It's the Rules! A John Kramer AKA Jigsaw/Zep Hindle Ship Manifesto (Saw fandom)
Title: It’s the Rules!
Author: Carol Anne Caiafa/sweetcarolanne
Fandom: Saw
Pairing: John Kramer AKA Jigsaw/Zep Hindle
Spoilers: Contains plot and ending details for the Saw films I-IV
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the writers, filmmakers etc. John and Zep are not mine - if they were, they’d be lovers in canon!
Word Count: 2, 975 (excluding long quotations and recommendations list)
Notes: Source material for this essay is mostly drawn from the first Saw movie and the online comic Saw: Rebirth, with references to the other Saw movies when needed. Heartfelt thanks and love to cassiejo, who got me into the Saw fandom and this pairing, and who gave me insight into why the pairing works.
Introduction
Rare and unusual pairings have always been a source of fascination for me. While I can see the benefits of having an interest in the popular pairings within a fandom - such as plenty of fan fiction to read and a larger audience for one’s own writing - I tend to have a weakness for the pairings that people have to squint to see, the ones that are largely based in the concept of “what if”. These are pairings in which I see the characters as having personalities that fit together, or perhaps common goals that could be accomplished if the two formed an alliance - and such a bond would certainly have the potential to become deeper over time. It is an exciting and creative act to imagine and write how such pairings would come together and interact - what would they say and do when it’s just the two of them, all alone with each other, and how could what’s known of the characters in canon be used to form a view of them as lovers? It has been a boundless source of interest for me for a long time, and over a variety of fandoms.
As long as I can remember, I have enjoyed horror movies, and currently write fan fiction (mostly slash, but also some het and gen) in several horror movie fandoms. When cassiejo introduced me to the Saw movies, I was naturally drawn to them, particularly to the film series’ principal recurring character and main antagonist, the Jigsaw Killer (also known simply as Jigsaw, or by his real name, John Kramer). I found the premise of the Saw stories to be a fresh and original take on the horror theme, and the character of Jigsaw to be compelling on a number of levels. He seems both tragic and beautiful to me, with a twisted sense of justice and a fanatical desire to do some good in the world, although the methods he chooses to accomplish this veer to the side of evil.
I began to read all the fiction I could about Jigsaw, but found very little out there that was personally satisfying, as my preference is for slash fan fiction and what I found in those early days of fandom participation was mostly gen with a smattering of het (pairing John for the most part with Amanda Young, his apprentice, or with his former wife Jill). I therefore decided to write some Jigsaw slash of my own, and again it was cassiejo who helped me out, suggesting that the ideal partner for Jigsaw would be Zep Hindle, a creepy but oddly appealing orderly who has an important role to play in the first Saw film. I immediately saw the possibilities for some interesting dynamics between the two characters, and soon the pairing was one of my favorites in any fandom.
My evidence for the pairing is drawn mainly from implied interactions in the first Saw movie, which is the only one of the films in which Zep appears, and from actual interaction in the online comic Saw: Rebirth, a publication which was originally accepted as John Kramer’s official history by Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell, but much of which has since unfortunately been rendered non-canon by a new backstory written for the fourth Saw film.
I will now introduce the characters, giving a brief outline of each and touching on aspects of the films according to how they affect the characters and the pairing, though I will not do plot summaries of each Saw film as that would make this essay far too long and complicated. Then I will explore the factors that I think make this pairing work, and try to explain why it appeals to me so much.
Part One: John Kramer - Control
Jigsaw, seen here as portrayed by actor Tobin Bell, was originally just John Kramer (Bell claims that John is short for Jonathan, though this form of the character’s name has never appeared in the movies so far). His modus operandi is to create deadly traps for those who do not appreciate their lives, people he views as test subjects. The traps are often symbolic of the victims’ wrongdoing or ways in which their lives are flawed, and often require self-mutilation or other forms of suffering for the subjects to escape. Jigsaw refers to his tests as “games” and explains the “rules” to the victims via audio or video recordings. Most of Jigsaw’s victims fail their tests and die horribly as a result.
