From: johnn@eskimo.celestial.com (John Navitsky)
Subject: Re: Deckard as 6th Replicant doesn't hold water
Organization: =>ESKIMO NORTH (206) 367-3837 SEATTLE, WA.<=
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 03:20:11 GMT

In article <5932@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at> mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner) writes:
>From article <1992Sep23.021520.17227@socrates.umd.edu>, by caruso@socrates.umd.edu (John Caruso):
>> 1) Deckard uses a gun; he doesn't HAVE to be that strong.
>
>He loses that gun continually, because he's too weak and too slow to
>hold on to it.
>
>> 2) Deckard may have been an earlier model, and it wasn't worthwhile to
>>    replace him because he's getting the job done.  Bryant obviously
>>    respects his abilities.

I think this is true.  Deckard would not have been dragged back into the game
if he was not the best _human_ avalible.  If he was a replicant, would he have
been _allowed_ to "retire" or perhaps they would have "retired him"!  :-)

>
>Contradicts the idea that memories are a new development.

Yes, appears to be an argument for Deckard as a human.  If Deckard was an
early model (which is needed to substansiate him being much weaker than
the current ones) he would not have the _new_ process of memory implants.
If he was a new model, it seems very unlikely that he would be quite so
weak.

>
>> All I'm trying to say here is that the "Deckard can't be a replicant because
>> he's too weak" argument isn't airtight by any means.  It's a quibble, and
>> nothing more.
>
>
>The fact that it isn't airtight means nothing. Nothing is airtight in
>Blade Runner.  But it's much more than "a quibble".  "Not airtight" !=
>"a quibble", at least in my vocabulary.
>
>> Ahh, now this is the meat of the argument against Deckard being a
>> replicant.  Again and again, it comes back to the irony, and how it's 
>> lost if Deckard is a replicant.  Why do people say this?
>
>Because it is so, perhaps?
>
>> The argument
>> that says that the replicants in BR are more human than the humans just
>> doesn't wash.  It's true in only one case:  Roy.  Leon, Pris, and Zhora
>> don't show any more "human" qualities than anyone else in the film.
>
>The argument holds as well if we say "as human as humans".  Now that
>is a quibble.
> 
>> So really we're talking about the irony of the fact that Roy is more human
>> than any of the humans in the film.  IMHO this was certainly intentional,
>> and it is not at all lost if Deckard is a replicant.  Roy still has more
>> intensity, life, and humanity than any human in the film. 
>
>Because there is no human really visible in the film if Deckard isn't.
>All other human characters have minor roles.
>
>> And if Deckard is a replicant, we gain a new irony.  Because the people
>> he's been hunting are just like him; remember, "This was not called 
>> murder.  It was called retirement."  But in Deckard's case, it really
>> *was* murder--and he never knew it.
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't agree.  It seemed to me that Deckard *did* think it was murder.
First, he had retired it appeared since he didn't have the stomach for
it.  This would not be a problem if he felt that they were just machines.
He had to be threatend back to work.  Also, in the voiced over version
where he is being told he must go back to work he commented to the fact
that "retiring" replicants was akin to the fact that it was not considered
murder when blacks were killed in the early south.  (can't remember exactly
how that went, but something like that)

>
>No, it *is* murder even if he is a human and his prey is a replicant.
>Much stronger than "replicants should not kill replicants".
>
>> We gain a transformation as well.  Deckard learns, partly from Roy and
>> partly from Rachel, to be more human himself.  You could say that it's
>> Roy's gift to Deckard--not only sparing his life, but making him more
>> alive.  Of course the transformation is there whether or not we assume
>> that Deckard is a replicant, but Deckard being a replicant and becoming
>> more human reinforces the irony that Roy represents.
>
>No, Deckard being human and still learning from Roy is what causes the
>irony.  One replicant better than another?  Hardly surprising.  A
>replicant without memories better than one with implanted ones?  A bug
>in the process.
>-- 
>Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
>University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
>Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst


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