Major spoilers for Blade Runner 2049.
-
Was K really as all good as he seemed in Blade Runner 2049? We have a theory that, rather than being a random replicant who wound up changing the fate of humanity, he was an unwitting pawn of villain Niander Wallace who turned against his creator. Allow us to explain.
In the basic reading of the film, K is a replicant working as a blade runner who has his belief challenged when out on a routine “retirement”: the discovery of Deckard and Rachael’s child challenges his worldview, with him eventually believing it’s him and he thus has a soul. In a twist that intentionally subverts the traditional hero’s journey, however, it turns out that isn’t the case, although he still manages to realize his innate humanity through sacrifice in the name of love.
But is K’s story something more? Is he not just a parallel of Roy Batty’s self-realization arc in the original and summation of the series’ defining question of what makes us human, but also a corporate stooge done good? Was K actually the recently incepted replicant pawn of Niander Wallace, made explicitly to find Deckard’s child? We think so.
The Theory - K Was Planted By Wallace
Niander Wallace’s goal is, ultimately, conquest. He wants to rule the stars just as Alexander wept over never being able to do. He plans to do it through a massive slave workforce of replicants, and his route to that is cracking replicant mastermind Tyrell’s method of procreation; find the child of Rachael, the creator’s reproductively-enabled prototype, and amass an army. The film has this mission done mainly through Luv under his direction, although our theory suggests things started before.
Wallace discovered where Sapper Morton was hiding (an event catalyzed by the Blade Runner 2048 short) and, knowing he’s part of a bigger cell in the resistance underground with connections to Deckard, planted a mole in the LAPD to uncover and crack the case. K is activated explicitly to find the child: that is his defined purpose. When he wakes up on his way to Sapper’s, those are his very first moments.
As a replicant needs the illusion of freedom to work - the moment you introduce doubt they won’t obey - K is unaware of his position in a bigger plot and due to his memory implants believes himself to be just any other replicant doing his job. This does introduce a margin for error; K is susceptible to outside influence and isn’t as efficient as expected, leading Luv to take matters into her own hands.
Also “in” on it, and far more damaging to Wallace’s goal, is Joi. Likewise, she doesn’t know of her part in the plan, but she is Wallace Corps. method of tracking: the emulator K gives her at the end of his first day on Earth is a planted object that doubles as a way for the company to keep tabs on him. Due to her obliviousness, however, she genuinely falls in love with K and thus has the man she believes he is (not the mole he really is) best interests at heart. This messes with his emotions and sends him veering way off course, but crucially later convinces him to destroy the tracking device.
Luv course corrects and goes to LAPD to access their records and track K, who by this time has fortuitously led her to Deckard. With this he’s fulfilled his purpose and is no longer useful, so she leaves him behind (presumably out of shared replicant compassion, although she does destroy his accidentally-devious love) and the next stage of the plan begins - finding out who Deckard knows next in the chain to the child.
Of course, this is all just speculation at this point and worthless without evidence to back it up. Fortunately, we have a lot of that.
The Evidence K Was Planeted By Wallace
The entry point for this theory is the opening of the movie: we follow K’s spinner across Wallace’s artificial fields, with its inhabitant only waking up as he nears his destination. Taken at face value he was just having a nap in his self-driving flying car, but given it’s the introduction of the lead of an incredibly purposeful movie has the feeling of representing more. Is he just waking up or activating for the first time? The possibility of him being planted is opened up further by 2049’s heavy leaning on the role of memories and the suggestion of implants to openly deceive replicants; there’s no way for K to know whether he’s just been thrown into the world or not.
There seems to be a culture of new replicants coming through the LAPD - Joshi’s comments about the cost of “repairing” K allude to it - so it would be easy for Wallace to slot in a new replicant and, because of the memory consideration, for everyone to just accept it. And, even if at first glance this isn’t the case, there really isn’t any firm evidence of a past life. Joshi and the LAPD is the center of his existence and the surrounding dialogue is very carefully worded so that while there’s warmth, it doesn’t actually hint at any pre-existing relationship. Similarly, at his apartment, K’s neighbors are rude to him and have graffitied his door, but their vague slurs could be more a result of prejudice against the rotation of replicants, not K himself.
Other interactions reveal more tangible clues. What Joi says to K when he first returns to the flat - “it was a day” - are stock phrases we later hear from the giant hologram advert at the end, suggesting she’s just been installed. And Luv conversely hints at a history with K: she doesn’t kill him when bombing the garbage heap and wills him to continue, calls him a “bad boy” when taking Deckard (possibly because K “failed”) and her already iconic “I’m the best one” line is much stronger if the pair has a real, existing connection. All of Luv’s actions make more sense if K’s part of her plot.
Perhaps the most suggestive element, however, is Wallace himself. When trying to get information out of Deckard, the CEO tries to plant the possibility he’s a replicant in his mind. His take on the long-debated theory is that Tyrell planted Deckard at the start of the first film with the primary purpose of falling for and subsequently mating with Rachael. That’s the same basic idea as the K theory; the only difference here is that sex isn’t the object, it’s what undoes it. Given how all his monologues are self-ingratiating, it’s not crazy to suggest Wallace’s mind go here because that’s what he’s done himself.
The main knock against the theory is the horse memory. Much of the plot hinges on K recalling one of Ana’s childhood experiences of hiding a horse from some bullies while at the orphanage (which winds up being a summary of the movie - K hides Deckard, pretending he’s dead, thus allowing him freedom). Why does Wallace’s plant just happen to have the memories of the person he’s hunting? And how did Joi know about the horse and its dating before K mentioned it to her? It could be just a coincidence, although that’s someone empty even in the film’s attempts to undermine the “special one” narrative. Instead, the best explanation is that it’s an implant all blade runner-purposed replicants get: Joi has it pre-loaded as part of her specific user details, Joshi’s heavy questioning is her making sure the newly added K has the usual moral motivator, and Ana would include it in the first place as it’s the most personal, driving point for her.
What Does This Theory Mean For Blade Runner 2049?
The problem with most fan theories is that they present intriguing alternate readings of the narrative yet don’t follow through in making clear their place in the film’s bigger picture. But K being Wallace’s stooge doesn’t just fit in with the bigger thematic picture, it strengthens it.
Blade Runner 2049 is all about identity, and how that’s defined by actions, belief and love. Across the film, K finds his real humanity in recognizing Joi’s love and making the ultimate sacrifice, while the ambiguous Deckard is given life in death. Even if we change K’s origins, that still holds; the Wallace influence mainly impacts his pre-existence, not the end-goal. If anything it makes it more powerful; instead of finding humanity from robotic origins, he’s actively working against an opposite purpose to do so. This makes him even more like Roy Batty (his true parallel in the original), and while the movie’s subversion of the monomyth is lesser given K’s placement - he’s not Deckard’s daughter yet is still “special” - the defining aspect of his and Joi’s love now represents something stronger and more unlikely: a greater miracle.
There’s no singular moment that points towards K being planted by Wallace but, like Deckard being a replicant before it, there’s plenty of evidence and an overall lack of contradictions in the idea. Whether it was intended by Denis Villeneuve or not is, at the present moment, unknown, but he’s certainly sown the seeds for an accentuation of his grand statement: humanity can come from explicitly inhuman origins. Give the film a rewatch and see what you think.
Next: Blade Runner 2049 Has One Strange Plot Hole
- Blade Runner 2 Release Date: 2017-10-06