Although given the name “The Jigsaw Killer” by the media, John is not a serial killer in the conventional sense - he is more of a twisted scientist-cum-vigilante who wants to test the survival instinct of those he puts in his traps. John does not intend for his victims to die, but wants them to emerge from the traps alive after paying a heavy price that will help them to be grateful for life itself. He cuts a slice of flesh in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece from the bodies of the subjects who fail their tests, as a symbol of the “missing piece” from their “human puzzle” - the instinct to survive at all costs. It is this practice that earns him the nickname that he never encourages or accepts. John insists that he is not a killer at all, stating that he has never killed anyone and that he in fact despises murderers. A certain amount of theatricality is employed by Jigsaw - when he uses videos to convey his sinister message, the image on the screen is of a menacing clown puppet (named “Billy” by Saw’s creators). Jigsaw himself frequently wears a black robe edged with red, sometimes accompanied by a pig mask (occasionally, his apprentices also wear the robe and pig mask combination).
He is 52 years old at the time of his death in Saw III, and is a highly intelligent and educated man whose demeanor is for the most part calm and controlled. In Saw: Rebirth he is shown to be a toy maker whose girlfriend Jill leaves him because he will not commit to her. This storyline, however, is retconned by Saw IV, which shows John as having been a successful civil engineer who moved into property development, and a devoted husband to Jill, revealed by Saw IV to have been his wife. John is described by the films’ producers as a spiritual person, but we are never told what religion he follows. He does seem to have a belief in Chinese astrology, planning for his and Jill’s son Gideon to be born in the Year of the Pig (pigs being a symbol of fertility and rebirth, concepts important to John. The pig symbol recurs throughout the Saw film series, notably in the shape of the aforementioned pig mask).
The events that shape John Kramer into Jigsaw are many and complex. A crucial development is first pinpointed in Saw IV when a robbery and assault perpetrated by Cecil, a client at the recovery clinic for drug abusers run by Jill, causes Jill to have a miscarriage. John’s intense grief at the loss of his child stimulates a detachment and anger that drives a rift between him and his wife, and they eventually divorce. He seems to blame Jill and her work at the clinic for the loss of Gideon - Jill tells him after the miscarriage that all she wanted was to help the addicts, but John says that only they can help themselves.
John is later diagnosed with terminal cancer - an inoperable brain tumor that began as colon cancer that spread. It is the last straw for him - despairing of a world in which so many waste their lives and do not appreciate the time they have on earth, John attempts suicide by driving off a cliff (shown in a flashback scene during Saw II). John is injured, but survives, and rises from the wreckage in a terrible kind of rebirth - to paraphrase Jill in Saw IV, it is as if somebody else survived the car crash. It is this event that can be seen as marking John’s evolution into the man the media later dubs “The Jigsaw Killer” or “Jigsaw.”
John begins to plan and design his fiendish traps, Cecil of course being the first subject. Later he acquires two apprentices (that we know of so far) - former drug addict Amanda Young, the first survivor of his tests, with whom he forms a special bond, and crooked cop Detective Hoffman, whose relationship with John is yet to be explored (probably in flashbacks in future Saw films, since John is killed in Saw III).
There is another person that I could easily see John forming a strong connection with, if that person hadn’t been killed off in the first Saw movie - and his name is Zep Hindle. It’s now time to meet the other half of the pairing…
Part Two: Zep Hindle - Chaos
The character sketch of Zep is shorter than John’s, as we are not given a detailed backstory for Zep and he appears in only one of the Saw movies, the very first. He unfortunately dies in that film - apparently the first Saw was originally to have been a one-off, which may account for such a pivotal character’s early death.
Zep Hindle (played by Michael Emerson, pictured above, central figure) works as an orderly at the hospital where John Kramer was receiving treatment for his cancer. His age is never given, though he is obviously some years younger than John. He seems to be looked down upon and condescended to by his colleagues at the hospital, especially by Dr. Lawrence Gordon, John’s overly detached oncologist. Whether this is because of his lowly status as an orderly or because many of his mannerisms come across as somewhat “creepy” is unclear - I personally believe both of these are reasons for the way Zep is treated.
While John is in hospital, he and Zep form a bond of sorts, although in Saw: Rebirth Zep is considered by John to have “issues” which make him a candidate for testing. Fans have speculated on these - one theory I particularly like is the notion that Zep shows weakness by allowing others to walk all over him and that John sees him as needing to stand up for himself, to take control. Saw: Rebirth also shows Zep making John his confidant, sharing information with him and talking about the doctors behind their backs, claiming they’re all having adulterous affairs and calling Dr. Gordon a “cold-hearted bastard”. Zep reveals his ambition to someday become a doctor, although he seems to have little actual drive to achieve his dream - another reason for John to make him a test subject, perhaps?
