it's a subset of villain decay You have a horror antagonist, it becomes the most popular/recognisable part of your franchise, you can't make it too hateable, so it becomes less evil over time.
See also: Terminator 2
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
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Terminator 2 was a dramatic subversion though, no decay there. They told you, straight up, in-character, "we reprogrammed this evil robot to fight the other evil robot" and the rest of the movie is an exploration of morality.
"What are you doing!? I told you not to kill anyone!"
"They'll live"
The whole point was that the T-800 was a bottom barrel cyborg. They were all modeled after Arnold, but there were thousands of them.
They basically found a junker in the trash and reprogrammed it. He was NOT the same T-800 from The Terminator. He was a completely different robot.
I only vaguely remember, but wasn't everyone he killed supposed to be connected to his wife's death somehow.
Edit: it was actually his kid I was thinking of. I marathon watched them all years ago and never felt the need to watch again
No, not at all.
The two victims of the first movie, Adam and Dr Gordon, have very little connections to Kramer himself. Gordon was the oncologist who diagnosed Kramer/Jigsaw with cancer, and was cold/uncaring. Kramer’s investigation later revealed that he’s cheating on his wife, and said wife hired Adam, a photographer, to get evidence.
The second movie, most victims are “wasting their lives”, plus a bunch of violent criminals, and of course, the (corrupt) lead detective’s son.
The third movie revolves around a boy’s death - his parents, the drunk driver who killed him, the judge who went easy on him, a witness who refused to testify, etc.
Saw IV: yet another group of “life wasters” plus Kramer’s business partner who screwed him over.
Saw V: a bunch of people whose begoigen caused a deadly building fire.
Saw VI: insurance claim denial chain (Luigi’d them)
Saw 3D: a fake Jigsaw survivor who’s cashing in on the lie and all the people enabling him
2017 movie: criminals and their enablers
But you’re not entirely wrong. The first actual murder/test Kramer did was revenge on the junkie whose actions led to the miscarriage of Kramer’s son. His wife, however, dies later, AFTER Kramer himself has already died.
begoigen
New word! googles
Dammit, it's just a new typo not a new word.
~
Thanks for the writeup. I will never watch these, but it's neat to be aware of what might be in the zeitgeist right now.
I too searched for Begoigen
Begoigen!
Negligence. Fucking iOS 27 keyboard. Autocorrect has been awful for the past two releases.
Also, why not watch them? They're popcorn horror after the first one.
I don't watch horror movies. I do not do well with them. It's a blanket rule for me.
It's... not really horror. At least not in the usual sense.
It's more of a mystery/suspense thriller series (borderline reverse heist movies), with tons of gore. The "horror" in it comes purely from the horrific traps.
None of the saw movies are “horror” though.
They’re definitely “gore” but there’s no classic horror elements.
The TVTropes article for this seems to be Even Evil Has Standards. The idea being to emphasize that something or someone is so evil that even an evil person finds it appalling.
The Code of Harry for Dexter is this type so is say that fits for the concept of not picking random people, but I think OP is more about the drift. That would be Flanderization, in my opinion. When one defining trait of a character progressively gets pushed to eleven until it becomes their only trait.
Without TVTropes paywall Even Evil Has Standards
Wait, I've never encountered a paywall on TVTropes. I don't see it when I click OP's link either. Is this something new?
You have to disable your ad blocker or pay 5 bucks a month
That link loaded fine for me? With and without an adblocker
Same. It hasn't made a peep about using an adblocker for me, neither on my computer nor on my phone.
I wonder if it's something regional?
I did some digging and about a year ago they introduced a "please turn off afblockers :(" popup that would sometimes even show even without an adblocker. But nothing recent
I always get this, from phone and desktop
Weird, I couldn't get that to show up at all
Man, that sucks. I'll bookmark the alternative you provided, since sites seem to be springing this crap out of nowhere a lot these days.
Paywall?
If OOP's characterization is accurate, you could argue for anti-hero. Seems too much for Evil Has Standards.
The DC cinematic universe lol