I find how women are portrayed in Saw I and Saw III interesting. The idea of a "survivor girl" - a plucky, young, ingenue who decides to fight back and refuses to be a victim (think Kristy Cotton or Nancy Thompson) - is not new to horror movies. We see them in Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday the 13th. But in Saw, it's different. The heroines are imperfect and far from innocent. They are mostly adult women, who have tons of life experience and often a great number of character flaws.
Interestingly, in Saw I, the real survivors of Jigsaw's games are all the main female characters. Amanda, Alison Gordon, and Diana Gordon win their games by fighting and making the necessary sacrifices to appease Judgment/Jigsaw. They prove that the games are winnable. The main male characters are killed or left to die: Zep, Dr. Gordon, Adam, Tapp, Sing, Paul, and Mark because they can't, don't, or won't make the proper sacrifices in time. However, the women all do and survive. I think this comments on how women are seen as more likely to give a sacrifice than men are.
It's almost as if the female characters are more willing and better able to survive adversity. The women survivors are fighters and rebel against the men who victimize them. Allison and Diana fight back against Zep, so they can escape. They sacrifice safety and possibly their lives, by challenging their armed kidnapper. They could have waited and hoped to be saved, but rather showed that they value their lives by becoming their own saviors. Amanda kills the man in the room in order to get the key that frees her from the trap that would have torn apart mouth/head and killed her. She doesn't want to kill someone else, but realizes that she has no choice and must do it. As a drug addict, she spends most of her time in a daze or looking for a fix, avoiding problems and strife. But in order to survive her game, she must give ignorance and passivity away and act. She does take control and in turn, saves her own life.
But in Saw III, there is a complete reversal. All the main women - Detective Kerry, Amanda, and Lynn Denlon all die. But their deaths are not due to their own actions, but rather the actions of other male characters. Detective Kerry retrieved the key needed to save her from her trap. But the trap was rigged and she could not escape. I would argue Kerry would have escaped Amanda's original trap, but it was tampered with by Hoffman (implied through later movies). Amanda was forced to into her 2nd game and Hoffman's interference (through the letter) is what drives her to shoot Lynn and in turn suffer her husband Jeff's wrath. Finally, Lynn Denlon made the sacrifices necessary to survive her trap and would have survived Amanda's gunshot. But her husband Jeff's desire for vengeance lead to her own death even though she tried to stop him.
While I am not positive, I think the reversal may have been due to the writers wanting to close a number of plot threads. Detective Kerry was the first closed link and confirmed death in the Detective Matthews story line and leads into Officer Rigg's tests. Amanda's death ties in with the death of Jigsaw. He may have done it to save her from what would be a torturous fight with Hoffman. I got the distinct impression that he was relieved she had died, because he wouldn't have to worry about her. Finally, Lynn Denlon adds further to Jeff's wrath and pushes him over the edge, eventually leading to his accidental death at the hands of Special Agent Strahm. That allows all the loose ends from Jeff's test to be tied up.
***Another note about the survivor women in Saw I. They are silenced until they fight back. Amanda's trap fits over the head and to her jaws, so she can't move them. Alison and Diana are gagged and while they are removed temporarily to talk with Lawrence on the phone, they are replaced. The gags are only fully removed when they fight back and escape. Interesting commentary on how women find power when their voices.
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