Zep’s test is a trying one - both physically and psychologically. He is forced to watch Dr. Gordon and Adam Faulkner, a photographer described by Jigsaw as voyeuristic, apathetic and pathetic, in a bathroom trap that is the focal test of the first Saw movie. If Gordon fails to kill Adam by six o’clock, Zep has the gruesome task of murdering the two people he’s holding as hostages, the doctor’s wife and child. He must do this to save himself from a deadly poison - some kind of slow-acting nerve agent - in his bloodstream. Zep would then have to shoot Gordon himself, and presumably then get the antidote from John.
Dr. Gordon fails to kill Adam, but his wife and daughter manage to escape Zep’s clutches as Zep is attacked by David Tapp, an unstable former detective obsessed with stopping Jigsaw, who has been watching the Gordons’ house from across the street, convinced that Dr. Gordon is the killer. Zep flees down the sewers pursued by Tapp, and a fight ensues. Zep shoots Tapp and goes to the bathroom to kill the doctor. Gordon shoots Adam and tries to shoot Zep, but doesn’t have enough bullets. As Zep is about to murder the doctor, Adam bludgeons Zep to death with a toilet lid - a rather sad and pathetic end for a creepy but strangely endearing character.
Although Zep is never seen alive in another Saw film, his impact on the series is a strong one. In Saw IV, the crooked lawyer Art Blank, who has become a pawn of Jigsaw, provides a strong visual resemblance to Zep with his monitor watching.
Love According to the Rules
"John wants devotion and for rules to be followed. The rules are a running theme in the movie, and the desire for devotion is when he tells his lone survivor, Amanda Young, to give him "every cell in (her) body."
Zep already shows an interest in John, referring to him by name when Dr. Gordon only calls him "the patient" and calling him interesting. This shows a connection of sorts that begins before the main events of the movie. As well, one of his famous quotes is "It's the rules." He does as he's told, which is exactly what John is looking for." - cassiejo
So, how could John and Zep work as a couple? There are a few very simple, but for me, compelling, reasons which lead me to see the possibilities of them as a pair. They have been succinctly outlined by cassiejo above, but I shall elaborate on them a little.
The first reason is the early bond formed between John and Zep while John is a patient in hospital. Zep talks to John and listens to what he has to say, developing an interest in John as a human being while the other medical staff appear to see John as just another patient. The connection between John and Zep is nicely illustrated in this transcribed scene from the first Saw movie that I found online - it shows how little Dr. Gordon cares for John, and how much Zep cares:
DR. LAWRENCE GORDON: Okay. This patient has an inoperable frontal lobe tumor extending across the mid-line. Started as colon cancer. (He turns back to the three young medical students. One of them, a pretty Asian girl named CARLA, smiles at Lawrence as he speaks, seems particularly infatuated with him.) The patient has come in for a standard check-up by which we are able to monitor the rate at which his condition is declining.
(In the doorway, an orderly pushing a cart of cleaning supplies is passing by and stops when he sees Lawrence and the medical students in the room, listening to what Lawrence is saying. This is Zep. He’s a man in his early to late forties dressed in orderly whites with short brown hair and large blue eyes that show a kindness that the others in the room seem to be lacking. Kindness, and something else below the surface. He glances down at John sleeping, then up at Lawrence).
LAWRENCE: The patient had...
ZEP: (cutting him off) His name is John, Dr. Gordon. (He looks down at the patient, who we see is a man in his late forties-early fifties, hairless except for a small white goatee. His head is to the side and he is sleeping. On the tray table in front of him is a notebook and some colored pencils. As Zep looks at him and speaks of him, there is caring in his voice, something Dr. Gordon has yet to display regarding this patient.) He’s a very interesting person. (Lawrence looks almost slightly embarrassed, not for himself but maybe for Zep. A condescending, smug smile plays across his face and he nods. His tone matches his look).
