From: SJOSEPHS@130.187.170.178 (STEVEN JOSEPHSON)
Subject: Re: Deckard as 6th Replicant doesn't hold water
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 06:50:08 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

In <1992Sep26.180754.7586@cbnewse.cb.att.com> gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com writes:

> In article <BD.92Sep26090551@fluent.UUCP> bd%fluent@dartmouth.EDU writes:
> >
> >gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart) writes:
> >
> >>How could someone be responsible for killing lots of other replicants
> >>and keep it a secret?  Sounds reasonable to me that lots of replicants
> >>have heard about him.
> >
> >Sure, like all the little replicants on the outer worlds get
> >together and talk about the newest rumors from earth.
> >
> 
> Why not?  Some of them are extremely intelligent, e. g. Roy.  
> They apparently have set up some kind of semi-family unit or
> at least live together.  It's certainly not inconceivable
> that this particular unit has communitcated with others.  
> There are apparently lots of them out there.  They aren't in prison
> or kept incommunicado.  Some jobs require communication.  It's
> no secret which of them are replicants.  They apparently have
> affection and loyalty for one another.  They had to make some
> kind of preparations to get to Earth, and they may very well
> have been aided by others with the same aspirations.  It's
> less probable that they have no knowledge of Earth and what
> awaits them there.  And if they have nascent human emotions,
> I'd consider it much less probable that they could resist
> hearing about Earth and what goes on there.  For instance,
> it didn't take Zhora long to figure out Deckard was a phony.
> She didn't seem naive at all.  Don't know what else there
> is to say.
> 
> GMS 

There is plenty to say.  Deckard is not a replicant. One of the more 
interesting focuses of the movie is the question of what makes humans human.  
It obviously isn't just intelligence, as Roy is as sharp as Eldon Tyrell who 
created him. The answer is that humans care about some things in an irrational 
way.  The fear of Replicants isn't just prejudice, it is well founded.  The
replicants aren't programmed for sympathy (how can one do such a thing?) and
kill casully, for convenience, in order to keep themselves alive.  The worry is
not that they will develop emotional responses and become more human, but that
they will be learn to better simulate human emotional responses and be harder 
to spot.  A replicant Deckard would be a perfect Bladerunner, but it is 
interesting to note that Deckard is not perfect and wouldn't have been
terribly interesting if he were a replicant.  Why do you think he
starts the movie as an ex-Bladerunner?  He was beginning to think of himself as
a killer, something he couldn't live with anymore.  He was beginning to think
of the replicants as human and wasn't certain he could pull the trigger on a
something he thought of as a real person.  Remember the tone to the questions
from the V-K empathy test he gave Rachel - emotional reactions to real organisms
in peril.  This eventually leads Deckard to fall in love with someone whom he 
*knows* is a replicant because he no longer feels any difference.  His
newfound empathy damn near gets him killed when he hesitates with Pris and is
reinforced when Roy saves him as a dying whim.

It is not the replicants who learn something in this movie, it is those 
who enslave them.  Deckard grows, and this is not something a replicant 
can or, for philosophical/dramatic purposes, needs to do. Deckard can no longer
kill replicants, not because they have become more human, but because he has.   
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