to your head that will turn your entire face to pulp 60 seconds. How will you possibly escape this scenario? Well, there is a key to the trap that is located behind your eyeball. So if you really want to live, get digging!

Why He Wins

Jigsaw is a unique serial killer. He is a serial killer that doesn’t do any killing. He puts his victims into situations where they can choose life or death, with the outcome depending on how much they want to live and how much physical and mental torture they can endure. Honestly, the stuff Jigsaw makes his victims do to themselves is severely twisted, even for someone who is looking for their horror fix. I don’t know about you, but the idea of cutting your own leg off at the ankle with a hack-saw just doesn’t sit well with me.

Scott Shelby may be a dynamic character, but the complication in his psyche has nothing on Jigsaw. Jigsaw thinks that he is doing his victims a favor. He sees himself as the good guy! What’s even scarier is that he is able to recruit minions to do his bidding because some of the survivors of his twisted games have an “epiphany” that Jigsaw actually helped them. Also, I forgot. How many Heavy Rain games are there? None?! What’s that? Saw VII is coming out this October? That’s Right!