LAWRENCE: Thank you for that information, Zep. (He looks to the students, who all share his smug smile) As you can see, our orderlies form very special bonds with the patients. (Zep just stares at Lawrence, his expression mostly blank but with pure loathing just underneath the surface. The look seems to say Fuck you, Dr. Gordon. He stares at him for a moment, then turns away, and continues down the hall with his cart.) Continuing on, the patient....
And it seems from events that unfold during the film that John becomes interested in Zep, too. He chooses to put Zep in one of his tests, but that doesn’t mean that John rejects Zep. As aforementioned, John wants his subjects to survive their traps - this could be seen as a chance for Zep to rise above his limitations and grow stronger. As Jigsaw, John Kramer tests everyone he interacts with. Even those who mean something to John have to prove their worthiness to him - Amanda Young being a prime example. If his ex-wife Jill had ever chosen to return, I believe John would have put her through some sort of test as well.
Zep actually does seem to gain in strength from his test, even if it is in a sick and twisted way. He truly seems to enjoy being in control, waving in a sinister manner at Dr. Gordon and Adam through a monitor with a voyeuristic relish, and frightening his hostages, holding a gun against little Diana Gordon’s head and listening to her heart with a stethoscope. He seems willing to put his own life first for once, instead of being the weakling who is always shunted to one side.
Another reason I see the pairing as working is John’s need for devotion and Zep’s ability to provide it. John epitomizes calmness and control, laying down rules and expecting them to be obeyed. Zep seems perfectly willing to follow the path that John has shown to him, and for reasons even more compelling than the nerve agent that threatens him from within. After all, Zep’s most memorable quote from the movie is “It’s the rules”. In the hospital, Zep, through his conversations with John, would have been exposed to John’s philosophies about life and appreciation, and his attachment to John shows that he would make a willing convert and faithful devotee. Zep would obey John without question, unlike Amanda who eventually rebels against John by building inescapable traps that merely kill the unfortunates within them instead of teaching them lessons about survival. If Zep had passed his test and lived to tell the tale, I believe that John would have taken him on as an apprentice as he did with Amanda. In fact, given Zep’s important role in the first Saw movie, some fans have speculated that Zep may have been John’s first assistant instead of just another victim or a pawn in the deadly games. So fanatically does Zep stick to the rules that audiences are led to believe that Zep might actually be the Jigsaw Killer before Jigsaw is revealed to be John, Dr. Gordon’s cancer patient. Zep is a red herring in the Saw mystery, but he’s a convincing one. His identification with John is very intense and complex, and this is just one manifestation of it.
Intelligence is another factor that may draw John and Zep together. Although not possessing John’s intellectual brilliance, Zep is certainly smart enough and seems like a quick learner. If Zep had managed to survive and prove his worth, there is much he could have learned from John, and much that John could probably have enjoyed sharing with him.
The last idea that I see as a possibility for cementing a union between John Kramer and Zep Hindle is not so much based in the canon fact that informs the points I make above, but more in fannish speculation. Although it’s never stated explicitly anywhere, as a man with very little time left to live, it could be possible that John may have sought out more diverse experiences than he had had in his earlier life. Same-sex pleasures and kinky sex could be among those experiences, and Zep would be a prime candidate to provide him with both. Zep certainly appears, from some of his behavior, to be the type of person who could have a taste for the unusual…
Fan fiction about this pairing mostly falls into two categories - the alternate universes where Zep survives to work with John, and more canon-based pieces set before or during the events of the first film. Either scenario seems to work very well indeed, and each piece of fan fiction I’ve read about these two seems to relate well to the points I’ve made in this essay.
Conclusion
They are a strange pair, but they seem to be right for each other if you look closer. They are control and chaos, master and slave, the rule maker and the one who follows the rules. John Kramer and Zep Hindle are like pieces of a puzzle - they seem mismatched at first, but if you look hard enough you will see how they can fit perfectly together.
Game Over.
Recommended Reading
As this pairing is an extremely rare one in a fairly small fandom, there is very little fan fiction about it, however what does exist is excellent. I have listed these pieces plus a few of my own fan fiction efforts.
