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| “ | Hello Eric. You probably don't even remember me. But you changed my life once. You sent me to prison. I was guilty of a lot of things, but not the drug charge you framed me for. You wouldn't know the things you lose when you're locked away. The second time somebody changed my life, i was guilty. But my life was saved that day. I found myself a father... a leader... a teacher. What is the cure for cancer, Eric? The cure for death itself? The answer... is immortality. By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal. So now you find the tables are turned. It is I who will carry on John's work after he dies. And you are my first test subject. Now you are locked away. Helpless...and alone. | „ |
| ~ Amanda Young's tape to Eric Matthews |
| “ | It's all bullshit. It's all a f-cking lie. And I'm just a pawn in your stupid games. | „ |
| ~ Amanda Young to John Kramer in Saw III. |
Amanda Young is a major antagonist in the Saw franchise.
She is John Kramer's secret apprentice (along with Mark Hoffman) and potential successor. At first, Amanda seemed feasible to continue John's work, until it's revealed that she doesn't truly believe in his philosophy and simply was trying to find love and appreciation, due to her mental illness.
She is portrayed by Shawnee Smith, who also played Julie Lawry in the 1994 The Stand miniseries and Mariska in Lollipop Chainsaw. In the titular 2009 video game, she was voiced by Jen Taylor, who voices Cortana in the Halo franchise and Salem in RWBY.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Amanda Young's early life was never established on the films, although both writer Leigh Whannell and Shawnee Smith have worked on and discussed it. On the commentary for the Saw III: Director's Cut, Whannel stated that as a child Amanda had been abused by her father and neglected as a child, which lead to her being filled with rage as an adult. A deleted line from the original script for III has Amanda telling John that her father used to lock her in the dark for hours.
"When I was a little girl...my father would lock me under the stairs. I was terrified of the dark, and he would leave me in there alone. For hours." Because of her childhood, Amanda had never properly learned to deal with stress and emotional pain, and thus turned to self-injury as a way of dealing with her problems. While in prison, her abusive tendencies were replaced with heroin. However, after giving up heroin after surviving the Reverse Bear Trap, she returned to cutting, burning, and other forms of self injury. Because of her frail emotional state and somewhat mental instability, she is quick to anger, and often acts purely on impulse or emotion (such as trying to kill Eric Matthews and later Lynn Denlon).
Due to her temperamental behavior, Amanda possibly suffers from borderline personality disorder. As an adult, Amanda turned to drug use and self-mutilation. She was later framed by corrupt cop Eric Matthews and arrested, at which point her situation worsened.
Jigsaw's Test[]
At some point, Amanda was abducted by Jigsaw and placed in a trap that was described as being like a reverse bear trap; a device was placed around her jaws that would rip them apart. The only way to get herself out of the device was to get a key—a key that was in the stomach of man, who despite being overdosed on opium, was still alive. Amanda killed the man, successfully retrieved the key in time, and unlocked the trap seconds before it went off.
As she reeled from the experience, Jigsaw's "puppet" Billy arrived on his tricycle, congratulating her for still being alive and telling her that she would no longer be ungrateful being alive.
Upon being interviewed by police detective David Tapp, Amanda tearfully confessed that Jigsaw's actions had "helped" her. The same day as her interview, Jigsaw appeared in her apartment and recruited her.
Jigsaw's Apprentice[]
Upon returning home, she was approached by Jigsaw, who recruited her as his second apprentice, after Mark Hoffman. The exact nature of their initial meeting is unknown.
At some point after her test, Amanda was framed for a drug possession by corrupt police detective, Eric Matthews, and sent to prison.
As Jigsaw's apprentice, Amanda was told that there was no going back from this life and that she would would ultimately give everything to him. Her first assignment was to kidnap Adam Faulkner, a photographer, for the purposes of Jigsaw's test. A deleted scene showed the two meeting prior and Adam flirting with Amanda.
Amanda helped Jigsaw set up the Bathroom Trap, placing Adam inside the bathtub. After the events of the test, in which Adam was left inside to rot, Amanda was plagued by nightmares and guilt of her involvement. She went back to the bathroom to mercy kill Adam by suffocating him with a plastic bag. Jigsaw knew about this but did not tell her so. This was the first time that Amanda would deliberately kill someone.
