so, the description says:
Effect: Wall of whirling blades up to 20 ft. long/level, or a ringed wall of whirling blades with a radius of up to 5 ft. per two levels; either form is 20 ft. high
An immobile, vertical curtain of whirling blades shaped of pure force springs into existence. Any Creature passing through the wall takes 1d6 points of Damage per Caster Level (maximum 15d6), with a Reflex save for half Damage.
If you evoke the barrier so that it appears where creatures are, each Creature takes Damage as if passing through the wall. Each such Creature can avoid the wall (ending up on the side of its choice) and thus take no Damage by making a successful Reflex save.
My DM is making it a shaped wall to catch the most players in the wall, but my brain keeps stuttering over the difference between a "wall" and a "zig-zagging line". I'm not finding anything that specifically calls out that walls are straight lines, but every post I've read seems to assume that that's just what a wall is. Thoughts?
I don't know of a specific rule but that is the assumption. If you look at the mythic spell augmentation for blade barrier you'll see it refers to the two options as flat or a ring, and flat is inconsistent with zig-zagging.
Of course even a straight line can be angled to catch people - it doesn't have to be aligned with the cardinal directions on the battlemap.
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Other: A spell can have a unique area, as defined in its description.
(S) Shapeable: If an area or effect entry ends with “(S),” you can shape the spell. A shaped effect or area can have no dimension smaller than 10 feet. Many effects or areas are given as cubes to make it easy to model irregular shapes. Three-dimensional volumes are most often needed to define aerial or underwater effects and areas.
Blade barrier caster chooses between two specific shapes and is not shapeable, I would say you can't make a zig-zag wall.
In Pathfinder, at least for Blade barrier, I seem the meaning of "curtain" as a reference to "curtain wall", not to a stage curtain, so something flat and not something corrugated.
If the spell crosses cleanly through half your square (or not leaving more than three quarters of the square on one side of the line), I would say you are being forced to make the save or take damage: if you pass, you take no damage and can be on either side of the wall; if you fail, you take full damage and are on the side of the wall the caster wants as thats how they made the spell.
If it's not mostly in the middle of your square as above, the I would say you can either be on the majority side and not be forced to save, but need to pass through should you want to be on the minority side at a later point (and of course are fighting through the wall if you attack something on the opposite side still), or you can choose to take the save anyway to try and be on the minority side (taking damage if you fail and not if you pass as per normal) and then of course you won't have to save again unless you want to pass backwards.