Dark Therapy, by waltzingalong, PG-13
Denial, by cassiejo, PG
His Orderly, by Terrycotta50, PG-13
Sleepwalkers, by obeythebunny, PG-13
My own fics: Creep, NC-17
Without You, PG-13
Precious Things (John/Amanda/Zep), NC-17
Author: Carol Anne Caiafa/sweetcarolanne
Fandom: Saw
Pairing: John Kramer AKA Jigsaw/Zep Hindle
Spoilers: Contains plot and ending details for the Saw films I-IV
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the writers, filmmakers etc. John and Zep are not mine - if they were, they’d be lovers in canon!
Word Count: 2, 975 (excluding long quotations and recommendations list)
Notes: Source material for this essay is mostly drawn from the first Saw movie and the online comic Saw: Rebirth, with references to the other Saw movies when needed. Heartfelt thanks and love to cassiejo, who got me into the Saw fandom and this pairing, and who gave me insight into why the pairing works.
Introduction
Rare and unusual pairings have always been a source of fascination for me. While I can see the benefits of having an interest in the popular pairings within a fandom - such as plenty of fan fiction to read and a larger audience for one’s own writing - I tend to have a weakness for the pairings that people have to squint to see, the ones that are largely based in the concept of “what if”. These are pairings in which I see the characters as having personalities that fit together, or perhaps common goals that could be accomplished if the two formed an alliance - and such a bond would certainly have the potential to become deeper over time. It is an exciting and creative act to imagine and write how such pairings would come together and interact - what would they say and do when it’s just the two of them, all alone with each other, and how could what’s known of the characters in canon be used to form a view of them as lovers? It has been a boundless source of interest for me for a long time, and over a variety of fandoms.
As long as I can remember, I have enjoyed horror movies, and currently write fan fiction (mostly slash, but also some het and gen) in several horror movie fandoms. When cassiejo introduced me to the Saw movies, I was naturally drawn to them, particularly to the film series’ principal recurring character and main antagonist, the Jigsaw Killer (also known simply as Jigsaw, or by his real name, John Kramer). I found the premise of the Saw stories to be a fresh and original take on the horror theme, and the character of Jigsaw to be compelling on a number of levels. He seems both tragic and beautiful to me, with a twisted sense of justice and a fanatical desire to do some good in the world, although the methods he chooses to accomplish this veer to the side of evil.
I began to read all the fiction I could about Jigsaw, but found very little out there that was personally satisfying, as my preference is for slash fan fiction and what I found in those early days of fandom participation was mostly gen with a smattering of het (pairing John for the most part with Amanda Young, his apprentice, or with his former wife Jill). I therefore decided to write some Jigsaw slash of my own, and again it was cassiejo who helped me out, suggesting that the ideal partner for Jigsaw would be Zep Hindle, a creepy but oddly appealing orderly who has an important role to play in the first Saw film. I immediately saw the possibilities for some interesting dynamics between the two characters, and soon the pairing was one of my favorites in any fandom.
My evidence for the pairing is drawn mainly from implied interactions in the first Saw movie, which is the only one of the films in which Zep appears, and from actual interaction in the online comic Saw: Rebirth, a publication which was originally accepted as John Kramer’s official history by Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell, but much of which has since unfortunately been rendered non-canon by a new backstory written for the fourth Saw film.
I will now introduce the characters, giving a brief outline of each and touching on aspects of the films according to how they affect the characters and the pairing, though I will not do plot summaries of each Saw film as that would make this essay far too long and complicated. Then I will explore the factors that I think make this pairing work, and try to explain why it appeals to me so much.
Part One: John Kramer - Control
Jigsaw, seen here as portrayed by actor Tobin Bell, was originally just John Kramer (Bell claims that John is short for Jonathan, though this form of the character’s name has never appeared in the movies so far). His modus operandi is to create deadly traps for those who do not appreciate their lives, people he views as test subjects. The traps are often symbolic of the victims’ wrongdoing or ways in which their lives are flawed, and often require self-mutilation or other forms of suffering for the subjects to escape. Jigsaw refers to his tests as “games” and explains the “rules” to the victims via audio or video recordings. Most of Jigsaw’s victims fail their tests and die horribly as a result.