John was soon scammed by a group of grifters, lead by Cecilia Pederson, Amanda was brought on to gather the majority of the grifters to be his test subjects, including Cecilia. Amanda worked with John as they ran the tests, and she seemed to hold some empathy for one of the grifters, Gabriela, who was a drug addict: something Amanda could relate to. However, one grifter who wasn't captured, Parker Sears, freed Cecilia who, to Amanda's horror, killed Gabriela who had been helpless and weakened upon passing her test. The two criminals put John into one of the traps, while Amanda was chained out of reach. After kidnapping a child, the grifters chained the child to the other end of the test, and Amanda was forced to watch as her mentor and an innocent child were forced into a seesaw device that waterboarded both of them in blood. Cecilia and Parker soon triggered a hidden trap, disengaging the trap holding John and the child, and the master and apprentice freed themselves along with the child as Cecilia killed Parker to survive, and the three left Cecilia, now trapped, in the room with no way out.
In another test, Amanda posed as another test subject in a house in which several apparent strangers were locked in a house in which a deadly gas was being pumped through. Their connection was that, like Amanda, all of them had been set up by Eric Matthews. Among them was Matthews' son. At one point during the game, Amanda was pushed into a vat of hypodermic needles to find a key by a drug dealer who was Jigsaw's intended target for that case. Once all the subjects, were dead, she incapacitated Daniel and took him to John where the boy was placed in a safe, with oxygen, with a timer set to release him.
The events of the house were recorded, and played in another location to make the cops, specifically, Eric Matthews, believe it was a live recording and believing his son was in immediate danger. John tested Eric to see if he could continue talking for an hour but Eric failed when he chose to brutalize John, and John guided him to the location of the house. There, Eric found himself in the bathroom from the first film, where he was ambushed by Amanda and locked in a chain. Amanda's tape revealed to him that she was Jigsaw's apprentice, and that Eric was doomed to be left alone to die.
Eric managed to escape by breaking his foot. He attacked Amanda and beat her severely, but Amanda managed to escape by kicking him in his broken foot and leaving him for dead. As she left, Eric called back to her, taunting her that she was nothing but a 'junkie bitch' and that she was not Jigsaw. Amanda turns around, goes back to take her revenge on him.
Final Test[]
Amanda would go on to make two traps by herself, but unlike John's in which the subjects had slim chances of surviving so long as they: followed his rules, are clever and determined enough, Amanda's were unwinnable. This was due to having experienced Xavier Cecilia, and Eric's attempts to beat their games without rehabiliting, and tried to get revenge on Amanda. This has caused her to become unforgiving towards her test subjects. In the case of Troy, the door to his room was sealed shut, so he wouldn't have been able to get out when the bombs detonated and the chain that was hooked onto his mouth was impossible to being pulled out. In the case of Allison Kerry, Kerry successfully completed her trap, but it was designed to activate regardless of whether or not Kerry had unlocked the padlock at the front of the metal contraption attached to her rib cage. The fact that it was attached through her skin to her bones was a large indicator that the woman was going to die regardless. Plus Amanda appeared, and watched as Kerry realized that her game is inescapable seconds before her death. It has been suggested that both Hoffman and Amanda worked on this particular trap together.
Distraught, a now dying Jigsaw decided to give his apprentice one last chance.
As he lay on his deathbed, Jigsaw ordered Amanda to kidnap surgeon Lynn Denlon in order to keep him alive until another subject, Jeff Reinhart, completed his own test.
During this time, Amanda grew increasingly agitated and hostile towards Lynn upon seeing Jigsaw being operated on —especially when he told Lynn that he 'loved' her, when in fact he was delirious and thought he was talking to ex-wife Jill Tuck, something Amanda did not know. Later scenes revealed that Amanda, in the stress of her situation, had resumed her 'cutting'.
Amanda was told by Jigsaw to read a letter that he left her. Upon reading its contents, Amanda broke down and cried. The letter was revealed to be written by Hoffman in IV and in VI it was revealed that he had blackmailed her into killing Lynn (the consequence for not doing so would be that he would tell John that she was responsible for Gideon's death).
