Detective Joseph Poltzer is the tertiary antagonist of Saw II: Flesh & Blood. He was voiced by Mark Carr.
What makes him a Hate Sink?[]
- He is a crooked cop. Despite being the lead vice detective in charge of investigating crimes involving prostitution and narcotics, Joseph is a drug dealer himself. Instead of putting drug dealers in jail or prison, he squeezes them for every penny, forcing them to work for him under threat of arrest. He and his superior, police Chief Henry Jacobs, run a drug cartel, stealing drugs from the evidence room and selling them on the streets. They also have one of their cohorts, Dr. Carla Song, steal drugs from a hospital to sell them on the streets, and they blackmailed Sarah Blalok into helping them deal drugs by threatening to have her arrested for her history of drug use and prostitution. Joseph shows no remorse for betraying his badge, even when directly confronted with his crimes. Upon being saved from one of Jigsaw's devices, Joseph remarks that he never did anything to deserve being targeted by Jigsaw, right after Jigsaw confronted him with his drug crimes and betrayal of his badge. Michael even calls Joseph out on this, to which he simply remarks that he had to make a living.
- When former detective David Tapp accidentally stumbled onto Henry and Joseph's drug cartel while looking for the Jigsaw Killer, Henry and Joseph contemplated killing him to eliminate him as a witness, afraid he may have reported their crimes even though he was no longer an officer. They only decided against killing Tapp when they realized he was too focused on Jigsaw to bother with them.
- Unlike the affable Henry, Joseph is an open jerk who is very abrasive with others. Tapp's files reveal that nobody in the police department liked Joseph, claiming he "always asked stupid questions" or "butted in on conversations." As an example of his unfriendly attitude, when Michael encounters Joseph at the scene of David Tapp (Michael's father)'s suicide, Joseph shows no sympathy to Michael even though he just lost his father, telling Michael to leave the scene and remarking that Michael should have become a cop like his father, commenting that all the good Tapp family members ended with David. Furthermore, this supposed respect for David rings hollow considering Joseph and Henry at one point considered killing David.
- While he is initially opposed to Henry's suggestion that they kill Michael to silence him after he finds out about their drug crimes even after Michael saved Henry from one of Jigsaw's games, he quickly drops his argument after Henry points out that Michael could have them arrested and that former police don't do well in prison, agreeing to help search for Michael and kill him if he sees him. Even after Michael later saves Joseph's life as well despite knowing at this point that Henry is trying to kill him and Joseph had agreed to help Henry, Joseph still plans to help Henry kill Michael. After Henry gives Joseph his gun, Joseph proceeds to shoot at Michael and try to kill him whenever he sees him.
- The minigame to save Joseph can be rather difficult, and can frustrate the player. This is made worse by the fact that both the player and Michael at this point know Joseph was planning to kill them, and they are still forced to save his life, which is mandatory for the game, as the player will have to keep replaying the minigame until they succeed and save Joseph. It doesn't even matter in the end, because Joseph is ungrateful ("What do you think you're some kind of hero going around rescuing everybody? Please. Do me a favor and stay out of my way", "Fuck you! I'm not going to prison!") and still tries to kill them later on, and by the end of the game, they have to kill Joseph anyway, making the whole thing pointless.
- Joseph shoots and kills Sarah Blalok, the last ally Michael had, just as she is about to reveal the identity of Jigsaw's pig masked helper, cutting off the reveal of useful information and leaving Michael all alone.
- He is rather ineffective as an antagonist, being easily bossed around by Chief Jacobs, cowardly fleeing from Michael whenever he gets close, and being a surprisingly bad marksman for a policeman.
- Overall, Joseph is an arrogant and unfriendly man who refuses to admit that he did wrong or own up to his crimes even when directly confronted with them, a crooked cop, a drug dealer, a murderer, and is willing to murder the person who saved his life to keep himself from being rightly sent to prison for his crimes. Furthermore, unlike his superior, Chief Jacobs, who is at least rather affable and sees his murders and attempted murders as a necessary evil, Joseph makes no attempt to act kind toward others and doesn't see anything wrong with his crimes, brushing it off by saying he has to make a living.
- While he may not be as heinous as Zeke, a serial child molester who also tries to kill Michael after the latter saves his life, Joseph plays a larger role in the game and spends more time openly antagonizing Michael. Zeke makes two attempts to kill Michael, while Joseph makes three. Plus, Joseph actually kills one of Michael's few allies.