Although given the name “The Jigsaw Killer” by the media, John is not a serial killer in the conventional sense - he is more of a twisted scientist-cum-vigilante who wants to test the survival instinct of those he puts in his traps. John does not intend for his victims to die, but wants them to emerge from the traps alive after paying a heavy price that will help them to be grateful for life itself. He cuts a slice of flesh in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece from the bodies of the subjects who fail their tests, as a symbol of the “missing piece” from their “human puzzle” - the instinct to survive at all costs. It is this practice that earns him the nickname that he never encourages or accepts. John insists that he is not a killer at all, stating that he has never killed anyone and that he in fact despises murderers. A certain amount of theatricality is employed by Jigsaw - when he uses videos to convey his sinister message, the image on the screen is of a menacing clown puppet (named “Billy” by Saw’s creators). Jigsaw himself frequently wears a black robe edged with red, sometimes accompanied by a pig mask (occasionally, his apprentices also wear the robe and pig mask combination).
He is 52 years old at the time of his death in Saw III, and is a highly intelligent and educated man whose demeanor is for the most part calm and controlled. In Saw: Rebirth he is shown to be a toy maker whose girlfriend Jill leaves him because he will not commit to her. This storyline, however, is retconned by Saw IV, which shows John as having been a successful civil engineer who moved into property development, and a devoted husband to Jill, revealed by Saw IV to have been his wife. John is described by the films’ producers as a spiritual person, but we are never told what religion he follows. He does seem to have a belief in Chinese astrology, planning for his and Jill’s son Gideon to be born in the Year of the Pig (pigs being a symbol of fertility and rebirth, concepts important to John. The pig symbol recurs throughout the Saw film series, notably in the shape of the aforementioned pig mask).
The events that shape John Kramer into Jigsaw are many and complex. A crucial development is first pinpointed in Saw IV when a robbery and assault perpetrated by Cecil, a client at the recovery clinic for drug abusers run by Jill, causes Jill to have a miscarriage. John’s intense grief at the loss of his child stimulates a detachment and anger that drives a rift between him and his wife, and they eventually divorce. He seems to blame Jill and her work at the clinic for the loss of Gideon - Jill tells him after the miscarriage that all she wanted was to help the addicts, but John says that only they can help themselves.
John is later diagnosed with terminal cancer - an inoperable brain tumor that began as colon cancer that spread. It is the last straw for him - despairing of a world in which so many waste their lives and do not appreciate the time they have on earth, John attempts suicide by driving off a cliff (shown in a flashback scene during Saw II). John is injured, but survives, and rises from the wreckage in a terrible kind of rebirth - to paraphrase Jill in Saw IV, it is as if somebody else survived the car crash. It is this event that can be seen as marking John’s evolution into the man the media later dubs “The Jigsaw Killer” or “Jigsaw.”
John begins to plan and design his fiendish traps, Cecil of course being the first subject. Later he acquires two apprentices (that we know of so far) - former drug addict Amanda Young, the first survivor of his tests, with whom he forms a special bond, and crooked cop Detective Hoffman, whose relationship with John is yet to be explored (probably in flashbacks in future Saw films, since John is killed in Saw III).
There is another person that I could easily see John forming a strong connection with, if that person hadn’t been killed off in the first Saw movie - and his name is Zep Hindle. It’s now time to meet the other half of the pairing…
Part Two: Zep Hindle - Chaos
The character sketch of Zep is shorter than John’s, as we are not given a detailed backstory for Zep and he appears in only one of the Saw movies, the very first. He unfortunately dies in that film - apparently the first Saw was originally to have been a one-off, which may account for such a pivotal character’s early death.
Zep Hindle (played by Michael Emerson, pictured above, central figure) works as an orderly at the hospital where John Kramer was receiving treatment for his cancer. His age is never given, though he is obviously some years younger than John. He seems to be looked down upon and condescended to by his colleagues at the hospital, especially by Dr. Lawrence Gordon, John’s overly detached oncologist. Whether this is because of his lowly status as an orderly or because many of his mannerisms come across as somewhat “creepy” is unclear - I personally believe both of these are reasons for the way Zep is treated.
While John is in hospital, he and Zep form a bond of sorts, although in Saw: Rebirth Zep is considered by John to have “issues” which make him a candidate for testing. Fans have speculated on these - one theory I particularly like is the notion that Zep shows weakness by allowing others to walk all over him and that John sees him as needing to stand up for himself, to take control. Saw: Rebirth also shows Zep making John his confidant, sharing information with him and talking about the doctors behind their backs, claiming they’re all having adulterous affairs and calling Dr. Gordon a “cold-hearted bastard”. Zep reveals his ambition to someday become a doctor, although he seems to have little actual drive to achieve his dream - another reason for John to make him a test subject, perhaps?