As Jeff finished his test, Jigsaw ordered Amanda to let Lynn go. Amanda refused, saying that Lynn hadn't learned anything and didn't deserve to go free. Jigsaw pleaded with Amanda to let her go, and that Lynn held Amanda's life in her hands. However, Amanda became angry, ranting that people can't change through jigsaws methods mentioning how she herself had experienced witnessing it. Finally, Amanda shot and wounded Lynn. At this point, Jigsaw who knows what will happen had disappointly revealed to Amanda that Jeff and Lynn had been husband and wife, and by shooting her, she had ended 'four lives'.
Upon seeing his wife shot, Jeff shot Amanda in the neck, fatally wounding her. As Amanda bled to death, a tearful Jigsaw told her that she was being tested all along—tested to see if she could keep someone alive...Lynn. He explained that by making her traps unwinnable, her subjects were merely victims, and she wasn't testing anyone's will to live, thus defeating Jigsaw's original purpose. As she bled to death, Jigsaw told her that he wanted her to succeed, but she couldn't. She then started to cough blood out of her mouth as she collapsed on the floor. She then closed her eyes and coughed her last breath and died.
It was revealed in VI that moments after she read the letter, she had visited Corbett's cell, and, in tears, told her not to trust the man who would be saving her that night (Hoffman).
Personality[]
Amanda Young's personality in the "Saw" series is a study in contrasts, shaped by a traumatic past and her subsequent transformation under Jigsaw's influence. Her early life, marred by abuse and neglect, left her filled with rage and an inability to properly cope with stress and emotional pain. These experiences drove her to self-injury and drug addiction, creating a foundation of instability and impulsivity. Amanda's desperate need for validation and a sense of belonging made her highly susceptible to Jigsaw's manipulative ideology, leading her to become his loyal apprentice. Her loyalty to Jigsaw often overrode her own moral compass, resulting in actions driven by impulsive anger and a distorted sense of purpose.
Despite her dark and violent tendencies, Amanda exhibits several positive traits that add complexity to her character. She shows genuine concern and empathy for others, particularly during the gas house trap, where she looks after Laura, offering comfort and support and her attempts to comfort and help Laura when she began to suffer from the seizure that would ultimately kill her. This maternal side of Amanda reveals her capacity for compassion and care, even in the midst of life-threatening situations. Her protective instincts extend to Daniel Matthews, whom she shields from the worst of the traps. Despite her deep-seated hatred towards Daniel’s father, Eric Matthews, Amanda's actions demonstrate her capacity for empathy and care. She ensures Daniel is placed in a safe space with oxygen and intervenes to protect him from Xavier's rampage, highlighting her commitment to safeguarding him despite her personal grievances. Her ability to connect with and support her fellow captives underscores the humanity within her, suggesting that beneath her hardened exterior lies a person capable of kindness and empathy. Additionally, Amanda displayed a protective side towards Gabriela, a fellow test subject and drug addict. Amanda's empathy towards Gabriela stems from her own struggles with addiction, and she attempts to shield Gabriela from the worst of the trials they face and was genuinely devastated when she is killed by Cecelia even though Gabriela had survived her test.
Amanda's personality is further complicated by her growing reliance on Jigsaw throughout the series. As she becomes more deeply involved in Jigsaw's world, her dependence on him for guidance and approval intensifies. This reliance on John Kramer, whom she views as a savior, mentor and father, exacerbates her inner turmoil and drives her to increasingly extreme actions in an effort to prove her loyalty. Her encounters with Cecilia, Xavier, and Eric Matthews reinforced her belief that people cannot change or be rehabilitated, a conviction that fueled her justification for the traps' cruelty. Xavier's ruthless and violent behavior, exemplified when he threw Amanda into the needle pit to find the key despite the needle pit being his trap, highlighted his complete disregard for others and cowardice. Cecilia's betrayal, which involved scamming John and killing the helpless Gabriela, showcased her manipulative and murderous nature. Eric Matthews, who framed Amanda and many others for drug possession, further disillusioned her when he escaped his test without changing, reinforcing her belief that people are irredeemable. These experiences convinced Amanda that those subjected to Jigsaw's games deserved their fate, no matter how traumatic or brutal. Amanda's questionable choice in test subjects, such as Allison Kerry, who was placed in an unwinnable trap for having an "obsessive fascination with death", reflects her growing cynicism and departure from Jigsaw's original intentions. Conversely, Troy was a fair choice, as his history of criminal behavior and repeated imprisonments justified his inclusion in the game according to Jigsaw's philosophy. This deeply ingrained cynicism and her temperamental behavior, likely stemming from potential borderline personality disorder, drive her to make irrational and violent decisions. Ultimately, Amanda's personality is defined by this complex interplay of vulnerability, loyalty, compassion, and ruthless self-preservation, making her a tragic and multifaceted character within the "Saw" franchise.