Zep’s test is a trying one - both physically and psychologically. He is forced to watch Dr. Gordon and Adam Faulkner, a photographer described by Jigsaw as voyeuristic, apathetic and pathetic, in a bathroom trap that is the focal test of the first Saw movie. If Gordon fails to kill Adam by six o’clock, Zep has the gruesome task of murdering the two people he’s holding as hostages, the doctor’s wife and child. He must do this to save himself from a deadly poison - some kind of slow-acting nerve agent - in his bloodstream. Zep would then have to shoot Gordon himself, and presumably then get the antidote from John.
Dr. Gordon fails to kill Adam, but his wife and daughter manage to escape Zep’s clutches as Zep is attacked by David Tapp, an unstable former detective obsessed with stopping Jigsaw, who has been watching the Gordons’ house from across the street, convinced that Dr. Gordon is the killer. Zep flees down the sewers pursued by Tapp, and a fight ensues. Zep shoots Tapp and goes to the bathroom to kill the doctor. Gordon shoots Adam and tries to shoot Zep, but doesn’t have enough bullets. As Zep is about to murder the doctor, Adam bludgeons Zep to death with a toilet lid - a rather sad and pathetic end for a creepy but strangely endearing character.
Although Zep is never seen alive in another Saw film, his impact on the series is a strong one. In Saw IV, the crooked lawyer Art Blank, who has become a pawn of Jigsaw, provides a strong visual resemblance to Zep with his monitor watching.
Love According to the Rules
"John wants devotion and for rules to be followed. The rules are a running theme in the movie, and the desire for devotion is when he tells his lone survivor, Amanda Young, to give him "every cell in (her) body."
Zep already shows an interest in John, referring to him by name when Dr. Gordon only calls him "the patient" and calling him interesting. This shows a connection of sorts that begins before the main events of the movie. As well, one of his famous quotes is "It's the rules." He does as he's told, which is exactly what John is looking for." - cassiejo
So, how could John and Zep work as a couple? There are a few very simple, but for me, compelling, reasons which lead me to see the possibilities of them as a pair. They have been succinctly outlined by cassiejo above, but I shall elaborate on them a little.
The first reason is the early bond formed between John and Zep while John is a patient in hospital. Zep talks to John and listens to what he has to say, developing an interest in John as a human being while the other medical staff appear to see John as just another patient. The connection between John and Zep is nicely illustrated in this transcribed scene from the first Saw movie that I found online - it shows how little Dr. Gordon cares for John, and how much Zep cares:
DR. LAWRENCE GORDON: Okay. This patient has an inoperable frontal lobe tumor extending across the mid-line. Started as colon cancer. (He turns back to the three young medical students. One of them, a pretty Asian girl named CARLA, smiles at Lawrence as he speaks, seems particularly infatuated with him.) The patient has come in for a standard check-up by which we are able to monitor the rate at which his condition is declining.
(In the doorway, an orderly pushing a cart of cleaning supplies is passing by and stops when he sees Lawrence and the medical students in the room, listening to what Lawrence is saying. This is Zep. He’s a man in his early to late forties dressed in orderly whites with short brown hair and large blue eyes that show a kindness that the others in the room seem to be lacking. Kindness, and something else below the surface. He glances down at John sleeping, then up at Lawrence).
LAWRENCE: The patient had...
ZEP: (cutting him off) His name is John, Dr. Gordon. (He looks down at the patient, who we see is a man in his late forties-early fifties, hairless except for a small white goatee. His head is to the side and he is sleeping. On the tray table in front of him is a notebook and some colored pencils. As Zep looks at him and speaks of him, there is caring in his voice, something Dr. Gordon has yet to display regarding this patient.) He’s a very interesting person. (Lawrence looks almost slightly embarrassed, not for himself but maybe for Zep. A condescending, smug smile plays across his face and he nods. His tone matches his look).
LAWRENCE: Thank you for that information, Zep. (He looks to the students, who all share his smug smile) As you can see, our orderlies form very special bonds with the patients. (Zep just stares at Lawrence, his expression mostly blank but with pure loathing just underneath the surface. The look seems to say Fuck you, Dr. Gordon. He stares at him for a moment, then turns away, and continues down the hall with his cart.) Continuing on, the patient....
And it seems from events that unfold during the film that John becomes interested in Zep, too. He chooses to put Zep in one of his tests, but that doesn’t mean that John rejects Zep. As aforementioned, John wants his subjects to survive their traps - this could be seen as a chance for Zep to rise above his limitations and grow stronger. As Jigsaw, John Kramer tests everyone he interacts with. Even those who mean something to John have to prove their worthiness to him - Amanda Young being a prime example. If his ex-wife Jill had ever chosen to return, I believe John would have put her through some sort of test as well.
Zep actually does seem to gain in strength from his test, even if it is in a sick and twisted way. He truly seems to enjoy being in control, waving in a sinister manner at Dr. Gordon and Adam through a monitor with a voyeuristic relish, and frightening his hostages, holding a gun against little Diana Gordon’s head and listening to her heart with a stethoscope. He seems willing to put his own life first for once, instead of being the weakling who is always shunted to one side.
Another reason I see the pairing as working is John’s need for devotion and Zep’s ability to provide it. John epitomizes calmness and control, laying down rules and expecting them to be obeyed. Zep seems perfectly willing to follow the path that John has shown to him, and for reasons even more compelling than the nerve agent that threatens him from within. After all, Zep’s most memorable quote from the movie is “It’s the rules”. In the hospital, Zep, through his conversations with John, would have been exposed to John’s philosophies about life and appreciation, and his attachment to John shows that he would make a willing convert and faithful devotee. Zep would obey John without question, unlike Amanda who eventually rebels against John by building inescapable traps that merely kill the unfortunates within them instead of teaching them lessons about survival. If Zep had passed his test and lived to tell the tale, I believe that John would have taken him on as an apprentice as he did with Amanda. In fact, given Zep’s important role in the first Saw movie, some fans have speculated that Zep may have been John’s first assistant instead of just another victim or a pawn in the deadly games. So fanatically does Zep stick to the rules that audiences are led to believe that Zep might actually be the Jigsaw Killer before Jigsaw is revealed to be John, Dr. Gordon’s cancer patient. Zep is a red herring in the Saw mystery, but he’s a convincing one. His identification with John is very intense and complex, and this is just one manifestation of it.
Intelligence is another factor that may draw John and Zep together. Although not possessing John’s intellectual brilliance, Zep is certainly smart enough and seems like a quick learner. If Zep had managed to survive and prove his worth, there is much he could have learned from John, and much that John could probably have enjoyed sharing with him.
The last idea that I see as a possibility for cementing a union between John Kramer and Zep Hindle is not so much based in the canon fact that informs the points I make above, but more in fannish speculation. Although it’s never stated explicitly anywhere, as a man with very little time left to live, it could be possible that John may have sought out more diverse experiences than he had had in his earlier life. Same-sex pleasures and kinky sex could be among those experiences, and Zep would be a prime candidate to provide him with both. Zep certainly appears, from some of his behavior, to be the type of person who could have a taste for the unusual…
Fan fiction about this pairing mostly falls into two categories - the alternate universes where Zep survives to work with John, and more canon-based pieces set before or during the events of the first film. Either scenario seems to work very well indeed, and each piece of fan fiction I’ve read about these two seems to relate well to the points I’ve made in this essay.
Conclusion
They are a strange pair, but they seem to be right for each other if you look closer. They are control and chaos, master and slave, the rule maker and the one who follows the rules. John Kramer and Zep Hindle are like pieces of a puzzle - they seem mismatched at first, but if you look hard enough you will see how they can fit perfectly together.
Game Over.
Recommended Reading
As this pairing is an extremely rare one in a fairly small fandom, there is very little fan fiction about it, however what does exist is excellent. I have listed these pieces plus a few of my own fan fiction efforts.
Dark Therapy, by waltzingalong, PG-13
Denial, by cassiejo, PG
His Orderly, by Terrycotta50, PG-13
Sleepwalkers, by obeythebunny, PG-13
My own fics: Creep, NC-17
Without You, PG-13
Precious Things (John/Amanda/Zep), NC-17