Other Media[]
Dead by Daylight[]
Amanda as The Pig
| “ | At first I actually believed that it was a pig that slept in front of me on the ground. An animal that somehow had eluded the banalities of my old life and managed to end up at this forsaken and forgotten place. But then it rose, from crouch to standing, with its lifeless eyes nailed to my person. I ran, as I have so brutally learnt to do. My curiosity halted my escape after a few feet and I hid in a cabinet. The Pig moved like a predator – and I saw: a human body wearing a pig's head as ornament. It walked by the cabinet and its snout was just a few inches away from me. I held my breath, aching for freedom. A sudden sound caught the pig's attention and it walked away. But not without giving me a last, final glance, as if it wanted to inform me that I was given a second chance. I will not get a third. | „ |
| ~ An unnamed survivor (possibly Benedict Baker) speaking of the Pig. |
Amanda Young appears in Dead by Daylight as a playable killer in the Saw DLC chapter, known as "The Pig" on January 23, 2018. In the game, she was revived by The Entity alongside David Tapp as one of its servants and took up the mantle of The Pig to hunt down survivors.
The Pig has two abilities. The first one allows her to crouch and then burst into a sprint afterwards. The second allows her to place reverse bear traps on dying survivors, traps which activate after a generator finishes repairing.
The traps can only be removed in jigsaw boxes around the map and will kill survivors if they aren't removed after the timer ends. Her perks, Hangman's Trick and Surveillance, allows her to keep an eye out on survivors near hooks and generators while Make Your Choice punishes their altruism.
She is voiced by Christine Marsh.
Vain Ambition[]
TBA
Quotes[]
| “ | Game over. | „ |
| ~ Amanda Young to Eric Matthews. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- She and a bunch of other members known as the pigs appeared in the movie called Blood Fest.
- A deleted scene had Amanda walking back to Eric and stabbing him viciously through the throat. According to Whannell, it was this event that turned Amanda into a killer. The producers, however, wanted Eric to be kept alive for a potential sequel and, despite the director's fight to keep it in, the scene was ultimately dropped.
- The scene in Saw III where Amanda is shown cutting her inside thigh was not in the original script; there was only a brief scene that hinted at Amanda self injuring, in which Amanda is shown squeezing a razor blade (which was later replaced by a scene of Amanda squeezing a leather cutter). Shawnee Smith had been reading the book A Bright Red Scream prior to filming, and she firmly believed that it was necessary to show Amanda's self-injuring tendencies (for character depth), and thus insisted that the scene be filmed and put into the film. Still, some of the scene was cut, including a shot of Amanda using the cloth body of a doll on her bed to soak up the blood from her wounds.
- Shockingly, her act of convincing Cecil to rob the clinic where Jill Tuck was working, simply for drugs, is a catalyst for the events that would lead to the entire Saw franchise's serial victimizations through the use of traps.
- Ironically enough, she herself was victimized twice by John Kramer, the original Jigsaw, in both the first Saw film and Saw III.
External Links[]
- Amanda Young on the Saw Wiki
- Amanda Young on the Wikipedia
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 Villains
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Main villain Saw Saw II Saw III Saw IV Saw V Saw VI Saw 3D: The Final Chapter Jigsaw (2017) Spiral: From the Book of Saw Saw X The Scott Tibbs Documentary Saw: The Video Game Saw II: Flesh & Blood | ||
